Brother Cadfael 15: The Confession of Brother Haluin

permit his approach, and even came a few impulsive steps to meet him. For a moment there was no more in it than that, pity for a lame man. Then abruptly everything changed.
    He had been in too much haste to reach them, he stumbled, and swayed out of balance for a moment, on the edge of a fall, and the girl, quick to sympathy, sprang forward to support him in her arms. His weight falling into her embrace swung them both about, to steady and recover almost cheek to cheek, and Cadfael saw the two faces for a long moment side by side, startled, bright, dazzled into wonder.
    So now at last he had his answer. Now he knew everything there was to be known, everything except what fury of bitterness could drive one human creature to do so base and cruel a thing to another. And even that answer would not be far to seek.
    It was at that moment of total enlightenment that Bertrade de Clary, staring earnestly into the stranger's face, knew him for no stranger, and called him by his name:
    "Haluin!"
    There was nothing more, not then, only the meeting of eyes and the mutual recognition, and the understanding, on either part, of past wrongs and agonies never before fully understood, bitter and terrible for a moment, then erased by a great flood of gratitude and joy. For in the moment when the three of them hung mute and still, staring at one another, they all heard the little bell for Prime ringing in the dortoir, and knew that the sisters would be filing down the night stairs to walk in procession into the church.
    So there was nothing more, not then. The women drew back, with lingering glances still wide with wonder, and turned to answer the summons and join their sisters. And Cadfael went forward from the porch to take Brother Haluin by the arm, and lead him gently, like a sleepwalking child, back to the guest hall.
    "She is not dead," said Haluin, rigidly erect on the edge of his bed. Over and over, recording the miracle in a repetition nearer incantation than prayer: "She is not dead! It was false, false, false! She did not die!"
    Cadfael said never a word. It was not yet time to speak of all that lay behind this revelation. For the moment Haluin's shocked mind looked no further than the fact, joy that she should be alive and well and in safe haven whom he had lamented so long as dead, and dead by his grievous fault, the bewilderment and hurt that he should have been left so long mourning her.
    "I must speak with her," said Haluin. "I cannot go without having speech with her."
    "You shall not," Cadfael assured him.
    It was inevitable now, all must come out. They had met, they had beheld each other, no one now could undo that, the sealed coffer was sprung open, the secrets were tumbling out of it, no one now could close the lid upon them ever again.
    "We cannot leave today," said Haluin.
    "We shall not. Wait here in patience," said Cadfael. "I am going to seek an audience with the lady abbess."
    The abbess of Farewell, brought by Bishop de Clinton from Coventry to direct his new foundation, was a dumpy round loaf of a woman, perhaps in her middle forties, with a plump russet face and shrewd brown eyes that weighed and measured in a glance, and were confident of their judgment. She sat uncompromisingly erect on an uncushioned bench in a small and spartan parlour, and closed the book on the desk before her as Cadfael came in.
    "You're very welcome. Brother, to whatever service our house can offer you. Ursula tells me you are from the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, at Shrewsbury. I intended to invite you and your companion to join me for dinner, and I cordially extend that invitation now. But I hear you have asked for this interview, forestalling any move of mine. I take it there is a reason. Sit down, Brother, and tell me what more you have to ask of me."
    Cadfael sat down with her, debating in his mind how much he might tell, or how little. She was a woman quite capable of filling in gaps for herself, but also, he judged, a woman of scrupulous discretion, who would keep to herself whatever she read between the lines.
    "I come, Reverend Mother, to ask you to countenance a meeting, in private, between my brother Haluin and Sister Benedicta."
    He saw her brows raised, but the small bright eyes beneath them remained unperturbed and sharp with intelligence.
    "In youth," he said, "they were well acquainted. He was in her mother's service, and being so close in the one house, and of an age, boy and girl together, they fell into