Brother Cadfael 06: A Virgin In The Ice

came clearly.
    "Go on. There was more."
    "Yes. He changed then, he said 'no, don't forgive me, bury me and put me out of mind. I am unworthy, he said, weak, inconstant' ..." There was a long pause, as there had been that night, before Brother Elyas cried out his mortal frailty aloud. "He said: 'She clung to me, she had no fear, being with me.' And then he said: 'Merciful God, I am a man, full of blood, with a man's body and a man's desires. And she is dead', he said, who trusted me!' "
    He stared, white-faced, amazed to see Brother Cadfael unshaken, thoughtful and calm, considering him across the table with a grave smile.
    "Don't you believe me? I've told you truly. All those things he said."
    "I do believe you. Surely he said them. But think - his travelling cloak was there in the hut, together with her cloak and habit. And hidden! And she taken away from that place, and put into the brook, and he found some distance away, also. If he had not led you back to the hut we should not have known the half of these things. Surely I believe all that you have told me, even so you must believe and consider those things I have been able to tell you. It is not enough to say that a thing is so because of one fragment of knowledge, even so clear as a confession, and put away out of sight those other things known, because they cannot be explained. An answer to a matter of life and death must be an answer that explains all."
    Yves gazed blankly, understanding the words, but seeing no hope or help in them. "But how can we find such an answer? And if we find it, and it is the wrong answer ..." He faltered, and shook again.
    "Truth is never a wrong answer. We will find it, Yves, by asking the one who knows." Cadfael rose briskly, and drew the boy up with him. "Take heart, nothing is ever quite what it seems. You and I will go and speak yet again with Brother Elyas."
    Brother Elyas lay weak and mute as before, yet not as before, for his eyes were open, intelligent and illusionless, windows on a great, contained grief for which there was no cure. He had a memory again, though it brought him nothing but pain. He knew them, when they sat down one on either side his bed, the boy hopelessly astray and afraid of what might come of this, Cadfael solid and practical and ready with an offered drink, and a fresh dressing for the frost-gnawed feet. The fierce strength of a man in his robust prime had stood Brother Elyas, physically at least, in good stead, he would not even lose toes, and his chest was clear. Only his grieved mind rejected healing.
    "The boy here tells me," said Cadfael simply, "that you have recovered the part of your memory that was lost. That's well. A man should possess all his past, it is waste to mislay any. Now that you know all that happened, the night they left you for dead, now you can come back from the dead a whole man, not the half of a man. Here is this boy of yours to prove the world had need of you last night, and has need of you still."
    The hollow eyes watched him from the pillow, and the face was wrung with a bitter spasm of rejection and pain.
    "I have been at your hut," said Cadfael. "I know that you and Sister Hilaria took shelter there when the snowstorm was at its worst. A bad night, one of the worst of this bad December. It grows more clement now, we shall have a thaw. But that night was bitter frost. Poor souls caught out in it must lie in each other's arms to live through it. And so did you with her, to keep the woman alive." The dark eyes had burned into fierce life, even the wandering mind grew intent. "I, too," said Cadfael with deliberation, "have known women, in my time. Never unwilling, never without love. I know what I'm saying."
    A voice harsh with disuse, but intelligent and aware, said faintly: "She is dead. The boy told me. I am the cause. Let me go after her and fall at her feet. So beautiful she was, and trusted me. Little and soft in my arms, and clung, and confided ... Oh, God!" pleaded Brother Elyas, "was it well done to try me so sorely, and I emptied and starving? I could not bear the burning ..."
    "That I comprehend," said Cadfael. "Neither could I have borne it. I should have been forced to do as you did. In my fear for her if I stayed, and for my own soul's salvation, which is not such a noble motive as all that, I should have left her there asleep, and gone out into the snow and frost of that night, far away from her, to watch the night out as best I could, and return to her in the