Brother Cadfael 06: A Virgin In The Ice

else, and feeding a draught of herbs to Brother Elyas might spill a drop of comfort to soothe his own troubles and disappointments. "He still hasn't said anything to help us? He doesn't remember us?"
    "Not yet. There is a name he calls sometimes in his sleep, but none of our acquaintance." He called for her as for a thing hopelessly lost, an irreparable grief but not an anxiety, she being beyond pain or danger. "Hunydd. In his deepest sleep he calls for Hunydd."
    "A strange name," said Yves, wondering. "Is it a man or a woman?"
    "A woman's name - a Welshwoman. I think, though I do not know, that she was his wife. And dearly loved, too dearly to leave him in peace if she is only a few months dead. Prior Leonard said of him, not long in the cloister. He may well have tried to escape from what was hard to bear alone, and found it no easier among any number of brethren."
    Yves was looking up at him with a man's eyes, steady and grave. Even sorrows as yet well out of his range he could go far towards understanding. Cadfael shook him amiably by the shoulder. "There, yes, sit by him if you will. After Compline I'll bring someone to take your place. And should you need me, I'll not be far away."
    Elyas dozed, opened his eyes, and dozed again. Yves sat still and silent beside the bed, attentive to every change in the gaunt but strong and comely face, and pleased and ready when the invalid asked for a drink, or needed an arm to help him turn and settle comfortably. In the wakeful moments the boy tried tentatively to reach a mind surely not quite closed against him, talking shyly of the winter weather, and the common order of the day within these walls. The hollow eyes watched him as though from a great distance, but attentively.
    "Strange," said Elyas suddenly, his voice low and creaky with disuse. "I feel that I should know you. Yet you are not a brother of the house."
    "You have known me," said Yves, eager and hopeful. "For a short time we were together, do you remember? We came from Cleobury together, as far as Foxwood. My name is Yves Hugonin."
    No, the name meant nothing. Only the face, it seemed touched some chord in his disrupted memory. "There was snow threatening," he said. "I had a reliquary to deliver here, they tell me I brought it safely. They tell me! All I know is what they tell me."
    "But you will remember," said Yves earnestly. "It will come clear to you again. You may trust what they tell you, no one would deceive you. Shall I tell you more things? True things, that I know?"
    The wondering, doubting face watched him, and made no motion of rejection. Yves leaned close, and began to talk solemnly and eagerly about what was past.
    "You were coming from Pershore, but roundabout, to avoid the trouble in Worcester. And we had run from Worcester, and wanted to reach Shrewsbury. At Cleobury we were all lodged overnight, and you would have had us come here to Bromfield with you, as the nearest place of safety, and I wanted to go with you, but my sister would not, she would go on over the hills. We parted at Foxwood." The face on the pillow was not responsive, but seemed to wait with a faint, patient hope. The wind shook the stout shutter covering the window, and filtered infinitely tiny particles of snow into the room, to vanish instantly. The candle flickered. The whine of the gale outside was a piercingly desolate sound.
    "But you are here," said Elyas abruptly, "far from Shrewsbury still. And alone! How is that, that you should be alone?"
    "We were separated." Yves was not quite easy, but if the sick man was beginning to ask questions thus intelligently, the threads of his torn recollections might knit again and present him a whole picture. Better to know both the bad and the good, since there was no guilt in it for him, he was the blameless victim, and surely knowledge should be healing. "Some kind country people sheltered me, and Brother Cadfael brought me here. But my sister ... We are seeking her. She left us of her own will!" He could not resist that cry, but would not accuse her further. "I am sure we shall find her safe and well," he said manfully.
    "But there was a third," said Brother Elyas, so softly, so inwardly, that it seemed he spoke to himself. "There was a nun ..." And now he was not looking at Yves, but staring great-eyed into the vault above him, and his mouth worked agitatedly.
    "Sister Hilaria," said Yves, quivering in response.
    "A nun of our order ..." Elyas set both hands to the sides of his