The Devils Novice (10 page)

Cadfael
recalled what Hugh had told him of Meriet’s replies to Canon Eluard. The elder
brother was affianced to the daughter of the neighbouring manor; and that could
only be a Linde, since he had also mentioned without much interest the
foster-sister who was a Foriet, and heiress to the manor that bordered Aspley
on the southern side. Then this personable and debonair young creature must be
a brother of Nigel’s prospective bride.

“That’s
very civil of you,” said Cadfael mildly, “and I thank you for the goodwill, but
I’d best be getting on about my business. For I think I must have only a mile
or so still to go.”

“Barely
that, sir, if you take the left-hand path below here where it forks. Through
the copse, and you’re into their fields, and the track will bring you straight
to their gate. If you’re not in haste I’ll walk with you and show you.”

Cadfael
was more than willing. Even if he learned little from his companion about this
cluster of manors all productive of sons and daughters of much the same age,
and consequently brought up practically as one family, yet the companionship
itself was pleasant. And a few useful grains of knowledge might be dropped like
seed, and take root for him. He let the mule amble gently, and Janyn Linde fell
in beside him with a long, easy stride.

“You’ll
be from Shrewsbury, brother?” Evidently he had his share of human curiosity.
“Is it something concerning Meriet? We were shaken, I can tell you, when he
made up his mind to take the cowl, and yet, come to think, he went always his
own ways, and would follow them. How did you leave him? Well, I hope?”

“Passably
well,” said Cadfael cautiously. “You must know him a deal better than we do, as
yet, being neighbours, and much of an age.”

“Oh,
we were all raised together from pups, Nigel, Meriet, my sister and
me—especially after both our mothers died—and Isouda, too, when she was left
orphan, though she’s younger. Meriet’s our first loss from the clan, we miss
him.”

“I
hear there’ll be a marriage soon that will change things still more,” said
Cadfael, fishing delicately.

“Roswitha
and Nigel?” Janyn shrugged lightly and airily. “It was a match our fathers
planned long ago—but if they hadn’t, they’d have had to come round to it, for
those two made up their own minds almost from children. If you’re bound for
Aspley you’ll find my sister somewhere about the place. She’s more often there
than here, now. They’re deadly fond!” He sounded tolerantly amused, as brothers
still unsmitten frequently are by the eccentricities of lovers. Deadly fond!
Then if the red-gold hair had truly come from Roswitha’s head, surely it had
not been given? To a besotted younger brother of her bridegroom? Clipped on the
sly, more likely, and the ribbon stolen. Or else it came, after all, from some
very different girl.

“Meriet’s
mind took another way,” said Cadfael, trailing his line. “How did his father
take it when he chose the cloister? I think were I a father, and had but two
sons, I should take no pleasure in giving up either of them.”

Janyn
laughed, briefly and gaily. “Meriet’s father took precious little pleasure in
anything Meriet ever did, and Meriet took precious little pains to please him.
They waged one long battle. And yet I dare swear they loved each other as well
as most fathers and sons do. Now and then they come like that, oil and water,
and nothing they can do about it.”

They
had reached a point below the headland where the fields gave place to a copse,
and a broad ride turned aside at a slight angle to thread the trees.

“There
lies your best way,” said Janyn, “straight to their manor fence. And if you
should have time to step in at our house on your way back, brother, my father
would be glad to welcome you.”

Cadfael
thanked him gravely, and turned into the green ride. At a turn of the path he
looked back. Janyn was strolling jauntily back towards his headland and the
open fields, where he could fly the merlin on his creance without tangling her
in trees to her confusion and displeasure. He was whistling again as he went,
very melodiously, and his fair head had the very gloss and rare colour of young
oak foliage, Meriet’s contemporary, but how different by nature! This one would
have no difficulty in pleasing the most exacting of fathers, and would
certainly never vex his by electing to remove from a world which obviously
pleased him very well.

The
copse was open and airy, the trees had shed half their leaves, and let in light
to a floor still green and fresh. There were brackets of orange fungus jutting
from the tree-boles, and frail bluish toadstools in the turf. The path brought
Cadfael out, as Janyn had promised, to the wide, striped fields of the Aspley
manor, carved out long ago from the forest, and enlarged steadily ever since,
both to westward, into the forest land, and eastward, into richer, tamed
country. The sheep had been turned into the stubble here, too, in greater
numbers, to crop what they could from the aftermath, and leave their droppings
to manure the ground for the next sowing. And along a raised track between
strips the manor came into view, within an enclosing wall, but high enough to
be seen over its crest; a long, stone-built house, a windowed hall floor over a
squat undercroft, and probably some chambers in the roof above the solar end.
Well built and well kept, worth inheriting, like the land that surrounded it.
Low, wide doors made to accommodate carts and wagons opened into the
undercroft, a steep stairway led up to the hall door. There were stables and
byres lining the inside of the wall on two sides. They kept ample stock.

There
were two or three men busy about the byres when Cadfael rode in at the gate,
and a groom came out from the stable to take his bridle, quick and respectful
at sight of the Benedictine habit. And out from the open hall door came an
elderly, thickset, bearded personage who must, Cadfael supposed rightly, be the
steward Fremund who had been Meriet’s herald to the abbey. A well-run
household. Peter Clemence must have been met with ceremony on the threshold
when he arrived unexpectedly. It would not be easy to take these retainers by
surprise.

Cadfael
asked for the lord Leoric, and was told that he was out in the back fields
superintending the grubbing of a tree that had heeled into his stream from a
slipping bank, and was fouling the flow, but he would be sent for at once, if
Brother Cadfael would wait but a quarter of an hour in the solar, and drink a
cup of wine or ale to pass the time. An invitation which Cadfael accepted
willingly after his ride. His mule had already been led away, doubtless to some
equally meticulous hospitality of its own. Aspley kept up the lofty standards
of his forebears. A guest here would be a sacred trust.

Leoric
Aspley filled the narrow doorway when he came in, his thick bush of greying
hair brushing the lintel. Its colour, before he aged, must have been a light
brown. Meriet did not favour him in figure or complexion, but there was a
strong likeness in the face. Was it because they were too unbendingly alike
that they fought and could not come to terms, as Janyn had said? Aspley made
his guest welcome with cool immaculate courtesy, waited on him with his own
hand, and pointedly closed the door upon the rest of the household.

“I
am sent,” said Cadfael, when they were seated, facing each other in a deep
window embrasure, their cups on the stone beside them, “by Abbot Radulfus, to
consult you concerning your son Meriet.”

“What
of my son Meriet? He has now, of his own will, a closer kinship with you,
brother, than with me, and has taken another father in the lord abbot. Where is
the need to consult me?”

His
voice was measured and quiet, making the chill words sound rather mild and
reasonable than implacable, but Cadfael knew then that he would get no help
here. Still, it was worth trying.

“Nevertheless,
it was you engendered him. If you do not wish to be reminded of it,” said
Cadfael, probing for a chink in this impenetrable armour, “I recommend you
never look in a mirror. Parents who offer their babes as oblates do not
therefore give up loving them. Neither, I am persuaded, do you.”

“Are
you telling me he has repented of his choice already?” demanded Aspley, curling
a contemptuous lip. “Is he trying to escape from the Order so soon? Are you
sent to herald his coming home with his tail between his legs?”

“Far
from it! With every breath he insists on this one wish, to be admitted. All
that can help to hasten his acceptance he does, with almost too much fervour.
His every waking hour is devoted to achieving the same goal. But in sleep it is
no such matter. Then, as it seems to me, his mind and spirit recoil in horror.
What he desires, waking, he turns from, screaming, in his bed at night. It is
right you should know this.”

Aspley
sat frowning at him in silence and surely, by his fixed stillness, in some
concern. Cadfael pursued his first advantage, and told him of the disturbances
in the dortoir, but for some reason which he himself did not fully understand
he stopped short of recounting the attack on Brother Jerome, its occasion and
its punishment. If there was a fire of mutual resentment between them, why add
fuel? “When he wakes,” said Cadfael, “he has no knowledge of what he has done
in sleep. There is no blame there. But there is a grave doubt concerning his
vocation. Father Abbot asks that you will consider seriously whether we are
not, between us, doing Meriet a great wrong in allowing him to continue,
however much he may wish it now.”

“That
he wants to be rid of him,” said Aspley, recovering his implacable calm, “I can
well understand. He was always an obdurate and ill-conditioned youth.”

“Neither
Abbot Radulfus nor I find him so,” said Cadfael, stung.

“Then
whatever other difficulties there may be, he is better with you than with me, for
I have so found him from a child. And might not I as well argue that we should
be doing him a great wrong if we turned him from a good purpose when he
inclines to one? He has made his choice, only he can change it. Better for him
he should endure these early throes, rather than give up his intent.”

Which
was no very surprising reaction from such a man, hard and steadfast in his own
undertakings, certainly strict to his word, and driven to pursue his courses to
the end as well by obstinacy as by honour. Nevertheless, Cadfael went on trying
to find the joints in his armour, for it must be a strangely bitter resentment
which could deny a distracted boy a single motion of affection.

“I
will not urge him one way or the other,” said Aspley finally, “nor confuse his
mind by visiting him or allowing any of my family to visit him. Keep him, and
let him wait for enlightenment, and I think he will still wish to remain with
you. He has put his hand to the plough, he must finish his furrow. I will not
receive him back if he turns tail.”

He
rose to indicate that the interview was over, and having made it plain that
there was no more to be got out of him, he resumed the host with assured grace,
offered the midday meal, which was as courteously refused, and escorted his guest
out to the court.

“A
pleasant day for your ride,” he said, “though I should be the better pleased if
you would take meat with us.”

“I
would and thank you,” said Cadfael, “but I am pledged to return and deliver
your answer to my abbot. It is an easy journey.”

A
groom led forth the mule. Cadfael mounted, took his leave civilly, and rode out
at the gate in the low stone wall.

He
had gone no more than two hundred paces, just enough to carry him out of sight
of those he had left within the pale, when he was aware of two figures
sauntering without haste back towards that same gateway. They walked hand in
hand, and they had not yet perceived a rider approaching them along the pathway
between the fields, because they had eyes only for each other. They were talking
by broken snatches, as in a shared dream where precise expression was not
needed, and their voices, mellowly male and silverly female, sounded even in
the distance like brief peals of laughter. Or bridle bells, perhaps, but that
they came afoot. Two tolerant, well-trained hounds followed them at heel,
nosing up the drifted scents from either side, but keeping their homeward line
without distraction.

So
these must surely be the lovers, returning to be fed. Even lovers must eat.
Cadfael eyed them with interest as he rode slowly towards them. They were worth
observing. As they came nearer, but far enough from him to be oblivious still,
they became more remarkable. Both were tall. The young man had his father’s
noble figure, but lissome and light-footed with youth, and the light brown hair
and ruddy, outdoor skin of the Saxon. Such a son as any man might rejoice in.
Healthy from birth, as like as not, growing and flourishing like a hearty
plant, with every promise of full harvest. A stocky dark second, following
lamely several years later, might well fail to start any such spring of
satisfied pride. One paladin is enough, besides being hard to match. And if he
strides towards manhood without ever a flaw or a check, where’s the need for a
second?

And
the girl was his equal. Tipping his shoulder, and slender and straight as he,
she was the image of her brother, but everything that in him was comely and
attractive was in her polished into beauty. She had the same softly rounded,
oval face, but refined almost into translucence, and the same clear blue eyes,
but a shade darker and fringed with auburn lashes. And there beyond mistake was
the reddish gold hair, a thick coil of it, and curls escaping on either side of
her temples.