Read Online The Confession of Brother Haluin by Ellis Peters - Free Book Online

she said,
again seating herself, though she did not yet reach for her needle. “Think no
more of what happened long ago. You say you have a life spared. Use it as best
you can, and so will I mine.”
    It
was a dismissal, and as such Haluin accepted it. He made her a deep reverence,
and turned carefully upon his crutches, and Cadfael reached a hand to steady
him in the movement. She had not so much as bidden them be seated, perhaps too
shaken by so sudden and startling a visit, but as they reached the doorway she
called after them suddenly:
    “Stay
if you will, take rest and meat in my house. My servants will provide you
everything you need.”
    “I
thank you,” said Haluin, “but our leave of absence enjoins a return as soon as
my pilgrimage here is done.”
    “God
hasten your way home, then,” said Adelais de Clary, and with a steady hand took
up her needle again.
     
    The
church lay a short distance from the manor, where two tracks crossed, and the
huddle of village house plots gathered close about the churchyard wall.
    “The
tomb is within,” said Haluin, as they entered at the gate. “It was never opened
when I was here, but Bertrand’s father is buried here, and surely it must have
been opened for Bertrade. She died here. I am sorry, Cadfael, that I refused
hospitality also for you. I had not thought in time. I shall need no bed
tonight.”
    “You
said no word of that to the lady,” Cadfael observed.
    “No.
I hardly know why. When I saw her again my heart misgave me that I did ill to
bring before her again that old pain, that the very sight of me was an offense
to her. Yet she did forgive. I am the better for that, and she surely none the
worse. But you could have slept easy tonight. No need for two to watch.”
    “I’m
better fitted for a night on my knees than you,” said Cadfael. “And I am not
sure the welcome there would have been very warm. She wished us gone. No, it’s
very well as it is. Most likely she thinks we’re on the homeward way already,
off her land and out of her life.”
    Haluin
halted for a second with his hand on the heavy iron ring latch of the church
door, his face in shadow. The door swung open, creaking, and he gripped his
crutches to ease himself down the two wide, shallow steps into the nave. It was
dim and stonily chilly within. Cadfael waited a moment on the steps till his
eyes grew accustomed to the changed light, but Haluin set off at once up the
nave towards the altar. Nothing here was greatly changed in eighteen years, and
nothing had been forgotten. Even the rough edges of the floor tiles were known
to him. He turned aside towards the right-hand wall, his crutches ringing
hollowly, and Cadfael, following, found him standing beside a stone table-tomb
fitted between the pillars. The carved image recumbent there was in crude chain
mail, and had one leg crossed over the other, and a hand on his sword hilt.
Another Crusader, surely the father of Bertrand, who in his turn had followed
him to the Holy Land. This one, Cadfael calculated, might well have been with
Robert of Normandy’s army in my time, at the taking of Jerusalem. Clearly the
de Clary men were proud of their warfare in the east.
    A
man came through from the sacristy, and seeing two unmistakable Benedictine
habits, turned amicably to come towards them. A man of middle age, in a rusty
black cassock, advancing upon them with a mildly inquiring expression and a
welcoming smile, Haluin heard his steps, soft as they were, and swung about gladly
to greet a remembered neighbor, only to recoil on the instant at seeing a
stranger.
    “Good
day, Brothers! God be with you!” said the priest of Hales. “To travelers of
your cloth my house is always open, like this house of God. Have you come far?”
    “From
Shrewsbury,” said Haluin, strongly recovering himself. “Forgive me, Father, if
I was taken aback. I had expected to see Father Wulfnoth. Foolish of me,