by Ellis Peters
‘It is not for them to question or reason with inadequate minds, but to accept with unquestioning faith. Truth is set before them, they have only to believe. It is the perverse and perilous who have the arrogance to bring mere fallible reason to bear on what is ineffable. Go on! Two points, you said. What is the second?’
Serlo cast an almost apologetic glance at Radulfus, and an even more rapid and uneasy one at Elave, who all this time was staring upon him with knotted brows and thrusting jaw, not yet committed to fear or anger or any other emotion, simply waiting and listening.
‘It arose out of this same matter of the Father and the Son. He said that if they were of one and the same substance, as the creed calls them consubstantial, then the entry of the Son into humankind must mean also the entry of the Father, taking to himself and making divine that which he had united with the godhead. And therefore the Father and the Son alike knew the suffering and the death and the resurrection, and as one partake in our redemption.’
‘It is the Patripassian heresy!’ cried Gerbert, outraged. ‘Sabellius was excommunicated for it, and for his other errors. Noetus of Smyrna preached it to his ruin. This is indeed a dangerous venture. No wonder the priest warned him of the pit he was digging for his own soul.’
‘Howbeit,’ Radulfus reminded the assembly firmly, ‘the man, it seems, listened to counsel and undertook the pilgrimage, and as to the probity of his life, nothing has been alleged against it. We are concerned, not with what he speculated upon seven years and more ago, but with his spiritual wellbeing at his death. There is but one witness here who can testify as to that. Now let us hear from his servant and companion.’ He turned to look closely at Elave, whose face had set into controlled and conscious awareness, not of danger, but of deep offence. ‘Speak for your master,’ said Radulfus quietly, ‘for you knew him to the end. What was his manner of life in all that long journey?’
‘He was regular in observance everywhere,’ said Elave, ‘and made his confession where he could. There was no fault found with him in any land. In the Holy City we visited all the most sacred places, and going and returning we lodged whenever we could in abbeys and priories, and everywhere my master was accepted for a good and pious man, and paid his way honestly, and was well regarded.’
‘But had he renounced his views,’ demanded Gerbert, ‘and recanted his heresy? Or did he still adhere secretly to his former errors?’
‘Did he ever speak with you about these things?’ the abbot asked, overriding the intervention.
‘Very seldom, my lord, and I did not well understand such deep matters. I cannot answer for another man’s mind, only for his conduct, which I knew to be virtuous.’ Elave’s face had set into contained and guarded calm. He did not look like a man who would fall short in understanding of deep matters, or lack the interest to consider them.
‘And in his last illness,’ Radulfus pursued mildly, ‘he asked for a priest?’
‘He did, Father, and made his confession and received absolution without question. He died with all the due rites of the Church. Wherever there was place and time along the way he made his confession, especially after he first fell ill, and we were forced to stay a whole month in the monastery at Saint Marcel before he was fit to continue the journey home. And there he often spoke with the brothers, and all these matters of faith and doubt were understood and tolerated among them. I know he spoke openly of things that troubled him, and they found no fault there with debating all manner of questions concerning holy things.’
Canon Gerbert stared cold suspicion. ‘And where was this place, this Saint Marcel? And when was it you spent a month there? How recently?’
‘It was in the spring of last year. We left early in the May, and made the pilgrimage from there to Saint James at Compostela with a party from Cluny, to give thanks that my master was restored to health. Or so we thought then, but he was never in real health again, and we had many halts thereafter. Saint Marcel is close by Chalons on the Saône. It is a daughter house of Cluny.’
Gerbert sniffed loudly and turned up his masterful nose at the mention of Cluny. That great house had taken seriously to the pilgrim traffic and had given aid and support, protection along the roads and shelter in their houses to many hundreds not only from France, but of recent years from England, too. But for the close dependants of Archbishop Theobald it was first and foremost the mother-house of that difficult colleague and ambitious and arrogant rival, Bishop Henry of Winchester.
‘There was one of the brothers died there,’ said Elave, standing up sturdily for the sanctity and wisdom of Cluny, ‘who had written on all these things, and taught in his young days, and he was revered beyond any other among the brothers, and had the most saintly name among them. He saw no wrong in pondering all these difficult matters by the test of reason, and neither did his abbot, who had sent him there from Cluny for his health. I heard him read once from Saint John’s Gospel, and speak on what he read. It was wonderful to hear. And that was but a short time before he died.’
‘It is presumption to play human reason like a false light upon divine mysteries,’ warned Gerbert sourly. ‘Faith is to be received, not taken apart by the wit of a mere man. Who was this brother?’
‘He was called Pierre Abelard, a Breton. He died in the April, before we set out for Compostela in the May.’
The name had meant nothing to Elave beyond what he had seen and heard for himself, and kept wonderingly in his mind ever since. But it meant a great deal to Gerbert. He stiffened in his stall, flaring up half a head taller, as a candle suddenly rears pale and lofty as the wick flares.
‘That man? Foolish, gullible soul, do you not know the man himself was twice charged and convicted of heresy? Long ago his writings on the Trinity were burned, and the writer imprisoned. And only three years ago at the Council of Sens he was again convicted of heretical writings, and condemned to have his works destroyed and end his life in perpetual imprisonment.’
It seemed that Abbot Radulfus, though less exclamatory, was equally well informed, if not better.
‘A sentence which was very quickly revoked,’ he remarked drily, ‘and the author allowed to retire peacefully into Cluny at the request of the abbot.’
Unwarily Gerbert was provoked into snapping back without due thought. ‘In my view no such revocation should have been granted. It was not deserved. The sentence should have stood.’
‘It was issued by the Holy Father,’ said the abbot gently, ‘who cannot err.’ Whether his tongue was in his cheek at that moment Cadfael could not be sure, but the tone, though soft and reverent, stung, and was meant to sting.
‘So was the sentence!’ Gerbert snapped back even more unwisely. ‘His Holiness surely had misleading information when he withdrew it. Doubtless he made a right judgement upon such truth as was presented to him.’
Elave spoke up as if to himself, but loudly enough to carry to all ears, and with a brilliance of eye and a jut of jaw that spoke more loudly still. ‘Yet by very definition a thing cannot be its opposite, therefore one judgement or the other must be error. It could as well be the former as the latter.’
Who was it claimed, Cadfael reflected, startled and pleased, that he could not understand the arguments of the philosophers? This lad had kept his ears open and his mind alert all those miles to Jerusalem and back, and learned more than he’s telling. At least he’s turned Gerbert purple and closed his mouth for a moment.
A moment was enough for the abbot. This dangerous line of talk was getting out of hand. He cut it short with decision.
‘The Holy Father has authority both to bind and to loose, and the same infallible will that can condemn can also with equal right absolve. There is here, it seems to me, no contradiction at all. Whatever views he may have held seven years ago, William of Lythwood died on pilgrimage, confessed and shriven, in a state of grace. There is no bar to his burial within this enclave, and he shall have what he has asked of us.’
Chapter 3
AS CADFAE
L CAME THROUGH the court after dinner, to return to his labours in the herb-garden, he encountered Elave. The young man was just coming down the steps from the guest-hall, in movement and countenance bright and vehement, like a tool honed for fine use. He was still roused and ready to be aggressive after the rough passage of his master’s body to its desired resting-place, the bones of his face showed polished with tension, and his prow of a nose quested belligerently on the summer air.
‘You look ready to bite,’ said Cadfael, coming by design face to face with him.
The boy looked back at him for a moment uncertain how to respond, where even this unalarming presence was still an unknown quantity. Then he grinned, and the sharp tension eased.
‘Not you, at any rate, Brother! If I showed my teeth, did I not have cause?’
‘Well, at least you know our abbot all the better for it. You have what you asked. But as well keep a lock on your lips until the other one is gone. One way to be sure of saying nothing that can be taken amiss is to say nothing at all. Another is to agree with whatever the prelates say. But I doubt that would have much appeal for you.’
‘It’s like threading a way between archers in ambush,’ said Elave, relaxing. ‘For a cloistered man, Brother, you say things aside from the ordinary yourself.’
‘We’re none of us as ordinary as all that. What I feel, when the divines begin talking doctrine, is that God speaks all languages, and whatever is said to him or of him in any tongue will need no interpreter. And if it’s devoutly meant, no apology. How is that hand of yours? No inflammation?’
Elave shifted the box he was carrying to his other arm, and showed the faded scar in his palm, still slightly puffed and pink round the healed punctures.
‘Come round with me to my workshop, if you’ve the time to spare,’ Cadfael invited, ‘and let me dress that again for you. And that will be the last you need think of it.’ He cast a glance at the box tucked under the young man’s arm. ‘But you have errands to do in the town? You’ll be off to visit William’s kinsfolk.’
‘They’ll need to know of his burying, tomorrow,’ said Elave. ‘They’ll be here. There was always a good feeling among them all, never bad blood. It was Girard’s wife who kept the house for the whole family. I must go and tell them what’s arranged. But there’s no haste, I daresay once I’m up there it will be for the rest of the day and into the evening.’
They fell in amicably together, side by side, out of the court and through the rose garden, rounding the thick hedge. As soon as they entered the walled garden the sun-warmed scent of the herbs rose to enfold them in a cloud of fragrance, every step along the gravel path between the beds stirring wave on wave of sweetness.
‘Shame to go withindoors on such a day,’ said Cadfael. ‘Sit down here in the sun, I’ll bring the lotion out to you.’
Elave sat down willingly on the bench by the north wall, tilting his face up to the sun, and laid his burden down beside him. Cadfael eyed it with interest, but went first to bring out the cleansing lotion, and anoint the fading wound once again.
‘You’ll feel no more of that now, it’s clean enough. Young flesh heals well, and you’ve surely been through more risks crossing the world and back than you should be meeting here in Shrewsbury.’ He stoppered the flask, and sat down beside his guest. ‘I suppose they won’t even know yet, that you’re back and their kinsman dead – the family there in the town?’
‘Not yet, no. There was barely time last night to get my master well bestowed, and what with the dispute in chapter this morning, I’ve had no chance yet to get word to them. You know them – his nephews? Girard sees to the flock and the sales, and fetches in the wool clips from the others he deals for. Jevan always managed the vellum making, even in William’s day. Come to think of it, for all I know things may be changed there since we left.’
‘You’ll find them all living,’ said Cadfael reassuringly, ‘that I do know. Not that we see much of them down here in the Foregate. They come sometimes on festival days, but they have their own church at Saint Alkmund’s.’ He eyed the box Elave had laid down on the bench between them. ‘Something William was bringing back to them? May I look? Faith, I own I’m looking already, I can’t take my eyes from it. That’s a wonderful piece of carving. And old, surely.’
Elave looked down at it with the critical appreciation and indifferent detachment of one to whom it meant simply an errand to be discharged, something he would be glad to hand over and be rid of. But he took it up readily and placed it in Cadfael’s hands to be examined closely.
‘I have to take it by way of a dowry for the girl. When he grew too ill to go on he thought of her, seeing he’d taken her into his household from the day she was born. So he gave me this to bring to Girard, to be used for her when she marries. It’s a poor lookout for a girl with no dowry when it comes to getting a husband.’
‘I remember there was a little girl,’ said Cadfael, turning the box in his hands with admiration. It was enough to excite the artist in any man. Fashioned from some dark eastern wood, about a foot long by eight inches wide and four deep, the lid flawlessly fitted, with a small, gilded lock. The under surface was plain, polished to a lustrous darkness almost black, the upper surface and the edges of the lid beautifully and intricately carved in a tracery of vine leaves and grapes, and in the centre of the lid a lozenge containing an ivory plaque, an aureoled head, full-face, with great Byzantine eyes. It was so old that the sharp edges had been slightly smoothed and rounded by handling, but the lines of the carving were still picked out in gold.
‘Fine work!’ said Cadfael, handling it reverently. He balanced it in his hands, and it hung like a solid mass of wood, nothing shifting within. ‘You never wondered what was in it?’
Elave looked faintly surprised, and hoisted indifferent shoulders. ‘It was packed away, and I had other things to think about I’ve only this past half-hour got it out of the baggage-roll. No, I never did wonder. I took it he’d saved up some money for her. I’m just handing it over to Girard as I was told to do. It’s the girl’s, not mine.’
‘You don’t know where he got it?’
‘Oh, yes, I know where he bought it. From a poor deacon in the market in Tripoli, just before we took ship for Cyprus and Thessalonika on our way home. There were Christian fugitives beginning to drift in then from beyond Edessa, turned out of their monasteries by mamluk raiders from Mosul. They came with next to nothing, they had to sell whatever they’d contrived to bring with them in order to live. William drove shrewd bargains among the merchants, but he dealt fairly with those poor souls. They said life was becoming hard and dangerous in those parts. The journey out we made the slow way, by land. William wanted to see the great collection of relics in Constantinople. But coming home we started by sea. There are plenty of Greek and Italian merchant ships plying as far as Thessalonika, some even all the way to Bari and Venice.’
‘There was a time,’ mused Cadfael, drawn back through the years, ‘when I knew those seas very well. How did you fare for lodging on the way out, all those miles afoot?’
‘Now and then we went a piece in company, but mostly it was we two alone. The monks of Cluny have hospices all across France and down through Italy, even close by the emperor’s city they have a house for pilgrims. And as soon as you reach the Holy Land the Knights of Saint John provide shelter everywhere. It’s a great thing to have done,’ said Elave, looking back in awe and wonder. ‘Along the way a man lives a day at a time, and looks no further ahead than the next day, and no further behind than the day just passed. Now I see it whole, and it is wonderful.’
‘But not all good,’ said Cadfael. ‘That couldn’t be, we couldn’t ask it. Remember the cold and the rain and the hunger at times, and losses by thieves now and then, and a few knocks from those who prey on travellers – oh, never tell me you met none! And the weariness, and the times when William fell ill, the bad food, the sour water, the stones of the road. You’ve met all that. Every man who travels that far across
the world has met it all.’
‘I do remember all that,’ said Elave sturdily, ‘but it is still wonderful.’
‘Good! So it should be,’ said Cadfael, sighing. ‘Lad, I should be glad to sit and talk with you about every step of the way, when your time’s free. You go and deliver your box to Master Girard, and that’s your duty done. And what will you do now? Go back to work for them as before?’
‘No, not that. It was for William I worked. They have their own clerk, I wouldn’t wish to displace him, and they don’t need two. Besides, I want more, and different. I’ll take time to look about me. I’ve come back with more skills than when I went, I’d like to use them.’ He rose, and tucked the carved box securely under his arm.
‘I’ve forgotten,’ said Cadfael, following the gesture thoughtfully, ‘if indeed I ever knew – how did he come by the child? He had none of his own, and as far as I know, Girard has none, and the other brother has never married. Where did the girl come from? Some foundling he took in?’
‘You could say so. They had a serving maid, a simple soul, who fell foul of a small huckster at the fair one year, and brought forth a daughter. William gave houseroom to the pair of them, and Margaret cared for the baby like her own child, and when the mother died they simply kept the girl. A pretty little thing she was. She had more wit than her mother. It was William named her Fortunata, for he said she’d come into the world with nothing, not even a father, and still found herself a home and a family, and so she’d still fall on her feet lifelong. She was eleven, rising twelve,’ said Elave, ‘when we set out, and grown into a skinny, awkward little thing all teeth and elbows. They say the prettiest pups make the ugliest dogs. She’ll need a decent dowry to make up for her gawky looks.’
He stretched his long person, hoisted his box more firmly under his arm, dipped his fair head in a small, friendly reverence, and was off along the path, his haste to discharge all the final duties with which he had been entrusted tempered somewhat by a sense of the seven years since he had seen William’s family, and the inevitable estrangement time must have brought about, until now scarcely realised. What had once been familiar was now alien, and it would take time to edge his way back to it. Cadfael watched him disappear round the corner of the box hedge, torn between sympathy and envy.