The Devils Novice (28 page)

“I
promised him I would deal with his dead man, even at the peril of my soul, and
he should live, but in perpetual penance out of the world. And to that he
agreed and embraced his penalty, as I now know or fear that I now know, for
love of his brother, whom he had better reason for believing a murderer than
ever I had for crediting the same guilt to Meriet. I am afraid, father, that he
accepted his fate as much for my sake as for his brother’s, having cause, to my
shame, to believe—no, to know!—that I built all on Nigel and all too little
upon him, and could live on after writing him out of my life, though the loss
of Nigel would be my death. As now he is lost indeed, but I can and I will
live. Therefore my grievous sin against my son Meriet is not only this doubt of
him, this easy credence of his crime and his banishment into the cloister, but
stretches back to his birth in lifelong misprizing.

“And
as to my sin against you, father, and against this house, that also I confess
and repent, for so to dispose of a suspect murderer and so to enforce a young
man without a true vocation, was vile towards him and towards this house. Take
that also into account, for I would be free of all my debts.

“And
as to my sin against Peter Clemence, my guest and my kinsman, in denying him
Christian burial to protect the good name of my own house, I am glad now that
the hand of God made use of my own abused son to uncover and undo the evil I
have done. Whatever penance you decree for me in that matter, I shall add to it
an endowment to provide Masses for his soul as long as my own life continues…”

As
proud and rigid in confessing faults as in correcting them in his son, he
unwound the tale to the end, and to the end Radulfus listened patiently and
gravely, decreed measured terms by way of amends, and gave absolution.

Leoric
arose stiffly from his knees, and went out in unaccustomed humility and dread,
to look for the one son he had left.

The
rapping at the closed and barred door of Cadfael’s workshop came when the wine,
one of Cadfael’s three-year-old brews, had begun to warm Meriet into a hesitant
reconciliation with life, blurring the sharp memories of betrayal. Cadfael
opened the door, and into the mellow ring of light from the brazier stepped
Isouda in her grown-up wedding finery, crimson and rose and ivory, a silver
fillet round her hair, her face solemn and important. There was a taller shape
behind her in the doorway, shadowy against the winter dusk.

“I
thought we might find you here,” she said, and the light gilded her faint,
secure smile. “I am a herald. You have been sought everywhere. Your father begs
you to admit him to speech with you.”

Meriet
had stiffened where he sat, knowing who stood behind her. “That is not the way
I was ever summoned to my father’s presence,” he said, with a fading spurt of
malice and pain. “In his house things were not conducted so.”

“Very
well then,” said Isouda, undisturbed. “Your father
orders
you to admit
him here, or I do in his behalf, and you had better be sharp and respectful
about it.” And she stood aside, eyes imperiously beckoning Brother Cadfael and
Brother Mark, as Leoric came into the hut, his tall head brushing the dangling
bunches of dried herbs swinging from the beams.

Meriet
rose from the bench and made a slow, hostile but punctilious reverence, his
back stiff as pride itself, his eyes burning. But his voice was quiet and secure
as he said: “Be pleased to come in. Will you sit, sir?”

Cadfael
and Mark drew away one on either side, and followed Isouda into the chill of
the dusk. Behind them they heard Leoric say, very quietly and humbly: “You will
not now refuse
me
the kiss?”

There
was a brief and perilous silence; then Meriet said hoarsely: “Father…” and
Cadfael closed the door.

In
the high and broken heathland to the south-west of the town of Stafford, about
this same hour, Nigel Aspley rode headlong into a deep copse, over thick,
tussocky turf, and all but rode over his friend, neighbour and
fellow-conspirator, Janyn Linde, cursing and sweating over a horse that went
deadly lame upon a hind foot after treading askew and falling in the rough
ground. Nigel cried recognition with relief, for he had small appetite for
venturesome enterprises alone, and lighted down to look what the damage might
be. But Isouda’s horse limped to the point of foundering, and manifestly could
go no further.

“You?”
cried Janyn. “You broke through, then? God curse this damned brute, he’s thrown
me and crippled himself.” He clutched at his friend’s arm. “What have you done
with my sister? Left her to answer for all? She’ll run mad!”

“She’s
well enough and safe enough, we’ll send for her as soon as we may…
You
to cry out on me!” flared Nigel, turning on him hotly. “
You
made your
escape in good time, and left the pair of us in mire to the brows. Who sank us
in this bog in the first place? Did
I
bid you kill the man? All I asked
was that you send a rider ahead to give warning, have them put everything out
of sight quickly before he came. They could have done it! How could
I
send? The man was lodged there in our house, I had no one to send who would not
be missed… But you—
you
had to shoot him down…”

“I
had the hardihood to make all certain, where you would have flinched,” spat
Janyn, curling a contemptuous lip. “A rider would have got there too late. I
made sure the bishop’s lackey should never get there.”

“And
left him lying! Lying in the open ride!”

“For
you to be fool enough to run there as soon as I told you!” Janyn hissed
derisive scorn at such weakness of will and nerve. “If you’d let him lie, who
was ever to know who struck him down? But you must take fright, and rush to try
and hide him, who was far better not hidden. And fetch your poor idiot brother
down on you, and your father after him! That ever I broached such high business
to such a broken reed!”

“Or
I ever listened to such a plausible tempter!” fretted Nigel wretchedly. “Now
here we are helpless. This creature cannot go—you see it! And the town above a
mile distant, and night coming…”

“And
I had a head start,” raged Janyn, stamping the thick, blanched grass, “and
fortune ahead of me, and the beast had to founder! And you’ll be off to pick up
the prizes due to both of us—you who crumple at the first threat! God’s curse
on the day!”

“Hush
your noise!” Nigel turned his back despairingly, stroking the lame horse’s
sweating flank. “I wish to God I’d never in life set eyes on you, to come to
this pass, but I’ll not leave you. If you must be dragged back—you think
they’ll be far behind us now?—we’ll go back together. But let’s at least
try
to reach Stafford. Let’s leave this one tethered to be found, and ride and run
by turns with the other…”

His
back was still turned when the dagger slid in between his ribs from behind, and
he sagged and folded, marvelling, not yet feeling any pain, but only the
withdrawal of his life and force, that laid him almost softly in the grass.
Blood streamed out from his wound and warmed his side, flowing round to fire
the ground beneath him. He tried to raise himself, and could not stir a hand.

Janyn
stood a moment looking down at him dispassionately. He doubted if the wound
itself was fatal, but judged it would take less than half an hour for his
sometime friend to bleed to death, which would do as well. He spurned the
motionless body with a careless foot, wiped his dagger on the grass, and turned
to mount the horse Nigel had ridden. Without another glance behind he dug in
his heels and set off at a rapid canter towards Stafford, between the darkening
trees.

Hugh’s
officers, coming at speed some ten minutes later, found half-dead man and lamed
horse and divided their forces, two men riding on to try to overtake Janyn,
while the remaining pair salvaged both man and beast, bestowed Isouda’s horse
at the nearest holding, and carried Nigel back to Shrewsbury, pallid, swathed
and senseless, but alive.

“…he
promised us advancement, castles and commands—William of Roumare. It was when
Janyn went north with me at midsummer to view my manor—it was Janyn persuaded
me.” Nigel brought out the sorry, broken fragments of his confession late in
the dusk of the following day, in his wits again and half-wishing he were not.
So many eyes round his bed, his father erect and ravaged of face at the foot,
staring upon his heir with grieved eyes, Roswitha kneeling at his right side,
tearless now, but bloated with past weeping, Brother Cadfael and Brother Edmund
the infirmarer watchful from the shadows in case their patient tried his
strength too far too soon. And on his left Meriet, back in cotte and hose,
stripped of the black habit which had never fitted or suited him, and looking
strangely taller, leaner and older than when he had first put it on. His eyes,
aloof and stern as his father’s, were the first Nigel’s waking, wandering stare
had encountered. There was no knowing what went on in the mind behind them.

“We
have been his men from that time on… We knew the time set for the strike at
Lincoln. We meant to ride north after our marriage, Janyn with us—but Roswitha
did not know! And now we have lost. Word came through too soon…”

“Come
to the death-day,” said Hugh, standing at Leone’s shoulder.

“Yes—Clemence.
At supper he let out what his business was. And they were there in Chester, all
their constables and castellans… in the act! When I took Roswitha home I told
Janyn, and begged him to send a rider ahead at once, through the night, to warn
them. He swore he would… I went there next morning early, but he was not there,
he never came until past noon, and when I asked if all was well, he said very
well! For Peter Clemence was dead in the forest, and the gathering in Chester
safe enough. He laughed at me for being in dread. Let him lie, he said, who’ll
be the wiser, there are footpads everywhere . .. But I was afraid! I went to
find him, to hide him away until night …”

“And
Meriet happened upon you in the act,” said Hugh, quietly prompting.

“I
had cut away the shaft, the better to move him. There was blood on my
hands—what else could he think? I swore it was not my work, but he did not
believe me. He told me, go quickly, wash off the blood, go back to Roswitha,
stay the day out, I will do what must be done. For our father’s sake, he said…
he sets such store on you, he said, it would break his heart… And I did as he
said! A jealous killing, he must have-thought… he never knew what I had—what we
had—to cover up. I went from him and left him to be taken in guilt that was
none of his…”

Tears
sprang in Nigel’s eyes. He groped out blindly for any hand that would comfort
him with a touch, and it was Meriet who suddenly dropped to his knees and took
it. His face remained obstinately stern and ever more resembling his father’s,
but still he accepted the fumbling hand and held it firmly.

“Only
late at night, when I went home, then I heard… How could I speak? It would have
betrayed all… all… When Meriet was loosed out to us again, when he had given
his pledge to take the cowl, then I did go to him,” pleaded Nigel feebly. “I
did offer… He would not let me meddle. He said he was resolved and willing, and
I must let things be…”

“It
is true,” said Meriet. “I did so persuade him. Why make bad worse?”

“But
he did not know of treason… I repent me,” said Nigel, wringing at the hand he
held in his, and subsiding into his welcome weakness, refuge from present
harassment. “I do repent of what I have done to my father’s house…and most of
all to Meriet… If I live, I will make amends…”

“He’ll
live,” said Cadfael, glad to escape from that dolorous bedside into the frosty
air of the great court, and draw deep breaths to breathe forth again in silver
mist. “Yes, and make good his present losses by mustering for King Stephen, if
he can bear arms by the time his Grace moves north. It cannot be till after the
feast, there’s an army to raise. And though I’m sure young Janyn meant murder,
for it seems to come easily to him as smiling, his dagger went somewhat astray,
and has done no mortal harm. Once we’ve fed and rested him, and made good the
blood he’s lost, Nigel will be his own man again, and do his devoir for whoever
can best vantage him. Unless you see fit to commit him for this treason?”

“In
this mad age,” said Hugh ruefully, “what is treason? With two monarchs in the
field, and a dozen petty kings like Chester riding the tide, and even such as
Bishop Henry hovering between two or three loyalties? No, let him lie, he’s
small chaff, only a half-hearted traitor, and no murderer at all—that I
believe, he would not have the stomach.”

Behind
them Roswitha emerged from the infirmary, huddling her cloak about her against
the cold, and crossed with a hasty step towards the guest-hall. Even after
abasement, abandonment and grief she had the resilience to look beautiful,
though these two men, at least, she could now pass by hurriedly and with
averted eyes.

“Handsome
is as handsome does,” said Brother Cadfael somewhat morosely, looking after
her. “Ah, well, they deserve each other. Let them end or mend together.”

Leoric
Aspley requested audience of the abbot after Vespers of that day.

“Father,
there are yet two matters I would raise with you. There is this young brother
of your fraternity at Saint Giles, who has been brother indeed to my son
Meriet, beyond his brother in blood. My son tells me it is the heart’s wish of
Brother Mark to be a priest. Surely he is worthy. Father, I offer whatever
moneys may be needed to provide him the years of study that will bring him to
his goal. If you will guide, I will pay all, and be his debtor still.”