Brother Cadfael 08: The Devil's Novice

will come to him. You would not have had me leave him in his peril? Give your blessing to this act, at least.'
    Leoric stood speechless some minutes, his tall body palsied and shaken as though he struggled with his own demon, before he sat down abruptly beside his son on the creaking pallet, and clamped a hand over Meriet's hand; and though his face was still marble-hard, and the very gesture of his hand like a blow, and his voice when he finally found words still severe and harsh, Cadfael nevertheless withdrew from them quietly, and drew the door to after him. He went aside and sat in the porch, not so far away that he could not hear the tones of the two voices within, though not their words, and so placed that he could watch the doorway. He did not think he would be needed any more, though at times the father's voice rose in helpless rage, and once or twice Meriet's rang with a clear and obstinate asperity. That did not matter, they would have been lost without the sparks they struck from each other.
    After this, thought Cadfael, let him put on indifference as icily as he will, I shall know better.
    He went back when he judged it was time, for he had much to say to Leoric for his own part before the hour of the abbot's dinner. Their rapid and high-toned exchanges ceased as he entered, what few words they still had to say came quietly and lamely.
    'Be my messenger to Nigel and to Roswitha. Say that I pray their happiness always. I should have liked to be there to see them wed,' said Meriet steadily, 'but that I cannot expect now.'
    Leoric looked down at him and asked awkwardly: 'You are cared for here? Body and soul?'
    Meriet's exhausted face smiled, a pale smile but warm and sweet. 'As well as ever in my life. I am very well-friended, here among my peers. Brother Cadfael knows!'
    And this time, at parting, it fell out not quite as once before. Cadfael had wondered. Leoric turned to go, turned back, wrestled with his unbending pride a moment, and then stopped almost clumsily and very briefly, and bestowed on Meriet's lifted cheek a kiss that still resembled a blow. Fierce blood mantled at the smitten cheekbone as Leoric straightened up, turned, and strode from the barn.
    He crossed towards the gate mute and stiff, his eyes looking inwards rather than out, so that he struck shoulder and hip against the gatepost, and hardly noticed the shock.
    'Wait!' said Cadfael. 'Come here with me into the church, and say whatever you have to say, and so will I. We still have time.'
    In the little single-aisled church of the hospice, under its squat tower, it was dim and chill, and very silent. Leoric knotted veined hands and wrung them, and turned in formidable quiet anger upon his guide. 'Was this well done, brother? Falsely you brought me here! You told me my son was mortally ill.'
    'So he is,' said Cadfael. 'Have you not his own word for it how close he feels his death? So are you, so are we all. The disease of mortality is in us from the womb, from the day of our birth we are on the way to our death. What matters is how we conduct the journey. You heard him. He has confessed to the murder of Peter Clemence. Why have you not been told that, without having to hear it from Meriet? Because there was no one to tell you else but Brother Mark, or Hugh Beringar, or myself, for no one else knows. Meriet believes himself to be watched as a committed felon, that barn his prison. Now, I tell you, Aspley, that it is not so. There is not one of us three who have heard his avowal, but is heart-sure he is lying. You are the fourth, his father, and the only one to believe in his guilt.'
    Leoric was shaking his head violently and wretchedly. 'I wish it were so, but I know better. Why do you say he is lying? What proof can you have for your trust, compared with that I have for my certainty?'
    'I will give you one proof for my trust,' said Cadfael, 'in exchange for all your proofs of your certainty. As soon as he heard there was another man accused, Meriet made his confession of guilt to the law, which can destroy his body. But resolutely he refused then and refuses still to repeat that confession to a priest, and ask penance and absolution for a sin he has not committed. That is why I believe him guiltless. Now show me, if you can, as strong a reason why you should believe him guilty.'
    The lofty, tormented grey head continued its anguished motions of rejection. 'I wish to God you were right and I wrong, but I know what I saw and what I heard. I