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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?’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜But had he renounced his views,’ demanded Gerbert, ‘and recanted his heresy? Or did he still adhere secretly to his former errors?’
    â€˜Did he ever speak with you about these things?’ the abbot asked, overriding the intervention.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜And in his last illness,’ Radulfus pursued mildly, ‘he asked for a priest?’
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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