The Devils Novice (18 page)

“What
is your name?” asked Hugh, so mildly that the creature stared and froze, afraid
to understand such a tone.

“What
do men call you?” repeated Hugh patiently.

“Harald,
my lord. I’m named Harald.” The large frame produced a skeletal sound, deep but
dry and remote. He had a cough that perforated his speech uneasily, and a name
that had once belonged to a king, and that within the memory of old men still
living, men of his own fair colouring.

“Tell
me how you came by this thing, Harald. For it’s a rich man’s weapon, as you
must know. See the craftsmanship of it, and the jeweller’s work. Where did you
find such a thing?”

“I
didn’t steal it,” said the wretch, trembling. “I swear I didn’t! It was thrown
away, no one wanted it…”

“Where
did you find it?” demanded Hugh more sharply.

“In
the forest, my lord. There’s a place where they burn charcoal.” He described
it, stammering and blinking, voluble to hold off blame. “There was a dead fire
there, I took fuel from it sometimes, but I was afraid to stay so near the
road. The knife was lying in the ashes, lost or thrown away. Nobody wanted it.
And I needed a knife…” He shook, watching Hugh’s impassive face with frightened
blue eyes. “It was not stealing… I never stole but to keep alive, my lord, I
swear it.”

He
had not been a very successful thief, even so, for he had barely kept body and
soul together. Hugh regarded him with detached interest, and no particular severity.

“How
long have you been living wild?”

“Four
months it must be, my lord. But I never did violence, nor stole anything but
food. I needed a knife for my hunting…”

Ah,
well, thought Hugh, the king can afford a deer here and there. This poor devil needs
it more than Stephen does, and Stephen in his truest mood would give it to him
freely. Aloud he said: “A hard life for a man, come wintertime. You’ll do
better indoors with us for a while, Harald, and feed regularly, if not on
venison.” He turned to the sergeant, who was standing warily by. “Lock him
away. Let him have blankets to wrap him. And see to it he eats—but none too
much to start with or he’ll gorge and die on us.” He had known it happen among
the wretched creatures in flight the previous winter from the storming of
Worcester, starving on the road and eating themselves to death when they came
to shelter. “And use him well!” said Hugh sharply as the sergeant hauled up his
prisoner. “He’ll not stand rough handling, and I want him. Understood?”

The
sergeant understood it as meaning this was the wanted murderer, and must live
to stand his trial and take his ceremonial death. He grinned, and abated his
hold on the bony shoulder he gripped. “I take your meaning, my lord.”

They
were gone, captor and captive, off to a securely locked cell where the outlaw
Harald, almost certainly a runaway villein, and probably with good reason,
could at least be warmer than out in the woods, and get his meals, rough as
they might be, brought to him without hunting.

Hugh
completed his daily business about the castle, and then went off to find
Brother Cadfael in his workshop, brewing some aromatic mixture to soothe ageing
throats through the first chills of the winter. Hugh sat back on the familiar
bench against the timber wall, and accepted a cup of one of Cadfael’s better
wines, kept for his better acquaintances.

“Well,
we have our murderer safely under lock and key,” he announced, straight-faced,
and recounted what had emerged. Cadfael listened attentively, for all he seemed
to have his whole mind on his simmering syrup.

“Folly!”
he said then, scornfully. His brew was bubbling too briskly, he lifted it to
the side of the brazier.

“Of
course folly,” agreed Hugh heartily. “A poor wretch without a rag to his
covering or a crust to his name, kill a man and leave him his valuables, let
alone his clothes? They must be about of a height, he would have stripped him
naked and been glad of such cloth. And build the clerk single-handed into that
stack of timber? Even if he knew how such burnings are managed, and I doubt if
he does… No, it is beyond belief. He found the dagger, just as he says. What we
have here is some poor soul pushed so far by a heavy-handed lord that he’s run
for it. And too timid, or too sure of his lord’s will to pursue him, to risk
walking into the town and seeking work. He’s been loose four months, picking up
what food he could where he could.”

“You
have it all clear enough, it seems,” said Cadfael, still brooding over his
concoction, though it was beginning to settle in the pot, gently hiccuping.
“What is it you want of me?”

“My
man has a cough, and a festered wound on his forearm, I judge a dog’s bite,
somewhere he lifted a hen. Come and sain it for him, and get out of him
whatever you can, where he came from, who is his master, what is his trade.
We’ve room for good craftsmen of every kind in the town, as you know, and have
taken in several, to our gain and theirs. This may well be another as useful.”

“I’ll
do that gladly,” said Cadfael, turning to look at his friend with a very shrewd
eye. “And what has he to offer you in exchange for a meal and a bed? And maybe
a suit of clothes, if you had his inches, as by your own account you have not.
I’d swear Peter Clemence could have topped you by a hand’s length.”

“This
fellow certainly could,” allowed Hugh, grinning. “Though sidewise even I could
make two of him as he is now. But you’ll see for yourself, and no doubt be
casting an eye over all your acquaintance to find a man whose cast-offs would
fit him. As for what use I have for him, apart from keeping him from starving
to death—my sergeant is already putting it about that our wild man is taken,
and I’ve no doubt he won’t omit the matter of the dagger. No need to frighten
the poor devil worse than he’s been frightened already by charging him, but if
the world outside has it on good authority that our murderer is safe behind
bars, so much the better. Everyone can breathe more freely—notably the
murderer. And a man off his guard, as you said, may make a fatal slip.”

Cadfael
considered and approved. So desirable an ending, to have an outlaw and a
stranger, who mattered to nobody, blamed for whatever evil was done locally;
and one week now to pass before the wedding party assembled, all with minds at
ease.

“For
that stubborn lad of yours at Saint Giles,” said Hugh very seriously, “knows
what happened to Peter Clemence, whether he had any hand in it, or no.”

“Knows,”
said Brother Cadfael, equally gravely, “or thinks he knows.”

He
went up through the town to the castle that same afternoon, bespoken by Hugh
from the abbot as healer even to prisoners and criminals. He found the prisoner
Harald in a cell at least dry, with a stone bench to lie on, and blankets to
soften it and wrap him from the cold, and that was surely Hugh’s doing. The
opening of the door upon his solitude occasioned instant mute alarm, but the
appearance of a Benedictine habit both astonished and soothed him, and to be
asked to show his hurts was still deeper bewilderment, but softened into wonder
and hope. After long loneliness, where the sound of a voice could mean nothing
but threat, the fugitive recovered his tongue rustily but gratefully, and ended
in a flood of words like floods of tears, draining and exhausting him. After
Cadfael left him he stretched and eased into prodigious sleep.

Cadfael
reported to Hugh before leaving the castle wards.

“He’s
a farrier, he says a good one. It may well be true, it is the only source of
pride he has left. Can you use such? I’ve dressed his bite with a lotion of
hound’s-tongue, and anointed a few other cuts and grazes he has. I think he’ll
do well enough. Let him eat little but often for a day or two or he’ll sicken.
He’s from some way south, by Gretton. He says his lord’s steward took his
sister against her will, and he tried to avenge her. He was not good at
murder,” said Cadfael wryly, “and the ravisher got away with a mere graze. He
may be better at farriery. His lord sought his blood and he ran—who could blame
him?”

“Villein?”
asked Hugh resignedly.

“Surely.”

“And
sought, probably vindictively. Well, they’ll have a vain hunt if they hunt him
into Shrewsbury castle, we can hold him securely enough. And you think he tells
truth?”

“He’s
too far gone to lie,” said Cadfael. “Even if lying came easily, and I think
this is a simple soul who leans to truth. Besides, he believes in my habit. We
have still a reputation, Hugh, God send we may deserve it.”

“He’s
within a charter town, if he is in prison,” said Hugh with satisfaction, “and
it would be a bold lord who would try to take him from the king’s hold. Let his
master rejoice in thinking the poor wretch held for murder, if that gives him
pleasure. We’ll put it about, then, that our murderer’s taken, and watch for
what follows.”

The
news went round, as news does, from gossip to gossip, those within the town
parading their superior knowledge to those without, those who came to market in
town or Foregate carrying their news to outer villages and manors. As the word
of Peter Clemence’s disappearance had been blown on the wind, and after it news
of the discovery of his body in the forest, so did every breeze spread abroad
the word that his killer was already taken and in prison in the castle, found
in possession of the dead man’s dagger, and charged with his murder. No more
mystery to be mulled over in taverns and on street-corners, no further
sensations to be hoped for. The town made do with what it had, and made the
most of it. More distant and isolated manors had to wait a week or more for the
news to reach them.

The
marvel was that it took three whole days to reach Saint Giles. Isolated though
the hospice was, since its inmates were not allowed nearer the town for fear of
contagion, somehow they usually seemed to get word of everything that was
happening almost as soon as it was common gossip in the streets; but this time
the system was slow in functioning. Brother Cadfael had given anxious thought
to consideration of what effect the news was likely to have upon Meriet. But
there was nothing to be done about that but to wait and see. No need to make a
point of bringing the story to the young man’s ears deliberately, better let it
make its way to him by the common talk, as to everyone else.

So
it was not until two lay servants came to deliver the hospital’s customary
loaves from the abbey bakery, on the third day, that word of the arrest of the
runaway villein Harald came to Meriet’s ears. By chance it was he who took in
the great basket and unloaded the bread in the store, helped by the two bakery
hands who had brought it. For his silence they made up in volubility.

“You’ll
be getting more and more beggars coming in for shelter, brother, if this cold
weather sets in in earnest. Hard frost and an east wind again, no season to be
on the roads.”

Civil
but taciturn, Meriet agreed that winter came hard on the poor.

“Not
that they’re all honest and deserving,” said the other, shrugging. “Who knows
what you’re taking in sometimes? Rogues and vagabonds as likely as not, and who’s
to tell the difference?”

“There’s
one you might have got this week past that you can well do without,” said his
fellow, “for you might have got a throat cut in the night, and whatever’s worth
stealing made away with. But you’re safe from him, at any rate, for he’s locked
up in Shrewsbury castle till he comes to his trial for murder.”

“For
killing a priest, at that! He’ll pay for it with his own neck, surely, but
that’s poor reparation for a priest.”

Meriet
had turned, stiffly attentive, staring at them with frowning eyes. “For killing
a priest? What priest? Who is this you speak of?”

“What,
have you not heard yet? Why, the bishop of Winchester’s chaplain that was found
in the Long Forest. A wild man who’s been preying on the houses outside the
town killed him. It’s what I was saying, with winter coming on sharp now you
might have had him shivering and begging at your door here, and with the
priest’s own dagger under his ragged coat ready for you.”

“Let
me understand you,” said Meriet slowly. “You say a man is taken for that death?
Arrested and charged with it?”

“Taken,
charged, gaoled, and as good as hanged,” agreed his informant cheerfully.
“That’s one you need not worry your head about, brother.”

“What
man is he? How did this come about?” asked Meriet urgently.

They
told him, in strophe and antistrophe, pleased to find someone who had not
already heard the tale.

“And
waste of time to deny, for he had the dagger on him that belonged to the
murdered man. Found it, he said, in the charcoal hearth there, and a likely
tale that makes.”

Staring
beyond them, Meriet asked, low-voiced: “What like is he, this fellow? A local
man? Do you know his name?”

That
they could not supply, but they could describe him. “Not from these parts, some
runaway living rough, a poor starving wretch, swears he’s never done worse than
steal a little bread or an egg to keep himself alive, but the foresters say
he’s taken their deer in his time. Thin as a fence-pale, and in rags, a
desperate case…”