Ellis Peters - The Confession of Brother Haluin

“Madam,” said Haluin, shaken and quivering from the apparition of his former mistress in this unexpected place, “we have not followed you. Indeed I never thought to find you here. For your forbearance I’m grateful, and I would not for the world trouble you further. I have come here only in fulfillment of a vow I made. I thought to spend a night in prayer at Hales, believing that my lady your daughter must be buried there. But we heard from the priest that it is not so. It’s here at Elford she lies, in the tomb of her grandsires. So I have continued this far. And all I have to beg of you is your leave to keep my vigil here through this coming night, in deliverance of what I have sworn. Then we will depart, and trouble you no more.”

“I will not deny,” she said, but with a softening voice, “that I shall be glad to have you gone. No ill will! But this wound you have opened again for me I would willingly swathe away out of sight until it heals. Your face is a contagion that makes it open and bleed afresh. Do you think I should have taken horse and ridden here so fast if you had not put that old grief in my mind?”

“I trust,” said Haluin in a low and shaken voice, “you may find, madam, as I hope to find, the wound cleansed of all its rancors by this atonement. It is my prayer that for you this time the healing may be sweet and wholesome.”

“And for you?” she said sharply, and turned a little away from him, with a motion of her hand that forbade any answer. “Sweet and wholesome! You ask much of God, and more of me.” In the sidelong light from the window her face was fierce and sad. “You have learned a monk’s way with words,” she said. “Well, it is a long time! Your voice was lighter once, so was your step. This at least I grant you, you are here at a very heavy cost. Do not deny me the grace of offering you rest and meat this time. I have a dwelling of my own here, within my son’s manor pale. Come within and rest at least until Vespers, if you must punish your flesh on the stones here through the night.”

“Then I may have my night of prayer?” asked Haluin hungrily.

“Why not? Have you not just seen me entreating God in the same cause?” she said. “I see you broken. I would not have you forsworn. Yes, have your penitential vigil, but take food in my house first. I’ll send my grooms to fetch you,” she said, “when you have made your devotions here.”

She was almost at the door, paying no attention to Haluin’s hesitant thanks, and affording him no opportunity to refuse her hospitality, when she suddenly halted and swung round to them again.

“But say no word,” she said earnestly, “to any other about your purpose here. My daughter’s name and fame are safe enough under the stone, let them lie quiet there. I would not have any other reminded as I have been reminded. Let it be only between us two, and this good brother who bears you company.”

“Madam,” said Haluin devoutly, “there shall be no word said to any other soul but between us three, neither now nor at any other time, neither here nor in any other place.”

“You ease my mind,” she said, and in a moment she was gone, and the door drawn quietly to after her.

Haluin could not kneel without something firm before him to which to cling, and Cadfael’s arm about him to ease his weight down gently, sharing the burden with his companion’s one serviceable foot. They offered their dutiful prayer at the altar side by side, and Cadfael, open-eyed as Haluin kneeled long, traced with measured concern the worn lines of the young man’s face. He had survived the hard journey afoot, but not without a heavy cost. The night on the stones here would be cold, cramping, and long, but Haluin would insist on the last extreme of self-punishment. And after that, the long road back. As well, indeed, if the lady could persuade him to remain for at least a second night, if only as a concession and grace to her now that they had, in a fashion, come to terms with their shared and haunted past.

For it could certainly be true that Haluin’s sudden visit had sent her on her own pilgrimage, hotfoot here to confront her own part in that old tragedy. Passing by at a smart trot the forester’s assart near Chenet, with only a maidservant and two grooms in her train, and striking an elusive spark in Cadfael’s memory. It could well be true. Or would such a seed have borne fruit so fast? The implication of haste was there. Cadfael saw again the two double-laden horses passing in the early morning, going steadily and with purpose. In haste to pay a half-forgotten debt of affection and remorse? Or to arrive before someone else, and be ready and armed to receive him? She wanted them satisfied and gone, but that was natural enough. They had trespassed on her peace, and held up an old, flawed mirror before her beautiful face.

“Help me up!” said Haluin, and raised his arms like a child to be lifted to his feet; and that was the first time that he had asked for help, always before it had been proffered, and his acceptance humble and resigned rather than grateful.

“You did not speak one word throughout,” he said suddenly, marveling, as they turned towards the church door.

“I had not one word to speak,” said Cadfael. “But I heard many words. And even the silences between them were not altogether inarticulate.”

Adelais de Clary’s groom was waiting for them in the porch, as she had promised, leaning indolently with one shoulder propped against the jamb of the door, as though he had been waiting for some time, but with immovable patience. His appearance confirmed everything Brother Cadfael had elaborated, in his own mind, from the few glimpses he had had of the riders between the trees. The younger of the pair, this, a brawny young man of perhaps thirty years, thickset, bullnecked, unmistakably in the Norman mold. Perhaps the third or fourth generation from a progenitor who had come over as a man at arms with the first de Clary. The strong original stock still prevailed, though intermarriage with Englishwomen had tempered the fairness of his hair into a straw brown, and somewhat moderated the brutal bones of his face. He still wore his hair cropped into a close cap in the Norman manner, and his strong jaw clean-shaven, and he still had the bright, light, impenetrable eyes of the north. At their coming he sprang erect, more at ease in movement than in repose.

“My lady sends me to show you the way.”

His voice was flat and clipped, and he waited for no reply, but set off out of the churchyard before them, at a pace Haluin could not well maintain. The groom looked back at the gate and waited, and thereafter abated his speed, though it obviously chafed him to move slowly. He said nothing of his own volition, and replied to question or simple civility cordially enough, but briefly. Yes, Elford was a very fine property, good land and a good lord. Audemar’s competent management of his honor was acknowledged indifferently; this young man’s allegiance was to Adelais rather than to her son. Yes, his father was in the same service, and so had his father been before him. About these monastic guests he showed no curiosity at all, though he might have felt some. Those pale grey alien eyes concealed all thought, or perhaps suggested thought’s total absence.

He brought them by a grassy way to the gate of the manor enclosure, which was walled and spacious. Audemar de Clary’s house sat squarely in the midst, the living floor raised well above a stone undercroft, and to judge by the small windows above, there, were at least two more chambers over the solar. And his ample courtyard was built round with other habitable rooms, as well as the customary and necessary stables, armory, bakehouse and brewhouse, stores and workshops, and was populous with the activities of a large and busy household.