Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice

worked. He seldom entered the room without casting a pleased, possessive glance at the chest that held his books, and so he did now. The sunlight, declining from the zenith into the golden, sated hours of late afternoon, came slanting in by the south-facing window, gilded a corner of the lid, and just reached the metal plate of the lock. Something gossamer-fine fluttered from the ornate edge, appearing and disappearing as it stirred in an air not quite motionless. Four or five long hairs, dark but bright, showing now and then a brief scintillation of red. But for the light, which just touched them against shadow, they would have been invisible.
    Jevan saw them and stood at gaze, his face unchanging. Then he went to take the key from its place, and unlocked the chest and raised the lid. Nothing within was disturbed. Nothing was changed but those few sunlit filaments that stirred like living things, and curled about his fingers when he carefully detached them from the fretted edge in which they were caught.
    In thoughtful silence he closed and locked the chest again, and went down into the shuttered shop. The key of his workshop upriver, on the right bank of Severn well clear of the town, was gone from its hook.
    He crossed the yard and looked in at the hall, where Girard was busy over the accounts Aldwin had left in arrears, and Margaret was mending a shirt at the other end of the table.
    "I'm going down to the skins again," said Jevan. "There's something I left unfinished."
    Chapter Thirteen
    The welcome at Girard's house was all the warmer because Conan had arrived home only a quarter of an hour earlier, ebullient with relief and none the worse for his few days incarceration, and Girard, a practical man, was disposed to let the dead bury their dead, once the living had seen to it that they got their dues and were seen off decently into a better world. What was left of his establishment seemed now to be cleared of all aspersions, and could proceed about its business without interference.
    Two members, however, were missing.
    "Fortunata?" said Margaret in answer to Cadfael's enquiry. "She went out after dinner. She said she was going to the abbey, to try to see Elave again, or at least to find out if anything had happened yet in his case. I daresay you'll be meeting her on the way down, but if not, you'll find her there."
    That was a load lifted from Cadfael's mind, at least. Where better could she be, or safer? "Then I'd best be on my way home," he said, pleased, "or I shall be outstaying my leave."
    "And I came hoping to pick your brother's brains," said Hugh. "I've been hearing a great deal about this box of your daughter's, and I'm curious to see it. I'm told it may have been made to hold a book, at one time. I wondered what Jevan thought of that. He knows everything about the making of books, from the raw skin to the binding. I should like to consult him when he has time to spare. But perhaps I might see the box?"
    They were quite happy to tell him what they could. There was no foreboding, no tremor in the house. "He's away to his workshop just now," said Girard. "He was down there this morning, but he said he'd left something unfinished. He'll surely be back soon. Come in and wait a while, and he'll be here. The box? I doubt it's locked away until he comes. Fortunata gave it to him last night. If it's meant to hold a book, she says, Uncle Jevan is the man who has books, let me give him the box. And he's using it for the one he most values, as she wanted. He'll be pleased to show it to you. It is a very fine thing."
    "I won't trouble you now, if he's not here," said Hugh. "I'll look in later, I'm close enough."
    They took their leave together, and Hugh went with Cadfael as far as the head of the Wyle. "She gave him the box," said Hugh, frowning over a puzzle. "What should that mean?"
    "Bait," said Cadfael soberly. "Now I do believe she has been following the same road my mind goes. But not to prove - rather to disprove if she can. But at all costs needing to know. He is her close and valued kin, but she is not one who can shut her eyes and pretend no wrong has ever been done. Yet still we may both be wrong, she as well as I. Well, at the worst, she is safe enough if she's at the abbey. I'll go and find her there. And as for the other one..."
    "The other one," said Hugh, "leave to me."
    Cadfael walked in through the arch of the gatehouse into a scene of purposeful activity. It seemed he had arrived on the heels of