Padraig’s face lost every trace of color.  “W-who says that?”

“The crows and herons, I suppose,” said the drover coolly.  “Anyhow none of the folk in the village know where the story started, and nobody but a bird on the wing could see over those walls.  ’Tis said that ten days hence, if the old doctor don’t make gold for them, they’ll burn him for a wizard.  Now that’s no sense, for if he could make gold he’d be a wizard no bounds, and they’d not burn him then, I reckon.”

Padraig looked down the valley at the tender gold-green grass and the snowdrift apple-boughs of spring, It seemed impossible that those grim gray walls held within them this cruel and implacable spirit.  “Can I get a trustworthy messenger?” he asked.  “I would send a letter to the Master’s friends.”

With the ready understanding of men who see and judge strange faces constantly, Swart and Padraig had taken each other’s measure and been satisfied.  “My nephew Hod will go,” Swart answered.  Hod was the son of the farmer whose house Tomaso had visited.

Padraig was busy with tablets and inkhorn.  He folded and sealed his note, written in the clear stubbed hand of the monasteries.  “I am Padraig,” he said, “a scribe of the Irish Benedictines.  If the Master comes to harm there will be a heavy reckoning, but that will come too late.  I will rescue him or die with him—­are you with me?”

Swart pulled at his huge beard.  “The Swarts of Aschenrugge,” he said, “have dwelt too long in these parts to bow neck to a Templar.  Hod shall ride with the letter, and if it be thy choice to risk thine own life for thy master’s I’ve no call to betray thee.”

A dark-browed yokel came to the door with the bridle of Swart’s best horse over his arm.  “Take this,” Padraig directed, “to Robert Edrupt, the wool merchant at Long Lea near Stratton.  If he be from home give it to his wife Barbara and tell her to open and read it.  She is wise and will do what is right.  Here is money—­all I have—­but you shall be paid well when the errand is done; I have asked Edrupt to see to that.”

Hod stuck his thumbs in his belt.  “Put up thy money,” he muttered.  “The old doctor he cured our Cicely, he did.”

The messenger gone, Padraig went straight to the Temple and asked to see the Preceptor.  Gregory listened at first with suspicion, then with wonder, to what the stranger told.  It seemed that, hearing that a famous alchemist was at work in the Temple, he had come to crave the privilege of acting as his servant.  It was, he said, absolutely necessary that such a master should have a disciple at hand for the actual work, and be left undisturbed in meditation meanwhile.”

“Is this necessary to the making of gold?” asked Gregory.

“Surely,” Padraig assured him.  “The pupil cannot do the work of the master, the master must not be compelled to labor as the pupil.  It is written in our books—­Feliciter is sapit, qui periculo alieno sapit—­Those are fortunate who learn at the risk of another,—­and again, He is wise who profits by others’ folly.”