A Virgin In The Ice Read online

  The infirmary stood a little apart, sheltered from the wind by the mass of the church. They went in, and shut the heavy door against the malice of the night, and Leonard led the way through to the small, bare cell where a little oil-lamp burned beside a bed. A young brother rose from his knees at their entry, and drew back from the sick man’s bedside to make room for them.

  The patient lay under piled covers, stretched on his back like a man coffined. Certainly he breathed, with a groaning effort, but the intake of breath barely lifted the blanket over his breast, and the face up-turned on the pillow was motionless, eyes closed, cheeks hollow and blue beneath thrusting bones. His head was bandaged, covering the tonsure, and the brow beneath the wrappings was swollen and bruised, so misshapen that one eye was sunken in folds of battered flesh. No telling how he would look in health, but Cadfael judged that he was well-made, and certainly not old, probably no older than thirty-five.

  “The marvel is,” whispered Leonard, “that no bones are broken. Unless, indeed, his skull… But you’ll examine him thoroughly, later…”

  “No better time than now,” said Cadfael practically, and shed his cloak and went to work, setting down his scrip on the stone floor. There was a small brazier burning in a corner, but for all that, when he slid his hands under the covers and felt at flank and thigh and foot, the unresponsive flesh was everywhere deadly cold. They had wrapped him well, but it was not enough.

  “Lay stones over your hob in the kitchen,” said Cadfael, “get them hot and wrap them in flannel. We’ll pack him round with warmth, and change them as they cool. This is not the cold of winter, but the chill of man’s mishandling, we must get him out of it, or he never will wake. I’ve known men shattered by horror or cruelty turn their backs on the world and die, when there was nothing mortal ailed their bodies. Have you made shift to get any food or drink into him at all?”

  “We have tried but he cannot swallow. Even a trickle of wine only runs from his mouth again.” A broken mouth, battered by fists or cudgels. Probably he had lost teeth. But no, Cadfael drew back the upper lip delicately, and the strong white teeth showed, even, clenched and large.

  The young brother had slipped away silently to see about heating stones or bricks in the kitchen. Cadfael turned back the covers, and viewed the naked body from head to foot. They had left him so, under a linen sheet, to have only a clean, smooth surface touching his many bruises and broken grazes. The knife-wound under his heart was bandaged close. Cadfael did not unbind it; no need to doubt that every wound had been scrupulously cleaned and dressed. But he slid his fingers under the upper folds, and felt along the bones beneath.

  “It was meant to finish him. But the knife struck the rib, and they did not wait to make certain. In health this must be a fine man—see the build of him. Three or four at least did this to him.”

  He did what he could for the many injuries that showed some angry signs of festering, drawing on his stock of salves tried over years, but let the lesser and clean abrasions alone. They brought the heated stones, two or three eager young brothers hovering anxiously, and packed the battered form round with them, close but not touching, and trotted away devotedly to heat more. A good hot brick at the long, bony feet; for if the feet stay cold, all stays cold, said Cadfael. And then the bludgeoned head. He unwound the bandages, Leonard supporting the man’s shoulders. The tonsure emerged unmistakable, thick, bushy brown hair framing a pate scarred by two or three still oozing wounds. So thick and strong the hair, of such vigorous growth, that even the ring of it might well have saved him a broken skull. Cadfael felt delicately all round the cupola of bone, and could not find a hollow that gave to his touch. He drew breath in cautious hope.

  “His wits will have been shaken up into confusion, but I do believe his skull is whole. We’ll bind it up again for his comfort in lying, and for warmth. I can find no break.”

  When all was done, the mute body lay as before; hard to detect any change that did not stem from the handling of others. But the warm stones zealously renewed as they cooled had had their effect. His flesh felt softer and human to the touch, capable of healing.

  “We may leave him now,” said Cadfael, staring down at him with a considering frown. “I’ll watch with him through the night, and get my sleep tomorrow by daylight, when we see better how he fares. But I say he’ll live. Father Prior, by your leave, I’m ready now for that supper you promised me. And before all, for I’m too stiff to fend for myself, get a stout youngster to haul off these boots.”

  *

  Prior Leonard himself waited on his guest at supper, and freely admitted his relief at having a more experienced physician at hand. “For I never had your knowledge, nor the means of acquiring it, and never, God knows, have I had so wretched and broken a creature left at my door. I thought I had a dead man on my hands, before ever I brought him in and tried to stop the bleeding, and wrap him up against the frost. And how he came by this usage we may never get to know.”

  “Who brought him in?” asked Cadfael.

  “A tenant of ours near Henley, Reyner Dutton, a good husbandman. That was the first night of snow and frost, and Reyner had lost a strayed heifer, one of the venturesome kind that will wander and break loose, and he was out after her with a couple of his lads. They stumbled on this poor soul by the wayside, and left all to carry him here to shelter as fast as they could. It was a wild night, driving squalls and stone blind when they came. I doubt if he can have lain there long, or he would not be living now, as cold as it was and is.”

  “And these who helped him had seen nothing of any footpads? Met with no hindrance themselves?”

  “Nothing. But there was no seeing more than a dozen paces, men could pass close and never know it. Likely they were lucky not to meet the same fate, though three of them, perhaps, would be enough to daunt any footpads. They know this countryside like their own palms. A stranger would have had to lie up somewhere and wait till he could see his way. In these drifts, and with such a wind blowing, and the snow so dry and fine, paths appear and vanish twice in a day or more. You could walk a mile, and think you knew every landmark, and see nothing you recognized on the way back.”

  “And this sick man of ours—no one knows him here?”

  Prior Leonard stared startled and embarrassed surprise. “Why, yes! Did I never make that plain? Well, my messenger was enlisted in great haste, there was no time to make a long tale of it. Yes, this is a Benedictine brother of Pershore, who came on an errand from his abbot. We have been treating with them for a finger-bone of Saint Eadburga, whose relics, as you know, they possess, and this is the brother who was entrusted with bringing it here to us in its reliquary. He delivered it safely some days ago. The night of the first of the month he arrived here, and stayed to witness the offices when we installed it.”

  “Then how,” demanded Cadfael, gaping, “did he come to be picked out of the snow and brought back to you naked only a day or two later? You’re surely grown somewhat careless with your guests, Leonard!”

  “But he left us, Cadfael! The day before yesterday he said he must prepare to leave early in the morning, and be on his way. And as soon as he had breakfasted yesterday he left, and I do assure you, well provided for the first part of his journey. We know no more than you how he came to be stricken down still so close to us, and you see he cannot yet speak, to make all plain. Where he had been between yesterday’s dawn and the thick of the night no one knows, but certainly not where he was found, or we should be tolling for him, not trying to heal him.”

  “Howbeit, at least you know him. How much do you know of him? He gave you a name?”

  The prior hoisted bony shoulders. What does a name tell about a man? “His name is Elyas. I think, though he never said, not long in the cloister. A taciturn man—in particular, I think, he would not speak of himself. He did eye the weather somewhat anxiously. We thought it natural, since he had to brave the way home, but now I fancy there was more in it than that, for he did say something of a pa
rty he had left by Foxwood, coming from Cleobury, some people he encountered there in flight from Worcester, and urged to come here with him for safety, but they would push on over the hills for Shrewsbury. The girl, he said, was resolute, and she called the tune.”

  “Girl?” Cadfael stiffened erect, ears pricked. “There was a girl holding the rein?”

  “So it seemed.” Leonard blinked in surprise at such interest in the phenomenon.

  “Did he say who else was in her company? Was there a boy spoken of? And a nun in charge of them?” He realized ruefully the folly of any such attitude to this relationship. It was the girl who called the tune!

  “No, he never told us more. But I did think he was anxious about them, for you see, the snow came after he reached us, and over those bleak hills… He might well wonder.”

  “You think he may have gone to seek them? To find assurance they had made the crossing safely, and were on a passable way to Shrewsbury? It would not be so far aside from his way.”

  “It could be so,” said Leonard, and was mute, searching Cadfael’s face with a worried frown, waiting for enlightenment.

  “I wonder, I wonder if he found them—if he was bringing them here for refuge!” He was talking to himself, for the prior was left astray, patiently regarding him. And if he was, thought Cadfael silently, what, in God’s name, had become of them now? Their only helper and protector battered senseless and left for dead, and those three, where? But as yet there was no proof that these were the hapless Hugonins and their young nun. Many poor souls, girls among them, had fled from the despoiled city of Worcester.

  Headstrong girls, who called the tune? Well, he had known them crop up in cottage no less than in castle, in croft and toft, and among the soil-bound villein families, too. Women were as various as men.

  “Leonard,” he said earnestly, leaning across the table, “have you had no proclamation from the sheriff about two young things lost from Worcester in the company of a nun of the convent there?”

  The prior shook a vague but troubled head. “I don’t recall such a message, no. Are you telling me that these… Brother Elyas certainly felt some anxiety. You think these he spoke of may be the ones being sought?”

  Cadfael told him the whole of it, their flight, the search for them, the plight of their uncle, threatened with capture and prison if he ventured across the king’s borders in quest of them. Leonard listened in growing dismay. “It could be so, indeed. If this poor brother could but speak!”

  “But he did speak. He told you he left them at Foxwood, and they were bent on crossing the hills still towards Shrewsbury. That would mean their venturing clean over the flank of Clee, to Godstoke, where they would be in the lands of Wenlock priory, and in good enough hands.”

  “But a bitter, bleak way over,” mourned the prior, aghast. “And that heavy snow the next night.”

  “There’s no certainty,” Cadfael reminded him cautiously. “Barely a suspicion. A quarter of Worcester fled this way to escape the slaughter. Better I should keep watch on this patient of ours than waste time on speculation. For only he can tell us more, and besides, him we already have, he was laid at our doors, and him we must keep. Go to Compline, Leonard, and pray for him, and I’ll do as much by his bed. And if he speaks, never fret, I’ll be awake enough to catch his drift, for all our sakes.”

  *

  In the night the first sudden but infinitesimal change took place. Brother Cadfael was long accustomed to sleeping with one eye open, and both ears. On his low stool beside the bed he drowsed thus, arms folded, head lowered, one elbow braced on the wooden frame of the bed, to quicken to any move. But it was his hearing that pricked him awake to stoop with held breath. For Elyas had just drawn his first deeper, longer, eased breath, that went down through his misused body from throat to stretched feet, groaning at the disturbed pains that everywhere gored him. The horrid snore in his throat had softened, he drew air, painful though it was, down into his midriff hungrily, like a starving man grasping at food. Cadfael saw a great quiver pass over the mangled face and past the swollen lips. The tip of a dry tongue strove to moisten, and shivered and withdrew from pain, but the lips remained parted. The strong teeth unclenched to let out a long, sighing groan.

  Cadfael had honeyed wine standing in a jug beside the brazier, to keep warm. He trickled a few drops between the swollen lips, and had the satisfaction of seeing the unconscious face contort in muscular spasm, and the throat labor to swallow. When he touched a finger to the man’s lips, again closed, they parted in thirsty response. Drop by drop, patiently, a good portion of the drink went down. Only when response failed at last did Cadfael abandon the process. Cold, oblivious absence had softened gradually into sleep, now that a little warmth had been supplied him both within and without. A few days of lying still, for his wits to settle again right way up in his head, thought Cadfael, and he’ll come round and be on his way back to us. But whether he’ll remember much of what befell him is another matter. He had known men, after such head injuries, revive to recall every detail of their childhood and past years, but no recollection whatever of recent injury.

  He removed the cooling brick from the foot of the bed, fetched a replacement from the kitchen, and sat down to resume his vigil. This was certainly sleep now, but a very uneasy sleep, broken by whimpers and moans, and sudden shudders that passed all down the long body. Once or twice Elyas labored in evident distress, throat and lips and tongue trying to frame words, but achieving only anguished, indecipherable sounds, or no sounds at all. Cadfael leaned close, to catch the first utterance that should have meaning. But the night passed, and his vigil had brought him nothing coherent.

  Perhaps the sounds that measured out the cloistral day were able to reach some quiet core of habit even within the sufferer’s disrupted being, for at the note of the bell for Prime he fell suddenly quiet, and his eyelids fluttered and strove to open, but closed again wincingly against even this subdued light. His throat worked, he parted his lips and began to attempt speech. Cadfael leaned close, his ear to the struggling mouth.

  “…madness…” said Elyas, or so Cadfael thought he said. “Over Clee,” he grieved, “in such snows…” He turned his head on the pillow, and hissed with the pain. “So young… wilful…” He was lapsing again into a better sleep, his disquiet easing. In a voice thread-fine but suddenly clearly audible: “The boy would have come with me,” said Brother Elyas.

  That was all. He lay once again motionless and mute.

  “He has the turn for life,” said Cadfael, when Prior Leonard came in to inquire after the patient as soon as Prime ended, “but there’ll be no hurrying him.” An earnest young brother stood dutifully by to relieve him of his watch. “When he stirs you may feed him the wine and honey, you’ll find he’ll take it now. Sit close and mark me any word he says. I doubt if you’ll have anything more to do for him, while I get my sleep, but there’s a ewer for his use if he needs it. And should he begin to sweat, keep him well covered but bathe his face to give him ease. God willing, he’ll sleep. No man can do for him what sleep will do.”

  “You’re content with him?” asked Leonard anxiously, as they went out together. “He’ll do?”

  “He’ll do very well, given time and quietness.” Cadfael was yawning. He wanted breakfast first, and a bed after, for all the morning hours. After that, and another look at the dressings on head and ribs, and all the minor hurts that had threatened suppuration, he would have a better idea of how to manage both the nursing of Brother Elyas and the pursuit of the lost children.

  “And has he spoken? Any sensible word?” pressed Leonard.

  “He has spoken of a boy, and of the madness of attempting to cross the hills in such snows. Yes, I believe he did encounter the Hugonin pair and their nun, and try to bring them into shelter here with him. It was the girl who would go her own way,” said Cadfael, brooding on this unknown chit who willed to venture the hills in both winter and anarchy. “Young and wilful, he said,” But however mad and t
roublesome they may be, the innocent cannot be abandoned. “Feed me,” said Cadfael, returning to first needs, “and then show me a bed. Leave the absent for later. I’ll not quit Brother Elyas as long as he needs me. But I tell you what we may well do, Leonard, if you’ve a guest in your hall here making for Shrewsbury today. You might charge him to let Hugh Beringar know that we have here what I take to be the first news of the three people he’s seeking.”

  “That I’ll certainly do,” said Prior Leonard, “for there’s a cloth merchant of the town on his way home for the Christmas feast, he’ll be off as soon as he’s eaten, to get the best of the day. I’ll go and deliver him the message this minute, and do you go and get your rest.”

  *

  Before night Brother Elyas opened his eyes for the second time, and this time, though the return to light caused him to blink a little, he kept them open, and after a few moments opened them wide in blank wonder, astonished by everything on which they rested. Only when the prior stooped close at Cadfael’s shoulder did the brightness of recognition quicken in the sick man’s eyes. This face, it seemed, he knew. His lips parted, and a husky whisper emerged, questioning but hopeful:

  “Father Prior…?”

  “Here, brother,” said Leonard soothingly. “You are here with us, safe in Bromfield. Rest and gather strength, you have been badly hurt, but here you are in shelter, among friends. Trouble for nothing… ask for whatever you need.”

  “Bromfield…” whispered Elyas, frowning. “I had an errand to that place,” he said, troubled, and tried to raise his head from the pillow. “The reliquary… oh, not lost…?”

  “You brought it faithfully,” said Leonard. “It is here on the altar of our church, you kept vigil with us when we installed it. Do you not remember? Your errand was done well. All that was required of you, you performed.”

  “But how… My head hurts…” The sighing voice faded, the dark brows drew together in mingled anxiety and pain. “What is this weighs on me? How am I come to this?”