The Devil's Novice Read online

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  Cadfael came out from Compline that night to find Hugh waiting for him at the gatehouse.

  “Walk as far as the bridge with me. I’m on my way home, but I hear from the porter here that you’re off on an errand for the lord abbot tomorrow, so you’ll be out of my reach day-long. You’ll have heard about the horse?”

  “That you’ve found him, yes, nothing more. We’ve been all too occupied with our own miscreants and crimes this day to have much time or thought for anything outside,” owned Cadfael ruefully. “No doubt you’ve been told about that.” Brother Albin, the porter, was the most consummate gossip in the enclave. “Our worries go side by side and keep pace, it seems, but never come within touch of each other. That’s strange in itself. And now you find the horse miles away to the north, or so I heard.”

  They passed through the gate together and turned left towards the town, under a chill, dim sky of driving clouds, though on the ground there was no more than a faint breeze, hardly enough to stir the moist, sweet, rotting smells of autumn. The darkness of trees on the right of the road, the flat metallic glimmer of the mill-pond on their left, and the scent and sound of the river ahead, between them and the town.

  “Barely a couple of miles short of Whitchurch,” said Hugh, “where he had meant to pass the night, and have an easy ride to Chester next day.” He recounted the whole of it;

  Cadfael’s thoughts were always a welcome illumination from another angle. But here their two minds moved as one.

  “Wild enough woodland short of the place,” said Cadfael sombrely, “and the mosses close at hand. If it was done there, whatever was done, and the horse, being young and spirited, broke away and could not be caught, then the man may be fathoms deep. Past finding. Not even a grave to dig.”

  “It’s what I’ve been thinking myself,” agreed Hugh grimly. “But if I have such footpads living wild in my shire, how is it I’ve heard no word of them until now?”

  “A venture south out of Cheshire? You know how fast they can come and go. And even where your writ runs, Hugh, the times breed changes. But if these were masterless men, they were no skilled hands with horses. Any outlaw worth his salt would have torn out an arm by the shoulder rather than lose a beast like that one. I went to have a look at him in the stables,” owned Cadfael, “when I was free. And the silver on his harness… only a miracle could have got it away from them once they clapped eyes on it. What the man himself had on him can hardly have been worth more than horse and harness together.”

  “If they’re preying on travellers there,” said Hugh, “they’ll know just where to slide a weighted man into the peat-hags, where they’re hungriest. But I’ve men there searching, whether or no. There are some among the natives there can tell if a pool has been fed recently—will you believe it? But I doubt, truly I doubt, if even a bone of Peter Clemence will ever be seen again.”

  They had reached the near end of the bridge. In the half-darkness the Severn slid by at high speed, close to them and silent, like a great serpent whose scales occasionally caught a gleam of starlight and flashed like silver, before that very coil had passed and was speeding downstream far too fast for overtaking. They halted to take leave.

  “And you are bound for Aspley,” said Hugh. “Where the man lay safely with his kin, a single day short of his death. If indeed he is dead! I forget we are no better than guessing. How if he had good reasons to vanish there and be written down as dead? Men change their allegiance these days as they change their shirts, and for every man for sale there are buyers. Well, use your eyes and your wits at Aspley for your lad—I can tell by now when you have a wing spread over a fledgling—but bring me back whatever you can glean about Peter Clemence, too, and what he had in mind when he left them and rode north. Some innocent there may be nursing the very word we need, and thinking nothing of it.”

  “I will so,” said Cadfael, and turned back in the gloaming towards the gatehouse and his bed.

  Chapter 5

  HAVING THE ABBOT’S AUTHORITY about him, and something more than four miles to go, Brother Cadfael helped himself to a mule from the stables in preference to tackling the journey to Aspley on foot. Time had been when he would have scorned to ride, but he was past sixty years old, and minded for once to take his ease. Moreover, he had few opportunities now for riding, once a prime pleasure, and could not afford to neglect such as did come his way.

  He left after Prime, having taken a hasty bite and drink. The morning was misty and mild, full of the heavy, sweet, moist melancholy of the season, with a thickly veiled sun showing large and mellow through the haze. And the way was pleasant, for the first part on the highway.

  The Long Forest, south and south-west of Shrewsbury, had survived unplundered longer than most of its kind, its assarts few and far between, its hunting coverts thick and wild, its open heaths home to all manner of creatures of earth and air. Sheriff Prestcote kept a weather eye on changes there, but did not interfere with what reinforced order rather than challenging it, and the border manors had been allowed to enlarge and improve their fields, provided they kept the peace there with a firm enough hand. There were very ancient holdings along the rim which had once been assarts deep in woodland, and now had hewn out good arable land from old upland, and fenced their intakes. The three old neighbour-manors of Linde, Aspley and Foriet guarded this eastward fringe, half-wooded, half-open. A man riding for Chester from this place would not need to go through Shrewsbury, but would pass it by and leave it to westward. Peter Clemence had done so, choosing to call upon his kinsfolk when the chance offered, rather than make for the safe haven of Shrewsbury abbey. Would his fate have been different, had he chosen to sleep within the pale of Saint Peter and Saint Paul? His route to Chester might even have missed Whitchurch, passing to westward, clear of the mosses. Too late to wonder!

  Cadfael was aware of entering the lands of the Linde manor when he came upon well-cleared fields and the traces of grain long harvested, and stubble being culled by sheep. The sky had partially cleared by then, a mild and milky sun was warming the air without quite disseminating the mist, and the young man who came strolling along a headland with a hound at his heel and a half-trained merlin on a creance on his wrist had dew-darkened boots, and a spray of drops on his uncovered light-brown hair from the shaken leaves of some copse left behind him. A young gentleman very light of foot and light of heart, whistling merrily as he rewound the creance and soothed the ruffled bird. A year or two past twenty, he might be. At sight of Cadfael he came bounding down from the headland to the sunken track, and having no cap to doff, gave him a very graceful inclination of his fair head and a blithe:

  “Good-day, brother! Are you bound for us?”

  “If by any chance your name is Nigel Aspley,” said Cadfael, halting to return the airy greeting, “then indeed I am.” But this could hardly be the elder son who had five or six years the advantage of Meriet, he was too young, of too markedly different a colouring and build, long and slender and blue-eyed, with rounded countenance and ready smile. A little more red in the fair hair, which had the elusive greenish-yellow of oak leaves just budded in spring, or just turning in autumn, and he could have provided the lock that Meriet had cherished in his bed.

  “Then we’re out of luck,” said the young man gracefully, and made a pleasant grimace of disappointment. “Though you’d still be welcome to halt at home for a rest and a cup, if you have the leisure for it? For I’m only a Linde, not an Aspley, and my name is Janyn.”

  Cadfael recalled what Hugh had told him of Meriet’s replies to Canon Eluard. The elder brother was affianced to the daughter of the neighbouring manor; and that could only be a Linde, since he had also mentioned without much interest the foster-sister who was a Foriet, and heiress to the manor that bordered Aspley on the southern side. Then this personable and debonair young creature must be a brother of Nigel’s prospective bride.

  “That’s very civil of you,” said Cadfael mildly, “and I thank you for the goo
dwill, but I’d best be getting on about my business. For I think I must have only a mile or so still to go.”

  “Barely that, sir, if you take the left-hand path below here where it forks. Through the copse, and you’re into their fields, and the track will bring you straight to their gate. If you’re not in haste I’ll walk with you and show you.”

  Cadfael was more than willing. Even if he learned little from his companion about this cluster of manors all productive of sons and daughters of much the same age, and consequently brought up practically as one family, yet the companionship itself was pleasant. And a few useful grains of knowledge might be dropped like seed, and take root for him. He let the mule amble gently, and Janyn Linde fell in beside him with a long, easy stride.

  “You’ll be from Shrewsbury, brother?” Evidently he had his share of human curiosity. “Is it something concerning Meriet? We were shaken, I can tell you, when he made up his mind to take the cowl, and yet, come to think, he went always his own ways, and would follow them. How did you leave him? Well, I hope?”

  “Passably well,” said Cadfael cautiously. “You must know him a deal better than we do, as yet, being neighbours, and much of an age.”

  “Oh, we were all raised together from pups, Nigel, Meriet, my sister and me—especially after both our mothers died—and Isouda, too, when she was left orphan, though she’s younger. Meriet’s our first loss from the clan, we miss him.”

  “I hear there’ll be a marriage soon that will change things still more,” said Cadfael, fishing delicately.

  “Roswitha and Nigel?” Janyn shrugged lightly and airily. “It was a match our fathers planned long ago—but if they hadn’t, they’d have had to come round to it, for those two made up their own minds almost from children. If you’re bound for Aspley you’ll find my sister somewhere about the place. She’s more often there than here, now. They’re deadly fond!” He sounded tolerantly amused, as brothers still unsmitten frequently are by the eccentricities of lovers. Deadly fond! Then if the red-gold hair had truly come from Roswitha’s head, surely it had not been given? To a besotted younger brother of her bridegroom? Clipped on the sly, more likely, and the ribbon stolen. Or else it came, after all, from some very different girl.

  “Meriet’s mind took another way,” said Cadfael, trailing his line. “How did his father take it when he chose the cloister? I think were I a father, and had but two sons, I should take no pleasure in giving up either of them.”

  Janyn laughed, briefly and gaily. “Meriet’s father took precious little pleasure in anything Meriet ever did, and Meriet took precious little pains to please him. They waged one long battle. And yet I dare swear they loved each other as well as most fathers and sons do. Now and then they come like that, oil and water, and nothing they can do about it.”

  They had reached a point below the headland where the fields gave place to a copse, and a broad ride turned aside at a slight angle to thread the trees.

  “There lies your best way,” said Janyn, “straight to their manor fence. And if you should have time to step in at our house on your way back, brother, my father would be glad to welcome you.”

  Cadfael thanked him gravely, and turned into the green ride. At a turn of the path he looked back. Janyn was strolling jauntily back towards his headland and the open fields, where he could fly the merlin on his creance without tangling her in trees to her confusion and displeasure. He was whistling again as he went, very melodiously, and his fair head had the very gloss and rare colour of young oak foliage, Meriet’s contemporary, but how different by nature! This one would have no difficulty in pleasing the most exacting of fathers, and would certainly never vex his by electing to remove from a world which obviously pleased him very well.

  The copse was open and airy, the trees had shed half their leaves, and let in light to a floor still green and fresh. There were brackets of orange fungus jutting from the tree-boles, and frail bluish toadstools in the turf. The path brought Cadfael out, as Janyn had promised, to the wide, striped fields of the Aspley manor, carved out long ago from the forest, and enlarged steadily ever since, both to westward, into the forest land, and eastward, into richer, tamed country. The sheep had been turned into the stubble here, too, in greater numbers, to crop what they could from the aftermath, and leave their droppings to manure the ground for the next sowing. And along a raised track between strips the manor came into view, within an enclosing wall, but high enough to be seen over its crest; a long, stone-built house, a windowed hall floor over a squat undercroft, and probably some chambers in the roof above the solar end. Well built and well kept, worth inheriting, like the land that surrounded it. Low, wide doors made to accommodate carts and wagons opened into the undercroft, a steep stairway led up to the hall door. There were stables and byres lining the inside of the wall on two sides. They kept ample stock.

  There were two or three men busy about the byres when Cadfael rode in at the gate, and a groom came out from the stable to take his bridle, quick and respectful at sight of the Benedictine habit. And out from the open hall door came an elderly, thickset, bearded personage who must, Cadfael supposed rightly, be the steward Fremund who had been Meriet’s herald to the abbey. A well-run household. Peter Clemence must have been met with ceremony on the threshold when he arrived unexpectedly. It would not be easy to take these retainers by surprise.

  Cadfael asked for the lord Leoric, and was told that he was out in the back fields superintending the grubbing of a tree that had heeled into his stream from a slipping bank, and was fouling the flow, but he would be sent for at once, if Brother Cadfael would wait but a quarter of an hour in the solar, and drink a cup of wine or ale to pass the time. An invitation which Cadfael accepted willingly after his ride. His mule had already been led away, doubtless to some equally meticulous hospitality of its own. Aspley kept up the lofty standards of his forebears. A guest here would be a sacred trust.

  Leoric Aspley filled the narrow doorway when he came in, his thick bush of greying hair brushing the lintel. Its colour, before he aged, must have been a light brown. Meriet did not favour him in figure or complexion, but there was a strong likeness in the face. Was it because they were too unbendingly alike that they fought and could not come to terms, as Janyn had said? Aspley made his guest welcome with cool immaculate courtesy, waited on him with his own hand, and pointedly closed the door upon the rest of the household.

  “I am sent,” said Cadfael, when they were seated, facing each other in a deep window embrasure, their cups on the stone beside them, “by Abbot Radulfus, to consult you concerning your son Meriet.”

  “What of my son Meriet? He has now, of his own will, a closer kinship with you, brother, than with me, and has taken another father in the lord abbot. Where is the need to consult me?”

  His voice was measured and quiet, making the chill words sound rather mild and reasonable than implacable, but Cadfael knew then that he would get no help here. Still, it was worth trying.

  “Nevertheless, it was you engendered him. If you do not wish to be reminded of it,” said Cadfael, probing for a chink in this impenetrable armour, “I recommend you never look in a mirror. Parents who offer their babes as oblates do not therefore give up loving them. Neither, I am persuaded, do you.”

  “Are you telling me he has repented of his choice already?” demanded Aspley, curling a contemptuous lip. “Is he trying to escape from the Order so soon? Are you sent to herald his coming home with his tail between his legs?”

  “Far from it! With every breath he insists on this one wish, to be admitted. All that can help to hasten his acceptance he does, with almost too much fervour. His every waking hour is devoted to achieving the same goal. But in sleep it is no such matter. Then, as it seems to me, his mind and spirit recoil in horror. What he desires, waking, he turns from, screaming, in his bed at night. It is right you should know this.”

  Aspley sat frowning at him in silence and surely, by his fixed stillness, in some concern. Cadfael pursued his fir
st advantage, and told him of the disturbances in the dortoir, but for some reason which he himself did not fully understand he stopped short of recounting the attack on Brother Jerome, its occasion and its punishment. If there was a fire of mutual resentment between them, why add fuel? “When he wakes,” said Cadfael, “he has no knowledge of what he has done in sleep. There is no blame there. But there is a grave doubt concerning his vocation. Father Abbot asks that you will consider seriously whether we are not, between us, doing Meriet a great wrong in allowing him to continue, however much he may wish it now.”

  “That he wants to be rid of him,” said Aspley, recovering his implacable calm, “I can well understand. He was always an obdurate and ill-conditioned youth.”

  “Neither Abbot Radulfus nor I find him so,” said Cadfael, stung.

  “Then whatever other difficulties there may be, he is better with you than with me, for I have so found him from a child. And might not I as well argue that we should be doing him a great wrong if we turned him from a good purpose when he inclines to one? He has made his choice, only he can change it. Better for him he should endure these early throes, rather than give up his intent.”

  Which was no very surprising reaction from such a man, hard and steadfast in his own undertakings, certainly strict to his word, and driven to pursue his courses to the end as well by obstinacy as by honour. Nevertheless, Cadfael went on trying to find the joints in his armour, for it must be a strangely bitter resentment which could deny a distracted boy a single motion of affection.

  “I will not urge him one way or the other,” said Aspley finally, “nor confuse his mind by visiting him or allowing any of my family to visit him. Keep him, and let him wait for enlightenment, and I think he will still wish to remain with you. He has put his hand to the plough, he must finish his furrow. I will not receive him back if he turns tail.”