Brother Cadfael 15: The Confession of Brother Haluin

shouting to others as he came. At the head of the steps the hall door opened on a welcome glimpse of firelight.
    Cadfael brought Haluin stumbling in through the open gate in his arm, and another willing arm took him about the body on the other side, hoisting him vigorously into the comparative shelter within the pale. A voice bellowed heartily through the snowfall: "Brothers, you chose a bad night to be out on the roads. Hold up now, your troubles are over. We never shut the gates on your cloth."
    There were others coming forth by then to bring in the benighted travelers, a young fellow darting out from the undercroft with a sacking hood over head and shoulders, a bearded and gowned elder emerging from the hall and coming halfway down the steps to meet them. Haluin was lifted rather than led up the steep flight and into the hall, where the master of the house came striding out of his solar to meet these unexpected arrivals.
    A fair man, long-boned and sparsely fleshed, with a short trimmed beard the colour of wheat straw, and thick cap of hair of the same shade. Perhaps in his late thirties, Cadfael thought, of a ruddy, open countenance in which the blue Saxon eyes shone almost startlingly bright, candid, and concerned.
    "Come in, come in, Brothers! Well that you've found us! Here, bring him through here, close to the fire." He had taken in at once the Benedictine habits, the flurries of snow lodged in the folds, and shaken off now hissing into the steady fire in the central hearth of the hall, the crippled feet of his younger visitor, the drawn grey exhaustion of his face. "Edgytha, have beds prepared in the end chamber, and tell Edwin to mull more wine."
    His voice was loud, solicitous, and warm. Without seeming haste he had his servants running here and there on his benevolent errands, and himself saw Haluin installed on a bench against the wall, where the warmth of the fire could reach him.
    "This young brother of yours is in very sad case," said the host, aside to Cadfael, "to be traveling the roads so far from home. There are none of your order round here - barring the sisters at Farewell, the bishop's new foundation. From which house do you come?"
    "From Shrewsbury," said Cadfael, setting Haluin's crutches to lean against the bench, where he could reach them at will. Haluin sat back with closed eyes, his grey cheeks slowly gaining a little colour in the warmth and ease.
    "So far? Could not your abbot have sent a hale man on his errands, if he had business in another shire?"
    "This was Haluin's own errand," said Cadfael. "No other could have done it. Now it's done, and we're on our way home, and by stages we shall get there. Always with the help of hospitable souls like you. Can I ask, what is this place? These are parts I hardly know.
    "My name is Cenred Vivers. From this manor I take that name. This brother is called Haluin, you say? And yourself?"
    "Cadfael is my name. Born Welsh, and bred up on the borders with a foot either side. I've been a brother of Shrewsbury now more than twenty years. My business on this journey is simply to keep Haluin company and see that he gets safely to where he's going, and safely back again."
    "No easy matter," agreed Cenred, low-voiced, and eyeing Haluin's deformed feet ruefully, "the state he's in. But if the work's done and only the way home to venture, no doubt you'll do it. How did he come by such injuries?"
    "He fell from a roof. We had repairs to do, in the hard weather before Christmas. It was the slates falling after him that cut his feet to ribbons. Well that we kept him alive."
    They were speaking of him softly, a little aside, though he lay back as eased and still as if he had fallen asleep, his eyes closed, the long dark lashes shadowing his hollow cheeks. The hall had emptied about them, all the bustle of activity withdrawn elsewhere, busy with pillows and brychans and the hospitable business of the kitchen.
    "They're slow with the wine," said Cenred, "and you must both need some warmth inside you. If you'll hold me excused. Brother, I'll go and hasten things in the pantry."
    And he was off, the flurry and wind of his passing causing Haluin's closed eyelids to quiver. In a moment he opened his eyes and looked slowly and dazedly about him, taking in the warm, high-roofed dimness of the hall, the glow of the fire, the heavy hangings that screened two alcoves withdrawn from the public domain, and the half-open door of the solar from which Cenred had emerged. The