When he opened his eyes at last to the full light of a frosty morning, and laboriously unlocked his cold, clasped hands, the sounds of the customary early activity were already audible from the outside world. Haluin stared dazedly upon the waking day, returning from some place very far off, very deep within. He essayed to move, to grip the rim of the stone, and his fingers were so numbed they could not feel, and his arms so stiff they could give him no help to raise himself. Cadfael wound an arm about him to lift him, but Haluin could not straighten his stiff knees to set his better foot to the ground, but hung a dead weight on the encircling arm. And suddenly there was a flurry of light footsteps, and another arm, young and strong, embraced the helpless body from the other side, a fair head stooped to Haluin’s shoulder, and between his two supporters he was hauled upright, and held so as the blood flowed back achingly into his numbed legs.
“In God’s name, man,” said the young man Roscelin impatiently, “must you use yourself so hardly when you have already enough for any sane man to carry?”
Haluin was too startled, and his mind still too far away, to be capable of grasping that, much less answering it. And if Cadfael privately considered it a perfectly sensible reaction, aloud he said practically, “Keep firm hold of him so, while I pick up his crutches. And God bless you for appearing so aptly. Spare to scold him, you’d be wasting your breath. He’s under vow.”
“A foolish vow!” said the boy with the arrogant certainty of his years. “Who’s the better for this?” But for all his disapproval he held Haluin warmly and firmly, and looked at him sidelong with a frown at least as anxious as it was exasperated,
“He is,” said Cadfael, propping the crutches under Haluin’s armpits, and setting to work to chafe life back into the cold hands that could not yet grip the staves. “Hard to believe, but you had better credit it. There, you can let him lean on his props now, but hold him steady. Well for you at your years, you can sleep easy, with nothing to regret and nothing to ask pardon for. How did you come to look in here so timely?” he asked, eyeing the young man with fresh interest, thus at close quarters. “Were you sent?”
For this boy seemed an unlikely instrument for Adeiais to use in shepherding her inconvenient guests in and out of Elford-too young, too blunt, too innocent.
“No,” said Roscelin shortly, and relented to add with better grace, “I was plain curious.”
“Well, that’s human,” admitted Cadfael, recognizing his own besetting sin.
“And this morning Audemar has no immediate work for me, he’s busy with his steward. Had we not better get this brother of yours back to his lodging, where it’s warmer? How shall we do? I can fetch a horse for him if we can get him mounted.”
Haluin had come back from his distant place to find himself being discussed and handled as if he had no mind of his own, and no awareness of his surroundings. He stiffened instinctively against the indignity. “No,” he said, “I thank you, but I can go now. I need not trespass on your kindness further.” And he flexed his hands and gripped the staves of his crutches, and took the first cautious steps away from the tomb.
They followed closely, one at either elbow in case he faltered, Roscelin going before up the shallow steps and through the doorway to prevent a possible stumble, Cadfael coming close behind to support him if he reeled backward. But Haluin had gathered to his aid a will refreshed and strengthened by achievement, and was resolute to manage this walk alone, at whatever cost. And there was no haste. When he felt the need he could rest on his crutches to draw breath, and so he did three times before they reached Audemar’s courtyard, already populous and busy about bakery and mews and wellhead. It said much for young Roscelin’s quickness and delicacy of mind, Cadfael reflected, that he waited without comment or impatience at every pause, and refrained from offering a hand in help until help should be invited. So Haluin came back to the lodging in Audemar’s courtyard as he would have wished, on his own misshapen feet, and could feel that he had earned the ease of his bed.
Roscelin followed them in, still curious, in no haste to go in search of whatever duties awaited him. “Is that all, then?” he said, watching Haluin stretch out his still-numbed limbs gratefully, and draw the brychan over them. “Then where do you go when you leave us? And when? You’ll not set out today?”
“We go back to Shrewsbury,” said Cadfael. “Today-that I doubt. A day’s rest would be wisdom.” By the weary ease of Haluin’s face, and the softened gaze turned inward, it would not be long before he fell asleep, the best and best-earned sleep since he had made confession.
“I saw you ride in with the lord Audemar yesterday,” said Cadfael, studying the youthful face before him. “The lady mentioned your name. Are you kin to the de Clarys?”
The boy shook his head. “No. My father is tenant and vassal to him, they’ve always been good friends, and there’s a marriage tie, a while back now. No, I’m sent here to Audemar’s service at my father’s order.”
“But not at your wish,” said Cadfael, interpreting the tone rather than the words,
“No! Much against my wish!” said Roscelin abruptly, and scowled at the floorboards between his booted feet.
“Yet to all appearances as good a lord as you could hope for,” suggested Cadfael mildly, “and better than most.”
“He’s well enough,” the boy owned fairly. “I’ve no complaint of him. But I grudge it that my father has sent me away here to be rid of me out of the house, and that’s the truth of it.”
“Now, why,” wondered Cadfael, curious but not quite asking, “why should any father want to be rid of you?” For here was undoubtedly the very picture of a presentable son, upstanding, well formed, well conducted, and decidedly engaging in his fair-haired, smooth-cheeked comeliness, a son any father would be glad to parade before his peers. Even in sullenness his face was pleasing, but it was certainly true that he had not the look of one happy in his service.
“He has his reasons,” said Roscelin moodily. “You’d say good reasons, too, I know that. And I’m not so estranged from him that I could refuse him the obedience due. So I’m here, and pledged to stay here unless lord and father both give me leave to go. And I’m not such a fool as not to admit I could be in far worse places. So I may as well get all the good I can out of it while I’m here.”
It seemed that his mind had veered into another and graver quarter, for he sat for some moments silent, staring down into his clasped hands with a frowning brow, and looked up only to measure Cadfael earnestly, his eyes dwelling long upon the black habit and the tonsure.
“Brother,” he said abruptly, “I wondered, now and then-about the monkish life. Some men have taken to it, have they not, because what they most wanted was forever impossible-forbidden them! Is that true? Can it provide a life, if… if the life a man wants is out of reach?”
“Yes,” said Brother Haluin’s voice, gently and quietly out of a waking dream now very close to sleep. “Yes, it can!”
“I would not recommend entering it as a second-best,” said Cadfael stoutly. Yet that was what Haluin had done, long ago, and he spoke now as one recording a revelation, the opening of his inward eyes just as they were heavy and closing with sleep.
“The time might be long, and the cost high,” said Haluin with gentle certainty, “but in the end it would not be second-best.”
He drew in a long breath, and spent it in a great healing sigh, turning his head away from them on the pillow. They were both so intent on him, doubting and wondering, that neither of them had noted the approach of brisk footsteps without, and they started round in surprise as the door was thrown wide open to admit Lothair, carrying a basket of food and a pitcher of small ale for the guests. At sight of Roscelin seated familiarly upon Cadfael’s pallet, and apparently on good terms with the brothers, the groom’s weathered face tightened perceptibly, almost ominously, and for an instant a deeper spark flashed and vanished again in his pale eyes.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded with the bluntness of an equal, and the uncompromising authority of an elder. “Master Roger’s looking for you, and my lord wants you in attendance as soon as he’s broken his fast. You’d best be off, and sharp about it, too.”