“Ask me whatever you wish,” said Cadfael, shifting to find the least spiky position on the stones of the wall. “And then there are things I have to ask of you.”
“And you’ll tell me honestly what I need to know? Every part of it?” she challenged. Her voice had a child’s directness and high, clear pitch, but a lord’s authority.
“I will.” For she was equal to it, even prepared for it. Who knew this vexing Meriet better?
“How far has he got towards taking vows? What enemies has he made? What sort of fool has he made of himself, with his martyr’s wish? Tell me everything that has happened to him since he went from me.” “From me” was what she said, not “from us”.
Cadfael told her. If he chose his words carefully, yet he made them tell her the truth. She listened with so contained and armed a silence, nodding her head occasionally where she recognised necessity, shaking it where she deprecated folly, smiling suddenly and briefly where she understood, as Cadfael could not yet fully understand, the proceedings of her chosen man. He ended telling her bluntly of the penalty Meriet had brought upon himself, and even, which was a greater temptation to discretion, about the burned tress that was the occasion of his fall. It did not surprise or greatly dismay her, he noted. She thought about it no more than a moment.
“If you but knew the whippings he has brought on himself before! No one will ever break him that way. And your Brother Jerome has burned her lure—that was well done. He won’t be able to fool himself for long, with no bait left him.” She caught, Cadfael thought, his momentary suspicion that he had nothing more to deal with here than women’s jealousy. She turned and grinned at him with open amusement. “Oh, but I saw you meet them! I was watching, though they didn’t know it, and neither did you. Did you find her handsome? Surely you did, so she is. And did she not make herself graceful and pleasing for you? Oh, it was for you, be sure—why should she fish for Nigel, she has him landed, the only fish she truly wants. But she cannot help casting her line. She gave Meriet that lock of hair, of course! She can never quite let go of any man.”
It was so exactly what Cadfael had suspected, since casting eyes on Roswitha, that he was silenced.
“I’m not afraid of her,” said Isouda tolerantly. “I know her too well. He only began to imagine himself loving her because she belonged to Nigel. He must desire whatever Nigel desires, and he must be jealous of whatever Nigel possesses and he has not. And yet, if you’ll trust me, there is no one he loves as he loves Nigel. No one. Not yet!”
“I think,” said Cadfael, “you know far more than I about this boy who troubles my mind and engages my liking. And I wish you would tell me what he does not, everything about this home of his and how he has grown up in it. For he’s in need of your help and mine, and I am willing to be your dealer in this, if you wish him well, for so do I.”
She drew up her knees and wrapped her slender arms around them, and told him. “I am the lady of a manor, left young, and left to my father’s neighbour as his ward, my Uncle Leoric, though he is not my uncle. He is a good man.
I know my manor is as well-run as any in England, and my uncle takes nothing out of it. You must understand, this is a man of the old kind, stark upright. It is not easy to live with him, if you are his and a boy, but I am a girl, and he has been always indulgent and good to me. Madam Avota, who died two years back—well, she was his wife first, and only afterwards Meriet’s mother. You saw Nigel—what more could any man wish for his heir? They never even needed or wished for Meriet. They did all their duty by him when he came, but they could not even see past Nigel to notice the second one. And he was so different.”
She paused to consider the two, and probably had her finger on the very point where they went different ways.
“Do you think,” she asked doubtfully, “that small children know when they are only second-best? I think Meriet knew it early. He was different even to look at, but that was the least part. I think he always went the opposing way, whatever they wished upon him. If his father said white, Meriet said black; wherever they tried to turn him, he dug in his heels hard and wouldn’t budge. He couldn’t help learning, because he was sharp and curious, so he grew lettered, but when he knew they wanted him a clerk, he went after all manner of low company, and flouted his father every way. He’s always been jealous of Nigel,” said the girl, musing against her raised knees, “but always worshipped him. He flouts his father purposely, because he knows he’s loved less, and that grieves him bitterly, and yet he can’t hate Nigel for being loved more. How can he, when he loves him so much?”
“And Nigel repays his affection?” asked Cadfael, recollecting the elder brother’s troubled face.
“Oh, yes, Nigel’s fond of him, too. He always defended him. He’s stood between him and punishment many a time. And he always would keep him with him, whatever they were about, when they all played together.”
They?” said Cadfael. “Not “we”?”
Isouda spat out her chewed stem of late grass, and turned a surprised and smiling face. I’m the youngest, three years behind even Meriet, I was the infant struggling along behind. For a little while, at any rate. There was not much I did not see. You know the rest of us? Those two boys, with six years between them, and the two Lindes, midway between. And me, come rather late and too young. You’ve seen Roswitha. I don’t know if you’ve seen Janyn?”
“I have,” said Cadfael, “on my way here. He directed me.”
“They are twins. Had you guessed that? Though I think he got all the wits that were meant for both. She is only clever one way,” said Isouda judicially, “in binding men to her and keeping them bound. She was waiting for you to turn and look after her, and she would have rewarded you with one quick glance. And now you think I am only a silly girl, jealous of one prettier,” she said disconcertingly, and laughed at seeing him bridle. “I would like to be beautiful, why not? But I don’t envy Roswitha. And after our cross-grained fashion we have all been very close here. Very close! All those years must count for something.”
“It seems to me,” said Cadfael, “that you of all people best know this young man. So tell me, if you can, why did he ever take a fancy for the cloistered life? I know as well as any, now, how he clings to that intent, but for my life I do not see why. Are you any wiser?”
She was not. She shook her head vehemently. “It goes counter to all I know of him.”
“Tell me, then, everything you recall about the time when this resolve was made. And begin,” said Cadfael, “with the visit to Aspley of the bishop’s envoy, this Peter Clemence. You’ll know by now—who does not!—that the man never got to his next night’s lodging, and has not been seen since.”
She turned her head sharply to stare. “And his horse is found, so they’re saying now. Found near the Cheshire border. You don’t think Meriet’s whim has anything to do with that? How could it? And yet...” She had a quick and resolute mind, she was already making disquieting connections. “It was the eighth night of September that he slept at Aspley. There was nothing strange, nothing to remark. He came alone, very early in the evening. Uncle Leoric came out to greet him, and I took his cloak indoors and had the maids make ready a bed for him, and Meriet cared for his horse. He always makes easy friends with horses. We made good cheer for the guest. They were keeping it up in hall with music after I went to my bed. And the next morning he broke his fast, and Uncle Leoric and Fremund and two grooms rode with him the first part of his way.”
“What like was he, this clerk?”
She smiled, between indulgence and mild scorn. “Very fine, and knew it. Only a little older than Nigel, I should guess, but so travelled and sure of himself. Very handsome and courtly and witty, not like a clerk at all. Too courtly for Nigel’s liking! You’ve seen Roswitha, and what she is like. This young man was just as certain all women must be drawn to him. They were two who matched like hand and glove, and Nigel was not best pleased. But he held his tongue and minded his manners, at least while I was there. Meriet did not like their by-play, either, he took himself off early to the stable, he liked the horse better than the man.”
“Did Roswitha bide overnight, too?”
“Oh, no, Nigel walked home with her when it was growing dark. I saw them go.”
“Then her brother was not with her that night?”
“Janyn? No, Janyn has no interest in the company of lovers. He laughs at them. No, he stayed at home.”
“And the next day... Nigel did not ride with the guest departing? Nor Meriet? What were they about that morning?”
She frowned over that, thinking back. “I think Nigel must have gone quite early back to the Lindes. He is jealous of her, though he sees no wrong in her. I believe he was away most of the day, I don’t think he even came home to supper. And Meriet—I know he was with us when Master Clemence left, but after that I didn’t see him until late in the afternoon. Uncle Leoric had been out with hounds after dinner, with Fremund and the chaplain and his kennelman. I remember Meriet came back with them, though he didn’t ride out with them. He had his bow—he often went off solitary, especially when he was out of sorts with all of us. They went in, all. I don’t know why, it was a very quiet evening, I supposed because the guest was gone, and there was no call for ceremony. I don’t believe Meriet came to supper in hall that day. I didn’t see him again all the evening.”
“And after? When was it that you first heard of his wish to enter with us at Shrewsbury?”
“It was Fremund who told me, the night following. I hadn’t seen Meriet all that day to speak for himself. But I did the next day. He was about the manor as usual then, he did not look different, not in any particular. He came and helped me with the geese in the back field,” said Isouda, hugging her knees, “and I told him what I had heard, and that I thought he was out of his wits, and asked him why he should covet such a fruitless life...” She reached a hand to touch Cadfael’s arm, and a smile to assure herself of his understanding, quite unperturbed. “You are different, you’ve had one life already, a new one halfway is a fresh blessing for you, but what has he had? But he stared me in the eye, straight as a lance, and said he knew what he was doing, and it was what he wanted to do. And lately he had outgrown me and gone away from me, and there was no possible reason he should pretend with me, or scruple to tell me what I asked. And I have none to doubt what he did tell me. He wanted this. He wants it still. But why? That he never told me.”
“That,” said Brother Cadfael ruefully, “he has not told anyone, nor will not if he can evade it. What is to be done, lady, with this young man who wills to destroy himself, shut like a wild bird in a cage?”
“Well, he’s not lost yet,” said Isouda resolutely. “And I shall see him again when we come for Nigel’s marriage in December, and after that Roswitha will be out of his reach utterly, for Nigel is taking her north to the manor near Newark, which Uncle Leoric is giving to them to manage. Nigel was up there in midsummer, viewing his lordship and making ready, Janyn kept him company on the visit. Every mile of distance will help. I shall look for you, Brother Cadfael, when we come. I’m not afraid, now I’ve talked to you. Meriet is mine, and in the end I shall have him. It may not be me he dreams of now, but his dreams now are devilish, I would not be in those. I want him well awake. If you love him, you keep him from the tonsure, and I will do the rest!”
*
If I love him—and if I love you, faun, thought Cadfael, riding very thoughtfully homeward after leaving her. For you may very well be the woman for him. And what you have told me I must sort over with care, for Meriet’s sake, and for yours.
He took a little bread and cheese on his return, and a measure of beer, having forsworn a midday meal with a household where he felt no kinship; and that done, he sought audience with Abbot Radulfus in the busy quiet of the afternoon, when the great court was empty, and most of the household occupied in cloister or gardens or fields.
The abbot had expected him, and listened with acute attention to everything he had to recount.
“So we are committed to caring for this young man, who may be misguided in his choice, but still persists in it. There is no course open to us but to keep him, and give him every chance to win his way in among us. But we have also his fellows to care for, and they are in real fear of him, and of the disorders of his sleep. We have yet the nine remaining days of his imprisonment, which he seems to welcome. But after that, how can we best dispose of him, to allow him access to grace, and relieve the dortoir of its trouble?”
“I have been thinking of that same question,” said Cadfael. “His removal from the dortoir may be as great a benefit to him as to those remaining, for he is a solitary soul, and if ever he takes the way of withdrawal wholly I think he will be hermit rather than monk. It would not surprise me to find that he has gained by being shut in a penal cell, having that small space and great silence to himself, and able to fill it with his own meditations and prayers, as he could not do in a greater place shared by many others. We have not all the same image of brotherhood.”
“True! But we are a house of brothers sharing in common, and not so many desert fathers scattered in isolation,” said the abbot drily. “Nor can the young man be left for ever in a punishment cell, unless he plans to attempt the strangling of my confessors and obedientiaries one by one to ensure it. What have you to suggest?”
“Send him to serve under Brother Mark at Saint Giles,” said Cadfael. “He’ll be no more private there, but he will be in the company and the service of creatures manifestly far less happy than himself, lepers and beggars, the sick and maimed. It may be salutary. In them he can forget his own troubles. There are advantages beyond that. Such a period of absence will hold back his instruction, and his advance towards taking vows, but that can only be good, since clearly he is in no fit mind to take them yet. Also, though Brother Mark is the humblest and simplest of us all, he has the gift of many such innocent saints, of making his way into the heart. In time Brother Meriet may open to him, and be helped from his trouble. At least it would give us all a breathing-space.”
Keep him from the tonsure, said Isouda’s voice in his mind, and I will do the rest.
“So it would,” agreed Radulfus reflectively. “The boys will have time to forget their alarms, and as you say, ministering to men worse blessed than himself may be the best medicine for him. I will speak with Brother Paul, and when Brother Meriet has served out his penance he shall be sent there.”
And if some among us take it that banishment to work in the lazar-house is a further penance, thought Cadfael, going away reasonably content, let them take satisfaction from it. For Brother Jerome was not the man to forget an injury, and any sop to his revenge might lessen his animosity towards the offender. A term of service in the hospice at the far edge of the town might also serve more turns than Meriet’s, for Brother Mark, who tended the sick there, had been Cadfael’s most valued assistant until a year or so ago, and he had recently suffered the loss of his favourite and much-indulged waif, the little boy Bran, taken into the household of Joscelin and Iveta Lucy on their marriage, and would be somewhat lost without a lame duck to cosset and care for. It wanted only a word in Mark’s ear concerning the tormented record of the devil’s novice, and his ready sympathy would be enlisted on Meriet’s behalf. If Mark could not reach him, no one could; but at the same time he might also do much for Mark. Yet another advantage was that Brother Cadfael, as supplier of the many medicines, lotions and ointments that were in demand among the sick, visited Saint Giles every third week, and sometimes oftener, to replenish the medicine cupboard, and could keep an eye on Meriet’s progress there.
Brother Paul, coming from the abbot’s parlour before Vespers, was clearly relieved at the prospect of enjoying a lengthened truce even after Meriet was released from his prison.
“Father Abbot tells me the suggestion came from you. It was well thought of, there’s need of a long pause and a new beginning, though the children will easily forget their terrors. But that act of violence—that will not be so easily forgotten.”
“How is your penitent faring?” asked Cadfael. “Have you visited him since I was in there early this morning?”
“I have. I am not so sure of his penitence,” said Brother Paul dubiously, “but he is very quiet and biddable, and listens to exhortation patiently. I did not try him too far. We are failing sadly if he is happier in a cell than out among us. I think the only thing that frets him is having no work to do, so I have taken him the sermons of Saint Augustine, and given him a better lamp to read by, and a little desk he can set on his bed. Better far to have his mind occupied, and he is quick at letters. I suppose you would rather have given him Palladius on agriculture,” said Paul, mildly joking. “Then you could make a case for taking him into your herbarium, when Oswin moves on.”
It was an idea that had occurred to Brother Cadfael, but better the boy should go clean away, into Mark’s gentle stewardship. “I have not asked leave again,” he said, “but if I may visit him before bed, I should be glad. I did not tell him of my errand to his father, I shall not tell him now, but there are two people there have sent him messages of affection which I have promised to deliver.” There was also one who had not, and perhaps she knew her own business best.
“Certainly you may go in before Compline,” said Paul. “He is justly confined, but not ostracised. To shun him utterly would be no way to bring him into our family, which must be the end of our endeavours.”
It was not the end of Cadfael’s but he did not feel it necessary or timely to say so. There is a right place for every soul under the sun, but it had already become clear to him that the cloister was no place for Meriet Aspley, however feverishly he demanded to be let in.
*
Meriet had his lamp lighted, and so placed as to illumine the leaves of Saint Augustine on the head of his cot. He looked round quickly but tranquilly when the door opened, and knowing the incomer, actually smiled. It was very cold in the cell, the prisoner wore habit and scapular for warmth, and by the careful way he turned his body, and the momentary wincing halt to release a fold of his shirt from a tender spot, his weals were stiffening as they healed.
“I’m glad to see you so healthily employed,” said Cadfael. “With a small effort in prayer, Saint Augustine may do you good. Have you used the balm since this morning? Paul would have helped you, if you had asked him.”
“He is good to me,” said Meriet, closing his book and turning fully to his visitor. And he meant it, that was plain.
“But you did not choose to condescend to ask for sympathy or admit to need—I know! Let me have off the scapular and drop your habit.” It had certainly not yet become a habit in which he felt at home, he moved naturally in it only when he was aflame, and forgot he wore it. “There, lie down and let me at you.”
Meriet presented his back obediently, and allowed Cadfael to draw up his shirt and anoint the fading weals that showed only here and there a dark dot of dried blood. “Why do I do what you tell me?” he wondered, mildly rebelling. “As though you were no brother at all, but a father?”
“From all I’ve heard of you,” said Cadfael, busy with his balm, “you are by no means known for doing what your own father tells you.”
Meriet turned in his cradling arms and brought to bear one bright green-gold eye upon his companion. “How do you know so much of me? Have you been there and talked with my father?” He was ready to bristle in distrust, the muscles of his back had tensed. “What are they trying to do? What business is there needs my father’s word now? I am here! If I offend, I pay. No one else settles my debts.”
“No one else has offered,” said Cadfael placidly. “You are your own master, however ill you master yourself. Nothing is changed. Except that I have to bring you messages, which do not meddle with your lordship’s liberty to save or damn yourself. Your brother sends you his best remembrances and bids me say he holds you in his love always.”
Meriet lay very still, only his brown skin quivered very faintly under Cadfael’s fingers.
“And the lady Roswitha also desires you to know that she loves you as befits a sister.”
Cadfael softened in his hands the stiffened folds of the shirt, where they had dried hard, and drew the linen down over fading lacerations that would leave no scar. Roswitha might be far more deadly. “Draw up your gown now, and if I were you I’d put out the lamp and leave your reading, and sleep.” Meriet lay still on his face, saying never a word. Cadfael drew up the blanket over him, and stood looking down at the mute and rigid shape in the bed.
It was no longer quite rigid, the wide shoulders heaved in a suppressed and resented rhythm, the braced forearms were stiff and protective, covering the hidden face. Meriet was weeping. For Roswitha or for Nigel? Or for his own fate?
“Child,” said Cadfael, half-exasperated and half-indulgent, “you are nineteen years old, and have not even begun to live, and you think in the first misery of your life that God has abandoned you. Despair is deadly sin, but worse it is mortal folly. The number of your friends is legion, and God is looking your way as attentively as ever he did. And all you have to do to deserve is to wait in patience, and keep up your heart.”
Even through his deliberate withdrawal and angrily suppressed tears Meriet was listening, so much was clear by his tension and stillness.
“And if you care to know,” said Cadfael, almost against his will, and sounding still more exasperated in consequence, “yes, I am, by God’s grace, a father. I have a son. And you are the only one but myself who knows it.”
And with that he pinched out the wick of the lamp, and in the darkness went to thump on the door to be let out.
*
It was a question, when Cadfael visited next morning, which of them was the more aloof and wary with the other, each of them having given away rather more than he had intended. Plainly there was to be no more of that. Meriet had put on an austere and composed face, not admitting to any weakness, and Cadfael was gruff and practical, and after a look at the little that was still visible of the damage to his difficult patient, pronounced him in no more need of doctoring, but very well able to concentrate on his reading, and make the most of his penitential time for the good of his soul.
“Does that mean,” asked Meriet directly, “that you are washing your hands of me?”
“It means I have no more excuse for demanding entry here, when you are supposed to be reflecting on your sins in solitude.”
Meriet scowled briefly at the stones of the wall, and then said stiffly: “It is not that you fear I’ll take some liberty because of what you were so good as to confide to me? I shall never say a word, unless to you and at your instance.”
“No such thought ever entered my mind,” Cadfael assured him, startled and touched. “Do you think I would have said it to a blabbermouth who would not know a confidence when one was offered him? No, it’s simply that I have no warranty to go in and out here without good reason, and I must abide by the rules as you must.”
The fragile ice had already melted. “A pity, though,” said Meriet, unbending with a sudden smile which Cadfael recalled afterwards as both startlingly sweet and extraordinarily sad. “I reflect on my sins much better when you are here scolding. In solitude I still find myself thinking how much I would like to make Brother Jerome eat his own sandals.”
“We’ll consider that a confession in itself,” said Cadfael, “and one that had better not be made to any other ears. And your penance will be to make do without me until your ten days of mortification are up. I doubt you’re incorrigible and past praying for, but we can but try.”
He was at the door when Meriet asked anxiously: “Brother Cadfael...?” And when he turned at once: “Do you know what they mean to do with me afterwards?”
“Not to discard you, at all events,” said Cadfael, and saw no reason why he should not tell him what was planned for him. It seemed that nothing was changed. The news that he was in no danger of banishment from his chosen field calmed, reassured, placated Meriet; it was all that he wanted to hear. But it did not make him happy.
Cadfael went away discouraged, and was cantankerous with everyone who came in his path for the rest of the day.