Brother Cadfael 15: The Confession of Brother Haluin

hostess was gone.
    Edgytha was close-lipped, possessively protective of her family and all that was theirs, to the point of rendering every such inquiry suspect, but after a moment's hesitation she answered civilly enough: "They have a son, a grown son." And she added, unexpectedly reconsidering her reluctance to satisfy such uncalled-for curiosity: "He's away, in service with my lord Cenred's overlord."
    There was a curious undertone of reserve, even of disapproval, in her voice, though she would never have acknowledged it. It almost distracted Cadfael's mind from his own preoccupation, but he pursued delicately:
    "And no daughter? There was a young girl looked into the hall for a moment, while we were waiting. Is she not a child of the house?"
    She gave him a long, steady, searching look, with raised brows and tight lips, plainly disapproving of such interest in young women, coming from a monastic. But guests in the house must be treated with unfailing courtesy, even when they fall short of deserving it.
    "That lady is the lord Cenred's sister," she said. "The old lord Edric, his father, married a second time in his later years. More like a daughter to him than a sister, with the difference in years. I doubt you'll see her again. She would not wish to disturb the retirement of men of your habit. She has been well brought up," concluded Edgytha with evident personal pride in the product of her own devotion, and a plain warning that black monks cast by chance into the household should keep their eyes lowered in a young virgin's presence.
    "If you had her in charge," said Cadfael amiably, "I make no doubt she does credit to her upbringing. Had you Cenred's boy in your care too?"
    "My lady would not have dreamed of trusting her chick to any other." The old woman had warmed into fond fervour in thinking of the children she had nursed. "No one ever had the care of better babes," she said, "and I love them both like my own."
    When she was gone Haluin lay silent for a while, but his eyes were open and clear, and the lines of his face alert and aware.
    "Was there indeed a girl who came in?" he said at last, frowning in the effort to recall a moment which had become hazy and uncertain in his mind. "I have been lying here trying to recall why I so started up. I remember the crutches dropping away from under me, but very little besides. Coming into the warmth made my head go round."
    "Yes," said Cadfael, "there was a girl. Half sister, it seems, to Cenred, but younger by some twenty years. If you were thinking you dreamed her, no, she was no dream. She came into the hall from the solar, all unaware of us, and perhaps not liking the look of us, she drew back again in haste and closed the door between. Do you not remember that?"
    No, he did not remember it, or only as an unconnected snatch of vision comes back out of a dream, and is gone again as soon as glimpsed. He frowned after it anxiously, and shook his head as if to clear eyes misted by weariness. "No... there's nothing clear to me. I do recall the door opening, I take your word for it she came in... but I can recall nothing, no face... Tomorrow, perhaps."
    "We shall see no more of her," said Cadfael, "if that devoted dragon of hers has any say in the matter. I think she has no very high opinion of monks, Mistress Edgytha. Well, are you minded for sleep? Shall I put out the lamp?"
    But if Haluin had no clear recollection of the daughter of the house, no image left from that brief glimpse of her, first a dark outline against candlelight, then lit from before by the ruddy glow of the torch, Cadfael had a very clear image, one that grew even clearer when the lamp was quenched and he lay in the dark beside his sleeping companion. And beyond the remembrance he had a strange, disquieting sense that it bore for him a special significance, if he could but put his finger on it. Why that should be so was a mystery to him. Wakeful in the dark, he called up the features of her face, the motion of her body as she stepped into the light, and could find nothing there that should have been meaningful to him, no likeness to any woman he had ever seen before, except as all women are sisters. Yet the sense of some elusive familiarity about her persisted.
    A tall girl, though perhaps not so tall as she gave the impression of being, for her slenderness contributed to the image, but above the middle height for a girl just becoming woman. Her bearing was erect and graceful, but still with the