‘I will see to it,’ said Mark,’that only he knows. And I will be his pledge that he shall be at your disposal whenever you need him.’
‘Good! Then go back now to your patient. Cadfael and I will follow you very shortly.’
Mark departed, satisfied, to trudge back through the town and out along the Foregate. When he was gone, Hugh stood gazing eye to eye with Brother Cadfael, long and thoughtfully. ‘Well?’
‘It’s a tale that makes excellent sense,’ said Cadfael, ‘and a great part of it most likely true. I am of Mark’s way of thinking, I do not believe the boy has killed. But the rest of it? The man who caused that fire to be built and kindled had force enough to get his men to do his will and keep his secret. A man well-served, well-feared, perhaps even well-loved. A man who would neither steal anything from the dead himself, nor allow any of his people to do so. All committed to the fire. Those who worked for him respected and obeyed him. Leoric Aspley is such a man, and in such a manner he might behave, if he believed a son of his had murdered from ambush a man who had been a guest in his house. There would be no forgiveness. If he protected the murderer from the death due, it might well be for the sake of his name, and only to serve a lifetime’s penance.’
He was remembering their arrival in the rain, father and son, the one severe, cold and hostile, departing without the kiss due between kinsmen, the other submissive and dutiful, but surely against his nature, at once rebellious and resigned. Feverish in his desire to shorten his probation and be imprisoned past deliverance, but in his sleep fighting like a demon for his liberty. It made a true picture. But Mark was absolute that Meriet had lied.
‘It lacks nothing,’ said Hugh, shaking his head. ‘He has said throughout that it was his own wish to take the cowl—so it might well be; good reason, if he was offered no other alternative but the gallows. The death came there, soon after leaving Aspley. The horse was taken far north and abandoned, so that the body should be sought only well away from where the man was killed. But whatever else the boy knows, he did not know that he was leading his gleaners straight to the place where the bones would be found, and his father’s careful work undone. I take Mark’s word for that, and by God, I am inclined to take Mark’s word for the rest. But if Meriet did not kill the man, why should he so accept condemnation and sentence? Of his own will!’
‘There is but one possible answer,’ said Cadfael. ‘To protect someone else.’
‘Then you are saying that he knows who the murderer is.’
‘Or thinks he knows,’ said Cadfael. ‘For there is veil on veil here hiding these people one from another, and it seems to me that Aspley, if he has done this to his son, believes he knows beyond doubt that the boy is guilty. And Meriet, since he has sacrificed himself to a life against which his whole spirit rebels, and now to shameful death, must be just as certain of the guilt of that other person whom he loves and desires to save. But if Leoric is so wildly mistaken, may not Meriet also be in error?’
‘Are we not all?’ said Hugh, sighing. ‘Come, let’s go and see this sleep-walking penitent first, and—who knows?—if he’s bent on confession, and has to lie to accomplish it, he may let slip something much more to our purpose. I’ll say this for him, he was not prepared to let another poor devil suffer in his place, or even in the place of someone dearer to him than himself. Harald has fetched him out of his silence fast enough.’
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.’