The Confession of Brother Haluin (24 page)

The
moment of blank surprise was over. Cenred was on his feet in hospitable haste,
advancing with hand outstretched to take the visitor by the hand, and lead her
to a seat at the table.

“Madam,
welcome to my house! You do me honor!”

And
Audemar, less pleased, half frowning: “Madam, what brings you here? And
unattended!” It suited him better that a mother of so formidable a character
should exile herself to the distant manor of Hales, and keep her own court
there. Seeing them thus face-to-face, Cadfael found a strong likeness between
the two. Doubtless there was affection between them, but once the son was grown
it would be hard for these two to live together in one household. “There was no
need,” said Audemar, “for you to ride over here, there is nothing you can do
that is not already being done.”

Adelais
had let Cenred’s attentive hand persuade her into the center of the room, but
there she resisted further movement and stood to be seen clearly and alone,
with an authoritative gesture freeing her hand.

“Yes,”
she said, “there is need,” and again cast a long glance round all the watching
faces. “And I am not unattended. Brother Cadfael is my escort. He comes from
the abbey of Farewell, and will be returning there when he leaves us.” She
looked from one young man to the other, from the favored bridegroom to the
frustrated lover, both of them eyeing her warily, conscious of impending
revelations, but unable to hazard at what might be coming.

“I
am glad,” said Adelais, “to find you all assembled thus. I have that to say
that I will say only once.”

It
could never have been a problem for her, thought Cadfael, watching, to hold the
attention of everyone about her, wherever she went. In every room she entered
she was at once the focal point, the dominant in every company. Now they were
silent every one, waiting on her word.

“As
I have heard, Cenred,” she said, “you intended, two days ago, to marry your
sister—your half sister, I should say—to this young gentleman. For reason
enough, the church and the world would agree, seeing she had become all too
dear to your son Roscelin, and he to her, and a marriage that would take her
far away removed also the shadow of such an unholy attachment from your house
and from your heir. Pardon me if I use too plain words, it’s late for any
others. No blame to you, knowing only what you knew.”

“What
more was there to know?” said Cenred, bewildered. “Plain words will do very
well. They are close blood kin, as you know well! Would not you have taken the
same measures to ward off such an evil from your grandchild, as I intended from
my sister? She is as close a charge to me as my own son, and as dear. She is
your grandchild. I well remember my father’s second marriage. I recall the day
you brought the bride here, and my father’s pride in the child she bore him.
Since he is long gone, I owe Helisende a father’s care no less than a
brother’s. Certainly I sought to protect both her and my son. I still desire
the same. This is but a check on the way. Messire de Perronet has not withdrawn
his suit, nor I my sanction.”

Audemar
had risen from his place, and stood eyeing his mother with close-drawn brows
and an unrevealing face. “What more is there to know?” he said levelly, and for
all his voice was equable and low, there was doubt and displeasure in it, and a
woman of less implacable will might have found it menacing. She stared back at
him eye-to-eye, and was unmoved.

“This!
That you trouble needless. There is no barrier, Cenred, between your son and
Helisende but the barrier you have conjured up. There is no peril of incest if
they were wedded and bedded this very night. Helisende is not your sister,
Cenred, she is not your father’s daughter. There is no drop of Vivers blood in
her veins.”

“But
this is foolishness!” protested Cenred, shaking his head over so incredible a
claim. “All this household has known the child from birth. What you say is
impossible. Why bring forth such a story when all my people can bear witness
she was born to my father’s lawful wife, in their marriage bed, here in my
house.”

“And
conceived in mine,” said Adelais. “I can’t wonder if none of you thought to
count the days, I had lost no time. My daughter was already with child when I
brought her here to her marriage.”

Then
they were all on their feet, all but Emma, shrinking appalled behind her
embroidery frame, shaken by the outcries of anger and disbelief that clashed
about her like contrary winds. Cenred was stricken breathless, but de Perronet
was clamoring that this was false, and the lady out of her wits, and Roscelin
had sprung to confront him, glittering, half incoherent, swinging about from
his rival to Adelais, pleading, demanding, that what she said be truth. Until
Audemar pounded the table thunderously with his fist, and raised an imperious
voice over all to demand silence. And throughout, Adelais stood erect and
unmoving as stone, and let the outcries whirl about her unacknowledged.

And
then there was silence, no more exclaiming, not a sound, hardly a breath, while
they stared upon her intently and long, as if the truth or falsity of what she
said might be read in her face if a man held still and unblinking long enough.

“Do
you fully know, madam, what you are saying?” asked Audemar, his voice now
measured and low.

“Excellently
well, my son! I know what I am saying, I know it is truth. I know what I have
done, I know it was foully done. It needs none of you to say it, I say it. But
I did it, and neither you nor I can undo it. Yes, I deceived the lord Edric,
yes, I compelled my daughter, yes, I planted a bastard child in this house. Or,
if you choose, I took measures to protect my daughter’s good name and estate
and ensure her honorable status, as Cenred wills to do for a sister. Did Edric
ever regret his bargain? I think not. Did he get joy out of his supposed child?
Surely he did. All these years I have let well or ill alone, but now God has
disposed otherwise, and I am not sorry.”

“If
this is truth,” said Cenred, drawing deep breath, “Edgytha knew of it. She came
here with Bertrade, if you are telling truth now, so late, then she must have
known.”

“She
did know,” said Adelais. “And sorry the day I refused her when she begged me to
tell the truth earlier, and sorrier still this day when she cannot stand here
and bear me witness. But here is one who can. Brother Cadfael is come from the
abbey of Farewell, where Helisende now is, and her mother is there with her.
And by strange chance,” she said, “so is her father. There is nowhere now to
hide from the truth, I declare it in my own despite.”

“You
have hidden from it long enough, madam, it seems,” said Audemar grimly.

“So
I have, and make no virtue of revealing it now, when it is already out of its
grave.”

There
was a brief, profound silence before Cenred asked slowly, “You say he is there
now—her father? There at Farewell with them both?”

“From
me,” she said, “it can only be hearsay. Brother Cadfael will answer you.”

“I
have seen them there, all three,” said Cadfael. “It is truth.”

“Then
who is he?” demanded Audemar. “Who is her father?”

Adelais
took up her story, never lowering her eyes. “He was once a young clerk in my
household, of good birth, only a year older than my daughter. He desired to be
accepted as a suitor for her hand. I refused him. They took measures to force
my hand. No, perhaps I do them both wrong. What they did may not have been
calculated, but done in desperation, for she was as lost in love as he. I
dismissed him from my service, and brought her away here in haste, to a match
the lord Edric had mooted a year or more earlier. And I lied, telling the lover
that she was dead. Very blackly I lied to him, saying both Bertrade and her
child had died, when we tried to rid her of her burden. He never knew until now
that he had a daughter.”

“Then
how comes it,” demanded Cenred, “that he has found her out now, and in so unlikely
a place? This whole wild story comes so strangely, thus out of nowhere, I
cannot believe in it.”

“You
had better come to terms with it,” she said, “for neither you nor I can escape
the truth or amend it. He has found her by the merciful dispensation of God.
What more do you need?”

Cenred
swung upon Cadfael in irritated appeal. “Brother, as you have been my guest in
this house, tell what you know of this matter. After so many years, is this
indeed a true tale? And how came these three to meet again now, at the end of
all?”

“It
is a true tale,” said Cadfael. “And truly they have met, by now they will have
talked together. He has found them both because, believing his love dead, and
having touched hands with his own death a few months ago, and been spared, he
turned his thoughts to mortality, and determined at least, since he could never
see her again in this world, to make a pilgrimage to her grave and pray for her
peace in the next. And not finding her at Hales, where he supposed she must be,
he came here, my lord, to your manor of Elford, where those of your line are
buried. Now, on the way home again, by the grace of God we asked lodging last
night at the abbey of Farewell. There the lady who was your sister is presently
serving as instructress to the novices of the bishop’s new foundation. And
there Helisende fled for sanctuary from too painful stresses. So they are all
under one roof at last.”

After
a moment of silence Audemar said softly, “‘We asked lodging last night at the
abbey of Farewell’—you have said almost enough, yet add one thing more—name
him!”

“He
entered the cloister long ago. He is a brother with me in the abbey of Saint
Peter and Saint Paul, at Shrewsbury. You have seen him, my lord, that same
brother who came to Elford with me, on crutches every step of the way. Monk and
priest, the same, my lord Cenred, whom you asked to marry Helisende to the man
you had chosen for her. His name is Haluin.”

Now
they had all begun dazedly to believe what they could not yet fully grasp in
all its implications. With glazed glances they stared within at the slow
realization of what this must mean to them. To Roscelin, quivering and glowing
like a newly lighted torch, the sudden dizzy lightness and liberty of guilt and
grief lifted from him, the very air of the day intoxicating as wine, the world
expanded into a vast brightness of hope and joy that dazzled his eyes and muted
his tongue. To de Perronet, the stinging challenge of finding himself faced
with a formidable rival where he had looked for no conflict, and the
instinctive stiffening of his pride and determination to fight for the
threatened prize with all his might. To Cenred the overturning of all his
family memories, a father made to seem belittled, even senile, by his fond
acceptance of such a deception, a sister abruptly withdrawn into a stranger, an
interloper without rights in his house. To Emma, silent and fearful in her
corner, the grief of an offense against her lord, and the loss of one she had
looked upon almost as her own daughter.

“So
she is no sister of mine,” said Cenred heavily, rather to himself than to any
other, and as quickly repeated it with sudden anger to them all: “She is no
sister of mine!”

“None,”
said Adelais. “But until now she believed herself so. It is not her fault,
never cast blame on her.”

“She
is no kin to me. I owe her nothing, neither dowry nor lands. She has no claim
on me.” He said it bitterly rather than vengefully, lamenting the abrupt
severance of a strong affection.

“None.
But she is kin to me,” said Adelais. “Her mother’s dower lands went to
Polesworth when she took the veil, but Helisende is my granddaughter and my
heiress. The lands I hold in my own right will go to her. She will not be
penniless.” She looked at de Perronet as she spoke, and smiled, but wryly. No
need to make the lovers’ path too smooth by rendering the girl less profitable,
and therefore less attractive in the rival’s eyes.

“Madam,
you mistake me.” said Cenred with muted fury. “This house has been her home,
she will still think of it as home. Where else is there for her? It is we here
who are suddenly cut off, like topped limbs. Her father and mother, both, are
in the cloister, and what guidance, what care has she ever had from you? Kin to
us or not, she belongs here at Vivers.”

“But
nothing prevents now,” cried Roscelin triumphantly. “I may approach her, I may
lawfully ask for her, there is no barrier now. We’ve done no wrong, there’s no
shadow over us, no ban between us. I’ll go and bring her home. She’ll come,
blithely she’ll come! I knew,” he exulted, his blue eyes brilliant with
vindicated joy, “I knew we did no wrong in loving, never, never! It was you
persuaded me I sinned. Sir, let me go and fetch her home!”

At
that de Perronet took fire in his turn, with a hiss like a sulphur match
flaring, and took two rapid strides forward to confront the boy. “You leap too
soon and too far, my friend! Your rights are no better than mine. I do not
withdraw my suit, I urge it, I will pursue it with my might.”

“And
so you may,” exulted Roscelin, too drunk with relief and delight to be
ungenerous or take easy offense. “I don’t grudge any man his say, but on fair
terms now, you and I and any who come, and we shall see what Helisende
replies.” But he knew what her reply would be, his very certainty was offense,
though it meant none, and de Perronet had his hand on his dagger and hotter
words mounting in his throat when Audemar smote the table and bellowed them
both into silence.