Ellis Peters - The Heretic's Apprentice

As Cadfael came through the court after dinner, to return to his labors in the herb garden, he encountered Elave. The young man was just coming down the steps from the guest hall, in movement and countenance bright and vehement, like a tool honed for fine use. He was still roused and ready to be aggressive after the rough passage of his master’s body to its desired resting place, the bones of his face showed polished with tension, and his prow of a nose quested belligerently on the summer air.

“You look ready to bite,” said Cadfael, coming by design face-to-face with him.

The boy looked back at him for a moment uncertain how to respond, where even this unalarming presence was still an unknown quantity. Then he grinned, and the sharp tension eased.

“Not you, at any rate, Brother! If I showed my teeth, did I not have cause?”

“Well, at least you know our abbot all the better for it. You have what you asked. But as well keep a lock on your lips until the other one is gone. One way to be sure of saying nothing that can be taken amiss is to say nothing at all. Another is to agree with whatever the prelates say. But I doubt that would have much appeal for you.”

“It’s like threading a way between archers in ambush,” said Elave, relaxing. “For a cloistered man, Brother, you say things aside from the ordinary yourself.”

“We’re none of us as ordinary as all that. What I feel, when the divines begin talking doctrine, is that God speaks all languages, and whatever is said to him or of him in any tongue will need no interpreter. And if it’s devoutly meant, no apology. How is that hand of yours? No inflammation?”

Elave shifted the box he was carrying to his other arm, and showed the faded scar in his palm, still slightly puffed and pink round the healed punctures.

“Come round with me to my workshop, if you’ve the time to spare,” Cadfael invited, “and let me dress that again for you. And that will be the last you need think of it.” He cast a glance at the box tucked under the young man’s arm. “But you have errands to do in the town? You’ll be off to visit William’s kinsfolk.”

“They’ll need to know of his burying, tomorrow,” said Elave. “They’ll be here. There was always a good feeling among them all, never bad blood. It was Girard’s wife who kept the house for the whole family. I must go and tell them what’s arranged. But there’s no haste. I daresay once I’m up there it will be for the rest of the day and into the evening.”

They fell in amicably together, side by side, out of the court and through the rose garden, rounding the thick hedge. As soon as they entered the walled garden, the sun-warmed scent of the herbs rose to enfold them in a cloud of fragrance, every step along the gravel path between the beds stirring wave on wave of sweetness.

“Shame to go withindoors on such a day,” said Cadfael. “Sit down here in the sun, I’ll bring the lotion out to you.”

Elave sat down willingly on the bench by the north wall, tilting his face up to the sun, and laid his burden down beside him. Cadfael eyed it with interest, but went first to bring out the cleansing lotion, and anoint the fading wound once again.

“You’ll feel no more of that now, it’s clean enough. Young flesh heals well, and you’ve surely been through more risks crossing the world and back than you should be meeting here in Shrewsbury.” He stoppered the flask, and sat down beside his guest. “I suppose they won’t even know yet, that you’re back and their kinsman dead - the family there in the town?”

“Not yet, no. There was barely time last night to get my master well bestowed, and what with the dispute in chapter this morning, I’ve had no chance yet to get word to them. You know them - his nephews? Girard sees to the flock and the sales, and fetches in the wool clips from the others he deals for. Jevan always managed the vellum-making, even in William’s day. Come to think of it, for all I know things may be changed there since we left.”

“You’ll find them all living,” said Cadfael reassuringly, “that I do know. Not that we see much of them down here in the Foregate. They come sometimes on festival days, but they have their own church at Saint Alkmund’s.” He eyed the box Elave had laid down on the bench between them. “Something William was bringing back to them? May I look? Faith, I own I’m looking already, I can’t take my eyes from it. That’s a wonderful piece of carving. And old, surely.”

Elave looked down at it with the critical appreciation and indifferent detachment of one to whom it meant simply an errand to be discharged, something he would be glad to hand over and be rid of. But he took it up readily and placed it in Cadfael’s hands to be examined closely.

“I have to take it by way of a dowry for the girl. When he grew too ill to go on he thought of her, seeing he’d taken her into his household from the day she was born. So he gave me this to bring to Girard, to be used for her when she marries. It’s a poor lookout for a girl with no dowry when it comes to getting a husband.”

“I remember there was a little girl,” said Cadfael, turning the box in his hands with admiration. It was enough to excite the artist in any man. Fashioned from some dark eastern wood, about a foot long by eight inches wide and four deep, the lid flawlessly fitted, with a small, gilded lock. The under surface was plain, polished to a lustrous darkness almost black, the upper surface and the edges of the lid beautifully and intricately carved in a tracery of vine leaves and grapes, and in the center of the lid a lozenge containing an ivory plaque, an aureoled head, full-face, with great Byzantine eyes. It was so old that the sharp edges had been slightly smoothed and rounded by handling, but the lines of the carving were still picked out in gold.

“Fine work!” said Cadfael, handling it reverently. He balanced it in his hands, and it hung like a solid mass of wood, nothing shifting within. “You never wondered what was in it?”

Elave looked faintly surprised, and hoisted indifferent shoulders. “It was packed away, and I had other things to think about. I’ve only this past half hour got it out of the baggage roll. No, I never did wonder. I took it he’d saved up some money for her. I’m just handing it over to Girard as I was told to do. It’s the girl’s, not mine.”

“You don’t know where he got it?”

“Oh, yes, I know where he bought it. From a poor deacon in the market in Tripoli, just before we took ship for Cyprus and Thessaloniki on our way home. There were Christian fugitives beginning to drift in then from beyond Edessa, turned out of their monasteries by Mamluk raiders from Mosul. They came with next to nothing; they had to sell whatever they’d contrived to bring with them in order to live. William drove shrewd bargains among the merchants, but he dealt fairly with those poor souls. They said life was becoming hard and dangerous in those parts. The journey out we made the slow way, by land. William wanted to see the great collection of relics in Constantinople. But coming home we started by sea. There are plenty of Greek and Italian merchant ships plying as far as Thessaloniki, some even all the way to Bari and Venice.”

“There was a time,” mused Cadfael, drawn back through the years, “when I knew those seas very well. How did you fare for lodging on the way out, all those miles afoot?”

“Now and then we went a piece in company, but mostly it was we two alone. The monks of Cluny have hospices all across France and down through Italy. Even close by the emperor’s city they have a house for pilgrims. And as soon as you reach the Holy Land the Knights of Saint John provide shelter everywhere. It’s a great thing to have done,” said Elave, looking back in awe and wonder. “Along the way a man lives a day at a time, and looks no further ahead than the next day, and no further behind than the day just passed. Now I see it whole, and it is wonderful.”