Ellis Peters - The Confession of Brother Haluin

The groom led them to a small timber lodging under the curtain wall.

“My lady has had this chamber made ready for you. Use it as your own, she says, and the gateman will see to it you can come and go freely, to go to the church.”

Her hospitality, as they found, was meticulous but remote and impersonal. She had provided them with water for washing, comfortable pallets to rest on, sent them food from her own table, and given orders to tell them to ask for anything they might need or want that had been forgotten, but she did not receive them into her own presence. Perhaps forgiveness did not reach so far as to render Haluin’s remorseful presence agreeable to her. Nor was it her house servants who waited on them, but the two grooms who had ridden with her from Hales. It was the elder of the two who brought them meat and bread and cheese, and small ale from the pantry. Cadfael had not been deceived in their relationship, for this one was clearly father to the other, a tough, square-set man in his fifties, close-mouthed like his son, broader in the shoulders, more bowed in the legs from years spent as much on horseback as on his own two feet. The same cold, unconfiding eyes, the same bold and powerful shaven jaws, but this one was tanned to a lasting bronze that Cadfael recognized from his own past as having its origin very far from England. His lord had been a crusader. This man had surely been with him there in Holy Land, and got his burnished gloss there under the fierce, remembered sun.

The elder groom came again later in the afternoon, with a message not for Haluin but for Cadfael. It so happened that Haluin had fallen asleep on his pallet, and the man’s entrance, light and soft as a cat for all his bulk, did not disturb his rest, for which Cadfael was grateful. There was a long and unrestful night to come. He motioned to the groom to wait, and went out into the courtyard to him, closing the door softly after him.

“Let him lie. He’ll need to be wakeful later.”

“My lady told us how he means to spend the night,” said the groom. “It’s you she bids to her, if you’ll come with me now. Let the other brother rest, she says, for he’s been mortal sick. I grant him a man’s guts, or he’d never have come so far on those feet. This way, Brother!”

Her dower dwelling was built into a corner of the curtain wall, sheltered from the prevailing winds, small, but enough for such occasional visits as she chose to make to her son’s court. A narrow hall and chamber, and a kitchen built lean-to against the wall outside. The groom strode in and through the hall with simple authority, as one having privilege here, and entered his mistress’s presence much as a son or brother of hers might have done, trusting and trusted. Adelais de Clary was well served, but without subservience.

“Here is Brother Cadfael from Shrewsbury, my lady. The other one’s asleep.”

Adelais was sitting at a distaff loaded with deep blue wool, spinning the spindle with her left hand, but at their entrance she ceased to turn it, and lodged it carefully against the foot of the distaff to prevent the yarn from uncoiling.

“Good! It’s what he needs. Leave us now, Lothair, our guest will find his own way back. Is my son home yet?”

“Not yet. I’ll be looking out for him when he comes.”

“He has Roscelin with him,” she said, “and the hounds. When they’re all home and kenneled and stalled, take your ease, it’s well earned.”

He merely nodded by way of acknowledgment, and departed, taciturn and uneffusive as ever, and yet there was a tone in their exchange of invulnerable assurance, secure as rooted rock. Adelais said no word until the door of her chamber had closed after her servant. She was eyeing Cadfael with silent attention, and the faint shadow of a smile.

“Yes,” she said, as if he had spoken. “More than an old servant. He was with my lord all the years he fought in Palestine. More than once he did Bertrand that small service, to keep him man alive. It is another manner of allegiance, not a servant’s. As bound in fealty as ever lord is to his overlord. I inherited what was my lord’s before me. Lothair, he’s called. His son is Luc. Born and bred in the some mold. You’ll have seen the likeness, God knows it can hardly be missed.”

“I have seen it,” said Cadfael. “And I knew where Lothair got that copper skin he wears.”

“Indeed?” She was studying him with concentrated interest now, having gone to the trouble to see him for the first time.

“I was some years in the east myself, before his time. If he lives long enough his brown will fade as mine has faded, but it takes a long while.”

“Ah! So you were not given to the monks in childhood? I thought you had not the look of such virgin innocents,” said Adelais.

“I entered of my own will,” said Cadfael, “when it was time.”

“So did he - of his own will, though I think it was not time.” She stirred and sighed. “I sent for you only to ask if you have everything you need - if my men have taken proper care of you.”

“Excellent care. And for their kindness and yours we are devoutly grateful.”

“And to ask you of him - of Haluin. I have seen in what sad case he is. Will it ever be better for him?”

“He will never walk as he did before,” said Cadfael, “but as his sinews gain time and strength he will improve. He believed he was dying, so did we all, but he lives and will yet find much good in life - once his mind is at peace.”

“And will it be at peace after tonight? Is this what he needs?”

“I believe he will. I believe it is.”

“Then it has my blessing. And then you will take him back to Shrewsbury? I can provide you horses,” she said, “for the way back. Lothair can fetch them to Hales when we return.”

“That kindness he will surely refuse,” said Cadfael. “He has sworn to complete this penance on foot.”

She nodded understanding. “I will ask him, nonetheless. Well - that is all, Brother. If he will not, I can do no more. Yes, one thing I can! I am coming to Vespers tonight. I will speak to the priest, and make certain that no one - no one! - shall question or trouble his vigil. You understand, nothing must be let slip to any soul but us who already know all too well. Tell him so. What remains is between him and God.”

The master of the house was just riding in at the gate as Cadfael walked back to the lodging where Haluin lay sleeping. The ring of harness and hooves and voices entered ahead of the cavalcade, a lively sound, bringing out grooms and servants like bees from a disturbed hive to attend on their lord’s arrival. And here he came, Audemar de Clary, on a tall chestnut horse, a big man in dark, plain, workmanlike riding clothes, without ornament, and needing none to mark him out as having authority here. He rode in with head uncovered, the hood of his short cloak flung back on his shoulders, and his shock of crisp hair was as dark as his mother’s, but the powerful bones of his face, high-bridged nose, thrusting cheekbones, and lofty forehead he surely had from his Crusader father.

He could not, Cadfael thought, be yet forty years old. The vigor of his movements as he dismounted, the spring of his step on the ground, the very gestures of his hands as he stripped off his gloves, all were young. But the formidable features of his face and the mastery that was manifest all about him, in the efficiency of his management here and the prompt and competent service he expected and got, made him seem older in dominance than he was in years. He had been master, Cadfael recalled, in his father’s long absence, beginning early, probably before he was twenty, and the de Clary honor was large and scattered. He had learned his business well. Not a man to be crossed lightly, but no one here feared him. They approached him cheerfully and spoke with him boldly. His anger, when justified, might be withering, even perilous, but it would be just.