The Heretic's Apprentice (30 page)

*

Elave had come, as the riders had, through the town, in by one bridge, out by the other, running, after the first frenzy, no longer like a demented man, but steadily, at a pace and rhythm he knew he could maintain. From past years he knew exactly the quickest path beyond the suburb, upriver to the curve where the current had carved its bed deep and fast. When he came over the ridge, and was able to halt and look down towards the solitary workshop in the meadow, withdrawn far enough up the slope to evade even the thaw-water spate unless in a very bad year, he lingered in cover among the trees to take in the scene below, and get his breath back while he assessed it.

And there they were, just outside the door of the workshop, which was in the upstream end of the hut, to prolong the evening light from the west, as the wide opening in the inland, south-facing wall admitted it through the main part of the day. He could see the two netted frames in the water by the way the surface eddies span; they lay slightly downstream, where the raised bank afforded firm anchorage. Behind the linked figures of Jevan and Fortunata the door of the hut stood wide open, in a deceptive suggestion of honesty, as the linked arms of uncle and niece presented a travesty of affection. In all the years of her childhood, never had Jevan handled and petted the girl freely, as Girard would do by his nature. This was a different kind of man, private, self-sufficient, not given to touching or being touched, not effusive in his likings. He had been a kind uncle to her in his cool, teasing way, surely he had loved her, but never thus. It was not love that joined them now. What had she become? His hostage? His protection, for a short while if no more? No, if she had nothing to reveal against him, and he was sure of her, what need to clasp her so close? She could have stood apart, and helped him all the better to an appearance of normality, to fend off the sheriff at least for today. He held fast to her because he was not sure of her, he had to remind her by his grip that if she spoke the wrong word he could avenge himself.

Elave crept round in the cover of the trees, which swept in a long, thinning curve down towards the Severn, upstream of the hut, and shrank into scrub and bushes perhaps fifty paces from the bank. He was nearer now, he could hear the sound of voices but not what was said. Between him and the group at the door stood Brother Cadfael with the horses, for the time being holding off from a nearer approach. And it was all a play, Elave saw that now, a play to preserve the face of normality between all these people. Nothing must shatter it; a too open word, a threatening move might precipitate disaster. The very voices were casual, light and current, like acquaintances exchanging the day's trivial news in the street.

He saw Hugh go into the workshop, and saw that Jevan did not loose his hold of Fortunata to follow him, but stood immovably without. He saw the sheriff emerge again, animated and smiling, brushing past the pair of them and waving Jevan with him towards the river, but when they followed him they moved as one. Then Cadfael stirred himself abruptly and led the horses down the slope to join them, suddenly treading close on Jevan's heels as it seemed, but Jevan never turned his head or relaxed his hold. And Fortunata all this time went silently where she was led, with a still and wary face.

What they needed, what they were trying to achieve, was a diversion, anything that would break that mated pair apart, enable Hugh to pluck the girl away from the man, unhurt. Once robbed of her, Jevan could be dealt with. But they were only two, and he was well aware of both of them, and could so contrive as to keep them both at arm's length and beyond. As long as he held Fortunata by the arm he was safe, and she in peril, and no one could afford to demolish the pretence that everything was as it always was.

But he, Elave, could! Of him Jevan was not aware, and against him he could not be on guard. And there must be something that would shatter his pretence and startle his hand from its attendant shield, and leave him defenceless. Only there would be no more than one chance.

A last long, red ray of the setting sun before it sank pierced the veil of bushes, and at once paled the small yellow glow from within the hut, which Elave had all this time seen without seeing, and glittered for one instant at the wrist of Jevan's right hand. Elave recognised at once fire and steel, and knew why Hugh held off so patiently. Knew, also, what he was about to do. For the whole group with the led horses, had moved downstream towards the netted cages where skins swayed and writhed in the current. A few yards more, and he could put the bulk of the workshop between him and them as he crossed the meadow to the open door.

Hugh Beringar was doing the talking, pretending interest in the processes involved in vellum-making, trying to occupy Jevan's attention to such an extent that he should relax his vigilance. Cadfael ranged distractingly close with the horses, but Jevan never looked round. He had surely left the door of the hut open and the lamp burning to force the sheriff to draw off in the end, mount and ride away, and leave the tolerant craftsman to close up his affairs for the night. Hugh was just as set on outstaying even this relentless patience. And while they were deadlocked there, standing over the bank of the Severn, here was one free agent who could act, and only one.

Elave broke cover and ran, using the hut as shield, headlong for the open doorway and the dim interior, and caught up the lamp. The thatch of the roof was old, dried from a fine summer, bellying loosely between its supporting beams. He set the flame of the lamp to it in two places, over the long table where the draught from the shutters would fan it, and again close to the doorway as he backed out again. Outside he plucked out the burning wick and flung it up on the slope of the roof, and the remaining oil after it. The breeze that often stirred at sunset after a still day was just waking from the west, and caught at the small spurt of flame, sending a thin, sinuous serpent of fire up the roof. Inside the hut he heard what sounded like a giant's gusty sigh, and flames exploded and licked from truss to truss along the thatch between the rafters. Elave ran, not back into the cover of the bushes, but round to the shutters on the landward side of the hut, and gripped and tore at the best hold he could get on the boards until one panel gave and swung clear, and billowing smoke gushed out first, and after it tall tongues of flame as the air fanned the fire within. He sprang back, and stood off to see the fearful thing he had done, as smoke billowed and flame soared above the roof.

Cadfael was the first to see, and cry an alarm: ‘Fire! Look, your hut's afire!'

Jevan turned his head, perhaps only half believing, and saw what Cadfael had seen. He uttered one awful scream of despair and loss, flung Fortunata away from him so suddenly and roughly that she almost fell, flung off the knife he held to quiver upright in the turf, and ran frenziedly straight for the hut. Hugh yelled after him: ‘Stop! You can do nothing!' and ran after, but Jevan heeded nothing but the tower of fire and smoke, dimming the sunset against which he saw it, and blackening the rose and pale gold of the sky. Round to the far wall of the workshop he ran headlong, and in through the drifting smoke that filled the doorway.

Elave, rounding the corner of the building just in time to confront him face to face, beheld a horrified mask with open, screaming mouth and frantic eyes, before Jevan plunged without pause into the choking darkness within. Elave even grasped at his sleeve to halt him from such madness, and Jevan turned on him and hurled him off with a blow in the face, sending him reeling as a spurt of flame surged between them and drove them apart. Stumbling backwards and falling in the tufted grass, Elave saw the drifting smoke momentarily coiled aside in an eddy of wind. He was staring full into the open doorway, and could not choose but see what happened within.

Jevan had blundered heedless through the smoke, and clambered on to the long table, and was stretching up with both arms plunged to the elbow in the burning thatch, that dangled in swags above his head, reaching for something secreted there. He had it, he tugged wildly to bring it down into his arms, moaning and writhing at the pain of his burned hands. Then it seemed that half the disturbed thatch collapsed in a great explosion of flame on top of him, and he vanished in a dazzling rose of fire and a long howl of anguish and rage.

Elave clawed his way up from the ground and lunged forward with arms over his face to shield him. Hugh came up breathless and baulked in the doorway, as the heat drove them both back, coughing and retching for clean air. And suddenly a blackened figure burst out between them, trailing a comet's tail of smoke and sparks, his clothing and hair on fire, something muffled and shapeless hugged protectively and passionately in his arms. He was keening in a thin wail, like wind in winter in door and chimney. They sprang to intercept him and try to beat out the flames, but he was too sudden and too swift. Down the slope of the grass he went, a living torch, and leaped far out into the mid-current. The Severn hissed and spat, and Jevan was gone, swept downstream past his own nets and skins, past Fortunata, rigid and mute with shock in Cadfael's arms, down this free-flowing reach of the river, to drift ashore somewhere in the slower stretches and lower water where the Severn encircled the town.

Fortunata saw him pass, turning with the current, very soon lost to sight. He was not swimming. Both arms embraced fiercely the swathed burden for which he had killed and now was dying.

*

It was over. There was nothing now to be done for Jevan of Lythwood, nothing for his blackened and blazing property but to let it burn out. There was nothing near enough to catch fire from it, only the empty field. What mattered now, to Hugh as to Cadfael, was to get these two shocked and inarticulate souls safely back into a real world among familiar things, even if for one of them it must be a return to a household horrified and bereaved, and for the other to a stone cell and a threatened condemnation. Here and now, all Fortunata could say, over and over again, was: ‘He would not have hurt me – he would not!' and at last, after many such repetitions, almost inaudibly:
‘Would he
?' And nothing as yet could be got out of Elave but the horrified protest: ‘I never wanted that! How could I know? How could I know? I never wished him that!' And at last, in a kind of fury against himself, he said: ‘And we do not even know he is guilty of anything, even now we do not know!'

‘Yes,' said Fortunata then, quickening out of her icy numbness. ‘I do know! He told me.'

But that was a story she was not yet able to tell fully, nor would Hugh allow her to waste present time on it, for she was cold with an unnatural cold from within, and he wanted her home.

‘See to the lad, Cadfael, and get him back where his bishop wants him, before his truancy is added to the charges against him. I'll take the lady back to her mother.'

‘The bishop knows I'm gone,' said Elave, rousing himself to respond, with a great heave of his shoulders that still could not shrug off the stunning load they carried. ‘I begged him, and he gave me leave.'

‘Did he so?' said Hugh, surprised. ‘Then the more credit to him and to you. I have hopes of such a bishop.' He was up into the saddle with a vigorous spring, and reaching down a hand to Fortunata. His favourite rawboned grey would never notice the slight extra weight. ‘Hand her up, boy... that's it, your foot on mine. And now be wise, leave all till tomorrow. What more needs be done, I'll do.' He had shed his coat to wrap round the girl's shoulders, and settled her securely in his arm. ‘Tomorrow, Cadfael, I'll be early with the abbot. Doubtless we shall all meet before the day's out.'

They were gone, away at a canter up the slope of the field, turning their backs on the blaze that was already settling down into a blackened, smouldering heap of roofless timber, and the netted sheepskins weaving and swaying in the sharp current, while the water under the opposite bank lay smooth and almost still.

‘And we'll be on our way, too,' said Cadfael, gathering the pony's rein, ‘for there's nothing any man can do more here. All's done now, and by the same token, might have been much worse done. Here, you ride and I'll walk with you, and we'll just make our way quietly home.'

‘
Would
he have harmed her?' Elave asked after long silence, when they were threading the highroad through the thriving houses and shops of Frankwell and approaching the western bridge.

‘How can we know, when she herself cannot be certain? God's providence decreed that he should not. That must be enough for us. And you were his instrument.'

‘I have been the death of his brother for Girard,' said Elave. ‘How can he but blame me? What better could I expect from him now?'

‘Would it have been better for Girard if his brother had lived to be hanged?' asked Cadfael. ‘And his name blown about in the scandal of it? No, leave Girard to Hugh. He's a man of sense, he'll not hold it against you. You sent him back a daughter, he won't grudge her to you when the time comes.'

‘I never killed a man before.' Elave's voice was weary and reflective. ‘In all those miles we travelled, and with dangers and fights enough along the way, I doubt if I ever drew blood.'

‘You did not kill him, and must not claim more than your due. His own actions killed him.'

‘Do you think he may have dragged himself ashore somewhere? Living?
Could
he live? After that?'

‘All things are possible,' said Cadfael. But he remembered the arms in their smouldering sleeves clamped fast over the thing Jevan had snatched from the fire, the long body swept past beneath the water without struggle or sound, and he had not much doubt what would be found next day, somewhere in the circuit of the town.

Over the bridge and through the streets the pony paced placidly, and at the descent of the Wyle he snuffed the evening air and his pace grew brisker, scenting his stable and the comforts of home.