Brother Cadfael 15: The Confession of Brother Haluin

have your troubles, too," said Hugh.
    "Who escapes them, in winter? It's the weight of the snow that's shifted the slates, broken some of them, and found a way through to douse the bishop's chaplain in his bed. If we left it till the thaw we'd have a flood, and far worse damage to repair."
    "And your master builder reckons he can make it good, frost or no frost." Hugh had recognized the brawny figure halfway up the long ladder, hefting a hodful of slates surely few of his younger labourers could have lifted. "Bitter work up there, though," said Hugh, eyeing the highest platform of the scaffolding, stacked with a great pile of slates, and the two diminutive figures moving with painful caution on the exposed roof.
    "We take it in short spells, and there's a fire in the warming room when we come down. We elders are excused the service, but most of us take a turn, barring the sick and infirm. It's fair, but I doubt if it pleases Conradin. It irks him having foolhardy youngsters up there, and he'd just as soon work only the ones he's sure of, though I will say he keeps a close watch on them. If he sees any blanch at being up so high, he soon has them on solid earth again. We can't all have the head for it."
    "Have you been up there?" asked Hugh curiously.
    "I did my stint yesterday, before the light began to fail. Short days are no help, but another week should see it finished."
    Hugh narrowed his eyes against a sudden brief lance of sunlight that reflected back dazzlingly from the crystalline whiteness. "Who are those two up there now? Is that Brother Urien? The dark fellow? Who's the other one?"
    "Brother Haluin." The thin, alert figure was all but obscured by the jut of the scaffolding, but Cadfael had seen the pair climb the ladders barely an hour earlier.
    "What, Anselm's best illuminator? How comes it you allow such abuse of an artist? He'll ruin his hands in this bitter cold. Small chance of him handling a fine brush for the next week or two, after grappling with slates."
    "Anselm would have begged him off," Cadfael admitted, "but Haluin would have none of it. No one would have grudged him the mercy, seeing how valuable his work is, but if there's a hair shirt anywhere within reach Haluin will claim it and wear it. A lifelong penitent, that lad, God knows for what imagined sins, for I never knew him so much as break a rule, since he entered as a novice, and seeing he was no more than eighteen when he took his first vows, I doubt if he'd had time to do the world much harm up to then. But there are some born to do penance by nature. Maybe they, lift the load for some of us who take it quite comfortably that we're humankind, and not angels. If the overflow from Haluin's penitence and piety washes off a few of my shortcomings, may it redound to him for credit in the accounting. And I shan't complain."
    It was too cold to linger very long in the deep snow, watching the cautious activities on the guest hall roof. They resumed their passage through the gardens, skirting the frozen pools where Brother Simeon had chopped jagged holes to let in air to the fish below, and crossing the mill leat that fed the ponds by the narrow plank bridge glazed over with a thin and treacherous crust of ice. Closer now, the piers of the scaffolding jutted from the south wall of the guest hall across the drainage channel, and the workers on the roof were hidden from sight.
    "I had him with me among the herbs as a novice, long ago," said Cadfael as they threaded the snowy beds of the upper garden and emerged into the great court. "Haluin, I mean. It was not long after I ended my own novitiate. I came in at past forty, and he barely turned eighteen. They sent him to me because he was lettered and had the Latin at his finger ends, and after three or four years I was still learning. He comes of a landed family, and would have inherited a good manor if he hadn't chosen the cloister. A cousin has it now. The boy had been put out to a noble household, as the custom is, and was clerk to his lord's estate, being uncommonly bright at learning and figuring. I often wondered why he changed course, but as every man within here knows, there's no questioning a vocation. It comes when it will, and there's no refusal."
    "It would have been simpler to plant the lad straight into the scriptorium, if he came in with so much learning," said Hugh practically. "I've seen some of his work, he'd be wasted on any other labour."
    "Ah, but his conscience would have him