Meriet was sleeping when they came to Saint Giles. Cadfael stood beside the pallet in the barn, and looked down upon a face strangely peaceful and childlike, exorcised of its devil. Meriet’s breathing was long and deep and sweet. It was believable that here was a tormented sinner who had made confession and cleansed his breast, and found all things thereafter made easy. But he would not repeat his confession to a priest. Mark had a very powerful argument there.
“Let him rest,” said Hugh, when Mark, though reluctantly, would have awakened the sleeper. “We can wait.” And wait they did, the better part of an hour, until Meriet stirred and opened his eyes. Even then Hugh would have him tended and fed and given drink before he consented to sit by him and hear what he had to say. Cadfael had looked him over, and found nothing wrong that a few days of rest would not mend, though he had turned an ankle and foot under him in falling, and would find it difficult and painful to put any weight upon it for some time. The blow on the head had shaken his wits sadly, and his memory of recent days might be hazy, though he held fast to the one more distant memory which he so desired to declare. The gash crossing his temple would soon heal; the bleeding had already stopped.
His eyes, in the dim light within the barn, shone darkly green, staring up dilated and intent. His voice was faint but resolute, as he repeated with slow emphasis the confession he had made to Brother Mark. He was bent on convincing, very willing and patient in dredging up details. Listening, Cadfael had to admit to himself, with dismay, that Meriet was indeed utterly convincing. Hugh must also be thinking so.
He questioned, slowly and evenly: “You watched the man ride away, with your father in attendance, and made no demur. Then you went out with your bow—mounted or afoot?”
“Mounted,” said Meriet with fiery readiness; for if he had gone on foot, how could he have circled at speed, and been ahead of the rider after his escort had left him to return home? Cadfael remembered Isouda saying that Meriet had come home late that afternoon with his father’s party, though he had not ridden out with them. She had not said whether he was mounted when he returned or walking; that was something worth probing.
“With murderous intent?” Hugh pursued mildly. “Or did this thing come on you unawares? For what can you have had against Master Clemence to warrant his death?”
“He had made far too free with my brother’s bride,” said Meriet. “I did hold it against him—a priest, playing the courtier, and so sure of his height above us. A manorless man, with only his learning and his patron’s name for lands and lineage, and looking down upon us, as long rooted as we are. On grievance for my brother…”
“Yet your brother made no move to take reparation,” said Hugh.
“He was gone to the Lindes, to Roswitha… He had escorted her home the night before, and I am sure he had quarrelled with her. He went out early, he did not even see the guest leave, he went to make good whatever was ill between those two… He never came home,” said Meriet, clearly and firmly, “until late in the evening, long after all was over.”
True, by Isouda’s account, thought Cadfael. After all was over, and Meriet brought home a convicted murderer, to reappear only after he had chosen of his own will to ask admittance to the cloister, and was prepared to go forth on his parole, and so declare himself, an oblate to the abbey, fully aware of what he was doing. So he had told his very acute and perceptive playmate, in calm control of himself. He was doing what he wished to do.
“But you, Meriet, you rode ahead of Master Clemence. With murder in mind?”
“I had not thought,” said Meriet, hesitating for the first time. “I went alone… But I was angry.”
“You went in haste,” said Hugh, pressing him, “if you overtook the departing guest, and by a roundabout way, if you passed and intercepted him, as you say.”
Meriet stretched and stiffened in his bed, large eyes straining on his questioner. He set his jaw. “I did hasten, though not for any deliberate purpose. I was in thick covert when I was aware of him riding towards me, in no hurry. I drew and loosed upon him. He fell…” Sweat broke on the pallid brow beneath his bandages. He closed his eyes.
“Let be!” said Cadfael, quiet at Hugh’s shoulder. “He has enough.”
“No,” said Meriet strongly. “Let me make an end. He was dead when I stooped over him. I had killed him. And my father took me so, red-handed. The hounds—he had hounds with him—they scented me and brought him down upon me. He has covered up for my sake, and for the sake of an honoured name, what I did, but for whatever he may have done that is unlawful, to keep me man alive, I take the blame upon me, for I am the cause of it. But he would not condone. He promised me cover for my forfeit life, if I would accept banishment from the world and take myself off into the cloister. What was done afterwards no one ever told me. I did by my own will and consent accept my penalty. I even hoped… and I have tried… But set down all that was done to my account, and let me pay all.”
He thought he had done, and heaved a great sigh out of him, Hugh also sighed and stirred as if about to rise, but then asked carelessly: “At what hour was this, Meriet, that your father happened upon you in the act of murder?”
“About three in the afternoon,” said Meriet indifferently, falling headlong into the trap.
“And Master Clemence set out soon after Prime? It took him a great while,” said Hugh with deceptive mildness, “to ride somewhat over three miles.”
Meriet’s eyes, half-closed in weariness and release from tension, flared wide open in consternation. It cost him a convulsive struggle to master voice and face, but he did it, hoisting up out of the well of his resolution and dismay a credible answer. “I cut my story too short, wanting it done. When this thing befell it cannot have been even mid-morning. But I ran from him and let him lie, and wandered the woods in dread of what I’d done. But in the end I went back. It seemed better to hide him in the thick coverts off the pathways, where he could lie undiscovered, and I might come by night and bury him. I was in terror, but in the end I went back. I am not sorry,” said Meriet at the end, so simply that somewhere in those last words there must be truth. But he had never shot down any man. He had come upon a dead man lying in his blood, just as he had balked and stood aghast at the sight of Brother Wolstan bleeding at the foot of the appletree. A three-mile ride from Aspley, yes, thought Cadfael with certainty, but well into the autumn afternoon, when his father was out with hawk and hound. “I am not sorry,” said Meriet again, quite gently. “It’s good that I was taken so. Better still that I have now told you all.”
Hugh rose, and stood looking down at him with an unreadable face. “Very well! You should not yet be moved, and there is no reason you should not remain here in Brother Mark’s care. Brother Cadfael tells me you would need crutches if you tried to walk for some days yet. You’ll be secure enough where you are.”
“I would give you my parole,” said Meriet sadly, “but I doubt if you would take it. But Mark will, and I will submit myself to him. Only—the other man—you will see he goes free?”
“You need not fret, he is cleared of all blame but a little thieving to fill his belly, and that will be forgotten. It is to your own case you should be giving thought,” said Hugh gravely. “I would urge you receive a priest and make your confession.”
“You and the hangman can be my priests,” said Meriet, and fetched up from somewhere a wry and painful smile.
“He is lying and telling truth in the selfsame breath,” said Hugh with resigned exasperation on the way back along the Foregate. “Almost surely what he says of his father’s part is truth, so he was caught, and so he was both protected and condemned. That is how he came to you, willing-unwilling. It accounts for all the to-and-fro you have had with him, waking and sleeping. But it does not give us our answer to who killed Peter Clemence, for it’s as good as certain Meriet did not. He had not even thought of that glaring error in the time of day, until I prodded him with it. And considering the shock it gave him, he did pretty well at accounting for it. But far too late. To have made that mistake was enough. Now what is our best way? Supposing we should blazon it abroad that young Aspley has confessed to the murder, and put his neck in a noose? If he is indeed sacrificing himself for someone else, do you think that person would come forward and loose the knot and slip his own neck in it, as Meriet has for him?”