Brother Cadfael 08: The Devil's Novice

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 He stood fronting them, wide-eyed and open-faced as was his nature, and they stared back at him with withdrawn and thoughtful faces.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, passionate 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 God.'
    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 God, 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