by Ellis Peters
In the darkness of the night Mark could not sleep. It was some time now since he had stolen across to the barn by night, to listen intently at the foot of the ladder stair that led up into the loft, and take comfort in the silence that meant Meriet was deeply asleep; but on this night he made that pilgrimage again. He did not know the true cause and nature of Meriet’s pain, but he knew that it was heart-deep and very bitter. He rose with careful quietness, not to disturb his neighbours, and made his way out to the barn.
The frost was not so sharp that night, the air had a stillness and faint haze instead of the piercing starry glitter of past nights. In the loft there would be warmth enough, and the homely scents of timber, straw and grain, but also great loneliness for that inaccessible sleeper who shrank from having neighbours, for fear of frightening them. Mark had wondered lately whether he might not appeal to Meriet to come down and rejoin his fellowmen, but it would not have been easy to do without alerting that austere spirit to the fact that his slumbers had been spied upon, however benevolently, and Mark had never quite reached the point of making the assay.
He knew his way in pitch darkness to the foot of the steep stairway, a mere step-ladder unprotected by any rail. He stood there and held his breath, nose full of the harvest-scent of the barn. Above him the silence was uneasy, stirred by slight tremors of movement. He thought first that sleep was shallow, and the sleeper turning in his bed to find a posture from which he could submerge deeper into peace. Then he knew that he was listening to Meriet’s voice, withdrawn into a strange distance but unmistakable, without distinguishable words, a mere murmur, but terrible in its sustained argument between one need and another need, equally demanding. Like some obdurate soul drawn apart by driven horses, torn limb from limb. And yet so slight and faint a sound, he had to strain his ears to follow it.
Brother Mark stood wretched, wondering whether to go up and either awake this sleeper, if indeed he slept, or lie by him and refuse to leave him if he was awake. There is a time to let well or ill alone, and a time to go forward into forbidden places with banners flying and trumpets sounding, and demand a surrender. But he did not know if they were come to that extreme. Brother Mark prayed, not with words, but by somehow igniting a candle-flame within him that burned immensely tall, and sent up the smoke of his entreaty, which was all for Meriet.
Above him in the darkness a foot stirred in the small, dry dust of chaff and straw, like mice venturing forth by night. Soft steps moved overhead, even and slow. In the dimness below, softened now by filtering starlight, Mark stared upward, and saw the darkness stir and swirl. Something suave and pale dipped from the yawning trap, and reached for the top rung of the ladder; a naked foot. Its fellow followed, stooping a rung lower. A voice, still drawn back deep into the body that leaned at the head of the stair, said distantly but clearly: “No I will not suffer it!”
He was coming down, he was seeking help. Brother Mark breathed gratitude, and said softly into the dimness above him: “Meriet! I am here!” Very softly, but it was enough.
The foot seeking its rest on the next tread balked and stepped astray. There was a faint, distressed cry, weak as a bird’s and then an awakened shriek, live and indignant in bewilderment. Meriet’s body folded sidelong and fell, hurtling, half into Brother Mark’s blindly extended arms, and half askew from him with a dull, deflating thud to the floor of the barn. Mark clung desperately to what he held, borne down by the weight, and lowered it as softly as he might, feeling the limbs fold together to lie limp and still. There was a silence but for his own labouring breath.
With anguished hands he felt about the motionless body, stooped his ear to listen for breathing and the beat of the heart, touched a smooth cheek and the thick thatch of dark hair, and drew his fingers away warm and sticky with blood. “Meriet!” he urged, whispering close to a deaf ear, and knew that Meriet was far out of reach.
Mark ran for lights and help, but even at this pass was careful not to alarm the whole dortoir, but only to coax out of their sleep two of the most able-bodied and willing of his flock, who slept close to the door, and could withdraw without disturbing the rest. Between them they brought a lantern, and examined Meriet on the floor of the barn, still out of his senses. Mark had partially broken his fall, but his head had struck the sharp edge of the step-ladder, and bore a long graze that ran diagonally across his right temple and into his hair which bled freely, and he had fallen with his right foot twisted awkwardly beneath him.
“My fault, my fault!” whispered Mark wretchedly, feeling about the limp body for broken bones. “I startled him awake. I didn’t know he was asleep, I thought he was coming to me of his own will…”
Meriet lay oblivious and let himself be handled as they would. There seemed to be no fractures, but there might well be sprains, and his head wound bled alarmingly. To move him as little as need be they brought down his pallet from the loft, and set it below in the barn where he lay, so that he might have quiet from the rest of the household. They bathed and dressed his head and lifted him gently into his cot with an added brychan for warmth, injury and shock making him very cold to the touch. And all the while his face, beneath the swathing bandage, was remote and peaceful and pale as Mark had never seen it before, his trouble for these few hours stricken out of him.
“Go now and get your own rest,” said Brother Mark to his concerned helpers. “There’s nothing more we can do at this moment. I shall sit with him. If I need you I’ll call you.”
He trimmed the lantern to burn steadily, and sat beside the pallet all the rest of the night. Meriet lay mute and motionless until past the dawn, though his breathing perceptibly lengthened and grew calmer as he passed from senselessness into sleep, but his face remained bloodless. It was past Prime when his lips began to twitch and his eyelids to flutter, as if he wished to open them, but had not the strength. Mark bathed his face, and moistened the struggling lips with water and wine.
“Lie still,” he said, with a hand cupping Meriet’s cheek. “I am here—Mark. Be troubled by nothing, you are safe here with me.” He was not aware that he had meant to say that. It was promising infinite blessing, and what right had he to claim any such power? And yet the words had come to him unbidden.
The heavy eyelids heaved, fought for a moment with the unknown weight holding them closed, and parted upon a reflected flame in desperate green eyes. A shudder passed through Meriet’s body. He worked a dry mouth and got out faintly: “I must go—I must tell them… Let me up!”
The effort he made to rise was easily suppressed by a hand on his breast; he lay helpless but shaking.
“I must go! Help me!”
“There is nowhere you need go,” said Mark, leaning over him. “If there is any message you wish sent to any man, lie still, and only tell me. You know I will do it faithfully. You had a fall, you must lie still and rest.”
“Mark… It is you?” He felt outside his blankets blindly, and Mark took the wandering hand and held it. “It is you,” said Meriet, sighing. “Mark—the man they’ve taken… for killing the bishop’s clerk… I must tell them… I must go to Hugh Beringar…”
“Tell me,” said Mark, “and you have done all. I will see done whatever you want done, and you may rest. What is it I am to tell Hugh Beringar?” But in his heart he already knew.
“Tell him he must let this poor soul go… Say he never did that slaying. Tell him I know! Tell him,” said Meriet, his dilated eyes hungry and emerald-green on Mark’s attentive face, “that I confess my mortal sin… that it was I who killed Peter Clemence. I shot him down in the woods, three miles and more from Aspley. Say I am sorry, so to shame my father’s house.”
He was weak and dazed, shaking with belated shock, the tears sprang from his eyes, startling him with their unexpected flood. He gripped and wrung the hand held. “Promise! Promise you will tell him so…”
“I will, and bear the errand myself, no other shall,” said Mark, stooping low to straining, blinded eyes to be seen and believed. “
Every word you give me I will deliver. If you will also do a good and needful thing for yourself and for me, before I go. Then you may sleep more peacefully.”
The green eyes cleared in wonder, staring up at him. “What thing is that?”
Mark told him, very gently and firmly. Before he had the words well out, Meriet had wrenched away his hand and heaved his bruised body over in the bed, turning his face away. “No!” he said in a low wail of distress. “No, I will not! No…”
Mark talked on, quietly urging what he asked, but stopped when it was still denied, and with ever more agitated rejection. “Hush!” he said then placatingly. “You need not fret so. Even without it, I’ll do your errand, every word. You be still and sleep.”
He was instantly believed; the body stiff with resistance softened and eased. The swathed head turned towards him again; even the dim light within the barn caused his eyes to narrow and frown. Brother Mark put out the lantern, and drew the brychans close. Then he kissed his patient and penitent, and went to do his errand.
*
Brother Mark walked the length of the Foregate and across the stone bridge into the town, exchanging the time of day with all he met, enquired for Hugh Beringar at his house by Saint Mary’s, and walked on undismayed and unwearied when he was told that the deputy-sheriff was already at the castle. It was by way of a bonus that Brother Cadfael happened to be there also, having just emerged from applying another dressing to the festered wound in the prisoner’s forearm. Hunger and exposure are not conducive to ready healing, but Harald’s hurts were showing signs of yielding to treatment. Already he had a little more flesh on his long, raw bones, and a little more of the texture of youth in his hollow cheeks. Solid stone walls, sleep without constant fear, warm blankets and three rough meals a day were a heaven to him.
Against the stony ramparts of the inner ward, shut off from even what light there was in this muted morning, Brother Mark’s diminutive figure looked even smaller, but his grave dignity was in no way diminished. Hugh welcomed him with astonishment, so unexpected was he in this place, and haled him into the anteroom of the guard, where there was a fire burning, and torchlight, since full daylight seldom penetrated there to much effect.
“I’m sent with a message,” said Brother Mark, going directly to his goal, “to Hugh Beringar, from Brother Meriet. I’ve promised to deliver it faithfully word for word, since he cannot do it himself, as he wanted to do. Brother Meriet learned only yesterday, as did we all at Saint Giles, that you have a man held here in prison for the murder of Peter Clemence. Last night, after he had retired, Meriet was desperately troubled in his sleep, and rose and walked. He fell from the loft, sleeping, and is now laid in his bed with a broken head and many bruises, but he has come to himself, and I think with care he’ll take no grave harm. But if Brother Cadfael would come and look at him I should be easier in my mind.”
“Son, with all my heart!” said Cadfael, dismayed. “But what was he about, wandering in his sleep? He never left his bed before in his fits. And men who do commonly tread very skilfully, even where a waking man would not venture.”
“So he might have done,” owned Mark, sadly wrung, “if I had not spoken to him from below. For I thought he was well awake, and coming to ask comfort and aid, but when I called his name he stepped at fault, and cried out and fell. And now he is come to himself, I know where he was bound, even in his sleep, and on what errand. For that errand he has committed to me, now he is helpless, and I am here to deliver it.”
“You’ve left him safe?” asked Cadfael anxiously, but half-ashamed to doubt whatever Brother Mark thought fit to do.
“There are two good souls keeping an eye on him, but I think he will sleep. He has unloaded his mind upon me, and here I discharge the burden,” said Brother Mark, and he had the erect and simple solitude of a priest, standing small and plain between them and Meriet. “He bids me say to Hugh Beringar that he must let this prisoner go, for he never did that slaying with which he is charged. He bids me say that he speaks of his own knowledge, and confesses to his own mortal sin, for it was he who killed Peter Clemence. Shot him down in the woods, says Meriet, more than three miles north of Aspley. And he bids me say also that he is sorry, so to have disgraced his father’s house.”
He stood fronting them, wide-eyed and open-faced as was his nature, and they stared back at him with withdrawn and thoughtful faces. So simple an ending! The son, passionate of nature and quick to act, kills, the father, upright and austere yet jealous of his ancient honour, offers the sinner a choice between the public contumely that will destroy his ancestral house, or the lifelong penance of the cloister, and his father’s son prefers his personal purgatory to shameful death, and the degradation of his family. And it could be so! It could answer every question.
“But of course,” said Brother Mark, with the exalted confidence of angels and archangels, and the simplicity of children, “it is not true.”
*
“I need not quarrel with what you say,” said Hugh mildly, after a long and profound pause for thought, “if I ask you whether you speak only on belief in Brother Meriet—for which you may feel you have good cause—or from knowledge by proof? How do you know he is lying?”
“I do know by what I know of him,” said Mark firmly, “but I have tried to put that away. If I say he is no such person to shoot down a man from ambush, but rather to stand square in his way and challenge him hand to hand, I am saying what I strongly believe. But I was born humble, out of this world of honour, how should I speak to it with certainty? No, I have tested him. When he told me what he told me, I said to him that for his soul’s comfort he should let me call our chaplain, and as a sick man make his confession to him and seek absolution. And he would not do it,” said Mark, and smiled upon them. “At the very thought he shook and turned away. When I pressed him, he was in great agitation. For he can lie to me and to you, to the king’s law itself, for a cause that seems to him good enough,” said Mark, “but he will not lie to his confessor, and through his confessor to God.”
Chapter 10
AFTER LONG AND SOMBRE consideration, Hugh said: “For the moment, it seems, this boy will keep, whatever the truth of it. He is in his bed with a broken head, and not likely to stir for a while, all the more if he believes we have accepted what, for whatever cause, he wishes us to believe. Take care of him, Mark, and let him think he has done what he set out to do. Tell him he can be easy about this prisoner of ours, he is not charged, and no harm will come to him. But don’t let it be put abroad that we’re holding an innocent man who is in no peril of his life. Meriet may know it. Not a soul outside. For the common ear, we have our murderer safe in hold.”
One deceit partnered another deceit, both meant to some good end; and if it seemed to Brother Mark that deceit ought not to have any place in the pilgrimage after truth, yet he acknowledged the mysterious uses of all manner of improbable devices in the workings of the purposes of God, and saw the truth reflected even in lies. He would let Meriet believe his ordeal was ended and his confession accepted, and Meriet would sleep without fears or hopes, without dreams, but with the drear satisfaction of his voluntary sacrifice, and grow well again to a better, an unrevealed world.
“I will see to it,” said Mark, “that only he knows. And I will be his pledge that he shall be at your disposal whenever you need him.”
“Good! Then go back now to your patient. Cadfael and I will follow you very shortly.”
Mark departed, satisfied, to trudge back through the town and out along the Foregate. When he was gone, Hugh stood gazing eye to eye with Brother Cadfael, long and thoughtfully. “Well?”
“It’s a tale that makes excellent sense,” said Cadfael, “and a great part of it most likely true. I am of Mark’s way of thinking, I do not believe the boy has killed. But the rest of it? The man who caused that fire to be built and kindled had force enough to get his men to do his will and keep his secret. A man well-served, well-feared, perhaps even well-loved. A m
an who would neither steal anything from the dead himself, nor allow any of his people to do so. All committed to the fire. Those who worked for him respected and obeyed him. Leoric Aspley is such a man, and in such a manner he might behave, if he believed a son of his had murdered from ambush a man who had been a guest in his house. There would be no forgiveness. If he protected the murderer from the death due, it might well be for the sake of his name, and only to serve a lifetime’s penance.”
He was remembering their arrival in the rain, father and son, the one severe, cold and hostile, departing without the kiss due between kinsmen, the other submissive and dutiful, but surely against his nature, at once rebellious and resigned. Feverish in his desire to shorten his probation and be imprisoned past deliverance, but in his sleep fighting like a demon for his liberty. It made a true picture. But Mark was absolute that Meriet had lied.
“It lacks nothing,” said Hugh, shaking his head. “He has said throughout that it was his own wish to take the cowl—so it might well be; good reason, if he was offered no other alternative but the gallows. The death came there, soon after leaving Aspley. The horse was taken far north and abandoned, so that the body should be sought only well away from where the man was killed. But whatever else the boy knows, he did not know that he was leading his gleaners straight to the place where the bones would be found, and his father’s careful work undone. I take Mark’s word for that, and by God, I am inclined to take Mark’s word for the rest. But if Meriet did not kill the man, why should he so accept condemnation and sentence? Of his own will!”
“There is but one possible answer,” said Cadfael. “To protect someone else.”
“Then you are saying that he knows who the murderer is.”
