The Devils Novice by Ellis Peters Page B

of his death. If indeed he is dead! I forget we are no better
than guessing. How if he had good reasons to vanish there and be written down
as dead? Men change their allegiance these days as they change their shirts,
and for every man for sale there are buyers. Well, use your eyes and your wits
at Aspley for your lad—I can tell by now when you have a wing spread over a
fledgling—but bring me back whatever you can glean about Peter Clemence, too,
and what he had in mind when he left them and rode north. Some innocent there
may be nursing the very word we need, and thinking nothing of it.”
    “I
will so,” said Cadfael, and turned back in the gloaming towards the gatehouse
and his bed.

 
     
     
    Chapter Five
     
    HAVING
THE ABBOT’S AUTHORITY ABOUT HIM, and something more than four miles to go,
Brother Cadfael helped himself to a mule from the stables in preference to
tackling the journey to Aspley on foot. Time had been when he would have
scorned to ride, but he was past sixty years old, and minded for once to take
his ease. Moreover, he had few opportunities now for riding, once a prime
pleasure, and could not afford to neglect such as did come his way.
    He
left after Prime, having taken a hasty bite and drink. The morning was misty
and mild, full of the heavy, sweet, moist melancholy of the season, with a
thickly veiled sun showing large and mellow through the haze. And the way was
pleasant, for the first part on the highway.
    The
Long Forest, south and south-west of Shrewsbury, had survived unplundered
longer than most of its kind, its assarts few and far between, its hunting
coverts thick and wild, its open heaths home to all manner of creatures of
earth and air. Sheriff Prestcote kept a weather eye on changes there, but did
not interfere with what reinforced order rather than challenging it, and the
border manors had been allowed to enlarge and improve their fields, provided
they kept the peace there with a firm enough hand. There were very ancient
holdings along the rim which had once been assarts deep in woodland, and now
had hewn out good arable land from old upland, and fenced their intakes. The
three old neighbour-manors of Linde, Aspley and Foriet guarded this eastward
fringe, half-wooded, half-open. A man riding for Chester from this place would
not need to go through Shrewsbury, but would pass it by and leave it to
westward. Peter Clemence had done so, choosing to call upon his kinsfolk when
the chance offered, rather than make for the safe haven of Shrewsbury abbey.
Would his fate have been different, had he chosen to sleep within the pale of
Saint Peter and Saint Paul? His route to Chester might even have missed
Whitchurch, passing to westward, clear of the mosses. Too late to wonder!
    Cadfael
was aware of entering the lands of the Linde manor when he came upon
well-cleared fields and the traces of grain long harvested, and stubble being
culled by sheep. The sky had partially cleared by then, a mild and milky sun
was warming the air without quite disseminating the mist, and the young man who
came strolling along a headland with a hound at his heel and a half-trained
merlin on a creance on his wrist had dew-darkened boots, and a spray of drops
on his uncovered light-brown hair from the shaken leaves of some copse left
behind him. A young gentleman very light of foot and light of heart, whistling
merrily as he rewound the creance and soothed the ruffled bird. A year or two
past twenty, he might be. At sight of Cadfael he came bounding down from the
headland to the sunken track, and having no cap to doff, gave him a very
graceful inclination of his fair head and a blithe:
    “Good-day,
brother! Are you bound for us?”
    “If
by any chance your name is Nigel Aspley,” said Cadfael, halting to return the
airy greeting, “then indeed I am.” But this could hardly be the elder son who
had five or six years the advantage of Meriet, he was too young, of