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

nothing in his cell to give them any further hold
on him, malice being a great stimulator of the imagination. The flat
disappointment might bring them down to earth. So he hoped! But for all that,
he made haste on the stairs.
    But
someone else was in an even greater hurry. Light feet beat a sharp drum-roll on
the wooden treads at Cadfael’s back, and an impetuous body overtook him in the
doorway of the long dortoir, and swept him several yards down the tiled
corridor between the cells. Meriet thrust past with long, indignant strides,
his habit flying.
    “I
heard you! I heard you! Let my things alone!”
    Where
was the low, submissive voice now, the modestly lowered eyes and folded hands? This
was a furious young lordling peremptorily ordering hands off his possessions,
and homing on the offenders with fists clenched and eyes flashing. Cadfael,
thrust off-balance fora moment, made a grab at a flying sleeve, but only to be
dragged along in Meriet’s wake.
    The
covey of awed, inquisitive novices gathered round the opening of Meriet’s cell,
heads thrust cautiously within and rusty black rumps protruding without,
whirled in alarm at hearing this angry apparition bearing down on them, and
broke away with agitated clucking like so many flurried hens. In the very
threshold of his small domain Meriet came nose to nose with Brother Jerome
emerging.
    On
the face of it it was a very uneven confrontation: a mere postulant of a month
or so, and one who had already given trouble and been cautioned, facing a man
in authority, the prior’s right hand, a cleric and confessor, one of the two
appointed for the novices. The check did give Meriet pause for one moment, and
Cadfael leaned to his ear to whisper breathlessly: “Hold back, you fool! He’ll
have your hide!” He might have saved the breath of which he was short, for
Meriet did not even hear him. The moment when he might have come to his senses
was already past, for his eye had fallen on the small, bright thing Jerome
dangled before him from outraged fingers, as though it were unclean. The boy’s
face blanched, not with the pallor of fear, but the blinding whiteness of pure
anger, every line of bone in a strongly-boned countenance chiselled in ice.
    “That
is mine,” he said with soft and deadly authority, and held out his hand. “Give
it to me!”
    Brother
Jerome rose on tiptoe and swelled like a turkey-cock at being addressed in such
tones. His thin nose quivered with affronted rage. “And you openly avow it? Do
you not know, impudent wretch, that in asking for admittance here you have
forsworn “mine,” and may not possess property of any kind? To bring in any
personal things here without the lord abbot’s permission is flouting the Rule.
It is a sin! But wilfully to bring with you this— this!— is to offend
foully against the very vows you say you desire to take. And to cherish it in
your bed is a manner of fornication. Do you dare? Do you dare? You shall be
called to account for it!”
    All
eyes but Meriet’s were on the innocent cause of offence; Meriet maintained a
burning stare upon his adversary’s face. And all the secret charm turned out to
be was a delicate linen ribbon, embroidered with flowers in blue and gold and
red, such a band as a girl would use to bind her hair, and knotted into its
length a curl of that very hair, reddish gold.
    “Do
you so much as know the meaning of the vows you say you wish to take?” fumed
Jerome. “Celibacy, poverty, obedience, stability—is there any sign in you of
any of these? Take thought now, while you may, renounce all thought of such
follies and pollutions as this vain thing implies, or you cannot be accepted
here. Penance for this backsliding you will not escape, but you have time to
amend, if there is any grace in you.”
    “Grace
enough, at any rate,” said Meriet, unabashed and glittering, “to keep my hands
from prying into another man’s sheets and