Brother Cadfael 08: The Devil's Novice

while to exchange such information as they had. But the sum of it was sadly little.
    'The men of the moss,' said Hugh, 'are confident that not one of them has seen hide or hair of a stranger, whether victim or malefactor. Yet the plain fact is that the horse reached the moss, and the man surely cannot have been far away. It still seems to me that he lies somewhere in those peat-pools, and we are never likely to see or hear of him again. I have sent to Canon Eluard to try and find out what he carried on him. I gather he went very well-presented and was given to wearing jewels. Enough to tempt footpads. But if that was the way of it, it seems to be a first venture from farther north, and it may well be that our scourings there have warned off the maurauders from coming that way again for a while. There have been no other travellers molested in those parts. And indeed, strangers in the moss would be in some peril themselves. You need to know the safe places to tread. Still, for all I can see, that is what happened to Peter Clemence. I've left a sergeant and a couple of men up there, and the natives are on the watch for us, too.'
    Cadfael could not but agree that this was the likeliest answer to the loss of a man. 'And yet ... you know and I know that because one event follows another, it is not necessary the one should have caused the other. And yet the mind is so constructed, it cannot break the bond between the two. And here were two events, both unexpected; Clemence visited and departed - for he did depart, not one but four people rode a piece with him and said farewell to him in goodwill - and two days later the younger son of the house declared his intent to take the cowl. There is no sensible connection, and I cannot reeve the two apart.'
    'Does that mean,' demanded Hugh plainly, 'that you think this boy may have had a hand in a man's death and be taking refuge in the cloister?'
    'No,' said Cadfael decidedly. 'Don't ask what is in my mind, for all I find there is mist and confusion, but whatever lies behind the mist, I feel certain it is not that. What his motive is I dare not guess, but I do not believe it is blood-guilt.' And even as he said and meant it, he saw again Brother Wolstan prone and bleeding in the orchard grass, and Meriet's face fallen into a frozen mask of horror.
    'For all that - and I respect what you say - I would like to keep a hand on this strange young man. A hand I can close at any moment if ever I should so wish,' said Hugh honestly. 'And you tell me he is to go to Saint Giles? To the very edge of town, close to woods and open heaths!'
    'You need not fret,' said Cadfael, 'he will not run. He has nowhere to run to, for whatever else is true, his father is utterly estranged from him and would refuse to take him in. But he will not run because he does not wish to. The only haste he still nurses is to rush into his final vows and be done with it, and beyond deliverance.'
    'It's perpetual imprisonment he's seeking, then? Not escape?' said Hugh, with his dark head on one side, and a rueful and affectionate smile on his lips.
    'Not escape, no. From all I have seen,' said Cadfael heavily, 'he knows of no way of escape, anywhere, for him.'
    At the end of his penance Meriet came forth from his cell, blinking even at the subdued light of a November morning after the chill dimness within, and was presented at chapter before austere, unrevealing faces to ask pardon for his offences and acknowledge the justice of his penalty, which he did, to Cadfael's relief and admiration, with a calm and dignified bearing and a quiet voice. He looked thinner for his low diet, and his summer brown, smooth copper when he came, had faded into dark, creamy ivory, for though he tanned richly, he had little colour beneath the skin except when enraged. He was docile enough now, or had discovered how to withdraw into himself so far that curiosity, censure and animosity should not be able to move him.
    'I desire,' he said, 'to learn what is due from me and to deliver it faithfully. I am here to be disposed of as may best be fitting.'
    Well, at any rate he knew how to keep his mouth shut, for evidently he had never let out, even to Brother Paul, that Cadfael had told him what was intended for him. By Isouda's account he must have been keeping his own counsel ever since he began to grow up, perhaps even before, as soon as it burned into his child's heart that he was not loved like his brother, and goaded him to turn mischievous