The Confession of Brother Haluin Read online

  “I served de Clary at Hales,” said the thin voice. “Better, his lady—he being in the Holy Land then. His daughter…” A long silence while doggedly and patiently he renewed his endurance to deliver more and worse. “I loved her… and was loved. But the mother… my suit was not welcome. What was forbidden us we took…”

  Another and longer silence. The blue, sunken lids were lowered for a moment over the burning eyes. “We lay together,” he said clearly. “That sin I did confess, but never named her. The lady cast me out. Out of despair I came here… at least to do no more harm. And the worst harm yet to come!”

  The abbot closed his hand firmly on the nerveless hand at Haluin’s side, to hold him fast by the grip, for the face on the pillow had sunk into a mask of clay, and a long shudder passed through the bruised and broken body, and left it tensed and chill to the touch.

  “Rest!” said Radulfus, close to the sufferer’s ear. “Take ease! God hears even what is not said.”

  It seemed to Cadfael, watching, that Haluin’s hand responded, however feeble its hold. He brought the drink of wine and herbs with which he had been moistening the patient’s mouth while he lay senseless, and trickled a few drops between the pained lips, and for the first time the offering was accepted, and the strings of the lean throat made the effort to swallow. His time was not yet. Whatever more he might have to heave off his heart, there was yet time for it. They fed him sips of wine, and watched the clay of his features again cohere into flesh, however pale and feeble. This time, when he came back to them, it was very faintly and with eyes still closed.

  “Father…?” questioned the remote voice fearfully.

  “I am here. I will not leave you.”

  “Her mother came… I did not know till then Bertrade was with child! The lady was in terror of her lord’s anger when he came home. I served then with Brother Cadfael, I had learned… I knew the herbs… I stole and gave her… hyssop, fleur-de-lis… Cadfael knows better uses for them!”

  Yes, better by far! But what could help a badly congested chest and a killing cough, in small doses, or fight off the jaundice that turned a man yellow, could also put an end to the carrying of a child, in an obscene misuse abhorrent to the Church and perilous even to the woman it was meant to deliver. From fear of an angry father, fear of shame before the world, fear of marriage prospects ruined and family feuds inflamed. Had the girl’s mother entreated him, or had he persuaded her? Years of remorse and self-punishment had not exorcised the horror that still wrung his flesh and contorted his visage.

  “They died,” he said, harsh and loud with pain. “My love and the child, both. Her mother sent me word—dead and buried. A fever, they gave it out. Dead of a fever—nothing more to fear. My sin, my most grievous sin… God knows I am sorry!”

  “Where true penitence is,” said Abbot Radulfus, “God does surely know. Well, this grief is told. Have you done, or is there more yet to tell?”

  “I have done,” said Brother Haluin. “But to beg pardon. I ask it of God—and of Cadfael, that I abused his trust and his art. And of the lady of Hales, for the great grief I brought upon her.” Now that it was out he had better control of voice and words, the crippling tension was gone from his tongue, and weak though his utterance was, it was lucid and resigned. “I would die cleansed and forgiven,” he said.

  “Brother Cadfael will speak on his own behalf,” said the abbot. “For God, I will speak as He give me grace.”

  “I forgive freely,” said Cadfael, choosing words with more than his accustomed care, “whatever offense was done against my craft under great stress of mind. And that the means and the knowledge were there to tempt you, and I not there to dissuade, this I take to myself as much as ever I can charge them to you. I wish you peace!”

  What Abbot Radulfus had to say upon God’s behalf took longer. There were some among the brothers, Cadfael thought, who would have been startled and incredulous if they could have heard, at finding their abbot’s formidable austerity could also hold so much measured and authoritative tenderness. A lightened conscience and a clean death were what Haluin desired. It was too late to exact penance from a dying man, and deathbed comfort cannot be priced, only given freely.

  “A broken and a contrite heart,” said Radulfus, “is the only sacrifice required of you, and will not be despised.” And he gave absolution and the solemn blessing, and so left the sickroom, beckoning Cadfael with him. On Haluin’s face the ease of gratitude had darkened again into the indifference of exhaustion, and the fires were dead in eyes dulled and half closed between swoon and sleep.

  In the outer room Rhun was waiting patiently, drawn somewhat aside to avoid hearing, even unwittingly, any word of that confession.

  “Go in and sit with him,” said the abbot. “He may sleep now, there will be no ill dreams. If there should be any change in him, fetch Brother Edmund. And if Brother Cadfael should be needed, send to my lodging for him.”

  *

  In the paneled parlour in the abbot’s lodge they sat together, the only two people who would ever hear of the offense with which Haluin charged himself, or have the right in private to speak of his confession.

  “I have been here only four years,” said Radulfus directly, “and know nothing of the circumstances in which Haluin came here. It seems one of his earliest duties here was to help you among the herbs, and there he acquired this knowledge he put to such ill use. Is it certain this draught he concocted could kill? Or may this truly have been a death from fever?”

  “If the girl’s mother used it on her, she could hardly be mistaken,” said Cadfael ruefully. “Yes, I’ve known hyssop to kill. I was foolish to keep it among my stores, there are other herbs that could take its place. But in small doses, both herb and root, dried and powdered, are excellent for the yellow distemper, and useful with horehound against chest troubles, though the blue-flowered kind is milder and better for that. I’ve known women use it to procure abortion, in great doses that purge to the extreme. Small wonder if sometimes the poor girl dies.”

  “And this was surely during his novitiate, for he cannot have been here long if this child was his, as he supposes. He can have been only a boy.”

  “Barely eighteen, and the girl no more, if as old. It is some extenuation,” said Cadfael firmly, “if they were in the same household, seeing each other daily, of equal birth, for he comes of a good family, and as open to love as are most children. In fact,” said Cadfael, kindling, “what I wonder at is that his suit should have been rejected out of hand. He was an only son, there was a good manor would have been his if he had not taken vows. And he was a very pleasing youth, as I recall, lettered and gifted. Many a knight would have welcomed him as a match for his daughter.”

  “It may be her father already had other plans for her,” said Radulfus. “He may have betrothed her to someone else in childhood. And her mother would hardly venture to countenance a match in her husband’s absence, if she went in such awe of him.”

  “She need not, however, have rejected the boy utterly, if she had let him hope, he would have waited, surely, and not tried to force her hand by forestalling marriage. Though it may be I do him wrong there,” Cadfael relented. “It was not calculation, I fancy, that brought him into the girl’s bed, but too rash affection. Haluin would never make a schemer.”

  “Well, for better or worse,” said Radulfus with a weary sigh, “it was done, and cannot be undone. He is not the first, and will not be the last young man to fall into that error, nor she the first nor the last poor child to suffer for it. At least she has kept her good name. Easy to see why he feared to confide, for her sake, even under the seal of confession. But it is long ago, eighteen years, his age when it befell. Let us at least secure him a peaceful ending.”

  *

  It was the general view that a peaceful ending was the best that could be hoped for for Brother Haluin, and that prayers for him ought not to presume to look towards any other outcome, all the more as his brief return to his senses rap
idly lapsed again into a deeper unconsciousness, and for seven days, while the festival of the Nativity came and passed, he lay oblivious of the comings and goings of his brethren round his bed, ate nothing, uttered no sound but the hardly perceptible flutter of his breath. Yet that breath, however faint, was steady and even, and as often as drops of honeyed wine were presented to his lips, they were accepted, and the cords of his throat moved of themselves, docilely swallowing, while the broad, chilly brow and closed eyes never by the least quiver or contraction revealed awareness of what his body did.

  “As if only his body is here,” said Brother Edmund, soberly pondering, “and his spirit gone elsewhere until the house is again furbished and clean and waiting to be lived in.”

  A sound biblical analogy, Cadfael considered, for certainly Haluin had himself cast out the devils that inhabited him, and the dwelling they vacated might well lie empty for a while, all the more if there was to be that unlooked-for and improbable act of healing, after all. For however this prolonged withdrawal might resemble dying, Brother Haluin would not die. Then we had better keep a good watch, thought Cadfael, taking the parable to its fitting close, and make sure seven devils worse than the first never manage to get a foot in the door while he’s absent. And prayers for Haluin continued with unremitting fervor throughout the festivities of Christmas and the solemn opening of the new year.

  The thaw was beginning by that time, and even then it was a slow thaw, wearing away each day, by slow degrees, the heavy wastes of snow from the great fall. The work on the roof was finished without further mishap, the scaffolding taken down, and the guest hall once again weatherproof. All that remained of the great upheaval was this still and silent witness in his isolated bed in the infirmary, declining either to live or die.

  Then, in the night of the Epiphany, Brother Haluin opened his eyes and drew a long, slow breath like any other man awaking without alarm, and cast his wondering gaze round the narrow room until it rested upon Brother Cadfael, mute and attentive on the stool beside him.

  “I am thirsty,” said Haluin trustingly, like a child, and lay passive on Cadfael’s arm to drink.

  They half expected him to sink again into his unconscious state, but he remained languid but aware all that day, and in the night his sleep was natural sleep, shallow but tranquil. After that he turned his face to life, and did not again look over his shoulder. Once risen from the semblance of death he came back to the territory of pain, and its signature was on his drawn brow and set lips, but he bore it without complaint. His broken arm had knitted while he lay ignorant of his injuries, and caused him only the irritating aches of healing wounds, and it seemed both to Cadfael and Edmund, after a day or two of keeping close watch on him, that whatever had been shaken out of place within his head had healed as the outer wound had healed, medicined by stillness and repose. For his mind was clear. He remembered the icy roof, he remembered his fall, and once when he was alone with Cadfael he showed that he recalled very clearly his confession, for he said after a long while of silent thought:

  “I did shamefully by you, long ago, now you tend and medicine me, and I have made no amends.”

  “I’ve asked none,” said Cadfael equably, and began with patient care to unfold the wrappings from one maimed foot, to renew the dressings he had been replacing night and morning all this time.

  “But I need to pay all that is due. How else can I be clean?”

  “You have made full confession,” said Cadfael reasonably. “You have received absolution from Father Abbot himself, beware of asking more.”

  “But I have done no penance. Absolution so cheaply won leaves me still a debtor,” said Haluin heavily.

  Cadfael had laid bare the left foot, the worse mangled of the pair. The surface cuts and wounds had healed over, but what had happened to the labyrinth of small bones within could never be put right. They had fused into a misshapen clot, twisted and scarred, discolored in angry dark reds and purples. Yet the seamed skin had knitted and covered all.

  “If you have debts,” said Cadfael bluntly, “they bid fair to be paid in pain to the day you die. You see this? You will never set this firmly to ground again. I doubt if you will ever walk again.”

  “Yes.” said Haluin, staring out through the narrow chink of the window at the darkening wintry sky, “yes, I shall walk. I will walk. If God allows, I will go on my own feet again, though I must borrow crutches to help them bear me. And if Father Abbot gives me his countenance, when I have learned to use what props are left to me I will go myself to Hales, to beg forgiveness of Adelais de Clary, and keep a night’s vigil at Bertrade’s tomb.”

  In his own mind Cadfael doubted if either the dead or the living would take any great comfort from Haluin’s fondly resolved atonement, or still be nursing any profound recollection of him, after eighteen years. But if the pious intent gave the lad courage and determination to live and labour and be fruitful again, why discourage him? So all he said was:

  “Well, let’s first mend all that can be mended, and put back some of that lost blood into you, for you’ll get no leave to go anywhere as you are now.” And contemplating the right foot, which at least still bore some resemblance to a human foot, and had a perceptible and undamaged ankle-bone, he went on thoughtfully: “We might make some sort of thick felt boots for you, well padded within. You might get one foot to the ground yet, though you’ll need the crutches. Not yet—not yet, nor for weeks yet, more likely months. But we’ll take your measure, and see what we can fashion between us.”

  *

  On reflection, Cadfael felt that it might be wise to warn Abbot Radulfus of the expiation Brother Haluin had in mind, and did so after chapter, in the privacy of the abbot’s parlour.

  “Once he had heaved the load off his heart,” said Cadfael simply, “he would have died content if it had been his fortune to die. But he is going to live. His mind is clear, his will is strong, and if his body is meager it’s wiry enough, and now that he sees a life ahead of him he’ll not be content to creep out of his sins by way of absolution without penance. If he was of a lighter mind, and could be coaxed to forget this resolve as he gets well, for my part I would not blame him, I’d be glad of it. But penitence without penance will never be enough for Haluin. I’ll hold him back as long as I can, but trust me, we shall hear of this again, as soon as he feels able to attempt it.”

  “I can hardly frown upon so fitting a wish,” said the abbot reasonably, “but I can forbid it until he is fit to undertake it. If it will give him peace of mind I have no right to stand in his way. It may also be of some belated comfort to this unhappy lady whose daughter died so wretchedly. I am not familiar,” said Radulfus, pondering the proposed pilgrimage warily, “with this manor of Hales, though I have heard the name of de Clary. Do you know where it lies?”

  “Towards the eastern edge of the shire, Father, it must be a matter of twenty-five miles or so from Shrewsbury.”

  “And this lord who was absent in the Holy Land—he can have been told nothing of the true manner of his daughter’s death, if his lady went in such awe of him. It is many years past, but if he is still living this visit must not take place. It would be a very ill thing for Brother Haluin to salve his own soul by bringing further trouble and danger upon the lady of Hales. Whatever her errors, she has suffered for them.”

  “For all I know, Father,” Cadfael admitted, “they may both be dead some years since. I saw the place once, on the way from Lichfield on an errand for Abbot Heribert, but I know nothing of the household of de Clary.”

  “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 3

  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 f
rost, 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?”