Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice

out for himself, but received, rather an incantation than a declaration of belief. After all his doubts and probings and rebellions, it was his innocence and orthodoxy that set the seal on his deliverance.
    He was just ending, in triumph, knowing himself free and vindicated, when Hugh Beringar came quietly into the chapter house, with a bundle wrapped in thick swathes of waxed cloth under his arm.
    "We found him," said Hugh, "lodged under the bridge, caught up by the chain that used to moor a boat mill there, years ago. We have taken his body home. Girard knows everything we could tell him. With Jevan's end this whole matter can end. He owned to murder before he died. There is no need to publish to the world what would further injure and distress his kin."
    "None," said Radulfus.
    There were seven of them gathered together in Brother Anselm's corner of the north walk, but Canon Gerbert was not among them. He had already shaken off the dust of this questionably orthodox abbey from his riding boots, mounted a horse fully recovered from his lameness and eager for exercise, and set off for Chester, with his body servant and his grooms, and no doubt was already rehearsing what he would have to say to Earl Ranulf, and how much he could get from him without promising anything of substance in return. But the bishop, once having heard of what Hugh carried, and the vicissitudes through which it had passed, had the human curiosity to wait and see for himself the final outcome. Here with him were Anselm, Cadfael, Hugh, Abbot Radulfus, and Elave and Fortunata, silent, hand in hand though they dissembled the clasp reticently between their bodies in this august company. They were still a little dazed with too sudden and too harsh experience, and not yet fully awake to this equally abrupt and bewildering release from tension.
    Hugh had delivered his report in few words. The less said now of that death, the better. Jevan of Lythwood was gone, taken from the Severn under the same arch of the same bridge where he had hidden his own dead man until nightfall. In time Fortunata would remember him as she had always known him, an ordinary uncle, kind if not demonstrative. Someday it would cease to matter that she still could not be certain whether he would indeed have killed her, as he had killed one witness already, rather than give up what in the end he had valued more than life. It was the last irony that Aldwin, according to Conan, had never managed to see what was within the box. Jevan had killed to no purpose.
    "And this," said Hugh, "was still in his arms, lodged fast against the stone of the pier." It lay now upon Anselm's worktable, still shedding a few drops of water as the wrappings were stripped away. "It belongs, as you know, to this lady, and she has asked that it be opened here, before you, my lords, as witnesses knowledgeable in such works as may be found within."
    He was unfolding layer after layer as he spoke. The outermost, scorched and frayed into holes, had already been discarded, but Jevan had given his treasure every possible protection, and by the time the last folds were stripped away the box lay before them immaculate, untouched by fire or water, the ornate key still in the lock. The ivory lozenge stared up at them with immense Byzantine eyes from beneath the great round forehead that might have been drawn with compasses, before the rich hair was carved, and the beard, and the lines of age and thought. The coiling vines gleamed, refracting light from polished edges. Now at last they all hesitated to turn the key and open the lid.
    It was Anselm who at length set hands to it and opened it. From both sides they leaned to gaze. Fortunata and Elave drew close, and Cadfael made room for them. Who had a better right?
    The lid rose on a binding of purple-dyed vellum, bordered with a rich tracery of leaves, flowers, and tendrils in gold, and bearing in the centre, in a delicate framework of gold, a fellow to the ivory on the box. The same venerable face and majestic brow, the same compelling eyes gazing upon eternity, but this one was carved on a smaller scale, not a head but a half-length, and held a little harp in his hands.
    With reverent care Anselm tilted the box, and supported the book on his palm as he slid it out onto the table.
    "Not a saint," he said, "except that they often showed him with a halo. This is King David, and surely what we have here is a psalter."
    The purple vellum of the binding was stretched over