The Devil's Novice bc-8 Read online

  He took a little bread and cheese on his return, and a measure of beer, having forsworn a midday meal with a household where he felt no kinship; and that done, he sought audience with Abbot Radulfus in the busy quiet of the afternoon, when the great court was empty, and most of the household occupied in cloister or gardens or fields.

  The abbot had expected him, and listened with acute attention to everything he had to recount.

  ‘So we are committed to caring for this young man, who may be misguided in his choice, but still persists in it. There is no course open to us but to keep him, and give him every chance to win his way in among us. But we have also his fellows to care for, and they are in real fear of him, and of the disorders of his sleep. We have yet the nine remaining days of his imprisonment, which he seems to welcome. But after that, how can we best dispose of him, to allow him access to grace, and relieve the dortoir of its trouble?’ ‘I have been thinking of that same question,’ said Cadfael. ‘His removal from the dortoir may be as great a benefit to him as to those remaining, for he is a solitary soul, and if ever he takes the way of withdrawal wholly I think he will be hermit rather than monk. It would not surprise me to find that he has gained by being shut in a penal cell, having that small space and great silence to himself, and able to fill it with his own meditations and prayers, as he could not do in a greater place shared by many others. We have not all the same image of brotherhood.’ ‘True! But we are a house of brothers sharing in common, and not so many desert fathers scattered in isolation,’ said the abbot drily. ‘Nor can the young man be left for ever in a punishment cell, unless he plans to attempt the strangling of my confessors and obedientiaries one by one to ensure it. What have you to suggest?’ ‘Send him to serve under Brother Mark at Saint Giles,’ said Cadfael. ‘He’ll be no more private there, but he will be in the company and the service of creatures manifestly far less happy than himself, lepers and beggars, the sick and maimed. It may be salutary. In them he can forget his own troubles. There are advantages beyond that. Such a period of absence will hold back his instruction, and his advance towards taking vows, but that can only be good, since clearly he is in no fit mind to take them yet. Also, though Brother Mark is the humblest and simplest of us all, he has the gift of many such innocent saints, of making his way into the heart. In time Brother Meriet may open to him, and be helped from his trouble. At least it would give us all a breathing-space.’ Keep him from the tonsure, said Isouda’s voice in his mind, and I will do the rest.

  ‘So it would,’ agreed Radulfus reflectively. ‘The boys will have time to forget their alarms, and as you say, ministering to men worse blessed than himself may be the best medicine for him. I will speak with Brother Paul, and when Brother Meriet has served out his penance he shall be sent there.’ And if some among us take it that banishment to work in the lazar-house is a further penance, thought Cadfael, going away reasonably content, let them take satisfaction from it. For Brother Jerome was not the man to forget an injury, and any sop to his revenge might lessen his animosity towards the offender. A term of service in the hospice at the far edge of the town might also serve more turns than Meriet’s, for Brother Mark, who tended the sick there, had been Cadfael’s most valued assistant until a year or so ago, and he had recently suffered the loss of his favourite and much-indulged waif, the little boy Bran, taken into the household of Joscelin and Iveta Lucy on their marriage, and would be somewhat lost without a lame duck to cosset and care for. It wanted only a word in Mark’s ear concerning the tormented record of the devil’s novice, and his ready sympathy would be enlisted on Meriet’s behalf. If Mark could not reach him, no one could; but at the same time he might also do much for Mark. Yet another advantage was that Brother Cadfael, as supplier of the many medicines, lotions and ointments that were in demand among the sick, visited Saint Giles every third week, and sometimes oftener, to replenish the medicine cupboard, and could keep an eye on Meriet’s progress there.

  Brother Paul, coming from the abbot’s parlour before Vespers, was clearly relieved at the prospect of enjoying a lengthened truce even after Meriet was released from his prison.

  ‘Father Abbot tells me the suggestion came from you. It was well thought of, there’s need of a long pause and a new beginning, though the children will easily forget their terrors. But that act of violence-that will not be so easily forgotten.’ ‘How is your penitent faring?’ asked Cadfael. ‘Have you visited him since I was in there early this morning?’ ‘I have. I am not so sure of his penitence,’ said Brother Paul dubiously, ‘but he is very quiet and biddable, and listens to exhortation patiently. I did not try him too far. We are failing sadly if he is happier in a cell than out among us. I think the only thing that frets him is having no work to do, so I have taken him the sermons of Saint Augustine, and given him a better lamp to read by, and a little desk he can set on his bed. Better far to have his mind occupied, and he is quick at letters. I suppose you would rather have given him Palladius on agriculture,’ said Paul, mildly joking. ‘Then you could make a case for taking him into your herbarium, when Oswin moves on.’ It was an idea that had occurred to Brother Cadfael, but better the boy should go clean away, into Mark’s gentle stewardship. ‘I have not asked leave again,’ he said, ‘but if I may visit him before bed, I should be glad. I did not tell him of my errand to his father, I shall not tell him now, but there are two people there have sent him messages of affection which I have promised to deliver.’ There was also one who had not, and perhaps she knew her own business best.

  ‘Certainly you may go in before Compline,’ said Paul. ‘He is justly confined, but not ostracised. To shun him utterly would be no way to bring him into our family, which must be the end of our endeavours.’ It was not the end of Cadfael’s but he did not feel it necessary or timely to say so. There is a right place for every soul under the sun, but it had already become clear to him that the cloister was no place for Meriet Aspley, however feverishly he demanded to be let in.

  Meriet had his lamp lighted, and so placed as to illumine the leaves of Saint Augustine on the head of his cot. He looked round quickly but tranquilly when the door opened, and knowing the incomer, actually smiled. It was very cold in the cell, the prisoner wore habit and scapular for warmth, and by the careful way he turned his body, and the momentary wincing halt to release a fold of his shirt from a tender spot, his weals were stiffening as they healed.

  ‘I’m glad to see you so healthily employed,’ said Cadfael. ‘With a small effort in prayer, Saint Augustine may do you good. Have you used the balm since this morning? Paul would have helped you, if you had asked him.’ ‘He is good to me,’ said Meriet, closing his book and turning fully to his visitor. And he meant it, that was plain.

  ‘But you did not choose to condescend to ask for sympathy or admit to need-I know! Let me have off the scapular and drop your habit.’ It had certainly not yet become a habit in which he felt at home, he moved naturally in it only when he was aflame, and forgot he wore it. ‘There, lie down and let me at you.’ Meriet presented his back obediently, and allowed Cadfael to draw up his shirt and anoint the fading weals that showed only here and there a dark dot of dried blood. ‘Why do I do what you tell me?’ he wondered, mildly rebelling. ‘As though you were no brother at all, but a father?’ ‘From all I’ve heard of you,’ said Cadfael, busy with his balm, ‘you are by no means known for doing what your own father tells you.’ Meriet turned in his cradling arms and brought to bear one bright green-gold eye upon his companion. ‘How do you know so much of me? Have you been there and talked with my father?’ He was ready to bristle in distrust, the muscles of his back had tensed. ‘What are they trying to do? What business is there needs my father’s word now? I am here! If I offend, I pay. No one else settles my debts.’ ‘No one else has offered,’ said Cadfael placidly. ‘You are your own master, however ill you master yourself. Nothing is changed. Except that I have to bring you messages, which do not meddle with your lordship’s liberty to save or damn yourself
. Your brother sends you his best remembrances and bids me say he holds you in his love always.’ Meriet lay very still, only his brown skin quivered very faintly under Cadfael’s fingers.

  ‘And the lady Roswitha also desires you to know that she loves you as befits a sister.’ Cadfael softened in his hands the stiffened folds of the shirt, where they had dried hard, and drew the linen down over fading lacerations that would leave no scar. Roswitha might be far more deadly. ‘ Draw up your gown now, and if I were you I’d put out the lamp and leave your reading, and sleep.’ Meriet lay still on his face, saying never a word. Cadfael drew up the blanket over him, and stood looking down at the mute and rigid shape in the bed.

  It was no longer quite rigid, the wide shoulders heaved in a suppressed and resented rhythm, the braced forearms were stiff and protective, covering the hidden face. Meriet was weeping. For Roswitha or for Nigel? Or for his own fate?

  ‘Child,’ said Cadfael, half-exasperated and half-indulgent, ‘you are nineteen years old, and have not even begun to live, and you think in the first misery of your life that God has abandoned you. Despair is deadly sin, but worse it is mortal folly. The number of your friends is legion, and God is looking your way as attentively as ever he did. And all you have to do to deserve is to wait in patience, and keep up your heart.’ Even through his deliberate withdrawal and angrily suppressed tears Meriet was listening, so much was clear by his tension and stillness.

  ‘And if you care to know,’ said Cadfael, almost against his will, and sounding still more exasperated in consequence, ‘yes, I am, by God’s grace, a father. I have a son. And you are the only one but myself who knows it.’ And with that he pinched out the wick of the lamp, and in the darkness went to thump on the door to be let out.

  It was a question, when Cadfael visited next morning, which of them was the more aloof and wary with the other, each of them having given away rather more than he had intended. Plainly there was to be no more of that. Meriet had put on an austere and composed face, not admitting to any weakness, and Cadfael was gruff and practical, and after a look at the little that was still visible of the damage to his difficult patient, pronounced him in no more need of doctoring, but very well able to concentrate on his reading, and make the most of his penitential time for the good of his soul.

  ‘Does that mean,’ asked Meriet directly,’that you are washing your hands of me?’ ‘It means I have no more excuse for demanding entry here, when you are supposed to be reflecting on your sins in solitude.’ Meriet scowled briefly at the stones of the wall, and then said stiffly: ‘It is not that you fear I’ll take some liberty because of what you were so good as to confide to me? I shall never say a word, unless to you and at your instance.’ ‘No such thought ever entered my mind,’ Cadfael assured him, startled and touched. ‘Do you think I would have said it to a blabbermouth who would not know a confidence when one was offered him? No, it’s simply that I have no warranty to go in and out here without good reason, and I must abide by the rules as you must.’ The fragile ice had already melted. ‘A pity, though,’ said Meriet, unbending with a sudden smile which Cadfael recalled afterwards as both startlingly sweet and extraordinarily sad. ‘I reflect on my sins much better when you are here scolding. In solitude I still find myself thinking how much I would like to make Brother Jerome eat his own sandals.’ ‘We’ll consider that a confession in itself,’ said Cadfael, ‘and one that had better not be made to any other ears. And your penance will be to make do without me until your ten days of mortification are up. I doubt you’re incorrigible and past praying for, but we can but try.’ He was at the door when Meriet asked anxiously: ‘Brother Cadfael…?’ And when he turned at once: ‘Do you know what they mean to do with me afterwards?’ ‘Not to discard you, at all events,’ said Cadfael, and saw no reason why he should not tell him what was planned for him. It seemed that nothing was changed. The news that he was in no danger of banishment from his chosen field calmed, reassured, placated Meriet; it was all that he wanted to hear. But it did not make him happy.

  Cadfael went away discouraged, and was cantankerous with everyone who came in his path for the rest of the day.

  CHAPTER SEVEN.

  Hugh came south from the peat-hags empty-handed to his house in Shrewsbury, and sent an invitation to Cadfael to join him at supper on the evening of his return. To such occasional visits Cadfael had the most unexceptionable claim, since Giles Beringar, now some ten months old, was his godson, and a good godfather must keep a close eye on the welfare and progress of his charge. Of young Gile’s physical well being and inexhaustible energy there could be little question, but Hugh did sometimes express doubts about his moral inclinations, and like most fathers, detailed his son’s ingenious villainies with respect and pride.

  Aline, having fed and wined her menfolk, and observed with a practised eye the first droop of her son’s eyelids, swept him off out of the room to be put to bed by Constance, who was his devoted slave, as she had been loyal friend and servant to his mother from childhood. Hugh and Cadfael were left alone for a while to exchange such information as they had. But the sum of it was sadly little.

  ‘The men of the moss,’ said Hugh, ‘are confident that not one of them has seen hide or hair of a stranger, whether victim or malefactor. Yet the plain fact is that the horse reached the moss, and the man surely cannot have been far away. It still seems to me that he lies somewhere in those peat-pools, and we are never likely to see or hear of him again. I have sent to Canon Eluard to try and find out what he carried on him. I gather he went very well-presented and was given to wearing jewels. Enough to tempt footpads. But if that was the way of it, it seems to be a first venture from farther north, and it may well be that our scourings there have warned off the maurauders from coming that way again for a while. There have been no other travellers molested in those parts. And indeed, strangers in the moss would be in some peril themselves. You need to know the safe places to tread. Still, for all I can see, that is what happened to Peter Clemence. I’ve left a sergeant and a couple of men up there, and the natives are on the watch for us, too.’ Cadfael could not but agree that this was the likeliest answer to the loss of a man. ‘And yet… you know and I know that because one event follows another, it is not necessary the one should have caused the other. And yet the mind is so constructed, it cannot break the bond between the two. And here were two events, both unexpected; Clemence visited and departed-for he did depart, not one but four people rode a piece with him and said farewell to him in goodwill-and two days later the younger son of the house declared his intent to take the cowl. There is no sensible connection, and I cannot reeve the two apart.’ ‘Does that mean,’ demanded Hugh plainly,’that you think this boy may have had a hand in a man’s death and be taking refuge in the cloister?’ ‘No,’ said Cadfael decidedly. ‘Don’t ask what is in my mind, for all I find there is mist and confusion, but whatever lies behind the mist, I feel certain it is not that. What his motive is I dare not guess, but I do not believe it is blood-guilt.’ And even as he said and meant it, he saw again Brother Wolstan prone and bleeding in the orchard grass, and Meriet’s face fallen into a frozen mask of horror.

  ‘For all that-and I respect what you say-I would like to keep a hand on this strange young man. A hand I can close at any moment if ever I should so wish,’ said Hugh honestly. ‘And you tell me he is to go to Saint Giles? To the very edge of town, close to woods and open heaths!’ ‘You need not fret,’ said Cadfael, ‘he will not run. He has nowhere to run to, for whatever else is true, his father is utterly estranged from him and would refuse to take him in. But he will not run because he does not wish to. The only haste he still nurses is to rush into his final vows and be done with it, and beyond deliverance.’ ‘It’s perpetual imprisonment he’s seeking, then? Not escape?’ said Hugh, with his dark head on one side, and a rueful and affectionate smile on his lips.