‘Did Roswitha bide overnight, too?’
‘Oh, no, Nigel walked home with her when it was growing dark. I saw them go.’
‘Then her brother was not with her that night?’
‘Janyn? No, Janyn has no interest in the company of lovers. He laughs at them. No, he stayed at home.’
‘And the next day… Nigel did not ride with the guest departing? Nor Meriet? What were they about that morning?’
She frowned over that, thinking back. ‘I think Nigel must have gone quite early back to the Lindes. He is jealous of her, though he sees no wrong in her. I believe he was away most of the day, I don’t think he even came home to supper. And Meriet—I know he was with us when Master Clemence left, but after that I didn’t see him until late in the afternoon. Uncle Leoric had been out with hounds after dinner, with Fremund and the chaplain and his kennelman. I remember Meriet came back with them, though he didn’t ride out with them. He had his bow—he often went off solitary, especially when he was out of sorts with all of us. They went in, all. I don’t know why, it was a very quiet evening, I supposed because the guest was gone, and there was no call for ceremony. I don’t believe Meriet came to supper in hall that day. I didn’t see him again all the evening.’
‘And after? When was it that you first heard of his wish to enter with us at Shrewsbury?’
‘It was Fremund who told me, the night following. I hadn’t seen Meriet all that day to speak for himself. But I did the next day. He was about the manor as usual then, he did not look different, not in any particular. He came and helped me with the geese in the back field,’ said Isouda, hugging her knees, ‘and I told him what I had heard, and that I thought he was out of his wits, and asked him why he should covet such a fruitless life…’ She reached a hand to touch Cadfael’s arm, and a smile to assure herself of his understanding, quite unperturbed. ‘You are different, you’ve had one life already, a new one halfway is a fresh blessing for you, but what has he had? But he stared me in the eye, straight as a lance, and said he knew what he was doing, and it was what he wanted to do. And lately he had outgrown me and gone away from me, and there was no possible reason he should pretend with me, or scruple to tell me what I asked. And I have none to doubt what he did tell me. He wanted this. He wants it still. But why? That he never told me.’
‘That,’ said Brother Cadfael ruefully, ‘he has not told anyone, nor will not if he can evade it. What is to be done, lady, with this young man who wills to destroy himself, shut like a wild bird in a cage?’
‘Well, he’s not lost yet,’ said Isouda resolutely. ‘And I shall see him again when we come for Nigel’s marriage in December, and after that Roswitha will be out of his reach utterly, for Nigel is taking her north to the manor near Newark, which Uncle Leoric is giving to them to manage. Nigel was up there in midsummer, viewing his lordship and making ready, Janyn kept him company on the visit. Every mile of distance will help. I shall look for you, Brother Cadfael, when we come. I’m not afraid, now I’ve talked to you. Meriet is mine, and in the end I shall have him. It may not be me he dreams of now, but his dreams now are devilish, I would not be in those. I want him well awake. If you love him, you keep him from the tonsure, and I will do the rest!’
If I love him—and if I love you, faun, thought Cadfael, riding very thoughtfully homeward after leaving her. For you may very well be the woman for him. And what you have told me I must sort over with care, for Meriet’s sake, and for yours.
He took a little bread and cheese on his return, and a measure of beer, having forsworn a midday meal with a household where he felt no kinship; and that done, he sought audience with Abbot Radulfus in the busy quiet of the afternoon, when the great court was empty, and most of the household occupied in cloister or gardens or fields.
The abbot had expected him, and listened with acute attention to everything he had to recount.
‘So we are committed to caring for this young man, who may be misguided in his choice, but still persists in it. There is no course open to us but to keep him, and give him every chance to win his way in among us. But we have also his fellows to care for, and they are in real fear of him, and of the disorders of his sleep. We have yet the nine remaining days of his imprisonment, which he seems to welcome. But after that, how can we best dispose of him, to allow him access to grace, and relieve the dortoir of its trouble?’
‘I have been thinking of that same question,’ said Cadfael. ‘His removal from the dortoir may be as great a benefit to him as to those remaining, for he is a solitary soul, and if ever he takes the way of withdrawal wholly I think he will be hermit rather than monk. It would not surprise me to find that he has gained by being shut in a penal cell, having that small space and great silence to himself, and able to fill it with his own meditations and prayers, as he could not do in a greater place shared by many others. We have not all the same image of brotherhood.’
‘True! But we are a house of brothers sharing in common, and not so many desert fathers scattered in isolation,’ said the abbot drily. ‘Nor can the young man be left for ever in a punishment cell, unless he plans to attempt the strangling of my confessors and obedientiaries one by one to ensure it. What have you to suggest?’
‘Send him to serve under Brother Mark at Saint Giles,’ said Cadfael. ‘He’ll be no more private there, but he will be in the company and the service of creatures manifestly far less happy than himself, lepers and beggars, the sick and maimed. It may be salutary. In them he can forget his own troubles. There are advantages beyond that. Such a period of absence will hold back his instruction, and his advance towards taking vows, but that can only be good, since clearly he is in no fit mind to take them yet. Also, though Brother Mark is the humblest and simplest of us all, he has the gift of many such innocent saints, of making his way into the heart. In time Brother Meriet may open to him, and be helped from his trouble. At least it would give us all a breathing-space.’
Keep him from the tonsure, said Isouda’s voice in his mind, and I will do the rest.
‘So it would,’ agreed Radulfus reflectively. ‘The boys will have time to forget their alarms, and as you say, ministering to men worse blessed than himself may be the best medicine for him. I will speak with Brother Paul, and when Brother Meriet has served out his penance he shall be sent there.’
And if some among us take it that banishment to work in the lazar-house is a further penance, thought Cadfael, going away reasonably content, let them take satisfaction from it. For Brother Jerome was not the man to forget an injury, and any sop to his revenge might lessen his animosity towards the offender. A term of service in the hospice at the far edge of the town might also serve more turns than Meriet’s, for Brother Mark, who tended the sick there, had been Cadfael’s most valued assistant until a year or so ago, and he had recently suffered the loss of his favourite and much-indulged waif, the little boy Bran, taken into the household of Joscelin and Iveta Lucy on their marriage, and would be somewhat lost without a lame duck to cosset and care for. It wanted only a word in Mark’s ear concerning the tormented record of the devil’s novice, and his ready sympathy would be enlisted on Meriet’s behalf. If Mark could not reach him, no one could; but at the same time he might also do much for Mark. Yet another advantage was that Brother Cadfael, as supplier of the many medicines, lotions and ointments that were in demand among the sick, visited Saint Giles every third week, and sometimes oftener, to replenish the medicine cupboard, and could keep an eye on Meriet’s progress there.