Ellis Peters - Virgin in the Ice

“Brother Cadfael,” said Ermina, very neat, grave and quiet in the doorway of the infirmary. “Yves is asking for you. There is still something on his mind, and I know he will not tell me, of all people. But you he wants. Will you come to him after Vespers? He will have had his supper then, and be ready for you.”

“I will come,” said Cadfael.

“And I have been wondering,” she said, and hesitated. “Those horses you brought back this morning … they came from that thieves’ nest there?”

“They did. Stolen from all these local holdings they have preyed on. Hugh Beringar is sending out to all who have had such losses to come and claim their own. The cattle and sheep are penned in Ludlow. John Druel may have picked out already some that are his. The horses I borrowed, they were fresh and ready for work. Why? What’s in your mind concerning them?”

“There is one I believe belongs to Evrard.” It was a long time since she had spoken his name, it sounded almost strange on her tongue, as if she remembered him from many years past, and after long forgetfulness. “They will be sending word to him, too?”

“Surely. Callowleas was stripped bare, there may well be other stock of his to be reclaimed.”

“If he does not already know that I am here,” said Ermina, “I hope no one will tell him. It is not that I mind him knowing I am safe and well. But I would as soon he did not expect to see me.”

There was nothing strange in that. She had put that whole mistaken episode behind her, she might well wish to avoid the embarrassment and pain of meeting him again face to face, and having to make vain play with words over something already dead.

“I doubt there’ll have been any message sent but the same to all,” said Cadfael. “Come and speak for your stolen property. And come they will. A pity there are losses that can never be made good.”

“Yes,” she said, “great pity. We can’t restore them their dead - only their cattle.”

Yves had risen from his long sleep cleansed of every fear for himself or his sister, and secure in his complete trust in Olivier to accomplish every miracle to which he turned his hand. He had washed and brushed and combed himself fittingly as for a thanksgiving festival, and observed with surprised approval that while he slept, Ermina had mended the rent in the knee of his hose, and laundered his only shirt and dried it by the fire. Her actions often failed to match her words, though he had never really noticed it before.

And then, not forgotten but only put aside while more desperate matters still hounded him, the question of Brother Elyas rose unresolved into his mind, and took possession of it wholly. It grew so monstrous and so insistent that he could not long contain it alone, and though Hugh Beringar was fair and approachable, Hugh Beringar was also the law, and bound by his office. But Brother Cadfael was not the law, and would listen with an open mind and a sympathetic ear.

Yves had finished his supper when Cadfael came, and Ermina wisely took her sewing and went away into the hall to have a better light for her work, leaving them together.

Yves found no way of beginning but directly, a leap into the cold and terror of remembrance. “Brother Cadfael,” he blurted wretchedly, “I’m frightened for Brother Elyas. I want to tell you. I don’t know what we ought to do. I haven’t said a word to anyone yet. He has told me things - no, he was not speaking to me, he did not tell me, but I heard. I couldn’t choose but hear!”

“There’s been no time yet for you tell what happened when he led you away in the night,” said Cadfael reasonably, “but you may tell it now. But first, there are things I have not yet told you. If I tell them first, it may be a help to you. I know where he led you, and I know how you left him in the hut, hoping for help, and fell into the hands of outlaws and murderers. Was it there in the hut that he spoke out these things that so trouble you?”

“In his sleep,” said Yves unhappily. “It is not fair dealing to listen to what a man says in his sleep, but I couldn’t help it. I was so anxious about him, I needed to know, if there was any way of helping him … Even before, when I was sitting by his bed … It was because I spoke of Sister Hilaria, and told him she was dead. Nothing else had touched him, but her name … It was terrible! It was as if he had not known till then that she was dead, and yet he blamed himself for her death. He cried out to the stones of the house to fall on him and bury him. And he got up … I couldn’t stop or hold him. I ran to find you, but everyone was at Compline.”

“And when you ran back to him,” said Cadfael mildly, “he was gone. And so you went after him.”

“I had to, I was left to care for him. I thought in time he would tire, and I could turn him and lead him back, but I couldn’t. So what could I do but go with him?”

“And he led you to the hut - yes, that we understood. And there these words passed, that so torment you. Don’t be afraid to speak them. All that you did was done for his sake, believe that this, too, you may be doing for his sake.”

“But he accused himself,” whispered Yves, trembling at the memory. “He said - he said that it was he who killed Sister Hilaria!”

The very quietness with which this was received shook him into despairing tears. “He was in such anguish, so torn … How can we give him up to be branded a murderer? But how can we hide the truth? Himself he said it. And yet I am sure he is not evil, he is good. Oh, Brother Cadfael, what are we to do?”

Cadfael leaned across the narrow trestle and took firm hold of the boy’s tight-clasped hands between his own. “Look at me, Yves, and I’ll tell you what we shall do. What you have to do is to put away all fears, and try to remember the very words he used. All of them, if you can. ‘He said that it was he who killed Sister Hilaria!’ Did he indeed say that? Or is that what you understood by what he said? Give me the man’s own words and what I have to do is listen to those words, and to no others, and see what can be made of them. Now! Go back to that night in the hut. Elyas spoke in his sleep. Begin there. Take your time, there is no haste.”

Yves scrubbed a moist cheek against his shoulder, and raised doubtful but trusting eyes to Cadfael’s face. He thought back dutifully, gnawed an unsteady lip, and began hesitantly: “I was asleep, I think, though I was trying not to sleep. He was lying on his face, but I could hear his voice clearly. He said: My sister - forgive me all my sin, my weakness. I, who have been your death! he said. That I’m sure of, that is word for word. I, who have been your death!” He shook and halted there, afraid that that alone might be enough. But Cadfael held him by the hands and nodded understanding, and waited.

“Yes, and then?”

“Then - do you remember how he called on Hunydd? And you said you thought she was his wife, who died? Well, next he said: Hunydd! She was like you, warm and trusting in my arms. After six months starving, he said, such hunger. I could not bear the burning, he said, body and soul …”

The words were returning in full now, as if they had been carved into his memory. Until now he had wished only to forget them, now, when he consented to remember, they came clearly.

“Go on. There was more.”

“Yes. He changed then, he said no, don’t forgive me, bury me and put me out of mind. I am unworthy, he said, weak, inconstant …” There was a long pause, as there had been that night, before Brother Elyas cried out his mortal frailty aloud. “He said: She clung to me, she had no fear, being with me. And then he said: Merciful God, I am a man, full of blood, with a man’s body and a man’s desires. And she is dead, he said, who trusted me!”