The Devils Novice (7 page)

The
manor of Alkington lay on the edge of this wilderness of dark-brown pools and
quaking mosses and tangled bush, under a pale, featureless sky. It was sadly
run down from its former value, its ploughlands shrunken, no place to expect to
find, grazing in the tenant’s paddock, a tall bay thoroughbred fit for a prince
to ride. But it was there that Hugh found him, white-blazed face, white
forefeet and all, grown somewhat shaggy and ill-groomed, but otherwise in very
good condition.

There
was as little concealment about the tenant’s behaviour as about his open
display of his prize. He was a free man, and held as subtenant under the lord
of Wem, and he was willing and ready to account for the unexpected guest in his
stable.

“And
you see him, my lord, in better fettle than he was when he came here, for he’d
run wild some time, by all accounts, and devil a man of us knew whose he was or
where he came from. There’s a man of mine has an assart west of here, an island
on the moss, and cuts turf there for himself and others. That’s what he was
about when he caught sight of yon creature wandering loose, saddle and bridle
and all, and never a rider to be seen, and he tried to catch him, but the beast
would have none of it. Time after time he tried, and began to put out feed for
him, and the creature was wise enough to come for his dinner, but too clever to
be caught. He’d mired himself to the shoulder, and somewhere he tore loose the
most of his bridle, and had the saddle ripped round half under his belly before
ever we got near him. In the end I had my mare fit, and we staked her out there
and she fetched him. Quiet enough, once we had him, and glad to shed what was
left of his harness, and feel a currier on his sides again. But we’d no notion
whose he was. I sent word to my lord at Wem, and here we keep him till we know
what’s right.”

There
was no need to doubt a word, it was all above board here. And this was but a
mile or two out of the way to Whitchurch, and the same distance from the town.

“You’ve
kept the harness? Such as he still had?”

“In
the stable, to hand when you will.”

“But
no man. Did you look for a man afterwards?” The mosses were no place for a
stranger to go by night, and none too safe for a rash traveller even by day.
The peat-pools, far down, held bones enough.

“We
did, my lord. There are fellows hereabouts who know every dyke and every path
and every island that can be trodden. We reckoned he’d been thrown, or
foundered with his beast, and only the beast won free. It has been known. But
never a trace. And that creature there, though soiled as he was, I doubt if
he’d been in above the hocks, and if he’d gone that deep, with a man in the
saddle, it would have been the man who had the better chance.”

“You
think,” said Hugh, eyeing him shrewdly, “he came into the mosses riderless?”

“I
do think so. A few miles south there’s woodland. If there were footpads there,
and got hold of the man, they’d have trouble keeping their hold of this one. I
reckon he made his own way here.”

“You’ll
show my sergeant the way to your man on the mosses? He’ll be able to tell us
more, and show the places where the horse was straying. There’s a clerk of the
bishop of Winchester’s household lost,” said Hugh, electing to trust a plainly
honest man, “and maybe dead. This was his mount. If you learn of anything more
send to me, Hugh Beringar, at Shrewsbury castle, and you shan’t be the loser.”

“Then
you’ll be taking him away. God knows what his name was, I called him Russet.”
The free lord of this poor manor leaned over his wattle fence and snapped his
fingers, and the bay came to him confidently and sank his muzzle into the
extended palm. “I’ll miss him. His coat has not its proper gloss yet, but it
will come. At least we got the burrs and the rubble of heather out of it.”

“We’ll
pay you his price,” said Hugh warmly. “It’s well earned. And now I’d best look
at what’s left of his accoutrements, but I doubt they’ll tell us anything
more.”

It
was pure chance that the novices were passing across the great court to the
cloister for the afternoon’s instruction when Hugh Beringar rode in at the
gatehouse of the abbey, leading the horse, called for convenience Russet, to
the stable-yard for safe-keeping. Better here than at the castle, since the
horse was the property of the bishop of Winchester, and at some future time had
better be delivered to him.

Cadfael
was just emerging from the cloister on his way to the herb garden, and was thus
brought face to face with the novices entering. Late in the line came Brother
Meriet, in good time to see the lofty young bay that trotted into the courtyard
on a leading-rein, and arched his copper neck and brandished his long, narrow
white blaze at strange surroundings, shifting white-sandalled forefeet
delicately on the cobbles.

Cadfael
saw the encounter clearly. The horse tossed its farrow, beautiful head,
stretched neck and nostril, and whinnied softly. The.young man blanched white
as the blazoned forehead, and jerked strongly back in his careful stride, and
brief sunlight found the green in his eyes. Then he remembered himself and
passed hurriedly on, following his fellows into the cloister.

In
the night, an hour before Matins, the dortoir was shaken by a great, wild cry
of: “Barbary… Barbary…” and then a single long, piercing whistle, before
Brother Cadfael reached Meriet’s cell, smoothed an urgent hand over brow and
cheek and pursed lips, and eased him back, still sleeping, to his pillow. The
edge of the dream, if it was a dream, was abruptly blunted, the sounds melted
into silence. Cadfael was ready to frown and hush away the startled brothers
when they came, and even Prior Robert hesitated to break so perilous a sleep,
especially at the cost of inconveniencing everyone else’s including his own.
Cadfael sat by the bed long after all was silence and darkness again. He did
not know quite what he had been expecting, but he was glad he had been ready
for it. As for the morrow, it would come, for better or worse.

Chapter Four

MERIET
AROSE FOR PRIME HEAVY-EYED and sombre, but seemingly quite innocent of what had
happened during the night, and was saved from the immediate impact of the
brothers seething dread, disquiet and displeasure by being summoned forth,
immediately when the office was over, to speak with the deputy-sheriff in the
stables. Hugh had the torn and weathered harness spread on a bench in the yard,
and a groom was walking the horse called Russet appreciatively about the
cobbles to be viewed clearly in the mellow morning light.

“I
hardly need to ask,” said Hugh pleasantly, smiling at the way the white-fired
brow lifted and the wide nostrils dilated at sight of the approaching figure,
even in such unfamiliar garb. “No question but he knows
you
again, I
must needs conclude that you know him just as well.” And as Meriet volunteered
nothing, but continued to wait to be asked: “Is this the horse Peter Clemence
was riding when he left your father’s house?”

“Yes
my lord, the same.” He moistened his lips and kept his eyes lowered, but for
one spark of a glance for the horse; he did not ask anything.

“Was
that the only occasion when you had to do with him? He comes to you readily.
Fondle him if you will, he’s asking for your recognition.”

“It
was I stabled and groomed and tended him, that night,” said Meriet, low-voiced
and hesitant. “And I saddled him in the morning. I never had his like to care
for until then. I… I am good with horses.”

“So
I see. Then you have also handled his gear.” It had been rich and fine, the
saddle inlaid with coloured leathers, the bridle ornamented with silver-work
now dinted and soiled. “All this you recognise?”

Meriet
said: “Yes. This was his.” And at last he did ask, almost fearfully: “Where did
you find Barbary?”

“Was
that his name? His master told you? A matter of twenty miles and more north of
here, on the peat-hags near Whitchurch. Very well, young sir, that’s all I need
from you. You can go back to your duties now.”

Round
the water-troughs in the lavatorium, over their ablutions, Meriet’s fellows
were making the most of his absence. Those who went in dread of him as a soul
possessed, those who resented his holding himself apart, those who felt his
silence to be nothing short of disdain for them, all raised their voices
clamorously to air their collective grievance. Prior Robert was not there, but
his clerk and shadow, Brother Jerome, was, and with ears pricked and willing to
listen.

“Brother,
you heard him youself! He cried out again in the night, he awoke us all…”

“He
howled for his familiar. I heard the demon’s name, he called him Barbary! And
his devil whistled back to him… we all know it’s devils that hiss and whistle!”

“He’s
brought an evil spirit in among us, we’re not safe for our lives. And we get no
rest at night… Brother, truly, we’re afraid!”

Cadfael,
tugging a comb through the thick bush of grizzled hair ringing his nut-brown
dome, was in two minds about intervening, but thought better of it. Let them
pour out everything they had stored up against the lad, and it might be seen
more plainly how little it was. Some genuine superstitious fear they certainly
suffered, such night alarms do shake simple minds. If they were silenced now
they would only store up their resentment to breed in secret. Out with it all,
and the air might clear. So he held his peace, but he kept his ears pricked.

“It
shall be brought up again in chapter,” promised Brother Jerome, who thrived on
being the prime channel of appeal to the prior’s ears. “Measures will surely be
taken to secure rest at nights. If necessary, the disturber of the peace must
be segregated.”

“But,
brother,” bleated Meriet’s nearest neighbour in the dortoir, “if he’s set apart
in a separate cell, with no one to watch him, who knows what he may not get up
to? He’ll have greater freedom there, and I dread his devil will thrive all the
more and take hold on others. He could bring down the roof upon us or set fire
to the cellars under us…

“That
is want of trust in divine providence,” said Brother Jerome, and fingered the
cross on his breast as he said it. “Brother Meriet has caused great trouble, I
grant, but to say that he is possessed of the devil—”

“But,
brother, it’s true! He has a talisman from his demon, he hides it in his bed. I
know! I’ve seen him slip some small thing under his blanket, out of sight, when
I looked in upon him in his cell. All I wanted was to ask him a line in the
psalm, for you know he’s learned, and he had something in his hand, and slipped
it away very quickly, and stood between me and the bed, and wouldn’t let me in
further. He looked black as thunder at me, brother, I was afraid! But I’ve
watched since. It’s true, I swear, he has a charm hidden there, and at night he
takes it to him to his bed. Surely this is the symbol of his familiar, and it
will bring evil on us all!”

“I
cannot believe…” began Brother Jerome, and broke off there, reconsidering the
scope of his own credulity. “You have
seen
this? In his
bed,
you
say? Some alien thing hidden away? That is not according to the Rule.” For what
should there be in a dortoir cell but cot and stool, a small desk for reading,
and the books for study? These, and the privacy and quiet which can exist only
by virtue of mutual consideration, since mere token partitions of wainscot
separate cell from cell. “A novice entering here must give up all wordly
possessions,” said Jerome, squaring his meagre shoulders and scenting a genuine
infringement of the approved order of things. Grist to his mill! Nothing he
loved better than an occasion for admonition. “I shall speak to Brother Meriet
about this.”

Half
a dozen voices, encouraged, urged him to more immediate action. “Brother, go
now, while he’s away, and see if I have not told you truth! If you take away
his charm the demon will have no more power over him.”

“And
we shall have quiet again…”

“Come
with me!” said Brother Jerome heroically, making up his mind. And before Cadfael
could stir, Jerome was off, out of the lavatorium and surging towards the
dortoir stairs, with a flurry of novices hard on his heels.

Cadfael
went after them hunched with resigned disgust, but not foreseeing any great
urgency. The boy was safely out of this, hobnobbing with Hugh in the stables,
and of course they would find nothing in his cell to give them any further hold
on him, malice being a great stimulator of the imagination. The flat
disappointment might bring them down to earth. So he hoped! But for all that,
he made haste on the stairs.

But
someone else was in an even greater hurry. Light feet beat a sharp drum-roll on
the wooden treads at Cadfael’s back, and an impetuous body overtook him in the
doorway of the long dortoir, and swept him several yards down the tiled
corridor between the cells. Meriet thrust past with long, indignant strides,
his habit flying.

“I
heard you! I heard you! Let my things alone!”

Where
was the low, submissive voice now, the modestly lowered eyes and folded hands? This
was a furious young lordling peremptorily ordering hands off his possessions,
and homing on the offenders with fists clenched and eyes flashing. Cadfael,
thrust off-balance fora moment, made a grab at a flying sleeve, but only to be
dragged along in Meriet’s wake.