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“Yes,” she said, this time slowly and carefully, “If the saint so wrote, he said, he did not believe him. No one has ever told me, and I cannot read or write, beyond my name and some small things. Did Saint Augustine say what the preacher reported of him?”

“That is enough!” snapped Gerbert. “This girl bears out all that has been charged against the accused. The proceedings are in your hands.”

“It is my judgment,” said Radulfus, “that we should adjourn, and deliberate in private. The witnesses are dismissed. Go home, daughter, and be assured you have told truth, and need trouble not at all what follows, for the truth cannot but be good. Go, all of you, but hold yourselves ready should you be needed again and recalled. And you, Elave

” He sat studying the young man’s face, which was raised to him pale, resolute, and irate, with set mouth and wide and brilliant eyes, still burning for Fortunata’s distress. “You are a guest in our house. I have seen no cause why any man of us should not take your word.” He was aware of Gerbert stiffening with disapproval beside him, but swept on with raised voice, overriding protest. “If you promise not to leave here until this matter is resolved, then you are free in the meantime to go back and forth here as you will.”

For a moment Elave’s attention wavered. Fortunata had turned in the doorway to look back, then she was gone. Conan and Aldwin had left hastily on their dismissal, and vanished before her, eager to escape while their case was surely safe in the hands of the visiting prelate, whose nose for unorthodoxy was shown to be so keen and his zeal so relentless. Accuser and witnesses were gone. Elave returned his obdurate but respectful gaze to the abbot, and said with deliberation: “My lord, I have no mind to leave my lodging here in your house until I can do so free and vindicated. I give you my word on that.”

“Go, then, until I ask your attendance again. And now,” said Radulfus, rising, “this session is adjourned. Go to your duties, everyone, and bear in mind we are still in a day dedicated to the remembrance of Saint Winifred, and the saints also bear witness to all that we do, and will testify accordingly.”

“I understand you very well,” said Canon Gerbert, when he was alone with Radulfus in the abbot’s parlor. Closeted thus in private with his peer, he sat relaxed, even weary, all his censorious zeal shed, a fallible man and anxious for his faith. “Here retired from the world, or at the worst concerned largely with the region and the people close about you, you have not seen the danger of false belief. And I grant you it has not yet cast a shadow in this land, and I pray our people may be sturdy enough to resist all such devious temptations. But it comes, Father Abbot, it comes! From the east the serpents of undoing are working their way westward, and of all travelers from the east I go in dread that they may bring back with them bad seed, perhaps even unwittingly, to take root and grow even here. There are malignant wandering preachers active even now in Flanders, in France, on the Rhine, in Lombardy, who cry out against Holy Church and her priesthood, that we are corrupt and greedy, that the Apostles lived simply, in holy poverty. In Antwerp a certain Tachelm has drawn deluded thousands after him to raid churches and tear down their ornaments. In France, in Rouen itself, yet another such goes about preaching poverty and humility and demanding reform. I have traveled in the south on my archbishop’s errands, and seen how error grows and spreads like a heath fire. These are not a few sick in mind and harmless. In Provence, in Languedoc, there are regions where a fashion of Manichean heresy has grown so strong it is become almost a rival church. Do you wonder that I dread even the first weak spark that may start such a blaze?”

“No,” said Radulfus, “I do not wonder. We should never relax our guard. But also we must see every man clearly, with his words and his deeds upon him, and not hasten to cover him from sight with this universal cloak of heresy. Once the word is spoken the man himself may become invisible. And therefore expendable! Here is certainly no wandering preacher, no inflamer of crowds, no ambitious madman whipping up a following for his own gain. The boy spoke of a master he had valued and served, and therefore tended to speak in praise of him, in defense of his bold doubts, the more loyally and fiercely if his companions raised their voices against him. He had probably drunk enough to loosen his tongue, besides. He may well have said, and repeated to us, more than he truly means, to the aggravation of his cause. Shall we do the same?”

“No,” said Gerbert heavily, “I would not wish that. And I do see him clearly. You say rightly, here is no wild man bent on mischief, but a sound, hardworking fellow, profitable to his master and I doubt not honest and well meaning with his neighbors. Do you not see how much more dangerous that makes him? To hear false doctrine from one himself plainly false and vile is no temptation at all; to hear it from one fair of countenance and reputation, speaking it with his heart’s conviction, that can be deadly seduction. It is why I fear him.”

“It is why one century’s saint is the next century’s heretic,” the abbot replied drily, “and one century’s heretic the next century’s saint. It is as well to think long and calmly before affixing either name to any man.”

“That is to neglect a duty we cannot evade,” said Gerbert, again bristling. “The peril which is here and now must be dealt with here and now, or the battle is lost, for the seed will have fallen and rooted.”

“Then at least we may know the wheat from the tares. And bear in mind,” said Radulfus gravely, “that where error is sincere and bred out of misguided goodness, the blemish may be healed by reason and persuasion.”

“Or failing that,” said Gerbert with inflexible resolution, “by lopping off the diseased member.”

Chapter Six

Elave passed through the gates unchallenged, and turned towards the town. Evidently the porter had not yet got word of the alarm raised against this one ordinary mortal among the abbey guests, or else he had already received the abbot’s fiat that the accused’s parole was given and accepted, and he was free to go and come as he pleased, provided he did not collect his belongings and take to his heels altogether, for no attempt was made to bar his way. The brother on the gate even gave him a cheerful good-day as he passed.

Out in the Foregate he paused to look both ways along the highroad, but all the witnesses against him had vanished from sight. He set off in haste towards the bridge and the town, certain that Fortunata in her distress would make straight for home. She had left the chapter house before he had given his word he had no intention of departing unvindicated. She might well think him already a prisoner, might even blame herself for his plight. He had seen how reluctantly she had borne true witness against him, and at this moment it grieved him more that she should grieve than that his own liberty and life should be in danger. In that danger he found it hard to believe; therefore it was easy to bear. Her evident agitation he believed in utterly, and it caused him deep and compelling pain. He had to speak to her, to reassure her she had done him no wrong in the world, that this commotion would pass, that the abbot was a reasonable man, and the other one, the one who wanted blood, would soon be gone and leave the judgment to saner judges. And more beyond that, that he had understood how valiantly she had striven to defend him, that he was grateful for it, perhaps even hoping in his heart to find in it a deeper meaning than sympathy, and more intimate than concern for justice. Though he must guard his tongue from saying too much, as long as even the shadow of reprobation hung over him.

He had reached the end of the enclave wall, where the ground on his left opened out over the silvery oval of the mill pool, and on the right of the road the houses of the Foregate gave way to a grove of trees that stretched as far as the approaches to the bridge over the Severn. And there she was before him, unmistakable in her bearing and gait, hastening along the dusty highway with an impetuosity that suggested angry resolution rather than consternation and dismay. He broke into a run, and overtook her in the shadow of the trees. At the sound of his racing feet she had swung round to face him, and at sight of him, without a word said beyond his breathless “Mistress!” she caught him hastily by the hand and drew him well aside into the grove, out of sight from the road.