Authors: Ellis Peters
Tags: #Catholics, #Mystery & Detective, #Cadfael; Brother (Fictitious Character), #Herbalists, #Political, #General, #Historical, #Traditional British, #Fiction
Virgin in the Ice (23 page)
“I was in the world forty years,” said Cadfael simply, “before I chose this discipline for my cure. I have been soldier, sailor and sinner. Even crusader! At least that was pure, however the cause fell short of my hopes. I was very young then. I knew both Tripoli and Antioch, once. I knew Jerusalem. They will all have changed now, that was long ago.”
Long ago, yes—twenty-seven years since he had left those shores!
The young man grew talkative at finding so knowledgeable a companion. For all his knightly ambitions and his dedication to a new faith, a part of him leaned back with longing to his native land. He began to talk of the royal city, and of old campaigns, to question eagerly of events before ever he was born, and to extol the charm of remembered places.
“I wonder, though,” admitted Cadfael wryly, recalling how far his own cause had often fallen short, and how often the paynim against whom he had fought had seemed to him the nobler and the braver, “I wonder, born into such a faith, that you should find it easy to leave it, even for a father.” He rose as he spoke, recollecting how time must be passing. “I should be waking them. It cannot be long to the Matins bell.”
“It was not easy at all,” said Olivier, pondering in some surprise that the same doubt had so seldom troubled him. “I was torn, a long time. It was from my mother I had, as it were, the sign that turned the scale. Given the difference in our tongues, my mother bore the same name as your Lady Mary…”
Behind Cadfael’s back the door of the little room had opened very softly. He turned his head to see Ermina, flushed and young from sleep, standing in the doorway.
“… she was called Mariam,” said Olivier.
“I have roused Yves,” said Ermina, just above a whisper. “I am ready.”
Her eyes, huge and clear, all the agonizing of the day washed away by sleep, clung to Olivier’s face, and at the sound of her voice he flung up his head and answered the look as nakedly as if they had embraced heart to heart. Brother Cadfael stood amazed and enlightened. It was not the name the boy had spoken, it was the wild rise of his head, the softened light over his cheek and brow, the unveiled, unguarded blaze of love, turning the proud male face momentarily into a woman’s face, one known and remembered through twenty-seven years of absence.
Cadfael turned like a man in a dream, and left them together, and went to help a sleepy Yves to dress and make ready for his journey.
He let them out by the wicket door while the brothers were at Matins. The girl took a grave and dignified leave, and asked his prayers. The boy, still half asleep, lifted his face for the kiss proper between respected elder and departing child, and the young man, in generous innocence and in acknowledgement of a parting probably lifelong, copied the tribute and offered an olive cheek. He did not wonder at Cadfael’s silence, for after all, the night demanded silence and discretion.
Cadfael did not stand to watch them go, but closed the wicket again, and went back to sit beside Brother Elyas, and let the wonder and the triumph wash over him in wave on wave of exultation. Nunc dimittis! No need to speak, no need to make any claim, or trouble in any way the course Olivier had set himself. What need had he now of that father of his? But I have seen him, rejoiced Cadfael, I have had him by the hand in the darkness, I have sat with him and talked of time past, I have kissed him, I have had cause to be glad of him, and shall have cause to be glad lifelong. There is a marvelous creature in the world with my blood in his veins, and Mariam’s blood, and what does it matter whether these eyes ever see him again? And yet they may, even in this world! Who knows?
The night passed sweetly over him. He fell asleep where he sat, and dreamed of unimaginable and undeserved mercies until the bell rang for Prime.
He thought it politic, on reflection, to be the first to discover the defection and raise the mild alarm. There was a search, but the guests were gone, and it was not the business of the brothers to confine or pursue them, and the only anxiety Prior Leonard expressed was for the fugitives themselves, that they might go in safety, and come safely to their proper guardian. Indeed, Prior Leonard received the whole affair with a degree of complacency that Cadfael found faintly suspicious, though it might have been only a reflection of the distracted elation he himself could not quite dissemble. The discovery that Ermina had stripped the rings from her fingers and left them, with the carefully folded habit, on Sister Hilaria’s sealed coffin as an offering, absolved the runaways from the charge of ingratitude.
“But what the deputy sheriff will say is another matter,” sighed Prior Leonard, snaking an apprehensive head.
Hugh did not present himself until it was time for High Mass, and heard the news with a very appropriate and official show of displeasure, only to shrug it off as of secondary importance, considering the weightier matters he had dealt with successfully.
“Well, they have saved us an escort, then, and so they get safe to d’Angers, so much the better if it’s at his expense. We have rooted out that lair of wolves, and sent a murderer off this morning towards Shrewsbury, and that was the chief of my business here. And I’m off after my men within the hour, and you may as well ride with me, Cadfael, for I fancy your business here is just as well concluded as mine.”
Brother Cadfael thought so, too. Elyas had no more need of him, and to linger where those three had been had no more meaning now. At noon he saddled up and took his leave of Leonard and rode with Hugh Beringar for Shrewsbury.
The sky was veiled but benign, the air cold but still and clear, a good day for going home well content. They had not ridden thus knee to knee in peace and without haste for some time, and the companionship was good, whether in speech or silence.
“So you got your children away without a hitch,” said Hugh innocently. “I thought it could safely be left to you.”
Cadfael gave him a measuring and mildly resentful look, and could feel no great surprise.”I should have known! I thought you made and kept yourself very scarce overnight. I suppose it wouldn’t have done for a deputy sheriff with your reputation for sharpness to sleep the night through while his hostages slipped away quietly for Gloucester .” Not to speak of their escort, he thought, but did not say. Hugh had noted the quality of the supposed forester’s son, and even guessed at his purpose, but Hugh did not know his name and lineage. Some day, when wars ended and England became one again, some day Hugh might be told what now Cadfael hugged his heart in secret. But not yet! It was too new a visitation, he could spare none of the miraculous, the astonishing grace. “From Ludlow ,” he said, “I grant you could hardly be expected to hear the wicket at Bromfield open and close at midnight. You did not leave Boterel in Dinan’s care, then?”
“I was none too sure there would not be another departure in the night,” said Hugh. “He is Dinan’s tenant. We have taken confession from him, but I would rather have him safe under lock and key in Shrewsbury castle.”
“Will he hang, do you think?”
“I doubt it. Let those judge whose work is judging. My work is to hold the ways safe for travellers, as far as man can, and apprehend murderers. And let honest men, women and children go their ways freely, with my goodwill.”
They were more than halfway to Shrewsbury and the light still good, and Hugh’s pace began to quicken, and his gaze to prick eagerly ahead, hungry for the first sight of the hill-top towers within the wall. Aline would be waiting for him, proud and fond, and deep in happy preparations for the Christmas feast.
“My son will be grown out of knowledge during these days I’ve been away. All must be very well with them both, or Constance would have been sending after me. And you have not even seen my son yet, Cadfael!”
But you have seen mine, thought Cadfael, rapt and silent beside him, though you do not know it.
“Long-boned and strong—he’ll be taller than his father by a head…”
He is taller by a head, Cadfael exulted. Taller by a head and something to spare. And what paragons of beauty and gallantry may not spring from his union with that imperial girl!
“Wait until you see him! A son to be proud of!”
Cadfael road mute and content, still full of the wonder and astonishment, all elation and all humility. Eleven more days to the Christmas feast, and no shadow hanging over it now, only a great light. A time of births, of triumphant begettings, and this year how richly celebrated—the son of the young woman from Worcester, the son of Aline and Hugh, the son of Mariam, the Son of Man…
A son to be proud of! Yes, amen!
About the Author
ELLIS PETERS is the
nom-de-crime
of English novelist Edith Pargeter, author of scores of books under her own name. She is the recipient of the Silver Dagger Award, conferred by the Crime Writers Association in Britain, as well as the coveted Edgar, awarded by the Mystery Writers of America. Miss Pargeter is also well known as a translator of poetry and prose from the Czech and has been awarded the Gold Medal and Ribbon of the Czechoslovak Society for Foreign Relations for her services to Czech literature. She passed away in 1995, at the age of 82, at home in her beloved Shropshire.