Ellis Peters - Virgin in the Ice

Instead, the voice, interested but unmoved, said shortly: “Hand me up that toy he wears at his belt. Let me see what our shepherds are sporting against wolves this year.”

Rough handling had plucked aside the fullness of Yves’ cloak, and left his belt exposed to view, the little dagger dangling. Willing hands unbuckled it and handed it up.

“So they favor silver,” said their lord musingly, “and precious pebbles set in their hilts. Very fine!” He looked up, aware of the first lightening of the sky to eastward. “Time’s too short for starting his tongue wagging here, and my feet grow cold. Bring him! Alive! Amuse yourselves if you must, but stop short of damaging him. He may be valuable.”

He turned at once and spurred forward, his two mounted companions bearing him company. Yves was left to the mercies of the underlings. There was never a moment when he had the remotest chance of breaking away. They valued him, or their lord’s orders, so highly that at every turn three of them had a grip on him. They took his own belt, and strapped it round him just above the elbows, to deny him the use of his arms, and though it had a foot to spare about his waist, to close it thus they drew it painfully tight. They found a short cord to tie his wrists before him, palms together, and a long rope to attach him, by a running noose around his neck, to the pack-saddle of the hindmost pony. If he lagged, the noose would tighten. If he hurried he could raise his bound hands high enough to grasp the rope and slacken it enough to breathe, but he could not raise them high enough to get hold of the noose itself and keep it slack. He was shrewd enough to realize that if he fell they would stop to pick him up. They had been told to deliver him wherever their lord was bound, alive and repairable. But short of killing, they were pleased to avail themselves of the permission they had been given to use him for their amusement.

He tried to shrug a fold of his cloak into the noose when they slung it over his head, and someone laughed aloud and clouted him on the ear and dragged the obstruction loose. It was at that moment that Yves remembered that under the collar of that same cloak lay hidden the ring brooch that fastened it. It was very old, a Saxon piece with a formidable pin, the only weapon he had about him now, and they had not discovered it.

“Now, little bird, fly!” said his first captor, wheezing with laughter. “But bear in mind you’re flown on a créance. No making off into the sky for you.” And he strode away to set the column moving again after its master. Between sleep, fright and anger, Yves stood shivering and in a daze so long that the first jerk on his tether half-choked him. He had to grasp and scurry and clutch at his leash to recover, and a wave of raucous laughter washed back over him in recompense.

But after that he soon found that their jest could be made as amusing or as tame as he chose. For they had to move so modestly with their booty that he had no real difficulty in keeping up. Their loads were heavy and unwieldy, his was very light, and once fully awake, very agile. For the first few minutes he took care to give them some occasion for laughter, falling behind and then rushing to preserve his neck. These repeated recoveries brought him well acquainted with the pony to which he was tied, and its load, which was two great sacks of grain, slung in balance, and two equally vast goatskins, surely of wine, behind the grain, with an erection of bundled cloth and slung pots on top. When he scuttled up close he was moving with his cheek almost against the hair of the goatskin on his side. It bulged and undulated with the liquid within. Moreover, when he came thus close he was at the very end of this ponderous procession, and hidden by the lofty load from those who went before. And the way, though clearly they knew it too well to be much aggrieved at its drifts, still put delays enough in their path, they soon forgot to look behind.

Under the lurching load, Yves stretched up his bound hands as far as they would go, and felt under the collar of his cloak for the brooch. No one could see him here, he shrank close to the pony’s patient, laboring quarter. Fumbling fingers found the edge of the metal, and felt for the ring of the pin, to draw it forth. His arms, bound cruelly tight, ached with tension, and his finger-ends were growing numb. Doggedly he kept his hold, and began to coax the brooch loose, terrified that he might drop it, from pure strain, when it came out from the folds of cloth. If he could free it and retain his hold with arms lowered, until the use and the blood returned to his hands, he knew he could manipulate it thereafter.

The point of the pin sprang loose, and the round brooch almost slipped from his hold. He closed both hands upon it in desperation, and the point pierced his finger. He bore the prick gratefully, drew his hands down still impaled, let the blood flow freely down his aching arms and into his hands, and the thin ooze from the wound slide unregarded down his finger until he could feel power there again. He had the precious thing, sharp as a dagger. He took some minutes before he dared try to make use of it, nursing it between his locked palms, flexing his fingertips against it until they felt nimble and supple as ever.

The full goatskin wallowed beside his cheek, the morning twilight hid him. The leather, though rubbed bare of hair in places, and soft and portly with age, was tough, but the pin of the brooch was strong, and protruded the length of his little finger beyond the ring. It took him some moments to work it through the hide at the lowest part of the swaying bag, the yielding folds slithered away from him so vexingly, but he leaned a shoulder hard against it to hold it still, and the pin slid through.

A satisfying spurt of dark red followed as he drew the pin out again, and he looked down in hope, even in elation, to see the sudden red splash like blood in the whiteness of the snow beneath his feet. After the first gush the hole contracted again, but the weight of the wine kept it open, and trickled a thin drip along the way, and he thought it would do. It would not sink into the snow and be lost, for the frost was hard enough to seal it as it fell. And that way, dripping so meagrely, the load would last a long way. He hoped, long enough. But in case it should become too fine to be followed, from time to time he punched the skin, and found he could force out a brief jet, a tiny pool of wine to confirm what had gone before.

The dawn, grey and still and turning now to white mist that cut off all distances, was well upon them. A cold dawn, in which a few starved birds wheeled hopelessly. They had timed their return to the lair to be safe within before full light. If they were now near, Yves thought the depletion in the leaky wineskin might pass for a natural loss. They had been climbing for a long time. Lofty, bleak and inhospitable, the uplands of Titterstone Clee received them. Even in thick mist they knew where they were going, and knew when they drew near; they had begun to prod the pack-beasts and hurry the line along, scenting refuge, food and rest.

Yves took thought for his precious brooch, and managed to thread it inside the hem of his short tunic, out of sight. That freed his bound hands to grasp the rope that had begun to tighten uncomfortably round his neck when he tired, and haul himself along by it. It could not be far now. They had smelled their nest.

From barren, misty desert, without features within the short distance the eye could see, but always climbing, suddenly they were moving between close, low-growing trees, with rising rocks just discernible behind. Then it seemed that they emerged again upon an open summit, and there before them rose a high stockade, with a narrow gate in it, and over it showed a dark, squat, broad tower. There were men on watch, the gate opened as they approached.