The Confession of Brother Haluin Read Online Free PDF Page B

withdrawal
might resemble dying, Brother Haluin would not die. Then we had better keep a
good watch, thought Cadfael, taking the parable to its fitting close, and make
sure seven devils worse than the first never manage to get a foot in the door
while he’s absent. And prayers for Haluin continued with unremitting fervor
throughout the festivities of Christmas and the solemn opening of the new year.
    The
thaw was beginning by that time, and even then it was a slow thaw, wearing away
each day, by slow degrees, the heavy wastes of snow from the great fall. The
work on the roof was finished without further mishap, the scaffolding taken
down, and the guest hall once again weatherproof. All that remained of the
great upheaval was this still and silent witness in his isolated bed in the
infirmary, declining either to live or die.
    Then,
in the night of the Epiphany, Brother Haluin opened his eyes and drew a long,
slow breath like any other man awaking without alarm, and cast his wondering
gaze round the narrow room until it rested upon Brother Cadfael, mute and
attentive on the stool beside him.
    “I
am thirsty,” said Haluin trustingly, like a child, and lay passive on Cadfael’s
arm to drink.
    They
half expected him to sink again into his unconscious state, but he remained
languid but aware all that day, and in the night his sleep was natural sleep,
shallow but tranquil. After that he turned his face to life, and did not again
look over his shoulder. Once risen from the semblance of death he came back to
the territory of pain, and its signature was on his drawn brow and set lips,
but he bore it without complaint. His broken arm had knitted while he lay
ignorant of his injuries, and caused him only the irritating aches of healing
wounds, and it seemed both to Cadfael and Edmund, after a day or two of keeping
close watch on him, that whatever had been shaken out of place within his head
had healed as the outer wound had healed, medicined by stillness and repose.
For his mind was clear. He remembered the icy roof, he remembered his fall, and
once when he was alone with Cadfael he showed that he recalled very clearly his
confession, for he said after a long while of silent thought:
    “I
did shamefully by you, long ago, now you tend and medicine me, and I have made
no amends.”
    “I’ve
asked none,” said Cadfael equably, and began with patient care to unfold the
wrappings from one maimed foot, to renew the dressings he had been replacing
night and morning all this time.
    “But
I need to pay all that is due. How else can I be clean?”
    “You
have made full confession,” said Cadfael reasonably. “You have received
absolution from Father Abbot himself, beware of asking more.”
    “But
I have done no penance. Absolution so cheaply won leaves me still a debtor,”
said Haluin heavily.
    Cadfael
had laid bare the left foot, the worse mangled of the pair. The surface cuts
and wounds had healed over, but what had happened to the labyrinth of small
bones within could never be put right. They had fused into a misshapen clot,
twisted and scarred, discolored in angry dark reds and purples. Yet the seamed
skin had knitted and covered all.
    “If
you have debts,” said Cadfael bluntly, “they bid fair to be paid in pain to the
day you die. You see this? You will never set this firmly to ground again. I
doubt if you will ever walk again.”
    “Yes.”
said Haluin, staring out through the narrow chink of the window at the
darkening wintry sky, “yes, I shall walk. I will walk. If God allows, I will go
on my own feet again, though I must borrow crutches to help them bear me. And
if Father Abbot gives me his countenance, when I have learned to use what props
are left to me I will go myself to Hales, to beg forgiveness of Adelais de
Clary, and keep a night’s vigil at Bertrade’s tomb.”
    In
his own mind Cadfael doubted if either the dead or the living would take any
great