The Devil's Novice Part 2

And somewhere between here and Whitchurch that beast must be, and where he is there'll be threads to take up and follow. If the worst comes to it, a dead man can be hidden, but a live horse is going to come within some curious soul's sight, sooner or later, and sooner or later I shall get wind of it."

Cadfael was hanging up under the eaves of his hut the rustling bunches of herbs newly dried out at the end of the summer, but he was giving his full attention to Hugh's report at the same time. Meriet had been dismissed without, on the face of it, adding anything to what Canon Eluard had already elicited from the rest of the Aspley household. Peter Clemence had come and gone in good health, well-mounted, and with the protection of the bishop of Winchester's formidable name about him. He had been escorted civilly a mile on his way. And vanished.

"Give me, if you can, the lad's answers in his very words," requested Cadfael. "Where there's nothing of interest to be found in the content, it's worth taking a close look at the manner."

Hugh had an excellent memory, and reproduced Meriet's replies even to the intonation. "But there's nothing there, barring a very good description of the horse. Every question he answered and still told us nothing, since he knows nothing."

"Ah, but he did not answer every question," said Cadfael. "And I think he may have told us a few notable things, though whether they have any bearing on Master Clemence's vanishing seems dubious. Canon Eluard asked him: "And you saw no more of him?" And the lad said: "I did not go with them." "I did not go with them." But he did not say he had seen no more of the departed guest. And again, when he spoke of the servants and this Foriet girl, all gathered to speed the departure with him, he did not say "and my brother." Nor did he say that his brother had ridden with the escort." But he did not say he had seen no more of the departed guest. And again, when he spoke of the servants and this Foriet girl, all gathered to speed the departure with him, he did not say "and my brother." Nor did he say that his brother had ridden with the escort."

"All true," agreed Hugh, not greatly impressed. "But none of these need mean anything at all. Very few of us watch every word, to leave no possible detail in doubt."

"That I grant. Yet it does no harm to note such small things, and wonder. A man not accustomed to lying, but brought up against the need, will evade if he can. Well, if you find your horse in some stable thirty miles or more from here, there'll be no need for you or me to probe behind every word young Meriet speaks, for the hunt will have outrun him and all his family. And they can forget Peter Clemence-barring the occasional Ma.s.s, perhaps, for a kinsman's soul."

Canon Eluard departed for London, secretary, groom, baggage and all, bent on urging King Stephen to pay a diplomatic visit to the north before Christmas, and secure his interest with the two powerful brothers who ruled there almost from coast to coast. Ranulf of Chester and William of Roumare had elected to spend the feast at Lincoln with their ladies, and a little judicious flattery and the dispensing of a modest gift or two might bring in a handsome harvest. The canon had paved the way already, and meant to make the return journey in the king's party.

"And on the way back," he said, taking leave of Hugh in the great court of the abbey, "I shall turn aside from his Grace's company and return here, in the hope that by then you will have some news for me. The bishop will be in great anxiety."

He departed, and Hugh was left to pursue the search for Peter Clemence, which had now become, for all practical purposes, the search for his bay horse. And pursue it he did, with vigour, deploying as many men as he could muster along the most frequented ways north, visiting lords of manors, invading stables, questioning travellers. When the more obvious halting places yielded nothing, they spread out into wilder country. In the north of the shire the land was flatter, with less forest but wide expanses of heath, moorland and scrub, and several large tracts of peat-moss, desolate and impossible to cultivate, though the locals who knew the safe d.y.k.es cut and stacked fuel there for their winter use.

The manor of Alkington lay on the edge of this wilderness of dark-brown pools and quaking mosses and tangled bush, under a pale, featureless sky. It was sadly run down from its former value, its ploughlands shrunken, no place to expect to find, grazing in the tenant's paddock, a tall bay thoroughbred fit for a prince to ride. But it was there that Hugh found him, white-blazed face, white forefeet and all, grown somewhat s.h.a.ggy and ill-groomed, but otherwise in very good condition.

There was as little concealment about the tenant's behaviour as about his open display of his prize. He was a free man, and held as subtenant under the lord of Wem, and he was willing and ready to account for the unexpected guest in his stable.

"And you see him, my lord, in better fettle than he was when he came here, for he'd run wild some time, by all accounts, and devil a man of us knew whose he was or where he came from. There's a man of mine has an a.s.sart west of here, an island on the moss, and cuts turf there for himself and others. That's what he was about when he caught sight of yon creature wandering loose, saddle and bridle and all, and never a rider to be seen, and he tried to catch him, but the beast would have none of it. Time after time he tried, and began to put out feed for him, and the creature was wise enough to come for his dinner, but too clever to be caught. He'd mired himself to the shoulder, and somewhere he tore loose the most of his bridle, and had the saddle ripped round half under his belly before ever we got near him. In the end I had my mare fit, and we staked her out there and she fetched him. Quiet enough, once we had him, and glad to shed what was left of his harness, and feel a currier on his sides again. But we'd no notion whose he was. I sent word to my lord at Wem, and here we keep him till we know what's right."

There was no need to doubt a word, it was all above board here. And this was but a mile or two out of the way to Whitchurch, and the same distance from the town.

"You've kept the harness? Such as he still had?"

"In the stable, to hand when you will."

"But no man. Did you look for a man afterwards?" The mosses were no place for a stranger to go by night, and none too safe for a rash traveller even by day. The peat-pools, far down, held bones enough.

"We did, my lord. There are fellows hereabouts who know every d.y.k.e and every path and every island that can be trodden. We reckoned he'd been thrown, or foundered with his beast, and only the beast won free. It has been known. But never a trace. And that creature there, though soiled as he was, I doubt if he'd been in above the hocks, and if he'd gone that deep, with a man in the saddle, it would have been the man who had the better chance."

"You think," said Hugh, eyeing him shrewdly, "he came into the mosses riderless?"

"I do think so. A few miles south there's woodland. If there were footpads there, and got hold of the man, they'd have trouble keeping their hold of this one. I reckon he made his own way here."

"You'll show my sergeant the way to your man on the mosses? He'll be able to tell us more, and show the places where the horse was straying. There's a clerk of the bishop of Winchester's household lost," said Hugh, electing to trust a plainly honest man, "and maybe dead. This was his mount. If you learn of anything more send to me, Hugh Beringar, at Shrewsbury castle, and you shan't be the loser."

"Then you'll be taking him away. G.o.d knows what his name was, I called him Russet." The free lord of this poor manor leaned over his wattle fence and snapped his fingers, and the bay came to him confidently and sank his muzzle into the extended palm. "I'll miss him. His coat has not its proper gloss yet, but it will come. At least we got the burrs and the rubble of heather out of it."

"We'll pay you his price," said Hugh warmly. "It's well earned. And now I'd best look at what's left of his accoutrements, but I doubt they'll tell us anything more."

It was pure chance that the novices were pa.s.sing across the great court to the cloister for the afternoon's instruction when Hugh Beringar rode in at the gatehouse of the abbey, leading the horse, called for convenience Russet, to the stable-yard for safe-keeping. Better here than at the castle, since the horse was the property of the bishop of Winchester, and at some future time had better be delivered to him.

Cadfael was just emerging from the cloister on his way to the herb garden, and was thus brought face to face with the novices entering. Late in the line came Brother Meriet, in good time to see the lofty young bay that trotted into the courtyard on a leading-rein, and arched his copper neck and brandished his long, narrow white blaze at strange surroundings, shifting white-sandalled forefeet delicately on the cobbles.

Cadfael saw the encounter clearly. The horse tossed its farrow, beautiful head, stretched neck and nostril, and whinnied softly. The.young man blanched white as the blazoned forehead, and jerked strongly back in his careful stride, and brief sunlight found the green in his eyes. Then he remembered himself and pa.s.sed hurriedly on, following his fellows into the cloister.

In the night, an hour before Matins, the dortoir was shaken by a great, wild cry of: "Barbary... Barbary..." and then a single long, piercing whistle, before Brother Cadfael reached Meriet's cell, smoothed an urgent hand over brow and cheek and pursed lips, and eased him back, still sleeping, to his pillow. The edge of the dream, if it was a dream, was abruptly blunted, the sounds melted into silence. Cadfael was ready to frown and hush away the startled brothers when they came, and even Prior Robert hesitated to break so perilous a sleep, especially at the cost of inconveniencing everyone else's including his own. Cadfael sat by the bed long after all was silence and darkness again. He did not know quite what he had been expecting, but he was glad he had been ready for it. As for the morrow, it would come, for better or worse.

Chapter Four.

MERIET AROSE FOR PRIME HEAVY-EYED and sombre, but seemingly quite innocent of what had happened during the night, and was saved from the immediate impact of the brothers seething dread, disquiet and displeasure by being summoned forth, immediately when the office was over, to speak with the deputy-sheriff in the stables. Hugh had the torn and weathered harness spread on a bench in the yard, and a groom was walking the horse called Russet appreciatively about the cobbles to be viewed clearly in the mellow morning light.

"I hardly need to ask," said Hugh pleasantly, smiling at the way the white-fired brow lifted and the wide nostrils dilated at sight of the approaching figure, even in such unfamiliar garb. "No question but he knows you you again, I must needs conclude that you know him just as well." And as Meriet volunteered nothing, but continued to wait to be asked: "Is this the horse Peter Clemence was riding when he left your father's house?" again, I must needs conclude that you know him just as well." And as Meriet volunteered nothing, but continued to wait to be asked: "Is this the horse Peter Clemence was riding when he left your father's house?"

"Yes my lord, the same." He moistened his lips and kept his eyes lowered, but for one spark of a glance for the horse; he did not ask anything.

"Was that the only occasion when you had to do with him? He comes to you readily. Fondle him if you will, he's asking for your recognition."

"It was I stabled and groomed and tended him, that night," said Meriet, low-voiced and hesitant. "And I saddled him in the morning. I never had his like to care for until then. I... I am good with horses."

"So I see. Then you have also handled his gear." It had been rich and fine, the saddle inlaid with coloured leathers, the bridle ornamented with silver-work now dinted and soiled. "All this you recognise?"

Meriet said: "Yes. This was his." And at last he did ask, almost fearfully: "Where did you find Barbary?"

"Was that his name? His master told you? A matter of twenty miles and more north of here, on the peat-hags near Whitchurch. Very well, young sir, that's all I need from you. You can go back to your duties now."

Round the water-troughs in the lavatorium, over their ablutions, Meriet's fellows were making the most of his absence. Those who went in dread of him as a soul possessed, those who resented his holding himself apart, those who felt his silence to be nothing short of disdain for them, all raised their voices clamorously to air their collective grievance. Prior Robert was not there, but his clerk and shadow, Brother Jerome, was, and with ears p.r.i.c.ked and willing to listen.

"Brother, you heard him youself! He cried out again in the night, he awoke us all..."

"He howled for his familiar. I heard the demon's name, he called him Barbary! And his devil whistled back to him... we all know it's devils that hiss and whistle!"

"He's brought an evil spirit in among us, we're not safe for our lives. And we get no rest at night... Brother, truly, we're afraid!"

Cadfael, tugging a comb through the thick bush of grizzled hair ringing his nut-brown dome, was in two minds about intervening, but thought better of it. Let them pour out everything they had stored up against the lad, and it might be seen more plainly how little it was. Some genuine superst.i.tious fear they certainly suffered, such night alarms do shake simple minds. If they were silenced now they would only store up their resentment to breed in secret. Out with it all, and the air might clear. So he held his peace, but he kept his ears p.r.i.c.ked.

"It shall be brought up again in chapter," promised Brother Jerome, who thrived on being the prime channel of appeal to the prior's ears. "Measures will surely be taken to secure rest at nights. If necessary, the disturber of the peace must be segregated."

"But, brother," bleated Meriet's nearest neighbour in the dortoir, "if he's set apart in a separate cell, with no one to watch him, who knows what he may not get up to? He'll have greater freedom there, and I dread his devil will thrive all the more and take hold on others. He could bring down the roof upon us or set fire to the cellars under us...

"That is want of trust in divine providence," said Brother Jerome, and fingered the cross on his breast as he said it. "Brother Meriet has caused great trouble, I grant, but to say that he is possessed of the devil-"

"But, brother, it's true! He has a talisman from his demon, he hides it in his bed. I know! I've seen him slip some small thing under his blanket, out of sight, when I looked in upon him in his cell. All I wanted was to ask him a line in the psalm, for you know he's learned, and he had something in his hand, and slipped it away very quickly, and stood between me and the bed, and wouldn't let me in further. He looked black as thunder at me, brother, I was afraid! But I've watched since. It's true, I swear, he has a charm hidden there, and at night he takes it to him to his bed. Surely this is the symbol of his familiar, and it will bring evil on us all!"

"I cannot believe..." began Brother Jerome, and broke off there, reconsidering the scope of his own credulity. "You have seen seen this? In his this? In his bed, bed, you say? Some alien thing hidden away? That is not according to the Rule." For what should there be in a dortoir cell but cot and stool, a small desk for reading, and the books for study? These, and the privacy and quiet which can exist only by virtue of mutual consideration, since mere token part.i.tions of wainscot separate cell from cell. "A novice entering here must give up all wordly possessions," said Jerome, squaring his meagre shoulders and scenting a genuine infringement of the approved order of things. Grist to his mill! Nothing he loved better than an occasion for admonition. "I shall speak to Brother Meriet about this." you say? Some alien thing hidden away? That is not according to the Rule." For what should there be in a dortoir cell but cot and stool, a small desk for reading, and the books for study? These, and the privacy and quiet which can exist only by virtue of mutual consideration, since mere token part.i.tions of wainscot separate cell from cell. "A novice entering here must give up all wordly possessions," said Jerome, squaring his meagre shoulders and scenting a genuine infringement of the approved order of things. Grist to his mill! Nothing he loved better than an occasion for admonition. "I shall speak to Brother Meriet about this."

Half a dozen voices, encouraged, urged him to more immediate action. "Brother, go now, while he's away, and see if I have not told you truth! If you take away his charm the demon will have no more power over him."

"And we shall have quiet again..."

"Come with me!" said Brother Jerome heroically, making up his mind. And before Cadfael could stir, Jerome was off, out of the lavatorium and surging towards the dortoir stairs, with a flurry of novices hard on his heels.

Cadfael went after them hunched with resigned disgust, but not foreseeing any great urgency. The boy was safely out of this, hobn.o.bbing with Hugh in the stables, and of course they would find nothing in his cell to give them any further hold on him, malice being a great stimulator of the imagination. The flat disappointment might bring them down to earth. So he hoped! But for all that, he made haste on the stairs.

But someone else was in an even greater hurry. Light feet beat a sharp drum-roll on the wooden treads at Cadfael's back, and an impetuous body overtook him in the doorway of the long dortoir, and swept him several yards down the tiled corridor between the cells. Meriet thrust past with long, indignant strides, his habit flying.

"I heard you! I heard you! Let my things alone!"

Where was the low, submissive voice now, the modestly lowered eyes and folded hands? This was a furious young lordling peremptorily ordering hands off his possessions, and homing on the offenders with fists clenched and eyes flashing. Cadfael, thrust off-balance fora moment, made a grab at a flying sleeve, but only to be dragged along in Meriet's wake.

The covey of awed, inquisitive novices gathered round the opening of Meriet's cell, heads thrust cautiously within and rusty black rumps protruding without, whirled in alarm at hearing this angry apparition bearing down on them, and broke away with agitated clucking like so many flurried hens. In the very threshold of his small domain Meriet came nose to nose with Brother Jerome emerging.

On the face of it it was a very uneven confrontation: a mere postulant of a month or so, and one who had already given trouble and been cautioned, facing a man in authority, the prior's right hand, a cleric and confessor, one of the two appointed for the novices. The check did give Meriet pause for one moment, and Cadfael leaned to his ear to whisper breathlessly: "Hold back, you fool! He'll have your hide!" He might have saved the breath of which he was short, for Meriet did not even hear him. The moment when he might have come to his senses was already past, for his eye had fallen on the small, bright thing Jerome dangled before him from outraged fingers, as though it were unclean. The boy's face blanched, not with the pallor of fear, but the blinding whiteness of pure anger, every line of bone in a strongly-boned countenance chiselled in ice.

"That is mine," he said with soft and deadly authority, and held out his hand. "Give it to me!"

Brother Jerome rose on tiptoe and swelled like a turkey-c.o.c.k at being addressed in such tones. His thin nose quivered with affronted rage. "And you openly avow it? Do you not know, impudent wretch, that in asking for admittance here you have forsworn "mine," and may not possess property of any kind? To bring in any personal things here without the lord abbot's permission is flouting the Rule. It is a sin! But wilfully to bring with you this-this!-is to offend foully against the very vows you say you desire to take. And to cherish it in your bed is a manner of fornication. Do you dare? Do you dare? You shall be called to account for it!"

All eyes but Meriet's were on the innocent cause of offence; Meriet maintained a burning stare upon his adversary's face. And all the secret charm turned out to be was a delicate linen ribbon, embroidered with flowers in blue and gold and red, such a band as a girl would use to bind her hair, and knotted into its length a curl of that very hair, reddish gold.

"Do you so much as know the meaning of the vows you say you wish to take?" fumed Jerome. "Celibacy, poverty, obedience, stability-is there any sign in you of any of these? Take thought now, while you may, renounce all thought of such follies and pollutions as this vain thing implies, or you cannot be accepted here. Penance for this backsliding you will not escape, but you have time to amend, if there is any grace in you."

"Grace enough, at any rate," said Meriet, unabashed and glittering, "to keep my hands from prying into another man's sheets and stealing his possessions. Give me," he said through his teeth, very quietly, "what is mine!"

"We shall see, insolence, what the lord abbot has to say of your behaviour. Such a vain trophy as this you may not keep. And as for your insubordination, it shall be reported faithfully. Now let me pa.s.s!" ordered Jerome, supremely confident still of his dominance and his tightness.

Whether Meriet mistook his intention, and supposed that it was simply a matter of sweeping the entire issue into chapter for the abbot's judgment, Cadfael could never be sure. The boy might have retained sense enough to accept that, even if it meant losing his simple little treasure in the end; for after all, he had come here of his own will, and at every check still insisted that he wanted with all his heart to be allowed to remain and take his vows. Whatever his reason, he did step back, though with a frowning and dubious face, and allowed Jerome to come forth into the corridor.

Jerome turned towards the night-stairs, where the lamp was still burning, and all his mute myrmidons followed respectfully. The lamp stood in a shallow bowl on a bracket on the wall, and was guttering towards its end. Jerome reached it, and before either Cadfael or Meriet realised what he was about, he had drawn the gauzy ribbon through the flame. The tress of hair hissed and vanished in a small flare of gold, the ribbon fell apart in two charred halves, and smouldered in the bowl. And Meriet, without a sound uttered, launched himself like a hound leaping, straight at Brother Jerome's throat. Too late to grasp at his cowl and try to restrain him, Cadfael lunged after.

No question but Meriet meant to kill. This was no noisy brawl, all bark and no bite, he had his hands round the scrawny throat, bringing Jerome crashing to the floor-tiles under him, and kept his grip and held to his purpose though half a dozen of the dismayed and horrified novices clutched and clawed and battered at him, themselves ineffective, and getting in Cadfael's way. Jerome grew purple, heaving and flapping like a fish out of water, and wagging his hands helplessly against the tiles. Cadfael fought his way through until he could stoop to Meriet's otherwise oblivious ear, and bellow inspired words into it.

"For shame, son! An old man!"

In truth, Jerome lacked twenty of Cadfael's own sixty years, but the need justified the mild exaggeration. Meriet's ancestry nudged him in the ribs. His hands relaxed their grip, Jerome halsed in breath noisily and cooled from purple to brick-red, and a dozen hands hauled the culprit to his feet and held him, still breathing fire and saying no word, just as Prior Robert, tall and awful as though he wore the mitre already, came sailing down the tiled corridor, blazing like a bolt of the wrath of G.o.d.

In the bowl of the lamp, the two ends of flowered ribbon smouldered, giving off a dingy and ill-scented smoke, and the stink of the burned ringlet still hung upon the air.

Two of the lay servants, at Prior Robert's orders, brought the manacles that were seldom used, shackled Meriet's wrists, and led him away to one of the punishment cells isolated from all the communal uses of the house. He went with them, still wordless, too aware of his dignity to make any resistance, or put them to any anxiety on his account. Cadfael watched him go with particular interest, for it was as if he saw him for the first time. The habit no longer hampered him, he strode disdainfully, held his head lightly erect, and if it was not quite a sneer that curled his lips and his still roused nostrils, it came very close to it. Chapter would see him brought to book, and sharply, but he did not care. In a sense he had had his satisfaction.

As for Brother Jerome, they picked him up, put him to bed, fussed over him, brought him soothing draughts which Cadfael willingly provided, bound up his bruised throat with comforting oils, and listened dutifully to the feeble, croaking sounds he soon grew wary of a.s.saying, since they were painful to him. He had taken no great harm, but he would be hoa.r.s.e for some while, and perhaps for a time he would be careful and civil in dealing with the still unbroken sons of the n.o.bility who came to cultivate the cowl. Mistakenly? Cadfael brooded over the inexplicable predilection of Meriet Aspley. If ever there was a youngster bred for the manor and the field of honour, for horse and arms, Meriet was the man.

"For shame, son! An old man!" And he had opened his hands and let his enemy go, and marched off the field prisoner, but with all the honours.

The outcome at chapter was inevitable; there was nothing to be done about that. a.s.sault upon a priest and confessor could have cost him excommunication, but that was set aside in clemency. But his offence was extreme, and there was no fitting penalty but the lash. The discipline, there to be used only in the last resort, was nevertheless there to be used. It was used upon Meriet. Cadfael had expected no less. The criminal, allowed to speak, had contented himself with saying simply that he denied nothing of what was alleged against him. Invited to plead in extenuation, he refused, with impregnable dignity. And the scourge he endured without a sound.

In the evening, before Compline, Cadfael went to the abbot's lodging to ask leave to visit the prisoner, who was confined to his solitary cell for some ten days of penance.

"Since Brother Meriet would not defend himself," said Cadfael, "and Prior Robert, who brought him before you, came on the scene only late, it is as well that you should know all that happened, for it may bear on the manner in which this boy came to us." And he recounted the sad history of the keepsake Meriet had concealed in his cell and fondled by night. "Father, I don't claim to know. But the elder brother of our most troublous postulant is affianced, and is to marry soon, as I understand."

"I take your meaning," said Radulfus heavily, leaning linked hands upon his desk, "and I, too, have thought of this. His father is a patron of our house, and the marriage is to take place here in December. I had wondered if the younger son's desire to be out of the world... It would, I think, account for him." And he smiled wryly for all the plagued young who believe that frustration in love is the end of their world, and there is nothing left for them but to seek another. "I have been wondering for a week or more," he said, "whether I should not send someone with knowledge to speak with his sire, and examine whether we are not all doing this youth a great disservice, in allowing him to take vows very ill-suited to his nature, however much he may desire them now."

"Father," said Cadfael heartily, "I think you would be doing right."

The boy has qualities admirable in themselves, even here," said Radulfus half-regretfully, "but alas, not at home here. Not for thirty years, and after satiety with the world, after marriage, and child-getting and child-rearing, and the transmission of a name and a pride of birth. We have our ambience, but they-they are necessary to continue both what they know, and what we can teach them. These things you understand, as do all too few of us who harbour here and escape the tempest. Will you go to Aspley in my behalf?"

"With all my heart, Father," said Cadfael.

"Tomorrow?"

"Gladly, if you so wish. But may I, then, go now and see both what can be done to settle Brother Meriet, mind and body, and also what I can learn from him?"

"Do so, with my goodwill," said the abbot.

In his small stone penal cell, with nothing in it but a hard bed, a stool, a cross hung on the wall, and the necessary stone vessel for the prisoner's bodily needs, Brother Meriet looked curiously more open, easy and content than Cadfael had yet seen him. Alone, un.o.bserved and in the dark, at least he was freed from the necessity of watching his every word and motion, and fending off all such as came too near. When the door was suddenly unlocked, and someone came in with a tiny lamp in hand, he certainly stiffened for a moment, and reared his head from his folded arms to stare; and Cadfael took it as a compliment and an encouragement that on recognising him the young man just as spontaneously sighed, softened, and laid his cheek back on his forearms, though in such a way that he could watch the newcomer. He was lying on his belly on the pallet, shirtless, his habit stripped down to the waist to leave his weals open to the air. He was defiantly calm, for his blood was still up. If he had confessed to all that was charged against him, in perfect honesty, he had regretted nothing.

"What do they want of me now?" he demanded directly, but without noticeable apprehension.

"Nothing. Lie still, and let me put this lamp somewhere steady. There, you hear? We're locked in together. I shall have to hammer at the door before you'll be rid of me again." Cadfael set his light on the bracket below the cross, where it would shine upon the bed. "I've brought what will help you to a night's sleep, within and without. If you choose to trust my medicines? There's a draught can dull your pain and put you to sleep, if you want it?"

"I don't," said Meriet flatly, and lay watchful with his chin on his folded arms. His body was brown and lissome and st.u.r.dy, the bluish welts on his back were not too gross a disfigurement. Some lay servant had held his hand; perhaps he himself had no great love for Brother Jerome. "I want wakeful. This is quiet here."

"Then at least keep still and let me salve this copper hide of yours. I told you he would have it!" Cadfael sat down on the edge of the narrow pallet, opened his jar, and began to anoint the slender shoulders that rippled and twitched to his touch. "Fool boy," he said chidingly, "you could have spared yourself all."

"Oh, that!" said Meriet indifferently, nevertheless pa.s.sive under the soothing fingers. "I've had worse," he said, lax and easy on his spread arms. "My father, if he was roused, could teach them something here."

"He failed to teach you much sense, at any rate. Though I won't say," admitted Cadfael generously, "that I haven't sometimes wanted to strangle Brother Jerome myself. But on the other hand, the man was only doing his duty, if in a heavy-handed fashion. He is a confessor to the novices, of whom I hear-can I believe it?-you are one. And if you do so aspire, you are held to be renouncing all ado with women, my friend, and all concern with personal property. Do him justice he had grounds for complaint of you."

"He had no grounds for stealing from me," flared Meriet hotly.

"He had a right to confiscate what is forbidden here."

"I still call it stealing. And he had no right to destroy it before my eyes-nor to speak as though women were unclean!"

"Well, if you've paid for your offences, so has he for his," said Cadfael tolerantly. "He has a sore throat will keep him quiet for a week yet, and for a man who likes the sound of his own sermons that's no mean revenge. But as for you, lad, you've a long way to go before you'll ever make a monk, and if you mean to go through with it, you'd better spend your penance here doing some hard thinking."

"Another sermon?" said Meriet into his crossed arms, and for the first time there was almost a smile in his voice, if a rueful one.

"A word to the wise."

That caused him to check and hold his breath, lying utterly still for one moment, before he turned his head to bring one glittering, anxious eye to bear on Cadfael's face. The dark-brown hair coiled and curled agreeably in the nape of his summer-browned neck, and the neck itself had still the elegant, tender shaping of boyhood. Vulnerable still to all manner of wounds, on his own behalf, perhaps, but certainly on behalf of others all too fiercely loved. The girl with the red-gold hair?

"They have not said anything?" demanded Meriet, tense with dismay. "They don't mean to cast me out? He wouldn't do that-the abbot? He would have told me openly!" He turned with a fierce, lithe movement, drawing up his legs and rising on one hip, to seize Cadfael urgently by the wrist and stare into his eyes. "What is it you know? What does he mean to do with me? I can't, I won't, give up now."

"You've put your own vocation in doubt," said Cadfael bluntly, "no other has had any hand in it. If it had rested with me, I'd have clapped your pretty trophy back in your hand, and told you to be off out of here, and find either her or another as like her as one girl is to another equally young and fair, and stop plaguing us who ask nothing more than a quiet life. But if you still want to throw your natural bent out of door, you have that chance. Either bend your stiff neck, or rear it, and be off!"

There was more to it than that, and he knew it. The boy sat bolt unright, careless of his half-nakedness in a cell stony and chill, and held him by the wrist with strong, urgent fingers, staring earnestly into his eyes, probing beyond into his mind, and not afraid of him, or even wary.