‘Tell him he must let this poor soul go… Say he never did that slaying. Tell him I know! Tell him,’ said Meriet, his dilated eyes hungry and emerald-green on Mark’s attentive face, ‘that I confess my mortal sin… that it was I who killed Peter Clemence. I shot him down in the woods, three miles and more from Aspley. Say I am sorry, so to shame my father’s house.’
He was weak and dazed, shaking with belated shock, the tears sprang from his eyes, startling him with their unexpected flood. He gripped and wrung the hand held. ‘Promise! Promise you will tell him so…’
‘I will, and bear the errand myself, no other shall,’ said Mark, stooping low to straining, blinded eyes to be seen and believed. ‘Every word you give me I will deliver. If you will also do a good and needful thing for yourself and for me, before I go. Then you may sleep more peacefully.’
The green eyes cleared in wonder, staring up at him. ‘What thing is that?’
Mark told him, very gently and firmly. Before he had the words well out, Meriet had wrenched away his hand and heaved his bruised body over in the bed, turning his face away. ‘No!’ he said in a low wail of distress. ‘No, I will not! No…’
Mark talked on, quietly urging what he asked, but stopped when it was still denied, and with ever more agitated rejection. ‘Hush!’ he said then placatingly. ‘You need not fret so. Even without it, I’ll do your errand, every word. You be still and sleep.’
He was instantly believed; the body stiff with resistance softened and eased. The swathed head turned towards him again; even the dim light within the barn caused his eyes to narrow and frown. Brother Mark put out the lantern, and drew the brychans close. Then he kissed his patient and penitent, and went to do his errand.
Brother Mark walked the length of the Foregate and across the stone bridge into the town, exchanging the time of day with all he met, enquired for Hugh Beringar at his house by Saint Mary’s, and walked on undismayed and unwearied when he was told that the deputy-sheriff was already at the castle. It was by way of a bonus that Brother Cadfael happened to be there also, having just emerged from applying another dressing to the festered wound in the prisoner’s forearm. Hunger and exposure are not conducive to ready healing, but Harald’s hurts were showing signs of yielding to treatment. Already he had a little more flesh on his long, raw bones, and a little more of the texture of youth in his hollow cheeks. Solid stone walls, sleep without constant fear, warm blankets and three rough meals a day were a heaven to him.
Against the stony ramparts of the inner ward, shut off from even what light there was in this muted morning, Brother Mark’s diminutive figure looked even smaller, but his grave dignity was in no way diminished. Hugh welcomed him with astonishment, so unexpected was he in this place, and haled him into the anteroom of the guard, where there was a fire burning, and torchlight, since full daylight seldom penetrated there to much effect.
‘I’m sent with a message,’ said Brother Mark, going directly to his goal, ‘to Hugh Beringar, from Brother Meriet. I’ve promised to deliver it faithfully word for word, since he cannot do it himself, as he wanted to do. Brother Meriet learned only yesterday, as did we all at Saint Giles, that you have a man held here in prison for the murder of Peter Clemence. Last night, after he had retired, Meriet was desperately troubled in his sleep, and rose and walked. He fell from the loft, sleeping, and is now laid in his bed with a broken head and many bruises, but he has come to himself, and I think with care he’ll take no grave harm. But if Brother Cadfael would come and look at him I should be easier in my mind.’
‘Son, with all my heart!’ said Cadfael, dismayed. ‘But what was he about, wandering in his sleep? He never left his bed before in his fits. And men who do commonly tread very skilfully, even where a waking man would not venture.’
‘So he might have done,’ owned Mark, sadly wrung, ‘if I had not spoken to him from below. For I thought he was well awake, and coming to ask comfort and aid, but when I called his name he stepped at fault, and cried out and fell. And now he is come to himself, I know where he was bound, even in his sleep, and on what errand. For that errand he has committed to me, now he is helpless, and I am here to deliver it.’
‘You’ve left him safe?’ asked Cadfael anxiously, but half-ashamed to doubt whatever Brother Mark thought fit to do.
‘There are two good souls keeping an eye on him, but I think he will sleep. He has unloaded his mind upon me, and here I discharge the burden,’ said Brother Mark, and he had the erect and simple solitude of a priest, standing small and plain between them and Meriet. ‘He bids me say to Hugh Beringar that he must let this prisoner go, for he never did that slaying with which he is charged. He bids me say that he speaks of his own knowledge, and confesses to his own mortal sin, for it was he who killed Peter Clemence. Shot him down in the woods, says Meriet, more than three miles north of Aspley. And he bids me say also that he is sorry, so to have disgraced his father’s house.’
He stood fronting them, wide-eyed and open-faced as was his nature, and they stared back at him with withdrawn and thoughtful faces. So simple an ending! The son, passionate of nature and quick to act, kills, the father, upright and austere yet jealous of his ancient honour, offers the sinner a choice between the public contumely that will destroy his ancestral house, or the lifelong penance of the cloister, and his father’s son prefers his personal purgatory to shameful death, and the degradation of his family. And it could be so! It could answer every question.
‘But of course,’ said Brother Mark, with the exalted confidence of angels and archangels, and the simplicity of children, ‘it is not true.’
‘I need not quarrel with what you say,’ said Hugh mildly, after a long and profound pause for thought, ‘if I ask you whether you speak only on belief in Brother Meriet—for which you may feel you have good cause—or from knowledge by proof? How do you know he is lying?’
‘I do know by what I know of him,’ said Mark firmly, ‘but I have tried to put that away. If I say he is no such person to shoot down a man from ambush, but rather to stand square in his way and challenge him hand to hand, I am saying what I strongly believe. But I was born humble, out of this world of honour, how should I speak to it with certainty? No, I have tested him. When he told me what he told me, I said to him that for his soul’s comfort he should let me call our chaplain, and as a sick man make his confession to him and seek absolution. And he would not do it,’ said Mark, and smiled upon them. ‘At the very thought he shook and turned away. When I pressed him, he was in great agitation. For he can lie to me and to you, to the king’s law itself, for a cause that seems to him good enough,’ said Mark, ‘but he will not lie to his confessor, and through his confessor to God.’
* * *
CHAPTER TEN
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After long and sombre consideration, Hugh said: ‘For the moment, it seems, this boy will keep, whatever the truth of it. He is in his bed with a broken head, and not likely to stir for a while, all the more if he believes we have accepted what, for whatever cause, he wishes us to believe. Take care of him, Mark, and let him think he has done what he set out to do. Tell him he can be easy about this prisoner of ours, he is not charged, and no harm will come to him. But don’t let it be put abroad that we’re holding an innocent man who is in no peril of his life. Meriet may know it. Not a soul outside. For the common ear, we have our murderer safe in hold.’
One deceit partnered another deceit, both meant to some good end; and if it seemed to Brother Mark that deceit ought not to have any place in the pilgrimage after truth, yet he acknowledged the mysterious uses of all manner of improbable devices in the workings of the purposes of God, and saw the truth reflected even in lies. He would let Meriet believe his ordeal was ended and his confession accepted, and Meriet would sleep without fears or hopes, without dreams, but with the drear satisfaction of his voluntary sacrifice, and grow well again to a better, an unrevealed world.