Free The Confession of Brother Haluin by Ellis Peters Page B

Bertrade, or it might
have been “buried.” No matter! What mattered was that he had uttered it on the
edge of sleep, and now would blessedly sleep again after all his harsh labor
along the way, perhaps long past the coming of the light. So much the better!
One day more spent on this pilgrimage might grieve his impatient spirit, but it
would certainly benefit his harshly driven body.
    Cadfael
arose very quietly, and left his companion deeply asleep and virtually a
prisoner in the loft, since he would need help to get to his feet and descend
the ladder. With the trapdoor left open, a listener below would hear when the
sleeper stirred, but by the look of his relaxed body and the thin face smoothed
of its tensions he would sleep for some time.
    Cadfael
went out into the clear, sharp morning, to sniff the still air, redolent of the
lingering winter scents of forestland still half asleep. From the forester’s
small assart among the trees it was possible to see the cleared grey of the
track in broken glimpses between the old trunks, for the growth was close
enough to keep the ground almost clear of underbrush. A handcart trundled along
the road, laden with kindling from the fallen deadwood of the autumn, and the
chattering flight of disturbed birds accompanied it in a shimmer of fluttered
branches and drifting leaves. The forester was already up and about his morning
tasks, his cow lumbering in to be milked, his dog weaving busily about his
heels. A dry day, the sky overcast but lofty, the light good. A fine day for
the road. By night they could be in Chenet itself, and the manor, in the king’s
holding, would take them in. Tomorrow to Lichfield, and there Cadfael was
determined they should halt for another long night’s rest, however ardently
Haluin might argue for pressing on the remaining few miles to Elford. After a
proper sleep in Lichfield Haluin should be in better condition to endure the
next night’s vigil pledged in Bertrade’s memory, and face the beginning of the
return journey, during which, God be praised, there need be no haste at all,
and no cause to drive himself to the limits of endurance.
    Sounds
came muffled and soft along the beaten earth of the track, but Cadfael caught
rather the vibration of hooves than the impact. Horses coming briskly from the
west, two horses, for their gaits quivered in counterpoint, coming at a brisk
trot, fresh from a night’s rest and ready for the day. Travelers heading,
perhaps, for Lichfield, after spending the night at the manor of Stretton, two
miles back along the road. Cadfael stood to watch them pass.
    Two
men in dun-colored gear, leather-coated, easy in the saddle, their seats and
the handling of their mounts so strongly alike that either they had learned
from childhood together or the one had taught the other. And indeed, the one
was double the bulk of the other and clearly a generation the elder, and though
they were too distant and too briefly seen to have features, the whole shape of
them indicated that they were kin. Two privileged grooms to some noble house,
each with a woman pillion behind him. Women warmly cloaked for traveling look
all much alike, and yet Cadfael stared after the first of these with roused
attention, and kept his eyes on her until the horses and their riders had
vanished along the road, and the soft drumming of hooves faded into distance.
    She
was still within his eyelids as he turned back into the hay hut, pricking
uneasily at his memory, urging, against all his dismissal of the possibility as
folly, that he had seen her before, and further, that if he would but admit it
he knew very well where.
    But
whether that was true or not, and whatever it augured if it was, there was
nothing he could do about it. He shrugged it into the back of his mind, and
went in, to listen for the moment when Haluin should awake and have need of
him.
     
    They
came through groves of trees into an expanse of level