Ellis Peters - The Confession of Brother Haluin

“I’ll ride back by that way,” offered Roscelin eagerly, and was off towards the door of the hall with a bound, if de Perronet had not plucked him back sharply by the sleeve.

“No, not you! What we might see of either of you again, if once you met, I much mistrust. Let Cenred seek his sister, and I’m content she’ll come back to speak her own mind when all this coil is over. And when she does, boy, you had best abide it, and keep your tongue within your teeth.”

Roscelin did not like being handled, nor much savor being called “boy” by a man whose height and reach he could match, if not his years and assurance. He wrenched his arm free strongly, and stood off further affront with a blackly lowering brow.

“So Helisende be found safe and well, and let alone in very truth to speak her own mind, and not yours, sir, nor my father’s, nor any other man’s, overlord or priest or king or whatever he may be, I am content. And first,” he said, turning on his father between defiance and pleading, “find her, let me see her whole and well and used with gentleness. What else matters now?”

“I am going myself,” said Cenred with reviving authority, and strode back into the solar to reclaim the cloak he had discarded.

But there was to be no more riding out from Vivers that night. Cenred had scarcely pulled on his boots again, and his grooms were no more than hoisting down saddle and harness in the stables, when there arose the purposeful stir of half a dozen horsemen riding into the courtyard, the ring of challenge and answer at the gate, the jingle of harness and dull tramping of hooves on the frozen earth.

All those within came surging to open the door and see what company this might be, so late in the night. Edred and his companions had gone on foot, and might be expected to return on foot, and here was a well-mounted troop arriving.

Out went the torches into the darkness, out went Cenred, with Roscelin and de Perronet hard on his heels, and several of his menservants following.

In the yard the flickering torchlight flared and guttered and flared again on the strongly boned countenance and massive body of Audemar de Clary, as he swung himself down from the saddle and tossed his bridle to a scurrying groom. Behind him came Edred the steward and the grooms who had been sent on with him to Elford, mounted now at de Clary’s charge, along with three of Audemar’s own men.

Cenred came hurrying down the steps to welcome them. “My lord,” he said, for once formal with his friend and overlord, “I never looked to see you tonight, but you come very timely and are more than welcome. God knows we’re like to be causing you trouble enough, for we have murder here, as Edred will have told you. Murder within your writ is hard to believe, but so it is.”

“So I’ve heard,” said Audemar. “Come within, and let me hear the whole tale from you. There’s nothing to be done now before morning.” As he entered the hall, his eye fell on the truant Roscelin, recorded the boy’s grim and unrepentant countenance, and acknowledged tolerantly: “You here, lad? That at least I expected.” Clearly the deeper reason for Roscelin’s banishment was no secret from Audemar, and he had a certain easy sympathy for the boy, short of indulging his folly. He clouted him hard on the shoulder as he passed, and drew him with him into the solar. Roscelin resisted the urging, gripping his lord’s sleeve urgently.

“My lord, there’s more to be told. Sir,” he appealed to his father passionately, “tell him! If she did make for Elford, where can she be now? My lord, Helisende is gone, she has ridden out alone, my father believes she must have set out for Elford - because of me! But I rode here by the rough track and saw nothing of her. Has she indeed come safely to you? Put me out of this anxiety - did she go by the highroad? Is she safe at Elford now?”

“She is not!” Brought up short against this new vexation, Audemar looked sharply from son to father and back again, well aware of the tensions that plagued them. “We have just come by the highroad and never a sign of her or any woman have we seen. One road or the other, one of us would have met with her. Come, now!” he said, sweeping Cenred along with him in his free arm. “Let’s within, the few of us, and see what knowledge we can put together, to be used with good sense tomorrow by daylight. Madam, you should take some rest, all’s done that you can do before morning, and I will make myself accountable from this on. No need for you to watch out the night.”

There was no question now as to who was master here. At his bidding Emma folded her hands thankfully, shared a glance of harried affection between her husband and her son, and departed docilely to such rest as she could hope to get before dawn. Audemar looked round once from within the solar, a sweeping glance amiable enough but unmistakable in its dominance, that dismissed all further attendance. His eye lit upon the two Benedictines, waiting unobtrusively on the edge of the scene, recognized them with a nod of easy reverence for their habit, and smiled.

“Good night, Brothers!” said Audemar, and drew the solar door firmly closed at his back, shutting himself in with the troubled Vivers household and their aspiring kinsman.

“He is right!” said Brother Haluin, stretched on his bed in the predawn twilight, wakeful still and loosed now from his long silence on the fringe of other men’s chaos. “Good night. Brothers, and good-bye! There will be no marriage. There can be no marriage, there is now no bride. And even if she should come back, this match cannot now go forward as if nothing had happened to cast it into such bitter doubt. When I accepted the burden - for even so it was burdensome - there was no call to question that it was for the best, grievous though it might be. There is good reason to question now.”

“I think,” said Cadfael, listening to the muted, deliberate voice, as Haluin felt his way towards a resolution, “you are not sorry to be delivered from your promise.”

“No, I am not sorry. Sorry enough. God knows, that a woman has died, sorry that these children should suffer unhappiness without remedy. But I could not now be answerable to God for joining the girl to any man. unless I could recover the certainty I have lost. As well that she is gone, and I pray into some safe refuge. And now it only remains,” said Brother Haluin, “for us to take our leave. We no longer have any part to play here. De Clary has plainly told us so. And Cenred will be glad to see us go.”

“And you have a vow to complete, and no further cause to delay. True!” said Cadfael, torn between relief and regret.

“I have delayed too long already. It is time I acknowledged,” said Haluin inflexibly, “how small are my own griefs, and how great the part I have chosen. I made the choice for my own craven sake. Now with what life I have left I will make it good for a worthier reason.”

So this journey, thought Cadfael, has not been in vain. For the first time since his flight from the world, sick with his guilt and loss, he has ventured back into the world, and found it full of pain, into which his own pain has fallen and been lost, like a raindrop in the sea. All these years he has been outwardly dutiful, keeping every scruple of the Rule, and agonized in solitude within. His true vocation begins now. Once enlightened, Haluin may well prove the stuff of which saints are made. As for me, I am unregenerate man.

For in his heart he did not want to leave Vivers thus, with nothing resolved. Everything Haluin said was true. The bride was gone, there could be no marriage, they had no excuse for remaining here any longer, nor had Cenred any further use for them. He would indeed be glad to see them go. But Cadfael would not go gladly, turning his back upon a murder unavenged, justice out of kilter, a wrong that might never be set right.