Brother Cadfael 08: The Devil's Novice

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 hell to save his own sweet skin, I doubt if he'd lift a hand to help him down from the gallows. God 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 damned 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