Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice

he. And they have my witness, and Fortunata's; what use is it taking back yours? Let be, and show some sense!"
    But Aldwin's courage was up, and his conscience stricken too deeply for sense. He dragged himself free from the detaining hand. "I can but try! I will! That at least." And he was out at the door, and halfway across the yard towards the street. Conan would have gone after him, but Jevan called him back sharply.
    "Let him alone! At the very least, if he owns to his own fear and malice, he must surely shake the case against the lad. Words, words, I don't doubt they were spoken, but words can be interpreted many ways, and even a small doubt cast can alter the image. You get back to work, and let the poor devil go and ease his mind the best way he can. If he falls foul of the priests, we'll put in a word for him and get him out of it."
    Conan gave up reluctantly, shrugging off his misgivings about the whole affair. "Then I'd best get out to the folds until nightfall. God knows how he'll fare, but by then, one way or another, I suppose we shall find out." And he went out still shaking his head disapprovingly over Aldwin's foolishness, and they heard his solid footsteps cross the yard to the passage into the street.
    "What a coil!" said Jevan with a gusty sigh. "And I must be off, too, and fetch some more skins from the workshop. There's a canon of Haughmond coming tomorrow, and I've no notion yet what size of book he has in mind. Don't take things too much to heart, girl," he said, and embraced Fortunata warmly in a long arm. "If it comes to the worst we'll get the prior of Haughmond to say a word to Gerbert for any man of ours - one Augustinian must surely listen to another, and the prior owes me a favour or two."
    He released her and was off towards the door in his turn, when she demanded abruptly: "Uncle - does Elave count as a man of ours?"
    Jevan swung about to stare at her, his thin black brows raised, and the dark, observant eyes beneath them flashed into the smile that came seldom but brilliantly, a little teasing, a little intimidating, but for her always reassuring. "If you want him," he said, "he shall."
    Elave had gone but a few yards back towards the abbey gatehouse when he saw half a dozen men come boiling out of the open gate, and split two ways along the Foregate. The suddenness of the eruption and the distant clamour of their raised voices as they emerged and separated made him draw back hastily into the cover of the trees, to consider what this hubbub might have to do with him. They were certainly sent forth in a body, and carrying staves, which boded no good if they were indeed hunting for him. He worked his way cautiously along the grove to get a closer view, for they were sweeping the open road first before enlarging their field, and two were away on the run along the farther length of the enclave wall, to reach the corner and get a view along the next stretch of the road. Someone or something was certainly being hunted. Not by any of the brothers. Here were no black habits, but sober workaday homespun and hard-wearing leather, on sturdy laymen. Three of them he knew for the grooms attendant on Canon Gerbert, a fourth was his body servant, for Elave had seen the man about the guest hall, busy and pompous, jack in office by virtue of his master's status. The others must surely have been recruited from among those pilgrims ablest in body and readiest for zealous mischief. It was not the abbot who had set the dogs on him, but Gerbert.
    He drew back deeper into cover, and stood scowling at the intent hunters quartering the Foregate. He had no mind to show himself, however boldly, and risk being set upon and dragged back like a felon, when he had not, in his reading of his commitment, ever broken his parole. Maybe Canon Gerbert read the terms differently, and considered his going outside the gate, even without his gear, as proof of a guilty mind and instant flight. Well, he should not have the satisfaction of being able to sustain that view. Elave was going back through that gate on his own two feet, of his own obstinate will, true to his bond and staking his liberty and perhaps his life. The peril in which he could not bring himself to believe looked more real and sinister now.
    They had left a single groom, the brawniest of Gerbert's three, sentinel before the gatehouse, prowling up and down as though neither time nor force could shift him. Small hope of slipping past that great sinewy hulk! And