“That can be earned,” said the abbot gently.

“Father, it shall!” Yes, the level utterance did quiver, however briefly. Hekept the startling eyes veiled.

Radulfus dismissed him with somewhat careful kindness, and closed thechapter after his departure. A model entry? Or was it a shade too close to thefeverish fervour an abbot as shrewd as Radulfus must suspect and deplore, andwatch very warily hereafter? Yet a high-mettled, earnest youth, coming to hisdesired haven, might well be over-eager and in too much of a hurry. Cadfael,whose two broad feet had always been solidly planted on earth, even when hetook his convinced decision to come into harbour for the rest of a long life,had considerable sympathy with the ardent young, who overdo everything, andtake wing at a line of verse or a snatch of music. Some who thus take fire burnto the day of their death, and set light to many others, leaving a trail ofradiance to generations to come. Other fires sink for want of fuel, but do noharm to any. Time would discover what young Meriet’s small, desperate flameportended.

Hugh Beringar, deputy-sheriff of Shropshire, came down from hismanor of Maesbury to take charge in Shrewsbury, for his superior, GilbertPrestcote, had departed to join King Stephen at Westminster for his half-yearlyvisit at Michaelmas, to render account of his shire and its revenues. Betweenthe two of them they had held the county staunch and well-defended, reasonablyfree from the disorders that racked most of the country, and the abbey had goodcause to be grateful to them, for many of its sister houses along the Welshmarches had been sacked, pillaged, evacuated, turned into fortresses for war,some more than once, and no remedy offered. Worse than the armies of KingStephen on the one hand and his cousin the empress on the other—and in allconscience they were bad enough—the land was crawling with private armies,predators large and small, devouring everything, wherever they were safe fromany force of law strong enough to contain them. In Shropshire the law had beenstrong enough, thus far, and loyal enough to care for its own.