Brother Cadfael 06: A Virgin In The Ice

bent upon life, whether blissful or baleful. He looked up with clear, patient eyes now, and took exhortation and reproof alike with humility and gladness. His mind was whole, his body would not be long in following.
    Not long after High Mass the claimants began to come in to look for their horses, as doubtless they were flocking to Ludlow to pick out their own cows and sheep. Some, no doubt, would be claimed by more than one, and give rise to great quarrels and the calling in of neighbours to identify the disputed stock. But here there were only a handful of horses, and little ground for the opportunist greed of the cunning. Horses know their owners as well as the owners know their horses. Even the cows in Ludlow would have plenty to say about where they belonged.
    John Druel was among the first to come, having walked all the way from Cleeton, and he had no need to urge his ownership, for the stout brown mountain cob strained and cried after him as soon as he showed his face in the stable-yard, and their meeting was an embrace. The cob blew sweetly in John's ear, and John hugged him about the neck, looked him over from head to hocks, and wept on his cheek. The cob was his only horse, worth a fortune to him. Yves had seen him come, and ran to tell Ermina, and the pair of them came flying to greet him and force on him such favours as they still had about them to give.
    A wife from Whitbache came to claim her dead husband's mare. A thin, grave boy from the same manor came in shyly and humbly to call a solid work-horse of hill stock, and it went to him hesitantly, wanting his sire, but acknowledged the child of the same blood with a human sigh.
    Not until dinner was over in the refectory, and Brother Cadfael emerged again into the midday sparkle of sun on snow, did Evrard Boterei ride in at the gatehouse, dismount, and look round him for someone to whom he might most properly address himself. He was still somewhat pale and lean from his fever, but much recovered in the vigour of his movement and the clarity of his eye, and he stood with reared head and imperious stare, even frowning a little that no groom ran at once to take his bridle. A fine figure of a young man, fair as his horse's mane, and well aware of his handsome appearance and his dominant nobility. Such comeliness might well take any young woman's fancy. What did a young fellow with these advantages have to do to lose his hold? Reality, Ermina had said, had rudely invaded her idyllic fantasy. Well! But was that enough?
    Prior Leonard, all goodwill, came beaming down the court with his gangling stride, to greet the visitor civilly, and conduct him into the stable-yard. One of Hugh's men, seeing the saddled horse untended, and being himself at leisure, came to take the bridle, and Boterei relinquished his mount as to a servant, without a further glance, and went with the prior.
    He had come alone. If he had indeed a stolen horse to reclaim, he must take him home on a leading rein.
    Brother Cadfael looked round at the guest-hall, very thoughtfully, and saw Ermina in her peasant gown come forth from the doorway and cross to the church, rapid and light, and bearing something rolled up beneath her arm. The dark arch of the porch swallowed her, as the walled enclosure of the stables had swallowed her sometime suitor. Yves would certainly be sitting now with Brother Elyas, his jealously guarded protege and patient, on whom he waited with proprietorial zeal. Out of sight and out of peril. No arrows loosed here could strike at him.
    Without haste, Cadfael stepped out into the cleared court and crossed towards the church, but tempered his going so judiciously that his path converged upon that by which Evrard Boterei and Hugh together emerged from the stables and made for the gatehouse. They, too, were taking their time, and Evrard was sunning into vivacity and smiles; the deputy sheriff was a study worth cultivating. Behind them a lay groom led a fine bay mare, chestnut-maned.
    Cadfael reached the spot where their paths would cross, and there halted before the open, dim doorway of the church, so that they, too, came naturally to a halt. Boterei recognized the brother who had dressed his wound once in the manor of Ledwyche, and made gracious acknowledgment.
    "I trust I see you fully restored to health," said Cadfael civilly. His eyes was on Hugh, curious to see if he had taken note of the waiting horse, which the man-at-arms was walking to and from about the court with an