The Devil’s Novice
Ellis Peters
The Eighth Chronicle of Brother Cadfael
Contents
^
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
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FAWCETT CREST • NEW YORK
A Fawcett Crest Book
Published by Ballantine Books
Copyright © 1983 by Ellis Peters
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
First published in Great Britain by Macmillan London Limited, 1983
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 83-63300
ISBN 0-449-20701-3
This edition published by arrangement with William Morrow and Company, Inc.
First Ballantine Books Edition: February 1986
Second Printing: February 1987
CHAPTER ONE
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In the middleof September of that year of Our Lord, 1140, two lordsof Shropshire manors, one north of the town of Shrewsbury, the other south,sent envoys to the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul on the same day,desiring the entry of younger sons of their houses to the Order.
One was accepted, the other rejected. For which different treatment therewere weighty reasons.
“I have called you few together,” said Abbot Radulfus, “beforemaking any decision in this matter, or opening it to consideration in chapter,