The Confession of Brother Haluin (7 page)

He
was barely within the room when she rose abruptly to her feet, stiff as a
lance. Over their heads she spoke first to the waiting-woman, who had made to
follow them in.

“Leave
us!” said Adelais de Clary, and to Haluin, as the leather curtain swung heavily
into place between solar and hall: “What is this? What have they done to you?”

Chapter Four

SHE
MUST, CADFAEL RECKONED, growing used to the play of light and shadow within the
room, be within ten years of his own age, but she looked younger. The dark hair
that was coiled in heavy braids on either side of her head was bareiy touched
with grey, and the imperious, fine bones of her face had kept their
imperishable elegance, though the flesh that covered them was a little shrunken
and sapless now, and her body had grown angular and lean as the juices of youth
dried up. Her hands, though shapely still, betrayed her with swollen knuckles
and seamed veins, and there was a languor upon her pale skin at throat and
wrist where once the rounded gloss of youth had been. But for all that, in the
oval face, the long, resolute lips, and large eyes in their deep settings
Cadfael saw the ashes of great beauty. No, not ashes, embers, still alive and
as hot at least as the coals burning in the heart of the brazier.

“Come
nearer!” she said. And when Haluin stood before her with the light upon his
face, pale and cold light from the window, flushed from the fire: “It is you!”
she said. “I wondered. How have you come to this?”

Her
voice was low-pitched, full and authoritative, but the first implication of
dismay and concern was gone. She looked at him neither compassionately nor
coldly, but with a kind of detached indifference, a curiosity of no deep root.

“This
is no man’s blame but mine,” said Haluin. “Don’t regard it! I have what I
earned. I came by a great fall, but by the grace of God I am alive, who by this
time had thought to be dead. And as I have eased my soul to God and my
confessor for old sins, so I come to beg forgiveness of you.”

“Was
that needful?” she said, marveling. “After so many years, and all this way?”

“Yes,
it was needful. I do greatly need to hear you say that you forgive me the wrong
I did, and the grief I brought upon you. There can be no rest for me now until
the leaf is washed clear of every last stain.”

“And
you have told over all the old writing,” said Adelais with some bitterness,
“all that was secret and shameful, have you? To your confessor? And how many
more? This good brother who bears you company? The whole household at chapter?
Could you not bear to be still a sinner unshriven, rather than betray my
daughter’s name to the world, and she so long in her grave? I would have gone
sinful into purgatory rather!”

“And
so would I!” cried Haluin, wrung. “But no, it is not so. Brother Cadfael bears
me company because he is the only one who knows, excepting only Abbot Radulfus,
who heard my confession. No other will ever know from us. Brother Cadfael was
also grossly wronged in what I did, he had a right to give or withhold forgiveness.
It was from his store and after his teaching that I stole those medicines I
gave to you.”

She
turned her gaze upon Cadfael in a long, steady stare, and her face, for once
seen clearly, was intent and still. “Well,” she said, again turning away into
indifference, “it was very long ago. Who would remember now? And I am not dying
yet. What do I know! I shall need a priest myself someday, I could better have
answered you then. Well, to put an end to it… Have what you ask! I do forgive
you. I would not add to what you suffer. Go back in peace to your cloister. I
forgive you as I hope for forgiveness.”

It
was said without passion; the brief spurt of anger was already gone. It cost
her no effort to absolve him; she did it as neutrally, it seemed, and with as
little feeling as she would have handed out food to a beggar. Of gentlewomen of
her nobility alms could properly be asked, and granting was a form of largesse,
the due fulfillment of a rite of lordship. But what she gave lightly came as
relieving grace to Haluin. The braced tension went out of his leaning shoulders
and stiffly clenched hands. He bent his head humbly before her, and uttered his
thanks in a low and halting voice, like a man momentarily dazed.

“Madam,
your mercy lifts a load from me, and from my heart I am grateful.”

“Go
back to the life you have chosen and the duties you have undertaken,” she said,
again seating herself, though she did not yet reach for her needle. “Think no
more of what happened long ago. You say you have a life spared. Use it as best
you can, and so will I mine.”

It
was a dismissal, and as such Haluin accepted it. He made her a deep reverence,
and turned carefully upon his crutches, and Cadfael reached a hand to steady
him in the movement. She had not so much as bidden them be seated, perhaps too
shaken by so sudden and startling a visit, but as they reached the doorway she
called after them suddenly:

“Stay
if you will, take rest and meat in my house. My servants will provide you
everything you need.”

“I
thank you,” said Haluin, “but our leave of absence enjoins a return as soon as
my pilgrimage here is done.”

“God
hasten your way home, then,” said Adelais de Clary, and with a steady hand took
up her needle again.

The
church lay a short distance from the manor, where two tracks crossed, and the
huddle of village house plots gathered close about the churchyard wall.

“The
tomb is within,” said Haluin, as they entered at the gate. “It was never opened
when I was here, but Bertrand’s father is buried here, and surely it must have
been opened for Bertrade. She died here. I am sorry, Cadfael, that I refused
hospitality also for you. I had not thought in time. I shall need no bed
tonight.”

“You
said no word of that to the lady,” Cadfael observed.

“No.
I hardly know why. When I saw her again my heart misgave me that I did ill to
bring before her again that old pain, that the very sight of me was an offense
to her. Yet she did forgive. I am the better for that, and she surely none the
worse. But you could have slept easy tonight. No need for two to watch.”

“I’m
better fitted for a night on my knees than you,” said Cadfael. “And I am not
sure the welcome there would have been very warm. She wished us gone. No, it’s
very well as it is. Most likely she thinks we’re on the homeward way already,
off her land and out of her life.”

Haluin
halted for a second with his hand on the heavy iron ring latch of the church
door, his face in shadow. The door swung open, creaking, and he gripped his
crutches to ease himself down the two wide, shallow steps into the nave. It was
dim and stonily chilly within. Cadfael waited a moment on the steps till his
eyes grew accustomed to the changed light, but Haluin set off at once up the
nave towards the altar. Nothing here was greatly changed in eighteen years, and
nothing had been forgotten. Even the rough edges of the floor tiles were known
to him. He turned aside towards the right-hand wall, his crutches ringing
hollowly, and Cadfael, following, found him standing beside a stone table-tomb
fitted between the pillars. The carved image recumbent there was in crude chain
mail, and had one leg crossed over the other, and a hand on his sword hilt.
Another Crusader, surely the father of Bertrand, who in his turn had followed
him to the Holy Land. This one, Cadfael calculated, might well have been with
Robert of Normandy’s army in my time, at the taking of Jerusalem. Clearly the
de Clary men were proud of their warfare in the east.

A
man came through from the sacristy, and seeing two unmistakable Benedictine
habits, turned amicably to come towards them. A man of middle age, in a rusty
black cassock, advancing upon them with a mildly inquiring expression and a
welcoming smile, Haluin heard his steps, soft as they were, and swung about gladly
to greet a remembered neighbor, only to recoil on the instant at seeing a
stranger.

“Good
day, Brothers! God be with you!” said the priest of Hales. “To travelers of
your cloth my house is always open, like this house of God. Have you come far?”

“From
Shrewsbury,” said Haluin, strongly recovering himself. “Forgive me, Father, if
I was taken aback. I had expected to see Father Wulfnoth. Foolish of me,
indeed, for I have not been here for many years, and he was growing grey when I
knew him, but to me in youth it seemed he would be here forever. Now I dare
hardly ask!”

“Father
Wulfnoth is gone to his rest,” said the priest, “seven years ago now it must
be. Ten years back I came here, after he was brought to his bed by a seizure,
and three years I looked after him until he died. I was newly priest then, I
learned much from Wulfnoth, his mind was clear and bright if the flesh had
failed him.” His good-natured round face offered sympathetic curiosity. “You
know this church and this manor, then? Were you born in Hales?”

“No,
not that. But for some years I served with the lady Adelais at the manor.
Church and village I knew well, before I took the cowl at Shrewsbury. Now,”
said Haluin earnestly, observing how brightly he was studied, and feeling the
need to account for his return, “I have good need to give thanks for escaping
alive from a mishap that might have caused my death, and I have taken thought
to discharge, while I may, every debt I have on my conscience. Of which number,
one brings me here to this tomb. There was a lady of the de Clary family whom I
reverenced, and she died untimely. I should like to spend the night here at her
burial place, in prayers for her. It was long before your time, eighteen years
ago now. It will not disturb you if I spend the night here within?”

“Why,
as to that, you’d be welcome,” said the priest heartily, “and I could light a
cresset for you. It gives some help against the cold. But surely, Brother,
you’re under some mistake. True, what you say puts this before my time, but Father
Wulfnoth told me much concerning the church and the manor, he’d been in the
service of the lords of Hales all his life. It was they helped him to his
studies and set him up here as priest. There has been no burial here in this
tomb since the old lord died, this one who’s carved here on the stone. And that
was more than thirty years back. It’s his grandson rules now. A lady of the
family, you say? And died young?”

“A
kinswoman,” said Haluin, low-voiced and shaken, his eyes lowered to the stone
which had not been raised for thirty years. “She died here at Hales. I had
thought she must be buried here.” He would not name her, or betray more than he
must of himself and what moved him, even to this kindly man. And Cadfael stood
back from them, watched, and held his peace.

“And
only eighteen years ago? Then be certain. Brother, she is not here. If you knew
Father Wulfnoth, you know you can rely upon what he told me. And I know his
wits were sharp until the day he died.”

“I
do believe it, “ said Haluin, quivering with the chill of disappointment. “He
would not be mistaken. So—she is not here!”

“But
this is not the chief seat of the de Clary honor,” the priest pointed out
gently, “for that’s Elford, in Staffordshire. The present lord, Audemar, took
his father there for burial; the family has a great vault there. If there are
any close kin dead these last years, that’s where they’ll be. No doubt the lady
you speak of was also taken there to lie among her kinsfolk.”

Haluin
seized upon the hope hungrily. “Yes… yes, it could well be so, it must be so.
There I shall find her.”

“I
have no doubt of it,” said the priest. “But it’s a long way to go afoot.” He
had sensed an urgency that was very unlikely to listen to reason, but he did
his best to temper it. “You’d be well advised to go mounted, if you must go
now, or put it off for longer days and better weather. At least come inside, to
my house, and take meat with me, and rest overnight.”

But
that Haluin would not do, so much was already clear to Brother Cadfael. Not
while there was still an hour or more of daylight left at the windows, and he
had still the strength to go a mile further. He excused himself with slightly
guilty thanks, and took a restrained leave of the good man, who watched them in
wondering speculation until they had climbed the steps to the porch, and closed
the door after them.

“No!”
said Cadfael firmly, as soon as they were clear of the churchyard, and passing
along the track between the village houses to reach the highroad. “That you
cannot do!”

“I
can, I must!” Brother Haluin responded with no less determination. “Why should
I not?”

“Because,
in the first place, you do not know how far it is to Etford. As far again as we
have come, and half as far after that. And you know very well how hard you have
pushed yourself already. And in the second place, because you were given leave
to attempt this journey in the belief that it would end here, and we two return
from here. And so we should. No, never shake your head at me, you know very
well Father Abbot never envisaged more than that, and would never have given
you leave for more. We should turn back here.”

“How
can I?” Haluin’s voice was implacably reasonable, even tranquil. His way was
perfectly clear to him, and he was patient with dissent. “If I turn back, I am
forsworn. I have not yet done what I vowed to do, I should go back
self-condemned and contemptible. Father Abbot would not wish that, however
little either he or I expected so long a penance. He gave me leave until I had
accomplished what I swore to do. If he were here to be asked, he would tell me
to go on. I said I would not rest until I had gone on foot to the tomb where
Bertrade lies buried, and there passed a night in prayer and vigil, and that I
have not done.”