Brother Cadfael 06: A Virgin In The Ice

differently if he had not been certain already, in his own mind, that this dead girl, whoever she might be, was not Ermina Hugonin. Beyond that he had only a pitiful suspicion. But Yves would know.
    He drew down the sheet from her face. The boy's hands, clenched together before him, tightened abruptly. He drew in breath hard, but made no other sound for a long moment. He shook a little, but not much. The wide-eyed stare he raised to Cadfael's questioning face was one of shocked bewilderment, almost of disbelief.
    "But how is this possible? I thought ... I don't understand! She ..." He gave up, shaking his head violently, and hung over her again in fascinated pity and wonder. "I do know her, of course I do, but how can she be here, and dead? This is Sister Hilaria, who came with us from Worcester."
    Chapter Five
    Between them they coaxed and shooed him away across the snowy court. Yves went still in his daze, frowning helplessly over this sudden and inexplicable reappearance in another place of someone he had left safe under a friendly roof some miles away. He was too shaken and puzzled at first to realize fully the meaning of what he had seen, but halfway to the guest-hall it hit him like a blow on the head. He balked, gulped breath in a great sob, and startled himself, if no one else, by bursting into tears. Prior Leonard would have clucked over him like a dismayed hen, but Cadfael clapped him briskly on the shoulder, and said practically:
    "Bear up, my heart, for we're going to need you. We have a malefactor to trace now, and a wrong to avenge, and who but you can lead us straight to the place where you left her? Where else should we start?"
    The fit passed as abruptly as it had begun. Yves scrubbed at his smudged cheeks hastily with his sleeve, and looked round alertly enough to see what he could read in Hugh Beringar's face. In Hugh the authority lay. The role of the cloistered was to shelter and counsel and offer prayers, but justice and law were the business of the sheriff. Yves was not a baron's heir for nothing, he knew all about the hierarchies.
    "That's true, I can take you straight from Foxwood to John Druel's holding, it lies higher than Cleeton village." He caught eagerly at Hugh's sleeve, wise enough to ask nicely instead of demanding. "May I go with you and show the way?"
    "You may, if you'll stay close and do all as you're bidden." Hugh was already committed, Cadfael had seen to that. But far better for the boy to be out in men's company, and active, than to sit fretting here alone. "We'll find you a pony your size. Run, then, get your cloak and come after us to the stables."
    Yves ran, restored by the prospect of doing something to the purpose. Beringar looked after him thoughtfully. "Go with him, Father Prior, if you will, see that he has some food with him, for it may be a long day, and no matter how large a dinner he's eaten half an hour ago, he'll be hungry before night." And to Cadfael he said, as they turned together towards the stables: "You, I know, will do whatever you fancy doing, and I'm always glad of your company, if your charges, live and dead, can spare you. But you've had some hard riding these last days ..."
    "For an ageing man," said Cadfael.
    "As well I did not say so! I doubt you could outlast me, for all your great burden of years. What of Brother Elyas, though?"
    "He needs no more from me, now, than a visit or two each day, to see that nothing's turned back for him and gone amiss. His body is recovering well. And as for the part of his mind that's astray, my being here won't cure it. It will come back of itself one day, or it will cease to be missed. He's well looked after. As she was not!" he said sadly.
    "How did you know," asked Hugh, "that it could not be the child's sister?"
    "The cropped hair, first. A month now since they left Worcester, long enough to provide her that halo we have seen. Why should the other girl clip her locks? And then, the colouring. Ermina, so Herward said, is almost black of hair and eye, darker brown than her brother. So is not this lady. And they did say, as I remember, the nun was also young, no more than five and twenty or so. No, I was sure he was safe from that worst threat. Thus far!" said Cadfael soberly. "Now we have to find her, and make sure he never shall have to uncover another known face and set a name to it. I have the same obligations as you, and I'm coming with you."
    "Go get yourself booted and ready, then," said Hugh, without