The Devil's Novice

Chapter Five

HAVING THE ABBOT’S AUTHORITY ABOUT HIM, and something more than four miles to go, Brother Cadfael helped himself to a mule from the stables in preference to tackling the journey to Aspley on foot. Time had been when he would have scorned to ride, but he was past sixty years old, and minded for once to take his ease. Moreover, he had few opportunities now for riding, once a prime pleasure, and could not afford to neglect such as did come his way.

He left after Prime, having taken a hasty bite and drink. The morning was misty and mild, full of the heavy, sweet, moist melancholy of the season, with a thickly veiled sun showing large and mellow through the haze. And the way was pleasant, for the first part on the highway.

The Long Forest, south and south-west of Shrewsbury, had survived unplundered longer than most of its kind, its assarts few and far between, its hunting coverts thick and wild, its open heaths home to all manner of creatures of earth and air. Sheriff Prestcote kept a weather eye on changes there, but did not interfere with what reinforced order rather than challenging it, and the border manors had been allowed to enlarge and improve their fields, provided they kept the peace there with a firm enough hand. There were very ancient holdings along the rim which had once been assarts deep in woodland, and now had hewn out good arable land from old upland, and fenced their intakes. The three old neighbour-manors of Linde, Aspley and Foriet guarded this eastward fringe, half-wooded, half-open. A man riding for Chester from this place would not need to go through Shrewsbury, but would pass it by and leave it to westward. Peter Clemence had done so, choosing to call upon his kinsfolk when the chance offered, rather than make for the safe haven of Shrewsbury abbey. Would his fate have been different, had he chosen to sleep within the pale of Saint Peter and Saint Paul? His route to Chester might even have missed Whitchurch, passing to westward, clear of the mosses. Too late to wonder!

Cadfael was aware of entering the lands of the Linde manor when he came upon well-cleared fields and the traces of grain long harvested, and stubble being culled by sheep. The sky had partially cleared by then, a mild and milky sun was warming the air without quite disseminating the mist, and the young man who came strolling along a headland with a hound at his heel and a half-trained merlin on a creance on his wrist had dew-darkened boots, and a spray of drops on his uncovered light-brown hair from the shaken leaves of some copse left behind him. A young gentleman very light of foot and light of heart, whistling merrily as he rewound the creance and soothed the ruffled bird. A year or two past twenty, he might be. At sight of Cadfael he came bounding down from the headland to the sunken track, and having no cap to doff, gave him a very graceful inclination of his fair head and a blithe:

“Good-day, brother! Are you bound for us?”

“If by any chance your name is Nigel Aspley,” said Cadfael, halting to return the airy greeting, “then indeed I am.” But this could hardly be the elder son who had five or six years the advantage of Meriet, he was too young, of too markedly different a colouring and build, long and slender and blue-eyed, with rounded countenance and ready smile. A little more red in the fair hair, which had the elusive greenish-yellow of oak leaves just budded in spring, or just turning in autumn, and he could have provided the lock that Meriet had cherished in his bed.

“Then we’re out of luck,” said the young man gracefully, and made a pleasant grimace of disappointment. “Though you’d still be welcome to halt at home for a rest and a cup, if you have the leisure for it? For I’m only a Linde, not an Aspley, and my name is Janyn.”

Cadfael recalled what Hugh had told him of Meriet’s replies to Canon Eluard. The elder brother was affianced to the daughter of the neighbouring manor; and that could only be a Linde, since he had also mentioned without much interest the foster-sister who was a Foriet, and heiress to the manor that bordered Aspley on the southern side. Then this personable and debonair young creature must be a brother of Nigel’s prospective bride.

“That’s very civil of you,” said Cadfael mildly, “and I thank you for the goodwill, but I’d best be getting on about my business. For I think I must have only a mile or so still to go.”

“Barely that, sir, if you take the left-hand path below here where it forks. Through the copse, and you’re into their fields, and the track will bring you straight to their gate. If you’re not in haste I’ll walk with you and show you.”

Cadfael was more than willing. Even if he learned little from his companion about this cluster of manors all productive of sons and daughters of much the same age, and consequently brought up practically as one family, yet the companionship itself was pleasant. And a few useful grains of knowledge might be dropped like seed, and take root for him. He let the mule amble gently, and Janyn Linde fell in beside him with a long, easy stride.

“You’ll be from Shrewsbury, brother?” Evidently he had his share of human curiosity. “Is it something concerning Meriet? We were shaken, I can tell you, when he made up his mind to take the cowl, and yet, come to think, he went always his own ways, and would follow them. How did you leave him? Well, I hope?”

“Passably well,” said Cadfael cautiously. “You must know him a deal better than we do, as yet, being neighbours, and much of an age.”

“Oh, we were all raised together from pups, Nigel, Meriet, my sister and me—especially after both our mothers died—and Isouda, too, when she was left orphan, though she’s younger. Meriet’s our first loss from the clan, we miss him.”

“I hear there’ll be a marriage soon that will change things still more,” said Cadfael, fishing delicately.

“Roswitha and Nigel?” Janyn shrugged lightly and airily. “It was a match our fathers planned long ago—but if they hadn’t, they’d have had to come round to it, for those two made up their own minds almost from children. If you’re bound for Aspley you’ll find my sister somewhere about the place. She’s more often there than here, now. They’re deadly fond!” He sounded tolerantly amused, as brothers still unsmitten frequently are by the eccentricities of lovers. Deadly fond! Then if the red-gold hair had truly come from Roswitha’s head, surely it had not been given? To a besotted younger brother of her bridegroom? Clipped on the sly, more likely, and the ribbon stolen. Or else it came, after all, from some very different girl.

“Meriet’s mind took another way,” said Cadfael, trailing his line. “How did his father take it when he chose the cloister? I think were I a father, and had but two sons, I should take no pleasure in giving up either of them.”

Janyn laughed, briefly and gaily. “Meriet’s father took precious little pleasure in anything Meriet ever did, and Meriet took precious little pains to please him. They waged one long battle. And yet I dare swear they loved each other as well as most fathers and sons do. Now and then they come like that, oil and water, and nothing they can do about it.”

They had reached a point below the headland where the fields gave place to a copse, and a broad ride turned aside at a slight angle to thread the trees.

“There lies your best way,” said Janyn, “straight to their manor fence. And if you should have time to step in at our house on your way back, brother, my father would be glad to welcome you.”

Cadfael thanked him gravely, and turned into the green ride. At a turn of the path he looked back. Janyn was strolling jauntily back towards his headland and the open fields, where he could fly the merlin on his creance without tangling her in trees to her confusion and displeasure. He was whistling again as he went, very melodiously, and his fair head had the very gloss and rare colour of young oak foliage, Meriet’s contemporary, but how different by nature! This one would have no difficulty in pleasing the most exacting of fathers, and would certainly never vex his by electing to remove from a world which obviously pleased him very well.

The copse was open and airy, the trees had shed half their leaves, and let in light to a floor still green and fresh. There were brackets of orange fungus jutting from the tree-boles, and frail bluish toadstools in the turf. The path brought Cadfael out, as Janyn had promised, to the wide, striped fields of the Aspley manor, carved out long ago from the forest, and enlarged steadily ever since, both to westward, into the forest land, and eastward, into richer, tamed country. The sheep had been turned into the stubble here, too, in greater numbers, to crop what they could from the aftermath, and leave their droppings to manure the ground for the next sowing. And along a raised track between strips the manor came into view, within an enclosing wall, but high enough to be seen over its crest; a long, stone-built house, a windowed hall floor over a squat undercroft, and probably some chambers in the roof above the solar end. Well built and well kept, worth inheriting, like the land that surrounded it. Low, wide doors made to accommodate carts and wagons opened into the undercroft, a steep stairway led up to the hall door. There were stables and byres lining the inside of the wall on two sides. They kept ample stock.

There were two or three men busy about the byres when Cadfael rode in at the gate, and a groom came out from the stable to take his bridle, quick and respectful at sight of the Benedictine habit. And out from the open hall door came an elderly, thickset, bearded personage who must, Cadfael supposed rightly, be the steward Fremund who had been Meriet’s herald to the abbey. A well-run household. Peter Clemence must have been met with ceremony on the threshold when he arrived unexpectedly. It would not be easy to take these retainers by surprise.

Cadfael asked for the lord Leoric, and was told that he was out in the back fields superintending the grubbing of a tree that had heeled into his stream from a slipping bank, and was fouling the flow, but he would be sent for at once, if Brother Cadfael would wait but a quarter of an hour in the solar, and drink a cup of wine or ale to pass the time. An invitation which Cadfael accepted willingly after his ride. His mule had already been led away, doubtless to some equally meticulous hospitality of its own. Aspley kept up the lofty standards of his forebears. A guest here would be a sacred trust.

Leoric Aspley filled the narrow doorway when he came in, his thick bush of greying hair brushing the lintel. Its colour, before he aged, must have been a light brown. Meriet did not favour him in figure or complexion, but there was a strong likeness in the face. Was it because they were too unbendingly alike that they fought and could not come to terms, as Janyn had said? Aspley made his guest welcome with cool immaculate courtesy, waited on him with his own hand, and pointedly closed the door upon the rest of the household.

“I am sent,” said Cadfael, when they were seated, facing each other in a deep window embrasure, their cups on the stone beside them, “by Abbot Radulfus, to consult you concerning your son Meriet.”

“What of my son Meriet? He has now, of his own will, a closer kinship with you, brother, than with me, and has taken another father in the lord abbot. Where is the need to consult me?”

His voice was measured and quiet, making the chill words sound rather mild and reasonable than implacable, but Cadfael knew then that he would get no help here. Still, it was worth trying.

“Nevertheless, it was you engendered him. If you do not wish to be reminded of it,” said Cadfael, probing for a chink in this impenetrable armour, “I recommend you never look in a mirror. Parents who offer their babes as oblates do not therefore give up loving them. Neither, I am persuaded, do you.”

“Are you telling me he has repented of his choice already?” demanded Aspley, curling a contemptuous lip. “Is he trying to escape from the Order so soon? Are you sent to herald his coming home with his tail between his legs?”

“Far from it! With every breath he insists on this one wish, to be admitted. All that can help to hasten his acceptance he does, with almost too much fervour. His every waking hour is devoted to achieving the same goal. But in sleep it is no such matter. Then, as it seems to me, his mind and spirit recoil in horror. What he desires, waking, he turns from, screaming, in his bed at night. It is right you should know this.”

Aspley sat frowning at him in silence and surely, by his fixed stillness, in some concern. Cadfael pursued his first advantage, and told him of the disturbances in the dortoir, but for some reason which he himself did not fully understand he stopped short of recounting the attack on Brother Jerome, its occasion and its punishment. If there was a fire of mutual resentment between them, why add fuel? “When he wakes,” said Cadfael, “he has no knowledge of what he has done in sleep. There is no blame there. But there is a grave doubt concerning his vocation. Father Abbot asks that you will consider seriously whether we are not, between us, doing Meriet a great wrong in allowing him to continue, however much he may wish it now.”

“That he wants to be rid of him,” said Aspley, recovering his implacable calm, “I can well understand. He was always an obdurate and ill-conditioned youth.”

“Neither Abbot Radulfus nor I find him so,” said Cadfael, stung.

“Then whatever other difficulties there may be, he is better with you than with me, for I have so found him from a child. And might not I as well argue that we should be doing him a great wrong if we turned him from a good purpose when he inclines to one? He has made his choice, only he can change it. Better for him he should endure these early throes, rather than give up his intent.”

Which was no very surprising reaction from such a man, hard and steadfast in his own undertakings, certainly strict to his word, and driven to pursue his courses to the end as well by obstinacy as by honour. Nevertheless, Cadfael went on trying to find the joints in his armour, for it must be a strangely bitter resentment which could deny a distracted boy a single motion of affection.

“I will not urge him one way or the other,” said Aspley finally, “nor confuse his mind by visiting him or allowing any of my family to visit him. Keep him, and let him wait for enlightenment, and I think he will still wish to remain with you. He has put his hand to the plough, he must finish his furrow. I will not receive him back if he turns tail.”

He rose to indicate that the interview was over, and having made it plain that there was no more to be got out of him, he resumed the host with assured grace, offered the midday meal, which was as courteously refused, and escorted his guest out to the court.

“A pleasant day for your ride,” he said, “though I should be the better pleased if you would take meat with us.”

“I would and thank you,” said Cadfael, “but I am pledged to return and deliver your answer to my abbot. It is an easy journey.”

A groom led forth the mule. Cadfael mounted, took his leave civilly, and rode out at the gate in the low stone wall.

He had gone no more than two hundred paces, just enough to carry him out of sight of those he had left within the pale, when he was aware of two figures sauntering without haste back towards that same gateway. They walked hand in hand, and they had not yet perceived a rider approaching them along the pathway between the fields, because they had eyes only for each other. They were talking by broken snatches, as in a shared dream where precise expression was not needed, and their voices, mellowly male and silverly female, sounded even in the distance like brief peals of laughter. Or bridle bells, perhaps, but that they came afoot. Two tolerant, well-trained hounds followed them at heel, nosing up the drifted scents from either side, but keeping their homeward line without distraction.

So these must surely be the lovers, returning to be fed. Even lovers must eat. Cadfael eyed them with interest as he rode slowly towards them. They were worth observing. As they came nearer, but far enough from him to be oblivious still, they became more remarkable. Both were tall. The young man had his father’s noble figure, but lissome and light-footed with youth, and the light brown hair and ruddy, outdoor skin of the Saxon. Such a son as any man might rejoice in. Healthy from birth, as like as not, growing and flourishing like a hearty plant, with every promise of full harvest. A stocky dark second, following lamely several years later, might well fail to start any such spring of satisfied pride. One paladin is enough, besides being hard to match. And if he strides towards manhood without ever a flaw or a check, where’s the need for a second?

And the girl was his equal. Tipping his shoulder, and slender and straight as he, she was the image of her brother, but everything that in him was comely and attractive was in her polished into beauty. She had the same softly rounded, oval face, but refined almost into translucence, and the same clear blue eyes, but a shade darker and fringed with auburn lashes. And there beyond mistake was the reddish gold hair, a thick coil of it, and curls escaping on either side of her temples.

Thus, then, was Meriet explained? Frantic to escape from his frustrated love into a world without women, perhaps also anxious to remove from his brother’s happiness the slightest shadow of grief or reproach—did that account for him? But he had taken the symbol of his torment into the cloister with him—was that sensible?

The small sound of the mule’s neat hooves in the dry grass of the track and the small stones had finally reached the ears of the girl. She looked up and saw the rider approaching, and said a soft word into her companion’s ear. The young man checked for a moment in his stride, and stared with reared head to see a Benedictine monk in the act of riding away from the gates of Aspley. He was very quick to connect and wonder. The light smiled faded instantly from his face, he drew his hand from the girl’s hold, and quickened his pace with the evident intention of accosting the departing visitor.

They drew together and halted by consent. The elder son, close to, loomed even taller than his sire, and improbably good to look upon, in a world of imperfection. With a large but shapely hand raised to the mule’s bridle, he looked up at Cadfael with clear brown eyes rounded in concern, and gave short greeting in his haste.

“From Shrewsbury, brother? Pardon if I dare question, but you have been to my father’s house? There’s news? My brother—he has not…” He checked himself there to make belated reverence, and account for himself. “Forgive such a rough greeting, when you do not even know me, but I am Nigel Aspley, Meriet’s brother. Has something happened to him? He has not done—any foolishness?”

What should be said to that? Cadfael was by no means sure whether he considered Meriet’s conscious actions to be foolish or not. But at least there seemed to be one person who cared what became of him, and by the anxiety and concern in his face suffered fears for him which were not yet justified.

“There’s no call for alarm on his account,” said Cadfael soothingly. “He’s well enough and has come to no harm, you need not fear.”

“And he is still set—He has not changed his mind?”

“He has not. He is as intent as ever on taking vows.”

“But you’ve been with my father! What could there be to discuss with him? You are sure that Meriet…” He fell silent, doubtfully studying Cadfael’s face. The girl had drawn near at her leisure, and stood a little apart, watching them both with serene composure, and in a posture of such natural grace that Cadfael’s eyes could not forbear straying to enjoy her.

“I left your brother in stout heart,” he said, carefully truthful, “and of the same mind as when he came to us. I was sent by my abbot only to speak with your father about certain doubts which have arisen rather in the lord abbot’s mind than in Brother Meriet’s. He is still very young to take such a step in haste, and his zeal seems to older minds excessive. You are nearer to him in years than either your sire or our officers,” said Cadfael persuasively. “Can you not tell me why he may have taken this step? For what reason, sound and sufficient to him, should he choose to leave the world so early?”

“I don’t know,” said Nigel lamely, and shook his head over his failure. “Why do they do so? I never understood.” As why should he, with all the reasons he had for remaining in and of this world? “He said he wanted it,” said Nigel.

“He says so still. At every turn he insists on it.”

“You’ll stand by him? You’ll help him to have his will? If that is truly what he wishes?”

“We’re all resolved,” said Cadfael sententiously, “on helping him to his desire. Not all young men pursue the same destiny, as you must know.” His eyes were on the girl; she was aware of it, and he was aware of her awareness. Another coil of red-gold hair had escaped from the band that held it; it lay against her smooth cheek, casting a deep gold shadow.

“Will you carry him my dear remembrances, brother? Say he has my prayers, and my love always.” Nigel withdrew his hand from the bridle, and stood back to let the rider proceed.

“And assure him of my love, also,” said the girl in a voice of honey, heavy and sweet. Her blue eyes lifted to Cadfael’s face. “We have been playfellows many years, all of us here,” she said, certainly with truth. “I may speak in terms of love, for I shall soon be his sister.”

“Roswitha and I are to be married at the abbey in December,” said Nigel, and again took her by the hand.

“I’ll bear your messages gladly,” said Cadfael, “and wish you both all possible blessing against the day.”

The mule moved resignedly, answering the slight shake of the bridle. Cadfael passed them with his eyes still fixed on the girl Roswitha, whose infinite blue gaze opened on him like a summer sky. The slightest of smiles touched her lips as he passed, and a small, contented brightness flashed in her eyes. She knew that he could not but admire her, and even the admiration of an elderly monk was satisfaction to her. Surely the very motions she had made in his presence, so slight and so conscious, had been made in the knowledge that he was well aware of them, cobweb threads to entrammel one more unlikely fly.

He was careful not to look back, for it had dawned on him that she would confidently expect him to.

Just within the fringe of the copse, at the end of the fields, there was a stone-built sheepfold, close beside the ride, and someone was sitting on the rough wall, dangling crossed ankles and small bare feet, and nursing in her lap a handful of late hazelnuts, which she cracked in her teeth, dropping the fragments of shell into the long grass. From a distance Cadfael had been uncertain whether this was boy or girl, for her gown was kilted to the knee, and her hair cropped just short enough to swing clear of her shoulders, and her dress was the common brown homespun of the countryside. But as he drew nearer it became clear that this was certainly a girl, and moreover, busy about the enterprise of becoming a woman. There were high, firm breasts under the close-fitting bodice, and for all her slenderness she had the swelling hips that would some day make childbirth natural and easy for her. Sixteen, he thought, might be her age. Most curiously of all, it appeared that she was both expecting and waiting for him, for as he rode towards her she turned on her perch to look towards him with a slow, confident smile of recognition and welcome, and when he was close she slid from the wail, brushing off the last nutshells, and shook down her skirts with the brisk movements of one making ready for action. “Sir, I must talk to you,” she said with firmness, and put up a slim brown hand to the mule’s neck. “Will you light down and sit with me?” She had still her child’s face, but the woman was beginning to show through, paring away the puppy-flesh to outline the elegant lines of her cheekbones and chin. She was brown almost as her nutshells, with a warm rose-colour mantling beneath the tanned, smooth skin, and a mouth rose-red, and curled like the petals of a half-open rose. The short, thick mane of curling hair was richly russet-brown, and her eyes one shade darker, and black-lashed. No cottar’s girl, if she did choose to go plain and scorning finery. She knew she was an heiress, and to be reckoned with.

“I will, with pleasure,” said Cadfael promptly, and did so. She took a step back, her head on one side, scarcely having expected such an accommodating reception, without explanation asked or given; and when he stood on level terms with her, and barely half a head taller, she suddenly made up her mind, and smiled at him radiantly.

“I do believe we two can talk together properly. You don’t question, and yet you don’t even know me.”

“I think I do,” said Cadfael, hitching the mule’s bridle to a staple in the stone wall. “You can hardly be anyone else but Isouda Foriet. For all the rest I’ve already seen, and I was told already that you must be the youngest of the tribe.”

“He told you of me?” she demanded at once, with sharp interest, but no noticeable anxiety.

“He mentioned you to others, but it came to my ears.”

“How did he speak of me?” she asked bluntly, jutting a firm chin. “Did that also come to your ears?”

“I did gather that you were a kind of young sister.” For some reason, not only did he not feel it possible to lie to this young person, it had no value even to soften the truth for her.

She smiled consideringly, like a confident commander weighing up the odds in a threatened field. “As if he did not much regard me. Never mind! He will.”

“If I had the ruling of him,” said Cadfael with respect, “I would advise it now. Well, Isouda, here you have me, as you wished. Come and sit, and tell me what you wanted of me.”

“You brothers are not supposed to have to do with women,” said Isouda, and grinned at him warmly as she hoisted herself back on to the wall. “That makes him safe from her, at least, but it must not go too far with this folly of his. May I know your name, since you know mine?”

“My name is Cadfael, A Welshman from Trefriw.”

“My first nurse was Welsh,” she said, leaning down to pluck a frail green thread of grass from the fading stems below her, and set it between strong white teeth. “I don’t believe you have always been a monk, Cadfael, you know too much.”

“I have known monks, children of the cloister from eight years old,” said Cadfael seriously, “who knew more than I shall ever know, though only God knows how, who made it possible. But no, I have lived forty years in the world before I came to it. My knowledge is limited. But what I know you may ask of me. You want, I think, to hear of Meriet.”

“Not “Brother Meriet”?” she said, pouncing, light as a cat, and glad.

“Not yet. Not for some time yet.”

“Never!” she said firmly and confidently. “It will not come to that. It must not.” She turned her head and looked him in the face with a high, imperious stare. “He is mine,” she said simply. “Meriet is mine, whether he knows it yet or no. And no one else will have him.”