Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice

face, which was raised to him pale, resolute, and irate, with set mouth and wide and brilliant eyes, still burning for Fortunata's distress. "You are a guest in our house. I have seen no cause why any man of us should not take your word." He was aware of Gerbert stiffening with disapproval beside him, but swept on with raised voice, overriding protest. "If you promise not to leave here until this matter is resolved, then you are free in the meantime to go back and forth here as you will."
    For a moment Elave's attention wavered. Fortunata had turned in the doorway to look back, then she was gone. Conan and Aldwin had left hastily on their dismissal, and vanished before her, eager to escape while their case was surely safe in the hands of the visiting prelate, whose nose for unorthodoxy was shown to be so keen and his zeal so relentless. Accuser and witnesses were gone. Elave returned his obdurate but respectful gaze to the abbot, and said with deliberation: "My lord, I have no mind to leave my lodging here in your house until I can do so free and vindicated. I give you my word on that."
    "Go, then, until I ask your attendance again. And now," said Radulfus, rising, "this session is adjourned. Go to your duties, everyone, and bear in mind we are still in a day dedicated to the remembrance of Saint Winifred, and the saints also bear witness to all that we do, and will testify accordingly."
    "I understand you very well," said Canon Gerbert, when he was alone with Radulfus in the abbot's parlour. Closeted thus in private with his peer, he sat relaxed, even weary, all his censorious zeal shed, a fallible man and anxious for his faith. "Here retired from the world, or at the worst concerned largely with the region and the people close about you, you have not seen the danger of false belief. And I grant you it has not yet cast a shadow in this land, and I pray our people may be sturdy enough to resist all such devious temptations. But it comes, Father Abbot, it comes! From the east the serpents of undoing are working their way westward, and of all travelers from the east I go in dread that they may bring back with them bad seed, perhaps even unwittingly, to take root and grow even here. There are malignant wandering preachers active even now in Flanders, in France, on the Rhine, in Lombardy, who cry out against Holy Church and her priesthood, that we are corrupt and greedy, that the Apostles lived simply, in holy poverty. In Antwerp a certain Tachelm has drawn deluded thousands after him to raid churches and tear down their ornaments. In France, in Rouen itself, yet another such goes about preaching poverty and humility and demanding reform. I have travelled in the south on my archbishop's errands, and seen how error grows and spreads like a heath fire. These are not a few sick in mind and harmless. In Provence, in Languedoc, there are regions where a fashion of Manichean heresy has grown so strong it is become almost a rival church. Do you wonder that I dread even the first weak spark that may start such a blaze?"
    "No," said Radulfus, "I do not wonder. We should never relax our guard. But also we must see every man clearly, with his words and his deeds upon him, and not hasten to cover him from sight with this universal cloak of heresy. Once the word is spoken the man himself may become invisible. And therefore expendable! Here is certainly no wandering preacher, no inflamer of crowds, no ambitious madman whipping up a following for his own gain. The boy spoke of a master he had valued and served, and therefore tended to speak in praise of him, in defence of his bold doubts, the more loyally and fiercely if his companions raised their voices against him. He had probably drunk enough to loosen his tongue, besides. He may well have said, and repeated to us, more than he truly means, to the aggravation of his cause. Shall we do the same?"
    "No," said Gerbert heavily, "I would not wish that. And I do see him clearly. You say rightly, here is no wild man bent on mischief, but a sound, hardworking fellow, profitable to his master and I doubt not honest and well meaning with his neighbours. Do you not see how much more dangerous that makes him? To hear false doctrine from one himself plainly false and vile is no temptation at all; to hear it from one fair of countenance and reputation, speaking it with his heart's conviction, that can be deadly seduction. It is why I fear him."
    "It is why one century's saint is the next