Brother Paul, coming from the abbot’s parlour before Vespers, was clearly relieved at the prospect of enjoying a lengthened truce even after Meriet was released from his prison.
“Father Abbot tells me the suggestion came from you. It was well thought of, there’s need of a long pause and a new beginning, though the children will easily forget their terrors. But that act of violence—that will not be so easily forgotten.”
“How is your penitent faring?” asked Cadfael. “Have you visited him since I was in there early this morning?”
“I have. I am not so sure of his penitence,” said Brother Paul dubiously, “but he is very quiet and biddable, and listens to exhortation patiently. I did not try him too far. We are failing sadly if he is happier in a cell than out among us. I think the only thing that frets him is having no work to do, so I have taken him the sermons of Saint Augustine, and given him a better lamp to read by, and a little desk he can set on his bed. Better far to have his mind occupied, and he is quick at letters. I suppose you would rather have given him Palladius on agriculture,” said Paul, mildly joking. “Then you could make a case for taking him into your herbarium, when Oswin moves on.”
It was an idea that had occurred to Brother Cadfael, but better the boy should go clean away, into Mark’s gentle stewardship. “I have not asked leave again,” he said, “but if I may visit him before bed, I should be glad. I did not tell him of my errand to his father, I shall not tell him now, but there are two people there have sent him messages of affection which I have promised to deliver.” There was also one who had not, and perhaps she knew her own business best.
“Certainly you may go in before Compline,” said Paul. “He is justly confined, but not ostracised. To shun him utterly would be no way to bring him into our family, which must be the end of our endeavours.”
It was not the end of Cadfael’s but he did not feel it necessary or timely to say so. There is a right place for every soul under the sun, but it had already become clear to him that the cloister was no place for Meriet Aspley, however feverishly he demanded to be let in.
Meriet had his lamp lighted, and so placed as to illumine the leaves of Saint Augustine on the head of his cot. He looked round quickly but tranquilly when the door opened, and knowing the incomer, actually smiled. It was very cold in the cell, the prisoner wore habit and scapular for warmth, and by the careful way he turned his body, and the momentary wincing halt to release a fold of his shirt from a tender spot, his weals were stiffening as they healed.
“I’m glad to see you so healthily employed,” said Cadfael. “With a small effort in prayer, Saint Augustine may do you good. Have you used the balm since this morning? Paul would have helped you, if you had asked him.”
“He is good to me,” said Meriet, closing his book and turning fully to his visitor. And he meant it, that was plain.
“But you did not choose to condescend to ask for sympathy or admit to need—I know! Let me have off the scapular and drop your habit.” It had certainly not yet become a habit in which he felt at home, he moved naturally in it only when he was aflame, and forgot he wore it. “There, lie down and let me at you.”
Meriet presented his back obediently, and allowed Cadfael to draw up his shirt and anoint the fading weals that showed only here and there a dark dot of dried blood. “Why do I do what you tell me?” he wondered, mildly rebelling. “As though you were no brother at all, but a father?”
“From all I’ve heard of you,” said Cadfael, busy with his balm, “you are by no means known for doing what your own father tells you.”
Meriet turned in his cradling arms and brought to bear one bright green-gold eye upon his companion. “How do you know so much of me? Have you been there and talked with my father?” He was ready to bristle in distrust, the muscles of his back had tensed. “What are they trying to do? What business is there needs my father’s word now? I am here! If I offend, I pay. No one else settles my debts.”
“No one else has offered,” said Cadfael placidly. “You are your own master, however ill you master yourself. Nothing is changed. Except that I have to bring you messages, which do not meddle with your lordship’s liberty to save or damn yourself. Your brother sends you his best remembrances and bids me say he holds you in his love always.”
Meriet lay very still, only his brown skin quivered very faintly under Cadfael’s fingers.
“And the lady Roswitha also desires you to know that she loves you as befits a sister.”
Cadfael softened in his hands the stiffened folds of the shirt, where they had dried hard, and drew the linen down over fading lacerations that would leave no scar. Roswitha might be far more deadly. “ Draw up your gown now, and if I were you I’d put out the lamp and leave your reading, and sleep.” Meriet lay still on his face, saying never a word. Cadfael drew up the blanket over him, and stood looking down at the mute and rigid shape in the bed.
It was no longer quite rigid, the wide shoulders heaved in a suppressed and resented rhythm, the braced forearms were stiff and protective, covering the hidden face. Meriet was weeping. For Roswitha or for Nigel? Or for his own fate?
“Child,” said Cadfael, half-exasperated and half-indulgent, “you are nineteen years old, and have not even begun to live, and you think in the first misery of your life that God has abandoned you. Despair is deadly sin, but worse it is mortal folly. The number of your friends is legion, and God is looking your way as attentively as ever he did. And all you have to do to deserve is to wait in patience, and keep up your heart.”
Even through his deliberate withdrawal and angrily suppressed tears Meriet was listening, so much was clear by his tension and stillness.
“And if you care to know,” said Cadfael, almost against his will, and sounding still more exasperated in consequence, “yes, I am, by God’s grace, a father. I have a son. And you are the only one but myself who knows it.”
And with that he pinched out the wick of the lamp, and in the darkness went to thump on the door to be let out.
It was a question, when Cadfael visited next morning, which of them was the more aloof and wary with the other, each of them having given away rather more than he had intended. Plainly there was to be no more of that. Meriet had put on an austere and composed face, not admitting to any weakness, and Cadfael was gruff and practical, and after a look at the little that was still visible of the damage to his difficult patient, pronounced him in no more need of doctoring, but very well able to concentrate on his reading, and make the most of his penitential time for the good of his soul.
“Does that mean,” asked Meriet directly, “that you are washing your hands of me?”
“It means I have no more excuse for demanding entry here, when you are supposed to be reflecting on your sins in solitude.”
Meriet scowled briefly at the stones of the wall, and then said stiffly: “It is not that you fear I’ll take some liberty because of what you were so good as to confide to me? I shall never say a word, unless to you and at your instance.”