Another and longer silence. The blue, sunken lids were lowered for a moment over the burning eyes. “We lay together,” he said clearly. “That sin I did confess, but never named her. The lady cast me out. Out of despair I came here
at least to do no more harm. And the worst harm yet to come!”
The abbot closed his hand firmly on the nerveless hand at Haluin’s side, to hold him fast by the grip, for the face on the pillow had sunk into a mask of clay, and a long shudder passed through the bruised and broken body, and left it tensed and chill to the touch.
“Rest!” said Radulfus, close to the sufferer’s ear. “Take ease! God hears even what is not said.”
It seemed to Cadfael, watching, that Haluin’s hand responded, however feeble its hold. He brought the drink of wine and herbs with which he had been moistening the patient’s mouth while he lay senseless, and trickled a few drops between the pained lips, and for the first time the offering was accepted, and the strings of the lean throat made the effort to swallow. His time was not yet. Whatever more he might have to heave off his heart, there was yet time for it. They fed him sips of wine, and watched the clay of his features again cohere into flesh, however pale and feeble. This time, when he came back to them, it was very faintly and with eyes still closed.
“Father
?” questioned the remote voice fearfully.
“I am here. I will not leave you.”
“Her mother came
I did not know till then Bertrade was with child! The lady was in terror of her lord’s anger when he came home. I served then with Brother Cadfael, I had learned
I knew the herbs
I stole and gave her
hyssop, fleur-de-lis
Cadfael knows better uses for them!”
Yes, better by far! But what could help a badly congested chest and a killing cough, in small doses, or fight off the jaundice that turned a man yellow, could also put an end to the carrying of a child, in an obscene misuse abhorrent to the Church and perilous even to the woman it was meant to deliver. From fear of an angry father, fear of shame before the world, fear of marriage prospects ruined and family feuds inflamed. Had the girl’s mother entreated him, or had he persuaded her? Years of remorse and self-punishment had not exorcised the horror that still wrung his flesh and contorted his visage.
“They died,” he said, harsh and loud with pain. “My love and the child, both. Her mother sent me word?dead and buried. A fever, they gave it out. Dead of a fever?nothing more to fear. My sin, my most grievous sin
God knows I am sorry!”
“Where true penitence is,” said Abbot Radulfus, “God does surely know. Well, this grief is told. Have you done, or is there more yet to tell?”
“I have done,” said Brother Haluin. “But to beg pardon. I ask it of God?and of Cadfael, that I abused his trust and his art. And of the lady of Hales, for the great grief I brought upon her.” Now that it was out he had better control of voice and words, the crippling tension was gone from his tongue, and weak though his utterance was, it was lucid and resigned. “I would die cleansed and forgiven,” he said.
“Brother Cadfael will speak on his own behalf,” said the abbot. “For God, I will speak as He give me grace.”
“I forgive freely,” said Cadfael, choosing words with more than his accustomed care, “whatever offense was done against my craft under great stress of mind. And that the means and the knowledge were there to tempt you, and I not there to dissuade, this I take to myself as much as ever I can charge them to you. I wish you peace!”
What Abbot Radulfus had to say upon God’s behalf took longer. There were some among the brothers, Cadfael thought, who would have been startled and incredulous if they could have heard, at finding their abbot’s formidable austerity could also hold so much measured and authoritative tenderness. A lightened conscience and a clean death were what Haluin desired. It was too late to exact penance from a dying man, and deathbed comfort cannot be priced, only given freely.
“A broken and a contrite heart,” said Radulfus, “is the only sacrifice required of you, and will not be despised.” And he gave absolution and the solemn blessing, and so left the sickroom, beckoning Cadfael with him. On Haluin’s face the ease of gratitude had darkened again into the indifference of exhaustion, and the fires were dead in eyes dulled and half closed between swoon and sleep.
In the outer room Rhun was waiting patiently, drawn somewhat aside to avoid hearing, even unwittingly, any word of that confession.
“Go in and sit with him,” said the abbot. “He may sleep now, there will be no ill dreams. If there should be any change in him, fetch Brother Edmund. And if Brother Cadfael should be needed, send to my lodging for him.”
In the paneled parlor in the abbot’s lodge they sat together, the only two people who would ever hear of the offense with which Haluin charged himself, or have the right in private to speak of his confession.
“I have been here only four years,” said Radulfus directly, “and know nothing of the circumstances in which Haluin came here. It seems one of his earliest duties here was to help you among the herbs, and there he acquired this knowledge he put to such ill use. Is it certain this draught he concocted could kill? Or may this truly have been a death from fever?”
“If the girl’s mother used it on her, she could hardly be mistaken,” said Cadfael ruefully. “Yes, I’ve known hyssop to kill. I was foolish to keep it among my stores, there are other herbs that could take its place. But in small doses, both herb and root, dried and powdered, are excellent for the yellow distemper, and useful with horehound against chest troubles, though the blue-flowered kind is milder and better for that. I’ve known women use it to procure abortion, in great doses that purge to the extreme. Small wonder if sometimes the poor girl dies.”
“And this was surely during his novitiate, for he cannot have been here long if this child was his, as he supposes. He can have been only a boy.”
