Virgin in the Ice (4 page)

Chapter Three

GODSTOKE, SUNK IN ITS DEEP, WOODED VALLEY BETWEEN THE HILLS, was held by the priory of Wenlock, a third of the manor fanned in demesne, the rest leased out to life tenants, a prosperous settlement, and well-found in stores and firing for the winter. Once over the bleak hills and into this sheltered place, a party of fugitives could rest and be at ease, and make their way onward at their own pace, moving from manor to manor of the prior’s wide-ranging properties.

But these fugitives had never reached Godstoke. The prior’s steward was quite certain.

“We got word already they were being sought, and though we had no great call to suppose they would be heading this way, any more than by Ludlow or any other road, I’ve had inquiry made everywhere. You may take it as sure, brother, that they did not reach us.”

“The last known of them,” said Brother Cadfael, “was at Foxwood. From Cleobury they were in company with a brother of our order, who urged them to come on with him to Bromfield, but they would continue north over the hills. It seemed to me they must make for you.”

“So I would say also,” agreed the steward. “But they did not come.”

Cadfael considered. He was not perfectly familiar with these parts, yet he knew them well enough to make his way. If they had not passed here, small profit in searching beyond. And though it would be possible to work backwards along the way they should have taken to reach this place, and look for traces of them between here and Foxwood, that would certainly have to wait for another day. This one was already too far spent. Dusk was closing in faintly, and he had better make his way back by the nearest way.

“Well, keep watch in case some word reaches you. I’m for Bromfield again.” He had come by the most used roads, but they were less than direct, and he had a good eye for country. “If I make straight southwesterly from here, I take it that’s the way the crow flies for Bromfield. How are the tracks?”

“You’ll be threading part of Clee Forest if you try it, but keep the sunset a little on your right hand and you’ll not go wrong. And the brooks are no stay, nor have been since the frost set in.”

The steward started him off in the direction he should go, and saw him out of the wooded hollow and on to the narrow, straight track between gentle hills, turning his back upon the great, hunched bulk of Brown Clee, and his left shoulder on the grimmer, more rugged shape of Titterstone Clee. The sunlight had long withdrawn, though the sun itself had still some way to sink, and hung in a dull red ball behind veils of thin grey cloud. The inevitable nocturnal snow should not begin for an hour or two yet. The air was very still and very cold.

After a mile he was in the forest. The branches still held up roofs of frozen snow, trailing long icicles where the noon sun had had room to penetrate, and the ground underfoot, deep in leaf-mold and needles, was easy riding. The trees even created a measure of warmth. Clee was a royal forest, but neglected now, as much of England was surely being neglected, left to rot or to be appropriated by opportunist local magnates, while king and empress fought out their battle for the crown. Lonely country, this, and wild, even within ten miles of castle and town. Assarts were few and far between. The beasts of the chase and the beasts of the warren had it for their own domain, but in such a winter even the deer would starve without some judicious nursing from men. Fodder too precious to be wasted by the farmer might still be put out by the lord to ensure the survival of his game in a bad season. Cadfael passed one such store, trampled and spread by the hungry beasts, the snow patterned with their slots all around. The hereditary forester was still minding his duties, no matter which of the two rival rulers claimed his estate.

The sun, seen briefly between the trees, hung very low now, evening had begun to gather like an overhanging cloud, while the ground below still had light enough. Before him the trees drew apart, restoring an hour of the failing day. Someone had carved out an assart, a clearing of narrow garden and field about a low cottage. A man was folding his two or three goats, herding them before him into a wattled enclosure. He looked up alertly at the rustle of crisp snow and frozen leaf under hooves. A sturdy, squat husbandman no more than forty years old, in good brown homespun and leggings of home-tanned leather. He had made a good job of his lonely holding, and stood erect to face the traveller as soon as he had penned his goats. Narrowed eyes surveyed the monastic habit, the tall and vigorous horse, the broad, weathered face beneath the cowl.

“God bless the holding and the holder,” said Cadfael, reining in by the wattle fence.

“God be with you, brother!” His voice was even and deep, but his eyes were wary. “Whither bound?”

“To Bromfield, friend. Am I going right?”

“True enough to your road. Keep on as you are, and in a half-mile you come to the Hopton brook. Cross it, and bear a little to your left over the two lesser brooks that run into it. After the second the track forks. Bear right, level along the slope, and you’ll come out to the road beyond Ludlow, a mile from the priory.”

He did not ask how a Benedictine brother came to be riding this obscure way at such an hour. He did not ask anything. He spread his solid bulk across the gateway of his enclosure like a portcullis, but with courteous face and obliging tongue. It was the eyes that said he had something within to cover from view, and also that he was storing every sight and sound to be delivered faithfully elsewhere. Yet whoever hewed this holding out of the forest could be nothing less than a practical, honest man.

“Thanks for your rede,” said Cadfael. “Now help me with another matter if you can. I am a monk of Shrewsbury, now nursing a brother of our order from Pershore, in the infirmary of Bromfield priory. Our sick brother frets over certain people he met on their way to Shrewsbury from Worcester, in flight from the sacking of the city. They would not turn west with him for Bromfield, they would hold northwards this way. Tell me if you have seen hide or hair of such.” He described them, in doubt of his own intuition until he saw the man cast one swift glance over his shoulder towards his cottage, and again confront him unblinking.

“No such company has come my way in this woodland,” he said steadily. “And why should they? I’m on the way to nowhere.”

“Travellers in strange country and snow may very well find themselves on the road to nowhere, and lost to anywhere,” said Cadfael. “You’re none so far from Godstoke, where I’ve already been inquiring. Well, if any or all of these three should come your way, give them the word that they’re sought by all the shire and the abbeys of Worcester and Shrewsbury, and when they’re found they shall have safe escort wherever they would be. Worcester is re-garrisoned now, and anxious about its strays. Say so, if you meet with them.”

The wary eyes stared him thoughtfully in the face. The man nodded, and said: “I will say so. If ever I do meet with them.”

He did not move from his place before the gate until Cadfael had shaken his rein and moved on along the track, yet when Cadfael reached the shelter of the trees and turned to look back, the cottager had vanished with some speed into his house, as if he had an errand that would not wait. Cadfael rode on, but at a slow, ambling walk, and once well out of sight, halted and sat listening. The small, cautious sounds of movement behind him were his reward. Someone light-footed and shy was following him, trying at the same time to hurry and remain unheard. A sly glance over his shoulder afforded him a fleeting glimpse of a blue cloak that whisked aside into cover. He idled, letting the pursuer draw nearer, and then suddenly reined aside and turned to look back openly. All sounds ceased instantly, but the leaning branches of a beech sapling quivered and shed a few flakes of powdery snow.

“You may come forth,” said Cadfael mildly. “I am a monk of Shrewsbury, no threat to you or any. The goodman told you true.”

The boy stepped out of hiding and stood in the open ride, legs braced well apart, ready to run if he saw fit, or stand his ground sturdily. A small, stocky boy with a round shock-head of brown hair, large unwavering brown eyes, and a formidably firm mouth and chin belying the childish fullness of his cheeks. The bright blue cotte and cloak were somewhat soiled and crumpled now, as if he had slept wild in the woods in them, as perhaps he had, and there was a tear in one knee of the grey hose, but he still wore them with the large assurance of his own nobility. He had a little dagger at his belt, the sheath ornamented with silver, sign enough of his worth to have tempted many a man. He had fallen into good hands at this recent stay, whatever had happened to him earlier.

“He said…” The boy advanced a step or two, reassured. “His name is Thurstan. He and his wife have been good to me. He said that here was one I could trust, a Benedictine brother. He said you have been looking for us.”

“He said truly. For you, I think, must be Yves Hugonin.”

The boy said: “Yes. And may I come with you to Bromfield?”

“Yves, very heartily you may, and a warm welcome you’ll get from all those who are out hunting for you. Since you fled from Worcester your uncle d’Angers is come back from the Holy Land, and reached Gloucester only to hear you were lost, and he’s been sending about to have you sought all through this shire. Main glad he’ll be to get you back whole and well.”

“My uncle d’Angers?” The boy’s face wavered between eagerness and doubt. “In Gloucester? But… but it was men from Gloucester…”

“It was, we know, but none of his doing. Never trouble your head over the divisions that keep him from coming himself to find you, nor you nor I can help those. But we’re pledged to return you to him safe and sound, and that you may rely on. But the search is for three, and here we are fobbed off with but one. Where are your sister and her governess?”

“I don’t know!” It came almost in a wail. The boy’s resolute chin shook for a moment, and recovered gallantly. “I left Sister Hilaria safe at Cleeton, I hope she is safe there still, but what she would do when she found herself alone… And my sister… My sister is the cause of all this! She went off with her lover, in the night. He came for her, I am sure she sent him word to fetch her away. I tried to follow them, but then the snow came…”

Cadfael drew breath in mingled wonder, dismay and relief. Here was at least one of the three safely netted, another might be snug if distracted at Cleeton still, and the third, even if she had committed a great folly, seemed to be in the hands of someone who held her dear, and presumably meant her nothing but good. There might yet be a happy ending to all. But meantime, it bade fair to be a very long and confused story, and here was dusk falling, the rim of the sun already dipped, and several miles to go, and the best thing to be done was to get this one back to Bromfield, and make sure he did not wander to be lost again.

“Come, let’s get you home before night falls on us. Come up before me, your light weight won’t worry this fellow. Your foot on mine, so…” The boy had to reach high. His hand was firm and eager in Cadfael’s, he came up with a spring, and settled himself snugly. His body, at first tensed, relaxed with a great sigh.

“I have thanked Thurstan, and said farewell to him,” he said in a soft, gruff voice, reviewing his own behavior scrupulously. “I gave him half what was left in my purse, but it was not very much. He said he did not want nor need it, and I was welcome, but I had nothing else to give him, and I could not go and never leave a token.”

“There may be a time, some day, to visit him again,” said Cadfael comfortably. The boy had been well brought up, and felt his status and its obligations. There was much to be said for the monastic education.

“I should like that,” said the child, wriggling himself warmly into the hollow of Cadfael’s shoulder. “I would have given him my dagger, but he said I should need it, and what would he do with such a thing, when he dared not show it for fear of being thought to have stolen it.”

He seemed to have put away for the present his worries over the two women he had somehow mislaid in the snow, in his gratitude at being relieved of anxiety on his own account. Thirteen years old, they said he was. He had a right to be glad when someone else took charge of him.

“How long have you been there with them?”

“Four days. Thurstan said I’d best wait until someone trusty came by, for there are stories of footpads about the hills and the woods, and in this snow, if I set out alone, I might get lost again. I was lost, two whole days,” said Yves, staring remembered terrors firmly in the eye. “I slept in a tree, for fear of wolves.” He was not complaining, rather doing his best not to boast. Well, let him talk, easing his heart of loneliness and fright like a man stretching his feet to a good fire after a dangerous journey. The real story he had to tell could wait until proper attention could be paid to it. If all turned out well, he might be able to point the way to both the missing ladies, but what mattered now was to reach Bromfield before complete darkness fell.

They went briskly wherever the forest thinned and the lingering light showed their way clearly. The first floating flakes of new snow drifted languidly on the air as they came down to the Hopton brook, and crossed it on solid ice, Cadfael lighting down to lead the horse over. From that point they bore somewhat to the left, though veering gradually away from the course of the brook, and came to the first of the little tributaries that flowed down into it, from the long, gentle slope on their right hand. Every stream was still, frozen now for many days. The sun was gone, only an angry glow remained in the west, sullen under leaden greyness. The wind was rising, the snow beginning to sting their faces. Here the forest was broken by scattered holdings and fields, and occasionally a sheep shelter, roughly propped with its back to the wind. Shapes began to dissolve into a mere mottle of shadows, but for fugitive gleams of reflected light from surfaces of ice, and the bluish mounds where untrodden snow had drifted deep.

The second brook, still and silent like the rest, was a shallow, reed-fringed, meandering serpent of silver. The horse disliked the feel of the ice under him, and Cadfael dismounted again to lead him over. The wide, glassy surface shone opaque from every angle, except when looking directly down into it, and Cadfael was watching his own foothold as he crossed, for his boots were worn and smooth. Thus his eye caught, for a moment only, the ghostly pallor beneath the ice to his left, before the horse slithered and recovered, hoisting himself into the snowy grass on the further side.