The Confession of Brother Haluin bc-15 Read online

  His recollection was accurate. Going cautiously before, with Haluin close at his back, he came to an isolated clump of bushes and low trees which he remembered clearly in this sparsely treed plain, and a little beyond these the path opened. There was even a flickering spark of torchlight, seen fitfully through the whirling snowfall, to keep them in the direct way towards the distant dwelling. Where the lord of the house showed a beacon for benighted travelers there should be a warm welcome waiting.

  It took them longer to reach the hamlet than Cadfael had expected, since Haluin was flagging badly, and it was necessary to go very slowly, reaching back constantly to keep him close. Here and there a solitary tree loomed suddenly out of the spinning whiteness on the left hand or the right, only to be veiled again as abruptly. The flakes had grown larger and wetter, the hint of frost was receding, and this fall would not lie beyond the morning. Overhead the clouds were broken and torn in a rising wind, with a scattering of stars showing through.

  The spark of torchlight had vanished, hidden behind the manor fence. A solid timber gatepost heaved out of the dark, the tall palisade running away from it on the left hand, the broad open gateway on the right, and suddenly there was the torch again, across a wide courtyard in a sconce jutting from under the eaves, to light the stair that climbed to the hall door. The usual encrustation of service buildings lined the stockade. Cadfael launched a shout ahead of their lurching entrance, and a man came butting his way through the falling snow from a stable door, shouting to others as he came. At the head of the steps the hall door opened on a welcome glimpse of firelight.

  Cadfael brought Haluin stumbling in through the open gate in his arm, and another willing arm took him about the body on the other side, hoisting him vigorously into the comparative shelter within the pale. A voice bellowed heartily through the snowfall: “Brothers, you chose a bad night to be out on the roads. Hold up now, your troubles are over. We never shut the gates on your cloth.”

  There were others coming forth by then to bring in the benighted travelers, a young fellow darting out from the undercroft with a sacking hood over head and shoulders, a bearded and gowned elder emerging from the hall and coming halfway down the steps to meet them. Haluin was lifted rather than led up the steep flight and into the hall, where the master of the house came striding out of his solar to meet these unexpected arrivals.

  A fair man, long-boned and sparsely fleshed, with a short trimmed beard the color of wheat straw, and thick cap of hair of the same shade. Perhaps in his late thirties, Cadfael thought, of a ruddy, open countenance in which the blue Saxon eyes shone almost startlingly bright, candid, and concerned.

  “Come in, come in, Brothers! Well that you’ve found us! Here, bring him through here, close to the fire.” He had taken in at once the Benedictine habits, the flurries of snow lodged in the folds, and shaken off now hissing into the steady fire in the central hearth of the hall, the crippled feet of his younger visitor, the drawn grey exhaustion of his face. “Edgytha, have beds prepared in the end chamber, and tell Edwin to mull more wine.”

  His voice was loud, solicitous, and warm. Without seeming haste he had his servants running here and there on his benevolent errands, and himself saw Haluin installed on a bench against the wall, where the warmth of the fire could reach him.

  “This young brother of yours is in very sad case,” said the host, aside to Cadfael, “to be traveling the roads so far from home. There are none of your order round here—barring the sisters at Farewell, the bishop’s new foundation. From which house do you come?”

  “From Shrewsbury,” said Cadfael, setting Haluin’s crutches to lean against the bench, where he could reach them at will. Haluin sat back with closed eyes, his grey cheeks slowly gaining a little color in the warmth and ease.

  “So far? Could not your abbot have sent a hale man on his errands, if he had business in another shire?”

  “This was Haluin’s own errand,” said Cadfael. “No other could have done it. Now it’s done, and we’re on our way home, and by stages we shall get there. Always with the help of hospitable souls like you. Can I ask, what is this place? These are parts I hardly know.

  “My name is Cenred Vivers. From this manor I take that name. This brother is called Haluin, you say? And yourself?”

  “Cadfael is my name. Born Welsh, and bred up on the borders with a foot either side. I’ve been a brother of Shrewsbury now more than twenty years. My business on this journey is simply to keep Haluin company and see that he gets safely to where he’s going, and safely back again.”

  “No easy matter,” agreed Cenred, low-voiced, and eyeing Haluin’s deformed feet ruefully, “the state he’s in. But if the work’s done and only the way home to venture, no doubt you’ll do it. How did he come by such injuries?”

  “He fell from a roof. We had repairs to do, in the hard weather before Christmas. It was the slates falling after him that cut his feet to ribbons. Well that we kept him alive.”

  They were speaking of him softly, a little aside, though he lay back as eased and still as if he had fallen asleep, his eyes closed, the long dark lashes shadowing his hollow cheeks. The hall had emptied about them, all the bustle of activity withdrawn elsewhere, busy with pillows and brychans and the hospitable business of the kitchen.

  “They’re slow with the wine,” said Cenred, “and you must both need some warmth inside you. If you’ll hold me excused. Brother, I’ll go and hasten things in the pantry.”

  And he was off, the flurry and wind of his passing causing Haluin’s closed eyelids to quiver. In a moment he opened his eyes and looked slowly and dazedly about him, taking in the warm, high-roofed dimness of the hall, the glow of the fire, the heavy hangings that screened two alcoves withdrawn from the public domain, and the half-open door of the solar from which Cenred had emerged. The pale, steady gleam of candlelight showed from within.

  “Have I dreamed?” wondered Haluin, gazing. “How did we come here? What place is this?”

  “Never fear,” said Cadfael. “On your own feet you came here, only an arm to help you up the steps into the house. The manor is called Vivers, and the lord of it is Cenred. We’ve fallen into good hands.”

  Haluin drew deep breath. “I am not so strong as I believed I was,” he said sadly.

  “No matter, you can rest now. We have left Elford behind.”

  They were both speaking in low voices, a little awed by the enfolding silence presiding even in the center of this populous household. When both ceased speaking, the quietness seemed almost expectant. And in the hush the half-open door of the solar opened fully upon the pale gold candlelight within, and a woman stepped into the doorway. For that one instant she was sharply outlined as a shadow against the soft light within, a slender, erect figure, mature and dignified in movement, surely the lady of the house and Cenred’s wife. The next moment she had taken two or three light, swift steps into the hall, and the light of the nearest torch fell upon her shadowy face and advancing form, and conjured out of the dim shape a very different person. Everything about her was changed. Not a gracious chatelaine of more than thirty years, but a rounded, fresh-faced girl, no more than seventeen or eighteen, half her oval countenance two great startled eyes and the wide, high forehead above them, white and smooth as pearl.

  Haluin uttered a strange, soft sound in his throat, between gasp and sigh, clutched at his crutches, and heaved himself to his feet, staring at this sudden glowing apparition as she, brought up abruptly against the intrusion of strangers, had drawn back in haste, starring at him. For one moment they hung so, mute and still, then the girl whirled about and retreated into the solar, drawing the door to almost stealthily after her.

  Haluin’s hands slackened their hold, dangling inertly, the crutches slid and fell from under him, and he went down on his face in a gradual, crumpled fail, and lay senseless in the rushes of the floor.

  They carried him to a bed prepared for him in a quiet chamber withdrawn from the hall, and bedded him there, still i
n a deep swoon.

  “This is simple exhaustion,” said Cadfael in reassurance to Cenred’s solicitous anxiety. “I knew he was driving himself too hard, but that’s done with now. From this on we can take our time. Leave him to sleep through this night, and he’ll do well enough. See, he’s coming round. His eyes are opening.”

  Haluin stirred, his eyelids quivering before they rose on the dark, sharply conscious eyes within, that looked up into a circle of vague, concerned faces. He was aware of his surroundings, and knew what had happened to him before he was carried here, for the first words he spoke were in meek apology for troubling them, and thanks for their care.

  “My fault!” he said. “It was presumptuous to attempt too much. But now all is well with me. All is very well!”

  Since his chief need was clearly of rest, they were left to make themselves comfortable in their small chamber, though the evening brought them a number of visits. The bearded steward brought them hot, spiced wine, and sent in to them the old woman Edgytha, who brought them water for their hands, food, and a lamp, and offered whatever more they might need for their comfort.

  She was a tall, wiry, active woman probably sixty years old, with the free manner and air of authority habitual in servants who have spent many years in the confidence of lord or lady, and earned a degree of trust that brings with it acknowledged privilege. The younger maidservants deferred to her, if they did not actually go in awe of her, and her neat black gown and stiff white wimple, and the keys jingling at her waist bore witness to her status.

  Late in the evening she came again, in attendance on a plump and pleasant lady, soft-voiced and gracious, who came to inquire kindly whether the reverend brothers had all that they needed for the night, and whether the one who had swooned was now comfortably recovered from his faintness, Cenred’s wife was rosily pretty, brown-haired and brown-eyed, a very different creature from the tall, slender, vulnerable young thing who had stepped out of the solar, to be startled into recoil from the unexpected apparition of strangers.

  “And have the lord Cenred and his lady any children?” Cadfael asked when their hostess was gone.

  Edgytha was close-lipped, possessively protective of her family and all that was theirs, to the point of rendering every such inquiry suspect, but after a moment’s hesitation she answered civilly enough: “They have a son, a grown son.” And she added, unexpectedly reconsidering her reluctance to satisfy such uncalled-for curiosity: “He’s away, in service with my lord Cenred’s overlord.”

  There was a curious undertone of reserve, even of disapproval, in her voice, though she would never have acknowledged it. It almost distracted Cadfael’s mind from his own preoccupation, but he pursued delicately:

  “And no daughter? There was a young girl looked into the hall for a moment, while we were waiting. Is she not a child of the house?”

  She gave him a long, steady, searching look, with raised brows and tight lips, plainly disapproving of such interest in young women, coming from a monastic. But guests in the house must be treated with unfailing courtesy, even when they fall short of deserving it.

  “That lady is the lord Cenred’s sister,” she said. “The old lord Edric, his father, married a second time in his later years. More like a daughter to him than a sister, with the difference in years. I doubt you’ll see her again. She would not wish to disturb the retirement of men of your habit. She has been well brought up,” concluded Edgytha with evident personal pride in the product of her own devotion, and a plain warning that black monks cast by chance into the household should deep their eyes lowered in a young virgin’s presence.

  “If you had her in charge,” said Cadfael amiably, “I make no doubt she does credit to her upbringing. Had you Cenred’s boy in your care too?”

  “My lady would not have dreamed of trusting her chick to any other.” The old woman had warmed into fond fervor in thinking of the children she had nursed. “No one ever had the care of better babes,” she said, “and I love them both like my own.”

  When she was gone Haluin lay silent for a while, but his eyes were open and clear, and the lines of his face alert and aware.

  “Was there indeed a girl who came in?” he said at last, frowning in the effort to recall a moment which had become hazy and uncertain in his mind. “I have been lying here trying to recall why I so started up. I remember the crutches dropping away from under me, but yery little besides. Coming into the warmth made my head go round.”

  “Yes,” said Cadfael, “there was a girl. Half sister, it seems, to Cenred, but younger by some twenty years. If you were thinking you dreamed her, no, she was no dream. She came into the hall from the solar, all unaware of us, and perhaps not liking the look of us, she drew back again in haste and closed the door between. Do you not remember that?”

  No, he did not remember it, or only as an unconnected snatch of vision comes back out of a dream, and is gone again as soon as glimpsed. He frowned after it anxiously, and shook his head as if to clear eyes misted by weariness. “No

  there’s nothing clear to me. I do recall the door opening, I take your word for it she came in

  but I can recall nothing, no face

  Tomorrow, perhaps.”

  “We shall see no more of her,” said Cadfael, “if that devoted dragon of hers has any say in the matter. I think she has no very high opinion of monks, Mistress Edgytha. Well, are you minded for sleep? Shall I put out the lamp?”

  But if Haluin had no clear recollection of the daughter of the house, no image left from that brief glimpse of her, first a dark outline against candlelight, then lit from before by the ruddy glow of the torch, Cadfael had a very clear image, one that grew even clearer when the lamp was quenched and he lay in the dark beside his sleeping companion. And beyond the remembrance he had a strange, disquieting sense that it bore for him a special significance, if he could but put his finger on it. Why that should be so was a mystery to him. Wakeful in the dark, he called up the features of her face, the motion of her body as she stepped into the light, and could find nothing there that should have been meaningful to him, no likeness to any woman he had ever seen before, except as all women are sisters. Yet the sense of some elusive familiarity about her persisted.

  A tall girl, though perhaps not so tall as she gave the impression of being, for her slenderness contributed to the image, but above the middle height for a girl just becoming woman. Her bearing was erect and graceful, but still with the tentative and vulnerable springiness of the child, the suddenness of a lamb or a fawn, alert to every sound and motion. Startled, she had sprung back from them, and yet she had closed the door with measured softness, not to startle in return. And her face—she was not beautiful, except as youth and innocence and gallantry are always beautiful. An oval face she had, tapered from broad brow and wide and wide-set eyes to the firm, rounded chin. Her head was uncovered, her brown hair drawn back and braided, still further emphasizing the high white brow and the great eyes under their level dark brows and long lashes. The eyes consumed half the face. Not pure brown, Cadfael thought, for in spite of their darkness they had a clarity and depth and brightness perceptible even in that one glimpse of her. Rather a dark hazel shot with green, and so clear and deep it seemed possible to plunge into them and drown. Eyes utterly candid and vulnerable, and quite fearless. Young, wild, mettlesome creatures of the woods never yet hunted or harmed, may have that look. And the pure, fine lines of her cheekbones Cadfael remembered, elegant and strong, after the eyes her chief distinction.

  And in all of this, sharply defined in his mind’s eye, what was there to trouble him, to pierce him like an elusive memory of some other woman? He found himself summoning up, one by one, the faces of women he had known, half the population of a long and varied life, in case some cast of features or carriage of head or gesture of hand should strike the chord that would vibrate and sing for him. But there was no match, and no echo. Cenred’s sister remained unique and apart, haunting him thus only because she had appeared a
nd vanished in a moment, and he would probably never see her again.

  Nevertheless, the last fleeting vision within his eyelids as he fell asleep was of her startled face.

  By morning the air had lost its frosty bite, and most of the snow that had fallen had already thawed and vanished, leaving its tattered laces along the foot of every wall and under the bole of every tree. Cadfael looked out from the hall door, and was inclined to wish that the fall had persisted, to prevent Haluin from insisting on taking to the road again immediately. As it turned out he need not have worried, for as soon as the manor was up and about its daily business Cenred’s steward came looking for them, with the request that they would come to his lord in the solar after they had broken their fast, for he had something to ask of them.

  Cenred was alone in the room when they entered, Haluin’s crutches sounding hollowly on the boards of the floor. The room was lit by two deep, narrow windows with cushioned seats built into them, and furnished with handsome bench-chests along one wall, a carved table, and one princely chair for the lord’s use. Evidently the lady Emma ran a well-regulated household, for hangings and cushions were of fine embroidery, and the tapestry frame in one corner, with its half-finished web of bright colors, showed that they were of home production.

  “I hope you have slept well, Brothers,” said Cenred, rising to greet them, “Are you recovered fully from last night’s indispostion? If there is anything my house has failed to offer you, you have but to ask for it. Use my manor as you would your own dwelling. And you will, I hope, consent to stay yet a day or two before you need set out again.”

  Cadfael shared the hope, but was all too afraid that Haluin would rouse his overanxious conscience to find objections. But he had no time to do more than open his mouth, for Cenred went on at once: