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Ellis Peters, The Virgin in the Ice, Sphere, 1995 – illustration : David Senior / première édition : Macmillan, 1982
Edith Mary Pargeter, Ellis Peters
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 of Worcester, wash away half its livestock, property and women, and send all those of its inhabitants who could get away in time scurrying for their lives northwards away from the marauders, to burrow into hiding wherever there was manor or priory, walled town or castle strong enough to afford them shelter. By the middle of the month a straggle of them had reached Shrewsbury, and subsided thankfully into the hospitable embrace of monastery or town, to lick their wounds and pour out their grievances.
Noël approche. Dans la région de Worcester, la guerre civile est de retour avec son cortège de pillards. Yves et Ermina Hugonin, treize et dix-huit ans, orphelins d'une famille noble, fuient Worcester sous la protection d'une jeune bénédictine, sœur Hilaria, et de leur oncle, Laurence d'Angers, retour de Terre Sainte et allié à l'impératrice, non légitime, Maud : ils disparaissent en chemin vers Shrewsbury. L'abbaye étant responsable de leur vie, Frère Cadfael se lance à leur recherche. Il retrouve la religieuse dans les glaces d'une rivière, puis les deux enfants, sains et saufs. Ermina a rencontré l'amour auprès d'un jeune chevalier revenant de la croisade, Olivier de Bretagne.
Même les moines ont un passé. Cadfael se rappelle sa jeunesse... Antioche, la croisade, l'amour.
He had good cause to remember Antioch, for it was there he had begun and ended his long career as a crusader, and his love affair with Palestine, that lovely, inhospitable, cruel land of gold and sand and drought. From this quiet, busy harbour in which he had chosen at last to drop anchor, he had had little time to hark back to those remembered haunts of his youth. The town came back to him now vividly, the lush green of the river valley, the narrow, grateful shade of the streets, the babel of the market. And Mariam, selling her fruit and vegetables in the Street of the Sailmakers, her young, fine-boned face honed into gold and silver by the fierce sunlight, her black, oiled hair gleaming beneath her veil. She had graced his arrival in the east, a mere boy of eighteen, and his departure, a seasoned soldier and seafarer of thirty-three. A widow, young, passionate and lonely, a woman of the people, not to everyone's taste, too spare, too strong, too scornful. The void left by her dead man had ached unbearably, and drawn in the young stranger heart and soul into her life, to fill the gap. For a whole year he had known her, before the forces of the Cross had moved on to invest Jerusalem.
Cadfael revient dans les bois pour reprendre son enquête. Il a prudemment emporté une dague. A l'entrée d'une cabane, il recueille une trace : quand la vérité tient à un crin de cheval...
Cadfael, The Virgin in the Ice, scénario : Russell Lewis, d'après le roman d'Ellis Peters, réalisation : Malcolm Mowbray, int. Derek Jacobi, Mark Charnock, Terrence Hardiman, 26 décembre 1995
Il apprend vite, le petit – mais n'anticipons pas.
Antioche... Mariam... fondness and pride.
Eleven more days to the Christmas feast, and no shadow hanging over it now, only a great light. A time of births, of triumphant begettings, and this year how richly celebrated –the son of the young woman from Worcester, the son of Aline and Hugh, the son of Mariam, the son of Man...
A son to be proud of ! Yes, amen !
A l'approche de Noël, un fils est donné à Cadfael. Un très bel épisode, où l'on apprend que la vérité se lit dans la paille et le crin, et que la confusion entre la gauche et la droite nuit à l'entendement.
