Brother Cadfael 08: The Devil's Novice

ill.' It came so suddenly and shortly, it struck like a lance. The two young men had been gone half an hour, time for the assassin's stroke, for the sneak-thief's knife, for any number of disasters. Leoric heaved up his head and snuffed the air of terror, and gasped aloud: 'My son ... ?' Only then did he recognise the brother who had come to Aspley on the abbot's errand. Cadfael saw hostile suspicion flare in the deep-set, arrogant eyes, and forestalled whatever his antagonist might have had to say.
    'It's high time,' said Cadfael, 'that you remembered you have two sons. Will you let one of them die uncomforted?'
    Chapter Eleven.
    Leoric went with him; striding impatiently, suspiciously, intolerantly, yet continuing to go with him. He questioned, and was not answered. When Cadfael said simply: 'Turn back, then, if that's your will, and make your own peace with God and him!' Leoric set his teeth and his jaw, and went on.
    At the rising path up the grass-slope to Saint Giles he checked, but rather to take stock of the place where his son served and suffered than out of any fear of the many contagions that might be met within. Cadfael brought him to the barn, where Meriet's pallet was still laid, and Meriet at this moment was seated upon it, the stout staff by which he hobbled about the hospice braced upright in his right hand, and his head leaned upon its handle. He would have been about the place as best he might since Prime, and Mark must have banished him to an interval of rest before the midday meal. He was not immediately aware of them, the light within the barn being dim and mellow, and subject to passing shadows. He looked several years older than the silent and submissive youth Leoric had brought to the abbey a postulant, almost three months earlier.
    His sire, entering with the light sidelong, stood gazing. His face was closed and angry, but the eyes in it stared in bewilderment and grief, and indignation, too, at being led here in this fashion when the sufferer had no mark of death upon him, but leaned resigned and quiet, like a man at peace with his fate.
    'Go in,' said Cadfael at Leoric's shoulder, 'and speak to him.' It hung perilously in the balance whether Leoric would not turn, thrust his deceitful guide out of the way, and stalk back by the way he had come. He did cast a black look over his shoulder and make to draw back from the doorway; but either Cadfael's low voice or the stir of movement had reached and startled Meriet. He raised his head and saw his father. The strangest contortion of astonishment, pain, and reluctant and grudging affection twisted his face. He made to rise respectfully and fumbled it in his haste. The crutch slipped out of his hand and thudded to the floor, and he reached for it, wincing.
    Leoric was before him. He crossed the space between in three long, impatient strides, pressed his son back to the pallet with a brusque hand on his shoulder, and restored the staff to his hand, rather as one exasperated by clumsiness than considerate of distress. 'Sit!' he said gruffly. 'No need to stir. They tell me you have had a fall, and cannot yet walk well.'
    'I have come to no great harm,' said Meriet, gazing up at him steadily. 'I shall be fit to walk very soon. I take it kindly that you have come to see me, I did not expect a visit. Will you sit, sir?'
    No, Leoric was too disturbed and too restless, he gazed about him at the furnishings of the barn, and only by rapid glimpses at his son. 'This life - the way you consented to - they tell me you have found it hard to come to terms with it. You put your hand to the plough, you must finish the furrow. Do not expect me to take you back again.' His voice was harsh but his face was wrung.
    'My furrow bids fair to be a short one, and I daresay I can hold straight to the end of it,' said Meriet sharply. 'Or have they not told you, also, that I have confessed the thing I did, and there is no further need for you to shelter me?'
    'You have confessed ... ' Leoric was at a loss. He passed a long hand over his eyes, and stared, and shook. The boy's dead calm was more confounding than any passion could have been.
    'I am sorry to have caused you so much labour and pain to no useful end,' said Meriet. 'But it was necessary to speak. They were making a great error, they had charged another man, some poor wretch living wild, who had taken food here and there. You had not heard that? Him, at least, I could deliver. Hugh Beringar has assured me no harm