The Confession of Brother Haluin by Ellis Peters Page B

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