Brother Cadfael 06: A Virgin In The Ice

willed to venture the hills in both winter and anarchy. "Young and wilful, he said." But however mad and troublesome they may be, the innocent cannot be abandoned. "Feed me," said Cadfael, returning to first needs, "and then show me a bed. Leave the absent for later. I'll not quit Brother Elyas as long as he needs me. But I tell you what we may well do, Leonard, if you've a guest in your hall here making for Shrewsbury today. You might charge him to let Hugh Beringar know that we have here what I take to be the first news of the three people he's seeking."
    "That I'll certainly do," said Prior Leonard, "for there's a cloth merchant of the town on his way home for the Christmas feast, he'll be off as soon as he's eaten, to get the best of the day. I'll go and deliver him the message this minute, and do you go and get your rest."
    Before night Brother Elyas opened his eyes for the second time, and this time, though the return to light caused him to blink a little, he kept them open, and after a few moments opened them wide in blank wonder, astonished by everything on which they rested. Only when the prior stooped close at Cadfael's shoulder did the brightness of recognition quicken in the sick man's eyes. This face, it seemed, he knew. His lips parted, and a husky whisper emerged, questioning but hopeful:
    "Father Prior ...?"
    "Here, brother," said Leonard soothingly. "You are here with us, safe in Bromfield. Rest and gather strength, you have been badly hurt, but here you are in shelter, among friends. Trouble for nothing ... ask for whatever you need."
    "Bromfield ..." whispered Elyas, frowning. "I had an errand to that place," he said, troubled, and tried to raise his head from the pillow. "The reliquary ... oh, not lost ...?"
    "You brought it faithfully," said Leonard. "It is here on the altar of our church, you kept vigil with us when we installed it. Do you not remember? Your errand was done well. All that was required of you, you performed."
    "But how ... My head hurts ..." The sighing voice faded, the dark brows drew together in mingled anxiety and pain. "What is this weighs on me? How am I come to this?"
    They told him, with cautious gentleness, how he had gone forth again from the priory, to make his way home to his own abbey of Pershore, and how he had been brought back broken and battered and abandoned for dead. At the name of Pershore he grasped gladly, there he knew he belonged, and from there he remembered he had set forth to bring Saint Eadburga's finger-bone to Bromfield, avoiding the perilous route by Worcester. Even Bromfield itself came back to him gradually. But of what had befallen him after his departure he knew nothing. Whoever had so misused him, they were gone utterly from his disturbed mind. Cadfael leaned to him, urging gently:
    "You did not meet them again? The girl and boy who would press on over the hills to Godstoke? Foolish, but the girl would go, and her younger brother could not persuade her ..."
    "What girl and boy were these?" wondered Elyas blankly, and drew his drawn brows more painfully close.
    "And a nun - do you not recall a nun who travelled with them?"
    He did not. The effort at recall caused him agitation, he dragged at memory and produced only the panic desperation of failure, and in his wandering state failure was guilt. All manner of undischarged obligations drifted elusive behind his haunted eyes, and could not be captured. Sweat broke on his forehead, and Cadfael wiped it gently away.
    "Never fret, but lie still and leave all to God, and under God, to us. Your part was done well, you may take your rest."
    They tended his bodily needs, anointed his wounds and grazes, fed him a broth made from their austere stores of meat for the infirmary, with herbs and oatmeal, read the office with him before bed, and still, by the knotting of his brows, Brother Elyas pursued the memories that fled him and would not be snared. In the night, in the low hours when the spirit either crosses or draws back from the threshold of the world, the sleeper was shaken by recollection and dream together. But his utterances then were broken and mumbled, and so clearly painful to his progress that Cadfael, who had reserved to himself that most perilous watch, bent his energies all to soothing away the torment from his patient's mind, and easing him back into healthful sleep. Cadfael was relieved before dawn, and Elyas slept. The body rallied and healed. The mind wandered and shunned