“My lady would not have dreamed of trusting her chick to any other.” The old woman had warmed into fond fervor in thinking of the children she had nursed. “No one ever had the care of better babes,” she said, “and I love them both like my own.”
When she was gone Haluin lay silent for a while, but his eyes were open and clear, and the lines of his face alert and aware.
“Was there indeed a girl who came in?” he said at last, frowning in the effort to recall a moment which had become hazy and uncertain in his mind. “I have been lying here trying to recall why I so started up. I remember the crutches dropping away from under me, but yery little besides. Coming into the warmth made my head go round.”
“Yes,” said Cadfael, “there was a girl. Half sister, it seems, to Cenred, but younger by some twenty years. If you were thinking you dreamed her, no, she was no dream. She came into the hall from the solar, all unaware of us, and perhaps not liking the look of us, she drew back again in haste and closed the door between. Do you not remember that?”
No, he did not remember it, or only as an unconnected snatch of vision comes back out of a dream, and is gone again as soon as glimpsed. He frowned after it anxiously, and shook his head as if to clear eyes misted by weariness. “No
there’s nothing clear to me. I do recall the door opening, I take your word for it she came in
but I can recall nothing, no face
Tomorrow, perhaps.”
“We shall see no more of her,” said Cadfael, “if that devoted dragon of hers has any say in the matter. I think she has no very high opinion of monks, Mistress Edgytha. Well, are you minded for sleep? Shall I put out the lamp?”
But if Haluin had no clear recollection of the daughter of the house, no image left from that brief glimpse of her, first a dark outline against candlelight, then lit from before by the ruddy glow of the torch, Cadfael had a very clear image, one that grew even clearer when the lamp was quenched and he lay in the dark beside his sleeping companion. And beyond the remembrance he had a strange, disquieting sense that it bore for him a special significance, if he could but put his finger on it. Why that should be so was a mystery to him. Wakeful in the dark, he called up the features of her face, the motion of her body as she stepped into the light, and could find nothing there that should have been meaningful to him, no likeness to any woman he had ever seen before, except as all women are sisters. Yet the sense of some elusive familiarity about her persisted.
A tall girl, though perhaps not so tall as she gave the impression of being, for her slenderness contributed to the image, but above the middle height for a girl just becoming woman. Her bearing was erect and graceful, but still with the tentative and vulnerable springiness of the child, the suddenness of a lamb or a fawn, alert to every sound and motion. Startled, she had sprung back from them, and yet she had closed the door with measured softness, not to startle in return. And her face?she was not beautiful, except as youth and innocence and gallantry are always beautiful. An oval face she had, tapered from broad brow and wide and wide-set eyes to the firm, rounded chin. Her head was uncovered, her brown hair drawn back and braided, still further emphasizing the high white brow and the great eyes under their level dark brows and long lashes. The eyes consumed half the face. Not pure brown, Cadfael thought, for in spite of their darkness they had a clarity and depth and brightness perceptible even in that one glimpse of her. Rather a dark hazel shot with green, and so clear and deep it seemed possible to plunge into them and drown. Eyes utterly candid and vulnerable, and quite fearless. Young, wild, mettlesome creatures of the woods never yet hunted or harmed, may have that look. And the pure, fine lines of her cheekbones Cadfael remembered, elegant and strong, after the eyes her chief distinction.
And in all of this, sharply defined in his mind’s eye, what was there to trouble him, to pierce him like an elusive memory of some other woman? He found himself summoning up, one by one, the faces of women he had known, half the population of a long and varied life, in case some cast of features or carriage of head or gesture of hand should strike the chord that would vibrate and sing for him. But there was no match, and no echo. Cenred’s sister remained unique and apart, haunting him thus only because she had appeared and vanished in a moment, and he would probably never see her again.
Nevertheless, the last fleeting vision within his eyelids as he fell asleep was of her startled face.
By morning the air had lost its frosty bite, and most of the snow that had fallen had already thawed and vanished, leaving its tattered laces along the foot of every wall and under the bole of every tree. Cadfael looked out from the hall door, and was inclined to wish that the fall had persisted, to prevent Haluin from insisting on taking to the road again immediately. As it turned out he need not have worried, for as soon as the manor was up and about its daily business Cenred’s steward came looking for them, with the request that they would come to his lord in the solar after they had broken their fast, for he had something to ask of them.
Cenred was alone in the room when they entered, Haluin’s crutches sounding hollowly on the boards of the floor. The room was lit by two deep, narrow windows with cushioned seats built into them, and furnished with handsome bench-chests along one wall, a carved table, and one princely chair for the lord’s use. Evidently the lady Emma ran a well-regulated household, for hangings and cushions were of fine embroidery, and the tapestry frame in one corner, with its half-finished web of bright colors, showed that they were of home production.
“I hope you have slept well, Brothers,” said Cenred, rising to greet them, “Are you recovered fully from last night’s indispostion? If there is anything my house has failed to offer you, you have but to ask for it. Use my manor as you would your own dwelling. And you will, I hope, consent to stay yet a day or two before you need set out again.”
Cadfael shared the hope, but was all too afraid that Haluin would rouse his overanxious conscience to find objections. But he had no time to do more than open his mouth, for Cenred went on at once:
“For I have something to ask of you
Is either of you ordained a priest?”
Chapter Seven
Yes,” said haluin, after a moment of blank silence.
“I am a priest. I studied for minor orders from the I time I entered the abbey, and became full priest when I reached thirty years. We are encouraged to do so now, those who enter young and are already lettered. As a priest, what is there I can do to serve you?”
“I want you to conduct a marriage,” said Cenred.
