Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice

taken in for pity. And when it's money, it sticks close in the blood, and mostly to the men, and Dame Margaret has nephews if Girard has none on his side. Like or not like, a man has to think of his prospects."
    "And now you think better of the girl because she has a dowry from old William," Aldwin guessed shrewdly, "and want the other fellow out of sight and mind. For all he brought her the dowry! And how do you know but what's in it may be worth nothing to boast of?"
    "In a fine carved casket like that? You saw how it was ornamented, all tendrils and ivory."
    "A box is a box. It's what it holds that counts."
    "No man would put rubbish in a box like that. But little value or great, it's worth the wager. For I do like the girl, and I think it only good sense and no shame," vowed Conan roundly, "to like her the better for having possessions. And you'd do well," he added seriously, "to think on your own case if that youngster comes to Fortunata's lure and stays here, where he was taught his clerking."
    He was giving words to what had been eating away at Aldwin's always tenuous peace of mind ever since Elave had showed his face. But he made one feeble effort to stand it off. "I've seen no sign he'd be wanted back here."
    "For one not wanted he was made strangely welcome, then," retorted Conan. "And didn't I just say something to Jevan, that made him answer how I had nothing to fret about, seeing Elave was no shepherd, to threaten me! Let Aldwin do the fretting, says he, if there's any to be done."
    Aldwin had been doing the fretting all the evening, and it was made manifest by the tight clenching of his hands, white at the knuckles, and the sour set of his mouth, as though it were full of gall. He sat mute, seething in his fears and suspicions, and this light pronouncement of Jevan's, all the confirmation they needed.
    "Why did he have to come safe out of a mad journey that's killed its thousands before now?" wondered Conan, brooding. "I wish the man no great harm, God-knows, but I wish him elsewhere. I'd wish him well, if only he'd make off somewhere else to enjoy it. But he'd be a fool not to see that he can do very well for himself here. I can't see him taking to his heels."
    "Not," agreed Aldwin malevolently, "unless the hounds were snapping at them."
    Aldwin sat for some while after Conan had gone off to his bed. By the time he rose from the table the hall would certainly be in darkness, the outer door barred, and Jevan already in his own chamber. Aldwin lit an end of candle from the last flicker of the saucer lamp, to light him through the hall to the wooden stairway to the loft, before he blew out the dwindling flame.
    In the hall it was silent and still, no movement but the very slight creak of a shutter in the night breeze. Aldwin's candle made a minute point of light in the darkness, enough to show him his way the width of a familiar room. He was halfway to the foot of the stair when he halted, stood hesitating for a moment, and listening to the reassuring silence, and then turned and made straight for the corner press.
    The key was always in the lock, but seldom turned. Such valuables as the house contained were kept in the coffer in Girard's bedchamber. Aldwin carefully opened the long door, set his candle to stand steady on a shelf at breast level, and reached up to the higher shelf where Margaret had placed Fortunata's box. Even when he had it set down beside his light he wavered. How if the key turned creakingly instead of silently, or would not yield at all? He could not have said what impelled him to meddle, but curiosity was strong and constant in him, as if he had to know the ins and outs of everything in the household, in case some overlooked detail might be held in store to be used against him. He turned the little key, and it revolved sweetly and silently, well made like the lock it operated and the box it adorned and guarded. With his left hand he raised the lid, and with his right lifted the candle to cast its light directly within.
    "What are you doing there?" demanded Jevan's voice, sharp and irritable from the top of the stairway.
    Aldwin started violently, shaking drops of hot wax onto his hand. He had the lid closed and the key turned in an instant, and thrust the box back onto its upper shelf in panic haste. The open door of the press screened what he was about. From where Jevan came surging down the first few treads of the stairs, a moving shadow among shadows, he would see the light,