“I had not one word to speak,” said Cadfael. “But I heard many words. And even the silences between them were not altogether inarticulate.”
Adelais de Clary’s groom was waiting for them in the porch, as she had promised, leaning indolently with one shoulder propped against the jamb of the door, as though he had been waiting for some time, but with immovable patience. His appearance confirmed everything Brother Cadfael had elaborated, in his own mind, from the few glimpses he had had of the riders between the trees. The younger of the pair, this, a brawny young man of perhaps thirty years, thickset, bullnecked, unmistakably in the Norman mold. Perhaps the third or fourth generation from a progenitor who had come over as a man at arms with the first de Clary. The strong original stock still prevailed, though intermarriage with Englishwomen had tempered the fairness of his hair into a straw brown, and somewhat moderated the brutal bones of his face. He still wore his hair cropped into a close cap in the Norman manner, and his strong jaw clean-shaven, and he still had the bright, light, impenetrable eyes of the north. At their coming he sprang erect, more at ease in movement than in repose.
“My lady sends me to show you the way.”
His voice was flat and clipped, and he waited for no reply, but set off out of the churchyard before them, at a pace Haluin could not well maintain. The groom looked back at the gate and waited, and thereafter abated his speed, though it obviously chafed him to move slowly. He said nothing of his own volition, and replied to question or simple civility cordially enough, but briefly. Yes, Elford was a very fine property, good land and a good lord. Audemar’s competent management of his honor was acknowledged indifferently; this young man’s allegiance was to Adelais rather than to her son. Yes, his father was in the same service, and so had his father been before him. About these monastic guests he showed no curiosity at all, though he might have felt some. Those pale grey alien eyes concealed all thought, or perhaps suggested thought’s total absence.
He brought them by a grassy way to the gate of the manor enclosure, which was walled and spacious. Audemar de Clary’s house sat squarely in the midst, the living floor raised well above a stone undercroft, and to judge by the small windows above, there, were at least two more chambers over the solar. And his ample courtyard was built round with other habitable rooms, as well as the customary and necessary stables, armory, bakehouse and brewhouse, stores and workshops, and was populous with the activities of a large and busy household.
The groom led them to a small timber lodging under the curtain wall.
“My lady has had this chamber made ready for you. Use it as your own, she says, and the gateman will see to it you can come and go freely, to go to the church.”
Her hospitality, as they found, was meticulous but remote and impersonal. She had provided them with water for washing, comfortable pallets to rest on, sent them food from her own table, and given orders to tell them to ask for anything they might need or want that had been forgotten, but she did not receive them into her own presence. Perhaps forgiveness did not reach so far as to render Haluin’s remorseful presence agreeable to her. Nor was it her house servants who waited on them, but the two grooms who had ridden with her from Hales. It was the elder of the two who brought them meat and bread and cheese, and small ale from the pantry. Cadfael had not been deceived in their relationship, for this one was clearly father to the other, a tough, square-set man in his fifties, close-mouthed like his son, broader in the shoulders, more bowed in the legs from years spent as much on horseback as on his own two feet. The same cold, unconfiding eyes, the same bold and powerful shaven jaws, but this one was tanned to a lasting bronze that Cadfael recognized from his own past as having its origin very far from England. His lord had been a crusader. This man had surely been with him there in Holy Land, and got his burnished gloss there under the fierce, remembered sun.
The elder groom came again later in the afternoon, with a message not for Haluin but for Cadfael. It so happened that Haluin had fallen asleep on his pallet, and the man’s entrance, light and soft as a cat for all his bulk, did not disturb his rest, for which Cadfael was grateful. There was a long and unrestful night to come. He motioned to the groom to wait, and went out into the courtyard to him, closing the door softly after him.
“Let him lie. He’ll need to be wakeful later.”
“My lady told us how he means to spend the night,” said the groom. “It’s you she bids to her, if you’ll come with me now. Let the other brother rest, she says, for he’s been mortal sick. I grant him a man’s guts, or he’d never have come so far on those feet. This way, Brother!”
Her dower dwelling was built into a corner of the curtain wall, sheltered from the prevailing winds, small, but enough for such occasional visits as she chose to make to her son’s court. A narrow hall and chamber, and a kitchen built lean-to against the wall outside. The groom strode in and through the hall with simple authority, as one having privilege here, and entered his mistress’s presence much as a son or brother of hers might have done, trusting and trusted. Adelais de Clary was well served, but without subservience.
“Here is Brother Cadfael from Shrewsbury, my lady. The other one’s asleep.”
Adelais was sitting at a distaff loaded with deep blue wool, spinning the spindle with her left hand, but at their entrance she ceased to turn it, and lodged it carefully against the foot of the distaff to prevent the yarn from uncoiling.
“Good! It’s what he needs. Leave us now, Lothair, our guest will find his own way back. Is my son home yet?”
“Not yet. I’ll be looking out for him when he comes.”
“He has Roscelin with him,” she said, “and the hounds. When they’re all home and kenneled and stalled, take your ease, it’s well earned.”
He merely nodded by way of acknowledgment, and departed, taciturn and uneffusive as ever, and yet there was a tone in their exchange of invulnerable assurance, secure as rooted rock. Adelais said no word until the door of her chamber had closed after her servant. She was eyeing Cadfael with silent attention, and the faint shadow of a smile.
“Yes,” she said, as if he had spoken. “More than an old servant. He was with my lord all the years he fought in Palestine. More than once he did Bertrand that small service, to keep him man alive. It is another manner of allegiance, not a servant’s. As bound in fealty as ever lord is to his overlord. I inherited what was my lord’s before me. Lothair, he’s called. His son is Luc. Born and bred in the some mold. You’ll have seen the likeness, God knows it can hardly be missed.”
“I have seen it,” said Cadfaei. “And I knew where Lothair got that copper skin he wears.”
“Indeed?” She was studying him with concentrated interest now, having gone to the trouble to see him for the first time.
“I was some years in the east myself, before his time. If he lives long enough his brown will fade as mine has faded, but it takes a long while.”
“Ah! So you were not given to the monks in childhood? I thought you had not the look of such virgin innocents,” said Adelais.
“I entered of my own will,” said Cadfael, “when it was time.”
“So did he-of his own will, though I think it was not time.” She stirred and sighed. “I sent for you only to ask if you have everything you need-if my men have taken proper care of you.”
“Excellent care. And for their kindness and yours we are devoutly grateful.”
“And to ask you of him-of Haluin. I have seen in what sad case he is. Will it ever be better for him?”
“He will never walk as he did before,” said Cadfaei, “but as his sinews gain time and strength he will improve. He believed he was dying, so did we all, but he lives and will yet find much good in life-once his mind is at peace.”
“And will it be at peace after tonight? Is this what he needs?”
“I believe he will. I believe it is.”
“Then it has my blessing. And then you will take him back to Shrewsbury? I can provide you horses,” she said, “for the way back. Lothair can fetch them to Hales when we return.”