The Devils Novice by Ellis Peters Read Free Book Online

reported his nearest neighbour,
complaining to Brother Paul next morning. “And then he said, “I will, I will!”
and something about obedience and duty… Then after all was quiet again he
suddenly cried out, “Blood!” And I looked in, because he had started me awake
again, and he was sitting up in bed wringing his hands. After that he sank down
again, there was nothing more. But to whom was he talking? I dread there’s a
devil has hold of him. What else can it be?”
    Brother
Paul was short with such wild suppositions, but could not deny the words he
himself had heard, nor the disquiet they aroused in him. Meriet again was
astonished and upset at hearing that he had troubled the dortoir a second time,
and owned to no recollection of any bad dream, or even so small and
understandable a thing as a belly-ache that might have disrupted his own rest.
    “No
harm done this time,” said Brother Paul to Cadfael, after High Mass, “for it
was not loud, and we had the door closed on the children. And I’ve damped down
their gossip as best I can. But for all that, they go in fear of him. They need
their peace, too, and he’s a threat to it. They say there’s a devil at him in
his sleep, and it was he brought it here among them, and who knows which of
them it will prey on next? The devil’s novice, I’ve heard him called. Oh, I put
a stop to that, at least aloud. But it’s what they’re thinking. Cadfael himself
had heard the tormented voice, however subdued this time, had heard the pain
and desperation in it, and was assured beyond doubt that for all these things
there was a human reason. But what wonder if these untravelled young things,
credulous and superstitious, dreaded a reason that was not human?
    That
was well into October and the same day that Canon Eluard of Winchester, on his
journey south from Chester, came with his secretary and his groom to spend a
night or two for repose in Shrewsbury. And not for simple reasons of religious
policy or courtesy, but precisely because the novice Meriet Aspley was housed
within the walls of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

 
     
     
    Chapter Three
     
    ELUARD
OF WINCHESTER WAS A BLACK CANON of considerable learning and several
masterships, some from French schools. It was this wide scholarship and breadth
of mind which had recommended him to Bishop Henry of Blois, and raised him to
be one of the three highest ranking and best trusted of that great prelate’s
household clergy, and left him now in charge of much of the bishop’s pending
business while his principal was absent in France.
    Brother
Cadfael ranked too low in the hierarchy to be invited to the abbot’s table when
there were guests of such stature. That occasioned him no heart-burning, and
cost him little in first-hand knowledge of what went on, since it was taken for
granted that Hugh Beringar, in the absence of the sheriff, would be present at
any meeting involving political matters, and would infallibly acquaint his
other self with whatever emerged of importance.
    Hugh
came to the hut in the herb garden, yawning, after accompanying the canon to
his apartment in the guest-hall.
    “An
impressive man, I don’t wonder Bishop Henry values him. Have you seen him,
Cadfael?”
    “I
saw him arrive.” A big, portly, heavily-built man who nonetheless rode like a
huntsman from his childhood and a warrior from puberty; a rounded, bushy
tonsure on a round, solid head, and a dark shadow about the shaven jowls when
he lighted down in early evening. Rich, fashionable but austere clothing, his
only jewellery a cross and ring, but both of rare artistry. And he had a jaw on
him and an authoritative eye, shrewd but tolerant. “What’s he doing in these
parts, in his bishop’s absence overseas?”
    “Why,
the very same his bishop is up to in Normandy, soliciting the help of every
powerful man he can get hold of, to try and produce some plan that will save
England from being