The Devil's Novice

by Ellis Peters

  “And Meriet happened upon you in the act,” said Hugh, quietly prompting.

  “I had cut away the shaft, the better to move him. There was blood on my hands—what else could he think? I swore it was not my work, but he did not believe me. He told me, go quickly, wash off the blood, go back to Roswitha, stay the day out, I will do what must be done. For our father’s sake, he said… he sets such store on you, he said, it would break his heart… And I did as he said! A jealous killing, he must have-thought… he never knew what I had—what we had—to cover up. I went from him and left him to be taken in guilt that was none of his…”

  Tears sprang in Nigel’s eyes. He groped out blindly for any hand that would comfort him with a touch, and it was Meriet who suddenly dropped to his knees and took it. His face remained obstinately stern and ever more resembling his father’s, but still he accepted the fumbling hand and held it firmly.

  “Only late at night, when I went home, then I heard… How could I speak? It would have betrayed all… all… When Meriet was loosed out to us again, when he had given his pledge to take the cowl, then I did go to him,” pleaded Nigel feebly. “I did offer… He would not let me meddle. He said he was resolved and willing, and I must let things be…”

  “It is true,” said Meriet. “I did so persuade him. Why make bad worse?”

  “But he did not know of treason… I repent me,” said Nigel, wringing at the hand he held in his, and subsiding into his welcome weakness, refuge from present harassment. “I do repent of what I have done to my father’s house… and most of all to Meriet… If I live, I will make amends…”

  *

  “He’ll live,” said Cadfael, glad to escape from that dolorous bedside into the frosty air of the great court, and draw deep breaths to breathe forth again in silver mist. “Yes, and make good his present losses by mustering for King Stephen, if he can bear arms by the time his Grace moves north. It cannot be till after the feast, there’s an army to raise. And though I’m sure young Janyn meant murder, for it seems to come easily to him as smiling, his dagger went somewhat astray, and has done no mortal harm. Once we’ve fed and rested him, and made good the blood he’s lost, Nigel will be his own man again, and do his devoir for whoever can best vantage him. Unless you see fit to commit him for this treason?”

  “In this mad age,” said Hugh ruefully, “what is treason? With two monarchs in the field, and a dozen petty kings like Chester riding the tide, and even such as Bishop Henry hovering between two or three loyalties? No, let him lie, he’s small chaff, only a half-hearted traitor, and no murderer at all—that I believe, he would not have the stomach.”

  Behind them Roswitha emerged from the infirmary, huddling her cloak about her against the cold, and crossed with a hasty step towards the guest-hall. Even after abasement, abandonment and grief she had the resilience to look beautiful, though these two men, at least, she could now pass by hurriedly and with averted eyes.

  “Handsome is as handsome does,” said Brother Cadfael somewhat morosely, looking after her. “Ah, well, they deserve each other. Let them end or mend together.”

  *

  Leoric Aspley requested audience of the abbot after Vespers of that day.

  “Father, there are yet two matters I would raise with you. There is this young brother of your fraternity at Saint Giles, who has been brother indeed to my son Meriet, beyond his brother in blood. My son tells me it is the heart’s wish of Brother Mark to be a priest. Surely he is worthy. Father, I offer whatever moneys may be needed to provide him the years of study that will bring him to his goal. If you will guide, I will pay all, and be his debtor still.”

  “I have myself noted Brother Mark’s inclination,” said the abbot, “and approved it. He has the heart of the matter in him. I will see him advanced, and take your offer willingly.”

  “And the second thing,” said Leoric, “concerns my sons, for I have learned by good and by ill that I have two, as a certain brother of this house has twice found occasion to remind me, and with good reason. My son Nigel is wed to a daughter of a manor now lacking another heir, and will therefore inherit through his wife, if he makes good his reparation for faults confessed. Therefore I intend to settle my manor of Aspley to my younger son Meriet. I mean to make my intent known in a charter, and beg you to be one of my witnesses.”

  “With my goodwill,” said Radulfus, gravely smiling, “and part with him gladly, to meet him in another fashion, outside this pale which never was meant to contain him.”

  *

  Brother Cadfael betook himself to his workshop that night before Compline, to make his usual nightly check that all was in order there, the brazier fire either out or so low that it presented no threat, all the vessels not in use tidied away, his current wines contentedly bubbling, the lids on all his jars and the stoppers in all his flasks and bottles. He was tired but tranquil, the world about him hardly more chaotic than it had been two days ago, and in the meantime the innocent delivered, not without great cost. For the boy had worshipped the easy, warm, kind brother so much more pleasing to the eye and so much more gifted in graces and physical accomplishments than ever he could be, so much more loved, so much more vulnerable and frail, if only the soul showed through. Worship was over now, but compassion and loyalty, even pity, can be just as enchaining. Meriet had been the last to leave Nigel’s sick-room. Strange to think that it must have cost Leoric a great pang of jealousy to leave him there so long, fettered to his brother and letting his father go. They had still some fearful lunges of adjustment to make between those three before all would be resolved.

  Cadfael sat down with a sigh in his dark hut, only a glowing spark in the brazier to keep him company. A quarter of an hour yet before Compline. Hugh was away home at last, shutting out for tonight the task of levying men for the king’s service. Christmas would come and go, and Stephen would move almost on its heels—that mild, admirable, lethargic soul of generous inclinations, stung into violent action by a blatantly treasonous act. He could move fast when he chose, his trouble was that his animosities died young. He could not really hate. And somewhere in the north, far towards his goal now, rode Janyn Linde, no doubt still smiling, whistling, light of heart, with his two unavoidable dead men behind him, and his sister, who had been nearer to him than any other human creature, nonetheless shrugged off like a split glove. Hugh would have Janyn Linde in his levelled eye, when he came with Stephen to Lincoln. A light young man with heavy enormities to answer for, and all to be paid, here or hereafter. Better here.

  As for the villein Harald, there was a farrier on the town side of the western bridge willing to take him on, and as soon as the flighty public mind had forgotten him he would be quietly let out to take up honest work there. A year and a day in a charter borough, and he would be a free man.

  Unwittingly Cadfael had closed his eyes for a few drowsing moments, leaning well back against his timber wall, with legs stretched out before him and ankles comfortably crossed. Only the momentary chill draught penetrated his half-sleep, and caused him to open his eyes. And they were there before him, standing hand in hand, very gravely smiling, twin images of indulgence to his age and cares, the boy become a man and the girl become what she had always been in the bud, a formidable woman. There was only the glow-worm spark of the dying brazier to light them, but they shone most satisfactorily.

  Isouda loosed her playfellow’s hand and came forward to stoop and kiss Cadfael’s furrowed russet cheek.

  “Tomorrow early we are going home. There may be no chance then to say farewell properly. But we shall not be far away. Roswitha is staying with Nigel, and will take him home with her when he is well.”

  The secret light played on the planes of her face, rounded and soft and strong, and found frets of scarlet in her mane of hair. Roswitha had never been as beautiful as this, the burning heart was wanting.

  “We do love you!” said Isouda impulsively, speaking for both after her confident fashion, “You and Brother Mark!” She swooped to
cup his sleepy face in her hands for an instant, and quickly withdrew to surrender him generously to Meriet.

  He had been out in the frost with her, and the cold had stung high colour into his cheeks. In the warmer air within the hut his dark, thick thatch of hair, still blessedly untonsured, dangled thawing over his brow, and he looked somewhat as Cadfael had first seen him, lighting down in the rain to hold his father’s stirrup, stubborn and dutiful, when those two, so perilously alike, had been at odds over a mortal issue. But the face beneath the damp locks was mature and calm now, even resigned, acknowledging the burden of a weaker brother in need of loyalty. Not for his disastrous acts, but for his poor, faulty flesh and spirit.

  “So we’ve lost you,” said Cadfael. “If ever you’d come by choice I should have been glad of you, we can do with a man of action to leaven us. Brother Jerome needs a hand round his over-voluble throat now and again.”

  Meriet had the grace to blush and the serenity to smile. “I’ve made my peace with Brother Jerome, very civilly and humbly, you would have approved. I hope you would! He wished me well, and said he would continue to pray for me.”

  “Did he, indeed!” In one who might grudgingly forgive an injury to his person, but seldom one to his dignity, that was handsome, and should be reckoned as credit to Jerome. Or was it simply that he was heartily glad to see the back of the devil’s novice, and giving devout thanks after his own fashion?

  “I was very young and foolish,” said Meriet, with a sage’s indulgence for the green boy he had been, hugging to his grieving heart the keepsake of a girl he would live to hear unload upon him shamelessly the guilt of murder and theft. “Do you remember,” asked Meriet, “the few times I ever called you “brother”? I was trying hard to get into the way of it. But it was not what I felt, or what I wanted to say. And now in the end it seems it’s Mark I shall have to call “father”, though he’s the one I shall always think of as a brother. I was in need of fathering, more ways than one. This once, will you let me so claim and so call you as… as I would have liked to then…?”

  “Son Meriet,” said Cadfael, rising heartily to embrace him and plant the formal kiss of kinship resoundingly on a cheek frostily cool and smooth, “you’re of my kin and welcome to whatsoever I have whenever you may need it. And bear in mind, I’m Welsh, and that’s a lifelong tie. There, are you satisfied?”

  His kiss was returned, very solemnly and fervently, by cold lips that burned into ardent heat as they touched. But Meriet had yet one more request to make, and clung to Cadfael’s hand as he advanced it.

  “And will you, while he’s here, extend the same goodness to my brother? For his need is greater than mine ever was.”

  Withdrawn discreetly into shadow, Cadfael thought he heard Isouda utter a brief, soft spurt of laughter, and after it heave a resigned sigh; but if so, both escaped Meriet’s ears.

  “Child,” said Cadfael, shaking his head over such obstinate devotion, but very complacently, “you are either an idiot or a saint, and I am not in the mood at present to have much patience with either. But for the sake of peace, yes, I will, I will! What I can do, I’ll do. There, be off with you! Take him away, girl, and let me put out the brazier and shut up my workshop or I shall be late for Compline!”

  Glossary of Terms

  Alltud

  A foreigner living in Wales

  Arbalest

  A crossbow that enables the bow to be drawn with a winding handle

  Baldric

  A sword-belt crossing the chest from shoulder to hip.

  Bannerole

  A thin ribbon attached to a lance tip

  Bodice

  The supportive upper area of a woman’s dress, sometimes a separate item of clothing worn over a blouse

  Brychan

  A woollen blanket

  Caltrop

  A small iron weapon consisting four spikes. Set on the ground and used against horses and infantry

  Capuchon

  A cowl-like hood

  Cariad

  Welsh for ‘beloved’

  Cassock

  A long garment of the clergy

  Castellan

  The ruler of a castle

  Chatelaine

  The lady of a manor house

  Chausses

  Male hose

  Coif

  The cap worn under a nun’s veil

  Conversus

  A man who joins the monkhood after living in the outside world

  Cottar

  A Villein who is leased a cottage in exchange for their work

  Cotte

  A full- or knee-length coat. Length is determined by the class of the wearer

  Croft

  Land used as pasture that abuts a house

  Currier

  A horse comb used for grooming

  Demesne

  The land retained by a lord for his own use

  Diocese

  The district attached to a cathedral

  Dortoir

  Dormitory (monastic)

  Electuary

  Medicinal powder mixed with honey. Taken by mouth

  Eremite

  A religious hermit

  Espringale

  Armament akin to a large crossbow

  Frater

  Dining room (monastic)

  Garderobe

  A shaft cut into a building wall used as a lavatory

  Garth

  A grass quadrangle within the cloisters (monastic)

  Geneth

  Welsh for ‘girl’

  Gentle

  A person of honourable family

  Glebe

  An area of land attached to a clerical office

  Grange

  The lands and buildings of a monastery farm

  Groat

  A small coin

  Gruel

  Thin porridge

  Guild

  A trade association

  Gyve

  An iron shackle

  Hauberk

  A chainmail coat to defend the neck and shoulders

  Helm

  A helmet

  Horarium

  The monastic timetable, divided into canonical hours, or offices, of Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline

  Husbandman

  A tenant farmer

  Jess

  A short strap attached to a hawk’s leg when practising falconry

  Largesse

  Money or gifts, bestowed by a patron to mark an occasion

  Leat (Leet)

  A man-made waterway

  Litany

  Call and response prayer recited by clergyman and congregation

  Llys

  The timber-built royal court of Welsh princes

  Lodestar

  A star that acts as a fixed navigational point, i.e. the Pole Star

  Lodestone

  Magnetised ore

  Lye

  A solution used for washing and cleaning

  Mandora

  A stringed instrument, precursor to the mandolin

  Mangonel

  Armament used for hurling missiles

  Marl

  Soil of clay and lime, used as a fertiliser

  Messuage

  A house (rented) with land and out-buildings

  Midden

  Dung-heap

  Missal

  The prayer book detailing Mass services throughout the calendar

  Moneyer

  Coin minter

  Mountebank

  Trickster or entertainer

  Mummer

  An actor or player in a mime or masque

  Murage

  A tax levied to pay for civic repairs

  Murrain

  An infectious disease of livestock

  Myrmidon

  A faithful servant

  Nacre

  Mother-of-pearl

  Oblatus

  A monk placed in the monastery at a young age

  Orts
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br />   Food scraps

  Ostler

  Horse handler

  Palfrey

  A horse saddled for a woman

  Pallet

  A narrow wooden bed or thin straw mattress

  Palliative

  A pain-killer

  Pannikin

  A metal cup or saucepan

  Parfytours

  Hounds used in hunting

  Parole

  The bond of a prisoner upon release from captivity

  Patten

  A wooden sandal

  Pavage

  A tax levied for street paving

  Penteulu

  A Welsh rank: captain of the royal guard

  Pommel

  The upward point on the front of a saddle

  Poniard

  A dagger

  Prelate

  A high-ranking member of the church (i.e. abbot or bishop)

  Prie-Dieu

  A kneeling desk used in prayer

  Pyx

  A small box or casket used to hold consecrated bread for Mass

  Quintain