daily round of work, worship, and prayer.
From the highroad Cadfael looked back once, and saw the two grooms standing in the gateway to watch the guests depart. Two solid, sturdy figures, taciturn and inscrutable, following the withdrawal of the interlopers with light, fierce northern eyes. Making sure, thought Cadfael, that the disquiet we brought to that lady departs with us, and leaves no shadow behind.
They did not look back a second time. The need now was to put at least one safe, alienating mile between themselves and the dower house of Elford, and after that they could look for a night’s shelter early, for in spite of his resolution it was clear that Haluin was haggard and grey with exhaustion, and would not get far without danger of collapse. His face was set to endure, he went steadily but heavily on his crutches, his eyes dilated and dark in their deep hollows. Doubtful if even now he enjoyed the peace he should have found at Bertrade’s tomb, but perhaps it was not Bertrade who still haunted his thoughts.
“I shall never see her again,” said Haluin, to God, himself, and the gathering dusk rather than to Cadfael. And it was hard to say whether he spoke in relief or regret, as at leaving something unfinished.
The first snow of a capricious March burst upon them suddenly out of the lowering sky when they were some two miles from Elford. The air was on the edge of frost, there would be no great or prolonged fall, but while it lasted it was thick and blinding, stinging their faces and confusing the path before them. The premature dusk closed down on them almost abruptly, a murky darkness out of which whirling clouds of white flakes wound about them bewilderingly, veiling even what landmarks they had on a stretch of track open, windswept, and treeless.
Haluin had begun to stumble, troubled by the driven flakes filling his eyes, and unable to free a hand to draw the folds of his cowl together against the assault. Twice he planted a crutch aside from the trodden path, and all but fell. Cadfael halted and stood close, his back to the wind, to give his companion breathing space and shelter for some moments, while he considered where they were, and what he could recall of the surrounding country from their outward journey. Any dwelling, however mean, would be welcome until this squall blew over. Somewhere here, he calculated, there had been a side path bearing north, and leading to what seemed to be a cluster of small houses and the long pale of a manor fence, the only sign of occupation within view of the road.
His recollection was accurate. Going cautiously before, with Haluin close at his back, he came to an isolated clump of bushes and low trees which he remembered clearly in this sparsely treed plain, and a little beyond these the path opened. There was even a flickering spark of torchlight, seen fitfully through the whirling snowfall, to keep them in the direct way towards the distant dwelling. Where the lord of the house showed a beacon for benighted travelers there should be a warm welcome waiting.
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
