The Confession Of Brother Haluin Part 6

"Cenred, how is this possible? Who could have done such a thing?"

No one attempted to answer that, nor had she looked for an answer.

"Where did you find her?"

That her husband did answer, scrubbing wearily at his furrowed forehead. "Past the halfway to Elford by the short road, lying beside the path. And she'd been there no long time, for there was snow under her. It was on her way back here that someone struck her down."

"You think," said Emma in a low voice, "she had been to Elford?"

"Where else by that path? I've sent Edred on there, to find out if she came, and who has spoken with her. In an hour or so they should be back, but whether with any news, G.o.d alone knows."

They were both of them moving delicately about and about the heart of the matter, avoiding the mention of Roscelin's name, or any word of the reason why Edgytha should go rushing out alone in a wintry night. True, word had gone round even in the kennels and mews by then, and the entire household of Vivers was gathering uneasily, the indoor servants hovering in an anxious group in the corners of the hall, those from without prowling and peering over their shoulders, unable to withdraw to their own proper business or their normal rest until something should happen within here to scatter them. Few of all these, if any, could be in their lord's confidence in the matter of Roscelin's outlawed love, but many of them might have guessed at the undercurrents sweeping Helisende into this hasty marriage. Some reserve in speech would have to be observed in front of all this clan.

And here, to complicate matters further, came Jean de Perronet from the chamber above, where he had retired out of courtesy, but not to sleep, for he was still in his supper-table finery. And here, too, was Brother Haluin from his bed, anxious and silent. All those under the roof of Vivers that night had been drawn gradually and almost stealthily into the hall.

No, not quite all. Cadfael looked round the a.s.sembly, and missed one face. Where all others forgathered, Helisende absented herself.

By the look on his face de Perronet had been doing some serious thinking since he bowed to his host's wish, and let the search party go out into the night without him. He came into the hall with a face composed and grave, revealing nothing of what went on in his mind, took his time about looking all round the mute and dour circle of them, and looked last and longest at Cenred, who stood with his boots steaming in the ashes of the hearth, and his head bent to stare blankly into the embers of the fire.

"I think," said de Penonet with deliberation, "this has not ended well. You have found your maidservant?"

"We have found her," said Cenred.

"Misused? Dead? Do you tell me you have found her dead?"

"And not of cold! Stabbed to death," said Cenred bluntly, "and left by the wayside. And no sign of another soul have we seen or heard along the road, though this befell no long time ago, after the snow began to fall."

"Eighteen years she has been with us," said Emma, wringing her hands together wretchedly under her breast. "Poor soul, poor soul, to end like this-struck down by some outlaw vagabond to die in the cold. I would not for the world have had this happen!"

"I am sorry," said de Perronet, "that such a thing should be, and at such a time as this. Can there be some link between the occasion that brought me here and this woman's death?"

"No!" cried husband and wife together, rather resisting the thought already in their minds than lying to deceive the guest.

"No," said Cenred more softly, "I pray there is not, I trust there is not. It is of all chances the most unhappy, yet surely no more than chance."

"There are such unblessed chances," admitted de Perronet, but with evident reserve. "And they do not spare to mar festivals, even marriages. You do not wish to put off this one beyond tomorrow?"

"No, why so? It is our grief, not yours. But it is murder, and I must send to the sheriff, and loose a hunt for the murderer. She has no living kin that I know of, it is for us to bury her. What's needful we shall do. It need not cast a shadow upon you."

"I fear it already has," said de Perronet, "upon Helisende. The woman, I believe, was her nurse, and dear to her."

"The more reason you should take her away from here, to a new home and a new life." He looked round for her then for the first time, startled not to find her there among the women, but relieved that she was not there to complicate a matter already vexed enough. If she had indeed been able to fall asleep, so much the better, let her sleep on, and know nothing worse until morning. The maidservants were drifting back from the room where they had been busy making Edgytha's body seemly. There was nothing more they could now do here, and their uneasy presence, mute and fearful in hovering groups, became oppressive. Cenred stirred himself with an effort to be rid of them.

"Emma, send the women to their beds. There's no more to be done here, and they need not wait. And you, fellows, be off and get your sleep. All's done that can be done till Edred gets back from Elford, no need for the whole household to wait up for him." And to de Perronet he said, "I sent him on with two others of my men to inform my overlord of this death. Murder in these parts is within his writ, this will be his business no less than mine. Come, Jean, with your leave we'll withdraw to the solar, and leave the hall to the sleepers."

Doubtless, thought Cadfael, watching the hara.s.sed lines of Cenred's face, he would be happier if de Perronet chose to draw off once again from all involvement, and stand apart, but there's no chance of that now. And however he hedges round the truth of why his steward has pushed on to Elford, the very name of that place has now a.s.sumed a significance there's no evading. And this is not a man who likes deception, or practices it with pleasure or skill.

The women had accepted their orders at once, and dispersed, still whispering and fearful, to their quarters. The menservants quenched the torches, leaving only two by the great door to light the way in, and fed and damped down the fire to burn slowly through the night. De Perronet followed his host to the door of the solar, and there Cenred, turning, waved Cadfael to join them within.

"Brother, you were a witness, you can testify to how we found her. It was you showed how the snow had begun to fall before she was struck down. Will you wait with us, and see what word my steward brings back with him?"

There was no word said as to whether Brother Haluin should consider this invitation as applying equally to him, but he caught Cadfael's eye, deprecating rather than recommending such a move, and chose rather to ignore it. Enough had already happened to exercise his mind, if he was to join two people whose imminent marriage was at least suspect of bringing about a death. He needed to know what lay behind these nocturnal wanderings, and followed the company into the solar, his crutches heavy and slow in the rushes, and starting a dull echo as he stepped onto the floorboards within. He took his seat on a bench in the dimmest corner, an un.o.btrusive listener, as Cenred sat down wearily at the table, and spread his elbows on the board, propping his head between muscular hands.

"Your men are on foot?" asked de Perronet.

"Yes."

"Then we may have a long wait yet before they can be here again. Had you other parties out on other roads?"

Cenred said starkly, "No," and offered no further words by way of explanation or excuse. Not a quarter of an hour ago, thought Cadfael, watching, he would have evaded that, or left it unanswered. Now he is gone beyond caring for discretion. Murder brings out into the open many matters no less painful, while itself still lurking in the dark.

De Perronet shut his lips and clenched his teeth on any further questioning, and set himself to wait in uncommitted patience. The night had closed in on the manor of Vivers in hushed stillness, ominous and oppressive. Doubtful if anyone in the hall slept, but if any of them moved it was furtively, and if any spoke it was in whispers.

Nevertheless, the wait was not to be as long as de Perronet had prophesied. The silence was abruptly shivered by the thudding of galloping hooves on the hard-frozen earth of the courtyard, a furious young voice yelling peremptorily for service, the frantic running of grooms without, and the hasty stirring of all the wakeful retainers within. Feet ran blindly in the dark, stumbling and rustling in the rushes, flint and steel spat sparks too brief and hasty to catch the tinder, the first torch was plunged into the turfed-down fire, and carried in haste to kindle others. Before the listeners in the solar could burst out into the hall a fist was thumping at the outer door, and an angry voice demanding entry.

Two or three ran to unbar, knowing the voice, and were sent reeling as the heavy door was flung back to the wall, and into the brightening flurry of torchlight burst the figure of Roscelin, head uncovered, flaxen hair on end from the speed of his ride, blue eyes blazing. The cold of the night blew in with him, and all the torches guttered and smoked, as Cenred, erupting out of the solar, was halted as abruptly on the threshold of the hall by his son's fiery glare.

"What is this Edred tells me of you?" demanded Roscelin. "What have you done behind my back?"

Chapter Nine.

FOR ONCE PATERNAL AUTHORITY WAS CAUGHT at a disadvantage, and Cenred was all too aware of it. Nor had he the past reputation of a family tyrant to fall back on, but he did his best to wrest back the lost initiative.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded sternly. "Did I send for you? Did your lord dismiss you? Has either of us released you from your bond?"

"No," said Roscelin, glittering. "I have no leave from any man, and have not asked for any. And as for my bond, you loosed me from it when you played me false. It's not I who have broken faith. And as for the duty I owe to Audemar de Clary, I'll return to it if I must, and abide whatever his displeasure visits on me, but not until you render me account here openly of what you intended in the dark behind my back. I listened to you, I owned you right, I obeyed you. Did you owe me nothing in return? Not even honesty?"

Another father might well have felled him for such insolence, but Cenred had no such option. Emma was plucking anxiously at his sleeve, troubled for both her menfolk. De Perronet, alert and grim, loomed at his shoulder, eyeing the enraged boy confronting them, and already apprised of an inevitable threat to his own plans. What else could have brought this youngster haring through the night? And by all the signs he had come by the shortest road, dangerous in the dark, or he could not have arrived so soon. Nothing that had happened this night was accident or chance. The marriage of Helisende Vivers had brought about all this coil of murder and search and pursuit, and what more was to come of it there was as yet no knowing.

"I have done nothing," said Cenred, "of which I need to be ashamed, and nothing for which I need account to you. Well you know what your own part must be, you have agreed to it, do not complain now. I am the master in my own house, I have both rights and duties towards my family. I will discharge them as I see fit. And for the best!"

"Without the courtesy of a word to me!" flared Roscelin, burning up like a stirred fire. "No, I must hear it only from Edred, after the damage has already begun, after a death that can surely be laid at your own door. Was that for the best? Or dare you tell me Edgytha is dead for some other cause, by some stranger's hand? That's mischief enough, even if it's no worse than that. But whose plans sent her out into the night? Dare you tell me she was on some other errand? Edred says she was on her way to Elford when someone cut her off. I am here to prevent the rest."

"Your son refers, as I suppose," said de Perronet, loudly and coldly, "to the marriage arranged between the lady Helisende and me. In that matter, I think, I too have a say."

Roscelin's wide blue stare swung from his father's face to the guest's. It was the first time he had looked at him, and the encounter held him silent for a long moment. They were not strangers to each other, Cadfael recalled. The two families were acquainted, perhaps even distant kin, and two years ago de Perronet had made a formal offer for He lisende's hand. There was no personal animosity in Roscelin's glare, rather a baffled and frustrated rage against circ.u.mstance than against this favored suitor, to whom he could not and must not be a rival.

"You are the bridegroom?" he said bluntly.

"I am, and will maintain my claim. And what have you to urge against it?"

Animosity or not, they had begun to bristle like fighting c.o.c.ks, but Cenred laid a restraining hand on de Perronet's arm, and frowned his son back with a forbidding gesture.

"Wait, wait! This has gone too far now to be left in the dark. Do you tell me, boy, that you heard of this marriage, as you heard of Edgytha's death, only from Edred?"

"How else?" demanded Roscelin. "He came puffing in with his news and roused the household, Audemar and all. Whether he meant me to hear when he blurted out word of this marriage I doubt, but I did hear it, and here am I to find out for myself what you never meant me to question. And we shall see if all is being done for the best!"

"Then you had not seen Edgytha? She never reached you?"

"How could she if she was lying dead a mile or more from Elford?" demanded Roscelin impatiently.

"It was after the snow began that she died. She had been some hours gone, long enough to have reached Elford and been on her way back. Somewhere she had been, from somewhere she was certainly returning. Where else could it have been?"

"So you thought she had indeed reached Elford," said Roscelin slowly. "I never heard but that she was dead. I thought it was on her way. On her way to me! Is that what you had in mind? To warn me of what was being done here in my absence?"

Cenred's silence and Emma's unhappy face were answer enough.

"No," he said slowly, "I never saw hide or hair of her. Nor did anyone in Audemar's household as far as I know. If she ever was there at all, I don't know to whom she came. Certainly not to me."

"Yet it could have been so," said Cenred.

"It was not so. She did not come. Nevertheless," said Roscelin relentlessly, "here am I as if she had, having heard it from another mouth. G.o.d knows I am grieved for Edgytha, but what is there now to be done for her but bury her with reverence, and after, if we can, find and bury her murderer? But it is not too late to reconsider what was intended here for tomorrow, it is not too late to change it."

"I marvel," said Cenred harshly, "that you do not charge me outright with this death."

Roscelin was brought up short against an idea so monstrous, and stood open-mouthed with shock, his unclenched hands dangling childishly. Plainly such a notion had never entered his ingenuous head. He stammered a furious, half-inarticulate disclaimer, and abandoned it halfway to turn again upon de Perronet.

"But you-you had cause enough to want her stopped, if you knew she was on her way to warn me. You had good cause to want her silenced, so that no voice should be raised against your marriage, as now I raise mine. Was it you who did her to death on the way?"

"This is foolery," said de Perronet with disdain. "Everyone here knows that I have been here in plain view all the evening."

"So you may have been, but you have men who may be used to do your work for you."

"Every man of whom can be vouched for by your father's household. Also, you have been told already it was not on the outward way this woman was killed, but returning. What purpose would that have served for me? And now may I ask of you, father and son both," he demanded sharply, "what interest has this boy in his close kinswoman's marriage, that he dares to challenge either her brother's rights or her husband's?"

Now, thought Cadfael, it is all as good as out, though no one will say it plainly. For de Perronet has wits sharp enough to have grasped already what particular and forbidden pa.s.sion really drives this unhappy boy. And now it depends on Roscelin whether a decent face is kept on the affair or not. Which is asking a lot of a young man torn as he is, and outraged by what he feels as a betrayal. Now we shall see his mettle.

Roscelin had blanched into a fixed and steely whiteness, his fine bones of cheek and jaw outlined starkly in the torchlight. Before Cenred could draw breath to a.s.sert his dominance, his son had done it for him.

"My interest is that of a kinsman close as a brother lifelong, and desiring Helisende's happiness beyond anything else in the world. My father's right I never have disputed, nor do I doubt he wishes her well as truly as I do. But when I hear of a marriage planned in haste and in my absence, how can I be easy in mind? I will not stand by and see her hustled into a marriage that may not be to her liking. I will not have her forced or persuaded against her will."

"This is no such matter," protested Cenred hotly. "She is not being forced, she has consented willingly."

"Then why was I to be kept in ignorance? Until the thing was done? How can I believe what your own proceedings deny?" He swung round upon de Perronet, his blanched face arduously controlled. "Sir, against you I have no malice. I did not even know who was to be her husband. But you must see how hard it is to believe that all has been done fairly, when it has not been done openly.

"It is in the open now," said de Perronet shortly. "What hinders but you should hear it from the lady's own lips? Will that content you?"

Roscelin's white face tightened yet more painfully, and for a moment he struggled visibly against his fear of inevitable rejection and loss. But he had no choice but to agree.

"If she tells me this is her choice, then I am silenced." He did not say that he would therefore be content.

Cenred turned to his wife, who all this while had clung loyally to her husband's side, while her troubled eyes never left her son's tormented face.

"Go and call Helisende. She shall speak for herself."

In the heavy and uneasy silence after Emma had departed it was not clear to Cadfael whether any or all of this disturbed household had found it as strange as he did that Helisende should not long ago have come down, to discover for herself the meaning of all these nocturnal comings and goings. He could not get out of his mind the last glimpse he had had of her, standing solitary among so many, suddenly lost and confounded on a road she had believed she could walk to the end with resolute dignity. In a situation so grimly changed she had lost her bearings. A wonder, though, that she had not, in defense of her own integrity, come down with the rest to discover the best or the worst when the searchers returned. Did she even know yet that Edgytha was dead?

Cenred had advanced into the half-lit hall, abandoning even the seclusion of the solar, since there was no longer any privacy to be found behind a closed door. A woman of the household had been killed. A lady of the family found her marriage the occasion of conflict and death. There was no possibility here of any separation between master and man, or mistress and maid. They waited with equal disquiet. All but Helisende, who absented herself still.

Brother Haluin had drawn back into the shadows, and sat mute and still on a bench against the wall, hunched stiffly between the crutches he hugged to his sides. His hollow dark eyes pa.s.sed intently from face to face, reading and wondering. If he felt weariness, he gave no sign. Cadfael would have liked to send him away to his bed, but there hung on everyone here a compulsion so strong that there could be no departure. Only one had resisted the pull. Only one had escaped.

"What keeps the women?" fretted Cenred as the moments dragged by. "Does it take so long to pull on a gown?"

But it was long minutes more before Emma reappeared in the doorway, her round, gentle face full of consternation and dismay, her linked hands plying agitatedly at her girdle. Behind her the maid Madlyn peered warily, round-eyed. But of Helisende there was no sign.

"She is gone," said Emma, too shaken and bewildered to make many words of it. "She is not in her bed, not in her chamber, nowhere to be found in all this house. Her cloak is gone. Jehan has been out to the stables. Her saddle horse and harness are gone with her. While you were absent she has saddled up for herself and ridden away secretly, alone."

For once they were all alike silenced, brother, bridegroom, frustrated lover, and all. While they schemed and agonized and wrangled over her fate she had taken action and fled them all. Yes, even Roscelin, for he stood stricken and amazed, utterly at a loss like all the rest. Cenred might stiffen and frown at his son, de Perronet swing round upon him, in black suspicion, but plainly Roscelin had had no part in this panic flight. Even before Edgytha's death, thought Cadfael, her secret errand and failure to return had shattered all Helisende's arduously a.s.sembled certainty. Yes, de Perronet was a decent man and an honorable match, and she had pledged herself to him to remove herself from Roscelin's path, and deliver herself and him from an unbearable situation. But if that sacrifice was to bring only anger, danger, and conflict, even short of death, then all was changed. Helisende had drawn back from the brink, and cut herself free.

"She has run!" said Cenred on a gusty breath, not questioning, accepting. "How could she do it, all unseen? And when can she have set out? Where were her maids? Was there never a groom about the stable to question her going, or at least give us warning?" He pa.s.sed a helpless hand over his face, and looked round darkly at his son, "And where would she run but to you?"

It was out now, and there was no taking it back.

"Have you hidden her away somewhere in secret, and ridden here with your false indignation to cover up the sin?"

"You cannot believe that!" said Roscelin, outraged. "I have not seen her, nor had any word from her, nor sent her any, and you know it. I'm newly ridden from Elford by that same way your men came there, and if she had been on that path we should have met. Do you think I would then have let her go anywhere alone in the night, whether on to Elford or back here? If we had met we should have been together now-wherever that might be."

"There is a safer way by the highroad," said de Perronet. "Longer, but as fast on horseback, and safer going. If she did indeed set out for Elford, she may have ridden that way. She would hardly risk the same path your men had taken."

His voice was dry and cold, and his face set in forbidding lines, but he was a practical man, and intended wasting no energy or pa.s.sion on a green boy's mistaken affections. They did not threaten his position. The match he desired was arranged and accepted, and need not and would not be abandoned. What mattered now was to recover the girl unharmed.

"So she may," agreed Cenred, encouraged. "So most likely she would. If she reaches Elford she'll be safe enough there. But we'll send after her by the highroad, and leave nothing to chance."

"I'll ride back by that way," offered Roscelin eagerly, and was off towards the door of the hall with a bound, if de Perronet had not plucked him back sharply by the sleeve.

"No, not you! What we might see of either of you again, if once you met, I much mistrust. Let Cenred seek his sister, and I'm content she'll come back to speak her own mind when all this coil is over. And when she does, boy, you had best abide it, and keep your tongue within your teeth."

Roscelin did not like being handled, nor much savor being called "boy" by a man whose height and reach he could match, if not his years and a.s.surance. He wrenched his arm free strongly, and stood off further affront with a blackly lowering brow.

"So Helisende be found safe and well, and let alone in very truth to speak her own mind, and not yours, sir, nor my father's, nor any other man's, overlord or priest or king or whatever he may be, I am content. And first," he said, turning on his father between defiance and pleading, "find her, let me see her whole and well and used with gentleness. What else matters now?"

"I am going myself," said Cenred with reviving authority, and strode back into the solar to reclaim the cloak he had discarded.

But there was to be no more riding out from Vivers that night. Cenred had scarcely pulled on his boots again, and his grooms were no more than hoisting down saddle and harness in the stables, when there arose the purposeful stir of half a dozen hors.e.m.e.n riding into the courtyard, the ring of challenge and answer at the gate, the jingle of harness and dull tramping of hooves on the frozen earth.

All those within came surging to open the door and see what company this might be, so late in the night. Edred and his companions had gone on foot, and might be expected to return on foot, and here was a well-mounted troop arriving.

Out went the torches into the darkness, out went Cenred, with Roscelin and de Perronet hard on his heels, and several of his menservants following.

In the yard the flickering torchlight flared and guttered and flared again on the strongly boned countenance and ma.s.sive body of Audemar de Clary, as he swung himself down from the saddle and tossed his bridle to a scurrying groom. Behind him came Edred the steward and the grooms who had been sent on with him to Elford, mounted now at de Clary's charge, along with three of Audemar's own men.

Cenred came hurrying down the steps to welcome them. "My lord," he said, for once formal with his friend and overlord, "I never looked to see you tonight, but you come very timely and are more than welcome. G.o.d knows we're like to be causing you trouble enough, for we have murder here, as Edred will have told you. Murder within your writ is hard to believe, but so it is."