Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice

of household, business, and all, as from a relaxed and acknowledged distance, having his own separate kingdom among the membranes of vellum. He stabled, groomed, and fed the tired horse at leisure, before he went into the house to join the rest at table. By that time Conan had been whisked away to the castle, to answer to Hugh Beringar. Jevan smiled, somewhat wryly, as he shuttered the frontage, and went into the hall.
    "Well, it's a strange thing," said Girard, sitting back with a satisfied sigh, "that a man can't be off about his business one week in the year but everything must happen in that week. Just as well Conan never caught up with me, or I should have missed two new customers, for I should have set off back with him if he had reached me. The wool of four hundred sheep I got from those two villages, and some of it the lowland breed, too. But I'm sorry, love, that you've had the worry of all this, and me not here to lift it from you. We'll see now what's to be done. The first thing, as I reckon, is this of Aldwin. Whatever he may have done and said against another man in his fret - was there ever such a one as Aldwin for fearing the worst and being afraid to ask in case it came true? Well, whatever he may have done, he was our man, and we'll see him properly buried. But Father Elias here is troubled about the funeral."
    Father Elias, parish priest of Saint Alkmund's, was there with them at the end of the table, swept in to supper in Girard's hospitable arm from his conscientious brooding over the dead. Small, elderly, grey, and fierce in his piety, Father Elias ate like a little bird, whenever he remembered to eat at all, and ran about among his flock busy and bothered, like a flustered hen trying to round up alien ducklings under her wings. Souls tended to elude him, every one seeming at the time the only one to matter, and he spent much of his time on his knees apologizing to God for the soul that slipped through his fingers. But he would not let even that fugitive in upon false recommendation.
    "The man was my parishioner," said the little priest, in a wisp of a voice that yet had an irascible resolution in it, "and I grieve for him and will pray for him. But he died by violence, and as it were in the act of bringing mortal charges against another in malice, and what can the health of his soul be? He has not been to Mass in my church these many weeks, nor to confession. He was never regular in his worship, as all men should be. I would not ban him for his slackness. But when did he last confess, and gain absolution? How can I accept him unless I know he died penitent?"
    "One little act of contrition will do?" ventured Girard mildly. "He may have gone to another priest. Who knows? The thought could have come upon him somewhere else, and seemed to him a mortal matter there and then."
    "There are four parishes within the walls," said Elias with grudging tolerance. "I will ask. Though one who misses Mass so often... Well, I will ask, here within the town and beyond. It may even be that he feared to come to me. Men are feeble, and go aside to hide their feebleness."
    "So they are, Father, so they do! Wouldn't he be ashamed to come to you, if he'd never shown his face at Mass for so long? And mightn't he go rather to another, one who didn't know him so well, and might be easier on his sins? You ask, Father, and you'll find excuse for him somewhere. Then there's this matter of Conan. He's our man, too, whatever he may have been up to. You say he gave evidence about this lad of William's talking some foolishness about the Church? What do you say, Jevan, did they put their heads together to do him harm?"
    "It's likely enough," said Jevan, shrugging. "Though I wouldn't say they understood rightly what they were doing. It turns out Aldwin, the silly soul, feared he'd be thrown out to let Elave back in."
    "That would be like him, surely!" agreed Girard, sighing. "Always one to look on the black side. Though he should have had more sense, all the years he's known us. I daresay he thought the youngster would take to his heels, and be off to find his fortune elsewhere, as soon as he felt the threat. But why should Conan want to be rid of him?"
    There was a brief, blank silence and some head-shaking, then Jevan said with his small, rueful smile: "I think our shepherd has also taken to thinking of Elave as a perilous rival, though not for employment. He has an eye on Fortunata..."
    "On me?" Fortunata sat bolt upright with