Brother Cadfael 06: A Virgin In The Ice

and leave to God our good."
    Ermina wept, suddenly and irresistibly, but would not be seen to weep. She swept away from him to kneel trembling at the altar, and remained there a long time. He did not follow her, but waited patiently until she chose to rejoin him. When she came back her face was drained but calm. She looked very tired, and very young and vulnerable.
    "Come back to the fire," said Cadfael. "You'll take cold here."
    She went with him docilely, glad to settle beside the hearth again. The shivering left her, she lay back and half-closed her eyes, but when he made a move as if to leave her she looked up quickly. "Brother Cadfael, when they sent from Worcester to ask for news of us, was there word said of our uncle d'Angers being in England?"
    "There was. Not only in England but in Gloucester, with the empress." That was what she had meant, though she had been feeling her way towards it cautiously. "Openly and fairly he asked leave to come into the king's territories himself to look for you, and leave was refused. The sheriff promised a search by his own men, but would not admit any of the empress's party."
    "And should any such be found here and taken - in the search of us - what would happen to him?"

"He would be held prisoner of war. It is the sheriff's duty to deny to the king's enemies the service of any fighting man who falls into his hands, you must not wonder at it. A knight lost to the empress is a knight's gain to the king." He saw how doubtfully and anxiously she eyed him, and smiled. "It is the sheriff's duty. It is not mine. Among men of honour and decent Christian life I see no enemies, on either side. Mine is a different discipline. With any man who comes only to rescue and fetch away children to their proper guardian, I have no quarrel."
    She frowned momentarily at the word children, and then laughed, with angry honesty, at the very instinct that showed her still a child. "Then you would not betray such a man even to your friend?"
    Cadfael sat down opposite her and settled himself comfortably, for it seemed she had matters on her mind, and wished to unburden herself. "I have told you, I take no side here, and Hugh Beringar would not expect me to go always his way in every particular. He does his work and I mine. But I must tell you that he has already some knowledge of a presence in these parts, a stranger, who came to Cleeton enquiring for all you three who left Worcester together. A countryman by his dress, they said, young, tall and dark, eyed and beaked like a hawk, black-haired and dark-skinned." She was listening intently, her underlip caught between her teeth, and at every detail the colour flamed and faded in her cheeks. "And one that wore a sword under his cloak," said Cadfael.
    She sat very still, making up her mind. The face at her shoulder in the torchlight of the gatehouse hung vividly in Cadfael's imagination, and surely even more urgently in hers. For a moment he thought she would prevaricate, shrug off the image, declare her guide to be no more than she had said, a forester's son. But then she leaned forward and began to speak with vehement eagerness.
    "I will tell you! I will tell you, and not even exact any promise, for I know I need not. You will not give him up. What I said was true, that I was taken in and helped by the forester and his wife. But the second day that I was there with them, there came a youth asking for news of such a company as I had, before I shattered it. Dressed as I was when you first saw me today, still he knew me for what I was, and so did I him, for nothing could show him less than noble. He spoke French freely, but English a little slowly. He told me that my uncle had returned, and was in Gloucester with the empress, and had sent him secretly to find us and bring us safe to him. His errand is that, and nothing more, but here he goes with danger all about him, knowing he may fall into the sheriff's hands."
    "He has eluded them so far," said Cadfael mildly. "He may very well go on slipping through our fingers to the end, and hale you away with him to Gloucester."
    "But not without Yves. I will not go without my brother, he knows that. I did not want to come here, but he so wished it. Let me know, he said, that you at least are in safety, and leave the hunt to me. And I have done and I will do what he bids me. But I could not bear it if through his care for us he fell into the king's hands, and was left to rot in a prison."
    "Never go looking for