The Confession of Brother Haluin (5 page)

“Hugh
Beringar will know,” said the abbot confidently. “He has all the nobility of
the shire at his finger ends. When he returns from Winchester we may ask him.
There’s no haste. Even if Haluin must have his penance, it cannot be yet. He is
not yet out of his bed.”

Chapter Three

HUGH
AND HIS ESCORT CAME HOME four days after Epiphany. Much of the snow was gone by
then, the weather grey, the days short and somber, the nights hovering on the
edge of frost, so that the thaw continued its gradual way, and there was no
flooding. After such a heavy fall a rapid thaw would have seen a great mass of
water coming down the river and draining from every drift, and the Severn would
have backed up the Meole Brook and flooded the lower part of the fields, even
if the enclave itself escaped inundation. This year they were spared that
trouble, and Hugh, kicking off his boots and shrugging off his cloak in his own
house by Saint Mary’s Church, with his wife bringing him his furred shoes and
his son clinging to his sword belt and clamoring to have his new, painted
wooden knight duly admired, was able to report an easy journey for the time of
year, and a satisfactory reception at court for his stewardship.

“Though
I doubt if this Christmas truce will last long,” he said to Cadfael later,
after acquainting the abbot with all the news from Winchester. “He’s swallowed
the failure at Oxford gallantly enough, but for all that, he’s on his mettle
for vengeance, he’ll not sit still for long, winter or no. He wants Wareham
back, but it’s well stocked, and manned to the battlements, and Stephen never
did have the patience for a siege. He’d like a fortress more to the west, to
carry the war to Robert’s country. There’s no guessing what he’ll try first.
But he wants none of me or my men there in the south, he’s far too wary of the
earl of Chester to keep me long out of my shire. Thank God, for I’m of the same
mind myself,” said Hugh blithely. “And how have you been faring? Sorry I am to
hear your best illuminator had a fall that all but ended him. Father Abbot told
me of it. I can hardly have left you an hour, that day, when it happened. Is it
true he’s mending well?”

“Better
than any of us ever expected,” said Cadfael, “least of all the man himself, for
he was certainly bent on clearing his soul for death. But he’s out of the
shadow, and in a day or two we’ll have him out of his bed. But his feet are
crippled for life, the slates chopped them piecemeal. Brother Luke is cutting
some crutches to his measure. Hugh,” said Cadfael directly, “what do you know
of the de Clarys who hold the manor of Hales? There was one of them was a
Crusader nearly twenty years back. I never knew him, he was after my time in
the east. Is he still living?”

“Bertrand
de Clary,” said Hugh promptly, and looked up at his friend with quickening
interest. “What of him? He died years back, ten or more it must be. His son
holds the honor now. I’ve had no dealings with them, Hales is the only manor
they hold in this shire, the caput and most of their lands are in
Staffordshire. Why, what’s put de Clary in your mind?”

“Why,
Haluin has. He was in their service before he took the cowl. It seems he feels
he has left unpaid some debt he still owes in that direction. It came to mind
when he made what he took to be his deathbed confession. In something he feels
he offended, and has it on his conscience still.”

That
was all that could be told, even to Hugh, the confessional being sacred, and if
nothing more was offered, Hugh would ask for nothing more, however he might
speculate on what had not been said.

“He’s
set on making the journey to set the account straight, when he’s fit to
undertake it. I was wondering… If this Bertrand’s widow is no longer in the
land of the living, either, as well Haluin should know it at once, and put it
out of his mind.”

Hugh
was eyeing his friend with steady interest and a tolerant smile. “And you want
him to have nothing to trouble about, body or mind, but getting back into the
way of living as soon as may be. I’m no help, Cadfael. The widow’s living
still. She’s there at Hales, she paid her dues last Michaelmas. Her son’s
married to a Staffordshire wife, and has a young son to succeed him, and from
all accounts his mother is not of a nature to share another woman’s household
without meddling. Hales is her favorite home, she keeps there from choice and
leaves her son to rule his own roost, while she makes sure of ruling hers. No
doubt it suits them both very well. I should not be even so well informed, “ he
said by way of explanation, “if we had not ridden some miles of the way from
Winchester with a company of de Clary’s men, dispersing from the siege of
Oxford. The man himself I never saw, he was still delayed at court when we
left. He’ll be on his way home by now, unless Stephen keeps him for whatever
move he has next in mind.”

Cadfael
received this news philosophically but without pleasure. So she was still
living, this woman who had sought to help her daughter to an abortion, and
succeeded only in helping her to her death. Not the first nor the last to come
by such a death. But what must the mother’s despair and guilt have been then,
and what bitter memories must remain even now, beneath the ashes of eighteen
years? Better, surely, to let them lie buried still. But Haluin’s
self-torturing conscience and salvation-hungry soul had their rights, too. And
after all, he had been just eighteen years old! The woman who had forbidden him
any aspiration to her daughter’s affection must have been double his age. She
might, thought Cadfael almost indignantly, have had the wisdom to see how
things began to be between those two, and taken steps to separate them in time.

“Did
you ever feel, Hugh, that it might be better to let even ill alone,” wondered
Cadfael ruefully, “rather than let loose worse? Ah, well! He has not even tried
his crutches yet. Who knows what changes a few weeks may bring?”

They
lifted Brother Haluin out of his bed in the middle of January, found him a
corner near the infirmary fire, since he could not move about freely like the
others to combat the cold, and treated his body, stiff from long lying, with
oil and massage to get the sinews working again. To occupy his hands and mind
they brought him his colors and a little desk to work on, and gave him a
simpler page to adorn until his fingers should regain their deftness and
steadiness. His mangled feet had healed and fused into misshapen forms, and
there was no question as yet of letting him attempt to stand on them, but
Cadfael allowed him to try the crutches Brother Luke had made for him, with
support on either side, to get accustomed to the heft and balance of them, and
the shaped and padded props under his armpits. If neither foot could ever be
brought to support him again, even the crutches would not be of any use, but
both Cadfael and Edmund agreed that there was every hope of the right foot
being restored to use in time, and even the left might eventually provide a
grain of assistance, with a little ingenuity in shoeing the invalid.

To
that end Cadfael called in, at the end of the month, young Philip Corviser, the
provost’s son, and they put their heads together over the problem, and between
them produced a pair of boots as ill-matched in appearance as were the feet for
which they were intended, but adapted as best they could devise to give strong
support. They were of thick felt with a leather sole, built up well above the
ankles and laced close with leather thongs to support and protect the damaged
flesh and make full use of the shinbones, which were intact. Philip was pleased
with his work, but wary of praise until the boots were tried on, and found to
be wearable without pain, and blessedly warm in this wintry weather.

And
all that was done for him Brother Haluin accepted gratefully and humbly, and
went on doggedly refreshing eye and hand with his reds and blues and delicately
laid gold. But as often as the hours of leisure came round he would be
precariously hoisting himself out of his corner bench with shoulders braced
upon his crutches, poised to reach for the support of wall or bench if his
balance was shaken. It took some time for the sinews to recover their toughness
in his wasted legs, but early in February he could set his right foot firmly to
the ground, and even stand on it briefly without other support, and from that
time on he began to use his crutches in earnest, and to master them. He was
seen again, dutiful and punctual, in his stall at chapel, and in the choir at
every office. By the end of February he could even set the blocked toe of his
left boot to the ground, to help hold him steady and secure on his crutches,
though never again would that foot be able to support his weight, light though
he was.

In
one thing he was fortunate, that the winter, once that first early snowfall had
thawed and vanished, was not a hard one. There were occasional spells of frost,
but none that lasted long, and after January such snow showers as there were,
were fitful and slight, and did not lie long. When he had his balance and was
used to his new gait he could exercise his skills outdoors as well as in, and
grew expert, fearful only of the cobbles of the court when they were glazed
with frost.

At
the beginning of March, with the days lengthening, and the first cautious and
reluctant signs of spring in the air, Brother Haluin rose in chapter, when all
the urgent business of the day was over, and meekly but resolutely made a plea
which only Abbot Radulfus and Brother Cadfael could fully understand.

“Father,”
he said, his dark eyes fixed unwaveringly on the abbot’s face, “you know that
in my trouble I conceived a desire to make a certain pilgrimage, if I should by
God’s grace be restored. Great mercy has been shown to me, and if you will give
me leave, I wish now to register my vow in heaven. I beg your sanction and the
prayers of my brothers that I may fulfill what I promise, and return in peace.”

Radulfus
regarded the petitioner in silence for a disturbingly long time, his face
revealing neither approval nor disapproval, though the fixity of his gaze
brought a surge of blood into Haluin’s hollow cheeks.

“Come
to me after chapter,” said the abbot then, “and I will hear what you intend,
and judge whether you are yet fit to undertake it.”

In
the abbot’s parlor Haluin repeated his request in open terms, as to men before
whom his spirit was naked and known. Cadfael knew why he himself had been
summoned to attend. Two reasons, indeed, stood clear: he was the only other
witness of Haluin’s confession, and might therefore be admitted into his
counsels; and he could speak as to Haluin’s fitness to set out on such a
journey. He had not yet guessed at a third reason, but he was not quite easy in
his mind as he listened.

“I
must not and will not hold you back,” said the abbot, “from what is needful for
your soul’s health. But I think you ask too soon. You cannot yet have regained
your strength. And it is not yet spring, however well we happen to have fared
these last weeks. There may still be bitter weather to come. Think how recently
you have been close to death, and spare putting yourself in such hardship until
you are fitter to bear it.”

“Father,”
said Haluin ardently, “it is because I have been close to death that I must not
delay. How if death should reach for me again before I can expiate my sin? I
have seen how it can lay its hand on a man in a moment, in the twinkling of an
eye. I have had my warning. I must heed it. If I die in paying the penance due
from me, that I will embrace as fitting. But to die and not have made any
amend, that would be endless reproach to me. Father,” he said, burning up like
a stirred fire, “I truly loved her, I loved her according to the way of
marriage, I would have loved her lifelong. And I destroyed her. I have hidden
my sins too long. Now that I have confessed them I long to complete the
atonement.”

“And
have you thought of the miles you must go and return? Are you in any case to
ride?”

Haluin
shook his head vigorously at that. “Father, I have vowed already in my heart
and will repeat the vow on the altar, to go on foot to the place where she is
buried, and on foot return—on these feet that brought me to the earth and made
me to face the truth of my unshriven offenses. I can go, I have learned how the
innocent lame must go. Why should not I, who am guilty of so much, suffer the
same labors? I can endure it. Brother Cadfael knows!”

Brother
Cadfael was none too pleased at being called in witness, and none too happy
about saying anything which could promote this obsessed enterprise, but neither
could he see any genuine peace of mind for this tormented creature until the
expiation was completed.

“I
do know he has the will and the courage,” he said. “Whether he has the strength
is another matter. And whether he has the right to force his body to the death
in order to cleanse his soul is something on which I will not judge.”

Radulfus
pondered for some minutes in somber silence, eyeing the petitioner with fixity
which should have caused him to stir uneasily and lower his gaze had there been
anything false or pretentious in his purpose, but Haluin’s wide, earnest eyes
sustained the encounter ardently.

“Well,
I acknowledge your desire to atone, late though it comes,” said the abbot at
last, “and I understand the better since the delay of years has not been for
your own sake. Go, then, make the attempt. But I will not permit you to go
alone. There must be someone with you in case you founder, and should that
happen, you must allow him to make such dispositions for your safety as he sees
fit. If you endure the journey well, he need not do anything to impair your
sacrifice, but if you fall by the wayside, then he stands as my representative,
and you must obey him as you obey me.”