Read The Confession of Brother Haluin for Free Online Page B

saw, he was still delayed at court when we
left. He’ll be on his way home by now, unless Stephen keeps him for whatever
move he has next in mind.”
    Cadfael
received this news philosophically but without pleasure. So she was still
living, this woman who had sought to help her daughter to an abortion, and
succeeded only in helping her to her death. Not the first nor the last to come
by such a death. But what must the mother’s despair and guilt have been then,
and what bitter memories must remain even now, beneath the ashes of eighteen
years? Better, surely, to let them lie buried still. But Haluin’s
self-torturing conscience and salvation-hungry soul had their rights, too. And
after all, he had been just eighteen years old! The woman who had forbidden him
any aspiration to her daughter’s affection must have been double his age. She
might, thought Cadfael almost indignantly, have had the wisdom to see how
things began to be between those two, and taken steps to separate them in time.
    “Did
you ever feel, Hugh, that it might be better to let even ill alone,” wondered
Cadfael ruefully, “rather than let loose worse? Ah, well! He has not even tried
his crutches yet. Who knows what changes a few weeks may bring?”
     
    They
lifted Brother Haluin out of his bed in the middle of January, found him a
corner near the infirmary fire, since he could not move about freely like the
others to combat the cold, and treated his body, stiff from long lying, with
oil and massage to get the sinews working again. To occupy his hands and mind
they brought him his colors and a little desk to work on, and gave him a
simpler page to adorn until his fingers should regain their deftness and
steadiness. His mangled feet had healed and fused into misshapen forms, and
there was no question as yet of letting him attempt to stand on them, but
Cadfael allowed him to try the crutches Brother Luke had made for him, with
support on either side, to get accustomed to the heft and balance of them, and
the shaped and padded props under his armpits. If neither foot could ever be
brought to support him again, even the crutches would not be of any use, but
both Cadfael and Edmund agreed that there was every hope of the right foot
being restored to use in time, and even the left might eventually provide a
grain of assistance, with a little ingenuity in shoeing the invalid.
    To
that end Cadfael called in, at the end of the month, young Philip Corviser, the
provost’s son, and they put their heads together over the problem, and between
them produced a pair of boots as ill-matched in appearance as were the feet for
which they were intended, but adapted as best they could devise to give strong
support. They were of thick felt with a leather sole, built up well above the
ankles and laced close with leather thongs to support and protect the damaged
flesh and make full use of the shinbones, which were intact. Philip was pleased
with his work, but wary of praise until the boots were tried on, and found to
be wearable without pain, and blessedly warm in this wintry weather.
    And
all that was done for him Brother Haluin accepted gratefully and humbly, and
went on doggedly refreshing eye and hand with his reds and blues and delicately
laid gold. But as often as the hours of leisure came round he would be
precariously hoisting himself out of his corner bench with shoulders braced
upon his crutches, poised to reach for the support of wall or bench if his
balance was shaken. It took some time for the sinews to recover their toughness
in his wasted legs, but early in February he could set his right foot firmly to
the ground, and even stand on it briefly without other support, and from that
time on he began to use his crutches in earnest, and to master them. He was
seen again, dutiful and punctual, in his stall at chapel, and in the choir at
every office. By the end of February he could even set the blocked toe of his