The Devil's Novice Part 7

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..."

They took their basket and departed, and Meriet went about his work in dead, cold silence all that day. A desperate case-yes, so it sounded. As good as hanged! Starved and runaway and living wild, thin to emaciation...

He said no word to Brother Mark, but one of the brightest and most inquisitive of the children had stretched his ears in the kitchen doorway and heard the exchanges, and spread the news through the household with natural relish. Life in Saint Giles, however sheltered, could be tedious, it was none the worse for an occasional sensation to vary the routine of the day. The story came to Brother Mark's ears. He debated whether to speak or not, watching the chill mask of Meriet's face, and the inward stare of his hazel eyes. But at last he did venture a word.

"You have heard, they have taken up a man for the killing of Peter Clemence?"

"Yes," said Meriet, leaden-voiced, and looked through him and far away.

"If there is no guilt in him," said Mark emphatically, "there will no harm come to him."

But Meriet had nothing to say, nor did it seem fitting to Mark to add anything more. Yet he did watch his friend from that moment with un.o.btrusive care, and fretted to see how utterly he had withdrawn into himself with this knowledge that seemed to work in him like poison.

In the darkness of the night Mark could not sleep. It was some time now since he had stolen across to the barn by night, to listen intently at the foot of the ladder stair that led up into the loft, and take comfort in the silence that meant Meriet was deeply asleep; but on this night he made that pilgrimage again. He did not know the true cause and nature of Meriet's pain, but he knew that it was heart-deep and very bitter. He rose with careful quietness, not to disturb his neighbours, and made his way out to the barn.

The frost was not so sharp that night, the air had a stillness and faint haze instead of the piercing starry glitter of past nights. In the loft there would be warmth enough, and the homely scents of timber, straw and grain, but also great loneliness for that inaccessible sleeper who shrank from having neighbours, for fear of frightening them. Mark had wondered lately whether he might not appeal to Meriet to come down and rejoin his fellowmen, but it would not have been easy to do without alerting that austere spirit to the fact that his slumbers had been spied upon, however benevolently, and Mark had never quite reached the point of making the a.s.say.

He knew his way in pitch darkness to the foot of the steep stairway, a mere step-ladder unprotected by any rail. He stood there and held his breath, nose full of the harvest-scent of the barn. Above him the silence was uneasy, stirred by slight tremors of movement. He thought first that sleep was shallow, and the sleeper turning in his bed to find a posture from which he could submerge deeper into peace. Then he knew that he was listening to Meriet's voice, withdrawn into a strange distance but unmistakable, without distinguishable words, a mere murmur, but terrible in its sustained argument between one need and another need, equally demanding. Like some obdurate soul drawn apart by driven horses, torn limb from limb. And yet so slight and faint a sound, he had to strain his ears to follow it.

Brother Mark stood wretched, wondering whether to go up and either awake this sleeper, if indeed he slept, or lie by him and refuse to leave him if he was awake. There is a time to let well or ill alone, and a time to go forward into forbidden places with banners flying and trumpets sounding, and demand a surrender. But he did not know if they were come to that extreme. Brother Mark prayed, not with words, but by somehow igniting a candle-flame within him that burned immensely tall, and sent up the smoke of his entreaty, which was all for Meriet.

Above him in the darkness a foot stirred in the small, dry dust of chaff and straw, like mice venturing forth by night. Soft steps moved overhead, even and slow. In the dimness below, softened now by filtering starlight, Mark stared upward, and saw the darkness stir and swirl. Something suave and pale dipped from the yawning trap, and reached for the top rung of the ladder; a naked foot. Its fellow followed, stooping a rung lower. A voice, still drawn back deep into the body that leaned at the head of the stair, said distantly but clearly: "No I will not suffer it!"

He was coming down, he was seeking help. Brother Mark breathed grat.i.tude, and said softly into the dimness above him: "Meriet! I am here!" Very softly, but it was enough.

The foot seeking its rest on the next tread balked and stepped astray. There was a faint, distressed cry, weak as a bird's and then an awakened shriek, live and indignant in bewilderment. Meriet's body folded sidelong and fell, hurtling, half into Brother Mark's blindly extended arms, and half askew from him with a dull, deflating thud to the floor of the barn. Mark clung desperately to what he held, borne down by the weight, and lowered it as softly as he might, feeling the limbs fold together to lie limp and still. There was a silence but for his own labouring breath.

With anguished hands he felt about the motionless body, stooped his ear to listen for breathing and the beat of the heart, touched a smooth cheek and the thick thatch of dark hair, and drew his fingers away warm and sticky with blood. "Meriet!" he urged, whispering close to a deaf ear, and knew that Meriet was far out of reach.

Mark ran for lights and help, but even at this pa.s.s was careful not to alarm the whole dortoir, but only to coax out of their sleep two of the most able-bodied and willing of his flock, who slept close to the door, and could withdraw without disturbing the rest. Between them they brought a lantern, and examined Meriet on the floor of the barn, still out of his senses. Mark had partially broken his fall, but his head had struck the sharp edge of the step-ladder, and bore a long graze that ran diagonally across his right temple and into his hair which bled freely, and he had fallen with his right foot twisted awkwardly beneath him.

"My fault, my fault!" whispered Mark wretchedly, feeling about the limp body for broken bones. "I startled him awake. I didn't know he was asleep, I thought he was coming to me of his own will..."

Meriet lay oblivious and let himself be handled as they would. There seemed to be no fractures, but there might well be sprains, and his head wound bled alarmingly. To move him as little as need be they brought down his pallet from the loft, and set it below in the barn where he lay, so that he might have quiet from the rest of the household. They bathed and dressed his head and lifted him gently into his cot with an added brychan for warmth, injury and shock making him very cold to the touch. And all the while his face, beneath the swathing bandage, was remote and peaceful and pale as Mark had never seen it before, his trouble for these few hours stricken out of him.

"Go now and get your own rest," said Brother Mark to his concerned helpers. "There's nothing more we can do at this moment. I shall sit with him. If I need you I'll call you."

He trimmed the lantern to burn steadily, and sat beside the pallet all the rest of the night. Meriet lay mute and motionless until past the dawn, though his breathing perceptibly lengthened and grew calmer as he pa.s.sed from senselessness into sleep, but his face remained bloodless. It was past Prime when his lips began to twitch and his eyelids to flutter, as if he wished to open them, but had not the strength. Mark bathed his face, and moistened the struggling lips with water and wine.

"Lie still," he said, with a hand cupping Meriet's cheek. "I am here-Mark. Be troubled by nothing, you are safe here with me." He was not aware that he had meant to say that. It was promising infinite blessing, and what right had he to claim any such power? And yet the words had come to him unbidden.

The heavy eyelids heaved, fought for a moment with the unknown weight holding them closed, and parted upon a reflected flame in desperate green eyes. A shudder pa.s.sed through Meriet's body. He worked a dry mouth and got out faintly: "I must go-I must tell them... Let me up!"

The effort he made to rise was easily suppressed by a hand on his breast; he lay helpless but shaking.

"I must go! Help me!"

"There is nowhere you need go," said Mark, leaning over him. "If there is any message you wish sent to any man, lie still, and only tell me. You know I will do it faithfully. You had a fall, you must lie still and rest."

"Mark... It is you?" He felt outside his blankets blindly, and Mark took the wandering hand and held it. "It is is you," said Meriet, sighing. "Mark-the man they've taken... for killing the bishop's clerk... I must tell them... I must go to Hugh Beringar..." you," said Meriet, sighing. "Mark-the man they've taken... for killing the bishop's clerk... I must tell them... I must go to Hugh Beringar..."

"Tell me," said Mark, "and you have done all. I will see done whatever you want done, and you may rest. What is it I am to tell Hugh Beringar?" But in his heart he already knew.

"Tell him he must let this poor soul go... Say he never did that slaying. Tell him I know know! Tell him," said Meriet, his dilated eyes hungry and emerald-green on Mark's attentive face, "that I confess my mortal sin... that it was I who killed Peter Clemence. I shot him down in the woods, three miles and more from Aspley. Say I am sorry, so to shame my father's house."

He was weak and dazed, shaking with belated shock, the tears sprang from his eyes, startling him with their unexpected flood. He gripped and wrung the hand held. "Promise! Promise you will tell him so..."

"I will, and bear the errand myself, no other shall," said Mark, stooping low to straining, blinded eyes to be seen and believed. "Every word you give me I will deliver. If you will also do a good and needful thing for yourself and for me, before I go. Then you may sleep more peacefully."

The green eyes cleared in wonder, staring up at him. "What thing is that?"

Mark told him, very gently and firmly. Before he had the words well out, Meriet had wrenched away his hand and heaved his bruised body over in the bed, turning his face away. "No!" he said in a low wail of distress. "No, I will not! No..."

Mark talked on, quietly urging what he asked, but stopped when it was still denied, and with ever more agitated rejection. "Hus.h.!.+" he said then placatingly. "You need not fret so. Even without it, I'll do your errand, every word. You be still and sleep."

He was instantly believed; the body stiff with resistance softened and eased. The swathed head turned towards him again; even the dim light within the barn caused his eyes to narrow and frown. Brother Mark put out the lantern, and drew the brychans close. Then he kissed his patient and penitent, and went to do his errand.

Brother Mark walked the length of the Foregate and across the stone bridge into the town, exchanging the time of day with all he met, enquired for Hugh Beringar at his house by Saint Mary's, and walked on undismayed and unwearied when he was told that the deputy-sheriff was already at the castle. It was by way of a bonus that Brother Cadfael happened to be there also, having just emerged from applying another dressing to the festered wound in the prisoner's forearm. Hunger and exposure are not conducive to ready healing, but Harald's hurts were showing signs of yielding to treatment. Already he had a little more flesh on his long, raw bones, and a little more of the texture of youth in his hollow cheeks. Solid stone walls, sleep without constant fear, warm blankets and three rough meals a day were a heaven to him.

Against the stony ramparts of the inner ward, shut off from even what light there was in this muted morning, Brother Mark's diminutive figure looked even smaller, but his grave dignity was in no way diminished. Hugh welcomed him with astonishment, so unexpected was he in this place, and haled him into the anteroom of the guard, where there was a fire burning, and torchlight, since full daylight seldom penetrated there to much effect.

"I'm sent with a message," said Brother Mark, going directly to his goal, "to Hugh Beringar, from Brother Meriet. I've promised to deliver it faithfully word for word, since he cannot do it himself, as he wanted to do. Brother Meriet learned only yesterday, as did we all at Saint Giles, that you have a man held here in prison for the murder of Peter Clemence. Last night, after he had retired, Meriet was desperately troubled in his sleep, and rose and walked. He fell from the loft, sleeping, and is now laid in his bed with a broken head and many bruises, but he has come to himself, and I think with care he'll take no grave harm. But if Brother Cadfael would come and look at him I should be easier in my mind."

"Son, with all my heart!" said Cadfael, dismayed. "But what was he about, wandering in his sleep? He never left his bed before in his fits. And men who do commonly tread very skilfully, even where a waking man would not venture."

"So he might have done," owned Mark, sadly wrung, "if I had not spoken to him from below. For I thought he was well awake, and coming to ask comfort and aid, but when I called his name he stepped at fault, and cried out and fell. And now he is come to himself, I know where he was bound, even in his sleep, and on what errand. For that errand he has committed to me, now he is helpless, and I am here to deliver it."

"You've left him safe?" asked Cadfael anxiously, but half-ashamed to doubt whatever Brother Mark thought fit to do.

"There are two good souls keeping an eye on him, but I think he will sleep. He has unloaded his mind upon me, and here I discharge the burden," said Brother Mark, and he had the erect and simple solitude of a priest, standing small and plain between them and Meriet. "He bids me say to Hugh Beringar that he must let this prisoner go, for he never did that slaying with which he is charged. He bids me say that he speaks of his own knowledge, and confesses to his own mortal sin, for it was he who killed Peter Clemence. Shot him down in the woods, says Meriet, more than three miles north of Aspley. And he bids me say also that he is sorry, so to have disgraced his father's house."

He stood fronting them, wide-eyed and open-faced as was his nature, and they stared back at him with withdrawn and thoughtful faces. So simple an ending! The son, pa.s.sionate of nature and quick to act, kills, the father, upright and austere yet jealous of his ancient honour, offers the sinner a choice between the public contumely that will destroy his ancestral house, or the lifelong penance of the cloister, and his father's son prefers his personal purgatory to shameful death, and the degradation of his family. And it could be so! It could answer every question.

"But of course," said Brother Mark, with the exalted confidence of angels and archangels, and the simplicity of children, "it is not true."

"I need not quarrel with what you say," said Hugh mildly, after a long and profound pause for thought, "if I ask you whether you speak only on belief in Brother Meriet-for which you may feel you have good cause-or from knowledge by proof? How do you know he is lying?"

"I do know by what I know of him," said Mark firmly, "but I have tried to put that away. If I say he is no such person to shoot down a man from ambush, but rather to stand square in his way and challenge him hand to hand, I am saying what I strongly believe. But I was born humble, out of this world of honour, how should I speak to it with certainty? No, I have tested him. When he told me what he told me, I said to him that for his soul's comfort he should let me call our chaplain, and as a sick man make his confession to him and seek absolution. And he would not do it," said Mark, and smiled upon them. "At the very thought he shook and turned away. When I pressed him, he was in great agitation. For he can lie to me and to you, to the king's law itself, for a cause that seems to him good enough," said Mark, "but he will not lie to his confessor, and through his confessor to G.o.d."

Chapter Ten.

AFTER LONG AND SOMBRE CONSIDERATION, Hugh said: "For the moment, it seems, this boy will keep, whatever the truth of it. He is in his bed with a broken head, and not likely to stir for a while, all the more if he believes we have accepted what, for whatever cause, he wishes us to believe. Take care of him, Mark, and let him think he has done what he set out to do. Tell him he can be easy about this prisoner of ours, he is not charged, and no harm will come to him. But don't let it be put abroad that we're holding an innocent man who is in no peril of his life. Meriet may know it. Not a soul outside. For the common ear, we have our murderer safe in hold."

One deceit partnered another deceit, both meant to some good end; and if it seemed to Brother Mark that deceit ought not to have any place in the pilgrimage after truth, yet he acknowledged the mysterious uses of all manner of improbable devices in the workings of the purposes of G.o.d, and saw the truth reflected even in lies. He would let Meriet believe his ordeal was ended and his confession accepted, and Meriet would sleep without fears or hopes, without dreams, but with the drear satisfaction of his voluntary sacrifice, and grow well again to a better, an unrevealed world.

"I will see to it," said Mark, "that only he knows. And I will be his pledge that he shall be at your disposal whenever you need him."

"Good! Then go back now to your patient. Cadfael and I will follow you very shortly."

Mark departed, satisfied, to trudge back through the town and out along the Foregate. When he was gone, Hugh stood gazing eye to eye with Brother Cadfael, long and thoughtfully. "Well?"

"It's a tale that makes excellent sense," said Cadfael, "and a great part of it most likely true. I am of Mark's way of thinking, I do not believe the boy has killed. But the rest of it? The man who caused that fire to be built and kindled had force enough to get his men to do his will and keep his secret. A man well-served, well-feared, perhaps even well-loved. A man who would neither steal anything from the dead himself, nor allow any of his people to do so. All committed to the fire. Those who worked for him respected and obeyed him. Leoric Aspley is such a man, and in such a manner he might behave, if he believed a son of his had murdered from ambush a man who had been a guest in his house. There would be no forgiveness. If he protected the murderer from the death due, it might well be for the sake of his name, and only to serve a lifetime's penance."

He was remembering their arrival in the rain, father and son, the one severe, cold and hostile, departing without the kiss due between kinsmen, the other submissive and dutiful, but surely against his nature, at once rebellious and resigned. Feverish in his desire to shorten his probation and be imprisoned past deliverance, but in his sleep fighting like a demon for his liberty. It made a true picture. But Mark was absolute that Meriet had lied.

"It lacks nothing," said Hugh, shaking his head. "He has said throughout that it was his own wish to take the cowl-so it might well be; good reason, if he was offered no other alternative but the gallows. The death came there, soon after leaving Aspley. The horse was taken far north and abandoned, so that the body should be sought only well away from where the man was killed. But whatever else the boy knows, he did not know that he was leading his gleaners straight to the place where the bones would be found, and his father's careful work undone. I take Mark's word for that, and by G.o.d, I am inclined to take Mark's word for the rest. But if Meriet did not kill the man, why should he so accept condemnation and sentence? Of his own will!"

"There is but one possible answer," said Cadfael. "To protect someone else."

"Then you are saying that he knows who the murderer is."

"Or thinks he knows," said Cadfael. "For there is veil on veil here hiding these people one from another, and it seems to me that Aspley, if he has done this to his son, believes he knows beyond doubt that the boy is guilty. And Meriet, since he has sacrificed himself to a life against which his whole spirit rebels, and now to shameful death, must be just as certain of the guilt of that other person whom he loves and desires to save. But if Leoric is so wildly mistaken, may not Meriet also be in error?"

"Are we not all?" said Hugh, sighing. "Come, let's go and see this sleep-walking penitent first, and-who knows?-if he's bent on confession, and has to lie to accomplish it, he may let slip something much more to our purpose. I'll say this for him, he was not prepared to let another poor devil suffer in his place, or even in the place of someone dearer to him than himself. Harald has fetched him out of his silence fast enough."

Meriet was sleeping when they came to Saint Giles. Cadfael stood beside the pallet in the barn, and looked down upon a face strangely peaceful and childlike, exorcised of its devil. Meriet's breathing was long and deep and sweet. It was believable that here was a tormented sinner who had made confession and cleansed his breast, and found all things thereafter made easy. But he would not repeat his confession to a priest. Mark had a very powerful argument there.

"Let him rest," said Hugh, when Mark, though reluctantly, would have awakened the sleeper. "We can wait." And wait they did, the better part of an hour, until Meriet stirred and opened his eyes. Even then Hugh would have him tended and fed and given drink before he consented to sit by him and hear what he had to say. Cadfael had looked him over, and found nothing wrong that a few days of rest would not mend, though he had turned an ankle and foot under him in falling, and would find it difficult and painful to put any weight upon it for some time. The blow on the head had shaken his wits sadly, and his memory of recent days might be hazy, though he held fast to the one more distant memory which he so desired to declare. The gash crossing his temple would soon heal; the bleeding had already stopped.

His eyes, in the dim light within the barn, shone darkly green, staring up dilated and intent. His voice was faint but resolute, as he repeated with slow emphasis the confession he had made to Brother Mark. He was bent on convincing, very willing and patient in dredging up details. Listening, Cadfael had to admit to himself, with dismay, that Meriet was indeed utterly convincing. Hugh must also be thinking so.

He questioned, slowly and evenly: "You watched the man ride away, with your father in attendance, and made no demur. Then you went out with your bow-mounted or afoot?"

"Mounted," said Meriet with fiery readiness; for if he had gone on foot, how could he have circled at speed, and been ahead of the rider after his escort had left him to return home? Cadfael remembered Isouda saying that Meriet had come home late that afternoon with his father's party, though he had not ridden out with them. She had not said whether he was mounted when he returned or walking; that was something worth probing.

"With murderous intent?" Hugh pursued mildly. "Or did this thing come on you unawares? For what can you have had against Master Clemence to warrant his death?"

"He had made far too free with my brother's bride," said Meriet. "I did hold it against him-a priest, playing the courtier, and so sure of his height above us. A manorless man, with only his learning and his patron's name for lands and lineage, and looking down upon us, as long rooted as we are. On grievance for my brother..."

"Yet your brother made no move to take reparation," said Hugh.

"He was gone to the Lindes, to Roswitha... He had escorted her home the night before, and I am sure he had quarrelled with her. He went out early, he did not even see the guest leave, he went to make good whatever was ill between those two... He never came home," said Meriet, clearly and firmly, "until late in the evening, long after all was over."

True, by Isouda's account, thought Cadfael. After all was over, and Meriet brought home a convicted murderer, to reappear only after he had chosen of his own will to ask admittance to the cloister, and was prepared to go forth on his parole, and so declare himself, an oblate to the abbey, fully aware of what he was doing. So he had told his very acute and perceptive playmate, in calm control of himself. He was doing what he wished to do.

"But you, Meriet, you rode ahead of Master Clemence. With murder in mind?"

"I had not thought," said Meriet, hesitating for the first time. "I went alone... But I was angry."

"You went in haste," said Hugh, pressing him, "if you overtook the departing guest, and by a roundabout way, if you pa.s.sed and intercepted him, as you say."

Meriet stretched and stiffened in his bed, large eyes straining on his questioner. He set his jaw. "I did hasten, though not for any deliberate purpose. I was in thick covert when I was aware of him riding towards me, in no hurry. I drew and loosed upon him. He fell..." Sweat broke on the pallid brow beneath his bandages. He closed his eyes.

"Let be!" said Cadfael, quiet at Hugh's shoulder. "He has enough."

"No," said Meriet strongly. "Let me make an end. He was dead when I stooped over him. I had killed him. And my father took me so, red-handed. The hounds-he had hounds with him-they scented me and brought him down upon me. He has covered up for my sake, and for the sake of an honoured name, what I did, but for whatever he may have done that is unlawful, to keep me man alive, I take the blame upon me, for I am the cause of it. But he would not condone. He promised me cover for my forfeit life, if I would accept banishment from the world and take myself off into the cloister. What was done afterwards no one ever told me. I did by my own will and consent accept my penalty. I even hoped... and I have tried... But set down all that was done to my account, and let me pay all."

He thought he had done, and heaved a great sigh out of him, Hugh also sighed and stirred as if about to rise, but then asked carelessly: "At what hour was this, Meriet, that your father happened upon you in the act of murder?"

"About three in the afternoon," said Meriet indifferently, falling headlong into the trap.

"And Master Clemence set out soon after Prime? It took him a great while," said Hugh with deceptive mildness, "to ride somewhat over three miles."

Meriet's eyes, half-closed in weariness and release from tension, flared wide open in consternation. It cost him a convulsive struggle to master voice and face, but he did it, hoisting up out of the well of his resolution and dismay a credible answer. "I cut my story too short, wanting it done. When this thing befell it cannot have been even mid-morning. But I ran from him and let him lie, and wandered the woods in dread of what I'd done. But in the end I went back. It seemed better to hide him in the thick coverts off the pathways, where he could lie undiscovered, and I might come by night and bury him. I was in terror, but in the end I went back. I am not sorry," said Meriet at the end, so simply that somewhere in those last words there must be truth. But he had never shot down any man. He had come upon a dead man lying in his blood, just as he had balked and stood aghast at the sight of Brother Wolstan bleeding at the foot of the appletree. A three-mile ride from Aspley, yes, thought Cadfael with certainty, but well into the autumn afternoon, when his father was out with hawk and hound. "I am not sorry," said Meriet again, quite gently. "It's good that I was taken so. Better still that I have now told you all."

Hugh rose, and stood looking down at him with an unreadable face. "Very well! You should not yet be moved, and there is no reason you should not remain here in Brother Mark's care. Brother Cadfael tells me you would need crutches if you tried to walk for some days yet. You'll be secure enough where you are."

"I would give you my parole," said Meriet sadly, "but I doubt if you would take it. But Mark will, and I will submit myself to him. Only-the other man-you will see he goes free?"

"You need not fret, he is cleared of all blame but a little thieving to fill his belly, and that will be forgotten. It is to your own case you should be giving thought," said Hugh gravely. "I would urge you receive a priest and make your confession."

"You and the hangman can be my priests," said Meriet, and fetched up from somewhere a wry and painful smile.

"He is lying and telling truth in the selfsame breath," said Hugh with resigned exasperation on the way back along the Foregate. "Almost surely what he says of his father's part is truth, so he was caught, and so he was both protected and condemned. That is how he came to you, willing-unwilling. It accounts for all the to-and-fro you have had with him, waking and sleeping. But it does not give us our answer to who killed Peter Clemence, for it's as good as certain Meriet did not. He had not even thought of that glaring error in the time of day, until I prodded him with it. And considering the shock it gave him, he did pretty well at accounting for it. But far too late. To have made that mistake was enough. Now what is our best way? Supposing we should blazon it abroad that young Aspley has confessed to the murder, and put his neck in a noose? If he is indeed sacrificing himself for someone else, do you think that person would come forward and loose the knot and slip his own neck in it, as Meriet has for him?"

With bleak conviction Cadfael said: "No. If he let him go unredeemed into one h.e.l.l to save his own sweet skin, I doubt if he'd lift a hand to help him down from the gallows. G.o.d forgive me if I misjudge him, but on that conscience there'll be no relying. And you would have committed yourself and the law to a lie for nothing, and brought the boy deeper into grief. No. We have still a little time, let things be. In two or three days more this wedding party will be with us in the abbey, and Leoric Aspley could be brought to answer for his own part, but since he's truly convinced Meriet is guilty, he can hardly help us to the real murderer. Make no move to bring him to account, Hugh, until after the marriage. Let me have him to myself until then. I have certain thoughts concerning this father and son."

"You may have him and welcome," said Hugh, "for as things are I'm d.a.m.ned if I know what to do with him. His offence is rather against the church than against any law I administer. Depriving a dead man of Christian burial and the proper rites due to him is hardly within my writ. Aspley is a patron of the abbey, let the lord abbot be his judge. The man I want is the murderer. You, I know, want to hammer it into that old tyrant's head that he knows his younger son so poorly that mere acquaintances of a few weeks have more faith in the lad, and more understanding of him, than his sire has. And I wish you success. As for me, Cadfael, I'll tell you what troubles me most. I cannot for my life see what cause anyone in these parts, Aspley or Linde or Foriet or who you will, had to wish Peter Clemence out of the world. Shoot him down for being too bold and too ingratiating with the girl? Foolery! The man was leaving, none of them had seen much of him before, none need ever see him again, and the bridegroom's only concern, it seems, was to make his peace with his bride after too sharp reproaches. Kill for such a cause? Not unless a man ran utterly mad. You tell me the girl will flutter her lashes at every admirer, but none has ever died for it. No, there is, there must be, another cause, but for my life I cannot see what it can be."

It had troubled Cadfael, too. Minor brawls of one evening over a girl, and over too a.s.siduous compliments to her, not affronts, a mere bubble in one family's. .h.i.therto placid life-no, men do not kill for such trivial causes. And no one had ever yet suggested a deeper quarrel with Peter Clemence. His distant kinsmen knew him but slightly, their neighbours not at all. If you find a new acquaintance irritating, but know he remains for only one night, you bear with him tolerantly, and wave him away from your doorsill with a smile, and breathe the more easily thereafter. But you do not skulk in woods where he must pa.s.s, and shoot him down.

But if it was not the man himself, what else could there be to bring him to his death? His errand? He had not said what it was, at least while Isouda was by to hear. And even if he had, what was there in that to make it necessary to halt him? A civil diplomatic mission to two northern lords, to secure their allegiance to Bishop Henry's efforts for peace. A mission Canon Eluard had since pursued successfully, to such happy effect that he had now conducted his king thither to seal the accord, and by this time was accompanying him south again to keep his Christmas in high content. There could be nothing amiss there. Great men have their private plans, and may welcome at one time a visit they repel at another, but here was the proof of the approach, and a reasonably secure Christmas looming.

Back to the man, and the man was harmless, a pa.s.sing kinsman expanding and preening himself under a family roof, then pa.s.sing on.

No personal grudge, then. So what was left but the common hazard of travel, the sneak-thief and killer loose in the wild places, ready to pull a man from his horse and bludgeon his head to pulp for the clothes he wore, let alone a splendid horse and a handful of jewellery? And that was ruled out, because Peter Clemence had not been robbed, not of a silver buckle, not of a jewelled cross. No one had benefited in goods or gear from his death, even the horse had been turned loose in the mosses with his harness untouched.

"I have wondered about the horse," said Hugh, as though he had been following Cadfael's thoughts.

"I, too. The night after you brought the beast back to the abbey, Meriet called him in his sleep. Did they ever tell you that? Barbary, Barbary-and he whistled after him. His devil whistled back to him, the novices said. I wonder if he came, there in the woods, or if Leoric had to send out men after him later? I think he would come to Meriet. When he found the man dead, his next thought would be for the beast, he went calling him."

"The hounds may well have picked up his voice," said Hugh ruefully, "before ever they got his scent. And brought his father down on him."

"Hugh, I have been thinking. The lad answered you very valiantly when you fetched him up hard against that error in time. But I do not believe it had dawned on him at all what it meant. See, if Meriet had simply blundered upon a lone body dead in the forest, with no sign to turn his suspicions towards any man, all he would then have known was that Clemence had ridden but a short way before he was shot. Then how could the boy know or even guess by whom? But if he chanced upon some other soul trapped as he was, stooped over the dead, or trying to drag him into hiding-someone close and dear to him-then he has not realised, even now, that this someone else came to this spot in the forest, even as he himself did, at least six hours too late to be the murderer!"

On the eighteenth day of December Canon Eluard rode into Shrewsbury in very good conceit of himself, having persuaded his king into a visit which had turned out conspicuously well, and escorted him thus far south again towards his customary London Christmas, before leaving him in order to diverge westward in search of news of Peter Clemence. Chester and Lincoln, both earls now in name as well as in fact, had made much of Stephen, and pledged him their unshakable loyalty, which he in turn had recognised with gifts of land as well as t.i.tles. Lincoln castle he retained in his own hand, well-garrisoned, but the city and the s.h.i.+re were open to his new earl. The atmosphere in Lincoln had been of holiday and ease, aided by clement weather for December. Christmas in the north-east bade fair to be a carefree festival.