Virgin in the Ice bc-6

by Ellis Peters

  “So the tracks would seem to show. It is not certain that those who slept in the hut through the night, and ran down to meet the horsemen, were Yves and Elyas, but man and boy they were, and do you know of any other such couple gone astray in the night? Yes, I do think they have fallen into the hands of these rogues. Armed or unarmed, Hugh, I am coming with you to get them out.”

  Hugh regarded him steadily, and said outright what was on his mind. “Would they bother to burden themselves with Elyas? The boy, yes, his very clothes mark him out as worthy prey. But a penniless monk, wandering in his wits? Once already they’ve battered him all but to death. You think they would hesitate the second time?”

  “If they had discarded him,” said Cadfael firmly, “I should have found his body lying. I did not find it. There is no way, Hugh, of knowing what is truth, but to go out and exact it from those who know.”

  “That we will do,” said Hugh. “At first light tomorrow I go to the town, to order out on the king’s business every man Josce de Dinan can muster, along with my own men. He owes allegiance, and he will pay it. He has no more use for anarchy in his own baileywick than King Stephan himself.”

  “A pity,” said Cadfael, “that we cannot take them at first dawn, but that would lose us a day. And we need the daylight more than they do, they knowing their ground so much better.” His mind was away planning the assault, which was no business now of his, nor had been for many years, but the old enthusiasm still burned up at the scent of action. He caught Hugh’s smiling eye, and was ashamed. “Pardon, I forgot myself, unregenerate as I am.” He turned back to what was his concern, the matter of troubled souls. “There is more to show you, though it has no immediate link with this devils’ castle.”

  He had brought the roll of black clothing with him. He unrolled it upon the trestles, drawing aside the creased white wimple and the strand of creamy mane. “These I found in the hay, in that hut, buried well from sight, if Reyner had not kicked the pile apart. See for yourself what lay in that hiding-place. And this—this from without, snagged in the rough wood at the corner of the hut, and a pile of horse-droppings left at the spot.”

  He told that tale with the same exactness, needing another mind to work upon these discoveries. Hugh watched and listened with frowning attention, quickened utterly from his weariness and alert to every implication.

  “Hers and his?” he said at the end of it. “Then they were there together.”

  “So I read it, also.”

  “Yet he was found some distance from this hut. Naked, stripped of his habit—but his cloak left behind where they sheltered. And if you are right, then Elyas sets off wildly back to this very place. By what compulsion? How drawn?”

  “This,” said Cadfael, “I cannot yet read. But I doubt not it can be read, with God’s help.”

  “And hidden—well hidden, you say. They might have lain unnoticed well into the spring, and been an unreadable riddle when they did reappear. Cadfael, have these wolves hidden any part of their worst deeds? I think not. What they break, they let lie where it falls.”

  “Devils do so,” said Cadfael, “being without shame.”

  “But perhaps not without fear? Yet there is no sense in it, take it all in all. I cannot see where this leads. I am none too happy,” owned Hugh ruefully, “when I try.”

  “Nor I,” said Cadfael. “But I can wait. There will be sense in it, when we know more.” And he added sturdily: “And it may not be so dismaying as we think for. I do not believe that evil and good can be so dismally plaited together that they cannot be disentangled.”

  Neither of them had heard the door of the room open or close, the small anteroom of the guest-hall, where Hugh’s supper had been laid. But when Cadfael went out with his bundle of clothing under his arm, she was there outside in the stone passage, the tall, dark girl with her sleepless, proud, anxious eyes huge in her pale face, and her black hair a great, swaying cloud round her shoulders, and he knew by the strained urgency of her face that she had come in innocence, hearing voices, and looked within, and drawn back in awe of what she saw. She had shrunk into the shadows, waiting and hoping for him. She was shivering when he took her firmly by the arm and led her away in haste to where the remnants of the day’s fire still burned sullenly in the hall, banked to continue live until morning. But for the surly glow, it was in darkness there. He felt her draw breath and relax a little, being thus hidden. He leaned to stab at the fire, not too roughly, and get an answering red and gratifying warmth out of it.

  “Sit down here and warm yourself, child. There, sit back and fear nothing. This same morning, on my life, Yves was live and vigorous, and tomorrow we shall bring him back, if man can do it.”

  The hand with which she had gripped his sleeve released him slowly. She let her head rest back against the wall, and spread her feet to the fire. She had on the peasant gown in which she had entered at the gate, and her feet were bare.

  “Girl dear, why are you not long ago asleep? Can you not leave anything to us, and beyond us to God?”

  “It was God let her die,” said Ermina, and shuddered. “They are hers—I know, I saw! The wimple and the gown, they are Hilaria’s. What was God doing when she was befouled and murdered?”

  “God was taking note of all,” said Cadfael, “and making place beside him for a little saint without spot. Would you wish her back from thence?”

  He sat down beside her, not touching, very considerate of her grief and remorse. Who had more to answer for? And who needed more gentle usage and guidance, in respect for her self-destroying rage?

  “They are hers, are they not? I could not sleep, I came to see if anyone had news, and I heard your voices there. I was not listening, I only opened the door, and saw.”

  “You did no harm,” he said mildly. “And I will tell you all I know, as you deserve. Only I warn you again, you may not take to yourself the guilt of the evil another has done. Your own, yes, that you may. But this death, at whosoever’s door it lights, comes not near you. Now, will you hear?”

  “Yes,” she said, at once docile and uncompromising in the dark. “But if I may not arrogate blame, I am noble, and I will demand vengeance.”

  “That also belongs to God, so we are taught.”

  “It is also a duty of my blood, for so 1 was taught.”

  It was every bit as legitimate a discipline as his own, and she was just as dedicated. He was not even sure, sitting beside her and feeling her passionate commitment, that he did not share her aim. If there was a severance, yet they did not go so far apart. What they had in common, he reasoned, was a thirst for justice, which she, bred into another estate, called vengeance. Cadfael said nothing. A devotion so fierce might burn long enough to carry all before it, or it might soften and concede some degree of its ferocity. Let her find her own way, after eighteen her spirit might abate its fury as it saddened and became reconciled to the human condition.

  “Will you show me?” she said almost humbly. “I would like to handle her habit, I know you have it there.” Yes, almost humbly, she was feeling her way to some end of her own. Humility in her would always be a means to an end. But of her whole-hearted affection for the lost friend there could be no doubt at all.

  “It is here,” said Cadfael, and unrolled the bundle on the bench between them, putting aside the cloak that belonged to Brother Elyas. The wisp of creamy mane drifted out of the folds and lay at her foot, stirring like a living thing in the draught along the floor. She picked it up and sat gazing down at it from under drawn brows for some moments, before she looked up questioningly at Cadfael.

  “And this?”

  “A horse stood tethered under the eaves of that hut for some time, and left his droppings in the snow, and this rubbed off from his mane against the rough boards.”

  “That night?” she said.

  “Who can be sure? But the droppings were well buried, not new. It could have been that night.”

  “The place where you found her,” said Ermina, “was not
close?”

  “Not so close that a man would willingly carry a body there, even to hide the circumstances of his guilt—unless he had a horse to bear the burden.”

  “Yes,” she said, “that was my thought, also.” She put the pale strands from her gently, and took the habit into her hands. He watched her drape it over her knees, and run her hands softly over the folds. Her fingers found the stiffened places, halted over the patch on the right breast, traced the folded creases that ran from it, and returned to the source.

  “This is blood?” she questioned, wondering. “But she did not bleed. You told me how she died.”

  “That is true. This blood cannot be hers. But blood it is. There were faint traces on her body, where there was no wound.”

  “Faint traces!” said Ermina, lifting to his face one flash of her dark eyes. She spread her palm upon the patch that stiffened the breast of the gown, opening her fingers wide to span the clotted stain that was more than a faint trace. A stain from without, then, not from within. “His blood? The man who killed her? Well done, if she drew blood from him! And yet … I would have clawed out his eyes, but she? So slight and so gentle …”

  Suddenly she was still, quite still, brooding with the habit raised in both hands to her breast, as it would hang if she put it on, and the red glow from the fire gilding her face and kindling reflected fires in her eyes. When she stirred again, it was to rise calmly and shake out the creases, and that done, she folded the garment meticulously, smoothing out the edges to make all neat.

  “May I keep this in my charge? Until,” she said with considered emphasis, “it is needed to confront her murderer?”

  Chapter Eleven

  In the early morning light Hugh Beringar rode from Bromfield for Ludlow, to muster his forces for the march, and Brother Cadfael pulled on his boots, kilted his habit for riding, took his cloak, and went with him. Besides his function as guide, he had loaded his scrip with dressings and ointments for fresh wounds, of which there might be plenty before this day ended.

  He saw nothing of Ermina before they departed, and was glad to believe that she must still be fast asleep, and at peace. There was a tension and withdrawal about her that made him uneasy, for no good reason that he could see. It was not simple fear for her brother that weighed on her heart, nor the grief and guilt she had already confessed and was determined to purge by penitence. That braced, armed stillness with which she had taken her leave the previous night, clasping Sister Hilaria’s habit, stayed in his mind as much resembling the virgin knight’s bathed and accoutred vigil before his first battle.

  Blessed be Olivier de Bretagne, who had somehow found a way to master her, ousting an immature fantasy of love from her heart, and at whose command she would even remain still and inactive, and leave the burden of the day to others, wholly against her nature. But why, then, should he think of her as armed, alert and about to do battle?

  Meantime they had their own battle to fight and win.

  At Ludlow Josce de Dinan marched out from the castle the force Hugh demanded of him, and came himself at their head, a big, burly, full-fleshed man of middle age, ruddy of face and well-mounted. Hugh had asked in particular for archers, and got them. In these border shires there were plenty of men skilled with the short bow, and Cadfael estimated that from the rim of the trees at the head of the gully to the stockade should be just within their range. From the shelter of the branches they could provide cover for an advance, by picking off any defenders who mounted the guard-walk within. A pity that the trees spanned barely a quarter of the open plateau, where the ravine still gave them protection from the bleakest winds, and even there they shrank to dwarf size at the crest. That open arena troubled Cadfael. There would be archers within as well as without, and loopholes to allow them a clear field without exposing them to shafts from the attackers. He had no delusions about the quality of the enemy’s dispositions. Whoever had erected that fortress in that lofty place knew what he was about, and by the carefree bustle within he had mustered a formidable garrison.

  The march was easier than they had expected. The night’s snow had begun later and ended earlier than for some days, and without the worst winds, and Cadfael had the path well in mind. The air, still as frosty, was starkly clear here on the lower ground, but thin, bright mist cut off all summits. That might well be to their advantage when they drew close to their goal, affording at least a veil over their movements.

  “Such a morning,” judged Cleeton, “if they have been out at all in the night, they would make sure of being home and invisible early. Given a remission like this, country people will be out betimes. These night-owls have no objection to leaving their traces where they strike, but so far they’ve avoided being seen, except by their victims. Those who blunder into their way by chance they kill, unless they have a value living. But with one fat plucking only a night ago, maybe they won’t have stirred abroad. If that’s so, they’ll be home and wakeful, and less drunk than after a fat foray, which is a pity.”

  He rode ahead, with Hugh on one side, and Josce de Dinan a careless pace to the rear on the other. Dinan was too big a man, in every sense, to strain to keep his horse’s nose level with that of Hugh’s mount, or resent serving under a younger and less experienced man. He had no need to stress his own worth. Cadfael took to him. He had never before seen this supposedly dubious ally, but he thought him a man to be valued, and lost only with grief.

  “They may have outposts at the approaches,” said Hugh.

  Cadfael considered, and doubted it. “Towards the foot or even halfway up, their man would be too distant to give fair warning, and too isolated for his own safety. And the best defense of the gully is that it looks so narrow and blind it must usually pass unnoticed. I was following a plain trail. I shall not miss the place. And in between, all is open. I think they rely on secrecy, and if that’s penetrated, on their strength.”

  The world before them lay bleak and unpeopled, the great hump of land ahead, turbaned in cloud, was a steely blue shadow. Cadfael viewed the sculptured land, narrowed his eyes, and steered his remembered course. In places the night’s fall had smoothed out yesterday’s tracks, but here and there they still showed faintly as dimpled hollows in the new surface. When they drew near to the stony bulk before them he slowed his pace, and went with raised head, trying to pierce the haze that hid the crest of the cliffs. He could see no square dark ridge reared above the bulk of the rock, though the outline of the rock itself showed very faintly through the veil. If he could not see the tower, there was hope that no watcher from the tower could see this approaching force, even though they moved openly and in considerable numbers. Better get them past this stage as quickly as possible, and round the first curve of the spiral pathway.

  When the long gradual climb brought them out on the bleak waste of the summit, and the fissure in the rocky ground opened on their left, Hugh halted his company and sent scouts ahead. But there was no movement, no sign of life but the wheeling of a few birds in the sky above. The cleft was so narrow that it seemed likely it must close after a few paces, and could hardly be expected to lead anywhere.

  “It widens, within,” said Cadfael, “and goes on opening steadily towards the source of the stream, like most upland brooks. There are trees most of the way, though they’re dwarfed above.”

  They entered the defile, and deployed their numbers among the trees on either side. The mist was lifting by the time Hugh stood within the highest screen of trees, looking out over the open bowl of sparse grass and rock and snow to the stockade. The first step out of cover by any man, and the alarm would be given at once. From this thin fringe of trees onward there was no cover at all. And the distance, Cadfael saw with concern, was greater than he had thought, great enough to decimate the ranks of any attacking host, if there were competent bowmen and a proper watch within the walls.

  Josce de Dinan eyed the length of the stockade and the bulk of the tower within. “You’ll not give them formal call to surrender? I see
no need, and good reason against it.”

  So did Hugh. Why give away the weapon of surprise, if indeed they had managed to spread their archers and men-at-arms round the meager crescent of cover without being observed. If they could get even halfway to the walls before the archers sprang into concerted action along the guard-walk, they could save lives.

  “No. These men have done pillage, violence, and murder without mercy, I need give them nothing. Let’s dispose our forces to the best advantage, and then have at them before they’re ‘ware.”

  His bowmen had distributed all round the crescent. His men afoot in three groups were spaced along the rim, and his handful of mounted men in two groups between, to converge on the gate and break their way in, to make a way for the following footmen.

  There was a stillness when all was ready, before Hugh, from his place as spear-head of one mounted party, spurred forward and raised his arm for the onset. He from the left and Dinan from the right burst out from cover and charged for the gate, the footmen pouring after them. The bowmen in the edge of the trees loosed one volley together, and then drew and shot at will, watching for any head that appeared above the stockade. Cadfael, left behind with the archers, marveled that the attack could begin almost in silence but for the thudding of hooves, and even that muffled by the snow. The next moment there was uproar within the walls, a frantic scrambling of men to the loopholes, and then an answering hail of arrows. But that first charge had almost succeeded, for the gate had been unbarred, and by the time the guards had clapped it to, Hugh and Dinan and five or six more were under the wall, hidden from the defenders within, and heaving with all their might to burst into the bailey.

  Within, men swarmed to hold the gate closed and bar it securely, and the din of shouted orders and confused movements washed back and forth like storm-water in a foundering ship. The stout gate was ajar, quivering, and the running foot soldiers flung themselves into the human ram to hurl it wide and break into the bailey.