The Confession of Brother Haluin (23 page)

“There
is more,” said Cadfael, “much more. There is the matter of your woman Edgytha.
Edgytha was the one trusted confidante you needed, the one who knew the truth.
It was she who was sent to Vivers with Bertrade. Utterly loyal and devoted to
you, she kept your secret and abetted your revenge all these years. And you
trusted in her to keep it forever. So all was well for you, until Roscelin and
Helisende grew up, and came to love each other no longer as playmates, but as
man and woman. Knowing but forgetting that the world would hold such a love as
poisoned, guilty, forbidden by the church. When the secret became a barrier
between them, where no barrier need have been, when Roscelin was banished to
Elford, and marriage with de Perronet threatened a final separation, then
Edgytha could bear it no longer. She came running here in the night—not to
Roscelin, but to you! To beg you to tell the truth at last, or to give her
leave to tell it for you.”

“I
have wondered,” said Adelais, “how she knew that I was here within her reach.”

“She
knew because I told her. All unwitting I sent her out that night to plead with
you to lift the shadow from two innocent children. By merest chance it was
mentioned that here in Elford we had spoken with you. I sent her running to you
and to her death, as it was Haluin who caused you to come here, in haste to
ward him off from any dangerous discovery. We have been the instruments of your
undoing, who never wished you anything but well. Now you had better consider
what is left to you that can be saved.”

“Go
on!” she said harshly. “You have not finished yet.”

“No,
not yet. So Edgytha came to plead with you to do right. And you refused her!
You sent her running back to Vivers in despair. And what befell her on the way
you know.”

She
did not deny it. Her face was bleak and set, but her eyes never wavered.

“Would
she have come out with the truth, even against your prohibition? Neither you
nor I will ever know the answer to that. But someone equally loyal to you
overheard enough to understand the threat to you if she did. Someone feared
her, followed and silenced her. Oh, not you! You had other tools to use. But
did you speak a word in their ears?”

“No!”
said Adelais. “That I never did! Unless my face spoke for me. And if it did, it
lied. I never would have harmed her.”

“I
believe you. But there are those who made certain she should never say a word that
could harm you. Your lord’s men once, yours now, yours to the heart, yours to
the death, father and son alike. Which of them was it followed her? Lothair or
Luc? Either one of them would die for you without question, and without
question one of them has killed for you. And they are gone from here.
Yesterday, on some errand of yours, very early! Back to Hales? No, I doubt
that, it is not far enough. How distant is your son’s remotest manor?”

“You
will not find them,” said Adelais with certainty. “As for which of them did the
thing I might have prevented, I do not know, I want never to know. I stopped
their mouths when they would have spoken. To what end? That guilt, like all the
rest, is mine alone, I will not cede any scruple of it. Yes. I sent them away.
They will not pay my debts for me. Burying Edgytha with reverence is poor
atonement. Confession, penance, even absolution cannot restore a life.”

“There
is one amend that can still be made,” said Cadfael. “Moreover, I think a price
has been exacted from you, no less than from Haluin, all these years. Do not
forget that I saw your face when he presented his ruined body before you. I
heard your voice as you cried out to him: ‘What have they done to you!’ All
that you did to him you did also to yourself, and once done, it could not be
undone. Now you may be free of it, if you choose to deliver yourself.”

“Go
on!” said Adelais, though she knew well enough what was to come. He recognized
it by the composure with which she had borne herself throughout. Surely she had
been waiting here in her half-lit room for the finger of God to point.

“Helisende
is not Edric’s daughter, but Haluin’s. There is not a drop of Vivers blood in
her veins. There is nothing to stand in the way if she wishes to marry
Roscelin. Whether those two would do well to marry, who knows? But at least the
shadow of incestuous affection can and must be lifted from them. The truth must
come out, since it is out already at Farewell. Haluin and Bertrade are there
together, making their peace, making each the other’s peace, and Helisende
their child is with them, and the truth is already out of its grave.”

She
knew, she had known ever since the old woman’s death, that it must come to that
at last, and if she had deliberately averted her eyes and refused to
acknowledge it, she could no longer do so. Nor was she the woman to delegate a
hard thing to others, once her mind was made up, nor to do things by halves,
whether for good or ill.

He
would not prompt her. He drew back from her to leave her space and time, and
stood apart, watching her disciplined stillness, and measuring in his mind the
bitter toll of eighteen years of silence, of pitilessly contained hate and
love. The first words he had heard from her now, even at this extreme, had been
of Haluin, and still he heard the vibration of pain in her voice as she cried
aloud: “What have they done to you?”

Adelais
got up abruptly from her chair and crossed with long, fierce steps to the
window, to fling back the shutter and let in air and light and cold. She stood
for a while looking out at the quiet court, and the pale sky dappled with
little clouds, and the green gauze veiling the branches of the trees beyond the
enclave wall. When she turned to him again he saw her face in full, clear
light, and saw as in a dual vision both her imperishable beauty and the dust
time had cast upon it, the taut lines of her long throat fallen slack, the grey
of ashes in her coiled black hair, the lines that had gathered about mouth and
eyes, the net of fine veins marring cheeks which had once been smooth ivory.
And she was strong, she would not lightly relinquish her hold of the world and
go gently out of it. She would live long, and rage against the relentless
assault of old age until death at once defeated and released her. By her very
nature Adelais’s penance was assured.

“No!”
she said with abrupt, imperious authority, as though he had advanced some
suggestion with which she was in absolute disagreement. “No, I want no
advocate, there shall no man rid me of any part of what is mine. What now needs
to be told, I will tell. No other! Whether it ever would have been told, if you
had never come near me—you with your hand forever at Haluin’s elbow, and your
temperate eyes that I could never read—do I know? Do you? That is of no account
now. What is left to be done, I will do.”

“Command
me to go,” said Cadfael, “and I will go. You do not need me.”

“Not
as advocate, no. As witness, perhaps! Why should you be cheated of the ending?
Yes!” she said, glittering, “you shall ride with me, and see it ended. I owe
you a fulfillment as I owe God a death.”

He
rode with her, as she had decreed. Why not? He had to return to Farewell, and
by way of Vivers was as good a road as any. And once she had resolved upon
action there could be no delay and no denial.

She
rode astride, booted and spurred like a man, she who in the common progressions
of her recent years had been content to go decorously pillion behind a groom,
as was fitting for a dame of her age and dignity. She rode with the lordly
confidence of a man, erect and easy in the saddle, her bridle hand held low.
And she rode fast but steadily, advancing upon her losses as vigorously as upon
her gains.

Cadfael,
riding at her side, could not but wonder whether she still felt tempted to hold
back some part of the truth, to cover herself from the last betrayal. But the
smoldering calm of her face spoke against it. There was no evasion, no appeal,
no excuse. What she had done she had done, and would as starkly declare. And if
she repented of it, only God would ever know.

Chapter Thirteen

THEY
RODE IN AT THE GATE of Vivers an hour after noon. The gate stood open, and the
turmoil within had subsided, there was no more than the normal to-and-froing in
the court. Evidently the abbess’s messenger had been received and believed, and
whether gladly or reluctantly, Cenred had fallen in with Helisende’s wish to be
let alone for a while in her sanctuary. With one search abandoned, Audemar’s
men would be free to pursue a murderer. One they would never find! In the night
and the snow, who could have been abroad to witness that knife stroke in the
woods, and put a name or a face to the slayer? Even if there had been a
witness, who in these parts, apart from Audemar’s own household, would recognize
a groom from distant Hales?

Cenred’s
steward was crossing the court when Adelais reined in, and he came in haste,
recognizing the mother of his lord’s overlord, to help her down, but she was
out of the saddle before he could reach her. She let down her kilted skirts,
and looked about her for any of her son’s people. Cadfael had seen for himself
that the hunters had not returned to Elford, nor were they in evidence here.
For a moment she frowned, impatient at the prospect of having to wait and
contain still all that she had to say. Once resolved, it displeased her to be
balked. She looked beyond the steward’s deep reverence towards the hall.

“Is
your lord within?”

“He
is, madam. Will you be pleased to enter?”

“And
my son?”

“He,
too, my lady. He came back only some minutes since. His men are still out with
ours, questioning in every house for miles around.”

“Waste
of time!” she said, rather to herself than to him, and shut her lips grimly on
the reason. “Well, so much the better! They are both here. No, you need not
tell them I have come. That I’ll do for myself. As for Brother Cadfael, this
time he comes in attendance on me, not as a guest.”

Doubtful
if the steward had even cast a glance at the second rider until this moment,
but he did so now, speculating, Cadfael supposed, what had brought one
Benedictine visitor back so soon, and in particular without his companion. But
there was no time for inquiry. Adelais had set off vigorously towards the steps
that led up to the hall, and Cadfael followed dutifully, as if he were indeed
her domestic chaplain, leaving the steward staring after them in doubt and
wonder.

In
the hall the midday meal was past, and the servants busy clearing away the
dishes and stacking the tables aside. Adelais walked through them without a word
or a glance, straight to the curtained door of the inner chamber. A murmur of
voices, dulled by the hangings, came from within, Cenred’s deep tones
distinguishable beneath the lighter, younger voice of Jean de Perronet. The
suitor had not withdrawn, but intended to wait out his time doggedly if not
patiently. Just as well, Cadfael reflected. He had a right to know how
formidable an obstacle was now placed in his way. Fair is fair. De Perronet had
done nothing dishonorable; fair dealing was his due.

Adelais
swept the curtain aside and flung open the door. They were all there, in muted
conference over a situation which left them frustrated and helpless, trapped in
inaction, since even the gesture of sending out men to try and trace Edgytha’s
murderer was by this time foredoomed to be fruitless. Had any man in the region
known anything, it would have been told already. And if Audemar ever thought to
number over his mother’s household servants, and level a suspicious finger at
the missing, she would stand immovably between him and them. Wherever Lothair
and Luc might now be, however confounded and chastened by her revulsion from
what they had mistakenly done for her, she would not let the price be charged
against them which she held to be her debt.

At
the sound of the door opening they had all turned their heads sharply to see
who came in, for her entrance was too abrupt and confident by far for any of
the servants. Her gaze swept round the circle of surprised faces, Audemar and
Cenred at the table with wine before them, Emma apart at her embroidery frame,
but paying no attention to the work, rather waiting with strung nerves for
events to unfold in some more comfortable form, and life to return to its level
course. And the stranger—Cadfael saw that Adelais could never before have set
eyes on Jean de Perronet. On him her glance halted, considering and identifying
the bridegroom. Very faintly and briefly her long lips contorted in a dour
smile, before her eyes passed to Roscelin.

The
boy sat withdrawn into a corner where he could hold all the assembled company
in his eye, as if he contemplated imminent battle, and sat prepared and armed,
stiff and erect on the bench against the tapestried wall, head reared and lips
tightly set. He had accepted, it seemed, however much against his will,
Helisende’s wish to be left in peace at Farewell, but he had not forgiven any
of these conspirators who had planned to match her in secret, and cheat him of
even the perverse hope he had to sustain him. His grievance against his parents
extended by contagion to de Perronet, even to Audemar de Clary, to whose house
he had been banished to remove the obstacle to their plans. How could he be
sure Audemar had not been a party to more than that banishment? A face by
nature open, good-humored, and bright now stared upon them all closed,
suspicious and inimical. Adelais looked at him longer than at any. Another
youth too comely for his own good, attracting unfortunate love as the flower
draws the bee.