Ellis Peters - The Heretic's Apprentice

Cadfael fended him off with a restraining arm, and demanded of Hugh: “Have you sent to the workshop?”

“Not yet! She might have been here, and safe enough. Now I’m going there myself. Come with me! I’ll see you excused to Father Abbot afterward.”

“I will well!” said Cadfael fervently, and was starting for the door, but Elave hung upon him desperately, and could not be shaken off.

“You shall tell me! What other? What man? Who is it threatens her? The workshop whose?” And on the instant he knew, and moaned the name aloud: “Jevan! The book - you believe in it. You think it was he?” He was on his feet, hurling himself at the open doorway, but Hugh stood solidly in his way, braced between the jambs.

“Let me go! I will go! Let me out to go to her!”

“Fool!” said Hugh brusquely. “Don’t make things worse for yourself. Leave this to us, what more could you do than we can and will? Now, with the bishop already here, see to your own weal, and trust us to take care of hers.” And he shifted aside enough to order Cadfael, with a jerk of his head: “Out, and fit the key!” and forthwith gripped Elave struggling in his arms, and bore him back to trip him neatly with a heel and tip him onto his bed. By the time he had sprung again like a wildcat, Hugh was outside the door, Cadfael had the key in the lock, and Elave thudded against the timber with a bellow of rage and despair, still a prisoner.

They heard him battering at the door and shouting wild appeals after them as they made for the gatehouse. They would surely hear him right across the court and into the guest hall, all the windows being open to the air.

“I sent to saddle up a horse for you,” said Hugh, “as soon as I heard she was not here. I can think of nowhere else she might have gone, and seeing he went back there

Has she been searching? Did he find out?”

The porter had accepted the sheriff’s orders as if they came from the abbot himself, and was already leading a saddled pony up from the stableyard at a brisk trot.

“We’ll go straight through the town, it’s quicker than riding around.”

The thunderous battering on the cell door had already ceased, and Elave’s voice was silent. But the silence was more daunting than the fury had been. Elave nursed his forces and bided his time.

“I pity whoever opens that door again tonight,” said Cadfael breathlessly, reaching for the rein. “And within the hour someone will have to take him his supper.”

“You’ll be back with better news by then, God willing,” said Hugh, and swung himself into the saddle and led the way out to the Foregate.

Between the bells that signaled the offices of the horarium, Elave’s timepiece was the light, and he could judge accurately the passing of another clear day by those he had already spent in this narrow room. He knew, as soon as he drew breath and steeled himself into silence, that it could not be long now before the novice who brought his food would come with his wooden platter and pitcher, expecting nothing more disturbing than the courteous reception to which he had become accustomed, from a prisoner grimly resigned to patience, and too just to blame a young brother under orders for his predicament. A big, strapping young man they had chosen for the duty, with a guileless face and a friendly manner. Elave wished him no ill and would do him none if he could help it, but whoever stood between him and the way to Fortunata must look out for himself.

Yet the very arrangement of the cell was advantageous. The window and the desk beneath it were so situated that the opening door partly obscured them from anyone entering, until the door was closed again, and the natural place for the novice to set down his tray was on the end of the bed. Visit by visit he had lost all wariness, having had no occasion for it thus far, and his habit was to walk in blithely, pushing the door wide open with elbow and shoulder, and go straight to the bed to lay down his burden. Only then would he close the door and set his broad back to it, and pass the time of morning or evening companionably until the meal was done.

Elave withdrew from the indignity of shouting appeals that no one would heed or answer, and settled down grimly to wait for the footsteps to which he had grown used. His nameless novice had a giant’s stride and a weighty frame, and the slap of his sandals on the cobbles was more of a hearty clout. There was no mistaking him, even if the narrow lancet of window had not afforded a glimpse of the wiry brown ring of his tonsure passing by before he turned the corner and reached the door. And there he had to balance his tray on one hand while he turned the key. Ample time for Elave to be motionless behind the door when the young man walked in as guilelessly as ever, and made straight for the bed.

The smallness of the space caused Elave to collide sidelong with the unsuspecting boy and send him reeling to the opposite wall, but even so the prisoner was round the door and out into the court, and running like a hare for the gatehouse, before anyone in sight realized what had happened. After him came the novice, with longer legs and a formidable turn of speed, and a bellow that alerted the porter, and fetched out brothers, grooms, and guests like a swarm of bees, from hall and cloister and stableyard. Those quickest to comprehend and most willing to join any promising pursuit converged upon Elave’s flying figure. Those less active drew in more closely to watch. And it seemed that the first shouted alarm had reached even the abbot’s lodging, and brought out Radulfus and his guest in affronted dignity to suppress the commotion.

There had been from the first a very poor prospect of success. Yet even when four or five scandalized brothers had run to mass in Elave’s path and pinion him between them, he drove the whole reeling group almost to the arch of the gate before they hung upon him so heavily that he was dragged to a standstill. Writhing and struggling, he was forced to his knees, and fell forward on his face on the cobbles, winded and sobbing for breath.

Above him a voice said, quite dispassionately: “This is the man of whom you told me?”

“This is he,” said the abbot.

“And thus far he has given no trouble, threatened none, made no effort to escape?”

“None,” said Radulfus, “and I expected none.”

“Then there must be a reason,” said the equable voice. “Had we not better examine what it can be?” And to the captors, who were still distrustfully retaining their grip on Elave as he lay panting: “Let him rise.”

Elave braced his hands against the cobbles and got to his knees, shook his bruised head dazedly, and looked up from a pair of elegant riding boots, by way of plain dark chausses and cotte, to a strong, square, masterful face, with a thin, aquiline nose, and grey eyes that were bent steadily and imperturbably upon the disheveled hair and soiled face of his reputed heretic. They looked at each other with intent and fascinated interest, judge and accused, taking careful stock of a whole field of faith and error, justice and injustice, across which, with all its quicksands and pitfalls, they must try to meet.

“You are Elave?” said the bishop mildly. “Elave, why ran away now?”

“I was not running away, but towards!” said Elave, drawing wondering breath. “My lord, there’s a girl in danger, if things are as I fear. I learned of it only now. And I brought her into peril! Let me but go to her and fetch her off safe, and I’ll come back, I swear it. My lord, I love her, I want her for my wife

If she is threatened I must go to her.” He had got his breath back now; he reached forward and gripped the skirt of the bishop’s cotte, and clung. An incredulous hope was springing up within him, since he was neither repelled nor avoided. “My lord, my lord, the sheriff is gone to try and find her, he will tell you afterward, what I say is true. But she is mine, she is part of me and I of her, and I must go to her. My lord, take my word, my most sacred word, my oath that I will return to face judgment, whatever it may be, if only you will loose me for these few hours of this night.”