The Devils Novice
Authors: Ellis Peters
Tags: #Herbalists, #Cadfael; Brother (Fictitious Character), #Mystery & Detective, #Monks, #General, #Shrewsbury (England), #Great Britain, #Historical, #Traditional British, #Fiction
The
Devil’s
Novice
The
Eighth Chronicle of Brother Cadfael, of the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Peter
and Saint Paul, at Shrewsbury
Ellis
Peters
IN
THE MIDDLE OF SEPTEMBER of that year of Our Lord, 1140, two lords of Shropshire
manors, one north of the town of Shrewsbury, the other south, sent envoys to
the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul on the same day, desiring the entry of
younger sons of their houses to the Order.
One
was accepted, the other rejected. For which different treatment there were
weighty reasons.
“I
have called you few together,” said Abbot Radulfus, “before making any decision
in this matter, or opening it to consideration in chapter, since the principle
here involved is at question among the masters of our order at this time. You,
Brother Prior and Brother Sub-Prior, as bearing the daily weight of the
household and family, Brother Paul as master of the boys and novices, Brother
Edmund as an obedientiary and a child of the cloister from infancy, to advise
upon the one hand, and Brother Cadfael, as a conversus come to the life at a
ripe age and after wide venturings, to speak his mind upon the other.”
So,
thought Brother Cadfael, mute and passive on his stool in the corner of the
abbot’s bare, wood-scented parlour, I am to be the devil’s lawman, the voice of
the outer world. Mellowed through seventeen years or so of a vocation, but
still sharpish in the cloistered ear. Well, we serve according to our skills,
and in the degrees allotted to us, and this may be as good a way as any. He was
more than a little sleepy, for he had been outdoors between the orchards of the
Gaye and his own herb garden within the pale ever since morning, between the
obligatory sessions of office and prayer, and was slightly drunk with the rich
air of a fine, fat September, and ready for his bed as soon as Compline was
over. But not yet so sleepy that he could not prick a ready ear when Abbot
Radulfus declared himself in need of counsel, or even desirous of hearing counsel
he yet would not hesitate to reject if his own incisive mind pointed him in
another direction.
“Brother
Paul,” said the abbot, casting an authoritative eye round the circle, “has
received requests to accept into our house two new devotionaries, in God’s time
to receive the habit and the tonsure. The one we have to consider here is from
a good family, and his sire a patron of our church. Of what age, Brother Paul,
did you report him?”
“He
is an infant, not yet five years old,” said Paul.
“And
that is the ground of my hesitation. We have now only four boys of tender age
among us, two of them not committed to the cloistral life, but here to be
educated. True, they may well choose to remain with us and join the community
in due time, but that is left to them to decide, when they are of an age to
make such a choice. The other two, infant oblates given to God by their
parents, are already twelve and ten years old, and are settled and happy among
us, it would be ill-done to disturb their tranquillity. But I am not easy in my
mind about accepting any more such oblates, when they can have no conception of
what they are being offered or, indeed, of what they are being deprived. It is
joy,” said Radulfus, “to open the doors to a truly committed heart and mind,
but the mind of a child barely out of nurse belongs with his toys, and the
comfort of his mother’s lap.”
Prior
Robert arched his silver eyebrows and looked dubiously down his thin, patrician
nose. “The custom of offering children as oblates has been approved for centuries.
The Rule sanctions it. Any change which departs from the Rule must be
undertaken only after grave reflection. Have we the right to deny what a father
wishes for his child?”
“Have
we—has the father—the right to determine the course of a life, before the
unwitting innocent has a voice to speak for himself? The practice, I know, is
long established, and never before questioned, but it is being questioned now.”
“In
abandoning it,” persisted Robert, “we may be depriving some tender soul of its
best way to blessedness. Even in the years of childhood a wrong turning may be
taken, and the way to divine grace lost.”
“I
grant the possibility,” agreed the abbot, “but also I fear the reverse may be
true, and many such children, better suited to another life and another way of
serving God, may be shut into what must be for them a prison. On this matter I
know only my own mind. Here we have Brother Edmund, a child of the cloister
from his fourth year, and Brother Cadfael, conversus after an active and
adventurous life and at a mature age. And both, as I hope and believe, secure
in commitment. Tell us, Edmund, how do you look upon this matter? Have you
regretted ever that you were denied experience of the world outside these
walls?”
Brother
Edmund the infirmarer, only eight years short of Cadfael’s robust sixty, and a
grave, handsome, thoughtful creature who might have looked equally well on
horseback and in arms, or farming a manor and keeping a patron’s eye on his
tenants, considered the question seriously, and was not disturbed. “No, I have
had no regrets. But neither did I know what there might be worth regretting.
And I have known those who did rebel, even wanting that knowledge. It may be
they imagined a better world without than is possible in this life, and it may
be that I lack that gift of imagination. Or it may be only that I was fortunate
in finding work here within to my liking and within my scope, and have been too
busy to repine. I would not change. But my choice would have been the same if I
had grown to puberty here, and made my vows only when I was grown. I have cause
to know that others would have chosen differently, had they been free.”
“That
is fairly spoken,” said Raduifus. “Brother Cadfael, what of you? You have
ranged over much of the world, as far as the Holy Land, and borne arms. Your
choice was made late and freely, and I do not think you have looked back. Was
that gain, to have seen so much, and yet chosen this small hermitage?”
Cadfael
found himself compelled to think before he spoke, and beneath the comfortable
weight of a whole day’s sunlight and labour thought was an effort. He was by no
means certain what the abbot wanted from him, but had no doubt whatever of his
own indignant discomfort at the notion of a babe in arms being swaddled willy-nilly
in the habit he himself had assumed willingly.
“I
think it was gain,” he said at length, “and moreover, a better gift I brought,
flawed and dinted though it might be, than if I had come in my innocence. For I
own freely that I had loved my life, and valued high the warriors I had known,
and the noble places and great actions I had seen, and if I chose in my prime
to renounce all these, and embrace this life of the cloister in preference to
all other, then truly I think I paid the best compliment and homage I had to
pay. And I cannot believe that anything I hold in my remembrance makes me less
fit to profess this allegiance, but rather better fits me to serve as well as I
may. Had I been given in infancy, I should have rebelled in manhood, wanting my
rights. Free from childhood, I could well afford to sacrifice my rights when I
came to wisdom.”
“Yet
you would not deny,” said the abbot, his lean face lit briefly by a smile, “the
fitness of certain others, by nature and grace, to come in early youth to the
life you discovered in maturity?”
“By
no means would I deny it! I think those who do so, and with certainty, are the
best we have. So they make the choice of their own will, and by their own
light.”
“Well,
well!” said Radulfus, and mused with his chin in his hand, and his deep-set
eyes shadowed. “Paul, have you any view to lay before us? You have the boys in
charge, and I am well aware they seldom complain of you.” For Brother Paul,
middle-aged, conscientious and anxious, like a hen with a wayward brood, was
known for his indulgence to the youngest, for ever in defence of mischief, but
a good teacher for all that, instilling Latin without pain on either part.
“It
would be no burden to me,” said Paul slowly, “to care for a little lad of four,
but it is of no merit that I should take pleasure in such a charge, or that he
should be content. That is not what the Rule requires, or so it seems to me. A
good father could do as much for a little son. Better if he come in knowledge
of what he does, and with some inkling of what he may be leaving behind him. At
fifteen or sixteen years, well taught…”
Prior
Robert drew back his head and kept his austere countenance, leaving his
superior to make up his own mind as he would. Brother Richard the sub-prior had
held his tongue throughout, being a good man at managing day-today affairs, but
indolent at attempting decisions.
“It
has been in my mind, since studying the reasonings of Archbishop Lanfranc,”
said the abbot, “that there must be a change in our thoughts on this matter of
child dedication, and I am now convinced that it is better to refuse all
oblates until they are able to consider for themselves what manner of life they
desire. Therefore, Brother Paul, it is my view that you must decline the offer
of this boy, upon the terms desired. Let his father know that in a few years
time the boy will be welcome, as a pupil in our school, but not as an oblate
entering the order. At a suitable age, should he so wish, he may enter. So tell
his parent.” He drew breath and stirred delicately in his chair, to indicate
that the conference was over. “And you have, as I understand, another request
for admission?”
Brother
Paul was already on his feet, relieved and smiling. “There will be no difficulty
there, Father. Leoric Aspley of Aspley desires to bring to us his younger son
Meriet. But the young man is past his nineteenth birthday, and he comes at his
own earnest wish. In his case, Father, we need have no qualms at all.”
“Not
that these are favourable times for recruitment,” owned Brother Paul, crossing
the great court to Compline with Cadfael at his side, “that we can afford to
turn postulants away. But for all that, I’m glad Father Abbot decided as he
did. I have never been quite happy about the young children. Certainly in most
cases they may be offered out of true love and fervour. But sometimes a man
must wonder… With lands to keep together, and one or two stout sons already,
it’s a way of disposing profitably of the third.”
“That
can happen,” said Cadfael drily, “even where the third is a grown man.”
“Then
usually with his full consent, for the cloister can be a promising career, too,
But the babes in arms—no, that way is too easily abused.”
“Do
you think we shall get this one in a few years, on Father Abbot’s terms?”
wondered Cadfael.
“I
doubt it. If he’s placed here to school, his sire will have to pay for him.”
Brother Paul, who could discover an angel within every imp he taught, was
nevertheless a sceptic concerning their elders. “Had we accepted the boy as an
oblate, his keep and all else would be for us to bear. I know the father. A
decent enough man, but parsimonious. But his wife, I fancy, will be glad enough
to keep her youngest.”
They
were at the entrance to the cloister, and the mild green twilight of trees and
bushes, tinted with the first tinge of gold, hung still and sweet-scented on
the air. “And the other?” said Cadfael. “Aspley—that should be somewhere south,
towards the fringes of the Long Forest, I’ve heard the name, but no more. Do
you know the family?”
“Only
by repute, but that stands well. It was the manor steward who came with the
word, a solid old countryman, Saxon by his name—Fremund. He reports the young
man lettered, healthy and well taught. Every way a gain to us.”