Brother Cadfael 06: A Virgin In The Ice

shapely head covered all over with an aureole of short bronze curls, like an angel in an Annunciation. Cadfael went to fetch Prior Leonard, and they cared for her together, not yet to wash her body, not until Hugh Beringar had viewed it, but to compose her worthily in her everlasting stillness. To the throat they covered her with a linen sheet, and made her ready to be seen.
    Hugh came, and stood by her silently. Eighteen could well be her age, so white and slim and tranquil, gone far beyond them. And beautiful, as reported? Yes, that she was. But was this the dark, headstrong, spoiled daughter of the nobility, who had insisted on her own way in despite of the times, the winter, the war and all?
    "Look!" said Cadfael, and turned back the linen to show the crumpled folds of her shift, just as they had emerged from the ice. The dull, reddish smear speckled her right shoulder, the edge of her shift, and the creases over her right breast.
    "Stabbed?" said Hugh, looking up into Cadfael's face.
    "There is no wound. See now!" He drew down the linen and showed the flesh beneath. Only a smudge or two showed on her pale skin. He wiped them away, and she shone white without blemish. "Certainly not stabbed. The night frost that took her closed in very quickly, and preserved these marks, faint as they are. But she did not bleed. Or if she did," he added bleakly, "it was not from knife-wounds, and not there. More likely she fought him - him or them, such wolves hunt happiest in packs! - and drew blood. A clawed face, it might be, or a hand or wrist as she tried to force him off. Bear it in mind, Hugh, as I will also." He covered her again reverently. The alabaster face looked up from veiled eyes into the vault, supremely unmoved, and her head of clipped curls was beginning to shine like a halo as it dried.
    "She begins to bruise," said Hugh, and drew a fingertip over her cheekbone and down to the faint discolourations round her lips. "But her throat is unmarked. She was not strangled."
    "Smothered, surely, in the act of ravishment."
    They were all three so intent upon the dead girl that they had not heard the footsteps that approached the closed door of the room, and even had they been listening, the footsteps were light enough to be missed, though they came briskly and without conceal. The first they knew of the boy's coming was the white burst of reflected light from the snow, as the door was opened wide to the wall, and Yves marched over the threshold with the innocent boldness of his kind. No creeping ingratiatingly through a narrow chink for him, nothing he did was done by half-measures. The abruptness with which they all whirled upon him, and their frowning consternation gave him sharp pause and mild offence. Both Hugh and Prior Leonard stepped quickly between him and the trestle on which the body lay.
    "You should not be here, child," said the prior, flustered.
    "Why should I not, Father? No one has told me I should be at fault. I was looking for Brother Cadfael."
    "Brother Cadfael will come out to you in a little while. Go back to the guest-hall and wait for him there ..."
    It was late to ward him off, he had seen, beyond the sheltering shoulders, enough to tell him what lay behind. The linen sheet, quickly drawn up, the unmistakable shape, and one glimpse of short, bright hair where the linen, too hastily drawn, had folded back on itself. His face grew still and wary, his eyes large, and his tongue was silenced.
    The prior laid a hand gently on his shoulder and made to turn him back to the doorway. "Come, you and I will go together. Whatever is to be told, you shall hear later, but leave it now."
    Yves stood his ground, and went on staring.
    "No," said Cadfael unexpectedly, "let him come." He came out from behind the trestle, and took a step or two towards the boy. "Yves, you are a sensible man, no need to pretend to you, after your travels, that violence and danger and cruelty do not exist, and men do not die. We have here a dead body, not known to us. I would have you look at it, if you will, and say if you know this face. You need not fear anything ill to see."
    The boy drew near steadily and with set face, and eyed the shrouded form with nothing worse than awe. Doubtful if it had ever entered his head, thought Cadfael, that this might be his sister, or indeed a woman. He had seen the dilated eyes fix on the short, curling hair; it was a young man Yves expected. Nevertheless, Cadfael would have approached this somewhat