The Devils Novice (5 page)

Cadfael
was out of his bed before it rose to its highest shriek, and groping into the
passage in the direction from which it came. Every soul was awake by then, he
heard a babble of terrified voices and a frantic gabbling of prayers, and Prior
Robert, slow and sleepy, demanding querulously who dared so disturb the peace. Beyond
where Brother Paul slept, children’s voices joined in the cacophony; the two
youngest boys had been startled awake and were wailing their terror, and no
wonder. Never had their sleep here been so rudely shattered, and the youngest
was no more than seven years old. Paul was out of his cell and flying to
comfort them. The clamour and complaint continued, loud and painful, by turns
threatening and threatened. Saints converse in tongues with God. With whom did
this fierce, violent voice converse, against whom did it contend, and in what
language of pain, anger and defiance?

Cadfael
had taken his candle out with him, and made for the lamp by the night-stairs to
kindle it, thrusting his way through the quaking darkness and shoving aside
certain aimless, agitated bodies that blundered about in the passage, blocking
the way. The din of shouting, cursing and lamenting, still in the incoherent
tongue of sleep, battered at his ears all the way, and the children howled
piteously in their small room. He reached the lamp, and his taper flared and
burned up steadily, lighting staring faces, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, and the
lofty beams of the roof above. He knew already where to look for the disturber
of the peace. He elbowed aside those who blundered between, and carried his
candle into Meriet’s cell. Less confident souls came timidly after, circling
and staring, afraid to approach too near. Brother Meriet sat bolt upright in
his bed, quivering and babbling, hands clenched into fists in his blanket, head
reared back and eyes tight-closed. There was some reassurance in that, for
however tormented, he was still asleep, and if the nature of his sleep could be
changed, he might awake unscathed. Prior Robert was not far behind the starers
now, and would not hesitate to seize and shake the rigid shoulder readiest to
his hand, in peremptory displeasure. Cadfael eased an arm cautiously round the
braced shoulders instead and held him close. Meriet shuddered and the rhythm of
his distressful crying hiccuped and faltered. Cadfael set down his candle, and
spread his palm over the young man’s forehead, urging him gently down to his
forsaken pillow. The wild crying subsided into a child’s querulous whimper,
stuttered and ceased. The stiff body yielded, softened, slid down into the bed.
By the time Prior Robert reached the bedside, Meriet lay in limp innocence,
fast asleep and free of his incubus.

Brother
Paul brought him to chapter next day, as needing guidance in the proper
treatment of one so clearly in dire spiritual turmoil. For his own part, Paul
would have been inclined to content himself with paying special attention to
the young man for a day or two, trying to draw from him what inward trouble
could have caused him such a nightmare, and accompanying him in special prayers
for his peace of mind. But Prior Robert would have no delays. Granted the
novice had suffered a shocking and alarming experience the previous day, in the
accident to his fellow, but so had all the rest of the labourers in the
orchard, and none of them had awakened the whole dortoir with his bellowings in
consequence. Robert held that such manifestations, even in sleep, amounted to
willful acts of self-display, issuing from some deep and tenacious demon
within, and the flesh could be best eased of its devil by the scourge. Brother
Paul stood between him and the immediate use of the discipline in this case.
Let the matter go to the abbot.

Meriet
stood in the centre of the gathering with eyes cast down and hands folded,
while his involuntary offence was freely discussed about his ears. He had
awakened like the rest, such as had so far recovered their peace as to sleep
again after the disturbance, when the bell roused them for Matins, and because
of the enjoined silence as they filed down the night-stairs he had known of no
reason why so many and such wary eyes should be turned upon him, or why his
companions should so anxiously leave a great gap between themselves and him. So
he had pleaded when finally enlightened about his misbehaviour, and Cadfael
believed him.

“I
bring him before you, not as having knowingly committed any offence,” said
Brother Paul, “but as being in need of help which I am not fitted to attempt
alone. It is true, as Brother Cadfael has told us—for I myself was not with the
party yesterday—that the accident to Brother Wolstan caused great alarm to all,
and Brother Meriet came upon the scene without warning, and suffered a severe
shock, fearing the poor young man was dead. It may be that this alone preyed
upon his mind, and came as a dream to disturb his sleep, and no more is needed
now than calm and prayer. I ask for guidance.”

“Do
you tell me,” asked Radulfus, with a thoughtful eye on the submissive figure
before him, “that he was asleep throughout? Having roused the entire dortoir?”

“He
slept through all,” said Cadfael firmly. “To have shaken him awake in that
state might have done him great harm, but he did not wake. When persuaded, with
care, he sank into a deeper level of sleep, and was healed from his distress. I
doubt if he recalls anything of his dream, if he did dream. I am sure he knew
nothing of what had happened, and the flurry he had caused, until he was told
this morning.”

“That
is true, Father,” said Meriet, looking up briefly and anxiously. “They have
told me what I did, and I must believe it, and God knows I am sorry. But I
swear I knew nothing of my offence. If I had dreams, evil dreams, I recall
nothing of them. I know no reason why I should so disturb the dortoir. It is as
much a mystery to me as to any. I can but hope it will not happen again.”

The
abbot frowned and pondered. “It is strange that so violent a disturbance should
arise in your mind without cause. I think, rather, that the shock of seeing
Brother Wolstan lying in his blood does provide a source of deep distress. But
that you should have so little power to accept, and to control your own spirit,
does that bode well, son, for a true vocation?”

It
was the one suggested threat that seemed to alarm Meriet. He sank to his knees,
with an abrupt and agitated grace that brought the ample habit swirling about
him like a cloak, and lifted a strained face and pleading hands to the abbot.

“Father,
help me, believe me! All my wish is to enter here and be at peace, to do all that
the Rule asks of me, to cut off all the threads that bind me to my past. If I
offend, if I transgress, willingly or no, wittingly or no, medicine me, punish
me, lay on me whatever penance you see fit, only don’t cast me out!”

“We
do not so easily despair of a postulant,” said Radulfus, “or turn our backs on
one in need of time and help. There are medicines to soothe a too-fevered mind.
Brother Cadfael has such. But they are aids that should be used only in grave
need, while you seek better cures in prayer, and in the mastery of yourself.”

“I
could better come to terms,” said Meriet vehemently, “if you would but shorten
the period of my probation, and let me in to the fullness of this life. Then
there would be no more doubt or fear…”

Or
hope? wondered Cadfael, watching him; and went on to wonder if the same thought
had not entered the abbot’s mind.

“The
fullness of this life,” said Radulfus sharply, “must be deserved. You are not
ready yet to take vows. Both you and we must practise patience some time yet
before you will be fit to join us. The more hotly you hasten, the more will you
fall behind. Remember that, and curb your impetuosity. For this time, we will
wait. I accept that you have not offended willingly, I trust that you may never
again suffer or cause such disruption. Go now, Brother Paul will tell you our
will for you.”

Meriet
cast one flickering glance round all the considering faces, and departed,
leaving the brothers to debate what was best to be done with him. Prior Robert,
on his mettle, and quick to recognise a humility in which there was more than a
little arrogance, felt that the mortification of the flesh, whether by hard
labour, a bread and water diet, or flagellation, might help to concentrate and
purify a troubled spirit. Several took the simplest line: since the boy had
never intended wrong, and yet was a menace to others, punishment was
undeserved, but segregation from his fellows might be considered justified, in
the interests of the general peace. Yet even that might seem to him a punishment,
Brother Paul pointed out.

“It
may well be,” said the abbot finally, “that we trouble ourselves needlessly.
How many of us have never had one ill night, and broken it with nightmares?
Once is but once. We have none of us come to any harm, not even the children.
Why should we not trust that we have seen both the first and the last of it?
Two doors can be closed between the dortoir and the boys, should there again be
need. And should there again be need, then further measures can be taken.”

Three
nights passed peacefully, but on the fourth there was another commotion in the
small hours, less alarming than on the first occasion, but scarcely less
disturbing. No wild outcry this time, but twice or thrice, at intervals, there
were words spoken loudly and in agitation, and such as were distinguishable
were deeply disquieting, and caused his fellow-novices to hold off from him
with even deeper suspicion.

“He
cried out, “No, no, no!” several times,” reported his nearest neighbour,
complaining to Brother Paul next morning. “And then he said, “I will, I will!”
and something about obedience and duty… Then after all was quiet again he
suddenly cried out, “Blood!” And I looked in, because he had started me awake
again, and he was sitting up in bed wringing his hands. After that he sank down
again, there was nothing more. But to whom was he talking? I dread there’s a
devil has hold of him. What else can it be?”

Brother
Paul was short with such wild suppositions, but could not deny the words he
himself had heard, nor the disquiet they aroused in him. Meriet again was
astonished and upset at hearing that he had troubled the dortoir a second time,
and owned to no recollection of any bad dream, or even so small and
understandable a thing as a belly-ache that might have disrupted his own rest.

“No
harm done this time,” said Brother Paul to Cadfael, after High Mass, “for it
was not loud, and we had the door closed on the children. And I’ve damped down
their gossip as best I can. But for all that, they go in fear of him. They need
their peace, too, and he’s a threat to it. They say there’s a devil at him in
his sleep, and it was he brought it here among them, and who knows which of
them it will prey on next? The devil’s novice, I’ve heard him called. Oh, I put
a stop to that, at least aloud. But it’s what they’re thinking. Cadfael himself
had heard the tormented voice, however subdued this time, had heard the pain
and desperation in it, and was assured beyond doubt that for all these things
there was a human reason. But what wonder if these untravelled young things,
credulous and superstitious, dreaded a reason that was not human?

That
was well into October and the same day that Canon Eluard of Winchester, on his
journey south from Chester, came with his secretary and his groom to spend a
night or two for repose in Shrewsbury. And not for simple reasons of religious
policy or courtesy, but precisely because the novice Meriet Aspley was housed
within the walls of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

Chapter Three

ELUARD
OF WINCHESTER WAS A BLACK CANON of considerable learning and several
masterships, some from French schools. It was this wide scholarship and breadth
of mind which had recommended him to Bishop Henry of Blois, and raised him to
be one of the three highest ranking and best trusted of that great prelate’s
household clergy, and left him now in charge of much of the bishop’s pending
business while his principal was absent in France.

Brother
Cadfael ranked too low in the hierarchy to be invited to the abbot’s table when
there were guests of such stature. That occasioned him no heart-burning, and
cost him little in first-hand knowledge of what went on, since it was taken for
granted that Hugh Beringar, in the absence of the sheriff, would be present at
any meeting involving political matters, and would infallibly acquaint his
other self with whatever emerged of importance.

Hugh
came to the hut in the herb garden, yawning, after accompanying the canon to
his apartment in the guest-hall.

“An
impressive man, I don’t wonder Bishop Henry values him. Have you seen him,
Cadfael?”

“I
saw him arrive.” A big, portly, heavily-built man who nonetheless rode like a
huntsman from his childhood and a warrior from puberty; a rounded, bushy
tonsure on a round, solid head, and a dark shadow about the shaven jowls when
he lighted down in early evening. Rich, fashionable but austere clothing, his
only jewellery a cross and ring, but both of rare artistry. And he had a jaw on
him and an authoritative eye, shrewd but tolerant. “What’s he doing in these
parts, in his bishop’s absence overseas?”

“Why,
the very same his bishop is up to in Normandy, soliciting the help of every
powerful man he can get hold of, to try and produce some plan that will save
England from being dismembered utterly. While he’s after the support of king
and duke in France, Henry wants just as urgently to know where Earl Ranulf and
his brother stand. They never paid heed to the meeting in the summer, so it
seems Bishop Henry sent one of his men north to be civil to the pair of them
and make sure of their favour, just before he set off for France—one of his own
household clerics, a young man marked for advancement, Peter Clemence. And
Peter Clemence has not returned. Which could mean any number of things, but
with time lengthening out and never a word from him or from either of that pair
in the north concerning him, Canon Eluard began to be restive. There’s a kind
of truce in the south and west, while the two sides wait and watch each other,
so Eluard felt he might as well set off in person to Chester, to find out what
goes on up there, and what’s become of the bishop’s envoy.”