The Heretic's Apprentice (28 page)

The thunderous battering on the cell door had already ceased. Elave's voice was silent, but the silence was more daunting then 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 signalled 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 of the 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 realised 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 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 scandalised 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 as 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 dishevelled 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 run 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 afterwards, 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 my judgement, whatever it may be, if only you will loose me for these few hours of this night.'

Abbot Radulfus took two paces back from this encounter, very deliberately, and with so strong a suggestion of command that all those standing by also drew off silently, still watching wide-eyed. And Roger de Clinton, who could make up his mind about a man in a matter of moments, reached a hand to grip Elave strongly by the hand and raise him from the ground, and stepping with an authoritative gesture from between Elave and the gate, said to the porter: ‘Let him go!'

*

The workshop where Jevan of Lythwood treated his sheepskins lay well beyond the last houses of the suburb of Frankwell, solitary by the right bank of the river, at the foot of a steep meadow backed by a ridge of trees and bushes higher up the slope. Here the land rose, and the water, even at its summer level, ran deep, and with a rapid and forceful current, ideal for Jevan's occupation. The making of vellum demanded an unfailing supply of water, for the first several days of the process running water, and this spot where the Severn ran rapidly provided perfect anchorage for the open wooden frames covered with netting, in which the raw skins were fastened, so that the water could flow freely down the whole length of them, day and night, until they were ready to go into the solution of lime and water in which they would spend a fortnight, before being scraped clean of all remaining hair, and another fortnight afterwards to complete the long bleaching. Fortunata was familiar with the processes which produced at last the thin, creamy-white membranes of which her uncle was so justly proud. But she wasted no time on the netted cages in the river. No one would hide anything of value there, no matter how many folds of cerecloth were wrapped round it for protection. A faint drift of a fleshy odour from the soaking skins made her nostrils quiver as she passed, but the current was fast enough to disperse any stronger stench. Within the workshop the fleshy taint mingled with the sharp smell from the lime tanks, and the more acceptable scent of finished leather.

She turned the key in the lock, and went in, taking the key in with her and closing the door. It was heavy and dark within there, having been closed since morning, but she did not dare open the shutters that would let in light directly on to Jevan's great table, where he cleaned, scraped and pumiced his skins. Everything must appear closed and deserted. There were no houses near, no path passing close by. And surely now she had time enough and no need for haste. What was no longer in the house must be here. He had no other place so private and so his own.

She knew the layout of the place, where the tanks of lime lay, one for the first soaking when the skins came from the river, one for the second, after both sides had been scraped clean of hair and traces of flesh. The final rinsing was done in the river, before the membranes were stretched over a frame and dried in the sun, and subjected to repeated and arduous cleanings with pumice and water. Jevan had taken in the single frame in use on his morning visit; the skin stretched over it felt smooth and warm to the touch.

She waited some minutes to allow her eyes to grow used to the dimness. A little light filtered in where the shutters joined. The roof was of thick straw thatch, sunwarmed, sagging a little between the supporting beams, and the air was heavy to stifling.

Jevan's place of work was meticulously kept, but it was also overfilled, with all the tools of his trade, his lime tanks, nets in reserve for the river cages, piles of skins at various stages of manufacture, the drying frames, and racks of his knives, pumice, cloths for rubbing. He kept also a little oil lamp, in case he needed to finish some process in a failing light, and a box with flint and tinder, charred cloth and touchwood and sulphur-tipped spunks for kindling it. Fortunata began her search by what light came in through the shutters. The lime tanks could be disregarded, but they were so placed as to shroud one end of the workshop in darkness, and behind them lay the long shelf piled with skins still at varied stages of their finishing. Easy enough to use those to shroud a relatively small box, it could lie between them with the untrimmed edges draped to hide it. It took her a long time to go through them all, for they had to be laid aside in scrupulous order, to be restored just as she found them, all the more if she was in error, and there was still nothing to find but the box. But it was far too late to believe in that. If it had been true, why hide it, why remove it from its place in the chest, and leave his breviary stripped of its splendid covering?

The faint, furry dust danced in the thin chink of late sunlight, and tickled her throat and nostrils as she disturbed skin after skin. One pile was gradually stacked back into place, the second began to be stripped down, fold by fold, but there was nothing there but sheepskins. When that was done, the light was failing, for the sun had moved westward and vacated the chink in the shutters. She needed the lamp in order to see into the dark corners of the room, where two or three wooden chests housed a miscellany of offcuts, faulty pieces worth saving for smaller uses, and the finished gatherings of leaves ready for use, from a few great bifolia to the little, narrow, sixteen-leaf foldings used for small grammars or schooling texts. She was well aware that Jevan did not lock these. The workshop itself was locked up when vacant, and vellum was not a common temptation to theft. If one of the chests was locked now, that very fact would be significant.

It took her a little time to get the touchwood to nurse a spark, and kindle grudgingly into a tiny flame, enough to set to the wick of the lamp. She carried it to the line of chests and set it on the lid of the middle one, to shed its light within when she opened the first. If there was nothing alien here, there was nowhere else to look, the racks of tools stood open to view, the solid table was empty, but for the key of the door, which she had laid down there.

She had reached the third chest, in which the waste cuts and trimmings of vellum were tumbled, but here, too, all was as it should be. She had searched everywhere and found nothing.

She was on her knees on the beaten earth floor, lowering the lid, when she heard the door begin to open. The faint creak of the hinges froze her into stillness, her breath held. Then, very slowly, she closed the chest.

‘You have found nothing,' said Jevan's voice behind her, low and mild. ‘You will find nothing. There is nothing to find.'

Fortunata braced her hands upon the chest on which she leaned, and came slowly to her feet before she turned to face him. In the yellow gleam of the lamp she saw his face in white bone highlights and deep hollows of shadow, perfectly motionless, betraying nothing. And yet it was too late for dissembling, they had both betrayed themselves already, she by whatever sign she had inadvertently left at home to warn him, and this present search, he by following her here. Too late by far to pretend there was nothing to hide, nothing to answer, nothing to be accounted for. Too late to attempt to reconstruct the simple trust she had always had in him. He knew it was gone, as she knew now, beyond doubt, that there was reason for its going.

She sat down on the chest she had just closed, and set the lamp safely apart on the one beside it. And since silence seemed even more impossible than speech, she said simply: ‘I wondered about the box. I saw that it was gone from its place.'

‘I know,' he said. ‘I saw the signs you left for me. I thought you had given me the box. Am I still to account for whatever I do with it?'

‘I was curious,' she said. ‘You were going to use it for the best of your books. I wondered that it had gone out of favour in one day. But perhaps you have found a better,' she said deliberately, ‘to take its place.'

He shook his head, advancing into the room the few steps that took him to the comer of the table where she had laid down the key. That was the moment when she was quite sure, and something withered in her memories of him, forcing her, like a wounded plant, in urgent haste towards maturity. The lamp showed his face arduously smiling, but it was more akin to a spasm of pain. ‘I don't understand you,' he said. ‘Why must you meddle secretly? Could you not have asked me whatever you wanted to know?'