Brother Cadfael 15: The Confession of Brother Haluin

error, nor she the first nor the last poor child to suffer for it. At least she has kept her good name. Easy to see why he feared to confide, for her sake, even under the seal of confession. But it is long ago, eighteen years, his age when it befell. Let us at least secure him a peaceful ending."
    It was the general view that a peaceful ending was the best that could be hoped for for Brother Haluin, and that prayers for him ought not to presume to look towards any other outcome, all the more as his brief return to his senses rapidly lapsed again into a deeper unconsciousness, and for seven days, while the festival of the Nativity came and passed, he lay oblivious of the comings and goings of his brethren round his bed, ate nothing, uttered no sound but the hardly perceptible flutter of his breath. Yet that breath, however faint, was steady and even, and as often as drops of honeyed wine were presented to his lips, they were accepted, and the cords of his throat moved of themselves, docilely swallowing, while the broad, chilly brow and closed eyes never by the least quiver or contraction revealed awareness of what his body did.
    "As if only his body is here," said Brother Edmund, soberly pondering, "and his spirit gone elsewhere until the house is again furbished and clean and waiting to be lived in."
    A sound biblical analogy, Cadfael considered, for certainly Haluin had himself cast out the devils that inhabited him, and the dwelling they vacated might well lie empty for a while, all the more if there was to be that unlooked-for and improbable act of healing, after all. For however this prolonged withdrawal might resemble dying, Brother Haluin would not die. Then we had better keep a good watch, thought Cadfael, taking the parable to its fitting close, and make sure seven devils worse than the first never manage to get a foot in the door while he's absent. And prayers for Haluin continued with unremitting fervour throughout the festivities of Christmas and the solemn opening of the new year.
    The thaw was beginning by that time, and even then it was a slow thaw, wearing away each day, by slow degrees, the heavy wastes of snow from the great fall. The work on the roof was finished without further mishap, the scaffolding taken down, and the guest hall once again weatherproof. All that remained of the great upheaval was this still and silent witness in his isolated bed in the infirmary, declining either to live or die.
    Then, in the night of the Epiphany, Brother Haluin opened his eyes and drew a long, slow breath like any other man awaking without alarm, and cast his wondering gaze round the narrow room until it rested upon Brother Cadfael, mute and attentive on the stool beside him.
    "I am thirsty," said Haluin trustingly, like a child, and lay passive on Cadfael's arm to drink.
    They half expected him to sink again into his unconscious state, but he remained languid but aware all that day, and in the night his sleep was natural sleep, shallow but tranquil. After that he turned his face to life, and did not again look over his shoulder. Once risen from the semblance of death he came back to the territory of pain, and its signature was on his drawn brow and set lips, but he bore it without complaint. His broken arm had knitted while he lay ignorant of his injuries, and caused him only the irritating aches of healing wounds, and it seemed both to Cadfael and Edmund, after a day or two of keeping close watch on him, that whatever had been shaken out of place within his head had healed as the outer wound had healed, medicined by stillness and repose. For his mind was clear. He remembered the icy roof, he remembered his fall, and once when he was alone with Cadfael he showed that he recalled very clearly his confession, for he said after a long while of silent thought:
    "I did shamefully by you, long ago, now you tend and medicine me, and I have made no amends."
    "I've asked none," said Cadfael equably, and began with patient care to unfold the wrappings from one maimed foot, to renew the dressings he had been replacing night and morning all this time.
    "But I need to pay all that is due. How else can I be clean?"
    "You have made full confession," said Cadfael reasonably. "You have received absolution from Father Abbot himself, beware of asking more."
    "But I have done no penance. Absolution so cheaply won leaves me still a debtor," said Haluin heavily.
    Cadfael had laid bare the left foot, the worse mangled of the pair.