The Heretic's Apprentice (14 page)

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 unblessed 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.'

‘If it's any help to have company along the way,' admitted Cadfael, ‘I begin to find my case much the same as yours. Where the seed lights, the herb grows. And there's nothing like hard usage and drought to drive its roots in deep.'

*

Jevan came back to the house near Saint Alkmund's when it was already dark, with a bundle of new white skins of vellum, of a silken, creamy texture, and very thin and supple. He was proud of the work he did. The prior of Haughmond would not be disappointed in the wares on offer. Jevan bestowed them carefully in the shop, and locked up there before crossing the yard to the hall, where supper was laid, and Margaret and Fortunata were waiting for him.

‘Is Aldwin not back yet?' he asked, looking round with raised brows as they sat down only three to table.

Margaret looked up from serving with a somewhat anxious face. ‘No, no sign of him since. I was getting worried about him. What can possibly have kept him this long?'

‘He'll have fallen foul of the theologians,' said Jevan, shrugging, ‘and serve him right for throwing the other lad to them, like a bone to a pack of dogs. He'll be still at the abbey, and his turn to answer awkward questions. But they'll turn him loose when they've wrung him dry. Whether they'll do as much for Elave there's no knowing. Well, I shall lock up the house as usual before I go to my bed. If he creeps back later than that he'll have to lie in the stable-loft for the night.'

‘Conan's not back, either,' said Margaret, shaking her head over the distressful day that should have been all celebration. ‘And I thought Girard would have been home before this. I hope nothing has happened to him.'

‘Nothing will have happened,' Jevan assured her firmly, ‘but some matter of business to his profit. You know he can take very good care of himself, and he has excellent relations all along the border. If he meant to be back for the festival, and has missed his day, it will be because he's added a couple of new customers to his tally. It takes time to strike a bargain with a Welsh sheepman. He'll be back home safe and sound in a day or so.'

‘And what will he find when he does get home?' She sighed ruefully. ‘Elave in this trouble as soon as he shows his face here again, Uncle William dead and buried, and now Aldwin getting himself still deeper into so bad a business. Truly I hope you're right, and he has done well with the wool clip, it will be some comfort at least if one thing has gone right.'

She rose to clear away the supper dishes, still shaking her head over undefined misgivings, and Fortunata was left alone with Jevan.

‘Uncle,' she said hesitantly, after some minutes of silence, ‘I wanted to talk to you. Whether I like it or not, I have been drawn into this terrible charge against Elave. He will not believe he is in grave danger, but I know he is. I want to help him. I must help him.'

The solemnity of her voice had caused him to turn and regard her long and attentively, with those black, penetrating eyes that saw deep into her now as in her childhood, and always with detached affection.

‘I think this matters to you,' he said, ‘more than might appear, when you have barely seen him again, and after years.'

It was not a question, but she answered it. ‘I think I love him. What else can this be? It is not so strange. There were years before the years of his absence. I liked him then, better than he knew.'

‘And you talked with him today, as I remember,' he said keenly, ‘after this hearing at the abbey.'

‘Yes,' she said.

‘And thereafter, I fancy, he knows better how well you like him! And has he given you cause to be as certain of his liking for you?'

‘Cause enough. He said that if there were no other reason I should be reason enough to hold him fast, in despite of whatever danger there may be to him here. Uncle, you know I have a dowry now from William. When my father comes home, and that box is opened, I want to use whatever he has given me to help Elave. To offer for his fine, if a fine is allowed to pay off his debt, to bargain for his liberty if they hold him, yes, even to corrupt his guards if the worst comes, and get him away over the border.'

‘And you'd feel no guilt,' said Jevan with his sharp, dark smile, ‘at defying the law and flouting the Church?'

‘None, because he has done no wrong. If they condemn him, it's they who are guilty. But I mean to ask Father to speak up for him. As one who knows him, and is respected by everyone, law, Church and all. If Girard of Lythwood stood guarantor for his future behaviour, I believe they might listen.'

‘So they might,' agreed Jevan heartily. ‘At least that and every other means can be tried. I told you – if you want him, then Elave can and shall count as a man of ours. There, you be off to your bed and sleep easy. Who knows what magic may be discovered when William's box is opened?'

*

Late but not too late, Conan came home just before the door was locked, only a little tipsy after celebrating the end of the day, as he freely admitted, with half a dozen boon companions at the alehouse in Mardol.

Aldwin did not come home at all.

Brother Cadfael arose well before Prime, took his scrip, and went out to collect certain waterside plants, now in their full summer leaf. The morning was veiled with a light covering of cloud, through which the sun shimmered in pearly tints of faint rose and misty blue. Later it would clear and be hot again. As he went out from the gatehouse a groom was just bringing up Serlo's mule from the stable-yard, and the bishop's deacon came out from the guest-hall ready for his journey, and paused at the top of the steps to draw deep breath, as though the solitary ride to Coventry held out to him all the delights of a holiday, by comparison with riding in Canon Gerbert's overbearing company. His errand, perhaps, was less pleasurable. So gentle a soul would not enjoy reporting to his bishop an accusation that might threaten a young man's liberty and life, but by his very nature he would probably make as fair a case as he could for the accused. And Roger de Clinton was a man of good repute, devout and charitable if austere, a founder of religious houses and patron of poor priests. All might yet go well for Elave, if he did not let his newly discovered predilection for undisciplined thought run away with him.

I must talk to Anselm about some books for him, Cadfael reminded himself as he left the dusty highroad and began to descend the green path to the riverside, threading the bushes now at the most exuberant of their summer growth, rich cover for fugitives or the beasts of the woodland. The vegetable gardens of the Gaye unfolded green and neat along the riverside, the uncut grass of the bank making a thick emerald barrier between water and tillage. Beyond were the orchards, and then two fields of grain and the disused mill, and after that trees and bushes leaning over the swift, silent currents, crowding an overhanging bank, indented here and there by little coves, where the water lay deceptively innocent and still, lipping sandy shallows. Cadfael wanted comfrey and marsh mallow, both the leaves and the roots, and knew exactly where they grew profusely. Freshly prepared root and leaf of comfrey to heal Elave's broken head, marsh mallow to soothe the surface soreness, were better than the ready-made ointments or the poultices from dried material in his workshop. Nature was a rich provider in summer. Stored medicines were for the winter.