Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice

others caught him by the hair dragging his head back. He let out a yell of rage, and laid about him with fist and foot, heaving off his assailant from behind, wrenching one arm free from the big man's embrace and lashing out heartily at his nose. A second blow on the head drove him to his knees, half stunned. Distantly he heard dismayed voices crying out at such violence on sacred ground, and sandaled feet running hastily over the cobbles. Lucky for him that the brothers were just gathering from their various occupations to the sound of the bell.
    Brother Edmund from the infirmary, Brother Cadfael from the turn of the path into the garden, bore down on the unseemly struggle with habits flying.
    "Stop that! Stop at once!" cried Edmund, scandalized at the profanation, and waving agitated arms impartially at all the offenders.
    Cadfael, with a sharper turn of speed, wasted no breath on remonstrance, but made straight for the cudgel that was uplifted for a third blow at the victim's already bloodied head, halted it in midair, and twisted it without difficulty out of the hand that wielded it, fetching a howl from the overenthusiastic groom in the process. The three huntsmen ceased battering their captive, but kept fast hold of him, hauling him to his feet and pinning him between them as though he might yet slip through their fingers and make off like a hare through the gate.
    "We've got him!" they proclaimed almost in unison. "It's him, it's the heretic! He was for making off out of trouble, but we've got him for you, safe and sound -"
    "Sound?" Cadfael echoed ruefully. "You've half killed the lad between you. Did it need three of you to deal with one man? Here he was, within the pale, did you have to break his head for him?"
    "We've been hunting him all the afternoon," protested the big man, swelling with his own prowess, "as Canon Gerbert ordered us. Were we to take any chances with such a fellow when we did lay hand on him? Find and bring him back, we were told, and here he is."
    "Bring him?" said Cadfael, shoving one of Elave's captors unceremoniously aside to take his place, with an arm about the young man's body to support him. "I saw from the turn of the hedge there who brought him back. He walked in here of his own will. You can take no credit for it, even if you count what you're about as credit. What possessed your master to set the dogs on him in the first place? He gave his word he wouldn't run, and Father Abbot accepted it, and said he was free to go and come as he pleased for the time being. A pledge good enough for our abbot was not good enough for Canon Gerbert, I suppose?"
    By that time three or four others had gathered excitedly about them, and here came Prior Robert, sailing towards them from the corner of the cloister in acute displeasure at seeing what appeared to be an agitated and disorderly gathering disturbing the procession to Vespers.
    "What is this? What is happening here? Have you not heard the bell?" His eye fell upon Elave, propped up unsteadily between Cadfael and Edmund, his clothes dusty and in disarray, his brow and cheek smeared with blood. "Oh," he said, satisfaction tempered with some dismay at the violence done, "so they brought you back. It seems the attempt at flight has cost you dear. I am sorry you are hurt, but you should not have run from justice."
    "I did not run from justice," said Elave, panting. "The lord abbot gave me leave to go and come freely, on my word not to run, and I did not run."
    "That is truth," said Cadfael, "for he walked in here of his own accord. He was heading for the guest hall, where he's lodged like any other traveller, when these fellows fell upon him, and now they claim to have recaptured him for Canon Gerbert. Did he ever give such orders?"
    "Canon Gerbert understood the liberty granted him as holding good only within the enclave," said the prior sharply. "So, I must say, did I. When this man was found to have gone from the court we supposed him to have attempted escape. But I am sorry it was necessary to be so rough with him. Now what is to be done? He needs attention... Cadfael, see to his hurts, if you will, and after Vespers I will see the abbot and tell him what has happened. It may be he should be housed in isolation..."
    Which meant, thought Cadfael, in a cell, under lock and key. Well, at worst that would keep these great oafs away from him. But we shall see what Abbot Radulfus will say.
    "If I may miss Vespers," he said, "I'll have him away