Ellis Peters - The Virgin in the Ice

THE VIRGIN IN THE ICE

Ellis Peters

Table of Contents

Teaser

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

About the Author

Chapter One

It was early in November of 1139 that the tide of civil war,lately so sluggish and inactive, rose suddenly to sweep over the city ofWorcester, wash away half its livestock, property and women, and send all thoseof its inhabitants who could get away in time scurrying for their livesnorthwards away from the marauders, to burrow into hiding wherever there wasmanor or priory, walled town or castle strong enough to afford them shelter. Bythe middle of the month a straggle of them had reached Shrewsbury, and subsidedthankfully into the hospitable embrace of monastery or town, to lick theirwounds and pour out their grievances.

They were not in too bad case, apart from the old or sick, for the winterhad not yet begun to bite hard. The weather-wise foretold that there was bittercold in store, heavy snows and hard and prolonged frosts, but as yet the landlay dour, cloudy and mild, with capricious winds, but clear of frost or snow.

Thanks be to God! said Brother Edmund, the infirmarer, devoutly. Or weshould have had more burials on our hands than three, and they all past theirthree score and ten.

Even so, he was hard put to it to find beds in his hospice for all those whoneeded them, and there was thick straw laid down in the stone hall for theoverflow. They would live to return to their spoiled city before the Christmasfeast, but now, exhausted and apathetic with shock, they neededall his care, and the abbeys resources were stretched to their limits. A fewfugitives with distant relatives in the town had been taken into the houses oftheir kin, and were warmly provided. A pregnant woman near her time had beentaken, husband and all, into the town house of Hugh Beringar, the deputysheriff of the shire, at the insistence of his wife, whom he had brought hereto the security of the town, complete with her women, midwife, physician andall, because she, too, looked forward to giving birth before the Nativity, and hada welcome for any who came in the same expectation, and in any kind of need.

Our Lady, remarked Brother Cadfael ruefully to his good friend Hugh, hadno such reception.

Ah, there is but one of my lady! Aline would take in every homeless dogshe saw in the streets, if she could. This poor girl from Worcester will dowell enough now, theres nothing amiss with her that rest wont mend. We mayyet have two births here for this Christmas, for she cant well be moved untilshes safely over her lying-in. But I daresay most of your guests will soon beshrugging off their fears and heading for home.

A few have left already, said Cadfael, and more of the hale ones will beoff within days. Its natural they should want to get home and repair what theycan. They say the king is on his way to Worcester with a strong force. If heleaves the garrison better found, they should be safe over the winter. Thoughtheyll need to draw stores from eastwards, for their own reserves will allhave been carried off.

Cadfael knew from old experience the look, the stench, the desolation of agutted town, having been both soldier and sailor in his young days, and seenservice far afield. And besides wanting to reclaim whats left of their storebefore Christmas, he said, theres the spur of the winter coming. If theroads are cleared of bad customs now, at least they can travel dry-shod andwarm enough, but another month, another week it may be, and who knows how deepthe snow will be?

Whether the roads are cleared of bad customs, said Beringar in waryreflection, is more than I should care to say. We have a prettyfirm hold here in Shropshirethus far! But theres ominous word from east andnorth, besides this uneasiness along the border. When the king is all too busyin the south, and his mind on where his Flemings next pay is to come from, andhis energy mostly wasted in wavering from one target to another, ambitious menin remoter parts are liable to begin to spread their honors into palatines, andset up kingdoms of their own. And given the example, the lesser fry will followit.

In a land at war with itself, agreed Cadfael sombrely, you may take it ascertain that order breaks down, and savagery breaks out.

Not here, it shall not, said Hugh grimly. Prestcote has kept a closerein, and in so far as it falls to me as his man, so will I. For GilbertPrestcote, King Stephens sheriff of Shropshire, was planning to keep Christmasin the chief manor of his own honor, in the north of the county, and the castlegarrison and the rule of law throughout the southern half of the shire would beleft in Beringars hands. This attack on Worcester might be only a foretaste offurther such raids. All the border towns were at risk, as well from theprecarious loyalties of constables and garrisons as from the enterprise of theenemy. More than one lord in this troubled land had already changed hisallegiance, more than one would do so in the future, some, perhaps, for thesecond or third time. Churchmen, barons and all, they were beginning to lookfirst to their own interests, and place their loyalty where it seemed likely tobring them the greater profit. And it would not be long before some of themcame to the conclusion that their interests could be served just as well byflouting both contendants for the crown, and setting up on their own account.

There was some talk of your castellan in Ludlow being none too reliable,observed Cadfael. For all King Stephen set him up in the honor of Lacy, andtrusted Ludlow castle to him, there have been rumors he was casting his eyestoward the empress. Touch and go with him, as I heard it, if the king had notbeen close and with a sharp eye on him.

Anything Cadfael had heard, Hugh had certainly heard. There was not asheriff in the land who had not all his intelligencers alerted,these days, and his own ear to the ground. If Josce de Dinan, in Ludlow, hadindeed been contemplating defection, and thought better of it, Hugh was contentto accept his present steadfastness, but with reservations, and was watchinghim still. Distrust was only one of the lesser horrors of civil war, butsaddening enough. It was well that there could still be absolute trust betweentried friends. In these days there was no man living who might not suddenlyhave acute need of a steady and stout back braced against his own.

Ah, well, with King Stephen on his way to Worcester with an army, no one isgoing to lift finger or show face until he draws off again. But for all that, Inever stop listening and watching. Hugh rose from the bench against the wallof Cadfaels workshop, brief refuge from the world. Now I am going home to myown bed, for onceeven if I am banished from my wifes by my own arrogant brat.But what would a devout religious like you know about a fathers tribulations!

What, indeed? You must all come to it, said Brother Cadfael complacently,you married men. Third and unwanted where two are lost in admiring each other.I shall go to Compline and say a prayer for you.

He went first, however, to the infirmary, to check with Brother Edmund onone or two patients who were slow in their recovery from their wanderings,being feeble from age or poverty and hunger, and renew the dressing on aknife-wound which was ill to heal, and only then went to Compline, there topray for many more, besides his friend, his friends wife, and his friendschild to come, this winter child.

England was already frozen into a winter years long, and he knew it. KingStephen was crowned, and held, however slackly, most of England. The EmpressMaud, his rival for the throne, held the west, and came with a claim the equalof Stephens. Cousins, most uncousinly, they tore each other and tore Englandbetween them, and yet life must go on, faith must go on, the stubborn defianceof fortune must go on in the husbandry of the year, season after season, ploughand harrow and seed, tillage and harvest. And here in the cloister and thechurch, the sowing and tillage and harvest of souls. Brother Cadfael had nofear for mankind, whatever became of mere men. Hughs childwould be a new generation, a new beginning, a new affirmation, spring inmidwinter.