enough but unmistakable in its dominance, that dismissed all further attendance. His eye lit upon the two Benedictines, waiting unobtrusively on the edge of the scene, recognized them with a nod of easy reverence for their habit, and smiled.
“Good night, Brothers!” said Audemar, and drew the solar door firmly closed at his back, shutting himself in with the troubled Vivers household and their aspiring kinsman.
Chapter Ten
He is right!” said Brother Haluin, stretched on his bed in the predawn twilight, wakeful still and loosed now from his long silence on the fringe of other men’s chaos. “Good night. Brothers, and good-bye! There will be no marriage. There can be no marriage, there is now no bride. And even if she should come back, this match cannot now go forward as if nothing had happened to cast it into such bitter doubt. When I accepted the burden?for even so it was burdensome?there was no call to question that it was for the best, grievous though it might be. There is good reason to question now.”
“I think,” said Cadfael, listening to the muted, deliberate voice, as Haluin felt his way towards a resolution, “you are not sorry to be delivered from your promise.”
“No, I am not sorry. Sorry enough. God knows, that a woman has died, sorry that these children should suffer unhappiness without remedy. But I could not now be answerable to God for joining the girl to any man. unless I could recover the certainty I have lost. As well that she is gone, and I pray into some safe refuge. And now it only remains,” said Brother Haluin, “for us to take our leave. We no longer have any part to play here. De Clary has plainly told us so. And Cenred will be glad to see us go.”
“And you have a vow to complete, and no further cause to delay. True!” said Cadfael, torn between relief and regret.
“I have delayed too long already. It is time I acknowledged,” said Haluin inflexibly, “how small are my own griefs, and how great the part I have chosen. I made the choice for my own craven sake. Now with what life I have left I will make it good for a worthier reason.”
So this journey, thought Cadfael, has not been in vain. For the first time since his flight from the world, sick with his guilt and loss, he has ventured back into the world, and found it full of pain, into which his own pain has fallen and been lost, like a raindrop in the sea. All these years he has been outwardly dutiful, keeping every scruple of the Rule, and agonized in solitude within. His true vocation begins now. Once enlightened, Haluin may well prove the stuff of which saints are made. As for me, I am unregenerate man.
For in his heart he did not want to leave Vivers thus, with nothing resolved. Everything Haluin said was true. The bride was gone, there could be no marriage, they had no excuse for remaining here any longer, nor had Cenred any further use for them. He would indeed be glad to see them go. But Cadfael would not go gladly, turning his back upon a murder unavenged, justice out of kilter, a wrong that might never be set right.
True also, Audemar de Clary was overlord here, a man of force and decision, and with such crimes as fell within his writ he must deal. There was nothing Cadfael could tell him that Cenred would not already have told him.
And what, after all, did Cadfael really know in this matter? That Edgytha had been absent several hours before she died, since there was already snow on the ground when she fell. That she must have been on her way back to Vivers, as she had intended. That she had had ample time to go as far as Elford. That she had not been robbed. The murderer had simply killed and left her, not the way of footpads living wild. If not to stop her from warning Roscelin?for that would have been credible only on the outward journey?then to stop her mouth for another reason, before ever she could get back to Vivers. Yet what connection was there between Elford and Vivers except young Roscelin’s banishment to Audemar’s service? What other secret to fear betrayal but that of the planned marriage?
But Edgytha had never reached Roscelin, never had speech with him, nor had she gone to Audemar or any of his household. So if she had been to Elford, why had no one there seen her? And if she had not been to Elford, where had she been?
So if it was not what he along with his host and hostess had supposed, what was the cat Edgytha had gone to find, to put among Cenred’s pigeons?
And in all probability he would never learn the answers to these questions, or learn what fortune awaited the lost girl and the unhappy boy, and the elders distressed and torn with concern for both of them. A pity! But no help for it, they could no longer trespass on Cenred’s disrupted family and burdened hospitality. As soon as the household was astir they must take their leave and set out for Shrewsbury. No one would miss them. And it was high time they went home.
The morning came greyly, under a sky lightly clouded over but lofty, and threatening no further falls of snow. Only a few threads and traceries of white lingered along the bases of walls and under the trees and bushes, and the frost was yielding. It would not be a bad day for travelers.
The household was up and in ferment early. Cenred’s servants rolled out of their brief sleep bleary-eyed and grim, well aware that there would be no rest for them that day. Whatever else had been decided in the solemn conference in the solar overnight, whatever possible asylums had been suggested as safe havens for Helisende, it was certain that Audemar would have patrols working every road in the countryside, and inquiring at every cottage, in case someone, somewhere, had seen and spoken with Edgytha, or seen anything of a solitary and furtive figure lurking along the path she had taken. They were already gathering in the courtyard, saddling up, tightening girths and waiting stoically for their orders, when Cadfael and Haluin, booted and girded for the road, presented themselves before Cenred.
He was deep in colloquy with his steward in the middle of the bustle in the hall, when they approached him, and he turned to them courteously but blankly for a moment, as if in these graver preoccupations he had forgotten he had ever before set eyes on them. Recollection came at once, but brought him no pleasure, only a gesture of hospitable compunction.
“Brothers, I ask your pardon, you have been neglected. If we have troubles here to deal with, don’t let that disturb you. Use my home as your own.”
“My lord,” said Haluin, “we owe you thanks for all your kindness, but we must be on our way. There is now no way I can serve you. There is no more haste, since there is no more secrecy. And we have duties waiting for us at home. We are come to take our leave.”
Cenred was too honest to pretend any reluctance to part with them, and made no demur. “I have delayed your return for my own ends,” he said ruefully, “and all to no purpose. I am sorry I ever drew you into so vexed a business. Believe me, at least, that my intent was good. And go with my goodwill, I wish you a peaceful journey.”
“And to you, sir, the safe recovery of the lady, and the guidance of God through all perplexities,” said
