Ellis Peters - The Virgin in the Ice

“But not without Yves. I will not go without my brother, he knows that. I did not want to come here, but he so wished it. Let me know, he said, that you at least are in safety, and leave the hunt to me. And I have done and I will do what he bids me. But I could not bear it if through his care for us he fell into the king’s hands, and was left to rot in a prison.”

“Never go looking for disaster,” said Cadfael cheerfully. “Expect the best, and walk so discreetly as to invite it, and then leave all to God. You have not given this paladin a name.” No, but he had a face, and a memorable face, too.

She was buoyantly young. Grief was fiercely felt, but so was hope, so was joy, so was the adulation of heroes. The very thought of her champion had lifted her out of the shadows of guilt and death, she glowed as she spoke of him. “They call him Olivier de Bretagne—it is a name they gave him in his own land, because of his parentage. For he was born in Syria, and his mother was of that country, and his father a Frankish knight of the Crusade, from England. He leaned to his father’s faith, and made his way to Jerusalem to join his father’s people, and there he took service with my uncle, six years ago now. He is his favorite squire. Now he has come home with him, and who else would be trusted with this search?”

“And with his small experience here and halting English,” said Cadfael appreciatively, “he was not afraid to venture into these stormy regions, among his lord’s enemies?”

“He is not afraid of anything! He is bravery itself! Oh, Brother Cadfael, you do not know how fine he is! If you could only once see him, you must become his friend!”

Cadfael did not say that he had seen him, that requisite first time, briefly, like the blazing recollection of a dream. He was thinking, with nostalgic fondness, that some other lonely soul wearing the Cross had found, somewhere in that burning land of sun and sea and sand, a woman to his liking, who must have liked him no less, if she had borne him such a son. The east was full of glorious bastards. That one of them should come home to his father’s land, baptized into his father’s faith, was no marvel. No need to look beyond the admirable fruit.

“You have that promise you did not ask,” said Brother Cadfael. “Olivier is safe with me. I will do nothing to uncover him. In your need or his, I will stand your friend.”

Chapter Nine

Yves started awake out of an involuntary doze, instantly aware of movement and sound, though both seemed so distant and faint that they might have been no more than the fading shreds of a dream. Under his arm Brother Elyas lay in exhausted sleep, sunk far too deep for dreaming, and briefly at peace. His breathing was quiet and steady. The boy felt rather than heard by its rhythm how strongly Elyas had survived the night that might well have killed him, tenacious even of a life that tormented him.

Yet something, Yves was sure, he had heard, some human sound. Not the wind, for that had dropped, and as he sat very still, listening with ears stretched, he was sensible of absolute silence. There is nothing more silent than deep snow, until men break the spell. And there it came again, small and distant but no illusion, the faint murmuring of voices, a mere snatch, gone in an instant. And again, some strained moments later, the tiny jingle of metal, a horse’s harness clashing. Yves got to his feet stiffly, careful not to disturb the sleeper, and fumbled his way to the door. It was still only the deep twilight that comes before the promise of dawn, but the waste of snow before him cast up an eerie pallor. The night was well advanced, and already there were men abroad. Men with horses! Yves left the door of the hut closed but unbarred, and struggled out into the drifts, in haste lest the promise of help should pass by before he could intercept it.

Somewhere down the slope, out of sight beyond a thicket of snow-heaped bushes and a clump of trees bowed down and turned white like the heads of tired old men, someone laughed, and again a bridle rang. The travellers, as he had hoped, were coming from the direction of Ludlow and Bromfield. Fearful that they might pass by, and never notice the hut at all, Yves plunged downhill, stumbling and wading, found a ridge which the wind had partially stripped, and broke into an eager run. Skirting the bushes, he began to thread the copse, fending his way through the darkness of the close-set trees with hands outstretched. The voices were drawing nearer, loud, unsubdued voices, still wordless, but a most welcome sound. Someone raised a snatch of song, someone broke in with a loud remark, and there was more laughter. Yves was somewhat disconcerted to hear it, even indignant. If these were a party searching for the wanderers, they did not sound too anxious about their errand. But even if he was mistaken in thinking them Hugh Beringar’s men, what did that matter? They were men, at any rate, and they could help him.

Nearing the far edge of the copse, and with eyes now growing more accustomed to the eerie twilight, he caught glimpses of movement between the trees. He burst out into the open with their line strung before him, more of them than he had thought, ten or a dozen at least. Three horses, and four pack-ponies, well-loaded, blew forth pale clouds of frosty breath. Even in the dimness he knew the shapes of sword and axe and bow. These men went heavily armed through the ending of the night, but not in the disciplined order of Hugh Beringar’s men-at-arms, rather raggedly and merrily, and soiled with smoke. Faintly but unmistakably, the stink of burning wafted from them, and the pack-ponies were loaded high with grain-sacks, wine-skins, pots, bundled clothing, the carcases of two slaughtered sheep.

His heart misgave him. Hastily he made to draw back into cover, but he had been seen, and one of the men afoot loosed a mock hunting-call, and darted into the trees to cut off his retreat. Another took up the cry, and there were the pair of them, with spread arms and broad grins, between him and return. A moment more, and half a dozen were all around him. He tried to slip between them and make off in the opposite direction from the hut, instinctively aware that whatever happened he must not betray the presence close by of Brother Elyas. But a long arm reached for him almost lazily, took him by the liripipe of his capuchon and a fistful of his hair, and hauled him painfully out to the open ride.

“Well, well!” crowed his captor, turning him about by the grip on his hair. “What’s such a small nightbird doing abroad at this hour?”

Yves struggled, but was quick to sense that he achieved nothing. Dignity forbade that he should wriggle or beg. He grew still under the large hand that held him, and said with creditable steadiness: “Let me go! You’re hurting me. I’m doing no harm.”

“Unwary nightbirds get their necks wrung,” said one, and went through the motions of wringing, with lean and dirty hands. “Especially if they peck.”

The mounted man who led the column had halted and was looking back. A high, peremptory voice demanded: “What game have you caught there? Bring him, let me see. I want no spies bearing tales back to the town.”

They laid hands willingly on Yves and hauled him forward to where the tallest of the three horses stood. The horse, being mainly white, was plainly visible, the man on his back loomed only as a great shadow against the sky. When he shifted a little in the saddle to stare down at the captive, some stray gleam of lambent light flowed over the links of chain mail, and flickered out like spent lightning. Afoot, he might not be a very tall man, but the breadth of his shoulders and breast, and the lion’s mane of thick hair that covered his head and flowed down on to his chest in a bushy beard made him look immense. He sat his horse as if they made one powerful body between them. He was all the more frightening because his face was but a shadow, and there was nothing to be read in it.