Brother Cadfael 15: The Confession of Brother Haluin

room when she rose abruptly to her feet, stiff as a lance. Over their heads she spoke first to the waiting-woman, who had made to follow them in.
    "Leave us!" said Adelais de Clary, And to Haluin, as the leather curtain swung heavily into place between solar and hall: "What is this? What have they done to you?"
    Chapter Four
    She must, Cadfael reckoned, growing used to the play of light and shadow within the room, be within ten years of his own age, but she looked younger. The dark hair that was coiled in heavy braids on either side of her head was barely touched with grey, and the imperious, fine bones of her face had kept their imperishable elegance, though the flesh that covered them was a little shrunken and sapless now, and her body had grown angular and lean as the juices of youth dried up. Her hands, though shapely still, betrayed her with swollen knuckles and seamed veins, and there was a languor upon her pale skin at throat and wrist where once the rounded gloss of youth had been. But for all that, in the oval face, the long, resolute lips, and large eyes in their deep settings Cadfael saw the ashes of great beauty. No, not ashes, embers, still alive and as hot at least as the coals burning in the heart of the brazier.
    "Come nearer!" she said. And when Haluin stood before her with the light upon his face, pale and cold light from the window, flushed from the fire: "It is you!" she said. "I wondered. How have you come to this?"
    Her voice was low-pitched, full and authoritative, but the first implication of dismay and concern was gone. She looked at him neither compassionately nor coldly, but with a kind of detached indifference, a curiosity of no deep root.
    "This is no man's blame but mine," said Haluin. "Don't regard it! I have what I earned. I came by a great fall, but by the grace of God I am alive, who by this time had thought to be dead. And as I have eased my soul to God and my confessor for old sins, so I come to beg forgiveness of you."
    "Was that needful?" she said, marvelling. "After so many years, and all this way?"
    "Yes, it was needful. I do greatly need to hear you say that you forgive me the wrong I did, and the grief I brought upon you. There can be no rest for me now until the leaf is washed clear of every last stain."
    "And you have told over all the old writing," said Adelais with some bitterness, "all that was secret and shameful, have you? To your confessor? And how many more? This good brother who bears you company? The whole household at chapter? Could you not bear to be still a sinner unshriven, rather than betray my daughter's name to the world, and she so long in her grave? I would have gone sinful into purgatory rather!"
    "And so would I!" cried Haluin, wrung. "But no, it is not so. Brother Cadfael bears me company because he is the only one who knows, excepting only Abbot Radulfus, who heard my confession. No other will ever know from us. Brother Cadfael was also grossly wronged in what I did, he had a right to give or withhold forgiveness. It was from his store and after his teaching that I stole those medicines I gave to you."
    She turned her gaze upon Cadfael in a long, steady stare, and her face, for once seen clearly, was intent and still. "Well," she said, again turning away into indifference, "it was very long ago. Who would remember now? And I am not dying yet. What do I know! I shall need a priest myself someday, I could better have answered you then. Well, to put an end to it... Have what you ask! I do forgive you. I would not add to what you suffer. Go back in peace to your cloister. I forgive you as I hope for forgiveness."
    It was said without passion; the brief spurt of anger was already gone. It cost her no effort to absolve him; she did it as neutrally, it seemed, and with as little feeling as she would have handed out food to a beggar. Of gentlewomen of her nobility alms could properly be asked, and granting was a form of largesse, the due fulfilment of a rite of lordship. But what she gave lightly came as relieving grace to Haluin. The braced tension went out of his leaning shoulders and stiffly clenched hands. He bent his head humbly before her, and uttered his thanks in a low and halting voice, like a man momentarily dazed.
    "Madam, your mercy lifts a load from me, and from my heart I am grateful."
    "Go back to the life you have chosen and the duties you have undertaken," she said, again seating herself, though she did not yet reach for her needle. "Think no