Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice

pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Rome, and Compostela, and throughout those years of traveling the lad continued always dutiful, tended his master in illness, and when the old man died in France, brought back his body for burial here. A long and devoted service, my lords. Among other charges faithfully carried out, at his master's wish he brought back this treasury, here in this casket, as a dowry for William's foster daughter here, now mine."
    "This is not disputed," said Gerbert, shifting restlessly in his seat, "but it is hardly to the purpose. The charge of heresy remains, and cannot be set aside. In my view, having seen elsewhere to what horrors it can lead, it is graver than that of murder. We know, do we not, how this poison can exist in vessels otherwise seen by the world as pure and virtuous, and yet contaminate souls by the thousand. A man cannot prevail by good works, only by divine grace, and who strays from the true doctrine of the Church has repudiated divine grace."
    "Yet we are told a tree shall be known by its fruit," remarked the abbot dryly. "Divine grace, I think, will know where to look for a responsive human grace, without instruction from us. Go on, Master Girard. I believe you have a proposal to make."
    "I have, Father. At the least it is now known that my clerk's death happened through no fault of Elave, who never coveted his place or tried to oust him, nor did him any harm. Yet there is the place vacant now, nonetheless. And I, who have known Elave and trusted him, say that I am prepared to take him back in Aldwin's place, and advance him in my business. If you will release him into my charge, I make myself his guarantor that he shall not leave Shrewsbury. I engage that he shall remain in my house, and be available whenever your lordships shall require him to attend, until his case is heard and justly judged."
    "And regardless," asked Radulfus mildly, "of what the verdict may be?"
    "My lord, if the judging is just, so will the verdict be. And after that day he will need no guarantor."
    "It is presumptuous," Gerbert said coldly, "to be so certain of your own rightness."
    "I speak as I have found. And I know as well as any man that in the heat of argument or ale, words can be spoken beyond what was ever meant, but I do not think God would condemn a man for folly, not beyond the consequences of folly, which can be punishment enough."
    Radulfus was smiling behind his austere mask, though only those who had grown close and familiar with him would have known it. "Well, I appreciate the kindliness of your intentions," he said. "Have you anything more to add?"
    "Only this voice to add to mine, Father. Here in this casket are five hundred and seventy silver pence, the dowry sent by my uncle for the girl-child he took as his daughter. As Elave took great pains to deliver it to her safely, so Fortunata desires, in reverence to William who sent it, to use it now for Elave's deliverance from prison. Here she offers it in bail for him, and I will guarantee that when the time comes he shall answer to it."
    "Is this indeed your own wish, child?" asked the abbot, studying Fortunata's demure and wary calm with interest. "No one has persuaded you to this offer?"
    "No one, Father," she said firmly. "The thought was mine."
    "And you do know," he insisted gently, "that all those who go bail for another do take the risk of loss?"
    She raised her ivory eyelids, lofty and smooth, for one brief and brilliant flash of hazel eyes. "Not all, Father," she said, uttering defiance in the soft, discreet voice of daughterly submission. And to Cadfael, watching, it was plain that Radulfus, even if he kept his formidable countenance, was not displeased.
    "You may not know, Father," explained Girard considerately, and even somewhat complacently, "that women stake only on certainties. Well, that is what I propose, and I promise you I will fulfill my part of it, if you agree to release him into my custody. At any time you may be assured you will find him at my house. I am told he would not run from you when he was loose before, and he certainly will not this time, when Fortunata stands to lose by him. As you suppose," he added generously, "for I am in no doubt."
    Radulfus had Canon Gerbert on his right hand, and Prior Robert on his left, and knew himself between two monuments of orthodoxy in more than doctrine. The precise letter of canon law was sacred to Robert, and the influence of an archbishop, distilled through his confidential