Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice

with a vague glance and an absent smile before withdrawing again into whatever matter was chafing at his peace of mind.
    It was altogether too apt a reminder, that Jevan of Lythwood should be calling in at the abbey gatehouse at this hour of the morning, after his brother's clerk had failed to come home the previous night. Cadfael turned to look after him. A tall man with a long, ardent stride, making for home with his hands clasped behind his back, and his brows knotted in so-far-unenlightened conjecture. Cadfael hoped he would cross the bridge without pausing to look down over the parapet towards the level, sunlit length of the Gaye, where at this moment Will Warden's men might be carrying the litter with Aldwin's body. Better that Hugh should reach the house first, both to warn the household and to harvest whatever he could from their bearing and their answers, before the inevitable burden arrived to set the busy and demanding rites of death in motion.
    "What was Jevan of Lythwood wanting here?" Cadfael asked of the porter, who was making himself useful holding a very handsome and lively young mare while her master buckled on his saddle roll behind. A good number of the guests would be moving on today, having paid their annual tribute to Saint Winifred.
    "He wanted to know if his clerk had been here," said the porter.
    "Why did he suppose his clerk should have been here?"
    "He says he changed his mind, yesterday, about laying charges against that lad we've got under lock and key, as soon as he found out the young fellow had no intention of elbowing him out of his employment. Said he was all for rushing off down here on the spot to take back what he'd laid against him. Much good that would do! Small use running after the arrow once it's loosed. But that's what he wanted to do, so his master says."
    "What did you tell him?" asked Cadfael.
    "What should I tell him? I told him we'd seen nor hide nor hair of his clerk since he went out of the gate here early yesterday afternoon. If seems he's been missing overnight. But wherever he's been, he hasn't been here."
    Cadfael pondered this new turn of events with misgiving. "When was it he took this change of heart, and started back here? What time of the day?"
    "Very near as soon as he got home, so Jevan says. No more than an hour after he'd left here. But he never came," said the porter placidly. "Changed his mind again, I daresay, when he got near, and began to reason how it might fall back on him, without delivering the other fellow."
    Cadfael went on down the court very thoughtfully. He had already missed Prime, but there was ample time before the Mass. He might as well take himself off to his workshop and unload his scrip, and try to get all these confused and confusing events clear in his mind. If Aldwin had come running back with the idea of undoing what he had done, then even if he had encountered an angry and resentful Elave, it would have needed only the first hasty words of penitence and restitution to disarm the avenger. Why kill a man who is willing at least to try to make amends? Still, some might argue, an angry man might not wait for any words, but strike on sight. In the back? No, it would not do. That Elave had killed his accuser might be the first thought to spring into other minds, but it could find no lodging in Cadfael's. And not for mere obstinate liking, either, but because it made no sense.
    Hugh arrived towards the end of chapter, alone, and somewhat to Cadfael's surprise, as well as to his profound relief, ahead of any other and untoward report. Rumor was usually so blithe and busy about the town and the Foregate that he had expected word of Aldwin's death to worm its way in with inconvenient speed and a good deal of regrettable embroidery to the plain tale, but it had not happened. Hugh could tell the story his own way, and in the privacy of Abbot Radulfus's parlour, with Cadfael to confirm and supplement. And the abbot did not say what, inevitably, someone else very soon would. Instead he said directly:
    "Who last saw the man alive?"
    "From what we know so far," said Hugh, "those who saw him go out of the house early yesterday afternoon. Jevan of Lythwood, who came enquiring for him here this morning, as Cadfael says, before ever I got the word to him of his man's death. The foster child Fortunata, she who was made a witness to the charge yesterday. The woman of the house. And the shepherd Conan. But that was broad daylight. He must have been