Virgin in the Ice by Ellis Peters

Author:Ellis Peters [Peters, Ellis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Catholics, Mystery & Detective, Cadfael; Brother (Fictitious Character), Herbalists, Political, General, Historical, Traditional British, Fiction
ISBN: 9780754011736
Google: ROV-PwAACAAJ
Goodreads: 4933290
Publisher: Chivers Press
Published: 1982-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

BROTHER CADFAEL CAME OUT FROM HIGH MASS with Prior Leonard, into the brief and grudging sunshine of the middle hours of the day, and the sudden glitter reflected from the banked piles of snow. A number of the priory tenants had mustered to help in the search for the missing pair, while the light was favorable and no snow falling. Prior Leonard pointed out one of them, a big, bluff fellow in his prime, with red hair just salted with grey, and the weather beaten face and far-gazing blue eyes of the hillman.

“That is Reyner Dutton, who brought Brother Elyas in to us in the first place. I feel shame to think what he must be feeling, now the poor man has slipped through our fingers after all.”

“No blame at all to you,” said Cadfael glumly. “The fault was mine, if there’s any question of blame.” He studied Reyner’s solid person thoughtfully. “You know, Leonard, I have been wondering about this flight. Which of us has not! It seems Elyas, once something set him off, went about it with great determination. This was no simple clambering out of bed and wandering at large. Barely a quarter of an hour, and they were well away. And plainly the boy could not turn or dissuade him, but he would go wherever it was he was going. He had an end in view. It need not be a reasonable end, but it meant something to him. How if he had suddenly recalled the attack that all but killed him, and set off to return to that place where it happened? That was the last he knew, before memory and almost life were taken from him. He might feel driven to resume there, in this twilight state of his mind.”

Prior Leonard conceded, though doubtfully: “It might be so. Or may he not have recalled his own errand from Pershore, and started back to his duty there? It might take a man so, his wits being still so shaken up in him.”

“It comes to me now,” said Cadfael earnestly, “that I have never been to the spot where Elyas was attacked, though I suppose it must be not far from where our sister was killed. And that again has been fretting me.” But he forbore from spelling out what he found peculiar about it, for Leonard had been a man of the cloister from puberty, serenely content and blissfully innocent, and there was no need to trouble him by reflecting aloud that the night of Hilaria’s death had been a blizzard as intense as the night just past, that even lust has its preference for a modicum of shelter, and of shelter he had seen none close to her icy grave. A bed of snow and ice, and a coverlet of howling wind, do not constitute the most conducive of circumstances for rape. “I was meaning to go out with the rest,” he said, “as soon as I have take a bite to eat.

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