Brother Cadfael 08: The Devil's Novice

Christian burial to protect the good name of my own house, I am glad now that the hand of God made use of my own abused son to uncover and undo the evil I have done. Whatever penance you decree for me in that matter, I shall add to it an endowment to provide Masses for his soul as long as my own life continues ... ' As proud and rigid in confessing faults as in correcting them in his son, he unwound the tale to the end, and to the end Radulfus listened patiently and gravely, decreed measured terms by way of amends, and gave absolution.
    Leoric arose stiffly from his knees, and went out in unaccustomed humility and dread, to look for the one son he had left.
    The rapping at the closed and barred door of Cadfael's workshop came when the wine, one of Cadfael's three-year-old brews, had begun to warm Meriet into a hesitant reconciliation with life, blurring the sharp memories of betrayal. Cadfael opened the door, and into the mellow ring of light from the brazier stepped Isouda in her grown-up wedding finery, crimson and rose and ivory, a silver fillet round her hair, her face solemn and important. There was a taller shape behind her in the doorway, shadowy against the winter dusk.
    'I thought we might find you here,' she said, and the light gilded her faint, secure smile. 'I am a herald. You have been sought everywhere. Your father begs you to admit him to speech with you.'
    Meriet had stiffened where he sat, knowing who stood behind her. 'That is not the way I was ever summoned to my father's presence,' he said, with a fading spurt of malice and pain. 'In his house things were not conducted so.'
    'Very well then,' said Isouda, undisturbed. 'Your father orders you to admit him here, or I do in his behalf, and you had better be sharp and respectful about it.' And she stood aside, eyes imperiously beckoning Brother Cadfael and Brother Mark, as Leoric came into the hut, his tall head brushing the dangling bunches of dried herbs swinging from the beams.
    Meriet rose from the bench and made a slow, hostile but punctilious reverence, his back stiff as pride itself, his eyes burning. But his voice was quiet and secure as he said: 'Be pleased to come in. Will you sit, sir?' Cadfael and Mark drew away one on either side, and followed Isouda into the chill of the dusk. Behind them they heard Leoric say, very quietly and humbly: 'You will not now refuse me the kiss?' There was a brief and perilous silence; then Meriet said hoarsely: 'Father ... ' and Cadfael closed the door.
    In the high and broken heathland to the south-west of the town of Stafford, about this same hour, Nigel Aspley rode headlong into a deep copse, over thick, tussocky turf, and all but rode over his friend, neighbour and fellow-conspirator, Janyn Linde, cursing and sweating over a horse that went deadly lame upon a hind foot after treading askew and falling in the rough ground. Nigel cried recognition with relief, for he had small appetite for venturesome enterprises alone, and lighted down to look what the damage might be. But Isouda's horse limped to the point of foundering, and manifestly could go no further.
    'You?' cried Janyn. 'You broke through, then? God curse this damned brute, he's thrown me and crippled himself.' He clutched at his friend's arm. 'What have you done with my sister? Left her to answer for all? She'll run mad!'
    'She's well enough and safe enough, we'll send for her as soon as we may ... You to cry out on me!' flared Nigel, turning on him hotly. 'You made your escape in good time, and left the pair of us in mire to the brows. Who sank us in this bog in the first place? Did II bid you kill the man? All I asked was that you send a rider ahead to give warning, have them put everything out of sight quickly before he came. They could have done it! How could I send? The man was lodged there in our house, I had no one to send who would not be missed ... But you - you had to shoot him down ... '
    'I had the hardihood to make all certain, where you would have flinched,' spat Janyn, curling a contemptuous lip. 'A rider would have got there too late. I made sure the bishop's lackey should never get there.'
    'And left him lying! Lying in the open ride!'
    'For you to be fool enough to run there as soon as I told you!' Janyn hissed derisive scorn at such weakness of will and nerve. 'If you'd let him lie, who was ever to know who struck him down? But you must take fright, and rush to try and hide him, who was far better not hidden. And fetch your poor