Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice

in all his heirs. It might be well to give a thought to what the sin of Adam truly was. Augustine held it to be the fleshly act between man and woman, and considered it the root and origin of all sin. There is here another disputable point. If this in every case is sin, how comes it that God instructed his first-made creatures to be fruitful and multiply and people the earth?"
    "It is nevertheless a more blessed course to refrain," said Canon Gerbert coldly but carefully, for Roger de Clinton was on his own ground, noble, and highly regarded.
    "Neither the act nor abstention from the act is of itself either good or bad," said the bishop amiably, "but only in respect of its purpose, and the spirit in which it is undertaken. What was your third head, Father Prior?"
    "The question of free will and divine grace," said Robert. "And namely, whether a man can of his free will choose right instead of wrong, and whether by so doing he can proceed one step towards his own salvation. Or whether nothing can avail of all he does, however virtuous, but only by divine grace."
    "As to that, Elave," said the bishop, looking at the resolute face that fronted him with such intent and sombre eyes, "you may speak your mind. I am not trying to trap you, I desire to know."
    "My lord," said Elave, picking his way with deliberation, "I do believe we have been given free will, and can and must use it to choose between right and wrong, if we are men and not beasts. Surely it is the least of what we owe, to try and make our way towards salvation by right action. I never denied divine grace. Surely it is the greatest grace that we are given this power to choose, and the strength to make right use of it. And see, my lord, if there is a last judgment, it will not and cannot be of God's grace, but of what every man has done with it, whether he buried his talent or turned it to good profit. It is for our own actions we shall answer, when the day comes."
    "So thinking," said the bishop, eyeing him with interest, "I see that you can hardly accept that the roll of the elect is already made up, and the rest of us are eternally lost. If that were true, why strive? And strive we do. It is native to man to have an aim, and labour towards it. And God he knows, better than any, that grace and truth and uprightness are as good aims as any. What else is salvation? It is no bad thing to feel obliged to earn it, and not wait to be given it as alms to a beggar, unearned."
    "These are mysteries for the wise to ponder, if anyone dare," said Gerbert in chill disapproval, but somewhat abstractedly, too, for a part of his mind was already preoccupied with the journey on to Chester, and the subtle diplomacy he must have at his finger-ends when he got there. "From one obscure even among the laity it is presumptuous."
    "It was presumptuous of Our Lord to argue with the doctors in the temple," said the bishop, "seeing he was human boy as well as God, and in both kinds true to that nature. But he did it. We doctors in the temple nowadays do well to recall how vulnerable we are." And he sat back in his stall, and regarded Elave very earnestly for some minutes. "My son," he said then, "I find no fault with you for venturing to use wits which, I'm sure you would say, are also the gift of God, and meant for use, not to be buried profitless. Only take care to remember that you also are subject to error, and vulnerable after your own kind as I after mine."
    "My lord," said Elave, "I have learned it all too well."
    "Not so well, I hope, as to bury your talent now. It is better to cut too deep a course than to stagnate and grow foul. One test only I require, and that is enough for me. If you believe, in all good faith, the words of the creed, in the sight of this assembly and of God, recite it for me now."
    Elave had begun to glow as brightly as the sun slanting across the floor of the chapter house. Without further invitation, without an instant's thought, he began in a voice loud, clear, and joyful: "I believe in one God, the Father, the ruler of all men, the maker of all things visible and invisible..."
    For this belonged in the back of his mind untouched since childhood, learned from his first priestly patron, whom he had loved and who could do no wrong for him, and with whom he had chanted it regularly and happily for years without ever questioning what it meant, only feeling what it meant to the gentle teacher he adored and imitated. This was his faith for once not chiseled