Brother Cadfael 06: A Virgin In The Ice

"Come, let's see where they went, who slept the night here."
    There was no question where the hut's last occupants had gone. From the thin layer of snow before the door, where the prints of large feet and small ones showed clearly, two tracks led downhill and merged, first with the broken slurring of people forging through a moderate fall, then ploughing a furrow to the knee and the hip through fluctuating drifts, down towards the bank of bushes and the coppice of burdened trees below. They followed, leading the mules and keeping to the narrow way carved out by those they pursued. It rounded the bushes, but cleft a passage through the belt of trees, where the branches had held off much of the fall. They emerged upon the level where the tracks of a number of men and horses crossed them, coming from the west and moving east. Cadfael stared eastward, marking the course of the tracks till they faded from sight in distance, bearing downward here towards the drainage valley of the brooks, and surely preserving the same direct line and rising again beyond, pointing straight at the wilderness of Titterstone Clee.
    "Did we cross such tracks, coming up from the road? For you see the line they take. We came from below, we end above. We must have crossed."
    "We were not looking for such, then," said Reyner sensibly. "And the wind may have blotted them out here and there."
    "True, so it may." He had been bent on reaching the empty coffin in the ice, he had not been paying attention to the ground. "Well, let's see what we have here. Whoever they were, they halted, they came circling, here where the tracks from above come forth from the trees."
    "A horse turned and stood, here," said Reyner, probing ahead. "Then he wheeled and went on. So did they all. Let's follow a short way."
    The first scarlet flower of blood sprang up under their feet within three hundred paces. A chain of ruby beads wavered on for as far again, and there was a second starry bloom, and beyond, the chain continuing, thin and clear. The frozen snow held its dyes well. They were at the peak of the day, the brief clarity would soon be gone, but while it was at its height it showed them the frowning outline of the Clee straight before them, the goal of this ancient pathway. Distant, savage and lonely, a fit place for wolves.
    "Friend," said Cadfael, halting with his eyes on that ominous skyline, "I think you and I part company here. By all that I can see, these are last night's tracks, and they mean several horses and many men, and something aboard that dripped blood. Slaughtered sheep, perhaps? Or wounded men? The band we have to root out come from up there, and if they were not out about their grisly business last night, these tracks lie. There's a holding somewhere binding up its wounds and laying out its dead, at the very least grieving for its goods and gear. Turn back, Reyner, follow these traces back to where they burned and stole last night, and go take the word to Hugh Beringar, to save what can be saved. Into Ludlow, if Hugh Beringar is not yet back - Josce de Dinan has as much to lose as any."
    "And you, brother?" demanded Reyner doubtfully.
    "I'm going ahead, to follow them the way they took. Whether they've borne our pair away with them or not, this is our best chance to find where they've made their nest. Oh, never fret!" he said, seeing his companion frown and hesitate to leave him, "I'll mind my going. I'm no beginner at this. But here, take these back with you, and leave them with Prior Leonard until I come." He drew out the strand of primrose mane, mindful of its importance, and made it secure in the middle of the role of clothing. "Tell him I'll be with him before night."
    He had gone no more than a quarter of a mile when he crossed the tracks of Reyner's mule and his own, climbing to the brook. Loose, powdery snow had already been blown over the path there, but if he had been keeping his eyes open he must have seen that a number of travelers had passed that way, though he would not necessarily have read any sinister meaning into that, for the snow-spume had covered the dotted line of red.
    From that point on the track dipped gently to cross the Ledwyche brook and the Dogditch brook, its tributary from the north-east, threading its way between holdings on either side without ever sighting them, and at once began to climb again steadily. An old, old road, maintaining its level as easily as possible over undulating country, until it was forced to