it is out already at Farewell. Haluin and Bertrade are there together, making their peace, making each the other’s peace, and Helisende their child is with them, and the truth is already out of its grave.”
She knew, she had known ever since the old woman’s death, that it must come to that at last, and if she had deliberately averted her eyes and refused to acknowledge it, she could no longer do so. Nor was she the woman to delegate a hard thing to others, once her mind was made up, nor to do things by halves, whether for good or ill.
He would not prompt her. He drew back from her to leave her space and time, and stood apart, watching her disciplined stillness, and measuring in his mind the bitter toll of eighteen years of silence, of pitilessly contained hate and love. The first words he had heard from her now, even at this extreme, had been of Haluin, and still he heard the vibration of pain in her voice as she cried aloud: “What have they done to you?”
Adelais got up abruptly from her chair and crossed with long, fierce steps to the window, to fling back the shutter and let in air and light and cold. She stood for a while looking out at the quiet court, and the pale sky dappled with little clouds, and the green gauze veiling the branches of the trees beyond the enclave wall. When she turned to him again he saw her face in full, clear light, and saw as in a dual vision both her imperishable beauty and the dust time had cast upon it, the taut lines of her long throat fallen slack, the grey of ashes in her coiled black hair, the lines that had gathered about mouth and eyes, the net of fine veins marring cheeks which had once been smooth ivory. And she was strong, she would not lightly relinquish her hold of the world and go gently out of it. She would live long, and rage against the relentless assault of old age until death at once defeated and released her. By her very nature Adelais’s penance was assured.
“No!” she said with abrupt, imperious authority, as though he had advanced some suggestion with which she was in absolute disagreement. “No, I want no advocate, there shall no man rid me of any part of what is mine. What now needs to be told, I will tell. No other! Whether it ever would have been told, if you had never come near me?you with your hand forever at Haluin’s elbow, and your temperate eyes that I could never read?do I know? Do you? That is of no account now. What is left to be done, I will do.”
“Command me to go,” said Cadfael, “and I will go. You do not need me.”
“Not as advocate, no. As witness, perhaps! Why should you be cheated of the ending? Yes!” she said, glittering, “you shall ride with me, and see it ended. I owe you a fulfillment as I owe God a death.”
He rode with her, as she had decreed. Why not? He had to return to Farewell, and by way of Vivers was as good a road as any. And once she had resolved upon action there could be no delay and no denial.
She rode astride, booted and spurred like a man, she who in the common progressions of her recent years had been content to go decorously pillion behind a groom, as was fitting for a dame of her age and dignity. She rode with the lordly confidence of a man, erect and easy in the saddle, her bridle hand held low. And she rode fast but steadily, advancing upon her losses as vigorously as upon her gains.
Cadfael, riding at her side, could not but wonder whether she still felt tempted to hold back some part of the truth, to cover herself from the last betrayal. But the smoldering calm of her face spoke against it. There was no evasion, no appeal, no excuse. What she had done she had done, and would as starkly declare. And if she repented of it, only God would ever know.
Chapter Thirteen
They rode in at the gate of Vivers an hour after noon. The gate stood open, and the turmoil within had subsided, there was no more than the normal to-and-froing in the court. Evidently the abbess’s messenger had been received and believed, and whether gladly or reluctantly, Cenred had fallen in with Helisende’s wish to be let alone for a while in her sanctuary. With one search abandoned, Audemar’s men would be free to pursue a murderer. One they would never find! In the night and the snow, who could have been abroad to witness that knife stroke in the woods, and put a name or a face to the slayer? Even if there had been a witness, who in these parts, apart from Audemar’s own household, would recognize a groom from distant Hales?
Cenred’s steward was crossing the court when Adelais reined in, and he came in haste, recognizing the mother of his lord’s overlord, to help her down, but she was out of the saddle before he could reach her. She let down her kilted skirts, and looked about her for any of her son’s people. Cadfael had seen for himself that the hunters had not returned to Elford, nor were they in evidence here. For a moment she frowned, impatient at the prospect of having to wait and contain still all that she had to say. Once resolved, it displeased her to be balked. She looked beyond the steward’s deep reverence towards the hall.
“Is your lord within?”
“He is, madam. Will you be pleased to enter?”
“And my son?”
“He, too, my lady. He came back only some minutes since. His men are still out with ours, questioning in every house for miles around.”
“Waste of time!” she said, rather to herself than to him, and shut her lips grimly on the reason. “Well, so much the better! They are both here. No, you need not tell them I have come. That I’ll do for myself. As for Brother Cadfael, this time he comes in attendance on me, not as a guest.”
Doubtful if the steward had even cast a glance at the second rider until this moment, but he did so now, speculating, Cadfael supposed, what had brought one Benedictine visitor back so soon, and in particular without his companion. But there was no time for inquiry. Adelais had set off vigorously towards the steps that led up to the hall, and Cadfael followed dutifully, as if he were indeed her domestic chaplain, leaving the steward staring after them in doubt and wonder.
In the hall the midday meal was past, and the servants busy clearing away the dishes and stacking the tables aside. Adelais walked through them without a word or a glance, straight to the curtained door of the inner chamber. A murmur of voices, dulled by the hangings, came from within, Cenred’s deep tones distinguishable beneath the lighter, younger voice of Jean de Perronet. The suitor had not withdrawn, but intended to wait out his time doggedly if not patiently. Just as well, Cadfael reflected. He had a right to know how formidable an obstacle was now placed in his way. Fair is fair. De Perronet had done nothing dishonorable; fair dealing was his due.
Adelais swept the curtain aside and flung open the door. They were all there, in muted conference over a situation which left them frustrated and helpless, trapped in inaction, since even the gesture of sending out men to try and trace Edgytha’s murderer was by this time foredoomed to be fruitless. Had any man in the region known anything, it would have been told already. And if Audemar ever thought to number over his mother’s household servants, and level a suspicious finger at the missing, she would stand immovably between him and them. Wherever Lothair and Luc might now be, however confounded and chastened by her revulsion from what they had mistakenly done for her, she would not let the price be charged against them which she held to be her debt.
At the sound of the door opening they had all turned their heads sharply to see who came in, for her entrance
