The Confession of Brother Haluin (18 page)

“Then
you had not seen Edgytha? She never reached you?”

“How
could she if she was lying dead a mile or more from Elford?” demanded Roscelin
impatiently.

“It
was after the snow began that she died. She had been some hours gone, long
enough to have reached Elford and been on her way back. Somewhere she had been,
from somewhere she was certainly returning. Where else could it have been?”

“So
you thought she had indeed reached Elford,” said Roscelin slowly. “I never
heard but that she was dead. I thought it was on her way. On her way to me! Is
that what you had in mind? To warn me of what was being done here in my
absence?”

Cenred’s
silence and Emma’s unhappy face were answer enough.

“No,”
he said slowly, “I never saw hide or hair of her. Nor did anyone in Audemar’s household
as far as I know. If she ever was there at all, I don’t know to whom she came.
Certainly not to me.”

“Yet
it could have been so,” said Cenred.

“It
was not so. She did not come. Nevertheless,” said Roscelin relentlessly, “here
am I as if she had, having heard it from another mouth. God knows I am grieved
for Edgytha, but what is there now to be done for her but bury her with
reverence, and after, if we can, find and bury her murderer? But it is not too
late to reconsider what was intended here for tomorrow, it is not too late to
change it.”

“I
marvel,” said Cenred harshly, “that you do not charge me outright with this
death.”

Roscelin
was brought up short against an idea so monstrous, and stood open-mouthed with
shock, his unclenched hands dangling childishly. Plainly such a notion had
never entered his ingenuous head. He stammered a furious, half-inarticulate
disclaimer, and abandoned it halfway to turn again upon de Perronet.

“But
you—you had cause enough to want her stopped, if you knew she was on her way to
warn me. You had good cause to want her silenced, so that no voice should be
raised against your marriage, as now I raise mine. Was it you who did her to
death on the way?”

“This
is foolery,” said de Perronet with disdain. “Everyone here knows that I have
been here in plain view all the evening.”

“So
you may have been, but you have men who may be used to do your work for you.”

“Every
man of whom can be vouched for by your father’s household. Also, you have been
told already it was not on the outward way this woman was killed, but
returning. What purpose would that have served for me? And now may I ask of
you, father and son both,” he demanded sharply, “what interest has this boy in
his close kinswoman’s marriage, that he dares to challenge either her brother’s
rights or her husband’s?”

Now,
thought Cadfael, it is all as good as out, though no one will say it plainly.
For de Perronet has wits sharp enough to have grasped already what particular
and forbidden passion really drives this unhappy boy. And now it depends on
Roscelin whether a decent face is kept on the affair or not. Which is asking a
lot of a young man torn as he is, and outraged by what he feels as a betrayal.
Now we shall see his mettle.

Roscelin
had blanched into a fixed and steely whiteness, his fine bones of cheek and jaw
outlined starkly in the torchlight. Before Cenred could draw breath to assert
his dominance, his son had done it for him.

“My
interest is that of a kinsman close as a brother lifelong, and desiring Helisende’s
happiness beyond anything else in the world. My father’s right I never have
disputed, nor do I doubt he wishes her well as truly as I do. But when I hear
of a marriage planned in haste and in my absence, how can I be easy in mind? I
will not stand by and see her hustled into a marriage that may not be to her
liking. I will not have her forced or persuaded against her will.”

“This
is no such matter,” protested Cenred hotly. “She is not being forced, she has
consented willingly.”

“Then
why was I to be kept in ignorance? Until the thing was done? How can I believe
what your own proceedings deny?” He swung round upon de Perronet, his blanched
face arduously controlled. “Sir, against you I have no malice. I did not even
know who was to be her husband. But you must see how hard it is to believe that
all has been done fairly, when it has not been done openly.

“It
is in the open now,” said de Perronet shortly. “What hinders but you should
hear it from the lady’s own lips? Will that content you?”

Roscelin’s
white face tightened yet more painfully, and for a moment he struggled visibly
against his fear of inevitable rejection and loss. But he had no choice but to
agree.

“If
she tells me this is her choice, then I am silenced.” He did not say that he
would therefore be content.

Cenred
turned to his wife, who all this while had clung loyally to her husband’s side,
while her troubled eyes never left her son’s tormented face.

“Go
and call Helisende. She shall speak for herself.”

In
the heavy and uneasy silence after Emma had departed it was not clear to
Cadfael whether any or all of this disturbed household had found it as strange
as he did that Helisende should not long ago have come down, to discover for
herself the meaning of all these nocturnal comings and goings. He could not get
out of his mind the last glimpse he had had of her, standing solitary among so
many, suddenly lost and confounded on a road she had believed she could walk to
the end with resolute dignity. In a situation so grimly changed she had lost
her bearings. A wonder, though, that she had not, in defense of her own
integrity, come down with the rest to discover the best or the worst when the
searchers returned. Did she even know yet that Edgytha was dead?

Cenred
had advanced into the half-lit hall, abandoning even the seclusion of the
solar, since there was no longer any privacy to be found behind a closed door.
A woman of the household had been killed. A lady of the family found her
marriage the occasion of conflict and death. There was no possibility here of
any separation between master and man, or mistress and maid. They waited with
equal disquiet. All but Helisende, who absented herself still.

Brother
Haluin had drawn back into the shadows, and sat mute and still on a bench
against the wall, hunched stiffly between the crutches he hugged to his sides.
His hollow dark eyes passed intently from face to face, reading and wondering.
If he felt weariness, he gave no sign. Cadfael would have liked to send him away
to his bed, but there hung on everyone here a compulsion so strong that there
could be no departure. Only one had resisted the pull. Only one had escaped.

“What
keeps the women?” fretted Cenred as the moments dragged by. “Does it take so
long to pull on a gown?”

But
it was long minutes more before Emma reappeared in the doorway, her round,
gentle face full of consternation and dismay, her linked hands plying
agitatedly at her girdle. Behind her the maid Madlyn peered warily, round-eyed.
But of Helisende there was no sign.

“She
is gone,” said Emma, too shaken and bewildered to make many words of it. “She
is not in her bed, not in her chamber, nowhere to be found in all this house.
Her cloak is gone. Jehan has been out to the stables. Her saddle horse and harness
are gone with her. While you were absent she has saddled up for herself and
ridden away secretly, alone.”

For
once they were all alike silenced, brother, bridegroom, frustrated lover, and
all. While they schemed and agonized and wrangled over her fate she had taken
action and fled them all. Yes, even Roscelin, for he stood stricken and amazed,
utterly at a loss like all the rest. Cenred might stiffen and frown at his son,
de Perronet swing round upon him, in black suspicion, but plainly Roscelin had
had no part in this panic flight. Even before Edgytha’s death, thought Cadfael,
her secret errand and failure to return had shattered all Helisende’s arduously
assembled certainty. Yes, de Perronet was a decent man and an honorable match,
and she had pledged herself to him to remove herself from Roscelin’s path, and
deliver herself and him from an unbearable situation. But if that sacrifice was
to bring only anger, danger, and conflict, even short of death, then all was
changed. Helisende had drawn back from the brink, and cut herself free.

“She
has run!” said Cenred on a gusty breath, not questioning, accepting. “How could
she do it, all unseen? And when can she have set out? Where were her maids? Was
there never a groom about the stable to question her going, or at least give us
warning?” He passed a helpless hand over his face, and looked round darkly at
his son, “And where would she run but to you?”

It
was out now, and there was no taking it back.

“Have
you hidden her away somewhere in secret, and ridden here with your false
indignation to cover up the sin?”

“You
cannot believe that!” said Roscelin, outraged. “I have not seen her, nor had
any word from her, nor sent her any, and you know it. I’m newly ridden from
Elford by that same way your men came there, and if she had been on that path
we should have met. Do you think I would then have let her go anywhere alone in
the night, whether on to Elford or back here? If we had met we should have been
together now—wherever that might be.”

“There
is a safer way by the highroad,” said de Perronet. “Longer, but as fast on
horseback, and safer going. If she did indeed set out for Elford, she may have
ridden that way. She would hardly risk the same path your men had taken.”

His
voice was dry and cold, and his face set in forbidding lines, but he was a
practical man, and intended wasting no energy or passion on a green boy’s
mistaken affections. They did not threaten his position. The match he desired
was arranged and accepted, and need not and would not be abandoned. What
mattered now was to recover the girl unharmed.

“So
she may,” agreed Cenred, encouraged. “So most likely she would. If she reaches
Elford she’ll be safe enough there. But we’ll send after her by the highroad,
and leave nothing to chance.”

“I’ll
ride back by that way,” offered Roscelin eagerly, and was off towards the door
of the hall with a bound, if de Perronet had not plucked him back sharply by
the sleeve.

“No,
not you! What we might see of either of you again, if once you met, I much
mistrust. Let Cenred seek his sister, and I’m content she’ll come back to speak
her own mind when all this coil is over. And when she does, boy, you had best
abide it, and keep your tongue within your teeth.”

Roscelin
did not like being handled, nor much savor being called “boy” by a man whose
height and reach he could match, if not his years and assurance. He wrenched
his arm free strongly, and stood off further affront with a blackly lowering
brow.

“So
Helisende be found safe and well, and let alone in very truth to speak her own
mind, and not yours, sir, nor my father’s, nor any other man’s, overlord or
priest or king or whatever he may be, I am content. And first,” he said,
turning on his father between defiance and pleading, “find her, let me see her
whole and well and used with gentleness. What else matters now?”

“I
am going myself,” said Cenred with reviving authority, and strode back into the
solar to reclaim the cloak he had discarded.

But
there was to be no more riding out from Vivers that night. Cenred had scarcely
pulled on his boots again, and his grooms were no more than hoisting down
saddle and harness in the stables, when there arose the purposeful stir of half
a dozen horsemen riding into the courtyard, the ring of challenge and answer at
the gate, the jingle of harness and dull tramping of hooves on the frozen
earth.

All
those within came surging to open the door and see what company this might be,
so late in the night. Edred and his companions had gone on foot, and might be
expected to return on foot, and here was a well-mounted troop arriving.

Out
went the torches into the darkness, out went Cenred, with Roscelin and de
Perronet hard on his heels, and several of his menservants following.

In
the yard the flickering torchlight flared and guttered and flared again on the
strongly boned countenance and massive body of Audemar de Clary, as he swung
himself down from the saddle and tossed his bridle to a scurrying groom. Behind
him came Edred the steward and the grooms who had been sent on with him to
Elford, mounted now at de Clary’s charge, along with three of Audemar’s own
men.

Cenred
came hurrying down the steps to welcome them. “My lord,” he said, for once
formal with his friend and overlord, “I never looked to see you tonight, but
you come very timely and are more than welcome. God knows we’re like to be
causing you trouble enough, for we have murder here, as Edred will have told
you. Murder within your writ is hard to believe, but so it is.”

“So
I’ve heard,” said Audemar. “Come within, and let me hear the whole tale from
you. There’s nothing to be done now before morning.” As he entered the hall,
his eye fell on the truant Roscelin, recorded the boy’s grim and unrepentant
countenance, and acknowledged tolerantly: “You here, lad? That at least I
expected.” Clearly the deeper reason for Roscelin’s banishment was no secret
from Audemar, and he had a certain easy sympathy for the boy, short of
indulging his folly. He clouted him hard on the shoulder as he passed, and drew
him with him into the solar. Roscelin resisted the urging, gripping his lord’s
sleeve urgently.