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

cried out again in the night, he awoke us all…”
    “He
howled for his familiar. I heard the demon’s name, he called him Barbary! And
his devil whistled back to him… we all know it’s devils that hiss and whistle!”
    “He’s
brought an evil spirit in among us, we’re not safe for our lives. And we get no
rest at night… Brother, truly, we’re afraid!”
    Cadfael,
tugging a comb through the thick bush of grizzled hair ringing his nut-brown
dome, was in two minds about intervening, but thought better of it. Let them
pour out everything they had stored up against the lad, and it might be seen
more plainly how little it was. Some genuine superstitious fear they certainly
suffered, such night alarms do shake simple minds. If they were silenced now
they would only store up their resentment to breed in secret. Out with it all,
and the air might clear. So he held his peace, but he kept his ears pricked.
    “It
shall be brought up again in chapter,” promised Brother Jerome, who thrived on
being the prime channel of appeal to the prior’s ears. “Measures will surely be
taken to secure rest at nights. If necessary, the disturber of the peace must
be segregated.”
    “But,
brother,” bleated Meriet’s nearest neighbour in the dortoir, “if he’s set apart
in a separate cell, with no one to watch him, who knows what he may not get up
to? He’ll have greater freedom there, and I dread his devil will thrive all the
more and take hold on others. He could bring down the roof upon us or set fire
to the cellars under us…
    “That
is want of trust in divine providence,” said Brother Jerome, and fingered the
cross on his breast as he said it. “Brother Meriet has caused great trouble, I
grant, but to say that he is possessed of the devil—”
    “But,
brother, it’s true! He has a talisman from his demon, he hides it in his bed. I
know! I’ve seen him slip some small thing under his blanket, out of sight, when
I looked in upon him in his cell. All I wanted was to ask him a line in the
psalm, for you know he’s learned, and he had something in his hand, and slipped
it away very quickly, and stood between me and the bed, and wouldn’t let me in
further. He looked black as thunder at me, brother, I was afraid! But I’ve
watched since. It’s true, I swear, he has a charm hidden there, and at night he
takes it to him to his bed. Surely this is the symbol of his familiar, and it
will bring evil on us all!”
    “I
cannot believe…” began Brother Jerome, and broke off there, reconsidering the
scope of his own credulity. “You have seen this? In his bed, you
say? Some alien thing hidden away? That is not according to the Rule.” For what
should there be in a dortoir cell but cot and stool, a small desk for reading,
and the books for study? These, and the privacy and quiet which can exist only
by virtue of mutual consideration, since mere token partitions of wainscot
separate cell from cell. “A novice entering here must give up all wordly
possessions,” said Jerome, squaring his meagre shoulders and scenting a genuine
infringement of the approved order of things. Grist to his mill! Nothing he
loved better than an occasion for admonition. “I shall speak to Brother Meriet
about this.”
    Half
a dozen voices, encouraged, urged him to more immediate action. “Brother, go
now, while he’s away, and see if I have not told you truth! If you take away
his charm the demon will have no more power over him.”
    “And
we shall have quiet again…”
    “Come
with me!” said Brother Jerome heroically, making up his mind. And before Cadfael
could stir, Jerome was off, out of the lavatorium and surging towards the
dortoir stairs, with a flurry of novices hard on his heels.
    Cadfael
went after them hunched with resigned disgust, but not foreseeing any great
urgency. The boy was safely out of this, hobnobbing with Hugh in the stables,
and of course they would find