The Confession of Brother Haluin (21 page)

He
had been concentrating so intensely upon the woman in the garth that he had
heard nothing from within the church, until he caught the tapping of crutches
on the flagstones within the doorway, and swung about almost guiltily to return
to his bounden duty. Haluin had somehow got to his feet unaided, and emerged
now at Cadfael’s side, gazing out with pleasure into the garth, where misty
sunlight and moist shadow mingled.

His
eyes fell upon the nun, and he halted abruptly, swaying on his crutches.
Cadfael saw the dark eyes fix and widen, their arrested stare burning hollowly
into the glowing stillness of vision or trance, and the sensitive lips move
almost soundlessly, forming the slow syllables of a name. Almost soundlessly,
but not quite, for Cadfael heard it.

In
wonder and joy and pain, and all in extremes, as one driven and wracked by
religious ecstasy: “Bertrade!” whispered Brother Haluin.

Chapter Eleven

THERE
WAS NO MISTAKING THE NAME, and no questioning the absolute certainty with which
it was uttered. If Cadfael clung to sane, sensible disbelief for one moment, he
discarded it the next, and it was swept away once for all in a great flood of
enlightenment. In Haluin there was no doubt or question at all. He knew what he
saw, he gave it its true, its unforgotten name, and stood lost in wonder,
trembling with the intensity of his knowledge. Bertrade!

The
first glimpse of her daughter had struck him to the heart, the dimly seen copy
outlined against the light was so true to the original. But as soon as
Helisende had stepped forward into the torchlight the likeness had faded, the
vision dissolved. This was a girl he did not know. Now she came again, and
turned towards him the remembered and lamented face, and there was no more
questioning.

So
she had not died. Cadfael grappled silently with enlightenment. The tomb Haluin
had sought was an illusion. She had not died of the draught that robbed her of
her child, she had survived that peril and grief, to be married off to an
elderly husband, vassal and friend to her mother’s family, and to bear him a
daughter the image of herself in build and bearing. And she had done her best
to be a faithful wife and mother as long as her old lord lived, but after his
death she had turned her back on the world and followed her first lover into
the cloister, choosing the same order, taking to herself the name of the founder,
binding herself once for all to the same discipline into which Haluin had been
driven.

Then
why, argued a persistent imp in Cadfael’s mind, why did you—you, not
Haluin!—find in the face of the girl at Vivers something inexplicably familiar?
Who was it hiding from you deep in the caverns of memory, refusing to be
recognized? You had never seen the girl before, never in life set eyes on this
mother of hers. Whoever looked out at you from Helisende’s eyes, and then drew
down a veil between, it was not Bertrade de Clary.

All
this came seething through his mind in the instant of revelation, the brief
moment before Helisende herself emerged from the shadows of the west range and
came out into the garth to join her mother. She had not donned the habit, she
wore the same gown she had worn the previous evening at her brother’s table.
She was pale and grave, but had the calm of the cloister about her, safe here
from any compulsion, with time for thought and for taking counsel.

The
two women met, the hems of their skirts tracing two darker paths in the
silver-green of the moist grass. They turned back together at leisure towards
the doorway from which Helisende had come, to go in and join the rest of the
sisterhood for Prime. They were going away, they would vanish, and nothing be
answered, nothing resolved, nothing made plain! And still Haluin hung swaying
on his crutches, stricken motionless and mute. He would lose her again, she was
all but lost already. The two women had almost reached the west walk, the cords
of deprivation were drawn out to breaking point.

“Bertrade!”
cried Haluin, in a great shout of terror and despair.

That
cry reached them, echoing startlingly from every wall, and brought them about
to stare in alarm and astonishment towards the door of the church. Haluin tore
himself out of his daze with a great heave, and went hurtling forward
recklessly into the garth, his crutches goring the soft turf.

At
sight of an unknown man lurching towards them the women had instinctively
recoiled, but seeing at second glance his habit, and how sadly he was crippled,
in pure compassion they halted their flight to permit his approach, and even
came a few impulsive steps to meet him. For a moment there was no more in it
than that, pity for a lame man. Then abruptly everything changed.

He
had been in too much haste to reach them, he stumbled, and swayed out of
balance for a moment, on the edge of a fall, and the girl, quick to sympathy,
sprang forward to support him in her arms. His weight falling into her embrace
swung them both about, to steady and recover almost cheek to cheek, and Cadfael
saw the two faces for a long moment side by side, startled, bright, dazzled
into wonder.

So
now at last he had his answer. Now he knew everything there was to be known,
everything except what fury of bitterness could drive one human creature to do
so base and cruel a thing to another. And even that answer would not be far to
seek.

It
was at that moment of total enlightenment that Bertrade de Clary, staring
earnestly into the stranger’s face, knew him for no stranger, and called him by
his name: “Haluin!”

There
was nothing more, not then, only the meeting of eyes and the mutual
recognition, and the understanding, on either part, of past wrongs and agonies
never before fully understood, bitter and terrible for a moment, then erased by
a great flood of gratitude and joy. For in the moment when the three of them
hung mute and still, staring at one another, they all heard the little bell for
Prime ringing in the dortoir, and knew that the sisters would be filing down
the night stairs to walk in procession into the church.

So
there was nothing more, not then. The women drew back, with lingering glances
still wide with wonder, and turned to answer the summons and join their
sisters. And Cadfael went forward from the porch to take Brother Haluin by the
arm, and lead him gently, like a sleepwalking child, back to the guest hall.

“She
is not dead,” said Haluin, rigidly erect on the edge of his bed. Over and over,
recording the miracle in a repetition nearer incantation than prayer: “She is
not dead! It was false, false, false! She did not die!”

Cadfael
said never a word. It was not yet time to speak of all that lay behind this
revelation. For the moment Haluin’s shocked mind looked no further than the
fact, joy that she should be alive and well and in safe haven whom he had
lamented so long as dead, and dead by his grievous fault, the bewilderment and
hurt that he should have been left so long mourning her.

“I
must speak with her,” said Haluin. “I cannot go without having speech with
her.”

“You
shall not,” Cadfael assured him.

It
was inevitable now, all must come out. They had met, they had beheld each
other, no one now could undo that, the sealed coffer was sprung open, the
secrets were tumbling out of it, no one now could close the lid upon them ever
again.

“We
cannot leave today,” said Haluin.

“We
shall not. Wait here in patience,” said Cadfael. “I am going to seek an
audience with the lady abbess.”

The
abbess of Farewell, brought by Bishop de Clinton from Coventry to direct his
new foundation, was a dumpy round loaf of a woman, perhaps in her middle
forties, with a plump russet face and shrewd brown eyes that weighed and
measured in a glance, and were confident of their judgment. She sat
uncompromisingly erect on an uncushioned bench in a small and spartan parlor,
and closed the book on the desk before her as Cadfael came in.

“You’re
very welcome. Brother, to whatever service our house can offer you. Ursula
tells me you are from the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, at Shrewsbury. I
intended to invite you and your companion to join me for dinner, and I
cordially extend that invitation now. But I hear you have asked for this
interview, forestalling any move of mine. I take it there is a reason. Sit
down, Brother, and tell me what more you have to ask of me.”

Cadfael
sat down with her, debating in his mind how much he might tell, or how little.
She was a woman quite capable of filling in gaps for herself, but also, he
judged, a woman of scrupulous discretion, who would keep to herself whatever
she read between the lines.

“I
come, Reverend Mother, to ask you to countenance a meeting, in private, between
my brother Haluin and Sister Benedicta.”

He
saw her brows raised, but the small bright eyes beneath them remained
unperturbed and sharp with intelligence.

“In
youth,” he said, “they were well acquainted. He was in her mother’s service,
and being so close in the one house, and of an age, boy and girl together, they
fell into loving. But Haluin’s suit was not at all to the mother’s mind, and
she took pains to separate them. Haluin was dismissed from her service, and
forbidden all ado with the girl, who was persuaded into a marriage more
pleasing to her family. No doubt you know her history since then. Haluin
entered our house, admittedly for a wrong reason. It is not good to turn to the
spiritual life out of despair, but many have done it, as you and I know, and
lived to become faithful and honorable ornaments to their houses. So has
Haluin. So, I make no doubt, has Bertrade de Clary.”

He
caught the glint of her eyes at hearing that name. There was not much she did
not know about her flock, but if she knew more than he had said of this woman
she showed no sign and made no comment, accepting all as he had told it.

“It
seems to me,” she said, “that the story you tell me bids fair to be repeated in
another generation. The circumstances are not quite the same, but the end well
could be. It’s as well we should consider in time how to deal with it.”

“I
have that in mind,” said Cadfael. “And how have you dealt with it thus far?
Since the girl came running to you by night? For the whole household of Vivers
is out by now for the second day, scouring the roads for her.”

“I
think not,” said the abbess. “For I sent yesterday to let her brother know that
she is here and safe, and prays him to be left in peace here for a while for
thought and prayer. I think he will respect her wish, in the circumstances.”

“Circumstances
which she has told you,” said Cadfael with conviction, “in full. So far, that
is, as she knows them.”

“She
has.”

“Then
you know of a woman’s death, and of the marriage arranged for Helisende. And
the reason for that marriage, you know that, too?”

“I
know she is too close kin to the young man she would liefer have. Yes, she has
told me. More, I fancy, than she tells her confessor. You need not fear for
Helisende. As long as she remains here she is safe from all harassment, and has
the company and comfort of her mother.”

“She
could not be in a better place,” said Cadfael fervently. “Then, as to these two
who most concern us now—I must tell you that Haluin was told that Bertrade was
dead, and has believed her so all these years, and moreover, taken her death to
himself as blame. This morning by God’s grace he has seen her before him alive
and well. They have exchanged no words but their names. But I think it would be
well that they should, if you so grant. They will serve better in their
separate vocations if they have peace of mind. Also they have a right to know,
each one, that the other is whole, blessed and content.”

“And
you think,” said the abbess with deliberation, “that they will be blessed and
content? After as before?”

“More
and better than before,” he said with certainty. “I can speak for the man, if
you know as much of the woman. And if they part thus without a word, they will
be tormented to the end of their days.”

“I
would as soon not be answerable to God for that,” said the abbess with a brief,
bleak smile. “Well, they shall have their hour and make their peace. It can do
no harm, and may do much good. Do you purpose to remain here some days longer?”

“This
one day at least,” said Cadfael. “For I have one more prayer to make to you.
Brother Haluin I leave to you. But there is a thing I must do, before we set
off for home. Not here! Will you let me borrow a horse from your stable?”

She
sat studying him for a long moment, and it seemed that she was guardedly
satisfied with what she saw, for at length she said, “On one condition.”

“And
that is?”

“That
when time serves, and all harm is spent, you will tell me the other half of the
story.”

Brother
Cadfael led out his borrowed horse into the stableyard, and mounted without
haste. The bishop had seen fit to provide stabling adequate for his own
visitations, and two stout cobs for remounts should any of his envoys travel
this way and make use of the abbey’s hospitality. Having been given a free
hand, Cadfael had naturally chosen the more likely-looking of the two, and the
younger, a lively, solid bay. It was no very long ride he had in mind, but he
might as well get out of it what pleasure he could along the way. There would
be little pleasure at the end of it.