Brother Cadfael 06: A Virgin In The Ice

dawn, when we could go forth together and finish that journey. As you did."
    Yves leaned forward glittering with enlightenment, holding his breath for the answer. And Brother Elyas, turning his head tormentedly on his pillow, mourned aloud: "Oh, God, that ever I left her so! That I had not the steadfastness and faith to endure the longing ... Where was the peace they promised me? I crept away and left her alone. And she is dead!"
    "The dead are in God's hand," said Cadfael, "Hunydd and Hilaria both. You may not wish them back. You have an advocate there. Do you suppose that she forgets that when you went out into the cold you left her your cloak, wrapped about her for warmth, and fled from her with only your habit, to bear the rigour of the winter all those hours to dawn? It was a killing night."
    The voice from the bed said harshly: "It was not enough to help or save. I should have been strong enough in faith to bear the temptation laid on me, to stay with her though I burned ... ."
    "So you may tell your confessor," said Cadfael firmly, "when you are well enough to return to Pershore. But you shall, you must shun the presumption of condemning yourself beyond what he sees as your due. All that you did was done out of care for her. What as amiss may be judged. What was done well will be approved. If you had stayed with her, there is no certainty that you could have changed what befell."
    "At worst I could have died with her," said Brother Elyas.
    "But so you did in essence. Death from violence fell upon you in your loneliness that same night, as death of cold you had accepted already. And if you were delivered from both, and find you must suffer still many years of this life," said Cadfael, "it is because God willed to have you so survive and so suffer. Beware of questioning the lot dealt out to you. Say it now, to God and us who hear you, say that you left her living, and meant to return to her with the morning, if you lived out the night, and to bring her safely where she would be. What more was required of you?"
    "More courage," lamented the gaunt mask on the pillow, and wrung out a bitter but human smile. "All was done and undone as you have said. All was well-meant. God forgive me what was badly done."
    The lines of his face had softened into humility, the stress of his voice eased into submission. There was no more he had to remember or confess, everything was said and understood. Brother Elyas stretched his long body from crown to imperilled toes, shuddered and collapsed into peace. His very feebleness came to his aid, he sank without resistance into sleep. The large eyelids expanded, lines melted from about brow and mouth and deep eye-sockets. He floated down into a prodigious profound of penitence and forgiveness.
    "Is it true?" asked Yves in an awed whisper, as soon as they had closed the door softly upon Brother Elyas's sleep.
    "It is, surely. A passionate soul, who asks too much of himself, and under-values what he gives. He braved the frosty night and the blinding snow without his cloak, rather than sully Sister Hilaria with even the tormented presence of desire. He will live, he will be reconciled with both his body and his soul. It takes time," said Brother Cadfael tolerantly.
    If a thirteen-year-old boy understood less than all of this, or understood it only in the academic way of one instructed in an art never yet practised, Yves gave no sign of it. The eyes fixed brightly upon Cadfael's face were sharply intelligent. Grateful, reassured and happy, he put the last burden away from him.
    "Then it was the outlaw raiders who found her, after all," he said, "alone as she was, after Brother Elyas had left her."
    Cadfael shook his head. "They found and struck down Brother Elyas, as I think it was their way to kill any who by chance encountered them on their forays, and might bear witness against them. But here - no, I think not. Before dawn followed that same night they had time to strike at Druel's farmstead. I do not believe they went half a mile out of their way to reach the hut. Why should they? They knew of nothing there for them. And besides, they would not have troubled to move her body elsewhere, and the good gowns they would have taken with them. No, someone came by the hut because it was on his way, and entered it, I fancy, because the blizzard was at its height, and he thought fit to shelter through the worst of it."
    "Then it could have been anyone," said Yves, indignant and dismayed at the