Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice

creation is composed. When he looked out from the cell window, at a narrow lancet of pale blue sky fretted with the tremor of leaves and feathered with a few wisps of bright white cloud, everything appeared to him radiant and simple again, within the grasp of even the meanest, and conferring benevolence impartially and joyously upon all.
    He started when he heard the key grate in the lock, not having associated the murmur of voices outside with his own person. The sounds of the outer world came in to him throughout the day by the window, and the chime of the office bell marked off the hours for him. He was even becoming used to the horarium, and celebrated the regular observances with small inward genuflections of his own. For God was no part of the morass or the labyrinth, and could not be blamed for what men had made of a shining simplicity and certainty.
    But the turning of the key in the lock belonged to his own practical workaday world, from which this banishment could only be temporary, possibly for a purpose, a halting place for thought after the journey half across the world. He sat watching the door open upon the summer day outside, and it was not opened inch by cautious inch, but wide and generously, back to touch the wall, as Brother Cadfael came in.
    "Son, you have visitors!" He waved them past him into the small, stony room, watching the sudden brightness flood over Elave's dazzled face and set him blinking. "How is your head this morning?"
    The head in question had shed its bandages the previous day, only a dry scar left in the thick hair. Elave said in a daze: "Well... very well!"
    "No aches and pains? Then that's my business done. And now," said Cadfael, withdrawing to perch on the foot of the bed with his back to the room, "I am one of the stones of the wall. I am ordered to stay with you, but you may regard me as deaf and mute."
    It seemed that he had made mutes of two of the three thus unceremoniously brought together, for Elave had come to his feet in a great start, and stood staring at Fortunata as she was staring at him, flushed and great-eyed, and stricken silent. Only their eyes were still eloquent, and Cadfael had not turned his back so completely that he could not observe them from the corner of his own eye, and read what was not being said. It had not taken those two long to make up their minds. Yet he must remember that this was not so sudden, except in its discovery. They had known each other and lived in the same household from her infancy until her eleventh year, and in another fashion there had surely been a strong fondness, indulgent and condescending, no doubt, on his part, probably worshipping and wistful on hers, for girls tend to achieve grown-up and painful affections far earlier than boys. She had had to wait for her fulfillment until he came home, to find the bud had blossomed, and to stand astonished at its beauty.
    "Well, lad!" Girard said heartily, eyeing the young man from head to foot and shaking him warmly by both hands. "You're home at last after all your ventures, and I not here to greet you! But greet you I do now, and gladly. I never looked to see you in this trouble, but God helping, it will all pass off safely in the end. From all accounts you did well by Uncle William. So far as is in us, we'll do well by you."
    Elave drew himself out of his daze with an effort, gulped, and sat down abruptly on his bed. "I never thought," he said, "they would have let you in to me. It was good of you to trouble for me, but take no chances on my behalf. Touch no pitch, and it can't stick to you! You know what they're holding against me? You should not come near me," he said vehemently, "not yet, not until I'm freed. I'm contagious!"
    "But you do know," said Fortunata, "that you're not suspect of ever harming Aldwin? That's over, proven false."
    "Yes, I know. Brother Anselm brought me word, after Prime. But that's but the half of it."
    "The greater half," said Girard, plumping himself down on the small, high stool, which his amplitude overflowed on every side.
    "Not everyone within here thinks so. Fortunata has already put herself in disfavour with some because she was not hot enough against me when they questioned her. I would not for the world," said Elave earnestly, "bring harm upon her or upon you. Stay from me, I shall be easier in my mind."
    "We have the abbot's leave to come," said Girard, "and for all I could see, his goodwill, too. We came here to chapter, Fortunata and I,