Ellis Peters: Devil's Novice

“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.