Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice

heart-to-heart, the rhythm of matched heartbeats and quickened breathing shaking them both. Her face, raised to his, was intent and fierce, her hazel eyes dazzlingly wide and bright.
    "If they have not freed you, how are you here? Do they know you are gone? Will they not be hunting for you if you're missed?"
    "Why should they? I'm free to go and come, as long as I remain a guest in the abbey until there's a judgment. The abbot took my word I would not run."
    "But you must," she said urgently. "I thank God that you ran after me like this, while there's time. You must go, get away from here as far as you can. Into Wales would be best. Come with me now, quickly, I'll get you to Jevan's workshop beyond Frankwell, and hide you there until I can get you a horse."
    Elave was shaking his head vigorously before she had ended her plea. "No, I will not run! I gave the abbot my word, but even if he had never asked it or I given it, I would not run. I will not bow to such superstitious foolishness. It would be to encourage the madmen, and put other souls in worse danger than mine. This I don't believe can come to anything perilous, if I stand my ground. We have not yet come to that extreme of folly, that a man can be hounded for thinking about holy things. You'll see, the storm will all pass over."
    "No," she insisted, "not so easily. Things are changing, did you not smell the smoke of it even there in the chapter house? I foresee it, if you do not. I was hurrying back now to talk to Jevan, to see what more can be brought to bear, to deliver you away out of danger. You brought me something of my own, it must have value. I want to use it to have you away and safe. What better use could I make of it?"
    "No!" he said in sharp protest. "I will not have it! I am not going to run, I refuse to run. And that, whatever it may be, is for you, for your marriage."
    "My marriage!" she said in a wondering voice, very low, and opened wide at him the greenish fire of her eyes, as though the thought was new to her and very strange.
    "Never trouble for me, in the end it will all be well. I am going back now," said Elave firmly, too dazzled to be observant. "Never fear, I'll take good care how I speak, how I carry myself, but I will not deny what I believe, or say aye to what I do not believe. And I will not run. From what? I have no guilt from which to run."
    He loosed her hands with a gesture almost rough, because at the end it seemed such a hard thing to do. He was turning away through the trees when he looked back, and she had not moved. Her eyes were on him, fixed thoughtfully, almost severely, and her lower lip was caught between even teeth.
    "There is another reason," he said, "why I will not go. Alone it would be enough to hold me. To run now would be to leave you."
    "And do you think," said Fortunata, "that I would not follow and find you?"
    She heard the several voices before she entered the hall, voices raised not so much in anger or argument as in bewilderment and consternation. Either Conan or Aldwin had thought it wise to acquaint the household with the morning's sensational turn of events at once on arrival home, no doubt to put the best aspect on what they had done. She had no doubt that they were in collusion in the matter, but whatever their motives, they would not want to appear simply as squalid informers. A gloss of genuine religious revulsion and sense of duty would have to gloze over the malice entailed.
    They were all there, Margaret, Jevan, Conan, and Aldwin, gathered in an agitated group, baffled question and oblique answer flying at the same time, Conan standing back to be the innocent bystander caught up in someone else's quarrel, Aldwin bleating aloud as Fortunata entered: "How could I know? I was worried that such things should be said, I feared for my own soul if I hid them. All I did was tell Brother Jerome what was troubling me -"
    "And he told Prior Robert," cried Fortunata from the doorway, "and Prior Robert told everyone, especially that great man from Canterbury, as you knew very well he would. How can you pretend you never meant Elave harm? Once you launched it, you knew where it would end."
    They had all swung about to face her, startled by her anger rather than by the suddenness of her entry.
    "No!" protested Aldwin, recovering his breath. "No, I swear I only thought the prior might speak to him, warn him, turn him to better counsel..."
    "And therefore," she said sharply, "you told him who had been present to