‘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 Yet he did watch his friend from that moment with unobtrusive care, and fretted to see how utterly he had withdrawn into himself with this knowledge that seemed to work in him like poison.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 Then he knew that he was listening to Meriet’s voice, withdrawn into a strange distance but unmistakable, without distinguishable words, a mere murmur, but terrible in its sustained argument between one need and another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.
With anguished hands he felt about the motionless body, stooped his ear to listen for breathing and the beat of the heart, touched a smooth cheek and the thick thatch of dark hair, and drew his fingers away warm and sticky with blood. ‘Meriet!’ he urged, whispering close to a deaf ear, and knew that Meriet was far out of reach.
Mark ran for lights and help, but even at this pass was careful not to alarm the whole dortoir, but only to coax out of their sleep two of the most able-bodied and willing of his flock, who slept close to the door, and could withdraw without disturbing the rest. Between them they brought a lantern, and examined Meriet on the floor of the barn, still out of his senses. Mark had partially broken his fall, but his head had struck the sharp edge of the step-ladder, and bore a long graze that ran diagonally across his right temple and into his hair which bled freely, and he had fallen with his right foot twisted awkwardly beneath him.
‘My fault, my fault!’ whispered Mark wretchedly, feeling about the limp body for broken bones. ‘I startled him awake. I didn’t know he was asleep, I thought he was coming to me of his own will…’
Meriet lay oblivious and let himself be handled as they would. There seemed to be no fractures, but there might well be sprains, and his head wound bled alarmingly. To move him as little as need be they brought down his pallet from the loft, and set it below in the barn where he lay, so that he might have quiet from the rest of the household. They bathed and dressed his head and lifted him gently into his cot with an added brychan for warmth, injury and shock making him very cold to the touch. And all the while his face, beneath the swathing bandage, was remote and peaceful and pale as Mark had never seen it before, his trouble for these few hours stricken out of him.
‘Go now and get your own rest,’ said Brother Mark to his concerned helpers. ‘There’s nothing more we can do at this moment. I shall sit with him. If I need you I’ll call you.’
He trimmed the lantern to burn steadily, and sat beside the pallet all the rest of the night. Meriet lay mute and motionless until past the dawn, though his breathing perceptibly lengthened and grew calmer as he passed from senselessness into sleep, but his face remained bloodless. It was past Prime when his lips began to twitch and his eyelids to flutter, as if he wished to open them, but had not the strength. Mark bathed his face, and moistened the struggling lips with water and wine.
‘Lie still,’ he said, with a hand cupping Meriet’s cheek. ‘I am here—Mark. Be troubled by nothing, you are safe here with me.’ He was not aware that he had meant to say that. It was promising infinite blessing, and what right had he to claim any such power? And yet the words had come to him unbidden.
The heavy eyelids heaved, fought for a moment with the unknown weight holding them closed, and parted upon a reflected flame in desperate green eyes. A shudder passed through Meriet’s body. He worked a dry mouth and got out faintly: ‘I must go—I must tell them… Let me up!’
The effort he made to rise was easily suppressed by a hand on his breast; he lay helpless but shaking.
‘I must go! Help me!’
‘There is nowhere you need go,’ said Mark, leaning over him. ‘If there is any message you wish sent to any man, lie still, and only tell me. You know I will do it faithfully. You had a fall, you must lie still and rest.’
‘Mark… It is you?’ He felt outside his blankets blindly, and Mark took the wandering hand and held it. ‘It is you,’ said Meriet, sighing. ‘Mark—the man they’ve taken… for killing the bishop’s clerk… I must tell them… I must go to Hugh Beringar…’
‘Tell me,’ said Mark, ‘and you have done all. I will see done whatever you want done, and you may rest. What is it I am to tell Hugh Beringar?’ But in his heart he already knew.