It took them longer to reach the hamlet than Cadfael had expected, since Haluin was flagging badly, and it was necessary to go very slowly, reaching back constantly to keep him close. Here and there a solitary tree loomed suddenly out of the spinning whiteness on the left hand or the right, only to be veiled again as abruptly. The flakes had grown larger and wetter, the hint of frost was receding, and this fall would not lie beyond the morning. Overhead the clouds were broken and torn in a rising wind, with a scattering of stars showing through.
The spark of torchlight had vanished, hidden behind the manor fence. A solid timber gatepost heaved out of the dark, the tall palisade running away from it on the left hand, the broad open gateway on the right, and suddenly there was the torch again, across a wide courtyard in a sconce jutting from under the eaves, to light the stair that climbed to the hall door. The usual encrustation of service buildings lined the stockade. Cadfael launched a shout ahead of their lurching entrance, and a man came butting his way through the falling snow from a stable door, shouting to others as he came. At the head of the steps the hall door opened on a welcome glimpse of firelight.
Cadfael brought Haluin stumbling in through the open gate in his arm, and another willing arm took him about the body on the other side, hoisting him vigorously into the comparative shelter within the pale. A voice bellowed heartily through the snowfall: “Brothers, you chose a bad night to be out on the roads. Hold up now, your troubles are over. We never shut the gates on your cloth.”
There were others coming forth by then to bring in the benighted travelers, a young fellow darting out from the undercroft with a sacking hood over head and shoulders, a bearded and gowned elder emerging from the hall and coming halfway down the steps to meet them. Haluin was lifted rather than led up the steep flight and into the hall, where the master of the house came striding out of his solar to meet these unexpected arrivals.
A fair man, long-boned and sparsely fleshed, with a short trimmed beard the color of wheat straw, and thick cap of hair of the same shade. Perhaps in his late thirties, Cadfael thought, of a ruddy, open countenance in which the blue Saxon eyes shone almost startlingly bright, candid, and concerned.
“Come in, come in, Brothers! Well that you’ve found us! Here, bring him through here, close to the fire.” He had taken in at once the Benedictine habits, the flurries of snow lodged in the folds, and shaken off now hissing into the steady fire in the central hearth of the hall, the crippled feet of his younger visitor, the drawn grey exhaustion of his face. “Edgytha, have beds prepared in the end chamber, and tell Edwin to mull more wine.”
His voice was loud, solicitous, and warm. Without seeming haste he had his servants running here and there on his benevolent errands, and himself saw Haluin installed on a bench against the wall, where the warmth of the fire could reach him.
“This young brother of yours is in very sad case,” said the host, aside to Cadfael, “to be traveling the roads so far from home. There are none of your order round here-barring the sisters at Farewell, the bishop’s new foundation. From which house do you come?”
“From Shrewsbury,” said Cadfael, setting Haluin’s crutches to lean against the bench, where he could reach them at will. Haluin sat back with closed eyes, his grey cheeks slowly gaining a little color in the warmth and ease.
“So far? Could not your abbot have sent a hale man on his errands, if he had business in another shire?”
“This was Haluin’s own errand,” said Cadfael. “No other could have done it. Now it’s done, and we’re on our way home, and by stages we shall get there. Always with the help of hospitable souls like you. Can I ask, what is this place? These are parts I hardly know.
“My name is Cenred Vivers. From this manor I take that name. This brother is called Haluin, you say? And yourself?”
“Cadfael is my name. Born Welsh, and bred up on the borders with a foot either side. I’ve been a brother of Shrewsbury now more than twenty years. My business on this journey is simply to keep Haluin company and see that he gets safely to where he’s going, and safely back again.”
“No easy matter,” agreed Cenred, low-voiced, and eyeing Haluin’s deformed feet ruefully, “the state he’s in. But if the work’s done and only the way home to venture, no doubt you’ll do it. How did he come by such injuries?”
“He fell from a roof. We had repairs to do, in the hard weather before Christmas. It was the slates falling after him that cut his feet to ribbons. Well that we kept him alive.”
They were speaking of him softly, a little aside, though he lay back as eased and still as if he had fallen asleep, his eyes closed, the long dark lashes shadowing his hollow cheeks. The hall had emptied about them, all the bustle of activity withdrawn elsewhere, busy with pillows and brychans and the hospitable business of the kitchen.
“They’re slow with the wine,” said Cenred, “and you must both need some warmth inside you. If you’ll hold me excused. Brother, I’ll go and hasten things in the pantry.”
And he was off, the flurry and wind of his passing causing Haluin’s closed eyelids to quiver. In a moment he opened his eyes and looked slowly and dazedly about him, taking in the warm, high-roofed dimness of the hall, the glow of the fire, the heavy hangings that screened two alcoves withdrawn from the public domain, and the half-open door of the solar from which Cenred had emerged. The pale, steady gleam of candlelight showed from within.
“Have I dreamed?” wondered Haluin, gazing. “How did we come here? What place is this?”
“Never fear,” said Cadfael. “On your own feet you came here, only an arm to help you up the steps into the house. The manor is called Vivers, and the lord of it is Cenred. We’ve fallen into good hands.”
Haluin drew deep breath. “I am not so strong as I believed I was,” he said sadly.
“No matter, you can rest now. We have left Elford behind.”
They were both speaking in low voices, a little awed by the enfolding silence presiding even in the center of this populous household. When both ceased speaking, the quietness seemed almost expectant. And in the hush the half-open door of the solar opened fully upon the pale gold candlelight within, and a woman stepped into the doorway. For that one instant she was sharply outlined as a shadow against the soft light within, a slender, erect figure, mature and dignified in movement, surely the lady of the house and Cenred’s wife. The next moment she had taken two or three light, swift steps into the hall, and the light of the nearest torch fell upon her shadowy face and advancing form, and conjured out of the dim shape a very different person. Everything about her was changed. Not a gracious chatelaine of more than thirty years, but a rounded, fresh-faced girl, no more than seventeen or eighteen, half her oval countenance two great startled eyes and the wide, high forehead above them, white and smooth as pearl.
Haluin uttered a strange, soft sound in his throat, between gasp and sigh, clutched at his crutches, and heaved himself to his feet, staring at this sudden glowing apparition as she, brought up abruptly against the intrusion of strangers, had drawn back in haste, starring at him. For one moment they hung so, mute and still, then the girl whirled about and retreated into the solar, drawing the door to almost stealthily after her.
Haluin’s hands slackened their hold, dangling inertly, the crutches slid and fell from under him, and he went down on his face in a gradual, crumpled fail, and lay senseless in the rushes of the floor.
They carried him to a bed prepared for him in a quiet chamber withdrawn from the hall, and bedded him there, still in a deep swoon.
“This is simple exhaustion,” said Cadfael in reassurance to Cenred’s solicitous anxiety. “I knew he was driving himself too hard, but that’s done with now. From this on we can take our time. Leave him to sleep through this night, and he’ll do well enough. See, he’s coming round. His eyes are opening.”
Haluin stirred, his eyelids quivering before they rose on the dark, sharply conscious eyes within, that looked up into a circle of vague, concerned faces. He was aware of his surroundings, and knew what had happened to him before he was carried here, for the first words he spoke were in meek apology for troubling them, and thanks for their care.