The Devil's Novice

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.”

“And what has become of him?” asked Cadfael shrewdly. “For his lordship, it seems, is now on his way south again to join King Stephen. And what sort of welcome did he get in Chester?”

“As warm and civil as heart could wish. And for what my judgement is worth, Canon Eluard, however loyal he may be to Bishop Henry’s efforts for peace, is more inclined to Stephen’s side than to the empress, and is off back to Westminster now to tell the King he might be wise to strike while the iron’s hot, and go north in person and offer a few sweetmeats to keep Chester and Roumare as well-disposed to him as they are. A manor or two and a pleasant title—Roumare is as good as earl of Lincoln now, why not call him so?—could secure his position there. So, at any rate, Eluard seems to have gathered. Their loyalty is pledged over and over. And for all his wife is daughter to Robert of Gloucester, Ranulf did stay snug at home when Robert brought over his imperial sister to take the field a year and more ago. Yes, it seems the situation there could hardly be more to the canon’s satisfaction, now that it’s stated. But as for why it was not stated a month or so ago, by the mouth of Peter Clemence returning… Simple enough! The man never got there, and they never got his embassage.”

“As sound a reason as any for not answering it,” said Cadfael, unsmiling, and eyed his friend’s saturnine visage with narrowed attention. “How far did he get on his way, then?” There were wild places enough in this disrupted England where a man could vanish, for no more than the coat he wore or the horse he rode. There were districts where manors had been deserted and run wild, and forests had been left unmanned, and whole villages, too exposed to danger, had been abandoned and left to rot. Yet the north had suffered less than the south and west by and large, and lords like Ranulf of Chester had kept their lands relatively stable thus far.

“That’s what Eluard has been trying to find out on his way back, stage by stage along the most likely route a man would take. For certainly he never came near Chester. And stage by stage our canon has drawn blank until he came into Shropshire. Never a trace of Clemence, hide, hair or horse, all through Cheshire.”

“And none as far as Shrewsbury?” For Hugh had more to tell, he was frowning down thoughtfully into the beaker he held between his thin, fine hands.

“Beyond Shrewsbury, Cadfael, though only just beyond.

He’s turned back a matter of a few miles to us, for reason enough. The last he can discover of Peter Clemence is that he stayed the night of the eighth day of September with a household to which he’s a distant cousin on the wife’s side. And where do you think that was? At Leoric Aspley’s manor, down in the edge of the Long Forest.”

“Do you tell me!” Cadfael stared, sharply attentive now. The eighth of the month, and a week or so later comes the steward Fremund with his lord’s request that the younger son of the house should be received, at his own earnest wish, into the cloister. Post hoc is not propter hoc, however. And in any case, what connection could there possibly be between one man’s sudden discovery that he felt a vocation, and another man’s overnight stay and morning departure? “Canon Eluard knew he would make one of his halts there? The kinship was known?”

“Both the kinship and his intent, yes, known both to Bishop Henry and to Eluard. The whole manor saw him come, and have told freely how he was entertained there. The whole manor, or very near, saw him off on his journey next morning. Aspley and his steward rode the first mile with him, with the household and half the neighbours to see them go. No question, he left there whole and brisk and well-mounted.”

“How far to his next night’s lodging? And was he expected there?” For if he had announced his coming, then someone should have been enquiring for him long since.

“According to Aspley, he intended one more halt at Whitchurch, a good halfway to his destination, but he knew he could find easy lodging there and had not sent word before. There’s no trace to be found of him there, no one saw or heard of him.”

“So between here and Whitchurch the man is lost?”

“Unless he changed his plans and his route, for which, God knows, there could be reasons, even here in my writ,” said Hugh ruefully, “though I hope it is not so. We keep the best order anywhere in this realm, or so I claim, challenge me who will, but even so I doubt it good enough to make passage safe everywhere. He may have heard something that caused him to turn aside. But the bleak truth of it is, he’s lost. And all too long!”

“And Canon Eluard wants him found?”

“Dead or alive,” said Hugh grimly. “For so will Henry want him found, and an account paid by someone for his price, for he valued him.”

“And the search is laid upon you?” said Cadfael.

“Not in such short terms, no. Eluard is a fair-minded man, he takes a part of the load upon him, and doesn’t grudge. But this shire is my business, under the sheriff, and I pick up my share of the burden. Here is a scholar and a cleric vanished where my writ runs. That I do not like,” said Hugh, in the ominously soft voice that had a silver lustre about it like bared steel.

Cadfael came to the question that was uppermost in his mind. “And why, then, having the witness of Aspley and all his house at his disposal, did Canon Eluard feel it needful to turn back these few miles to Shrewsbury?” But already he knew the answer.

“Because, my friend, you have here the younger son of that house, new in his novitiate. He is thorough, this Canon Eluard. He wants word from even the stray from that tribe. Who knows which of all that manor may not have noticed the one thing needful?”

It was a piercing thought; it stuck in Cadfael’s mind, quivering like a dart. Who knows, indeed? “He has not questioned the boy yet?”

“No, he would not disrupt the evening offices for such a matter—nor his good supper, either,” added Hugh with a brief grin. “But tomorrow he’ll have him into the guests parlour and go over the affair with him, before he goes on southward to join the king at Westminster, and prompt him to go and make sure of Chester and Roumare, while he can.”

“And you will be present at that meeting,” said Cadfael with certainty.

“I shall be present. I need to know whatever any man can tell me to the point, if a man has vanished by foul means within my jurisdiction. This is now as much my business as it is Eluard’s.”

“You’ll tell me,” said Cadfael confidently, “what the lad has to say, and how he bears himself?”

“I’ll tell you,” said Hugh, and rose to take his leave.

As it turned out, Meriet bore himself with stoical calm during that interview in the parlour, in the presence of Abbot Radulfus, Canon Eluard and Hugh Beringar, the powers here of both church and state. He answered questions simply and directly, without apparent hesitation.

Yes, he had been present when Master Clemence came to break his journey at Aspley. No, he had not been expected, he came unheralded, but the house of his kinsmen was open to him whenever he would. No, he had not been there more than once before as a guest, some years ago, he was now a man of affairs, and kept about his lord’s person. Yes, Meriet himself had stabled the guest’s horse, and groomed, watered and fed him, while the women had made Master Clemence welcome within. He was the son of a cousin of Meriet’s mother, who was some two years dead now—the Norman side of the family. And his entertainment? The best they could lay before him in food and drink, music after the supper, and one more guest at the table, the daughter of the neighbouring manor who was affianced to Meriet’s elder brother Nigel. Meriet spoke of the occasion with wide-open eyes and clear, still countenance.

“Did Master Clemence say what his errand was?” asked Hugh suddenly. “Tell where he was bound and for what purpose?”

“He said he was on the bishop of Winchester’s business. I don’t recall that he said more than that while I was there. But there was music after I left the hall, and they were still seated. I went to see that all was done properly in the stable. He may have said more to my father.”

“And in the morning?” asked Canon Eluard.

“We had all things ready to serve him when he rose, for he said he must be in the saddle early. My father and Fremund, our steward, with two grooms, rode with him the first mile of his way, and I, and the servants, and Isouda …”

“Isouda?” said Hugh, pricking his ears at a new name. Meriet had passed by the mention of his brother’s betrothed without naming her.

“She is not my sister, she is heiress to the manor of Foriet, that borders ours on the southern side. My father is her guardian and manages her lands, and she lives with us.” A younger sister of small account, his tone said, for once quite unguarded. “She was with us to watch Master Clemence from our doors with all honour, as is due.”

“And you saw no more of him?”

“I did not go with them. But my father rode a piece more than is needful, for courtesy, and left him on a good track.”

Hugh had still one more question. “You tended his horse. What like was it?”

“A fine beast, not above three years old, and mettlesome.” Meriet’s voice kindled into enthusiasm, “A tall dark bay, with white blaze on his face from forehead to nose, and two white forefeet.”

Noteworthy enough, then, to be readily recognised when found, and moreover, to be a prize for someone. “If somebody wanted the man out of this world, for whatever reason,” said Hugh to Cadfael afterwards in the herb garden, “he would still have a very good use for such a horse as that.

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.” 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 Mass, 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 dykes 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 shaggy 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 assart 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 dyke 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. God 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 passing 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 passed 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.