Free Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice by Ellis Peters

was taught his clerking."
    He was giving words to what had been eating away at Aldwin's always tenuous peace of mind ever since Elave had showed his face. But he made one feeble effort to stand it off. "I've seen no sign he'd be wanted back here."
    "For one not wanted he was made strangely welcome, then," retorted Conan. "And didn't I just say something to Jevan, that made him answer how I had nothing to fret about, seeing Elave was no shepherd, to threaten me! Let Aldwin do the fretting, says he, if there's any to be done."
    Aldwin had been doing the fretting all the evening, and it was made manifest by the tight clenching of his hands, white at the knuckles, and the sour set of his mouth, as though it were full of gall. He sat mute, seething in his fears and suspicions, and this light pronouncement of Jevan's, all the confirmation they needed.
    "Why did he have to come safe out of a mad journey that's killed its thousands before now?" wondered Conan, brooding. "I wish the man no great harm, God-knows, but I wish him elsewhere. I'd wish him well, if only he'd make off somewhere else to enjoy it. But he'd be a fool not to see that he can do very well for himself here. I can't see him taking to his heels."
    "Not," agreed Aldwin malevolently, "unless the hounds were snapping at them."
    Aldwin sat for some while after Conan had gone off to his bed. By the time he rose from the table the hall would certainly be in darkness, the outer door barred, and Jevan already in his own chamber. Aldwin lit an end of candle from the last flicker of the saucer lamp, to light him through the hall to the wooden stairway to the loft, before he blew out the dwindling flame.
    In the hall it was silent and still, no movement but the very slight creak of a shutter in the night breeze. Aldwin's candle made a minute point of light in the darkness, enough to show him his way the width of a familiar room. He was halfway to the foot of the stair when he halted, stood hesitating for a moment, and listening to the reassuring silence, and then turned and made straight for the corner press.
    The key was always in the lock, but seldom turned. Such valuables as the house contained were kept in the coffer in Girard's bedchamber. Aldwin carefully opened the long door, set his candle to stand steady on a shelf at breast level, and reached up to the higher shelf where Margaret had placed Fortunata's box. Even when he had it set down beside his light he wavered. How if the key turned creakingly instead of silently, or would not yield at all? He could not have said what impelled him to meddle, but curiosity was strong and constant in him, as if he had to know the ins and outs of everything in the household, in case some overlooked detail might be held in store to be used against him. He turned the little key, and it revolved sweetly and silently, well made like the lock it operated and the box it adorned and guarded. With his left hand he raised the lid, and with his right lifted the candle to cast its light directly within.
    "What are you doing there?" demanded Jevan's voice, sharp and irritable from the top of the stairway.
    Aldwin started violently, shaking drops of hot wax onto his hand. He had the lid closed and the key turned in an instant, and thrust the box back onto its upper shelf in panic haste. The open door of the press screened what he was about. From where Jevan came surging down the first few treads of the stairs, a moving shadow among shadows, he would see the light, though not its source, a segment of the open cupboard, and Aldwin's body in sharp silhouette, but could not have seen what his hands were up to, apart, perhaps, from that movement of reaching up to replace the violated treasure. Aldwin clawed along the shelf and turned with the candle in one hand, and the small knife he had just palmed from his own belt in the other.
    "I left my penknife here yesterday, when I cut a new peg to fasten the handle of the small bucket. I shall need it in the