Brother Cadfael 08: The Devil's Novice

taken on himself is to fight, or to salvage poor souls from the fighting, to kill, to die or to heal. There are many will claim to tell you what is due from you, but only one who can shear through the many, and reach the truth. And that is you, by what light falls for you to show the way. Do you know what is hardest for me here of all I have vowed? Obedience. And I am old.' And have had my fling, and a wild one, was implied. And what am I trying to do now, he wondered, to warn him off pledging too soon what he cannot give, what he has not got to give?
    'It is true!' said Meriet abruptly. 'Every man must do what is laid on him to do and not question. If that is obedience?' And suddenly he turned upon Brother Cadfael a countenance altogether young, devout and exalted, as though he had just kissed, as once Cadfael had, the crossed hilt of his own poniard, and pledged his life's blood to some cause as holy to him as the deliverance of the city of God.
    Cadfael had Meriet on his mind the rest of that day, and after Vespers he confided to Brother Paul the uneasiness he felt in recalling the day's disaster; for Paul had been left behind with the children, and the reports that had reached him had been concerned solely with Brother Wolstan's fall and injuries, not with the unaccountable horror they had aroused in Meriet.
    'Not that there's anything strange in shying at the sight of a man lying in his blood, they were all shaken by it. But he - what he felt was surely extreme.' Brother Paul shook his head doubtfully over his difficult charge. 'Everything he feels is extreme. I don't find in him the calm and the certainty that should go with a true vocation. Oh, he is duty itself, whatever I ask of him he does, whatever task I set him he performs, he's greedy to go faster than I lead him. I never had a more diligent student. But the others don't like him, Cadfael. He shuns them. Those who have tried to approach him say he turns from them, and is rough and short in making his escape. He'd rather go solitary. I tell you, Cadfael, I never knew a postulant pursue his novitiate with so much passion, and so little joy. Have you once seen him smile since he entered here?"
    Yes, once, thought Cadfael; this afternoon before Wolstan fell, when he was picking apples in the orchard, the first time he's left the enclave since his father brought him in.
    'Do you think it would be well to bring him to chapter?' he wondered dubiously.
    'I did better than that, or so I hoped. With such a nature, I would not seem to be complaining where I have no just cause for complaint. I spoke to Father Abbot about him. "Send him to me," says Radulfus, "and reassure him," he says, "that I am here to be open to any who need me, the youngest boy as surely as any of my obedientiaries, and he may approach me as his own father, without fear." And send him I did, and told him he could open his thoughts with every confidence. And what came of it? "Yes, Father, no, Father, I will, Father!" and never a word blurted out from the heart. The only thing that opens his lips freely is the mention that he might be mistaken in coming here, and should consider again. That brings him to his knees fast enough. He begs to have his probation shortened, to be allowed to take his vows soon. Father Abbot read him a lecture on humility and the right use of the year's novitiate, and he took it to heart, or seemed to, and promised patience. But still he presses. Books he swallows faster than I can feed them to him, he's bent on hurrying to his vows at all costs. The slower ones resent him. Those who can keep pace with him, having the start of him by two months or more, say he scorns them. That he avoids I've seen for myself. I won't deny I'm troubled for him.'
    So was Cadfael, though he did not say how deeply.
    'I couldn't but wonder ... ' went on Paul thoughtfully. 'Tell him he may come to me as to his father, without fear, says the abbot. What sort of reassurance should that be to a young fellow new from home? Did you see them, Cadfael, when they came? The pair of them together?'
    'I did,' said Cadfael cautiously, 'though only for moments as they lighted down and shook off the rain, and went within.'
    'When did you need more than moments?' said Brother Paul. 'As to his own father, indeed! I was present throughout, I saw them part. Without a tear, with few words and hard, his sire went hence and left him to me. Many, I know, have done so before, fearing the parting as much as their