The Confession of Brother Haluin Read Free Page B

master’s light weight.
    “There’ll
be no more snow tonight,” said Cadfael, eyeing the veiled sky and sniffing the
light, languid wind, “nor for a few days more, I fancy. Nor hard frost, either,
we’re on the edge of it. I pray you’ll have a tolerable ride south.”
    “We’ll
be away at dawn. And back, God willing, by the new year.” Hugh gathered his
bridle and swung himself into the high saddle, “May the thaw hold off until
your roof’s weatherproof again! And don’t forget Aline will be expecting you.”
    He
was off out of the gate, with a sharp echo of hooves ringing from the cobbles, and
a single brilliant spark that had come and gone almost before the iron shoe
left the frozen ground. Cadfael turned back to the door of the infirmary, and
went to check the stores in Brother Edmund’s medicine cupboard. Another hour,
and the light would be already dimming, in these shortest days of the year.
Brother Urien and Brother Haluin would be the last pair up on the roof for this
day.
    Exactly
how it happened no one ever clearly established. Brother Urien, who had obeyed
Brother Conradin’s order to come down as soon as the call came, pieced together
what he thought the most probable account, but even he admitted there could be
no certainty. Conradin, accustomed to being obeyed, and sensibly concluding
that no one in his right senses would wish to linger a moment longer than he
must in the bitter cold, had simply shouted his command, and turned away to
clear the last of the day’s broken slates out of the way of his descending
workmen. Brother Urien let himself down thankfully to the boards of the scaffolding,
and fumbled his way carefully down the long ladder to the ground, only too
happy to leave the work. He was strong and willing, and had no special skills
but a wealth of hard experience, and what he did would be well done, but he saw
no need to do more than was asked of him. He drew off some yards to look up at
what had been accomplished, and saw Brother Haluin, instead of descending the
short ladder braced up the slope of the roof on his side, mount several rungs
higher, and lean out sidelong to clear away a further sweep of snow and extend
the range of the uncovered slates. It appeared that he had seen reason to
suspect that the damage extended further on that side, and wished to sweep away
the snow there to remove its weight and prevent worse harm.
    The
rounded bank of snow shifted, slid down in great folds upon itself, and fell,
partly upon the end of the planks and the stack of slates waiting there, partly
over the edge and sheer to the ground below. No such avalanche had been
intended, but the frozen mass loosed its hold of the steep slates and dropped
away in one solid block, to shatter as it struck the scaffolding. Haluin had
leaned too far. The ladder slid with the snow that had helped to keep it
stable, and he fell rather before than with it, struck the end of the planks a
glancing blow, and crashed down without a cry to the frozen channel below.
Ladder and snowfall dropped upon the planks and hurled them after him in a
great downpour of heavy sharp-edged slates, slashing into his flesh.
    Brother
Conradin, busy almost beneath his scaffolding, had leaped clear only just in
time, spattered and stung and half blinded for a moment by the blown drift of
the fall. Brother Urien, standing well back, and arrested in the very act of
calling up to his companion to stop, for the light was too far gone, uttered
instead a great cry of warning, too late to save, and sprang forward, to be
half buried by the edge of the fall. Shaking off snow, they reached Brother
Haluin together.
    It
was Brother Urien who came in haste and grim silence looking for Cadfael, while
Conradin ran out the other way into the great court, and sent the first brother
he encountered to fetch Brother Edmund the infirmarer. Cadfael was in his
workshop, just turfing over his brazier for the