The Confession of Brother Haluin

by Ellis Peters

  She knew, she had known ever since the old woman’s death, that it must come to that at last, and if she had deliberately averted her eyes and refused to acknowledge it, she could no longer do so. Nor was she the woman to delegate a hard thing to others, once her mind was made up, nor to do things by halves, whether for good or ill.

  He would not prompt her. He drew back from her to leave her space and time, and stood apart, watching her disciplined stillness, and measuring in his mind the bitter toll of eighteen years of silence, of pitilessly contained hate and love. The first words he had heard from her now, even at this extreme, had been of Haluin, and still he heard the vibration of pain in her voice as she cried aloud: “What have they done to you?”

  Adelais got up abruptly from her chair and crossed with long, fierce steps to the window, to fling back the shutter and let in air and light and cold. She stood for a while looking out at the quiet court, and the pale sky dappled with little clouds, and the green gauze veiling the branches of the trees beyond the enclave wall. When she turned to him again he saw her face in full, clear light, and saw as in a dual vision both her imperishable beauty and the dust time had cast upon it, the taut lines of her long throat fallen slack, the grey of ashes in her coiled black hair, the lines that had gathered about mouth and eyes, the net of fine veins marring cheeks which had once been smooth ivory. And she was strong, she would not lightly relinquish her hold of the world and go gently out of it. She would live long, and rage against the relentless assault of old age until death at once defeated and released her. By her very nature Adelais’s penance was assured.

  “No!” she said with abrupt, imperious authority, as though he had advanced some suggestion with which she was in absolute disagreement. “No, I want no advocate, there shall no man rid me of any part of what is mine. What now needs to be told, I will tell. No other! Whether it ever would have been told, if you had never come near me—you with your hand forever at Haluin’s elbow, and your temperate eyes that I could never read—do I know? Do you? That is of no account now. What is left to be done, I will do.”

  “Command me to go,” said Cadfael, “and I will go. You do not need me.”

  “Not as advocate, no. As witness, perhaps! Why should you be cheated of the ending? Yes!” she said, glittering, “you shall ride with me, and see it ended. I owe you a fulfillment as I owe God a death.”

  *

  He rode with her, as she had decreed. Why not? He had to return to Farewell, and by way of Vivers was as good a road as any. And once she had resolved upon action there could be no delay and no denial.

  She rode astride, booted and spurred like a man, she who in the common progressions of her recent years had been content to go decorously pillion behind a groom, as was fitting for a dame of her age and dignity. She rode with the lordly confidence of a man, erect and easy in the saddle, her bridle hand held low. And she rode fast but steadily, advancing upon her losses as vigorously as upon her gains.

  Cadfael, riding at her side, could not but wonder whether she still felt tempted to hold back some part of the truth, to cover herself from the last betrayal. But the smoldering calm of her face spoke against it. There was no evasion, no appeal, no excuse. What she had done she had done, and would as starkly declare. And if she repented of it, only God would ever know.

  Chapter 13

  THEY RODE IN at the Gate of Vivers an hour after noon. The gate stood open, and the turmoil within had subsided, there was no more than the normal to-and-froing in the court. Evidently the abbess’s messenger had been received and believed, and whether gladly or reluctantly, Cenred had fallen in with Helisende’s wish to be let alone for a while in her sanctuary. With one search abandoned, Audemar’s men would be free to pursue a murderer. One they would never find! In the night and the snow, who could have been abroad to witness that knife stroke in the woods, and put a name or a face to the slayer? Even if there had been a witness, who in these parts, apart from Audemar’s own household, would recognise a groom from distant Hales?

  Cenred’s steward was crossing the court when Adelais reined in, and he came in haste, recognising the mother of his lord’s overlord, to help her down, but she was out of the saddle before he could reach her. She let down her kilted skirts, and looked about her for any of her son’s people. Cadfael had seen for himself that the hunters had not returned to Elford, nor were they in evidence here. For a moment she frowned, impatient at the prospect of having to wait and contain still all that she had to say. Once resolved, it displeased her to be balked. She looked beyond the steward’s deep reverence towards the hall.

  “Is your lord within?”

  “He is, madam. Will you be pleased to enter?”

  “And my son?”

  “He, too, my lady. He came back only some minutes since. His men are still out with ours, questioning in every house for miles around.”

  “Waste of time!” she said, rather to herself than to him, and shut her lips grimly on the reason. “Well, so much the better! They are both here. No, you need not tell them I have come. That I’ll do for myself. As for Brother Cadfael, this time he comes in attendance on me, not as a guest.”

  Doubtful if the steward had even cast a glance at the second rider until this moment, but he did so now, speculating, Cadfael supposed, what had brought one Benedictine visitor back so soon, and in particular without his companion. But there was no time for inquiry. Adelais had set off vigorously towards the steps that led up to the hall, and Cadfael followed dutifully, as if he were indeed her domestic chaplain, leaving the steward staring after them in doubt and wonder.

  In the hall the midday meal was past, and the servants busy clearing away the dishes and stacking the tables aside. Adelais walked through them without a word or a glance, straight to the curtained door of the inner chamber. A murmur of voices, dulled by the hangings, came from within, Cenred’s deep tones distinguishable beneath the lighter, younger voice of Jean de Perronet. The suitor had not withdrawn, but intended to wait out his time doggedly if not patiently. Just as well, Cadfael reflected. He had a right to know how formidable an obstacle was now placed in his way. Fair is fair. De Perronet dishonorable, fair dealing was his due.

  Adelais swept the curtain aside and flung open the door. They were all there, in muted conference over a situation which left them frustrated and helpless, trapped in inaction, since even the gesture of sending out men to try and trace Edgytha’s murderer was by this time foredoomed to be fruitless. Had any man in the region known anything, it would have been told already. And if Audemar ever thought to number over his mother’s household servants, and level a suspicious finger at the missing, she would stand immovably between him and them. Wherever Lothair and Luc might now be, however confounded and chastened by her revulsion from what they had mistakenly done for her, she would not let the price be charged against them which she held to be her debt.

  At the sound of the door opening they had all turned their heads sharply to see who came in, for her entrance was too abrupt and confident by far for any of the servants. Her gaze swept round the circle of surprised faces, Audemar and Cenred at the table with wine before them, Emma apart at her embroidery frame, but paying no attention to the work, rather waiting with strung nerves for events to unfold in some more comfortable form, and life to return to its level course. And the stranger—Cadfael saw that Adelais could never before have set eyes on Jean de Perronet. On him her glance halted, considering and identifying the bridegroom. Very faintly and briefly her long lips contorted in a dour smile, before her eyes passed to Roscelin.

  The boy sat withdrawn into a corner where he could hold all the assembled company in his eye, as if he contemplated imminent battle, and sat prepared and armed, stiff and erect on the bench against the tapestried wall, head reared and lips tightly set. He had accepted, it seemed, however much against his will, Helisende’s wish to be left in peace at Farewell, but he had not forgiven any of these conspirators who had planned to match her in secret, and cheat h
im of even the perverse hope he had to sustain him. His grievance against his parents extended by contagion to de Perronet, even to Audemar de Clary, to whose house he had been banished to remove the obstacle to their plans. How could he be sure Audemar had not been a party to more than that banishment? A face by nature open, good-humored, and bright now stared upon them all closed, suspicious and inimical. Adelais looked at him longer than at any. Another youth too comely for his own good, attracting unfortunate love as the flower draws the bee.

  The moment of blank surprise was over. Cenred was on his feet in hospitable haste, advancing with hand outstretched to take the visitor by the hand, and lead her to a seat at the table.

  “Madam, welcome to my house! You do me honor!”

  And Audemar, less pleased, half frowning: “Madam, what brings you here? And unattended!” It suited him better that a mother of so formidable a character should exile herself to the distant manor of Hales, and keep her own court there. Seeing them thus face-to-face, Cadfael found a strong likeness between the two. Doubtless there was affection between them, but once the son was grown it would be hard for these two to live together in one household. “There was no need,” said Audemar, “for you to ride over here, there is nothing you can do that is not already being done.”

  Adelais had let Cenred’s attentive hand persuade her into the center of the room, but there she resisted further movement and stood to be seen clearly and alone, with an authoritative gesture freeing her hand.

  “Yes,” she said, “there is need,” and again cast a long glance round all the watching faces. “And I am not unattended. Brother Cadfael is my escort. He comes from the abbey of Farewell, and will be returning there when he leaves us.” She looked from one young man to the other, from the favored bridegroom to the frustrated lover, both of them eyeing her warily, conscious of impending revelations, but unable to hazard at what might be coming.

  “I am glad,” said Adelais, “to find you all assembled thus. I have that to say that I will say only once.”

  It could never have been a problem for her, thought Cadfael, watching, to hold the attention of everyone about her, wherever she went. In every room she entered she was at once the focal point, the dominant in every company. Now they were silent every one, waiting on her word.

  “As I have heard, Cenred,” she said, “you intended, two days ago, to marry your sister—your half sister, I should say—to this young gentleman. For reason enough, the church and the world would agree, seeing she had become all too dear to your son Roscelin, and he to her, and a marriage that would take her far away removed also the shadow of such an unholy attachment from your house and from your heir. Pardon me if I use too plain words, it’s late for any others. No blame to you, knowing only what you knew.”

  “What more was there to know?” said Cenred, bewildered. “Plain words will do very well. They are close blood kin, as you know well! Would not you have taken the same measures to ward off such an evil from your grandchild, as I intended from my sister? She is as close a charge to me as my own son, and as dear. She is your grandchild. I well remember my father’s second marriage. I recall the day you brought the bride here, and my father’s pride in the child she bore him. Since he is long gone, I owe Helisende a father’s care no less than a brother’s. Certainly I sought to protect both her and my son. I still desire the same. This is but a check on the way. Messire de Perronet has not withdrawn his suit, nor I my sanction.”

  Audemar had risen from his place, and stood eyeing his mother with close-drawn brows and an unrevealing face. “What more is there to know?” he said levelly, and for all his voice was equable and low, there was doubt and displeasure in it, and a woman of less implacable will might have found it menacing. She stared back at him eye-to-eye, and was unmoved.

  “This! That you trouble needless. There is no barrier, Cenred, between your son and Helisende but the barrier you have conjured up. There is no peril of incest if they were wedded and bedded this very night. Helisende is not your sister, Cenred, she is not your father’s daughter. There is no drop of Vivers blood in her veins.”

  “But this is foolishness!” protested Cenred, shaking his head over so incredible a claim. “All this household has known the child from birth. What you say is impossible. Why bring forth such a story when all my people can bear witness she was born to my father’s lawful wife, in their marriage bed, here in my house.”

  “And conceived in mine,” said Adelais. “I can’t wonder if none of you thought to count the days, I had lost no time. My daughter was already with child when I brought her here to her marriage.”

  Then they were all on their feet, all but Emma, shrinking appalled behind her embroidery frame, shaken by the outcries of anger and disbelief that clashed about her like contrary winds. Cenred was stricken breathless, but de Perronet was clamoring that this was false, and the lady out of her wits, and Roscelin had sprung to confront him, glittering, half incoherent, swinging about from his rival to Adelais, pleading, demanding, that what she said be truth. Until Audemar pounded the table thunderously with his fist, and raised an imperious voice over all to demand silence. And throughout, Adelais stood erect and unmoving as stone, and let the outcries whirl about her unacknowledged.

  And then there was silence, no more exclaiming, not a sound, hardly a breath, while they stared upon her intently and long, as if the truth or falsity of what she said might be read in her face if a man held still and unblinking long enough.

  “Do you fully know, madam, what you are saying?” asked Audemar, his voice now measured and low.

  “Excellently well, my son! I know what I am saying, I know it is truth. I know what I have done, I know it was foully done. It needs none of you to say it, I say it. But I did it, and neither you nor I can undo it. Yes, I deceived the lord Edric, yes, I compelled my daughter, yes, I planted a bastard child in this house. Or, if you choose, I took measures to protect my daughter’s good name and estate and ensure her honorable status, as Cenred wills to do for a sister. Did Edric ever regret his bargain? I think not. Did he get joy out of his supposed child? Surely he did. All these years I have let well or ill alone, but now God has disposed otherwise, and I am not sorry.”

  “If this is truth,” said Cenred, drawing deep breath, “Edgytha knew of it. She came here with Bertrade, if you are telling truth now, so late, then she must have known.”

  “She did know,” said Adelais. “And sorry the day I refused her when she begged me to tell the truth earlier, and sorrier still this day when she cannot stand here and bear me witness. But here is one who can. Brother Cadfael is come from the abbey of Farewell, where Helisende now is, and her mother is there with her. And by strange chance,” she said, “so is her father. There is nowhere now to hide from the truth, I declare it in my own despite.”

  “You have hidden from it long enough, madam, it seems,” said Audemar grimly.

  “So I have, and make no virtue of revealing it now, when it is already out of its grave.”

  There was a brief, profound silence before Cenred asked slowly, “You say he is there now—her father? There at Farewell with them both?”

  “From me,” she said, “it can only be hearsay. Brother Cadfael will answer you.”

  “I have seen them there, all three,” said Cadfael. “It is truth.”

  “Then who is he?” demanded Audemar. “Who is her father?”

  Adelais took up her story, never lowering her eyes. “He was once a young clerk in my household, of good birth, only a year older than my daughter. He desired to be accepted as a suitor for her hand. I refused him. They took measures to force my hand. No, perhaps I do them both wrong. What they did may not have been calculated, but done in desperation, for she was as lost in love as he. I dismissed him from my service, and brought her away here in haste, to a match the lord Edric had mooted a year or more earlier. And I lied, telling the lover that she was dead. Very blackly I lied to him, saying both Bertrade and her child had died, when we tried to
rid her of her burden. He never knew until now that he had a daughter.”

  “Then how comes it,” demanded Cenred, “that he has found her out now, and in so unlikely a place? This whole wild story comes so strangely, thus out of nowhere, I cannot believe in it.”

  “You had better come to terms with it,” she said, “for neither you nor I can escape the truth or amend it. He has found her by the merciful dispensation of God. What more do you need?”

  Cenred swung upon Cadfael in irritated appeal. “Brother, as you have been my guest in this house, tell what you know of this matter. After so many years, is this indeed a true tale? And how came these three to meet again now, at the end of all?”

  “It is a true tale,” said Cadfael. “And truly they have met, by now they will have talked together. He has found them both because, believing his love dead, and having touched hands with his own death a few months ago, and been spared, he turned his thoughts to mortality, and determined at least, since he could never see her again in this world, to make a pilgrimage to her grave and pray for her peace in the next. And not finding her at Hales, where he supposed she must be, he came here, my lord, to your manor of Elford, where those of your line are buried. Now, on the way home again, by the grace of God we asked lodging last night at the abbey of Farewell. There the lady who was your sister is presently serving as instructress to the novices of the bishop’s new foundation. And there Helisende fled for sanctuary from too painful stresses. So they are all under one roof at last.”

  After a moment of silence Audemar said softly, “We asked lodging last night at the abbey of Farewell—you have said almost enough, yet add one thing more—name him!”

  “He entered the cloister long ago. He is a brother with me in the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, at Shrewsbury. You have seen him, my lord, that same brother who came to Elford with me, on crutches every step of the way. Monk and priest, the same, my lord Cenred, whom you asked to marry Helisende to the man you had chosen for her. His name is Haluin.”