Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice

young man following him.
    "What was that you said? For Vespers? He made you late for Vespers!"
    "So he did," said Eadmer blankly. "I was just opening the door to go down and into the church when he came. The office was half over by the time I sent him away consoled."
    "Dear God!" said Cadfael reverently. "And I never even thought to ask about the time! And this was on the festival day? Not the Vespers of the day you arrived? Not the eve?"
    "It was the festival day, when Boniface was away. Why, what's in that to shake you? What is it I've said?"
    "The moment I clapped eyes on you, lad," said Cadfael joyfully, "I knew you had a happy touch about you. You've delivered not one man, but two, God bless you for it. Now come, come with me round the corner to Saint Mary's close, and tell the sheriff what you've just told me."
    Hugh had come back to his house and family after a long and exasperating day of pursuing fruitless enquiries among an apparently unobservant populace, and trying to extract truth from a scared and perspiring Conan, who was willing to admit that he had spent an hour or so trying to persuade Aldwin to let sleeping dogs lie, since it was known already, but insisted that after that he had wasted no more time, but gone straight to his work in the pastures west of the town. And that might well be true, even if he could cite no acquaintance who had met and spoken to him on the way. But there remained the possibility that he was still lying, and had followed and made one more disastrous attempt to sway a mind normally only too easily deflected from any purpose.
    Enough and more than enough for one day. Hugh had taken himself off home to his own house, to his wife and his son and his supper, and he was sitting in the clean rushes of the hall floor, stripped down to shirt and hose in the mild evening, helping three-year-old Giles to build a castle, when Cadfael came rapping briskly at the open door, and marched in upon him shining with portentous news, and towing by the sleeve an unknown and plainly nonplussed young man.
    Hugh abandoned his tower of wooden blocks unfinished, and came alertly to his feet. "Truant again, are you? I looked for you in the herbarium an hour ago. Where have you been off to this time? And who is this you've brought me?"
    "I've been no farther than Attingham," said Cadfael, "to visit Father Eadmer. And here I've brought you his nephew, who is also Father Eadmer, ordained last month. This young man came to join his friend Father Boniface at Holy Cross for Saint Winifred's celebrations. You know Father Elias has been fretting as to whether Aldwin died in a fit state to deserve all the rites of the Church, seeing he seldom showed his face at Mass in his own parish church. Elias had tried every priest he knew of, in and out of the town, to see if any could stand sponsor for the poor fellow. Boniface told me of one more who was here for a day and half a day, however unlikely it might be that a local man should find his way to him in so short a time. Howbeit, here he is, and he has a tale to tell you."
    Young Eadmer told it accommodatingly, though hardly comprehending what significance it could have here, beyond what he already knew. "And I walked back here with Brother Cadfael to see the man himself, whether he was indeed the one who came to me. And he is," he ended simply. "But what Brother Cadfael sees in it more, of such moment that it must come at once to you, my lord, that he must tell you himself, for I can't guess at it."
    "But you have not mentioned," said Cadfael, "at what time this man came to you with his confession."
    "It was just when the bell had rung for Vespers," Eadmer repeated obligingly, still mystified. "Because of him I came very late to the office."
    "Vespers?" Hugh had stiffened, turning upon them a face ablaze with enlightenment. "You are sure? That very day?"
    "That very day!" Cadfael confirmed triumphantly. "And just at the ringing of the Vesper bell, as I have good reason to know, Elave walked into the great court and was set upon by Gerbert's henchmen and battered to the ground, and has been prisoner in the abbey ever since. Aldwin was alive and well and seeking confession at that very moment. Whoever killed him, it was not Elave!"
    Chapter Ten
    Chapter was nearly over, next morning, when Girard of Lythwood presented himself at the gatehouse, requesting a hearing before the lord abbot. As a man of consequence in the town, and like his late uncle a good patron of