The pale thread of the path led them forward, and the roofs of Elford rose before them, circled with trees and bushes still naked and dark at this distant view, not yet so far advanced in bud as to show the first faint, elusive smoke of green. They crossed the bridge, the uneven planks causing Haluin to watch carefully how he placed his crutches, and came into the track between the houses. A neat village, with housewives and husbandmen going cheerfully and confidently about their daily business, alert to strangers but civil and welcoming to the Benedictine habit. They exchanged greetings along the way, and Haluin, cheered and vindicated at the successful completion of his journey, began to flush and brighten with pleasure at being offered this spontaneous omen of acceptance and release.
No need to ask how to reach the church, they had seen its low tower before they crossed the bridge. It had been built since the Normans came, sturdy in grey stone, with spacious churchyard very well stockaded for sanctuary at need, and full of old and handsome trees. They entered under the round-arched portico, and came into the familiar cool, echoing gloom of all stone-built churches, smelling faintly of dust, and wax candles, and strongly and reassuringly of home, the chosen abiding-place.
Haluin had halted in the tiled silence of the nave to get his bearings. Here there was no Lady Chapel to accommodate a patron’s tomb between the altars. The lords of Elford must lie aside, built into the stones of the walls they had raised. The red eye of light from the altar lamp showed them where the tomb lay, a great table slab filling a niche in the right-hand wall. Some dead de Clary, perhaps the first who came over with King William, and got his reward later, showed as a sleeping figure in relief on the sealing stone. Haluin had started forward towards it, only to check and draw back after the first echoing step, for there was a woman on her knees beside the tomb.
They saw her only as a shadowy figure, for the cloak she wore was dark grey like the stone in this dim light, and they knew her for a woman and not a man because the hood of the cloak was thrown back from her head, uncovering a white linen coif and a gauze veil over it. They would have retired into the porch to let her complete her prayers in peace, but she had heard the impact of the crutches on the tiled floor, and turned her head sharply to look towards them. In a single graceful, abrupt movement she rose to her feet, and coming towards them, stepped into the light from a window, and showed them the proud, aging, beautiful face of Adelais de Clary.
Chapter Five
You?” she said, staring, and turning her startled gaze from one face to the other, seeking, it seemed, some logic in this unexpected visitation. Her voice was neutral, neither welcoming nor repelling them. I had not thought to see you again so soon. Is there something more you have to ask of me, Haluin, that you have followed me here? You have only to ask. I have said I forgive.”
“Madam,” said Haluin, shaken and quivering from the apparition of his former mistress in this unexpected place, “we have not followed you. Indeed I never thought to find you here. For your forbearance I’m grateful, and I would not for the world trouble you further. I have come here only in fulfillment of a vow I made. I thought to spend a night in prayer at Hales, believing that my lady your daughter must be buried there. But we heard from the priest that it is not so. It’s here at Elford she lies, in the tomb of her grandsires. So I have continued this far. And all I have to beg of you is your leave to keep my vigil here through this coming night, in deliverance of what I have sworn. Then we will depart, and trouble you no more.”
“I will not deny,” she said, but with a softening voice, “that I shall be glad to have you gone. No ill will! But this wound you have opened again for me I would willingly swathe away out of sight until it heals. Your face is a contagion that makes it open and bleed afresh. Do you think I should have taken horse and ridden here so fast if you had not put that old grief in my mind?”
“I trust,” said Haluin in a low and shaken voice, “you may find, madam, as I hope to find, the wound cleansed of all its rancors by this atonement. It is my prayer that for you this time the healing may be sweet and wholesome.”
“And for you?” she said sharply, and turned a little away from him, with a motion of her hand that forbade any answer. “Sweet and wholesome! You ask much of God, and more of me.” In the sidelong light from the window her face was fierce and sad. “You have learned a monk’s way with words,” she said. “Well, it is a long time! Your voice was lighter once, so was your step. This at least I grant you, you are here at a very heavy cost. Do not deny me the grace of offering you rest and meat this time. I have a dwelling of my own here, within my son’s manor pale. Come within and rest at least until Vespers, if you must punish your flesh on the stones here through the night.”
“Then I may have my night of prayer?” asked Haluin hungrily.
“Why not? Have you not just seen me entreating God in the same cause?” she said. “I see you broken. I would not have you forsworn. Yes, have your penitential vigil, but take food in my house first. I’ll send my grooms to fetch you,” she said, “when you have made your devotions here.”
She was almost at the door, paying no attention to Haluin’s hesitant thanks, and affording him no opportunity to refuse her hospitality, when she suddenly halted and swung round to them again.
“But say no word,” she said earnestly, “to any other about your purpose here. My daughter’s name and fame are safe enough under the stone, let them lie quiet there. I would not have any other reminded as I have been reminded. Let it be only between us two, and this good brother who bears you company.”
“Madam,” said Haluin devoutly, “there shall be no word said to any other soul but between us three, neither now nor at any other time, neither here nor in any other place.”
“You ease my mind,” she said, and in a moment she was gone, and the door drawn quietly to after her.
Haluin could not kneel without something firm before him to which to cling, and Cadfael’s arm about him to ease his weight down gently, sharing the burden with his companion’s one serviceable foot. They offered their dutiful prayer at the altar side by side, and Cadfael, open-eyed as Haluin kneeled long, traced with measured concern the worn lines of the young man’s face. He had survived the hard journey afoot, but not without a heavy cost. The night on the stones here would be cold, cramping, and long, but Haluin would insist on the last extreme of self-punishment. And after that, the long road back. As well, indeed, if the lady could persuade him to remain for at least a second night, if only as a concession and grace to her now that they had, in a fashion, come to terms with their shared and haunted past.
For it could certainly be true that Haluin’s sudden visit had sent her on her own pilgrimage, hotfoot here to confront her own part in that old tragedy. Passing by at a smart trot the forester’s assart near Chenet, with only a maidservant and two grooms in her train, and striking an elusive spark in Cadfael’s memory. It could well be true. Or would such a seed have borne fruit so fast? The implication of haste was there. Cadfael saw again the two double-laden horses passing in the early morning, going steadily and with purpose. In haste to pay a half-forgotten debt of affection and remorse? Or to arrive before someone else, and be ready and armed to receive him? She wanted them satisfied and gone, but that was natural enough. They had trespassed on her peace, and held up an old, flawed mirror before her beautiful face.
“Help me up!” said Haluin, and raised his arms like a child to be lifted to his feet; and that was the first time that he had asked for help, always before it had been proffered, and his acceptance humble and resigned rather than grateful.
“You did not speak one word throughout,” he said suddenly, marveling, as they turned towards the church door.