The Confession of Brother Haluin

Chapter Thirteen

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 recognize a groom from distant Hales?

Cenred’s steward was crossing the court when Adelais reined in, and he came in haste, recognizing 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 had done nothing 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 him 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.”

Now they had all begun dazedly to believe what they could not yet fully grasp in all its implications. With glazed glances they stared within at the slow realization of what this must mean to them. To Roscelin, quivering and glowing like a newly lighted torch, the sudden dizzy lightness and liberty of guilt and grief lifted from him, the very air of the day intoxicating as wine, the world expanded into a vast brightness of hope and joy that dazzled his eyes and muted his tongue. To de Perronet, the stinging challenge of finding himself faced with a formidable rival where he had looked for no conflict, and the instinctive stiffening of his pride and determination to fight for the threatened prize with all his might. To Cenred the overturning of all his family memories, a father made to seem belittled, even senile, by his fond acceptance of such a deception, a sister abruptly withdrawn into a stranger, an interloper without rights in his house. To Emma, silent and fearful in her corner, the grief of an offense against her lord, and the loss of one she had looked upon almost as her own daughter.

“So she is no sister of mine,” said Cenred heavily, rather to himself than to any other, and as quickly repeated it with sudden anger to them all: “She is no sister of mine!”

“None,” said Adelais. “But until now she believed herself so. It is not her fault, never cast blame on her.”

“She is no kin to me. I owe her nothing, neither dowry nor lands. She has no claim on me.” He said it bitterly rather than vengefully, lamenting the abrupt severance of a strong affection.

“None. But she is kin to me,” said Adelais. “Her mother’s dower lands went to Polesworth when she took the veil, but Helisende is my granddaughter and my heiress. The lands I hold in my own right will go to her. She will not be penniless.” She looked at de Perronet as she spoke, and smiled, but wryly. No need to make the lovers’ path too smooth by rendering the girl less profitable, and therefore less attractive in the rival’s eyes.

“Madam, you mistake me.” said Cenred with muted fury. “This house has been her home, she will still think of it as home. Where else is there for her? It is we here who are suddenly cut off, like topped limbs. Her father and mother, both, are in the cloister, and what guidance, what care has she ever had from you? Kin to us or not, she belongs here at Vivers.”

“But nothing prevents now,” cried Roscelin triumphantly. “I may approach her, I may lawfully ask for her, there is no barrier now. We’ve done no wrong, there’s no shadow over us, no ban between us. I’ll go and bring her home. She’ll come, blithely she’ll come! I knew,” he exulted, his blue eyes brilliant with vindicated joy, “I knew we did no wrong in loving, never, never! It was you persuaded me I sinned. Sir, let me go and fetch her home!”

At that de Perronet took fire in his turn, with a hiss like a sulphur match flaring, and took two rapid strides forward to confront the boy. “You leap too soon and too far, my friend! Your rights are no better than mine. I do not withdraw my suit, I urge it, I will pursue it with my might.”

“And so you may,” exulted Roscelin, too drunk with relief and delight to be ungenerous or take easy offense. “I don’t grudge any man his say, but on fair terms now, you and I and any who come, and we shall see what Helisende replies.” But he knew what her reply would be, his very certainty was offense, though it meant none, and de Perronet had his hand on his dagger and hotter words mounting in his throat when Audemar smote the table and bellowed them both into silence.

“Hush your noise! Am I overlord here, or no? The girl is not without kin, for she is niece to me. If there is anyone here who has rights in her and a duty towards her - any who has not farmed out both upon another man long since! - it is I, and I say that if Cenred so wishes, then I place her here in his fosterage, with all the rights he has exercised as her kinsman all these years. And in the matter of her marriage both he and I will take good care what is best for her, but never against her will. But now, let her be! She has asked for time untroubled, and she shall have it. When she is ready to return, I will fetch her home.”

“Content,” said Cenred, breathing deeply. “I am content! I could ask no better.”

“And, Brother... ” Audemar turned to Cadfael. He had the entire issue in his hands now, over all matters here his writ ran, and what he ordained would be done. The least damage was his design, as his mother’s had been the ultimate destruction. “Brother, if you are going back to Farewell, tell them there what I have said. What’s done is done, all that waits to be done shall be in daylight, openly. Roscelin,” he ordered sharply, turning on the boy restless and glittering with the joy of his release, “have the horses readied, we ride for Elford. You are still in my service until I please to dismiss you, and I have not forgotten that you went forth without leave. Let me have no further cause for displeasure.”

But his voice was dry, and neither words nor look cast the least shadow upon Roscelin’s exultant brightness. He bent his knee in the briefest of reverences by way of acknowledging the order, and went blithely to do his lord’s bidding. The wind of his flight swung the curtain at the door, and sent a current of outer air floating across the chamber like a sigh.

Audemar looked last and longest at Adelais, who stood with eyes steady and dark upon his face, waiting his judgment.

“Madam, you will ride back with me to Elford. You have done what you came here to do.”

Nevertheless, it was Cadfael who got to horse first. No one was any longer in need of him here, and whatever natural curiosity he might feel concerning the family adjustments still to be made, and perhaps less easily accomplished than decreed, must be forever contained, since he was unlikely to pass this way again. He reclaimed his horse without haste, and mounted, and was ambling towards the gate when Roscelin broke away from the grooms who were busy saddling Audemar’s horses, and came running to his stirrup.

“Brother Cadfael... “He was lost for a moment for words, since his wonder and happiness were beyond words, and shook his head and laughed over his own incoherence. “Tell her! Tell her we’re free, we need not change, there’s no one can blacken us now... “

“Son,” said Cadfael heartily, “by this she knows it as well as you.”

“And tell her soon, very soon, I shall come for her. Oh, yes, I know,” he said confidently, seeing Cadfael’s raised brows, “but it’s me he’ll send. I know him! He’d rather a kinsman he knows and can rely on, his own man, with lands bordering his own, than any lordling from distant parts. And my father won’t stand between us now. Why should he, when it solves everything? What’s changed, except what needed changing?”

And there was something in that, Cadfael reflected, looking down from the saddle into the young, ardent face. What was changed was the replacement of falsity by truth, and however hard the assimilation might be, it must be for the better. Truth can be costly, but in the end it never falls short of value for the price paid.

“And tell him,” said Roscelin earnestly, “the lame brother... is her father...” His voice hung on the word with, wonder and awe. “Tell him I’m glad, say I owe him more than ever can be repaid. And tell him he need never fret for her happiness, for I’ll give my life to it.”