Brother Cadfael 06: A Virgin In The Ice

with a wry and burdened smile. "We shall be away before ever he opens his eyes. Do you think I dare risk confronting him with another and dearer corpse, with your fierce eye on me? No, if luck's with us we'll bring him his sister, either intact or a wife irreclaimable, and they shall fight it out between them, he, she and the lover! If luck turns her back on us - well, then you may be needed. But once this girl's well out of it, this burden is mine, and you may take care of your patient and sit quietly at home."
    Cadfael watched the night through with Brother Elyas, and got nothing more for his pains than he had known already. The barrier remained immovable. When a dutiful brother came to relieve him, he went to his bed, and slept as soon as he lay down. He had the gift. There was no profit in laying awake fretting for what would, in any case, have to be faced on awaking, and he had long ago sloughed off the unprofitable. It took too much out of a man, of what would be needed hereafter.
    He awoke only when he was roused by Prior Leonard, which was in the early afternoon, a couple of hours at least after he had intended to be up and doing. By which time Hugh was back from his foray into the hills, and tramped in weary and bleak of countenance to share a late dinner, and report the fruits of his labours.
    "There is a manor known as Callowleas, a quarter-circle round the flank of Clee from Druel's place, and much on the same level." Hugh paused to frown over his own choice of words. "There was such a manor! It has been wiped out, drained, filleted like a fish. What we found was Druel's homestead over again, but to another degree. This was a thriving manor, and now it's a snowy waste, a number of bodies buried or frozen there, nothing living left to speak. We've brought back the first of the dead into Ludlow, and left men breaking out others from the drifts. No telling how many they'll find. By the covering of snow, I should judge this raid took place even before the frost set in."
    "Do you tell me?" Cadfael sat staring, appalled. "Then before the raids of which we already know, and before our little nun was killed, and Brother Elyas reduced to his haunted condition he lies in now. Now you have your finger on a fixed place, is there a name and a lord to go with it? Dinan will know all these tenants who hold from him, and it must be his writ, the old Lacy writ, that runs there."
    "It is. The manor of Callowleas is held from him by a young man who came into his father's honour only two years ago. Of suitable fortune, person, and age, yes. His name is Evrard Boterei. Not a great family, but respected. By many tokens, he may well be the man."
    "And this place lies in the right direction? The way the girl fled with her lover?" It was a grim reflection, but Hugh shook his head emphatically at despondency.
    "Ah, but wait! Nothing's certain yet, Yves could not name the man. But even if it is so - as I believe it must be - no need yet to bury the girl. For Dinan pointed out that Boterei also holds the manor of Ledwyche, down in the valley of the Dogditch brook, and there's a good downhill track continues on that way from Callowleas, into forest, and thick forest at that. A little over three miles between the two holdings. We followed it a short way, though I own I had little hope of finding any traces, even if some of the household had escaped the slaughter that way. We had better fortune that I expected, or maybe deserved. Look, this is what I found!"
    He drew it out from the breast of his cotte, and held it up over his fist, a net of fine gold filigree threads on a band of embroidered ribbon, made to pass round the head when the hair was netted, and tie over the brow. The bow in which it had been tied had been dragged askew, but not undone, for the band had torn apart a little aside from it.
    "Caught in thick woodland, well down the path. They were in haste, whoever rode that way, they cut through a dense thicket to come the quickest way down the slope, there were broken twigs hanging to bear witness. I say they, but I fancy one horse only, with two riders. A low branch caught and dragged this from her head. And since that gives us every hope that the wearer got away safely from that terror, we may very well show this to Yves, and say how it was found. If he knows it for hers, then I'm bound for Ledwyche, to see if luck's still on our side."
    There was no hesitation. The moment Yves set eyes on the handful of gold cobweb, his