Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice

hear. Why do that unless you meant it to go further? Why force me into your plans? That I shall never forgive you!"
    "Wait, wait, wait!" cried Jevan, throwing up his hands. "Are you telling me, chick, that you were called to witness? In God's name, man, what possessed you? How dared you bring our girl into such a business?"
    "It was not I who wanted that," protested Aldwin. "Brother Jerome got it out of me who was there. I never meant to bring her into the tangle. But I am a son of the Church. I needed to slough the load from my conscience, but then it got out of hand."
    "1 never knew you all that constant in observance," said Jevan ruefully. "You could as well have refused to name any names but your own. Well, what's done is done. Is it over even now? Need we expect her to be called to more enquiries, more interrogations? Is it to drag on to exhaustion, now it's begun?"
    "It isn't over," said Fortunata. "They have not pronounced any judgment, but they won't let go so easily. Elave is pledged not to go away until he's freed of the charge. I know it because I have just left him, among the trees close by the bridge, and he's on his way back now to the abbey to stand his ground. I wanted him to run, I begged him to run, but he refuses. See what you've done, Aldwin, to a poor young man who never did you any harm, who has no family or patron now, no safe home and secure living, as you have. Here are you provided for life, without a care for your old age, and he has to find work again wherever he can, and now you have put a shadow upon him that will cling round him whatever the judgment, and turn men away from employing him for fear of being thought suspect by contagion. Why did you do it? Why?"
    Aldwin had been gradually recovering his composure since the shock of her entrance had upset it, but now it seemed he had lost it altogether, and his wits with it. He stood gaping at her mutely, and from her to Jevan. Twice he swallowed hard before he could find a word to say, and even then he brought out the words with infinite caution, disbelieving.
    "Provided for life?"
    "You know you are," she said impatiently, and herself was struck mute the next moment, suddenly sensible that for Aldwin nothing had ever been known beyond possibility of doubt. Every evil was to be expected, every good suspect and to be watched jealously, lest it evaporate as he breathed on it. "Oh, no!" she said on a despairing breath. "Was that it? Did you think he was come to turn you out and take your place? Was that why you wanted rid of him?"
    "What?" cried Jevan. "Is the girl right, man? Did you suppose you were to be thrown out on the roads to make way for him to get his old place back again? After all the years you've lived here and worked for us? Did this house ever treat any of its people so? You know better than that!"
    But that was Aldwin's trouble, that he valued himself so low he expected as low a regard from everyone else, even after years, and the respect and consideration the house of Lythwood showed towards its other dependents could not, in his eyes, be relied on as applying equally to him. He stood dumbstruck, his mouth working silently.
    "My dear soul!" said Margaret, grieving. "The thought never entered our heads to part with you. Certainly he was a good lad when we had him, but we wouldn't have displaced you for the world. Why, the boy didn't want it, either. I told him how it was, the first time he came back here, and he said surely, the place was yours, he never had the least wish to take it from you. Have you been fretting all this time over that? I thought you knew us better."
    "I've damaged him for no reason," said Aldwin, as though to himself. "No reason at all!" And suddenly, with a convulsive movement that shook his aging body as a gale shakes a bush, he turned and blundered towards the doorway. Conan caught him by the arm and held him fast.
    "Where are you going? What can you do? It's done. You told no lies, what was said was said."
    "I'll overtake him," said Aldwin with unaccustomed resolution. "I'll tell him I'm sorry for it. I'll go with him to the monks, and see if I can undo what I've done - any part of what I've done. I'll own why I did it. I'll withdraw the charge I made."
    "Don't be a fool!" urged Conan roughly. "What difference will that make? The charge is laid now; the priests won't let it be dropped, not they. It's no small matter to accuse a man of heresy and then go back on it; you'll only end in as bad case as