Virgin in the Ice (21 page)

Cadfael thought it over, and said judicially: “I would leave departure until the brothers rise for Matins and Lauds, there will then be no porter on the gate, he will be in church with the rest. And no further stir until Prime. You and the boy could sleep some hours before riding. And if he comes during Compline, I can bring him within until time to leave. If you will trust me with the charge?”

“And thank you for it,” she said without hesitation. “We will do as you advise.”

“And you,” said Brother Cadfael, watching her seam lengthen with fierce stitch after stitch, “will you be as ready as Yves to leave this place by tomorrow’s midnight?”

She looked up yet again, without haste or concealment, but without confiding, either, and the sinking firelight caught the red glow again in her eyes, while her face was a pure mask. “Yes, I shall be ready,” she said, and glanced down at the sewing in her lap before she added: “My work here will be done.”

Chapter Fifteen

THE NIGHT WAS CLEAR, STARRY AND STILL, barely on the edge of frost. The sun emerged with dawn, and for the second night there had been no fresh snow. The drifts dwindled, even before the slow, quiet thaw set in, the kind of thaw that clears paths by gradual, almost stealthy erosion, and causes no floods.

Hugh Beringar had got back late in the evening, after overseeing the total destruction of what the fire had left, and the removal of a startling collection of plunder. The clutter of lean-to cells along the stockade had yielded up the remains of two murdered prisoners, tortured until they surrendered whatever they had of value, and three more still alive after the same treatment. They were being nursed in Ludlow, where Josce de Dinan had secured the survivors of the garrison in chains. Of the attacking force, there were some eighteen wounded, many more with minor grazes, but none dead. It might have been a deal more costly.

Prior Leonard strode radiantly about his court in the chill but brilliant sunlight, glittering with relief that his region was delivered from a pestilence, the missing pair safe within his walls, and Brother Elyas mute with wonder and grace in his bed, and bent upon life, whether blissful or baleful. He looked up with clear, patient eyes now, and took exhortation and reproof alike with humility and gladness. His mind was whole, his body would not be long in following.

Not long after High Mass the claimants began to come in to look for their horses, as doubtless they were flocking to Ludlow to pick out their own cows and sheep. Some, no doubt, would be claimed by more than one, and give rise to great quarrels and the calling in of neighbors to identify the disputed stock. But here there were only a handful of horses, and little ground for the opportunist greed of the cunning. Horses know their owners as well as the owners know their horses. Even the cows in Ludlow would have plenty to say about where they belonged.

John Druel was among the first to come, having walked all the way from Cleeton, and he had no need to urge his ownership, for the stout brown mountain cob strained and cried after him as soon as he showed his face in the stable-yard, and their meeting was an embrace. The cob blew sweetly in John’s ear, and John hugged him about the neck, looked him over from head to hocks, and wept on his cheek. The cob was his only horse, worth a fortune to him. Yves had seen him come, and ran to tell Ermina, and the pair of them came flying to greet him and force on him such favors as they still had about them to give.

A wife from Whitbache came to claim her dead husband’s mare. A thin, grave boy from the same manor came in shyly and humbly to call a solid work-horse of hill stock, and it went to him hesitantly, wanting his sire, but acknowledged the child of the same blood with a human sigh.

Not until dinner was over in the refectory, and Brother Cadfael emerged again into the midday sparkle of sun on snow, did Evrard Boterel ride in at the gatehouse, dismount, and look round him for someone to whom he might most properly address himself. He was still somewhat pale and lean from his fever, but much recovered in the vigor of his movement and the clarity of his eye, and he stood with reared head and imperious stare, even frowning a little that no groom ran at once to take his bridle. A fine figure of a young man, fair as his horse’s mane, and well aware of his handsome appearance and his dominant nobility. Such comeliness might well take any young woman’s fancy. What did a young fellow with these advantages have to do to lose his hold? Reality, Ermina had said, had rudely invaded her idyllic fantasy. Well! But was that enough?

Prior Leonard, all goodwill, came beaming down the court with his gangling stride, to greet the visitor civilly, and conduct him into the stable-yard. One of Hugh’s men, seeing the saddled horse untended, and being himself at leisure, came to take the bridle, and Boterel relinquished his mount as to a servant, without a further glance, and went with the prior.

He had come alone. If he had indeed a stolen horse to reclaim, he must take him home on a leading rein.

Brother Cadfael looked round at the guest-hall, very thoughtfully, and saw Ermina in her peasant gown come forth from the doorway and cross to the church, rapid and light, and bearing something rolled up beneath her arm. The dark arch of the porch swallowed her, as the walled enclosure of the stables had swallowed her sometime suitor. Yves would certainly be sitting now with Brother Elyas, his jealously guarded protégé and patient, on whom he waited with proprietorial zeal. Out of sight and out of peril. No arrows loosed here could strike at him.

Without haste, Cadfael stepped out into the cleared court and crossed towards the church, but tempered his going so judiciously that his path converged upon that by which Evrard Boterel and Hugh together emerged from the stables and made for the gatehouse. They, too, were taking their time, and Evrard was sunning into vivacity and smiles; the deputy sheriff was a study worth cultivating. Behind them a lay groom led a fine bay mare, chestnut-maned.

Cadfael reached the spot where their paths would cross, and there halted before the open, dim doorway of the church, so that they, too, came naturally to a halt. Boterel recognized the brother who had dressed his wound once in the manor of Ledwyche, and made gracious acknowledgment.

“I trust I see you fully restored to health,” said Cadfael civilly. His eyes was on Hugh, curious to see if he had taken note of the waiting horse, which the man-at-arms was walking to and from about the court with an admiring eye on his gait and a gentling hand on his neck. There was not much escaped Beringar’s eye, but his face gave away nothing of his thoughts. Cadfael’s thumbs pricked. He had no part to play here, on the face of it, yet his instinct drew him into a complex affair as yet only partly understood.

“I thank you, brother, I am indeed mending, if not mended,” said Evrard buoyantly.

“Little enough to thank me for,” said Cadfael. “But have you yet thanked God? It would be a fair return for mercies, from one preserved in life and limb, and in recovery of so fine a property as this mare of yours. After coils and cruelties in which so many have died, honest men and innocent virgins.” He was facing the open door to the church, he caught the dark quiver of movement within, that froze again into stillness. “For grace, come within now, and say a prayer for those less fortunate—even the one we have coffined here, ready for burial.”

He feared he had said too much, and was relieved to see Boterel confident and unshaken, turning towards the doorway with the light smile of one humoring a well-meaning churchman by consenting to a harmless gesture without significance.

“Very willingly, brother!” Why not? There had been dead left behind to the care of these or others in every rogue raid from Clee, small wonder if one of the last of them lay here newly coffined. He stepped jauntily up the stone stair and into the dim, cold nave, Cadfael close at his shoulder. Hugh Beringar, dark brows drawn down, followed as far as the threshold, and there stood astride, closing the way back.

The radiance of the sunlit snow fell behind them, turning them momentarily half-blind. The great, cold, twilit bulk enclosed them, the lamp on the high altar made an eye of fire ahead, very small and distant, and the only other light within was from the narrow windows, which laid pale bars across the tiles of the floor.

The red eye of the lamp went out suddenly. She must have come quite rapidly the few yards from the mortuary chapel to stand between, but in the brief darkness her movements had been silent and invisible. She came forward in a sweeping, hushed glide, advancing upon Evrard Boterel with hand extended, as in vain entreaty that turned abruptly into a stabbing accusation. He hardly knew what caused the dim air to vibrate until she surged into the first pallid bar of light, veil and cowl drawn close about her face, a slender Benedictine nun in a habit crumpled and soiled from the straw of the hut, the right breast and shoulder clotted and stiffened into a rusty blot of congealed blood. Then pale grey light took her and showed every seamed fold, even the smears that marred her sleeve, as she had fought him and ripped his young wound open again while he lay upon her. She never made a sound, only flew towards him silently along the tiles of the floor.

He gave a great lurch backwards into Brother Cadfael’s shoulder, and uttered a muffled moan of terror, whipping up a hand to cross his body against the unbelievable assault. Under the close-drawn hood great eyes blazed at him, and still she came on.

“No—no! Keep from me! You are dead…”

It was only a strangled whisper in his throat, as her voice might have been quenched under his hands; but Cadfael heard it. And it was enough, even though Evrard had gathered himself the next moment, and braced himself to stand his ground, stiffening almost breast to breast with her as she stepped into the light and became flesh, tangible and vulnerable.

“What fool’s play is this? Do you shelter madwomen here? Who is this creature?”

She flung back the cowl from her head and dragged off the wimple, shaking out her great burden of black hair over the befouled breast of Sister Hilaria’s gown, and showed him the fierce, marble face and burning eyes of Ermina Hugonin.

He was as little prepared for that apparition as for the other. Perhaps he had been thinking her safely dead somewhere under the forest drifts, since he had received no news of her. Perhaps he had concluded that he had nothing now to fear from anything she might have to urge against him, at least not in this world, and he had little consideration for any other. He gave back one hasty step before her, but could give no more, because Cadfael and Hugh stood one on either side between him and the open door. But he gathered himself together gallantly, and faced her with a hurt, bewildered countenance, appealing against inexplicable ill-usage.

“Ermina! What can this mean? If you live, why have you not sent me word? What is this you are trying to do to me? Have I deserved it? Surely you know I have been wearing out myself and all my household, searching for you?”

“I know it,” she said, in a voice small and hard, cold as the ice that had prisoned and preserved Sister Hilaria. “And if you had found me, and no other by, I should have gone the same way my dearest friend went, since you knew by then you would never get me to wed you. Married or buried, there was no third way for me, else I could tell all too much for your comfort and honor. And I have never said one word here to bring you to account, never a word for myself, since I brought it on myself, and was as much to blame as you. But knowing what I know now, and for her—Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times, I accuse you, murderer, ravisher, I name you, Evrard Boterel, as the killer of my sweet Hilaria…”

“You are out of your wits!” he cried, riding indignantly over her accusation. “Who is this woman you speak of? What do I know of any such person? Since the day you left me I’ve lain in fever and sickness. All my household will say so…”

“Oh, no! On, no! Not that night! You rode out after me, to recover me for your honor’s sake, to silence me, either by marriage or murder. Never deny it! I saw you ride! You think I was fool enough to believe I could outrun you on foot? Or terrified enough to lose my wits and run like a fool hare, zigzag, leaving tracks plain for you? I laid my traces no further than the trees, towards the Ludlow road where you would expect me to run, and made my way back roundabout to hide half the night among the timber you had stacked for your coward defenses. I saw you go, Evrard, and I saw you return, with your wound fresh-broken and bloodied on you. I did not run until you were helped within to your bed and the worst of the blizzard over, and I knew I could run at my own pace, with the dawn barely an hour away. And while I was hiding from you, you killed her!” she wrung out, burning up like a bitter fire of thorns. “On your way back from a fruitless hunt, you found a lone woman, and took your revenge for what I did to you, and all that you could not do to me. We killed her!” cried Ermina. “You and I between us! I am as guilty as you!”

“What are you saying?” He had called up a little courage, a little confidence. If she raved, he would have become soothing, solicitous, sure of himself, and even in her cold assurance he could find a foothold for his own. “Certainly I rode out to look for you, how could I leave you to die in the frost? I had a fall, weak from my wound as I was, and broke it open again and bled—yes, that is truth. But the rest? I hunted you all that night, as long as I could endure, and never did I halt in my search for you. If I came back empty-handed and bleeding, do you accuse me of that? I know nothing of this woman you speak of…”

“Nothing?” said Cadfael at his shoulder. “Nothing of a shepherd’s hut close to the track you would be riding, back from the Ludlow road towards Ledwyche? I know, for I’ve ridden in the opposite way. Nothing of a young nun asleep in the hay there, wrapped in a good man’s cloak? Nothing of a freezing brook handy on your way home, afterwards? It was not a fall that ripped your wound open again, it was the doughty fight she made for her honor in the cold night, where you had out your fury and lust upon her for want of another prey, more profitable to your ambitions. Nothing of the cloaks and habit hidden under the straw, to cast the crime on those guilty of everything else that cried to heaven here? Everything but this!”

The cold, pale light cast all shapes into marble, the shadows withdrew and left them stark. It was not long past noon of a sunlit day without. It was moon-chill and white here within. Ermina stood like a carving in stone, staring now in silence upon the three men before her. She had done what she had to do.

“This is folly,” said Evrard Boterel arduously, as against great odds. “I rode out swathed, after the wounds I got in the storming of Callowleas, I rode back home bleeding through my bindings, what of that? A freezing night of blizzard and snow, and I had taken a fall. But this woman, this nun—the shepherd’s hut—these mean nothing to me, I never was there, I do not even know where it is…”

“I have been there,” said Brother Cadfael, “and found in the snow the droppings of a horse. A tall horse, that left a fistful of his mane roven in the rough boards under the eaves. Here it is!” He had the wavy cream-colored strands in his hand. “Shall I match them with your gelding, there without? Shall we stretch you over the habit you see before you, and match your wound with the blood that soils it? Sister Hilaria did not bleed. Your wound I have seen, and know.”