Virgin in the Ice Read Online Free PDF Page B

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!”
    “But he did speak. He told you he left them at Foxwood, and they were bent on crossing the hills still towards Shrewsbury. That would mean their venturing clean over the flank of Clee, to Godstoke, where they would be in the lands of Wenlock priory, and in good enough hands.”
    “But a bitter, bleak way over,” mourned the prior, aghast. “And that heavy snow the next night.”
    “There’s no certainty,” Cadfael reminded him cautiously. “Barely a suspicion. A quarter of Worcester fled this way to escape the slaughter. Better I should keep watch on this patient of ours than waste time on speculation. For only he can tell us more, and besides, him we already have, he was laid at our doors, and him we must keep. Go to Compline, Leonard, and pray for him, and I’ll do as much by his bed. And if he speaks, never fret, I’ll be awake enough to catch his drift, for all our sakes.”
    In the night the first sudden but infinitesimal change took place. Brother Cadfael was long accustomed to sleeping with one eye open, and both ears. On his low stool beside the bed he drowsed thus, arms folded, head lowered, one elbow braced on the wooden frame of the bed, to quicken to any move. But it was his hearing that pricked him awake to stoop with held breath. For Elyas had just drawn his first deeper, longer, eased breath, that went down through his misused body from throat to stretched feet, groaning at the disturbed pains that everywhere gored him. The horrid snore in his throat had softened, he drew air, painful though it was, down into his midriff hungrily, like a starving man grasping at food. Cadfael saw a great quiver pass over the mangled face and past the swollen lips. The tip of a dry tongue strove to moisten, and shivered and withdrew from pain, but the lips remained parted. The strong teeth unclenched to let out a long, sighing groan.
    Cadfael had honeyed wine standing in a jug beside the brazier, to keep warm. He trickled a few drops between the swollen lips, and had the satisfaction of seeing the unconscious face contort in muscular spasm, and the throat labor to swallow. When he touched a finger to the man’s lips, again closed, they parted in thirsty response. Drop by drop, patiently, a good portion of the drink went down. Only when response failed at last did Cadfael abandon the process. Cold, oblivious absence had softened gradually into sleep, now that a little warmth had been supplied him both within and without. A few days of lying still, for his wits to settle again right way up in his head, thought Cadfael, and he’ll come round and be on his way back to us. But whether he’ll remember much of what befell him is another matter. He had known men, after such head injuries, revive to recall every detail of their childhood and past years, but no recollection whatever of recent injury.
    He removed the cooling brick from the foot of the bed, fetched a replacement from the kitchen, and sat down to resume his vigil. This was certainly sleep now, but a very uneasy sleep, broken by whimpers and moans, and sudden shudders that