Ellis Peters - The Virgin in the Ice

“They’ve killed them,” said Yves in a small, hollow voice. “John and his wife, and Peter, and the shepherd—killed them all, or carried them off, as they carried off Sister Hilaria.”

“Hush!” said Cadfael. “Never jump to meet the worst until you’ve looked about you well. You know what they’re looking for?” The searchers were turning to exchange looks and shrugs, and drawing together again to the yard. “Bodies! And they’ve found none. Only the dogs, poor creatures. They did their proper work, and gave the alarm. Now we’d best hope they gave it in time.”

Hugh came picking his way back from the barn, beating soiled palms together. “No dead here to find. Either they had warning enough to run for it, or they’ve been dragged off with the raiders. And I doubt if masterless men living wild would bother with captives. Kill they might, but take prisoners, of this simple kind, that I doubt. But I wonder which way they came? As we did, or by tracks of their own, along the hillside here above? If there were no more than ten of them, they’d keep to their measure, and the village might be too strong to tempt them.”

“There was one sheep slaughtered by the fold,” said his sergeant, back from the hillside. “There’s a traverse comes along the slope there, that might be their path if they wanted to avoid Cleeton and pick off some meat less well defended.”

“Then Druel may have got his family away towards the village.” Hugh pondered, frowning at the drifts that had covered all traces of coming and going of men and beasts. “If the dogs gave tongue for the sheep, there may have been time. Let’s at least go and ask in the village what they know of it. We may yet find them all alive,” he said, clapping Yves reassuringly on the shoulder, “even if they’ve lost their home and goods.”

“But not Sister Hilaria,” said Yves, clinging to a quarrel which had become his own, and bitterly felt. “If they could run away in time, why could they not save Sister Hilaria?”

“That you shall ask them, if by God’s grace we do find them. I do not forget Sister Hilaria. Come, we’ve found all we are going to find here.”

“One small thing,” said Cadfael. “When you heard the horses, Yves, in the dark, and ran out to try to follow your sister, which way did they lead you from here?”

Yves turned to view the sorry remains of the house from which he had run. “To the right, there, behind the house. There’s a little stream comes down, it was not frozen then— they started up the slope beside it. Not towards the top of the hills, but climbing round the flank.”

“Good! That direction we may try, another day. I’m done, Hugh, we can go.”

They mounted and turned back by the way they had come, out of the desolation and ruin of the hollow, over the ridge between the trees, and down the track towards the village of Cleeton. A hard place, bleak to farm, meager to crop, but good for sheep, the rangy upland sheep that brought the leanest meat but the longest fleeces. Across the uphill edge of the settlement there was a crude but solid stockade, and someone was on the watch for strangers arriving, for a whistle went before them into the huddle of house, shrill and piercing. By the time they rode in there were three or four sturdy fellows on hand to receive them. Hugh smiled. Outlaws living wild, unless they had considerable numbers and sufficient arms, might be wise to fight shy of Cleeton.

He gave them good-day and made himself known. Doubtful if men in isolated places hoped much from the king’s protection, or the empress’s either, but a county sheriff did offer hope of his being on their side in the fight to survive. They brought their reeve, and answered questions eagerly. Yes, they knew of the destruction of John Druel’s holding, and yes, John was safe here, sheltered and fed by the village, at least alive if he had lost everything but life. And his wife and son with him, and the shepherd who labored for him, all saved. A long-legged boy ran eagerly to bring Druel to answer for himself.

At sight of the lean, wiry husbandman approaching, Yves scrambled down from his saddle and ran to meet him, incoherent in his relief. The man came up with an arm about the boy’s shoulders.

“My lord, he says you’ve been up there… where my home was. God knows how grateful I am for the kindness here, that won’t let us starve when all our goods and gear are gone, but what’s to become of us poor souls that work hard to make a living, if it’s to be clawed away in a night, and the roof burned over us? It’s hard to live solitary in the hills,” he said roundly, “at best. But outlawry the like of this we never thought to see.”

“Friend,” said Beringar ruefully, “you may take it I never looked for it, either. Reparation for your losses I cannot offer, but some of what was yours may still be recovered, if we can trace the raiders who took it from you. The boy, here, lodged with you several nights since, and his sister with him…”

“And vanished from us in the night,” said John, and gave Yves a disapproving frown.

“That we know, he has told us, and he, at least, had sound reasons, and took his own grave risks. But what we need from you is some account of this attack that fell upon you… when?”

“Two nights after the lady and the lad fled us. The night of the fourth of the month, it was, but very late, towards dawn. We woke to hear the dogs going mad, and rushed out thinking there might be wolves, in such hard weather. For the dogs were chained, d’you see?—and wolves they were, but of the two-legged kind! Once out, we could hear the sheep bellowing up the hill and see torches up there. Then they begin to come bounding down the slope, knowing the dogs had given the alarm. I don’t know how many men, there might have been a dozen or more. We could not stand, we could only run. From the ridge there we saw the barn take fire. The wind was wild, we knew it must all burn out. And here we are, master, bereft, to make a new start from villeinry, if there’s a yardland to be had under any lord. But with our lives, thanks be to God!”

“So they came first to your sheep-fold,” said Hugh. “From which direction along that slope?”

“From the south,” said John at once, “but not from the road—higher on the hill. They came down at us.”

“And you have no notion who they may be, or from where? You’ve had no rumor beforehand of outlaws setting up anywhere near?”

No, there had been no warning until then. It had come out of the blue, between midnight of the fourth, and pre-dawn of the fifth.

“One more question,” said Hugh. “Since you brought off your family with their lives, what became of the nun of Worcester who lodged with you the night of the second, along with this young man and his sister? That they left you that night we know. What of the nun?”

“Why, she was well out of it,” said Druel thankfully. “I had not her on my heart that night of the burning. She was gone, the afternoon before. Rather late it was for the daylight, but not too far gone. And a safe escort along the way, I reckoned she would do well enough. In a sad, distracted way she’d been, the poor girl, when she found she’d been left alone, but she did not know where to look for her chicks, and neither did we, and what was she to do?”

“Someone came for her?” asked Hugh.

“A Benedictine brother. She knew him, he had walked a part of the way with them before, and urged them to go with him to Bromfield, she said. So he urged then, and when she told him how she was forsaken, he said all the more she should put herself and her trouble into the hands of others, who would search for her charges for her, and keep her safe until they were found. He’d had to make his way here from Foxwood, asking after her,” said John, making allowance for the waning of the day when he had reached them. “I never saw woman so thankful to have a friend take her in care. She went with him, and I make no doubt she came safe to Bromfield.”