The Confession of Brother Haluin is (as the image indicates) the fifteenth story in the series and begins in late 1142, when heavy snowfalls create roofing issues for the brothers of the Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. To avoid having the roof collapse and leak further, the brothers take on the challenge of repairing the slates in deep winter, and one of those who volunteers is a brother that is typically in the scriptorium, Brother Haluin. He is a quiet and hard-working man who has done more than his share of working hard during his fifteen or so years in the abbey. As he works on the roof, he presses himself a bit too hard once again, reaching out beyond safety in order to make a repair. In doing so, he creates more harm than he could have intended: Brother Haluin and the loose slates slide off the roof and land in the snow many feet below, shattering both the slates and the poor brother's bones.
Brother Haluin is not expected to survive, and when he regains a bit of consciousness he requests confession. Abbot Radulfus comes immediately, and the ailing brother asks for Cadfael to stay as well. And the confession he gives is hardly what they expected of such a gentle and diligent monk. Many years before, before he joined the abbey, Haluin had been a young man of eighteen, the heir of a manor, and a clerk (learning letters and numbers) in the household of Bertrand de Clary at Hales, a powerful landowner with property in both Shropshire and Staffordshire. While there, Haluin had fallen in love the de Clary's daughter Bertrade, but his suit was rejected by her mother Adelais, the Lord de Clary being away in the Crusades. Haluin and Bertrade loved each other deeply, however, and they chose to push their relationship beyond what was wise. Adelais found out and sent Haluin away, and he chose the cloister to hide from the pain of the world. Several months after his arrival, Haluin received a letter from Adelais in which she claimed that Bertrade was pregnant and that the girl needed an abortive remedy. As Haluin was working with Cadfael at the time, he had learned about the dangers that herbs can create, however forbidden those dangers might be, and he sent the herbs to his beloved. Shortly thereafter, Adelais sent word that Bertrade and her child had both died from the remedy, although she claimed publicly that her daughter (whose pregnancy was obviously not announced) had died of a fever.
Haluin was both horrified and mortified. He had, as he believed, killed his love and their child. He spent the years that followed in pressing himself through work and penance, although he never confessed this particular sin until his devastating accident. Haluin claims that if he recovers from his ailment, he will take himself on a pilgrimage to Bertrade's grave to pray and to beg his forgiveness of her mother. And much to everyone's surprise, Haluin does recover, although he will never regain the full use of his feet. He insists on the pilgrimage to which he has committed himself, and once March arrives and he is well on the mend, he requests leave to go. Abbot Radulfus asks Cadfael, who is the only other who knows of Haluin's confession, to accompany the man on his way, and Cadfael agrees (believing that his journey will be but a walk to a tomb, a night of prayer, and a return).
As tends to happens in stories that involve Brother Cadfael, things get a bit complicated. For one, Bertrade's tomb is not at Hales, where Haluin expected it to be. Haluin and Cadfael arrive, and a shocked Adelais greets them coldly, offering little more than basic comfort during their stay. Once Haluin realizes that Bertrade's resting place must be at the family's main estate of Elford, he insists on pushing on (despite Cadfael's concerns about his health and the weather). They make it to the main estate, say their prayers at the family tomb, and then depart. Surprisingly, Adelais has turned up here as well, but the brothers think little of it and head back to Shrewsbury once their vigil is complete.
On the way back, however, they run into a sever snowfall that delays them and sends them into shelter at the Vivers manor, where they are welcomed freely. While there, they also receive an odd request: the lord Cenred asks if either of them is a priest and requests that he (who turns out to be Brother Haluin) marry his sister Helisende to her bridegroom who is soon to arrive. The request is particularly strange due to Cenred's haste, but it turns out that he has good reason. Helisende is only his half-sister and the product of his father's second marriage very late in life. The young girl is only seventeen or eighteen, and she and Cenred's son Roscelin (who is technically Helisende's nephew) have developed an unfortunate romantic love for one another. The relationship is forbidden under the Church law, and Helisende has agreed to marry a distant lord Jean de Perronet to remove herself from the situation. Roscelin (who is working under the current lord Audemar de Clary at Elford) knows nothing, and Cenred hopes to complete the marriage as soon as possible.
Under the circumstances, and because the young lady agrees to the marriage, Brother Haluin agrees to officiate. Before the ceremony can occur, however, a murder occurs. (This is a Brother Cadfael mystery, after all.) Helisende's long-time nurse (who was also nurse to her mother) has run to Elford, purportedly to tell Roscelin about what is going on. She never returns to Vivers, and her stabbed body is discovered in the snow. This delays things and sends everyone into an uproar, and just as Cenred decides that the marriage between Helisende and Lord de Perronet should, in fact, continue Helisende disappears.
And this is where Cadfael begins to piece things together. As mentioned above, this isn't so much a mystery that he solves as a story from the past that he reassembles. I suppose it's also not a terribly complex one, but it's quite wonderful to see it pieced back together. The one problem with this story might be that the murder itself gets brushed under the rug a bit: the poor old nurse is indeed murdered, and Cadfael has a good idea of who is responsible, but there is no sense that the perpetrator will be brought to justice. That really isn't the purpose of this story, but it's sad all the same. Apart from that, though, this is a lovely story of how the past can come back to haunt those in the present and that no amount of manipulation and concealment can be kept hidden forever.
Year of publication: 1988
Number of pages: 205 pages
