“As for any other weapon, I carry nothing else.”
“Then breath more easily,” Ralf said. “The lad who troubled your wife’s rest with his loud preaching will live.”
Jacob ben Asser covered his face with his hands and murmured a prayer of thanks.
Ralf, on the other hand, stared upward with less gratitude. He no longer had any good suspects but too many dead bodies.
26
Thomas did not like Adelard, but his heart softened when he saw the fear in the lad’s eyes. Many would say that the baker’s son was ready to take on the burdens of manhood along with a man’s beard, but there was a quivering child reflected in the gaze of this youth of eighteen summers. “I offer solace and guidance,” the monk said. The gentleness in his voice was sincere.
“My heart is heavy, Brother. Crimes oppress my soul. I must have your counsel.” Adelard’s words tumbled out in a rush.
“That I shall give, but you must speak the truth. Whatever sins have been committed, your soul is of greater worth than your body. Do you swear you shall be honest, whatever the consequences?”
“I do.” The youth looked away. “But I could not speak to the crowner until I was clear on what must be spoken and what might be left in silence.” His words were muffled. “Ask what you will, then guide me.”
Thomas decided it was kinder to begin with an event that had not led to a death. “Why were you by the stables?”
“I did not lie when I said I wished to pray for the Jews’ conversion, but there was another reason. I hoped God would take pity on me in the solitude of darkness if I continued to beg for enlightenment after your revelations.”
Thomas was pleased. Adelard’s troubled reaction to the news that Pope Gregory himself rejected the mythical condemnations against those of Jewish faith spoke well of the youth. “What do you recall of the attack?”
“Nothing!”
The response was too swift and the young man’s nervous pitch suggested he was hiding something despite his oath. The monk waited, but Adelard offered nothing more. Very well, Thomas said to himself, if he refuses to answer an easy question, I shall ask harder ones. “What happened to the silver cross you always wear?”
Adelard paled and began to tremble.
This time Thomas showed no pity. “Lest your soul burn in Hell, keep your word and tell the truth.”
“I lost it the day of the riot. My father saw it was missing and berated me, but I have neither found it nor heard that anyone else did.”
Thomas saw nothing in the youth’s demeanor to suggest he was lying. Although inclined to believe him, the monk knew that made the problem of why the cross was found near Gwydo’s body all the more confusing. “When did you first notice it was gone?”
“After the riot, I left the village for the seclusion of the forest. Your words to the men of Tyndal village distressed my soul. When I returned later, my father saw that I no longer wore it. I have since searched for it diligently but to no avail.” Tears collected in the corners of his eyes.
“Where did you go in the forest?” This news did not bode well for the youth’s innocence.
“Please, Brother! I would answer your questions, but my spirit is tortured. Out of compassion for this great sinner, will you first ease my pain?” The tears now flowed like a deluge.
The answer to the question of location was crucial to determining if the youth had been near where the body of Gwydo had been found, but Thomas’ role as priest demanded precedence. “Is it confession you wish?”
“I need understanding first,” Adelard whispered. “Then I may better cleanse my soul of all its foulness. And I swear to undertake whatever penance you require.”
“Ask your questions freely for I never condemn any seeker of truth.” As much as he longed to continue the pursuit of information, he knew he must honor a soul’s hunger before all else. If he gave the comfort he swore he would offer, he was also more likely to get the youth’s cooperation. That thought brought him the patience required to continue.
“We are commanded to obey and honor our parents, yet we are expected to leave them to follow our Lord. I do not understand the contradiction.”
Since he was a bastard and his own mother had died too early in his life, Thomas had never considered this question in any depth. Clearing his throat to give himself time to think, he still failed to come up with a satisfactory reply. “What has caused you to be troubled by this?”
“In the matter of the Jews, my father taught me to hate them. Yet you say both popes and saints require mercy and tolerance.”
“I have already quoted the substance of those commands. Although we may grieve that their conversion is slow, we may not give in to intolerance. According to the teachings of Saint Paul, who was himself an Israelite, Israel shall be saved only when all Gentiles are converted.” Must he repeat his entire sermon to the rioters? Thomas tried not to show his annoyance.
Adelard’s forehead wrinkled in thought.
“Perhaps your father was not aware of these words,” Thomas said.
“The priest who taught him believed otherwise.”
Raising an eyebrow, Thomas was struck again with a suspicion he had had earlier. “Did your father once hope to take vows himself?”
“He had learned some Latin, but his father was a poor man and did not have the means to buy him a position in a monastery.” Adelard rubbed moisture from his cheeks. “Nor could he banish lust,” he said, “and thus married my mother, but she was a woman of deep faith who turned to prayer and celibacy after bearing my youngest brother.”
“Does your own longing to take vows come from your father’s heart or from your own?” Thomas was not sure where this was leading, but at least he might be able answer whether Adelard should become a novice. This young man had the choice of staying in the world and practicing an honorable trade. If the passion for God was borrowed, he ought to remain a baker. Maybe he could be encouraged to contribute to the keep of those who, like his father, were unable to pay for a place in God’s house…
Adelard tilted his head, and then winced for the gesture caused him pain. “It was always my father’s greatest wish, one that I would not deny him, but I have come to long for it myself.”
Thomas was not so sure, but he was finally ready to answer the youth’s uncertainty about obedience. “Then you are learning the answer to your initial question, my son,” he said. “We must honor our parents, a true commandment, but the seeking for truth must come from our own hearts. Sometimes that means finding wisdom they lack.”
“Please explain, Brother.”
“As an example, I shall speak of the matter regarding the Jews. Remember that God forbade the worship of other gods? To take hate into your heart, when He has ordered it to be the house of love, is to worship Satan. The Prince of Darkness is the deity of hate.” Thomas took a deep breath and hoped he had made sense.
The baker’s son looked at him with amazement.
“But I do not mean to disparage all your father has taught you, for he must have sought the truth himself as a youth.” Thomas remembered the large, ruddy-faced man with tiny eyes and had difficulty imagining this man at all inclined to introspection. As he looked at the eager-faced Adelard, he wondered if the lad took after his mother. “How did he prepare you for the calling he longed for you to have?”
“He wanted me to hate the world and to see it as the cesspool of wickedness.”
“And he taught you this by…”
“By encouraging me to watch others sinning when they did not know I was observing them.”
Thomas bit his lip. He, too, had spied on others as a child to gain his father’s favor. Was he so different from this lad? As he looked at this callow youth, lying in pain, he knew there was a dissimilarity between them. There was unhappiness but little torment in Adelard’s eyes. Thomas had suffered the latter. Nonetheless, the young man required kindness.
“And how did you do this?” Perhaps the question might lead back to the issue of murder, while also allowing the young man to unburden himself of what weighed on him.