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indeed, for I have not been here for many years, and he was growing grey when I
knew him, but to me in youth it seemed he would be here forever. Now I dare
hardly ask!”
    “Father
Wulfnoth is gone to his rest,” said the priest, “seven years ago now it must
be. Ten years back I came here, after he was brought to his bed by a seizure,
and three years I looked after him until he died. I was newly priest then, I
learned much from Wulfnoth, his mind was clear and bright if the flesh had
failed him.” His good-natured round face offered sympathetic curiosity. “You
know this church and this manor, then? Were you born in Hales?”
    “No,
not that. But for some years I served with the lady Adelais at the manor.
Church and village I knew well, before I took the cowl at Shrewsbury. Now,”
said Haluin earnestly, observing how brightly he was studied, and feeling the
need to account for his return, “I have good need to give thanks for escaping
alive from a mishap that might have caused my death, and I have taken thought
to discharge, while I may, every debt I have on my conscience. Of which number,
one brings me here to this tomb. There was a lady of the de Clary family whom I
reverenced, and she died untimely. I should like to spend the night here at her
burial place, in prayers for her. It was long before your time, eighteen years
ago now. It will not disturb you if I spend the night here within?”
    “Why,
as to that, you’d be welcome,” said the priest heartily, “and I could light a
cresset for you. It gives some help against the cold. But surely, Brother,
you’re under some mistake. True, what you say puts this before my time, but Father
Wulfnoth told me much concerning the church and the manor, he’d been in the
service of the lords of Hales all his life. It was they helped him to his
studies and set him up here as priest. There has been no burial here in this
tomb since the old lord died, this one who’s carved here on the stone. And that
was more than thirty years back. It’s his grandson rules now. A lady of the
family, you say? And died young?”
    “A
kinswoman,” said Haluin, low-voiced and shaken, his eyes lowered to the stone
which had not been raised for thirty years. “She died here at Hales. I had
thought she must be buried here.” He would not name her, or betray more than he
must of himself and what moved him, even to this kindly man. And Cadfael stood
back from them, watched, and held his peace.
    “And
only eighteen years ago? Then be certain. Brother, she is not here. If you knew
Father Wulfnoth, you know you can rely upon what he told me. And I know his
wits were sharp until the day he died.”
    “I
do believe it, “ said Haluin, quivering with the chill of disappointment. “He
would not be mistaken. So—she is not here!”
    “But
this is not the chief seat of the de Clary honor,” the priest pointed out
gently, “for that’s Elford, in Staffordshire. The present lord, Audemar, took
his father there for burial; the family has a great vault there. If there are
any close kin dead these last years, that’s where they’ll be. No doubt the lady
you speak of was also taken there to lie among her kinsfolk.”
    Haluin
seized upon the hope hungrily. “Yes… yes, it could well be so, it must be so.
There I shall find her.”
    “I
have no doubt of it,” said the priest. “But it’s a long way to go afoot.” He
had sensed an urgency that was very unlikely to listen to reason, but he did
his best to temper it. “You’d be well advised to go mounted, if you must go
now, or put it off for longer days and better weather. At least come inside, to
my house, and take meat with me, and rest overnight.”
    But
that Haluin would not do, so much was already clear to Brother Cadfael. Not
while there was still an hour or more of daylight left at the windows, and he
had still the strength to go a mile further. He excused himself with slightly