Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice

there's no knowing. Well, I shall lock up the house as usual before I go to my bed. If he creeps back later than that he'll have to lie in the stable loft for the night."
    "Conan's not back, either," said Margaret, shaking her head over the distressful day that should have been all celebration. "And I thought Girard would have been home before this. I hope nothing has happened to him."
    "Nothing will have happened," Jevan assured her firmly, "but some matter of business to his profit. You know he can take very good care of himself, and he has excellent relations all along the border. If he meant to be back for the festival, and has missed his day, it will be because he's added a couple of new customers to his tally. It takes time to strike a bargain with a Welsh sheepman. He'll be back home safe and sound in a day or so."
    "And what will he find when he does get home?" she sighed ruefully. "Elave in this trouble as soon as he shows his face here again, Uncle William dead and buried, and now Aldwin getting himself still deeper into so bad a business. Truly I hope you're right, and he has done well with the wool clip. It will be some comfort at least if one thing has gone right."
    She rose to clear away the supper dishes, still shaking her head over undefined misgivings, and Fortunata was left alone with Jevan.
    "Uncle," she said hesitantly, after some minutes of silence, "I wanted to talk to you. Whether I like it or not, I have been drawn into this terrible charge against Elave. He will not believe he is in grave danger, but I know he is. I want to help him. I must help him."
    The solemnity of her voice had caused him to turn and regard her long and attentively, with those black, penetrating eyes that saw deep into her now as in her childhood, and always with detached affection.
    "I think this matters to you," he said, "more than might appear, when you have barely seen him again, and after years."
    It was not a question, but she answered it. "I think I love him. What else can this be? It is not so strange. There were years before the years of his absence. I liked him then, better than he knew."
    "And you talked with him today, as I remember," he said keenly, "after this hearing at the abbey."
    "Yes," she said.
    "And thereafter, I fancy, he knows better how well you like him! And has he given you cause to be as certain of his liking for you?"
    "Cause enough. He said that if there were no other reason, I should be reason enough to hold him fast, in despite of whatever danger there may be to him here. Uncle, you know I have a dowry now from William. When my father comes home, and that box is opened, I want to use whatever he has given me to help Elave. To offer for his fine, if a fine is allowed to pay off his debt, to bargain for his liberty if they hold him, yes, even to corrupt his guards if the worst comes, and get him away over the border."
    "And you'd feel no guilt," said Jevan with his sharp, dark smile, "at defying the law and flouting the Church?"
    "None, because he has done no wrong. If they condemn him, it's they who are guilty. But I mean to ask Father to speak up for him. As one who knows him, and is respected by everyone, law, Church, and all. If Girard of Lythwood stood guarantor for his future behaviour, I believe they might listen."
    "So they might," agreed Jevan heartily. "At least that and every other means can be tried. I told you - if you want him, then Elave can and shall count as a man of ours. There, you be off to your bed and sleep easy. Who knows what magic may be discovered when William's box is opened?"
    Late but not too late, Conan came home just before the door was locked, only a little tipsy after celebrating the end of the day, as he freely admitted, with half a dozen boon companions at the alehouse in Mardol.
    Aldwin did not come home at all.
    Chapter Seven
    Brother Cadfael arose well before prime, took his scrip, and went out to collect certain waterside plants, now in their full summer leaf. The morning was veiled with a light covering of cloud, through which the sun shimmered in pearly tints of faint rose and misty blue. Later it would clear and be hot again. As he went out from the gatehouse a groom was just bringing up Serlo's mule from the stableyard, and the bishop's deacon came out from the guest hall ready for his journey, and paused at the top of the steps to draw deep breath, as though the solitary ride to Coventry held out to him all the delights of a holiday, by comparison