Mystery!: Cadfael (TV Series)

The Devil's Novice (1996)

Derek Jacobi: Brother Cadfael

Quotes 

• Brother Cadfael : You could have been excommunicated. Assault upon your priest and confessor! Though I won't deny I have wanted to strangle Brother Jerome at times myself.

• Abbot Radulfus : How is Brother Jerome?

  Brother Cadfael : Oh, his throat will mend, but a week or two will pass before his voice returns.

  Abbot Radulfus : Then even in the worst deed, there is some good.

• Brother Cadfael : Oswin. When you entered these walls you renounced the world... not your senses!

• [last lines] 

  Brother Cadfael : Well then, off you go. Your vocation is elsewhere.

  Meriet Ashby : And yours is truly here?

  Brother Cadfael : Oh, yes, it is. And not merely from atonement and weariness. In middle life you too may stop and look inside yourself and wonder, "what now?" I was ripe for change, and I find that change refreshing.

  Meriet Ashby : But I shall be married then, with twelve children.

  Isobel : We'll see about the twelve.

  [Meriet laughs] 

  Isobel : God keep you, Brother Cadfael.

  Brother Cadfael : I hope he will.

  [Meriet and Isobel leave] 

  Brother Cadfael : I hope he will.

• [an arrow hits a tree over Cadfael's head. He ducks. Isobel appears, carrying her bow] 

  Isobel : Sorry, brother, I mistook you for a wild pig. Well, not strictly true, I sought you out.

  Brother Cadfael : You're not the first today.

  Isobel : Shall we talk... or must you not sit with women?

  Brother Cadfael : [smiles]  I will sit with pleasure.

• Leoric Ashby : I had the horse led to the far north, by the route Clemence should have taken - devil's own job to catch. And the body I took in secret to the charcoal hearth. I built a stack and fired it. It was not well done, and against my conscience, but I did it. And I did it not for Meriet's sake, not for my own flesh and blood - that's the real shame - but to preserve that worthless thing called "honor."

  Brother Cadfael : No, honor is not worthless. But you sought to protect a family name. And a name, alone, has no worth at all.

• Abbot Radulfus : Unrequited love?

  Brother Cadfael : He is passionate. The lady chose his brother.

  Abbot Radulfus : And for that he shuts himself away?

  Brother Cadfael : He will admit no other reason.

  Prior Robert : Well, better that than murder.

  Brother Cadfael : You mean Canon Eluard's suspicions?

  Prior Robert : Given credence, surely, by his savage attack on Brother Jerome?

  Brother Cadfael : No, no, no. Meriet would have stopped.

  Prior Robert : Would he? I think, Brother Cadfael, that you see yourself in that young man. That doesn't mean you can read his heart.

  Brother Cadfael : No, but I think it wise, Father, for someone to visit his father, Leoric Ashby.

  Prior Robert : To what end?

  Brother Cadfael : Because it is not too late for him to haul the boy back from vows for which he is manifestly ill-suited.

  Abbot Radulfus : A sensible thought. This is no hideaway for lovesick youth, Brother Prior.

• Meriet Ashby : [from his sickbed, with a broken ankle]  *I* killed Peter Clemence! I shot him down in the forest not three miles from Ashby! Tell Sergeant Warden to let that poor wretch Harald free! I never thought when he was taken...!

  Brother Cadfael : Easy, easy! Why did you commit such a mortal sin?

  Meriet Ashby : Why? Because he made free with my brother's bride, the woman I too loved!

  Brother Cadfael : And your father, does he know of this?

  Meriet Ashby : How else should I be here? He gave me a choice which was no choice: to undergo this lifelong penance of the cloister, or to admit my guilt and go to shameful death, thus destroying our family name and ancient honour, and so him.