The Heretic's Apprentice (5 page)

‘We have no reason,' Abbot Radulfus pointed out drily, ‘to conclude that William's intent was less than sincere. These are judgements which are out of our hands, we should have the humility to acknowledge as much.'

‘Nevertheless, we have a duty under God, and cannot evade it. What proof have we that the man ever changed those suspect beliefs he held? We have not examined as to what they were, how grave, and whether they were ever repented and discarded. Because there is here in England a healthy and vigorous Church, we must not think that the peril of false belief belongs only to the past. Have you not heard that there are loose preachers abroad in France who draw the credulous after them, reviling their own priests as greedy and corrupt, and the rites of the Church as meaningless? In the south the abbot of Clairvaux is grown much concerned about such false prophets.'

‘Though the abbot of Clairvaux has himself warned,' interjected Radulfus briskly, ‘that the failure of the priesthood to set an example of piety and simplicity helps to turn people to these dissenting sects. The Church has a duty also to purge its own shortcomings.'

Cadfael listened, as all the brothers were listening, with pricked ears and alert eyes, hoping that this sudden squall would slacken and blow over just as nimbly. Radulfus would not allow any prelate to usurp his authority in his own chapter-house, but not even he could forbid an envoy of the archbishop to assert his rights of speech and judgement in a matter of doctrine. The very mention of Bernard of Clairvaux, the apostle of austerity, was a reminder of the rising influence of the Cistercians, to which order Archbishop Theobald was sympathetically inclined. And though Bernard might put in a word for popular criticism of the worldliness of many high churchmen, and yearn for a return to the poverty and simplicity of the Apostles, by all accounts he would have small mercy on anyone who diverged from the strictly orthodox where dogma was concerned. Radulfus might sidestep one citation of Bernard by countering with another, but he was quick to change the subject before he risked losing the exchange.

‘Here is Serlo,' he said simply, ‘who remembers whatever contention the archbishop's missioner had with William. He may also recall whatever points of belief had arisen between them.'

Serlo, by the dubious look on his face, hardly knew whether to be glad of such an opportunity or sorry. He opened his mouth hesitantly, but Radulfus stopped him with a raised hand.

‘Wait! It is also only fair that the one man who can truly testify to his master's mind and observance before death should be present to hear what is said of him, and answer it on his behalf. We have no right to exclude a man from the favour he has asked without a just hearing. Denis, will you go and ask the young man Elave to come back into council?'

‘Very gladly,' said Brother Denis, and went out with such indignant alacrity that it was not difficult to read his mind.

Elave came back into chapter in all innocence, expecting his formal answer and in no doubt what it would be. His alert step and confident face spoke for him. He had no warning of what was to come, even when the abbot spoke up, choosing his words with careful moderation.

‘Young sir, there is here some debate concerning your master's request. It has been said that before he departed on his pilgrimage be had been in some dispute with a priest sent by the archbishop to preach here in Shrewsbury, and had been reproved for certain beliefs he held, which were not altogether in accord with Church doctrine. It is even suggested that his pilgrimage was enjoined upon him almost as penance. Do you know anything of this? It may well be that it never came to your ears at all.'

Elave's level brows, thick and russet, darker than his hair, drew together in doubt and bewilderment, but not yet disquiet.

‘I knew he had given much thought to some articles of faith, but no more than that. He
wanted
his pilgrimage. He was growing old but still hearty, there were others and younger could manage here in his stead. He asked me if I would go with him, and I went. There was never any dispute between him and Father Elias that I know of. Father Elias knew him for a good man.'

‘The good who go astray into wrong paths do more harm than the evil, who are our open enemies,' said Canon Gerbert sharply. ‘It is the enemy within who betrays the fortress.'

Now that, thought Cadfael, rings true of Church thinking. A Seljuk Turk or a Saracen can cut down Christians in battle or throw stray pilgrims into dungeons, and still be tolerated and respected, even if he's held to be already damned. But if a Christian steps a little aside in his beliefs he becomes anathema. He had seen it years ago in the east, in the admittedly beleaguered Christian churches. Hardpressed by enemies, it was on their own they turned most savagely. Here at home he had never before encountered it, but it might yet come to be as common as in Antioch or Alexandria. Not, however, if Radulfus could rein it in.

‘His own priest does not seem to have regarded William as an enemy, either within or without,' said the abbot mildly. ‘But Deacon Serlo here is about to tell us what he recalls of the contention, and it is only just that you should afterwards speak as to your master's mind before his death, in assurance that he is worthy to be buried here within the precinct.'

‘Speak up!' said Gerbert as Serlo hesitated, dismayed and unhappy at what he had set in motion. ‘And be precise! On what heads was fault found with the man's beliefs?'

‘There were certain small points at issue,' Serlo said submissively, ‘as I remember it. Two in particular, besides his doubts concerning the baptism of infants. He had difficulty in comprehending the Trinity...'

Who does not! thought Cadfael. If it were comprehensible, all these interpreters of the good God would be out of an occupation. And every one of those denies the interpretation set up by every other.

‘He said if the first was Father, and the second Son, how could they be co-eternal and co-equal? And as to the Spirit, he could not see how it could be equal with either Father or Son if it emanated from them. Moreover, he saw no need for a third, creation, salvation and all things being complete in Father and Son. Thus the third served only to satisfy the vision of those who think in threes, as the song-makers and the soothsayers do, and all those who deal with enchantment.'

‘He said that of the Church?' Gerbert's countenance was stiff and brow black.

‘Not of the Church, no, that I do not believe he ever said. And the Trinity is a most high mystery, many have difficulty with it.'

‘It is not for them to question or reason with inadequate minds, but to accept with unquestioning faith. Truth is set before them, they have only to believe. It is the perverse and perilous who have the arrogance to bring mere fallible reason to bear on what is ineffable. Go on! Two points, you said. What is the second?'

Serlo cast an almost apologetic glance at Radulfus, and an even more rapid and uneasy one at Elave, who all this time was staring upon him with knotted brows and thrusting jaw, not yet committed to fear or anger or any other emotion, simply waiting and listening.

‘It arose out of this same matter of the Father and the Son. He said that if they were of one and the same substance, as the creed calls them consubstantial, then the entry of the Son into humankind must mean also the entry of the Father, taking to himself and making divine that which he had united with the godhead. And therefore the Father and the Son alike knew the suffering and the death and the resurrection, and as one partake in our redemption.'

‘It is the Patripassian heresy!' cried Gerbert, outraged. ‘Sabellius was excommunicated for it, and for his other errors. Noetus of Smyrna preached it to his ruin. This is indeed a dangerous venture. No wonder the priest warned him of the pit he was digging for his own soul.'

‘Howbeit,' Radulfus reminded the assembly firmly, ‘the man, it seems, listened to counsel and undertook the pilgrimage, and as to the probity of his life, nothing has been alleged against it. We are concerned, not with what he speculated upon seven years and more ago, but with his spiritual wellbeing at his death. There is but one witness here who can testify as to that. Now let us hear from his servant and companion.' He turned to look closely at Elave, whose face had set into controlled and conscious awareness, not of danger, but of deep offence. ‘Speak for your master,' said Radulfus quietly, ‘for you knew him to the end. What was his manner of life in all that long journey?'

‘He was regular in observance everywhere,' said Elave, ‘and made his confession where he could. There was no fault found with him in any land. In the Holy City we visited all the most sacred places, and going and returning we lodged whenever we could in abbeys and priories, and everywhere my master was accepted for a good and pious man, and paid his way honestly, and was well regarded.'

‘But had he renounced his views,' demanded Gerbert, ‘and recanted his heresy? Or did he still adhere secretly to his former errors?'

‘Did he ever speak with you about these things?' the abbot asked, overriding the intervention.

‘Very seldom, my lord, and I did not well understand such deep matters. I cannot answer for another man's mind, only for his conduct, which I knew to be virtuous.' Elave's face had set into contained and guarded calm. He did not look like a man who would fall short in understanding of deep matters, or lack the interest to consider them.

‘And in his last illness,' Radulfus pursued mildly, ‘he asked for a priest?'

‘He did, Father, and made his confession and received absolution without question. He died with all the due rites of the Church. Wherever there was place and time along the way he made his confession, especially after he first fell ill, and we were forced to stay a whole month in the monastery at Saint Marcel before he was fit to continue the journey home. And there he often spoke with the brothers, and all these matters of faith and doubt were understood and tolerated among them. I know he spoke openly of things that troubled him, and they found no fault there with debating all manner of questions concerning holy things.'

Canon Gerbert stared cold suspicion. ‘And where was this place, this Saint Marcel? And when was it you spent a month there? How recently?'

‘It was in the spring of last year. We left early in the May, and made the pilgrimage from there to Saint James at Compostela with a party from Cluny, to give thanks that my master was restored to health. Or so we thought then, but he was never in real health again, and we had many halts thereafter. Saint Marcel is close by Chalons on the Saône. It is a daughter house of Cluny.'

Gerbert sniffed loudly and turned up his masterful nose at the mention of Cluny. That great house had taken seriously to the pilgrim traffic and had given aid and support, protection along the roads and shelter in their houses to many hundreds not only from France, but of recent years from England, too. But for the close dependants of Archbishop Theobald it was first and foremost the mother-house of that difficult colleague and ambitious and arrogant rival, Bishop Henry of Winchester.

‘There was one of the brothers died there,' said Elave, standing up sturdily for the sanctity and wisdom of Cluny, ‘who had written on all these things, and taught in his young days, and he was revered beyond any other among the brothers, and had the most saintly name among them. He saw no wrong in pondering all these difficult matters by the test of reason, and neither did his abbot, who had sent him there from Cluny for his health. I heard him read once from Saint John's Gospel, and speak on what he read. It was wonderful to hear. And that was but a short time before he died.'

‘It is presumption to play human reason like a false light upon divine mysteries,' warned Gerbert sourly. ‘Faith is to be received, not taken apart by the wit of a mere man. Who was this brother?'

‘He was called Pierre Abelard, a Breton. He died in the April, before we set out for Compostela in the May.'

The name had meant nothing to Elave beyond what he had seen and heard for himself, and kept wonderingly in his mind ever since. But it meant a great deal to Gerbert. He stiffened in his stall, flaring up half a head taller, as a candle suddenly rears pale and lofty as the wick flares.

‘That man? Foolish, gullible soul, do you not know the man himself was twice charged and convicted of heresy? Long ago his writings on the Trinity were burned, and the writer imprisoned. And only three years ago at the Council of Sens he was again convicted of heretical writings, and condemned to have his works destroyed and end his life in perpetual imprisonment.'

It seemed that Abbot Radulfus, though less exclamatory, was equally well informed, if not better.

‘A sentence which was very quickly revoked,' he remarked drily, ‘and the author allowed to retire peacefully into Cluny at the request of the abbot.'

Unwarily Gerbert was provoked into snapping back without due thought. ‘In my view no such revocation should have been granted. It was not deserved. The sentence should have stood.'

‘It was issued by the Holy Father,' said the abbot gently, ‘who cannot err.' Whether his tongue was in his cheek at that moment Cadfael could not be sure, but the tone, though soft and reverent, stung, and was meant to sting.

‘So was the sentence!' Gerbert snapped back even more unwisely. ‘His Holiness surely had misleading information when he withdrew it. Doubtless he made a right judgement upon such truth as was presented to him.'

Elave spoke up as if to himself, but loudly enough to carry to all ears, and with a brilliance of eye and a jut of jaw that spoke more loudly still. ‘Yet by very definition a thing cannot be its opposite, therefore one judgement or the other must be error. It could as well be the former as the latter.'

Who was it claimed, Cadfael reflected, startled and pleased, that he could not understand the arguments of the philosophers? This lad had kept his ears open and his mind alert all those miles to Jerusalem and back, and learned more than he's telling. At least he's turned Gerbert purple and closed his mouth for a moment.