But that Haluin would not do, so much was already clear to Brother Cadfael. Not while there was still an hour or more of daylight left at the windows, and he had still the strength to go a mile further. He excused himself with slightly guilty thanks, and took a restrained leave of the good man, who watched them in wondering speculation until they had climbed the steps to the porch, and closed the door after them.
“No!” said Cadfael firmly, as soon as they were clear of the churchyard, and passing along the track between the village houses to reach the highroad. “That you cannot do!”
“I can, I must!” Brother Haluin responded with no less determination. “Why should I not?”
“Because, in the first place, you do not know how far it is to Etford. As far again as we have come, and half as far after that. And you know very well how hard you have pushed yourself already. And in the second place, because you were given leave to attempt this journey in the belief that it would end here, and we two return from here. And so we should. No, never shake your head at me, you know very well Father Abbot never envisaged more than that, and would never have given you leave for more. We should turn back here.”
“How can I?” Haluin’s voice was implacably reasonable, even tranquil. His way was perfectly clear to him, and he was patient with dissent. “If I turn back, I am forsworn. I have not yet done what I vowed to do, I should go back self-condemned and contemptible. Father Abbot would not wish that, however little either he or I expected so long a penance. He gave me leave until I had accomplished what I swore to do. If he were here to be asked, he would tell me to go on. I said I would not rest until I had gone on foot to the tomb where Bertrade lies buried, and there passed a night in prayer and vigil, and that I have not done.”
“Through no fault of yours,” said Cadfael strenuously.
“Does that excuse me? It is a just judgment on me that I must go double the way. If I fail of this, I said, may I live forsworn and die unforgiven! On the blessed relics of Saint Winifred, who has been so good to us all, I swore it. How can I turn back? I would rather die on the road, at least still faithfully trying to redeem my vow, than abandon my faith and honor, and go back shamed.”
And who was that speaking, Cadfael wondered, the dutiful monk, or the son of a good Norman house, from a line at least as old as King William’s when he came reaching for the crown of England, and without the irregularity of bastardy, at that. No doubt but pride is a sin, and unbecoming a Benedictine brother, but not so easily shed with the spurs and title of nobility.
Haluin, too, had caught the fleeting implication of arrogance, and flushed at the recognition, but would not draw back from it. He halted abruptly, swaying on his crutches, and detached a hand in haste to take Cadfael by the wrist. “Don’t chide me! Well I know you could, and your face shows me I deserve it, but spare to condemn. I can do no other. Oh, Cadfael, I do know every argument you could justly use against me. I have thought of them, I think of them still, but still I am bound. Bound by vows I will not, dare not break. Though my abbot judge me rebellious and disobedient, though my abbey cast me out, that I must bear. But to take back what I have pledged to Bertrade. that I will not bear.”
The flush of blood mantling in his pale cheeks became him, warmed away the faded look of emaciation from illness, and even stripped some years from him. In stillness he stood upright, stretching his bent back upward between the braced crutches. No persuasion was going to move him. As well accept it.
“But you, Cadfael,” he said, gripping the wrist he held, “you have made no such vow, you are not bound. No need for you to go further, you have done all that was expected of you. Go back now, and speak for me to the lord abbot.”
“Son,” said Cadfael, between sympathy and exasperation, “I am fettered as fast as you, and you should know it. My orders are to go with you in case you founder, and to take care of you if you do. You are on your own business, I am on the abbot’s. If I cannot take you back with me I cannot go back.”
“But your work,” protested Haluin, dismayed but unwavering. “Mine can well wait, but you’ll be missed. How will they manage without you for so long?”
“As best they can. There’s no man living who cannot be done without,” said Cadfael sturdily, “and just as well, since there’s a term to life for every man. No, say no more. If your mind’s made up, so is mine. Where you go, I go. And since we have barely an hour of daylight left to us, and I fancy you have no wish to seek a bed here in Hales, we had better move gently on, and look for a shelter along the way.”
Adelais de Clary rose in the morning and went to Mass, as was her regular habit. She was meticulous in her religious observances and in almsgiving, keeping up the old custom of her husband’s household. And if her charity seemed sometimes a little cold and distant, at least it was constant and reliable. Whenever the parish priest had a special case in need of relief, he brought it to her for remedy.
He walked with her to the gate after the office, dutiful in attendance. “I had two Benedictines come visiting yesterday, ” he said as she was drawing her cloak about her against a freshening March wind. “Two brothers from Shrewsbury.”
“Indeed!” said Adelais. “What did they want with you?”
“The one of them was crippled, and went on crutches. He said he was once in your service, before he took the cowl. He remembered Father Wulfnoth. I thought they would have come to pay their respects to you. Did they not?”
She did not answer that, but only observed idly, gazing into distance as though only half her mind was on what was said, “I remember, I did have a clerk once who entered the monastery at Shrewsbury. What was his business here at the church?”
“He said he had been spared by death, and was about making up all his accounts, to be better prepared. I found them beside the tomb of your lord’s father. They were in some error that a woman of your house was buried there, eighteen years ago. The lame one had it in mind to spend a night’s vigil there in prayers for her.”
“A strange mistake,” said Adelais with the same tolerant disinterest. “No doubt you undeceived him?”
“I told him it was not so. I was not here then, of course, but I knew from Father Wulfnoth that the tomb had not been opened for many years, and what the young brother supposed could not be true. I told him that all of your house now are buried at Elford, where the head of the manor lies.”
“A long, hard journey that would be, for a lame man afoot,” said Adelais with easy sympathy. “I hope he did not intend to continue his travels so far?”
“I think, madam, he did. For they declined to rest and eat with me, and sleep the night over, but set off again at once. ‘There I shall find her,’ the young one said. Yes, I am sure they will have turned eastward when they reached the highroad. A long, hard journey, indeed, but his will was good to perform it.”
His relationship with his patroness was a comfortable and easy one, and he did not hesitate to ask directly, “Will he indeed find the gentlewoman he’s seeking at Elford?”
“He well may,” said Adelais, pacing evenly and serenely beside him. “Eighteen years is a long time, and I cannot enter into his mind. I was younger then, I kept a bigger household. There were cousins, some left without fortune. My lord kept a father’s hand on all of his blood. In his absence and as his regent, so did I.”
They had reached the churchyard gate, and halted there. The morning was soft and green, but very still, and the cloud cover hung heavy and low.
“There will be more snow yet,” said the priest, “if it does not turn to rain.” And he went on inconsequently: “Eighteen years! It may be that this monk in his time with you was drawn to one of these young cousins, after the way of the young, and her early death was greater grief to him than ever he ventured to let you know.”