The Devils Novice (8 page)

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-cock 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 pass!” 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 God.

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 assaying, since they were painful to him.
He had taken no great harm, but he would be hoarse for some while, and perhaps
for a time he would be careful and civil in dealing with the still unbroken
sons of the nobility 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.
Assault 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, unobserved 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 sturdy, 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 passive 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.”