Ellis Peters: Virgin in the Ice

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 party 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!”