Brother Cadfael 08: The Devil's Novice by Ellis Peters Read Free Book Online Page A

to have gathered. Their loyalty is pledged over and over. And for all his wife is daughter to Robert of Gloucester, Ranulf did stay snug at home when Robert brought over his imperial sister to take the field a year and more ago. Yes, it seems the situation there could hardly be more to the canon's satisfaction, now that it's stated. But as for why it was not stated a month or so ago, by the mouth of Peter Clemence returning ... Simple enough! The man never got there, and they never got his embassage.'
    'As sound a reason as any for not answering it,' said Cadfael, unsmiling, and eyed his friend's saturnine visage with narrowed attention. 'How far did he get on his way, then?'
    There were wild places enough in this disrupted England where a man could vanish, for no more than the coat he wore or the horse he rode. There were districts where manors had been deserted and run wild, and forests had been left unmanned, and whole villages, too exposed to danger, had been abandoned and left to rot. Yet the north had suffered less than the south and west by and large, and lords like Ranulf of Chester had kept their lands relatively stable thus far.
    'That's what Eluard has been trying to find out on his way back, stage by stage along the most likely route a man would take. For certainly he never came near Chester. And stage by stage our canon has drawn blank until he came into Shropshire. Never a trace of Clemence, hide, hair or horse, all through Cheshire.'
    'And none as far as Shrewsbury?' For Hugh had more to tell, he was frowning down thoughtfully into the beaker he held between his thin, fine hands.
    'Beyond Shrewsbury, Cadfael, though only just beyond. He's turned back a matter of a few miles to us, for reason enough. The last he can discover of Peter Clemence is that he stayed the night of the eighth day of September with a household to which he's a distant cousin on the wife's side. And where do you think that was? At Leoric Aspley's manor, down in the edge of the Long Forest.'
    'Do you tell me!' Cadfael stared, sharply attentive now. The eighth of the month, and a week or so later comes the steward Fremund with his lord's request that the younger son of the house should be received, at his own earnest wish, into the cloister. Post hoc is not propter hoc, however. And in any case, what connection could there possibly be between one man's sudden discovery that he felt a vocation, and another man's overnight stay and morning departure? 'Canon Eluard knew he would make one of his halts there? The kinship was known?'
    'Both the kinship and his intent, yes, known both to Bishop Henry and to Eluard. The whole manor saw him come, and have told freely how he was entertained there. The whole manor, or very near, saw him off on his journey next morning. Aspley and his steward rode the first mile with him, with the household and half the neighbours to see them go. No question, he left there whole and brisk and well-mounted.'
    'How far to his next night's lodging? And was he expected there?' For if he had announced his coming, then someone should have been enquiring for him long since.
    'According to Aspley, he intended one more halt at Whitchurch, a good halfway to his destination, but he knew he could find easy lodging there and had not sent word before. There's no trace to be found of him there, no one saw or heard of him.'
    'So between here and Whitchurch the man is lost?'
    'Unless he changed his plans and his route, for which, God knows, there could be reasons, even here in my writ,' said Hugh ruefully, 'though I hope it is not so. We keep the best order anywhere in this realm, or so I claim, challenge me who will, but even so I doubt it good enough to make passage safe everywhere. He may have heard something that caused him to turn aside. But the bleak truth of it is, he's lost. And all too long!'
    'And Canon Eluard wants him found?'
    'Dead or alive,' said Hugh grimly. 'For so will Henry want him found, and an account paid by someone