The Devil's Novice Part 1

The Devil's Novice.

by Ellis Peters.

Chapter One.

IN THE MIDDLE OF SEPTEMBER of that year of Our Lord, 1140, two lords of Shrops.h.i.+re 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 pa.s.sive 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 p.r.i.c.k 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 p.u.b.erty 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 w.i.l.l.y-nilly in the habit he himself had a.s.sumed 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 n.o.ble 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."

A conclusion with which no one had then any reason to quarrel. The anarchy of a country distracted by civil war between cousins had constricted monastic revenues, kept pilgrims huddled cautiously at home, and sadly diminished the number of genuine postulants seeking the cloister, while frequently greatly increasing the numbers of indigent fugitives seeking shelter there. The promise of a mature entrant already literate, and eager to begin his novitiate, was excellent news for the abbey.

Afterwards, of course, there were plenty of wiseacres pregnant with hindsight, listing portents, talking darkly of omens, brazenly a.s.serting that they had told everyone so. After every shock and reverse, such late experts proliferate.

It was only by chance that Brother Cadfael witnessed the arrival of the new entrant, two days later. After several days of clear skies and suns.h.i.+ne for harvesting the early apples and carting the new-milled flour, it was a day of miserable downpour, turning the roads to mud, and every hollow in the great court into a treacherous puddle. In the carrels of the scriptorium copiers and craftsmen worked thankfully at their desks. The boys kicked their heels discontentedly indoors, baulked of their playtime, and the few invalids in the infirmary felt their spirits sink as the daylight dimmed and went into mourning. Of guests there were few at that time. There was a breathing-s.p.a.ce in the civil war, while earnest clerics tried to bring both sides together in agreement, but most of England preferred to stay at home and wait with held breath, and only those who had no option rode the roads and took shelter in the abbey guest-halls.

Cadfael had spent the first part of the afternoon in his workshop in the herbarium. Not only had he a number of concoctions working there, fruit of his autumn harvest of leaves, roots and berries, but he had also got hold of a copy of Aelfric's list of herbs and trees from the England of a century and a half earlier, and wanted peace and quiet in which to study it. Brother Oswin, whose youthful ardour was Cadfael's sometime comfort and frequent anxiety in this his private domain, had been excused attendance, and gone to pursue his studies in the liturgy, for the time of his final vows was approaching, and he needed to be word-perfect.

The rain, though welcome to the earth, was disturbing and depressing to the mind of man. The light lowered; the leaf Cadfael studied darkened before his eyes. He gave up his reading. Literate in English, he had learned his Latin laboriously in maturity, and though he had mastered it, it remained unfamiliar, an alien tongue. He went the round of his brews, stirred here and there, added an ingredient in a mortar and ground until it blended into the cream within, and went back in scurrying haste through the wet gardens to the great court, with his precious parchment in the breast of his habit.

He had reached the shelter of the guest-hall porch, and was drawing breath before splas.h.i.+ng through the puddles to the cloister, when three hors.e.m.e.n rode in from the Foregate, and halted under the archway of the gatehouse to shake off the rain from their cloaks. The porter came out in haste to greet them, slipping sidelong in the shelter of the wall, and a groom came running from the stable-yard, splas.h.i.+ng through the rain with a sack over his head.

So that must be Leoric Aspley of Aspley, thought Cadfael, and the son who desires to take the cowl here among us. And he stood to gaze a moment, partly out of curiosity, partly out of a vain hope that the downpour would ease, and let him cross to the scriptorium without getting wetter than he need.

A tall, erect, elderly man in a thick cloak led the arrivals, riding a big grey horse. When he shook off his hood he uncovered a head of bushy, grizzled hair and a face long, austere and bearded. Even at that distance, across the wide court, he showed handsome, unsmiling, unbending, with a high-bridged, arrogant nose and a grimly proud set to his mouth and jaw, but his manner to porter and groom, as he dismounted, was gravely courteous. No easy man, probably no easy parent to please. Did he approve his son's resolve, or was he accepting it only under protest and with displeasure? Cadfael judged him to be in the mid-fifties, and thought of him, in all innocence, as an old man, forgetting that his own age, to which he never gave much thought, was past sixty.

He gave rather closer attention to the young man who had followed decorously a few respectful yards behind his father, and lighted down from his black pony quickly to hold his father's stirrup. Almost excessively dutiful, and yet there was something in his bearing reminiscent of the older man's stiff self-awareness, like sire, like son. Meriet Aspley, nineteen years old, was almost a head shorter than Leoric when they stood together on the ground; a well-made, neat, compact young man, with almost nothing to remark about him at first sight. Dark-haired, with his forelocks plastered to his wet forehead, and rain streaking his smooth cheeks like tears. He stood a little apart, his head submissively bent, his eyelids lowered, attentive like a servant awaiting his lord's orders; and when they moved away into the shelter of the gatehouse he followed at heel like a well-trained hound. And yet there was something about him complete, solitary and very much his own, as though he paid observance to these formalities without giving away anything more, an outward and scrupulous observance that touched no part of what he carried within. And such distant glimpses as Cadfael had caught of his face had shown it set and composed as austerely as his sire's and deep, firm hollows at the corners of a mouth at first sight full-lipped and pa.s.sionate.

No, thought Cadfael, those two are not in harmony, that's certain. And the only way he could account satisfactorily for the chill and stiffness was by returning to his first notion, that the father did not approve his son's decision, probably had tried to turn him from it, and held it against him grievously that he would not be deterred. Obstinacy on the one hand and frustration and disappointment on the other held them apart. Not the best of beginnings for a vocation, to have to resist a father's will. But those who have been blinded by too great a light do not see, cannot afford to see, the pain they cause. It was not the way Cadfael had come into the cloister, but he had known it happen to one or two, and understood its compulsion.

They were gone, into the gatehouse to await Brother Paul, and their formal reception by the abbot. The groom who had ridden in at their heels on a s.h.a.ggy forest pony trotted down with their mounts to the stables, and the great court was empty again under the steady rain. Brother Cadfael tucked up his habit and ran for the shelter of the cloister, there to shake off the water from his sleeves and cowl, and make himself comfortable to continue his reading in the scriptorium. Within minutes he was absorbed in the problem of whether the "dittanders" of Aelfric was, or was not, the same as his own "dittany". He gave no more thought then to Meriet Aspley, who was so immovably bent on becoming a monk.

The young man was introduced at chapter next day, to make his formal profession and be made welcome by those who were to be his brothers. During their probation novices took no part in the discussions in chapter, but might be admitted to listen and learn on occasions, and Abbot Radulfus held that they were ent.i.tled to be received with brotherly courtesy from their entry.

In the habit, newly donned, Meriet moved a little awkwardly, and looked strangely smaller than in his own secular clothes, Cadfael reflected, watching him thoughtfully. There was no father beside him now to freeze him into hostility, and no need to be wary of those who were glad to accept him among them; but still there was a rigidity about him, and he stood with eyes cast down and hands tightly clasped, perhaps over-awed by the step he was taking. He answered questions in a low, level voice, quickly and submissively. A face naturally ivory-pale, but tanned deep gold by the summer sun, the flush of blood beneath his smooth skin quick to mantle on high cheekbones. A thin, straight nose, with fastidious nostrils that quivered nervously, and that full, proud mouth that had so rigorous a set to it in repose, and looked so vulnerable in speech. And the eyes he hid in humility, large-lidded under clear, arched brows blacker than his hair.

"You have considered well," said the abbot, "and now have time to consider yet again, without blame from any. Is it your wish to enter the cloistered life here among us? A wish truly conceived and firmly maintained? You may speak out whatever is in your heart."

The low voice said, rather fiercely than firmly: "It is my wish, Father." He seemed almost to start at his own vehemence, and added more warily: "I beg that you will let me in, and I promise obedience."

"That vow comes later," said Radulfus with a faint smile. "For this while, Brother Paul will be your instructor, and you will submit yourself to him. For those who come into the Order in mature years a full year's probation is customary. You have time both to promise and to fulfil."

The submissively bowed head reared suddenly at hearing this, the large eyelids rolled back from wide, clear eyes of a dark hazel flecked with green. So seldom had he looked up full into the light that their brightness was startling and disquieting. And his voice was higher and sharper, almost dismayed, as he asked: "Father, is that needful? Cannot the time be cut short, if I study to deserve? The waiting is hard to bear."

The abbot regarded him steadily, and drew his level brows together in a frown, rather of speculation and wonder than of displeasure. "The period can be shortened, if such a move seems good to us. But impatience is not the best counsellor, nor haste the best advocate. It will be made plain if you are ready earlier. Do not strain after perfection."

It was clear that the young man Meriet was sensitive to all the implications of both words and tone. He lowered his lids again like shutters over the brightness, and regarded his folded hands. "Father, I will be guided. But I do desire with all my heart to have the fullness of my commitment, and be at peace." Cadfael thought that the guarded voice shook for an instant. In all probability that did the boy no harm with Radulfus, who had experience both of pa.s.sionate enthusiasts and those gradually drawn like lambs to the slaughter of dedication.

"That can be earned," said the abbot gently.

"Father, it shall!" Yes, the level utterance did quiver, however briefly. He kept the startling eyes veiled.

Radulfus dismissed him with somewhat careful kindness, and closed the chapter after his departure. A model entry? Or was it a shade too close to the feverish fervour an abbot as shrewd as Radulfus must suspect and deplore, and watch very warily hereafter? Yet a high-mettled, earnest youth, coming to his desired haven, might well be over-eager and in too much of a hurry. Cadfael, whose two broad feet had always been solidly planted on earth, even when he took his convinced decision to come into harbour for the rest of a long life, had considerable sympathy with the ardent young, who overdo everything, and take wing at a line of verse or a s.n.a.t.c.h of music. Some who thus take fire burn to the day of their death, and set light to many others, leaving a trail of radiance to generations to come. Other fires sink for want of fuel, but do no harm to any. Time would discover what young Meriet's small, desperate flame portended.

Hugh Beringar, deputy-sheriff of Shrops.h.i.+re, came down from his manor of Maesbury to take charge in Shrewsbury, for his superior, Gilbert Prestcote, had departed to join King Stephen at Westminster for his half-yearly visit at Michaelmas, to render account of his s.h.i.+re and its revenues. Between the two of them they had held the county staunch and well-defended, reasonably free from the disorders that racked most of the country, and the abbey had good cause to be grateful to them, for many of its sister houses along the Welsh marches had been sacked, pillaged, evacuated, turned into fortresses for war, some more than once, and no remedy offered. Worse than the armies of King Stephen on the one hand and his cousin the empress on the other-and in all conscience they were bad enough-the land was crawling with private armies, predators large and small, devouring everything, wherever they were safe from any force of law strong enough to contain them. In Shrops.h.i.+re the law had been strong enough, thus far, and loyal enough to care for its own.

When he had seen his wife and baby son installed comfortably in his town house near St. Mary's church, and satisfied himself of the good order kept in the castle garrison, Hugh's first visit was always to pay his respects to the abbot. By the same token, he never left the enclave without seeking out Brother Cadfael in his workshop in the garden. They were old friends, closer than father and son, having not only that easy and tolerant relations.h.i.+p of two generations, but shared experiences that made of them contemporaries. They sharpened minds, one upon the other, for the better protection of values and inst.i.tutions that needed defence with every pa.s.sing day in a land so shaken and disrupted.

Cadfael asked after Aline, and smiled with pleasure even in speaking her name. He had seen her won by combat, along with high office for so young a man as his friend, and he felt almost a grandsire's fond pride in their firstborn son, to whom he had stood G.o.dfather at his baptism in the first days of this same year.

"Radiant," said Hugh with high content, "and asking after you. When times serves I'll make occasion to carry you off, and you shall see for yourself how she's blossomed."

"The bud was rare enough," said Cadfael. "And the imp Giles? Dear life, nine months old, he'll be quartering your floors like a hound-pup! They're on their feet almost before they're out of your arms."

"He's as fast on four legs," said Hugh proudly, "as his slave Constance is on two. And has a grip on him like a swordsman born. But G.o.d keep that time well away from him many years yet, his childhood will be all too short for me. And G.o.d willing, we shall be clear of this shattered time before ever he comes to manhood. There was a time when England enjoyed a settled rule, there must be another such to come."

He was a balanced and resilient creature, but the times cast their shadow on him when he thought on his office and his allegiance.

"What's the word from the south?" asked Cadfael, observing the momentary cloud. "It seems Bishop Henry's conference came to precious little in the end."

Henry of Blois, bishop of Winchester and papal legate, was the king's younger brother, and had been his staunch adherent until Stephen had affronted, attacked and gravely offended the church in the persons of certain of its bishops. Where Bishop Henry's personal allegiance now rested was matter for some speculation, since his cousin the Empress Maud had actually arrived in England and ensconced herself securely with her faction in the west, based upon the city of Gloucester. An exceedingly able, ambitious and practical cleric might well feel some sympathy upon both sides, and a great deal more exasperation with both sides; and it was consistent with his situation, torn between kin, that he should have spent all the spring and summer months of this year trying his best to get them to come together sensibly, and make some arrangement for the future that should appease, if not satisfy, both claims, and give England a credible government and some prospect of the restoration of law. He had done his best, and even managed to bring representatives of both parties to meet near Bath only a month or so ago. But nothing had come of it.

"Though it stopped the fighting," said Hugh wryly, "at least for a while. But no, there's no fruit to gather."

"As we heard it," said Cadfael, "the empress was willing to have her claim laid before the church as judge, and Stephen was not."

"No marvel!" said Hugh, and grinned briefly at the thought. "He is in possession, she is not. In any submission to trial, he has all to lose, she has nothing at stake, and something to gain. Even a hung judgement would reflect she is no fool. And my king, G.o.d give him better sense, has affronted the church, which is not slow to avenge itself. No, there was nothing to be hoped for there. Bishop Henry is bound away into France at this moment, he hasn't given up hope, he's after the backing of the French King and Count Theobald of Normandy. He'll be busy these next weeks, working out some propositions for peace with them, and come back armed to accost both these enemies again. To tell truth, he hoped for more backing here than ever he got, from the north above all. But they held their tongues and stayed at home."

"Chester?" hazarded Cadfael.

Earl Ranulf of Chester was an independent-minded demi-king in a strong northern palatine, and married to a daughter of the earl of Gloucester, the empress's half-brother and chief champion in this fight, but he had grudges against both factions, and had kept a cautious peace in his own realm so far, without committing himself to arms for either party.

"He and his half-brother, William of Roumare. Roumare has large holdings in Lincolns.h.i.+re, and the two between them are a force to be reckoned with. They've held the balance, up there, granted, but they could have done more. Well, we can be grateful even for a pa.s.sing truce. And we can hope."

Hope was in no very generous supply in England during these hard years, Cadfael reflected ruefully. But do him justice, Henry of Blois was trying his best to bring order out of chaos. Henry was proof positive that there is a grand career to be made in the world by early a.s.sumption of the cowl. Monk of Cluny, abbot of Glas...o...b..ry, bishop of Winchester, papal legate-a rise as abrupt and spectacular as a rainbow. True, he was a king's nephew to start with, and owed his rapid advancement to the old king Henry. Able younger sons from lesser families choosing the cloister and the habit could not all expect the mitre, within or without their abbeys. That brittle youngster with the pa.s.sionate mouth and the green-flecked eyes, for instance-how far was he likely to get on the road to power?

"Hugh," said Cadfael, damping down his brazier with a turf to keep it live but sleepy, in case he should want it later, "what do you know of the Aspleys of Aspley? Down the fringe of the Long Forest, I fancy, no great way from the town, but solitary."

"Not so solitary," said Hugh, mildly surprised by the query. "There are three neighbour manors there, all grown from what began as one a.s.sart. They all held from the great earl, they all hold from the crown now. He's taken the name Aspley. His grandsire was Saxon to the finger-ends, but a solid man, and Earl Roger took him into favour and left him his land. They're Saxon still, but they'd taken his salt, and were loyal to it and went with the earldom when it came to the crown. This lord took a Norman wife and she brought him a manor somewhere to the north, beyond Nottingham, but Aspley is still the head of his honour. Why, what's Aspley to you?"

"A shape on a horse in the rain," said Cadfael simply. "He's brought us his younger son, heaven-bent or h.e.l.l-bent on the cloistered life. I wondered why, that's the truth of it."

"Why?" Hugh shrugged and smiled. "A small honour, and an elder brother. There'll be no land for him, unless he has the martial bent and sets out to carve some for himself. And cloister and church are no bad prospects. A sharp lad could get farther that way than hiring out a sword. Where's the mystery?"

And there, vivid in Cadfael's mind, was the still young and vigorous figure of Henry of Blois to point the judgement. But was that stiff and quivering boy the stuff of government?

"What like is the father?" he asked, sitting down beside his friend on the broad bench against the wall of his workshop.

"From a family older than Ethelred, and proud as the devil himself, for all he has but two manors to his name. Princes kept their own local courts in content, then. There are such houses still, in the hill lands and the forests. I suppose he must be some years past fifty," said Hugh, pondering placidly enough over his dutiful studies of the lands and lords under his vigilance in these uneasy times. "His reputation and word stand high. I never saw the sons. There'd be five or six years between them, I fancy. Your sprig would be what age?"

"Nineteen, so he's reported."

"What frets you about him?" asked Hugh, undisturbed though perceptive; and he slanted a brief glance along his shoulder at Brother Cadfael's blunt profile, and waited without impatience.

"His tameness," said Cadfael, and checked himself at finding his imagination, rather than his tongue, so unguarded. "Since by nature he is wild," he went on firmly, "with a staring eye on him like a falcon or a pheasant, and a brow like an overhanging rock. And folds his hands and dips his lids like a maidservant scolded!"

"He practises his craft," said Hugh easily, "and studies his abbot. So they do, the sharp lads. You've seen them come and go."

"So I have." Ineptly enough, some of them, ambitious young fellows gifted with the means to go so far and no farther, and bidding far beyond their abilities. He had no such feeling about this one. That hunger and thirst after acceptance, beyond rescue, seemed to him an end in itself, a measure of desperation. He doubted if the falcon-eyes looked beyond at all, or saw any horizon outside the enclosing wall of the enclave. "Those who want a door to close behind them, Hugh, must be either escaping into the world within or from the world without. There is a difference. But do you know a way of telling one from the other?"

Chapter Two.

THERE WAS A FAIR CROP OF OCTOBER APPLES that year in the orchards along the Gaye, and since the weather had briefly turned unpredictable, they had to take advantage of three fine days in succession that came in the middle of the week, and harvest the fruit while it was dry. Accordingly they mustered all hands to the work, choir monks and servants, and all the novices except the schoolboys. Pleasant work enough, especially for the youngsters who were allowed to climb trees with approval, and kilt their habits to the knee, in a brief return to boyhood.

One of the tradesmen of the town had a hut close to the corner of the abbey lands along the Gaye, where he kept goats and bees, and he had leave to cut fodder for his beasts under the orchard trees, his own grazing being somewhat limited. He was out there that day with a sickle, brus.h.i.+ng the longer gra.s.s, last cut of the year, from round the boles, where the scythe could not be safely used. Cadfael pa.s.sed the time of day with him pleasantly, and sat down with him under an apple tree to exchange the leisured civilities proper to such a meeting. There were very few burgesses in Shrewsbury he did not know, and this good man had a flock of children to ask after.

Cadfael had it on his conscience afterwards that it might well have been his neighbourly attentions that caused his companion to lay down his sickle under the tree, and forget to pick it up again when his youngest son, a frogling knee-high, came hopping to call his father to his midday bread and ale. However that might be, leave it he did, in the tussocky gra.s.s braced against the bole. And Cadfael rose a little stiffly, and went to the picking of apples, while his fellow-gossip hoisted his youngest by standing leaps back to the hut, and listened to his chatter all the way.

The straw baskets were filling merrily by then. Not the largest harvest Cadfael had known from this orchard, but a welcome one all the same. A mellow, half-misty, half-sunlit day, the river running demure and still between them and the high, turreted silhouette of the town, and the ripe scent of harvest, compounded of fruit, dry gra.s.ses, seeding plants and summer-warmed trees growing sleepy towards their rest, heavy and sweet on the air and in the nose; no marvel if constraints were lifted and hearts lightened. The hands laboured and the minds were eased. Cadfael caught sight of Brother Meriet working eagerly, heavy sleeves turned back from round, brown, shapely young arms, skirts kilted to smooth brown knees, the cowl shaken low on his shoulders, and his untonsured head s.h.a.ggy and dark and vivid against the sky. His profile shone clear, the hazel eyes wide and unveiled. He was smiling. No shared, confiding smile, only a witness to his own content, and that, perhaps, brief and vulnerable enough.

Cadfael lost sight of him, plodding modestly ahead with his own efforts. It is perfectly possible to be spiritually involved in private prayer while working hard at gathering apples, but he was only too well aware that he himself was fully absorbed in the sensuous pleasure of the day, and from what he had seen of Brother Meriet's face, so was that young man. And very well it suited him.

It was unfortunate that the heaviest and most ungainly of the novices should choose to climb the very tree beneath which the sickle was lying, and still more unfortunate that he should venture to lean out too far in his efforts to reach one cl.u.s.ter of fruit. The tree was of the tip-bearing variety, and the branches weakened by a weighty crop. A limb broke under the strain, and down came the climber in a flurry of falling leaves and crackling twigs, straight on to the upturned blade of the sickle.

It was a spectacular descent, and half a dozen of his fellows heard the cras.h.i.+ng fall and came running, Cadfael among the first. The young man lay motionless in the tangle of his habit, arms and legs thrown broadcast, a long gash in the left side of his gown, and a bright stream of blood dappling his sleeve and the gra.s.s under him. If ever a man presented the appearance of sudden and violent death, he did. No wonder the unpracticed young stood aghast with cries of dismay on seeing him.

Brother Meriet was at some distance, and had not heard the fall. He came in innocence between the trees, hefting a great basket of fruit towards the riverside path. His gaze, for once open and untroubled, fell upon the sprawled figure, the slit gown, the gush of blood. He baulked like a shot horse, starting back with heels stuttering in the turf. The basket fell from his hands and spilled apples all about the sward.

He made no sound at all, but Cadfael, who was kneeling beside the fallen novice, looked up, startled by the rain of fruit, into a face withdrawn from life and daylight into the clay-stillness of death. The fixed eyes were green gla.s.s with no flame behind them. They stared and stared unblinking at what seemed a stabbed man, dead in the gra.s.s. All the lines of the mask shrank, sharpened, whitened, as though they would never move or live again.

"Fool boy!" shouted Cadfael, furious at being subjected to such alarm and shock when he already had one fool boy on his hands. "Pick up your apples and get them and yourself out of here, and out of my light, if you can do nothing better to help. Can you not see the lad's done no more than knock his few wits out of his head against the bole, and skinned his ribs on the sickle? If he does bleed like a stuck pig, he's well alive, and will be."

And indeed, the victim proved it by opening one dazed eye, staring round him as if in search of the enemy who had done this to him, and becoming voluble in complaint of his injuries. The relieved circle closed round him, offering aid, and Meriet was left to gather what he had spilled, in stiff obedience, still without word or sound. The frozen mask was very slow to melt, the green eyes were veiled before ever the light revived behind them.