The Devils Novice (27 page)

“I
am not lying!” shrilled Roswitha, struggling to recover the belief she had felt
within her grasp. “A mistake only—I mistook the day! It was the third day he came
came…”

Meriet
had drawn very slowly nearer. From deep within his shadowing cowl great eyes
stared, examining in wonder and anguish his father, his adored brother and his
first love, so frantically busy twisting knives in him. Roswitha’s roving,
pleading eyes met his, and she fell mute like a songbird shot down in flight,
and shrank into Nigel’s circling arms with a wail of despair.

Meriet
stood motionless for a long moment, then he turned on his heel and limped
rapidly away. The motion of his lame foot was as if at every step he shook off
dust.

“Who
gave it to you?” asked Hugh, with pointed and relentless patience.

All
the crowd had drawn in close, watching and listening, they had not failed to
follow the logic of what had passed. A hundred pairs of eyes settled gradually
and remorselessly upon Nigel. He knew it, and so did she.

“No,
no, no!” she cried, turning to wind her arms fiercely about her husband. “It
was not my lord—not Nigel! It was my brother gave me the brooch!”

On
the instant everyone present was gazing round in haste, searching the court for
the fair head, the blue eyes and light-hearted smile, and Hugh’s officers were
burrowing through the press and bursting out at the gate to no purpose. For
Janyn Linde had vanished silently and circumspectly, probably by cool and
unhurried paces from the moment Canon Eluard first noticed the bright enamels
on Roswitha’s shoulder. And so had Isouda’s riding-horse, the better of the two
hitched outside the gatehouse for Meriet’s use. The porter had paid no attention
to a young man sauntering innocently out and mounting without haste. It was a
youngster of the Foregate, bright-eyed and knowing, who informed the sergeants
that a young gentleman had left by the gate, as long as a quarter of an hour
earlier, unhitched his horse, and ridden off along the Foregate, not towards
the town. Modestly enough to start with said the shrewd urchin, but he was into
a good gallop by the time he reached the corner at the horse-fair and vanished.

From
the chaos within the great court, which must be left to sort itself out without
his aid, Hugh flew to the stables, to mount himself and the officers he had
with him, send for more men, and pursue the fugitive; if such a word might
properly be applied to so gay and competent a malefactor as Janyn.

“But
why, in God’s name, why?” groaned Hugh, tightening girths in the stable-yard,
and appealing to Brother Cadfael, busy at the same task beside him. “Why should
he kill? What can he have had against the man? He had never so much as seen him,
he was not at Aspley that night. How in the devil’s name did he even know the
looks of the man he was waiting for?

“Someone
had pictured him for him—and he knew the time of his departure and the road he
would take, that’s plain.” But all the rest was still obscure, to Cadfael as to
Hugh.

Janyn
was gone, he had plucked himself gently out of the law’s reach in excellent
time, foreseeing that all must come out. By fleeing he had owned to his act,
but the act itself remained inexplicable.

“Not
the man,” fretted Cadfael to himself, puffing after Hugh as he led his saddled
horse at a trot up to the court and the gatehouse. “Not the man, then it must
have been his errand, after all. What else is there? But why should anyone wish
to prevent him from completing his well-intentioned ride to Chester, on the
bishop’s business? What harm could there be to any man in that?”

The
wedding party had scattered indecisively about the court, the involved families
taking refuge in the guest-hall, their closest friends loyally following them
out of sight, where wounds could be dressed and quarrels reconciled without
witnesses from the common herd. More distant guests took counsel, and some
withdrew discreetly, preferring to be at home. The inhabitants of the Foregate,
pleased and entertained and passing dubiously reliable information hither and
yon and adding to it as it passed, continued attentive about the gatehouse.

Hugh
had his men mustered and his foot in the stirrup when the furious pounding of
galloping hooves, rarely heard in the Foregate, came echoing madly along the
enclave wall, and clashed in over the cobbles of the gateway. An exhausted
rider, sweating on a lathered horse, reined to a slithering, screaming stop on
the frosty stones, and fell rather than dismounted into Hugh’s arms, his knees
giving under him. All those left in the court, Abbot Radulfus and Prior Robert
among them, came closing in haste about the newcomer, foreseeing desperate
news.

“Sheriff
Prestcote,” panted the reeling messenger, “or who stands here for him—from the
lord bishop of Lincoln, in haste, and pleads for haste…”

“I
stand here for the sheriff,” said Hugh. “Speak out! What’s the lord bishop’s
urgent word for us?”

“That
you should call up all the king’s knight-service in the shire,” said the messenger,
bracing himself strongly, “for in the north-east there’s black treason, in
despite of his Grace’s head. Two days after the lord king left Lincoln, Ranulf
of Chester and William of Roumare made their way into the king’s castle by a
subterfuge and have taken it by force. The citizens of Lincoln cry out to his
Grace to rescue them from an abominable tyranny, and the lord bishop has
contrived to send out a warning, through tight defences, to tell his Grace of
what is done. There are many of us now, riding every way with the word. It will
be in London by nightfall.”

“King
Stephen was there but a week or more ago,” cried Canon Eluard, “and they
pledged their faith to him. How is this possible? They promised a strong chain
of fortresses across the north.”

“And
that they have,” said the envoy, heaving at breath, “but not for King Stephen’s
service, nor the empress’s neither, but for their own bastard kingdom in the
north. Planned long ago, when they met and called all their castellans to
Chester in September, with links as far south as here, and garrisons and
constables ready for every castle. They’ve been gathering young men about them
everywhere for their ends…”

So
that was the way of it! Planned long ago, in September, at Chester, where Peter
Clemence was bound with an errand from Henry of Blois, a most untimely visitor
to intervene where such a company was gathered in arms and such a plot being
hatched. No wonder Clemence could not be allowed to ride on unmolested and
complete his embassy. And with links as far south as here!

Cadfael
caught at Hugh’s arm. “They were two in it together, Hugh. Tomorrow this
newly-wed pair were to be on their way north to the very borders of
Lincolnshire—it’s Aspley has the manor there, not Linde. Secure Nigel, while
you can! If it’s not already too late!”

Hugh
turned to stare for an instant only, grasped the force of it, dropped his
bridle and ran, beckoning his sergeants after him to the guest-hall. Cadfael was
close at his heels when they broke in upon a demoralised wedding party, bereft
of gaiety, appetite or spirits, draped about the untouched board in burdened
converse more fitting a wake than a wedding. The bride wept desolately in the
arms of a stout matron, with three or four other women clucking and cooing
around her. The bridegroom was nowhere to be seen.

“He’s
away!” said Cadfael. “While we were in the stable-yard, no other chance. And
without her! The bishop of Lincoln got his message out of a tightly-sealed city
at least a day too soon.”

There
was no horse tethered outside the gatehouse, when they recalled the possibility
and ran to see. Nigel had taken the first opportunity of following his
fellow-conspirator towards the lands, offices and commands William of Roumare
had promised them, where able young men of martial achievements and small
scruples could carve out a fatter future than in two modest Shropshire manors
on the edge of the Long Forest.

Chapter Thirteen

THERE
WAS NEW AND SENSATIONAL MATTER for gossip now, and the watchers in the
Foregate, having taken in all that stretched ears and sharp eyes could command,
went to spread the word further, that there was planned rebellion in the north,
a bid to set up a private kingdom for the earls of Chester and Lincoln, that
the fine young men of the wedding company were in the plot from long since, and
were fled because the matter had come to light before they could make an
orderly withdrawal as planned. The lord bishop of Lincoln, no very close friend
of King Stephen, had nevertheless found Chester and Roumare still more
objectionable, and bestirred himself to smuggle out word to the king and
implore rescue, for himself and his city.

The
comings and goings about bridge and abbey were watched avidly. Hugh Beringar,
torn two ways, had delegated the pursuit of the traitors to his sergeants,
while he rode at once to the castle to send out the call to the knight-service
of the shire to be ready to join the force which King Stephen would certainly
be raising to besiege Lincoln, to begin commandeering mounts enough for his
force, and see that all that was needed in the armoury was in good order. The
bishop’s messenger was lodged at the abbey, and his message sped on its way by
another rider to the castles in the south of the shire. In the guest-hall the
shattered company and the deserted bride remained invisible, shut in with the
ruins of their celebration.

All
this, and the twenty-first day of December barely past two in the afternoon!
And what more was to happen before night, who could guess, when things were
rushing along at such a speed?

Abbot
Radulfus had reasserted his domestic rule, and the brothers went obediently to
dinner in the refectory at his express order, somewhat later than usual. The
horarium of the house could not be altogether abandoned even for such
devastating matters as murder, treason and man-hunt. Besides, as Brother
Cadfael thoughtfully concluded, those who had survived this upheaval to gain,
instead of loss, might safely be left to draw breath and think in peace, before
they must encounter and come to new terms. And those who had lost must have
time to lick their wounds. As for the fugitives, the first of them had a
handsome start, and the second had benefited by the arrival of even more
shocking news to gain a limited breathing-space, but for all that, the hounds
were on their trail, well aware now what route to take, for Aspley’s northern
manor lay somewhere south of Newark, and anyone making for it must set forth by
the road to Stafford. Somewhere in the heathland short of that town, dusk would
be closing on the travellers. They might think it safe to lodge overnight in
the town. They might yet be overtaken and brought back.

On
leaving the refectory Cadfael made for his normal destination during the
afternoon hours of work, the hut in the herb garden where he brewed his
mysteries. And they were there, the two young men in Benedictine habits, seated
quickly side by side on the bench against the end wall. The very small spark of
the brazier glowed faintly on their faces. Meriet leaned back against the
timbers in simple exhaustion, his cowl thrust back on his shoulders, his face
shadowy. He had been down into the very profound of anger, grief and
bitterness, and surfaced again to find Mark still constant and patient beside
him; and now he was at rest, without thought or feeling, ready to be born
afresh into a changed world, but not in haste. Mark looked as he always looked,
mild, almost deprecatory, as though he pleaded a fragile right to be where he
was, and yet would stand to it to the death.

“I
thought I might find you here,” said Brother Cadfael, and took the little
bellows and blew the brazier into rosy life, for it was none too warm within
there. He closed and barred the door to keep out even the draught that found
its way through the chinks. “I doubt if you’ll have eaten,” he said, feeling
along the shelf behind the door. “There are oat cakes here and some apples, and
I think I have a morsel of cheese. You’ll be the better for a bite. And I have
a wine that will do you no harm either.”

And
behold, the boy was hungry! So simple it was. He was not long turned nineteen,
and physically hearty, and he had eaten nothing since dawn. He began
listlessly, docile to persuasion, and at the first bite he was alive again and ravenous,
his eyes brightening, the glow of the blown brazier gilding and softening
hollow cheeks. The wine, as Cadfael had predicted, did him no harm at all.
Blood flowed through him again, with new warmth and urgency.

He
said not one word of brother, father or lost love. It was still too early. He
had heard himself falsely accused by one of them, falsely suspected by another,
and what by the third? Left to pursue his devoted and foolish self-sacrifice,
without a word to absolve him. He had a great load of bitterness still to shake
from his heart. But praise God, he came to life for food and ate like a starved
schoolboy. Brother Cadfael was greatly encouraged.

In
the mortuary chapel, where Peter Clemence lay in his sealed coffin on his
draped bier, Leoric Aspley had chosen to make his confession, and entreated
Abbot Radulfus to be the priest to hear it. On his knees on the flagstones, by
his own choice, he set forth the story as he had known it, the fearful
discovery of his younger son labouring to drag a dead man into cover and hide
him from all eyes, Meriet’s tacit acceptance of the guilt, and his own
reluctance to deliver up his son to death, or let him go free.