The Devil's Novice Part 10

"Girl," cried Leoric, "think what you say! Is it well to lie? I know know this cannot be true." He swung about vehemently, encountering in turn with his grieved, grim eyes abbot and canon and deputy-sheriff. "My lords all, what she says is false. My part in this I will confess, and accept gladly whatever penalty is due from me. For this I know, I brought home my son Meriet, that same day that I brought home the dead body of my guest and kinsman, and having cause, or so I thought, to believe my son the slayer, I laid him under lock and key from that hour, until I had considered, and he had accepted, the fate I decreed for him. From late afternoon of the day Peter Clemence died, all the next day, and until noon of the third, my son Meriet was close prisoner in my house. He never visited this girl. He never gave her this gift, for he never had it in his possession. Nor did he ever lift hand against my guest and his kinsman, now it is shown! G.o.d forgive me that ever I credited it!" this cannot be true." He swung about vehemently, encountering in turn with his grieved, grim eyes abbot and canon and deputy-sheriff. "My lords all, what she says is false. My part in this I will confess, and accept gladly whatever penalty is due from me. For this I know, I brought home my son Meriet, that same day that I brought home the dead body of my guest and kinsman, and having cause, or so I thought, to believe my son the slayer, I laid him under lock and key from that hour, until I had considered, and he had accepted, the fate I decreed for him. From late afternoon of the day Peter Clemence died, all the next day, and until noon of the third, my son Meriet was close prisoner in my house. He never visited this girl. He never gave her this gift, for he never had it in his possession. Nor did he ever lift hand against my guest and his kinsman, now it is shown! G.o.d forgive me that ever I credited it!"

"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 pa.s.sed. 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 circ.u.mspectly, 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 G.o.d'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 pa.s.sing dubiously reliable information hither and yon and adding to it as it pa.s.sed, 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 s.h.i.+re," 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d 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 emba.s.sy. 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 Lincolns.h.i.+re-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, appet.i.te 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 Shrops.h.i.+re 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 s.h.i.+re 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 s.h.i.+re. 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 rus.h.i.+ng along at such a speed?

Abbot Radulfus had rea.s.serted 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-s.p.a.ce, 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 c.h.i.n.ks. "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 G.o.d, 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.

"I promised him I would deal with his dead man, even at the peril of my soul, and he should live, but in perpetual penance out of the world. And to that he agreed and embraced his penalty, as I now know or fear that I now know, for love of his brother, whom he had better reason for believing a murderer than ever I had for crediting the same guilt to Meriet. I am afraid, father, that he accepted his fate as much for my sake as for his brother's, having cause, to my shame, to believe-no, to know!-that I built all on Nigel and all too little upon him, and could live on after writing him out of my life, though the loss of Nigel would be my death. As now he is lost indeed, but I can and I will live. Therefore my grievous sin against my son Meriet is not only this doubt of him, this easy credence of his crime and his banishment into the cloister, but stretches back to his birth in lifelong misprizing.

"And as to my sin against you, father, and against this house, that also I confess and repent, for so to dispose of a suspect murderer and so to enforce a young man without a true vocation, was vile towards him and towards this house. Take that also into account, for I would be free of all my debts.

"And as to my sin against Peter Clemence, my guest and my kinsman, in denying him Christian burial to protect the good name of my own house, I am glad now that the hand of G.o.d made use of my own abused son to uncover and undo the evil I have done. Whatever penance you decree for me in that matter, I shall add to it an endowment to provide Ma.s.ses for his soul as long as my own life continues..."

As proud and rigid in confessing faults as in correcting them in his son, he unwound the tale to the end, and to the end Radulfus listened patiently and gravely, decreed measured terms by way of amends, and gave absolution.

Leoric arose stiffly from his knees, and went out in unaccustomed humility and dread, to look for the one son he had left.

The rapping at the closed and barred door of Cadfael's workshop came when the wine, one of Cadfael's three-year-old brews, had begun to warm Meriet into a hesitant reconciliation with life, blurring the sharp memories of betrayal. Cadfael opened the door, and into the mellow ring of light from the brazier stepped Isouda in her grown-up wedding finery, crimson and rose and ivory, a silver fillet round her hair, her face solemn and important. There was a taller shape behind her in the doorway, shadowy against the winter dusk.

"I thought we might find you here," she said, and the light gilded her faint, secure smile. "I am a herald. You have been sought everywhere. Your father begs you to admit him to speech with you."

Meriet had stiffened where he sat, knowing who stood behind her. "That is not the way I was ever summoned to my father's presence," he said, with a fading spurt of malice and pain. "In his house things were not conducted so."

"Very well then," said Isouda, undisturbed. "Your father orders orders you to admit him here, or I do in his behalf, and you had better be sharp and respectful about it." And she stood aside, eyes imperiously beckoning Brother Cadfael and Brother Mark, as Leoric came into the hut, his tall head brus.h.i.+ng the dangling bunches of dried herbs swinging from the beams. you to admit him here, or I do in his behalf, and you had better be sharp and respectful about it." And she stood aside, eyes imperiously beckoning Brother Cadfael and Brother Mark, as Leoric came into the hut, his tall head brus.h.i.+ng the dangling bunches of dried herbs swinging from the beams.

Meriet rose from the bench and made a slow, hostile but punctilious reverence, his back stiff as pride itself, his eyes burning. But his voice was quiet and secure as he said: "Be pleased to come in. Will you sit, sir?"

Cadfael and Mark drew away one on either side, and followed Isouda into the chill of the dusk. Behind them they heard Leoric say, very quietly and humbly: "You will not now refuse me me the kiss?" the kiss?"

There was a brief and perilous silence; then Meriet said hoa.r.s.ely: "Father..." and Cadfael closed the door.

In the high and broken heathland to the south-west of the town of Stafford, about this same hour, Nigel Aspley rode headlong into a deep copse, over thick, tussocky turf, and all but rode over his friend, neighbour and fellow-conspirator, Janyn Linde, cursing and sweating over a horse that went deadly lame upon a hind foot after treading askew and falling in the rough ground. Nigel cried recognition with relief, for he had small appet.i.te for venturesome enterprises alone, and lighted down to look what the damage might be. But Isouda's horse limped to the point of foundering, and manifestly could go no further.

"You?" cried Janyn. "You broke through, then? G.o.d curse this d.a.m.ned brute, he's thrown me and crippled himself." He clutched at his friend's arm. "What have you done with my sister? Left her to answer for all? She'll run mad!"

"She's well enough and safe enough, we'll send for her as soon as we may... You You to cry out on me!" flared Nigel, turning on him hotly. " to cry out on me!" flared Nigel, turning on him hotly. "You made your escape in good time, and left the pair of us in mire to the brows. Who sank us in this bog in the first place? Did made your escape in good time, and left the pair of us in mire to the brows. Who sank us in this bog in the first place? Did I I bid you kill the man? All I asked was that you send a rider ahead to give warning, have them put everything out of sight quickly before he came. They could have done it! How could bid you kill the man? All I asked was that you send a rider ahead to give warning, have them put everything out of sight quickly before he came. They could have done it! How could I I send? The man was lodged there in our house, I had no one to send who would not be missed... But you- send? The man was lodged there in our house, I had no one to send who would not be missed... But you-you had to shoot him down..." had to shoot him down..."

"I had the hardihood to make all certain, where you would have flinched," spat Janyn, curling a contemptuous lip. "A rider would have got there too late. I made sure the bishop's lackey should never get there."

"And left him lying! Lying in the open ride!"

"For you to be fool enough to run there as soon as I told you!" Janyn hissed derisive scorn at such weakness of will and nerve. "If you'd let him lie, who was ever to know who struck him down? But you must take fright, and rush to try and hide him, who was far better not hidden. And fetch your poor idiot brother down on you, and your father after him! That ever I broached such high business to such a broken reed!"

"Or I ever listened to such a plausible tempter!" fretted Nigel wretchedly. "Now here we are helpless. This creature cannot go-you see it! And the town above a mile distant, and night coming..."

"And I had a head start," raged Janyn, stamping the thick, blanched gra.s.s, "and fortune ahead of me, and the beast had to founder! And you'll be off to pick up the prizes due to both of us-you who crumple at the first threat! G.o.d's curse on the day!"

"Hush your noise!" Nigel turned his back despairingly, stroking the lame horse's sweating flank. "I wish to G.o.d I'd never in life set eyes on you, to come to this pa.s.s, but I'll not leave you. If you must be dragged back-you think they'll be far behind us now?-we'll go back together. But let's at least try try to reach Stafford. Let's leave this one tethered to be found, and ride and run by turns with the other..." to reach Stafford. Let's leave this one tethered to be found, and ride and run by turns with the other..."

His back was still turned when the dagger slid in between his ribs from behind, and he sagged and folded, marvelling, not yet feeling any pain, but only the withdrawal of his life and force, that laid him almost softly in the gra.s.s. Blood streamed out from his wound and warmed his side, flowing round to fire the ground beneath him. He tried to raise himself, and could not stir a hand.

Janyn stood a moment looking down at him dispa.s.sionately. He doubted if the wound itself was fatal, but judged it would take less than half an hour for his sometime friend to bleed to death, which would do as well. He spurned the motionless body with a careless foot, wiped his dagger on the gra.s.s, and turned to mount the horse Nigel had ridden. Without another glance behind he dug in his heels and set off at a rapid canter towards Stafford, between the darkening trees.

Hugh's officers, coming at speed some ten minutes later, found half-dead man and lamed horse and divided their forces, two men riding on to try to overtake Janyn, while the remaining pair salvaged both man and beast, bestowed Isouda's horse at the nearest holding, and carried Nigel back to Shrewsbury, pallid, swathed and senseless, but alive.

"...he promised us advancement, castles and commands-William of Roumare. It was when Janyn went north with me at midsummer to view my manor-it was Janyn persuaded me." Nigel brought out the sorry, broken fragments of his confession late in the dusk of the following day, in his wits again and half-wis.h.i.+ng he were not. So many eyes round his bed, his father erect and ravaged of face at the foot, staring upon his heir with grieved eyes, Roswitha kneeling at his right side, tearless now, but bloated with past weeping, Brother Cadfael and Brother Edmund the infirmarer watchful from the shadows in case their patient tried his strength too far too soon. And on his left Meriet, back in cotte and hose, stripped of the black habit which had never fitted or suited him, and looking strangely taller, leaner and older than when he had first put it on. His eyes, aloof and stern as his father's, were the first Nigel's waking, wandering stare had encountered. There was no knowing what went on in the mind behind them.

"We have been his men from that time on... We knew the time set for the strike at Lincoln. We meant to ride north after our marriage, Janyn with us-but Roswitha did not know! And now we have lost. Word came through too soon..."

"Come to the death-day," said Hugh, standing at Leone's shoulder.

"Yes-Clemence. At supper he let out what his business was. And they were there in Chester, all their constables and castellans... in the act! When I took Roswitha home I told Janyn, and begged him to send a rider ahead at once, through the night, to warn them. He swore he would... I went there next morning early, but he was not there, he never came until past noon, and when I asked if all was well, he said very well! For Peter Clemence was dead in the forest, and the gathering in Chester safe enough. He laughed at me for being in dread. Let him lie, he said, who'll be the wiser, there are footpads everywhere . .. But I was afraid! I went to find him, to hide him away until night ..."

"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 hara.s.sment. "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 abas.e.m.e.nt, abandonment and grief she had the resilience to look beautiful, though these two men, at least, she could now pa.s.s 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 fas.h.i.+on, 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 wors.h.i.+pped 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. Wors.h.i.+p was over now, but compa.s.sion 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 fas.h.i.+on, "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 hope you would! He wished me well, and said he would continue to pray for me." 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 fas.h.i.+on?

"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 kins.h.i.+p 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!"