So it was not until two lay servants came to deliver the hospital’s customary loaves from the abbey bakery, on the third day, that word of the arrest of the runaway villein Harald came to Meriet’s ears. By chance it was he who took in the great basket and unloaded the bread in the store, helped by the two bakery hands who had brought it. For his silence they made up in volubility.
“You’ll be getting more and more beggars coming in for shelter, brother, if this cold weather sets in in earnest. Hard frost and an east wind again, no season to be on the roads.”
Civil but taciturn, Meriet agreed that winter came hard on the poor.
“Not that they’re all honest and deserving,” said the other, shrugging. “Who knows what you’re taking in sometimes? Rogues and vagabonds as likely as not, and who’s to tell the difference?”
“There’s one you might have got this week past that you can well do without,” said his fellow, “for you might have got a throat cut in the night, and whatever’s worth stealing made away with. But you’re safe from him, at any rate, for he’s locked up in Shrewsbury castle till he comes to his trial for murder.”
“For killing a priest, at that! He’ll pay for it with his own neck, surely, but that’s poor reparation for a priest.”
Meriet had turned, stiffly attentive, staring at them with frowning eyes. “For killing a priest? What priest? Who is this you speak of?”
“What, have you not heard yet? Why, the bishop of Winchester’s chaplain that was found in the Long Forest. A wild man who’s been preying on the houses outside the town killed him. It’s what I was saying, with winter coming on sharp now you might have had him shivering and begging at your door here, and with the priest’s own dagger under his ragged coat ready for you.”
“Let me understand you,” said Meriet slowly. “You say a man is taken for that death? Arrested and charged with it?”
“Taken, charged, gaoled, and as good as hanged,” agreed his informant cheerfully. “That’s one you need not worry your head about, brother.”
“What man is he? How did this come about?” asked Meriet urgently.
They told him, in strophe and antistrophe, pleased to find someone who had not already heard the tale.
“And waste of time to deny, for he had the dagger on him that belonged to the murdered man. Found it, he said, in the charcoal hearth there, and a likely tale that makes.”
Staring beyond them, Meriet asked, low-voiced: “What like is he, this fellow? A local man? Do you know his name?”
That they could not supply, but they could describe him. “Not from these parts, some runaway living rough, a poor starving wretch, swears he’s never done worse than steal a little bread or an egg to keep himself alive, but the foresters say he’s taken their deer in his time. Thin as a fence-pale, and in rags, a desperate case…”
They took their basket and departed, and Meriet went about his work in dead, cold silence all that day. A desperate case—yes, so it sounded. As good as hanged! Starved and runaway and living wild, thin to emaciation…
He said no word to Brother Mark, but one of the brightest and most inquisitive of the children had stretched his ears in the kitchen doorway and heard the exchanges, and spread the news through the household with natural relish. Life in Saint Giles, however sheltered, could be tedious, it was none the worse for an occasional sensation to vary the routine of the day. The story came to Brother Mark’s ears. He debated whether to speak or not, watching the chill mask of Meriet’s face, and the inward stare of his hazel eyes. But at last he did venture a word.
“You have heard, they have taken up a man for the killing of Peter Clemence?”
“Yes,” said Meriet, leaden-voiced, and looked through him and far away.
“If there is no guilt in him,” said Mark emphatically, “there will no harm come to him.”
But Meriet had nothing to say, nor did it seem fitting to Mark to add anything more. Yet he did watch his friend from that moment with unobtrusive care, and fretted to see how utterly he had withdrawn into himself with this knowledge that seemed to work in him like poison.
In the darkness of the night Mark could not sleep. It was some time now since he had stolen across to the barn by night, to listen intently at the foot of the ladder stair that led up into the loft, and take comfort in the silence that meant Meriet was deeply asleep; but on this night he made that pilgrimage again. He did not know the true cause and nature of Meriet’s pain, but he knew that it was heart-deep and very bitter. He rose with careful quietness, not to disturb his neighbours, and made his way out to the barn.
The frost was not so sharp that night, the air had a stillness and faint haze instead of the piercing starry glitter of past nights. In the loft there would be warmth enough, and the homely scents of timber, straw and grain, but also great loneliness for that inaccessible sleeper who shrank from having neighbours, for fear of frightening them. Mark had wondered lately whether he might not appeal to Meriet to come down and rejoin his fellowmen, but it would not have been easy to do without alerting that austere spirit to the fact that his slumbers had been spied upon, however benevolently, and Mark had never quite reached the point of making the assay.
He knew his way in pitch darkness to the foot of the steep stairway, a mere step-ladder unprotected by any rail. He stood there and held his breath, nose full of the harvest-scent of the barn. Above him the silence was uneasy, stirred by slight tremors of movement. He thought first that sleep was shallow, and the sleeper turning in his bed to find a posture from which he could submerge deeper into peace. Then he knew that he was listening to Meriet’s voice, withdrawn into a strange distance but unmistakable, without distinguishable words, a mere murmur, but terrible in its sustained argument between one need and another need, equally demanding. Like some obdurate soul drawn apart by driven horses, torn limb from limb. And yet so slight and faint a sound, he had to strain his ears to follow it.
Brother Mark stood wretched, wondering whether to go up and either awake this sleeper, if indeed he slept, or lie by him and refuse to leave him if he was awake. There is a time to let well or ill alone, and a time to go forward into forbidden places with banners flying and trumpets sounding, and demand a surrender. But he did not know if they were come to that extreme. Brother Mark prayed, not with words, but by somehow igniting a candle-flame within him that burned immensely tall, and sent up the smoke of his entreaty, which was all for Meriet.
Above him in the darkness a foot stirred in the small, dry dust of chaff and straw, like mice venturing forth by night. Soft steps moved overhead, even and slow. In the dimness below, softened now by filtering starlight, Mark stared upward, and saw the darkness stir and swirl. Something suave and pale dipped from the yawning trap, and reached for the top rung of the ladder; a naked foot. Its fellow followed, stooping a rung lower. A voice, still drawn back deep into the body that leaned at the head of the stair, said distantly but clearly: “No I will not suffer it!”
He was coming down, he was seeking help. Brother Mark breathed gratitude, and said softly into the dimness above him: “Meriet! I am here!” Very softly, but it was enough.
The foot seeking its rest on the next tread balked and stepped astray. There was a faint, distressed cry, weak as a bird’s and then an awakened shriek, live and indignant in bewilderment. Meriet’s body folded sidelong and fell, hurtling, half into Brother Mark’s blindly extended arms, and half askew from him with a dull, deflating thud to the floor of the barn. Mark clung desperately to what he held, borne down by the weight, and lowered it as softly as he might, feeling the limbs fold together to lie limp and still. There was a silence but for his own labouring breath.