“Do you so much as know the meaning of the vows you say you wish to take?” fumed Jerome. “Celibacy, poverty, obedience, stability—is there any sign in you of any of these? Take thought now, while you may, renounce all thought of such follies and pollutions as this vain thing implies, or you cannot be accepted here. Penance for this backsliding you will not escape, but you have time to amend, if there is any grace in you.”
“Grace enough, at any rate,” said Meriet, unabashed and glittering, “to keep my hands from prying into another man’s sheets and stealing his possessions. Give me,” he said through his teeth, very quietly, “what is mine!”
“We shall see, insolence, what the lord abbot has to say of your behaviour. Such a vain trophy as this you may not keep. And as for your insubordination, it shall be reported faithfully. Now let me pass!” ordered Jerome, supremely confident still of his dominance and his tightness.
Whether Meriet mistook his intention, and supposed that it was simply a matter of sweeping the entire issue into chapter for the abbot’s judgment, Cadfael could never be sure. The boy might have retained sense enough to accept that, even if it meant losing his simple little treasure in the end; for after all, he had come here of his own will, and at every check still insisted that he wanted with all his heart to be allowed to remain and take his vows. Whatever his reason, he did step back, though with a frowning and dubious face, and allowed Jerome to come forth into the corridor.
Jerome turned towards the night-stairs, where the lamp was still burning, and all his mute myrmidons followed respectfully. The lamp stood in a shallow bowl on a bracket on the wall, and was guttering towards its end. Jerome reached it, and before either Cadfael or Meriet realised what he was about, he had drawn the gauzy ribbon through the flame. The tress of hair hissed and vanished in a small flare of gold, the ribbon fell apart in two charred halves, and smouldered in the bowl. And Meriet, without a sound uttered, launched himself like a hound leaping, straight at Brother Jerome’s throat. Too late to grasp at his cowl and try to restrain him, Cadfael lunged after.
No question but Meriet meant to kill. This was no noisy brawl, all bark and no bite, he had his hands round the scrawny throat, bringing Jerome crashing to the floor-tiles under him, and kept his grip and held to his purpose though half a dozen of the dismayed and horrified novices clutched and clawed and battered at him, themselves ineffective, and getting in Cadfael’s way. Jerome grew purple, heaving and flapping like a fish out of water, and wagging his hands helplessly against the tiles. Cadfael fought his way through until he could stoop to Meriet’s otherwise oblivious ear, and bellow inspired words into it.
“For shame, son! An old man!”
In truth, Jerome lacked twenty of Cadfael’s own sixty years, but the need justified the mild exaggeration. Meriet’s ancestry nudged him in the ribs. His hands relaxed their grip, Jerome halsed in breath noisily and cooled from purple to brick-red, and a dozen hands hauled the culprit to his feet and held him, still breathing fire and saying no word, just as Prior Robert, tall and awful as though he wore the mitre already, came sailing down the tiled corridor, blazing like a bolt of the wrath of God.
In the bowl of the lamp, the two ends of flowered ribbon smouldered, giving off a dingy and ill-scented smoke, and the stink of the burned ringlet still hung upon the air.
Two of the lay servants, at Prior Robert’s orders, brought the manacles that were seldom used, shackled Meriet’s wrists, and led him away to one of the punishment cells isolated from all the communal uses of the house. He went with them, still wordless, too aware of his dignity to make any resistance, or put them to any anxiety on his account. Cadfael watched him go with particular interest, for it was as if he saw him for the first time. The habit no longer hampered him, he strode disdainfully, held his head lightly erect, and if it was not quite a sneer that curled his lips and his still roused nostrils, it came very close to it. Chapter would see him brought to book, and sharply, but he did not care. In a sense he had had his satisfaction.
As for Brother Jerome, they picked him up, put him to bed, fussed over him, brought him soothing draughts which Cadfael willingly provided, bound up his bruised throat with comforting oils, and listened dutifully to the feeble, croaking sounds he soon grew wary of assaying, since they were painful to him. He had taken no great harm, but he would be hoarse for some while, and perhaps for a time he would be careful and civil in dealing with the still unbroken sons of the nobility who came to cultivate the cowl. Mistakenly? Cadfael brooded over the inexplicable predilection of Meriet Aspley. If ever there was a youngster bred for the manor and the field of honour, for horse and arms, Meriet was the man.
“For shame, son! An old man!” And he had opened his hands and let his enemy go, and marched off the field prisoner, but with all the honours.
The outcome at chapter was inevitable; there was nothing to be done about that. Assault upon a priest and confessor could have cost him excommunication, but that was set aside in clemency. But his offence was extreme, and there was no fitting penalty but the lash. The discipline, there to be used only in the last resort, was nevertheless there to be used. It was used upon Meriet. Cadfael had expected no less. The criminal, allowed to speak, had contented himself with saying simply that he denied nothing of what was alleged against him. Invited to plead in extenuation, he refused, with impregnable dignity. And the scourge he endured without a sound.
In the evening, before Compline, Cadfael went to the abbot’s lodging to ask leave to visit the prisoner, who was confined to his solitary cell for some ten days of penance.
“Since Brother Meriet would not defend himself,” said Cadfael, “and Prior Robert, who brought him before you, came on the scene only late, it is as well that you should know all that happened, for it may bear on the manner in which this boy came to us.” And he recounted the sad history of the keepsake Meriet had concealed in his cell and fondled by night. “Father, I don’t claim to know. But the elder brother of our most troublous postulant is affianced, and is to marry soon, as I understand.”
“I take your meaning,” said Radulfus heavily, leaning linked hands upon his desk, “and I, too, have thought of this. His father is a patron of our house, and the marriage is to take place here in December. I had wondered if the younger son’s desire to be out of the world… It would, I think, account for him.” And he smiled wryly for all the plagued young who believe that frustration in love is the end of their world, and there is nothing left for them but to seek another. “I have been wondering for a week or more,” he said, “whether I should not send someone with knowledge to speak with his sire, and examine whether we are not all doing this youth a great disservice, in allowing him to take vows very ill-suited to his nature, however much he may desire them now.”
“Father,” said Cadfael heartily, “I think you would be doing right.”
The boy has qualities admirable in themselves, even here,” said Radulfus half-regretfully, “but alas, not at home here. Not for thirty years, and after satiety with the world, after marriage, and child-getting and child-rearing, and the transmission of a name and a pride of birth. We have our ambience, but they—they are necessary to continue both what they know, and what we can teach them. These things you understand, as do all too few of us who harbour here and escape the tempest. Will you go to Aspley in my behalf?”
“With all my heart, Father,” said Cadfael.
“Tomorrow?”
“Gladly, if you so wish. But may I, then, go now and see both what can be done to settle Brother Meriet, mind and body, and also what I can learn from him?”