The Devils Novice by Ellis Peters Read Free Book Online Page A

dismembered utterly. While he’s after the support of king
and duke in France, Henry wants just as urgently to know where Earl Ranulf and
his brother stand. They never paid heed to the meeting in the summer, so it
seems Bishop Henry sent one of his men north to be civil to the pair of them
and make sure of their favour, just before he set off for France—one of his own
household clerics, a young man marked for advancement, Peter Clemence. And
Peter Clemence has not returned. Which could mean any number of things, but
with time lengthening out and never a word from him or from either of that pair
in the north concerning him, Canon Eluard began to be restive. There’s a kind
of truce in the south and west, while the two sides wait and watch each other,
so Eluard felt he might as well set off in person to Chester, to find out what
goes on up there, and what’s become of the bishop’s envoy.”
    “And
what has become of him?” asked Cadfael shrewdly. “For his lordship, it
seems, is now on his way south again to join King Stephen. And what sort of
welcome did he get in Chester?”
    “As
warm and civil as heart could wish. And for what my judgement is worth, Canon
Eluard, however loyal he may be to Bishop Henry’s efforts for peace, is more
inclined to Stephen’s side than to the empress, and is off back to Westminster
now to tell the King he might be wise to strike while the iron’s hot, and go
north in person and offer a few sweetmeats to keep Chester and Roumare as
well-disposed to him as they are. A manor or two and a pleasant title—Roumare
is as good as earl of Lincoln now, why not call him so?—could secure his
position there. So, at any rate, Eluard seems 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