The Heretic's Apprentice Read online

  ‘You know you are,’ she said impatiently, and herself was struck mute the next moment, suddenly sensible that for Aldwin nothing had ever been known beyond possibility of doubt. Every evil was to be expected, every good suspect and to be watched jealously, lest it evaporate as he breathed on it. ‘Oh, no!’ she said on a despairing breath. ‘Was that it? Did you think he was come to turn you out and take your place? Was that why you wanted rid of him?’

  ‘What?’ cried Jevan. ‘Is the girl right, man? Did you suppose you were to be thrown out on the roads to make way for him to get his old place back again? After all the years you’ve lived here and worked for us? Did this house ever treat any of its people so? You know better than that!’

  But that was Aldwin’s trouble, that he valued himself so low he expected as low a regard from everyone else, even after years, and the respect and consideration the house of Lythwood showed towards its other dependants could not, in his eyes, be relied on as applying equally to him. He stood dumbstruck, his mouth working silently.

  ‘My dear soul!’ said Margaret, grieving. ‘The thought never entered our heads to part with you. Certainly he was a good lad when we had him, but we wouldn’t have displaced you for the world. Why, the boy didn’t want it, either. I told him how it was, the first time he came back here, and he said surely, the place was yours, he never had the least wish to take it from you. Have you been fretting all this time over that? I thought you knew us better.’

  ‘I’ve damaged him for no reason,’ said Aldwin, as though to himself. ‘No reason at all!’ And suddenly, with a convulsive moment that shook his aging body as a gale shakes a bush, he turned and blundered towards the doorway. Conan caught him by the arm and held him fast.

  ‘Where are you going? What can you do? It’s done. You told no lies, what was said was said.’

  ‘I’ll overtake him,’ said Aldwin with unaccustomed resolution. ‘I’ll tell him I’m sorry for it. I’ll go with him to the monks, and see if I can undo what I’ve done – any part of what I’ve done. I’ll own why I did it. I’ll withdraw the charge I made.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool!’ urged Conan roughly. ‘What difference will that make? The charge is laid now, the priests won’t let it be dropped, not they. It’s no small matter to accuse a man of heresy and then go back on it, you’ll only end in as bad case as he. And they have my witness, and Fortunata’s, what use is it taking back yours? Let be, and show some sense!’

  But Aldwin’s courage was up, and his conscience stricken too deeply for sense. He dragged himself free from the detaining hand. ‘I can but try! I will! That at least.’ And he was out at the door, and halfway across the yard towards the street. Conan would have gone after him, but Jevan called him back sharply.

  ‘Let him alone! At the very least, if he owns to his own fear and malice, he must surely shake the case against the lad. Words, words, I don’t doubt they were spoken, but words can be interpreted many ways, and even a small doubt cast can alter the image. You get back to work, and let the poor devil go and ease his mind the best way he can. If he falls foul of the priests, we’ll put in a word for him and get him out of it.’

  Conan gave up reluctantly, shrugging off his misgivings about the whole affair. ‘Then I’d best get out to the folds until nightfall. God knows how he’ll fare, but by then, one way or another, I suppose we shall find out.’ And he went out still shaking his head disapprovingly over Aldwin’s foolishness, and they heard his solid footsteps cross the yard to the passage into the street.

  ‘What a coil!’ said Jevan with a gusty sigh. ‘And I must be off, too, and fetch some more skins from the workshop. There’s a canon of Haughmond coming tomorrow, and I’ve no notion yet what size of book he has in mind. Don’t take things too much to heart, girl,’ he said, and embraced Fortunata warmly in a long arm. ‘If it comes to the worst we’ll get the prior of Haughmond to say a word to Gerbert for any man of ours – one Augustinian must surely listen to another, and the prior owes me a favour or two.’

  He released her and was off towards the door in his turn, when she demanded abruptly: ‘Uncle – does Elave count as a man of ours?’

  Jevan swung about to stare at her, his thin black brows raised, and the dark, observant eyes beneath them flashed into the smile that came seldom but brilliantly, a little teasing, a little intimidating, but for her always reassuring.

  ‘If you want him,’ he said, ‘he shall.’

  *

  Elave had gone but a few yards back towards the abbey gatehouse when he saw half a dozen men come boiling out of the open gate, and split two ways along the Foregate. The suddenness of the eruption and the distant clamour of their raised voices as they emerged and separated made him draw back hastily into the cover of the trees, to consider what this hubbub might have to do with him. They were certainly sent forth in a body, and carrying staves, which boded no good if they were indeed hunting for him. He worked his way cautiously along the grove to get a closer view, for they were sweeping the open road first before enlarging their field, and two were away on the run along the further length of the enclave wall, to reach the corner and get a view along the next stretch of the road. Someone or something was certainly being hunted. Not by any of the brothers. Here were no black habits, but sober workaday homespun and hard-wearing leather, on sturdy laymen. Three of them he knew for the grooms attendant on Canon Gerbert, a fourth was his body servant, for Elave had seen the man about the guest-hall, busy and pompous, jack in office by virtue of his master’s status. The others must surely have been recruited from among those pilgrims ablest in body and readiest for zealous mischief. It was not the abbot who had set the dogs on him, but Gerbert.

  He drew back deeper into cover, and stood scowling at the intent hunters quartering the Foregate. He had no mind to show himself, however boldly, and risk being set upon and dragged back like a felon, when he had not, in his reading of his commitment, ever broken his parole. Maybe Canon Gerbert read the terms differently, and considered his going outside the gate, even without his gear, as proof of a guilty mind and instant flight. Well, he should not have the satisfaction of being able to sustain that view. Elave was going back through that gate on his own two feet, of his own obstinate will, true to his bond and staking his liberty and perhaps his life. The peril in which he could not bring himself to believe looked more real and sinister now.

  They had left a single groom, the brawniest of Gerbert’s three, sentinel before the gatehouse, prowling up and down as though neither time nor force could shift him. Small hope of slipping past that great sinewy hulk! And a couple of the hounds, having beaten the road, the gardens and the cottages along the Foregate for a hundred paces either way, were crossing the road purposefully towards the trees. Better remove himself from here to a safe distance until they either abandoned the hunt, or pursued it into more remote coverts, and allowed him safe passage back into the fold. Elave drew off hastily through the trees, and followed their dwindling course north-eastward until he came round into the orchards beyond the Gaye, and the belt of bushes that clothed the riverside. They were more likely to search for him westward. Along the border, English fugitives made for Wales, Welsh fugitives for England. The two laws baulked and held off at the dyke, though trade crossed back and forth merrily enough.

  There was still a matter of three hours or so before Vespers, when he could hope that everyone would be in church again, and he might be able to slip in either through the gatehouse, if the burly guard had departed, or into the church by the west door among the local parishioners. No point in going back, meantime, to risk running his head into a snare. He found himself a comfortable nest among the tall grass above the river, screened by bushes and islanded in a silence that would give him due warning of any foot rustling the grass or shoulders brushing through the branches of alder and willow for a hundred yards around, and sat thinking of Fortunata. He could not credit that he was in the kind of danger she envisaged, and yet he could not quite put the shadow away from him
.

  Across the swift and sinuous currents of the Severn, sparkling in sunlight, the hill of the town rose sharply, its long, enfolding wall terminating here opposite his hiding-place in the thick sandstone towers of the castle, and giving place to the highroad launching away to the north from the Castle Foregate towards Whitchurch and Wem. And even now he could have forded the river only a little way downstream and made off at speed by that road, but he was damned if he would! He had committed no crime, he had said only what he held to be right, and there was nothing in it of blasphemy or disrespect to the Church, and he would not take back a word of it, or run away from his own utterances and afford his accusers a cheap triumph.

  He had no way of knowing the time, but when he thought it must be drawing near to Vespers he left his nest, and made his way cautiously back by the same route, keeping in cover, until he could see between the trees the dusty whiteness of the road, the people passing along it, and the lively bustle about the gatehouse. He had a while to wait before the Vesper bell rang, and he spent it moving warily from one cover to another, to see whether any of his pursuers were to be noted among the people gathering outside the west door of the church. He recognised none, but in the constant movement it was difficult to be sure. The big man who had been left to guard the gate was nowhere within view. Elave’s best moment would come when the little bell was heard, and the gossips passing the time of day there in the early evening sunshine would gather and move into the church.

  The moment was on him as fast as the thought. The bell chimed, and the worshippers gathered their families, saluted their friends, and began to move in by the west door. Elave darted out in time to mingle with them and hide himself in the middle of the procession, and there was no outcry, no rough hand grasping him by the shoulder. Now he had a choice between continuing left with the good people of the Foregate into the church, or slipping through the open gate of the enclave into the great court, and walking calmly across to the guest-hall. If he had chosen the church all might have been well, but the temptation to walk openly into the court as from a respectable stroll was too much for him. He left the shelter of the worshippers, and turned in through the gate.

  From the doorway of the porter’s lodge on his right a great howl of triumph soared, and was echoed from the road he had left behind. The canon’s giant groom had been talking with the porter, vengeance in ambush, and two of his colleagues were just coming back from a foray into the town. All three of them fell upon the returning prodigal at once. A heavy cudgel struck him on the back of the head, sending him staggering, and before he could regain his balance or his wits he was grappled in the big man’s muscular arms, while one of the others caught him by the hair, dragging his head back. He let out a yell of rage, and laid about him with fist and foot, heaving off his assailant from behind, wrenching one arm free from the big man’s embrace and lashing out heartily at his nose. A second blow on the head drove him to his knees, half stunned. Distantly he heard dismayed voices crying out at such violence on sacred ground, and sandalled feet running hastily over the cobbles. Lucky for him that the brothers were just gathering from their various occupations to the sound of the bell.

  Brother Edmund from the infirmary, Brother Cadfael from the turn of the path into the garden, bore down on the unseemly struggle with habits flying.

  ‘Stop that! Stop at once!’ cried Edmund, scandalised at the profanation, and waving agitated arms impartially at all the offenders.

  Cadfael, with a sharper turn of speed, wasted no breath on remonstrance, but made straight for the cudgel that was uplifted for a third blow at the victim’s already bloodied head, halted it in midair, and twisted it without difficulty out of the hand that wielded it, fetching a howl from the over-enthusiastic groom in the process. The three huntsmen ceased battering their captive, but kept fast hold of him, hauling him to his feet and pinning him between them as though he might yet slip through their fingers and make off like a hare through the gate.

  ‘We’ve got him!’ they proclaimed almost in unison. ‘It’s him, it’s the heretic! He was for making off out of trouble, but we’ve got him for you, safe and sound –’

  ‘Sound?’ Cadfael echoed ruefully. ‘You’ve half killed the lad between you. Did it need three of you to deal with one man? Here he was, within the pale, did you have to break his head for him?’

  ‘We’ve been hunting him all the afternoon,’ protested the big man, swelling with his own prowess, ‘as Canon Gerbert ordered us. Were we to take any chances with such a fellow when we did lay hand on him? Find and bring him back, we were told, and here he is.’

  ‘Bring him?’ said Cadfael, shoving one of Elave’s captors unceremoniously aside to take his place, with an arm about the young man’s body to support him. ‘I saw from the turn of the hedge there who brought him back. He walked in here of his own will. You can take no credit for it, even if you count what you’re about as credit. What possessed your master to set the dogs on him in the first place? He gave his word he wouldn’t run, and Father Abbot accepted it, and said he was free to go and come as he pleased for the time being. A pledge good enough for our abbot was not good enough for Canon Gerbert, I suppose?’

  By that time three or four others had gathered excitedly about them, and here came Prior Robert, sailing towards them from the corner of the cloister in acute displeasure at seeing what appeared to be an agitated and disorderly gathering disturbing the procession to Vespers.

  ‘What is this? What is happening here? Have you not heard the bell?’ His eyes fell upon Elave, propped up unsteadily between Cadfael and Edmund, his clothes dusty and in disarray, his brow and cheek smeared with blood. ‘Oh,’ he said, satisfaction tempered with some dismay at the violence done, ‘so they have brought you back. It seems the attempt at flight cost you dear. I am sorry you are hurt, but you should not have run from justice.’

  ‘I did not run from justice,’ said Elave, panting. ‘The lord abbot gave me leave to go and come freely, on my word not to run, and I did not run.’

  ‘That is truth,’ said Cadfael, ‘for he walked in here of his own accord. He was heading for the guest-hall, where he’s lodged like any other traveller, when these fellows fell upon him, and now they claim to have recaptured him for Canon Gerbert. Did he ever give such orders?’

  ‘Canon Gerbert understood the liberty granted him as holding good only within the enclave,’ said the prior sharply. ‘So, I must say, did I. When this man was found to have gone from the court we supposed him to have attempted escape. But I am sorry it was necessary to be so rough with him. Now what is to be done? He needs attention… Cadfael, see to his hurts, if you will, and after Vespers I will see the abbot and tell him what has happened. It may be he should be housed in isolation…’

  Which meant, thought Cadfael, in a cell, under lock and key. Well, at worst that would keep these great oafs away from him. But we shall see what Abbot Radulfus will say.

  ‘If I may miss Vespers,’ he said, ‘I’ll have him away into the infirmary for now, and take care of his injuries there. He’ll need no armed guards, the state he’s in, but I’ll stay with him until we get the lord abbot’s orders concerning him.’

  *

  ‘Well, at least,’ said Cadfael, bathing away blood from Elave’s head in the small anteroom in the infirmary, where the medicine cupboard was kept, ‘you left your mark on a couple of them. And though you’ll have a devil of a headache for a while, you’ve a good hard skull, and there’ll be no lasting harm. I don’t know but you’d be just as well in a penitential cell till all blows over. The bed’s the same as all the other beds, the cell’s fine and cool in this weather, there’s a little desk for reading – our delinquents are meant to spend their time during imprisonment in improving their minds and repenting their errors. Can you read?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Elave, passive under the ministering hands.

  ‘Then we could ask books from the library for you. The right course with a young fellow who’s gone astray after unble
ssed beliefs is to ply him with the works of the Church fathers, and visit him with good counsel and godly argument. With me to minister to your bruises, and Anselm to discuss this world and the next with you, you’d have some of the best company to be had in this enclave, and with official sanction, mind. And a solitary cell keeps out the bleatings of fools and zealous idiots who hunt three to a lone man. Keep still now! Does that hurt?’

  ‘No,’ said Elave, curiously soothed by this flow of talk which he did not quite know how to take. ‘You think they will shut me up in a cell?’

  ‘I think Canon Gerbert will insist. And it’s not so easy to refuse the archbishop’s envoy over details. For they’ve come to the conclusion, I hear, that your case cannot be simply dismissed. That’s Gerbert’s verdict. The abbot’s is that if there is to be further probing, it must be by your own bishop, and nothing shall be done until he declares what he wishes in the matter. And little Serlo is off to Coventry tomorrow morning, to report to him all that has happened. So no harm can come to you and no one can question or fret you until Roger de Clinton has had his say. You may as well pass your time as pleasantly as possible. Anselm has built up a very passable library.’

  ‘I think,’ said Elave with quickening interest, in spite of his aching head, ‘I should like to read Saint Augustine, and see if he really did write what he’s said to have written.’

  ‘About the number of the elect? He did, in a treatise called “De Correptione et Gratia”, if my memory serves me right. Which,’ said Cadfael honestly, ‘I have never read, though I have had it read to me in the frater. Could you manage him in the Latin? I’d be small help to you there, but Anselm would.’

  ‘It’s a strange thing,’ said Elave, pondering with deep solemnity over the course of events which had brought him to this curious pass, ‘all the years I worked for William, and travelled with him, and listened to him, I never truly gave any thought to these things until now. They never bothered me. They do now, they matter to me now. If no one had meddled with William’s memory and tried to deny him a grave, I never should have given thought to them.’