Virgin in the Ice bc-6

by Ellis Peters

  Cadfael halted on the brink. In two places, close together, a foot had trampled flat the ridge of snow which had built against the door while it remained closed. A line of icicles fringed the eaves, and successive noons had warmed them enough to drip for a brief while each day, and freeze again before the approach of evening, for the roof was open to the south, and sheltered from the north by the rise of the land. A slow drip fell as Cadfael gazed, and a line of fine black perforations punctured the whiteness of the layer of snow below the eaves, where the wind during the night had already thinned it. At the corner of the hut the drips had bored a small pit, revealing the ripe, rounded brownness of something that was not turf nor soil. Cadfael stirred more snow away with the toe of his boot.

  Frost is a great preserver. All the sunshine of all the noons had not produced thaw enough to do more than pierce the crest of this pile of horse-droppings with one tiny shaft. The next snow would cover it again, and the frost seal it. But the hole the drip had bored in it went too deep to be the result of this one day’s grudging sun. No knowing exactly how many days had passed since a horse had stood here, but Cadfael judged it might be as many as five or six. Tethered? The wood of the hut was rough-hewn, and there were props under the low, projecting eaves to which a bridle could easily be hitched.

  He might never have noticed the hair, pale almost to white as it was, if a sudden rising breeze had not caused it to flutter, somewhat above the level of his eye, from the rough timber of the corner. Had it been motionless it would have passed for one with the snow plastered and frozen there. It was the wind that had shaken the weight from its waving strands, and given it play to catch his eyes. He detached it carefully from the splinters that held it, and smoothed out in his hand a tress of coarse, springy hair the color of fading primroses. The horse tethered here had rubbed shoulder and mane against the corner of the hut, and left a token behind.

  And this must be the nearest roof to the brook where he had found her. And given a horse to carry it, it would be no great labor to transport the body of a murdered girl that distance. But that might be going too fast. Better see what else the place had to tell, before he jumped to such doubtful conclusions.

  He stowed away the scrap of horse-hair carefully in the breast of his habit, and went into the hut. The slight tempering of the bitter air without closed round him gratefully, and the dry, faint odor of the piled hay tickled his nostrils. Behind him, Reyner watched in attentive silence.

  Someone had done well with his hay harvest in the past season, and had still a plentiful store here. A bed and bedding provided together, a stout roof overhead—yes, anyone benighted would be thankful to hit on such a refuge. Someone had made use of it in the night just past, the great pile of hay was pressed down by the weight of a long body. So it might have been during other nights. So it might have been by two bodies. Yes, this could well be the place he was looking for. Yet even this place was at least half a mile from the spot where Brother Elyas had been left for dead, and his murderers had been making their way home, not scouring half a mile of deserted countryside.

  “Are you thinking,” wondered Reyner, watching him, “that it may be the pair we’re seeking who were in here last night? For someone was, and there are two breadths of foot have trampled the snow on the doorsill here.”

  “It could be so,” said Cadfael abstractedly. “Let’s hope so, for whoever was here went forth live and able this morning, it seems, and has left tracks we’ll follow in a moment. If we’ve found all there is to be found here.”

  “What more can there be, and they gone?” But Reyner watched Cadfael’s concentration with respect, and was willing to use his own eyes. He came within, looked all round him sharply, and stirred the great pile of hay with a vigorous foot. “Not bad lying, if they got this far. They may haven taken no real harm, after all.” His disturbance of the pile had loosed a wave of scent and a tickling haze of dust, and uncovered a corner of black cloth, well buried under the load. He stooped and tugged at it, and a long black garment emerged, unrolling in his hands, creased and dusty. He held it up, astonished. “What’s here? Who would throw away a good cloak?”

  Cadfael took it from him and spread it out to see. A plain travelling cloak, in the coarse black cloth of the Benedictines. A man’s cloak, a monk’s cloak. The cloak of Brother Elyas?

  He dropped it without a word, and plunged both arms into the pile, scooping a way down to the floor like a terrier after a rat. More black cloth there, rolled up and thrust deep, deep, to be hidden from all eyes. He brought up the roll and shook it out, and a crumpled ball of white fell clear. He snatched it back and smoothed it in his hands, the austere linen wimple of a nun, soiled now and crushed. And the black, held up to view, was a slender habit tied with its own girdle, and a short cloak of the same cloth. And all thrust away into hiding, where no chance shepherd would ever think to delve until all that hay was used.

  Cadfael spread out the habit and felt at the right shoulder, sleeve and breast, and the traces, all but invisible in the shroud in black, confided to his touch what his eyes could not distinguish. On the right breast a patch the size of a man’s hand was stiff and caked, crusted threads crumbled away as he handled it. The folds of shoulder and sleeve bore streaks and specks of the same corruption.

  “Blood?” said Reyner, watching and marveling.

  Cadfael did not answer that. He was grimly rolling up habit and cloaks together, the wimple tucked inside, and hoisting the bundle under his arm. “Come, let’s see where they went, who slept the night here.”

  There was no question where the hut’s last occupants had gone. From the thin layer of snow before the door, where the prints of large feet and small ones showed clearly, two tracks led downhill and merged, first with the broken slurring of people forging through a moderate fall, then ploughing a furrow to the knee and the hip through fluctuating drifts, down towards the bank of bushes and the coppice of burdened trees below. They followed, leading the mules and keeping to the narrow way carved out by those they pursued. It rounded the bushes, but cleft a passage through the belt of trees, where the branches had held off much of the fall. They emerged upon the level where the tracks of a number of men and horses crossed them, coming from the west and moving east. Cadfael stared eastward, marking the course of the tracks till they faded from sight in distance, bearing downward here towards the drainage valley of the brooks, and surely preserving the same direct line and rising again beyond, pointing straight at the wilderness of Titterstone Clee.

  “Did we cross such tracks, coming up from the road? For you see the line they take. We came from below, we end above. We must have crossed.”

  “We were not looking for such, then,” said Reyner sensibly. “And the wind may have blotted them out here and there.”

  “True, so it may.” He had been bent on reaching the empty coffin in the ice, he had not been paying attention to the ground. “Well, let’s see what we have here. Whoever they were, they halted, they came circling, here where the tracks from above come forth from the trees.”

  “A horse turned and stood, here,” said Reyner, probing ahead. “Then he wheeled and went on. So did they all. Let’s follow a short way.”

  The first scarlet flower of blood sprang up under their feet within three hundred paces. A chain of ruby beads wavered on for as far again, and there was a second starry bloom, and beyond, the chain continuing, thin and clear. The frozen snow held its dyes well. They were at the peak of the day, the brief clarity would soon be gone, but while it was at its height it showed them the frowning outline of the Clee straight before them, the goal of this ancient pathway. Distant, savage and lonely, a fit place for wolves.

  “Friend,” said Cadfael, halting with his eyes on that ominous skyline, “I think you and I part company here. By all that I can see, these are last night’s tracks, and they mean several horses and many men, and something aboard that dripped blood. Slaughtered sheep, perhaps? Or wounded men? The band we have to root out come from up t
here, and if they were not out about their grisly business last night, these tracks lie. There’s a holding somewhere binding up its wounds and laying out its dead, at the very least grieving for its goods and gear. Turn back, Reyner, follow these traces back to where they burned and stole last night, and go take the word to Hugh Beringar, to save what can be saved. Into Ludlow, if Hugh Beringar is not yet back—Josce de Dinan has as much to lose as any.”

  “And you, brother?” demanded Reyner doubtfully.

  “I’m going ahead, to follow them the way they took. Whether they’ve borne our pair away with them or not, this is our best chance to find where they’ve made their nest. Oh, never fret!” he said, seeing his companion frown and hesitate to leave him, “I’ll mind my going. I’m no beginner at this. But here, take these back with you, and leave them with Prior Leonard until I come.” He drew out the strand of primrose mane, mindful of its importance, and made it secure in the middle of the role of clothing. “Tell him I’ll be with him before night.”

  He had gone no more than a quarter of a mile when he crossed the tracks of Reyner’s mule and his own, climbing to the brook. Loose, powdery snow had already been blown over the path there, but if he had been keeping his eyes open he must have seen that a number of travelers had passed that way, though he would not necessarily have read any sinister meaning into that, for the snow-spume had covered the dotted line of red.

  From that point on the track dipped gently to cross the Ledwyche brook and the Dogditch brook, its tributary from the north-east, threading its way between holdings on either side without ever sighting them, and at once began to climb again steadily. An old, old road, maintaining its level as easily as possible over undulating country, until it was forced to climb more steeply, as every approach must, to mount to that inhospitable summit, a bleak, blistering mile of rock, starved turf, broken escarpment and treacherous, shivering moss.

  The face of Clee thus approached presented surfaces of sheer cliff striated with the brief glare of sunlight. There the path certainly could not go, yet it still aimed like an arrow for the wall of rock. Soon it must veer either to right or left, to circle the hill as it climbed, and remembering the ravaging of John Druel’s holding, Cadfael judged that it must bear to the right. That way they had certainly returned home on that night, leaving the village of Cleeton well below, too strongly manned to be a quick or an easy prey so late towards dawn.

  Some minutes later his guess was borne out, for the path inclined to the right, and began to follow the course of a small brook, muted now by ice, that flowed down out of the mass, until it dwindled in the higher reaches, and ended in a hollow of frozen moss, which the track carefully skirted. The rocky bulk of the hill loomed on his left hand now, but often hidden from view by the folds of ground near to him, even by rare stands of stunted trees. Circling always, he climbed, until he saw below him in its bowl the desolate remains of Druel’s house and byres. The next curve of the spiral took him higher, and the ruin passed from his sight.

  In the rocky hillside on his left hand appeared a sudden cleft, so narrow that he might have missed it if the frail string of red drops had not turned into it. The valley within was deep and dark, and cut off at once much of the light and all the force of the wind. Herbage grew here, glad of the shelter, and had built up soil enough to support swart, strong trees. He could not be far from the summit, and he must have made more than half the circuit of the hill by this time. Whatever was at the end of this rough approach must back upon the sheer cliffs of the south-western face, and it might well be that it could be reached by no other way, except by birds.

  In that thin and lofty air sounds carried far. Deep into the ravine, Cadfael had already halted to consider his next move when the distant metallic chinking came down to him in a regular rhythm. Somewhere above him a smith was at work. Then, faintly but clearly, he heard cattle lowing.

  If this was their gateway, it might be strongly watched, and if he was within earshot the stronghold could not be far. He dismounted, led his mule well into the trees, and there tethered him. There was no longer any question in his mind that he had found his way to the outlaw company who had killed and pillaged across this countryside to the very gates of Ludlow. Who else would have built in this hidden and formidable place?

  Where he would not venture in the open he might still penetrate with caution. He threaded a silent way up through the trees, and between their dark tops saw the grey pallor of the sky. Into that pallor a squat dark shape projected, the top of a wooden tower. He was drawing near to the source of the brook which had carved out so deep a cleft, and before him, viewed through the trees, a plateau of rock and snow opened. He saw the long, staked line of a high stockade, the crests of roofs within, the long ridge of the hall, with the tower at its end. Not a high tower, built solid and low to withstand the winds, but tall enough to have the master’s view of all that surrounded it. For the outline of wall and tower stood stark on the sky. They had no need to guard their rear, except from falcons. Behind the castle the cliffs fell sheer. From a distance, Cadfael reflected, not even the tower would be visible as separate from the dark rock from which it rose.

  He stood for a while memorizing what he saw and heard, for Hugh would need every detail he could get. The enclosing wall was high, topped with pointed stakes set close, and by the heads he saw appear and vanish again above the serrated crest, there were watch-platforms at frequent intervals, if not a guard-walk the whole way round. Voices floated clearly from within the pale, wordless but insistent, many voices, shouting, laughing, even singing. The armourer continued his busy hammering, cattle bellowed, sheep bleated, and the hum of much busy coming and going made a confident music. They were quite unafraid, within there, they felt themselves equal to anything the hampered, divided law of the land could do against them. Whoever commanded there must have gathered to him the lawless, restless, masterless men of two or three shires, happy at seeing England torn in two, and its open wounds inviting their teeth.

  Cloud was settling low overhead. Cadfael turned and made his way back to his mule, and with heightened care led him, still in the shelter of the trees, down to the opening of the ravine, and waited and listened for a while before mounting and riding. He went back the way he had come, and never encountered a living soul until he was well down towards the lowlands. There he could very well have branched left and descended to the highroad from Cleobury, but he did not do it, preferring to retrace his course all along the road the reivers used. He needed to know it well, for the night’s snow, if it came as was now customary, might grievously disguise it.

  It was dark by the time he came out on to the road within a mile of Bromfield, and made his way thankfully and wearily home.

  Hugh Beringar did not come back until Compline, and rode in tired, hungry, and for all the cold, sweating from his exertions. Cadfael went to join him over his late supper, as soon as he came from the church.

  “You found the place, then? Reyner brought you word where last night’s devilry fell?” He was answered by the grimness of Hugh’s face.

  “And told me what you were about at the other end of it. I hardly thought to find you home before me—faith, or at all, undamaged! Need you always be the one to put your hand straight into the hornet’s nest?”

  “Where was it they burned and slew, last night?”

  “At Whitbache. Barely two miles north of Ludlow, and they strode in and out again as freely as in their own bailey.” It fitted well. Their way home from Whitbache would run below the hut to the old road, just as Cadfael had witnessed it. “I was back in Ludlow when your man came, I fetched Dinan out to come with me. Every house pillaged, every soul hewn down. Two women escaped by running away into the woods, and carried their babes with them, all that ails them is cold and horror, but the rest—one man may live to tell it, and two young lads, but all hurt. And the rest, dead. We’ve taken them into the town, the quick and the dead. They’re Dinan’s people, he’ll see them cared for. And have blood for t
heir blood, given half a chance.”

  “Both you and he may have your chance,” said Cadfael. “Reyner Dutton found what he was seeking, and so did I.”

  Hugh’s head, inclined wearily back against the wall, jerked erect again sharply, and his eyes regained their brightness. “You found the den these wolves are using? Tell!”

  Cadfael told the whole story in detail. The clearer the picture they could draw now of the problem confronting them, the better the chance of dealing with it with little loss. For it was not going to be easy.

  “As far as I can see, there is but that one road to them. Behind the fortress the ground still rises somewhat, to the rim of the cliff. Whether their stockade continues round the rear of the bailey I could not see. With that drop at their backs they may have felt it unnecessary. I daresay the rocks could be climbed, in a better time of year, but in this ice and snow no one would dare attempt it. And being the men they are, I fancy they have store of stones and boulders ready in case any should venture.”

  “And the place is indeed so strong? I marvel how they’ve contrived so much building in secrecy.”

  “A place so remote and harsh, who goes there? A few holdings clinging to the lower slopes, but what is there to draw an honest man above? Not even good grazing. And, Hugh, they have an army within there, the scourings of God knows how wide a swathe of middle England, labor in plenty. And Clee Forest at their feet, and stone all about them, the only crop that summit bears. You know and I know how fast a castle can be reared, given the timber and the need.”

  “But runaway villeins turned robber, and petty thieves fleeing from the towns, and such fry, do not build on such a scale, but make themselves hovels in the woods,” said Hugh. “Someone of more weight has the rule there. I wonder who! I do wonder!”

  “Tomorrow, if God please,” said Cadfael, “we may find out.”

  “We?” Briefly and distractedly Hugh smiled at him. “I thought you had done with arms, brother! You think our two are within there?”