Brother Cadfael 15: The Confession of Brother Haluin

his crutches, braced and careful at every tread. In the courtyard they threaded the bustle of preparation, and drew near to the gate. Cenred took his eyes from them with relief at being rid of one complication, and turned his face doggedly if wearily upon those remaining.
    Roscelin, chafing at delay, stood bridle in hand at the gate, shifting restlessly from foot to foot, and peering impatiently back for his father or Audemar to give the word to mount. He gave the two monks a preoccupied glance as they drew near, and then, warming, bade them a good-morning, and even smiled through the grey, distorting mask of his own anxiety.
    "You're away for Shrewsbury? It's a good step. I hope you'll have easy traveling."
    "And you a blessed end to your search," said Cadfael.
    "Blessed for me?" said the boy, again clouding over. "I don't look for it."
    "If you find her safe and well, and no man's wife until she so pleases, that's a fair measure of blessing. I doubt if you may ask for more. Not yet," said Cadfael cautiously. "Take the day's measure of good, and be thankful, and who knows but more may be added?"
    "You talk of impossibilities," said Roscelin implacably, "But you mean me well, and I take it as you mean it."
    "Where will you ride first, to look for Helisende?" asked Brother Haluin.
    "Some of us back to Elford, to make sure she has not slipped between us and made her way there, after all. And to every manor around, for any word of her, or of Edgytha. She cannot have gone far." He had truly grieved and been angry for Edgytha, but the "she" that drove all others from his mind was Helisende.
    They left him chafing and agonizing, more restless than the horse that shifted and stamped to be off. When they looked back from outside the gate his foot was already in the stirrup, and behind him the rest of the hunters were gathering the reins and mounting. Back to Elford first, in case Helisende had slipped through their fingers, eluding the riders on both tracks, and come safe to shelter. Cadfael and Haluin must go in the opposite direction, towards the west. They had turned some way north from the highroad to reach the lights of the manor. They did not return that way, but turned due west at once, on a trodden path that skirted the manor fence. From the limit of the enclave they heard Audemar's hunters ride forth, and turned to watch them stream out from the gate and lengthen out into a long, many-coloured thread, dwindling into the east and vanishing among the trees of the first belt of woodland.
    "And is that the end of it?" wondered Haluin, suddenly grieved. "And we shall never know what comes of it all! Poor lad, and his own case beyond hope. All his comfort in this world must be to see her happy, if that will ever be possible without him. I know," said Brother Haluin, in compassion untainted by any lingering self-pity, "what they suffer."
    But it seemed that it was indeed over for them, and there was no sense in looking back. They set their faces towards the west, and went forward steadily on this untested path, with the rising sun behind them, casting their elongated shadows along the moist grass.
    "By this way," said Cadfael, taking his bearings thoughtfully when they halted to eat their midday bread and cheese and strip of salt bacon in the lee of a bushy bank, "I think we shall miss Lichfield. I judge we're already passing to the north of it. No matter, we shall find a bed somewhere before nightfall."
    Meantime, the day was clear and dry, and the country through which they made their way was pleasant, but sparsely populated, and afforded them fewer human encounters than they had met with on the direct highway through Lichfield. Having had so little sleep they made no haste, but went steadily, and took whatever rests offered along the way, wherever a solitary assart provided the hospitality of a bench by the hearth, and a few minutes of neighbourly gossip in passing.
    A light wind sprang up with the approach of evening, warning them it was time to look for a night's shelter. They were in country still wasted from harsh usage fifty years past. The people of these parts had not taken kindly to the coming of the Normans, and had paid the price for their obduracy. There were the relics of deserted holdings to be seen here and there, collapsing into grass and brambles, and the ruins of a mill rotting gently into its own overgrown stream. Hamlets were few and far between. Cadfael began to scan the landscape round for any sign