Brother Cadfael 15: The Confession of Brother Haluin

table thunderously with his fist, and raised an imperious voice over all to demand silence. And throughout, Adelais stood erect and unmoving as stone, and let the outcries whirl about her unacknowledged.
    And then there was silence, no more exclaiming, not a sound, hardly a breath, while they stared upon her intently and long, as if the truth or falsity of what she said might be read in her face if a man held still and unblinking long enough.
    "Do you fully know, madam, what you are saying?" asked Audemar, his voice now measured and low.
    "Excellently well, my son! I know what I am saying, I know it is truth. I know what I have done, I know it was foully done. It needs none of you to say it, I say it. But I did it, and neither you nor I can undo it. Yes, I deceived the lord Edric, yes, I compelled my daughter, yes, I planted a bastard child in this house. Or, if you choose, I took measures to protect my daughter's good name and estate and ensure her honourable status, as Cenred wills to do for a sister. Did Edric ever regret his bargain? I think not. Did he get joy out of his supposed child? Surely he did. All these years I have let well or ill alone, but now God has disposed otherwise, and I am not sorry."
    "If this is truth," said Cenred, drawing deep breath, "Edgytha knew of it. She came here with Bertrade, if you are telling truth now, so late, then she must have known."
    "She did know," said Adelais. "And sorry the day I refused her when she begged me to tell the truth earlier, and sorrier still this day when she cannot stand here and bear me witness. But here is one who can. Brother Cadfael is come from the abbey of Farewell, where Helisende now is, and her mother is there with her. And by strange chance," she said, "so is her father. There is nowhere now to hide from the truth, I declare it in my own despite."
    "You have hidden from it long enough, madam, it seems," said Audemar grimly.
    "So I have, and make no virtue of revealing it now, when it is already out of its grave."
    There was a brief, profound silence before Cenred asked slowly, "You say he is there now - her father? There at Farewell with them both?"
    "From me," she said, "it can only be hearsay. Brother Cadfael will answer you."
    "I have seen them there, all three," said Cadfael. "It is truth."
    "Then who is he?" demanded Audemar. "Who is her father?"
    Adelais took up her story, never lowering her eyes. "He was once a young clerk in my household, of good birth, only a year older than my daughter. He desired to be accepted as a suitor for her hand. I refused him. They took measures to force my hand. No, perhaps I do them both wrong. What they did may not have been calculated, but done in desperation, for she was as lost in love as he. I dismissed him from my service, and brought her away here in haste, to a match the lord Edric had mooted a year or more earlier. And I lied, telling the lover that she was dead. Very blackly I lied to him, saying both Bertrade and her child had died, when we tried to rid her of her burden. He never knew until now that he had a daughter."
    "Then how comes it," demanded Cenred, "that he has found her out now, and in so unlikely a place? This whole wild story comes so strangely, thus out of nowhere, I cannot believe in it."
    "You had better come to terms with it," she said, "for neither you nor I can escape the truth or amend it. He has found her by the merciful dispensation of God. What more do you need?"
    Cenred swung upon Cadfael in irritated appeal. "Brother, as you have been my guest in this house, tell what you know of this matter. After so many years, is this indeed a true tale? And how came these three to meet again now, at the end of all?"
    "It is a true tale," said Cadfael. "And truly they have met, by now they will have talked together. He has found them both because, believing his love dead, and having touched hands with his own death a few months ago, and been spared, he turned his thoughts to mortality, and determined at least, since he could never see her again in this world, to make a pilgrimage to her grave and pray for her peace in the next. And not finding her at Hales, where he supposed she must be, he came here, my lord, to your manor of Elford, where those of your line are buried. Now, on the way home again, by the grace of God we asked lodging last night at the abbey of Farewell. There the lady who was your sister is presently serving as instructress to the novices of the bishop's new foundation.