Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice

astonishment, and gaped at her uncle across the table. "I've never seen signs of it! And I'm sure I never gave him any cause."
    "... and fancies and fears," continued Jevan, his smile deepening, "that Elave, if he stays, will make a more personable suitor. Not to say a more welcome one! And who's to say he's wrong?" And he added, his black eyes bent on the girl in teasing affection: "On both counts!"
    "Conan has never paid me any attention," said Fortunata, past sheer amazement now, and quick to examine what might very well be true, even if it had eluded her notice. "Never! I can't believe he has ever given me a thought."
    "He would certainly never make a winning lover," said Jevan, "but there's been a change in these past few days. You've been too busy looking in another direction to notice it."
    "You mean he's been casting sheep's eyes at my girl?" demanded Girard, and laughed aloud at the notion.
    "Hardly that! I would call it a very calculating eye. Has not Margaret told you, Fortunata has an endowment now from William, to be her dowry."
    "There was a box mentioned that has yet to be opened. Why, does any man think I would let my girl want for a dowry, when she has a mind to marry? Though it's good that the old man remembered her, and thought to send her his blessing, too. If she did have a mind to Conan, well, I suppose he's not a bad fellow, a girl could do worse. He should have known I'd never let her go empty-handed, whoever she chose." And he added, with an appreciative glance at Fortunata: "Though our girl might do a great deal better, too!"
    "Coin in the hand," said Jevan sardonically, "is more worth than all the promises."
    "Ah, you surely do the man an injustice! What's to prevent him waking up to the fact that our little lass has grown into a beauty, and as good as she is pretty, too. And even if he did bear witness against Elave to elbow him out of the running, and urge Aldwin not to recant for the same none too creditable reason, men have done worse, and not been made to pay too highly for it. But this business of Aldwin is murder. No, that's out of Conan's scope, surely!" He looked down the length of the table to Father Elias, sitting small, attentive, and sharp-eyed under his wispy grey tonsure. "Surely, Father?"
    "I have learned," said the little priest, "not to put any villainy out of any man's reach. Nor any goodness, either. A life is a very fragile thing, created in desperate labour and snuffed out by a breath of wind-anger, or drunkenness, or mere horseplay, it takes no more than an instant."
    "Conan has merely a few hours of time to account for," Jevan pointed out mildly. "He must surely have met with someone who knew him on his way out to the sheep. He has only to name them, they have only to say where and when they saw him. This time, if he tells all the truth instead of half, he cannot miscarry."
    And that would leave only Elave. The grossly offended, the most aggrieved, suddenly approached by his accuser, among trees, without witnesses, too enraged to wait to hear what his enemy wanted to say to him. It was what almost every soul in Shrewsbury must be saying, taking the ending for granted. One charge of heresy, one of murder. All that afternoon until Vespers he was at liberty, and who had seen Aldwin alive since he passed the porter on the town gate? Two and a half hours between then and Vespers, when Elave was again in custody, two and a half hours in which he could have done murder. Even the objection that Aldwin's wound was in the back could easily be set aside. He came running to plead his penitence, Elave turned on him so furious a face and so menacing a front that he took fright and turned to flee, and got the knife in his back as he fled. Yes, they would all say so. And if it was argued that Elave had no knife on him, that it was left in his bundle in the guest hall? He had another, doubtless at the bottom of the river now. There was an answer to everything.
    "Father," said Fortunata abruptly, rising from her place, "will you open my box for me now? Let us see what I am worth. And then I must talk to you. About Elave!"
    Margaret brought the box from the corner press, and cleared an end of the table to make room for it before her husband. Girard's bushy brows rose appreciatively at the sight of it, and he handled it admiringly.
    "Why, this is a beautiful thing in itself. This could bring you in an extra penny or two if ever you need it." He took up the gilded key and fitted it into