Chapter One

BROTHER CADFAEL WAS WORKING IN THE small kitchen garden by the abbot’s fishponds when the boy was first brought to him. It was hot August noon, and if he had had his proper quota of helpers they would all have been snoring in the shade at this hour, instead of sweating in the sun; but one of his regular assistants, not yet out of his novitiate, had thought better of the monastic vocation and taken himself off to join his elder brother in arms on King Stephen’s side, in the civil war for the crown of England, and the other had taken fright at the approach of the royal army because his family were of the Empress Maud’s faction, and their manor in Cheshire seemed a far safer place to be than Shrewsbury under siege. Cadfael was left to do everything alone, but he had in his time laboured under far hotter suns than this, and was doggedly determined not to let his domain run wild, whether the outside world fell into chaos or no.

In this early summer of 1138 the fratricidal strife, hitherto somewhat desultory, was already two years old, but never before had it approached Shrewsbury so closely. Now its threat hung over castle and town like the shadow of death. But for all that, Brother Cadfael’s mind was firmly upon life and growth, rather than destruction and war, and certainly he had no suspicion that another manner of killing, simple murder, furtive and unlicensed even in these anarchic times, was soon to disrupt the calm of his chosen life.

August should not, in normal circumstances, have been one of his busiest times in the gardens, but there was more than enough for one man to do properly, and the only relief they had to offer him was Brother Athanasius, who was deaf, half-senile, and not to be relied upon to know a useful herb from a weed, and the offer had been firmly declined. Better by far to manage alone. There was a bed to be prepared for planting out late cabbages for succession, and fresh seed to be sown for the kind that can weather the winter, as well as pease to be gathered, and the dead, dried haulms of the early crop to be cleared away for fodder and litter. And in his wooden work-shed in the herbarium, his own particular pride, he had half a dozen preparations working in glass vessels and mortars on the shelves, all of them needing attention at least once a day, besides the herb wines that bubbled busily on their own at this stage. It was high harvest time among the herbs, and all the medicines for the winter demanding his care.

However, he was not the man to let any part of his kingdom slip out of his control, however wastefully the royal cousins Stephen and Maud contended for the throne of England outside the abbey walls. If he lifted his head from digging compost into the cabbage bed he could see the sluggish plumes of smoke hanging over the abbey roofs and the town and castle beyond, and smell the acrid residue of yesterday’s fires. That shadow and stink had hung like a pall over Shrewsbury for almost a month, while King Stephen stamped and raged in his camp beyond the Castle Foregate, the one dry-foot way into the town unless he could get possession of the bridges, and William FitzAlan within the fortress held on grimly, keeping an anxious eye on his dwindling supplies, and left the thundering of defiance to his incorrigible uncle, Arnulf of Hesdin, who had never learned to temper valour with discretion. The townspeople kept their heads low, locked their doors, shuttered their shops, or, if they could, made off westwards into Wales, to old, friendly enemies less to be feared than Stephen. It suited the Welsh very well that Englishmen should fear Englishmen — if either Maud or Stephen could be regarded as English! — and let Wales alone, and they would not grudge a helping hand to the fleeing casualties, provided the war went on merrily.

Cadfael straightened his back and mopped the sweat from a tonsured scalp burned to the colour of a ripe hazel-nut; and there was Brother Oswald the almoner bustling along the path towards him, with skirts flapping, and propelling before him by the shoulder a boy of about sixteen, in the coarse brown cotte and short summer hose of the countryside, barelegged but very decently shod in leather, and altogether looking carefully scrubbed and neat for a special occasion. The boy went where he was directed, and kept his eyes lowered with nervous meekness. Another family taking care to put its children out of reach of being pressed for either side, thought Cadfael, and small blame to them.

“Brother Cadfael, I think you have need of a helper, and here is a youngster who says he’s not afraid of hard work. A good woman of the town has brought him in to the porter, and asked that he be taken and taught as a lay servant. Her nephew from Hencot, she says, and his parents dead. There’s a year’s endowment with him. Prior Robert has given leave to take him, and there’s room in the boys’ dortoir. He’ll attend school with the novices, but he’ll not take vows unless he himself comes to wish it. What do you say, will you have him?”

Cadfael looked the boy over with interest, but said yes without hesitation, glad enough to be offered someone young, able-bodied and willing. The lad was slenderly built, but vigorous and firm on his feet, and moved with a spring. He looked up warily from under a cropped tangle of brown curls, and his eyes were long-lashed and darkly blue, very shrewd and bright. He was behaving himself meekly and decorously, but he did not look intimidated.

“Very heartily I’ll have you,” said Cadfael, “if you’ll take to this outdoor work with me. And what’s your name, boy?”

“Godric, sir,” said the young thing, in a small, gruff voice, appraising Cadfael just as earnestly as he was being appraised.

“Good, then, Godric, you and I will get on well enough. And first, if you will, walk around the gardens here with me and see what we have in hand, and get used to being within these walls. Strange enough I daresay you’ll find it, but safer than in the town yonder, which I make no doubt is why your good aunt brought you here.”

The blue, bright eyes flashed him one glance and were veiled again.

“See you come to Vespers with Brother Cadfael,” the almoner instructed, “and Brother Paul, the master of the novices, will show you your bed, and tell you your duties after supper. Pay attention to what Brother Cadfael tells you, and be obedient to him as you should.”

“Yes, sir,” said the boy virtuously. Under the meek accents a small bubble of laughter seemed to be trying, though vainly, to burst. When Brother Oswald hurried away, the blue eyes watched him out of sight, and then turned their intent gaze upon Cadfael. A demure, oval face, with a wide, firm mouth shaped properly for laughter, but quick to revert to a very sombre gravity. Even for those meant to be light-hearted, these were grave times.

“Come, see what manner of labour you’re taking on yourself,” said Cadfael cheerfully, and downed his spade to take his new. boy round the enclosed garden, showing him the vegetables, the herbs that made the noon air heady and drunken with fragrance, the fish ponds and the beds of pease that ran down almost to the brook. The early field was already dried and flaxen in the sun, all its harvest gathered, even the later-sown hung heavy and full in pod.

“These we should gather today and tomorrow. In this heat they’ll pass their best in a day. And these spent ones have to be cleared. You can begin that for me. Don’t pull them up, take the sickle and cut them off low to the ground, and the roots we plough in, they’re good food for the soil.” He was talking in an easy, good-humoured flow, to pass off peacefully whatever residue of regret and strangeness there might be in this abrupt change. “How old are you, Godric?”

“Seventeen,” said the husky voice beside him. He was on the small side for seventeen; let him try his hand at digging later on, the ground Cadfael was working was heavy to till. “I can work hard,” said the boy, almost as though he had guessed at the thought, and resented it. “I don’t know much, but I can do whatever you tell me.”

“So you shall, then, and you can begin with the pease. Stack the dry stuff aside here, and it goes to provide stable litter. And the roots go back to the ground.”

“Like humankind,” said Godric unexpectedly.

“Yes, like humankind.” Too many were going back to the earth prematurely now in this fratricidal war. He saw the boy turn his head, almost involuntarily, and look across the abbey grounds and roofs to where the battered towers of the castle loomed in their pall of smoke. “Have you kin within there, child?” asked Cadfael gently.

“No!” said the boy, too quickly. “But I can’t but think of them. They’re saying in the town it can’t last long — that it may fall tomorrow. And surely they’ve done only rightly! Before King Henry died he made his barons acknowledge the Empress Maud as his heir, and they all swore fealty. She was his only living child, she should be queen. And yet when her cousin, Count Stephen, seized the throne and had himself crowned, all too many of them took it meekly and forgot their oaths. That can’t be right. And it can’t be wrong to stand by the empress faithfully. How can they excuse changing sides? How can they justify Count Stephen’s claim?”

“Justify may not be the apt word, but there are those among the lords, more by far than take the opposite view, who would say, better a man for overlord than a woman. And if a man, why, Stephen was as near as any to the throne. He is King William’s grandchild, just as Maud is.”

“But not son to the last king. And in any ease, through his mother, who was a woman like Maud, so where’s the difference?” The young voice had emerged from its guarded undertone, and rang clear and vehement. “But the real difference was that Count Stephen rushed here and took what he wanted, while the empress was far away in Normandy, thinking no evil. And now that half the barons have recollected their oaths and declared for her, after all, it’s late, and what’s to come of it but bloodshed and deaths? It begins here, in Shrewsbury, and this won’t be the end.”

“Child,” said Cadfael mildly, “are you not trusting me to extremes?”

The boy, who had picked up the sickle and was swinging it in a capable, testing hand, turned and looked at him with blue eyes suddenly wide open and unguarded. “Well, so I do,” he said.

“And so you may, for that matter. But keep your lips locked among others. We are in the battlefield here, as sure as in the town, our gates never being closed to any. All manner of men rub shoulders here, and in rough times some may try to buy favour with carrying tales. Some may even be collectors of such tales for their living. Your thoughts are safe in your head, best keep them there.”

The boy drew back a little, and hung his head. Possibly he felt himself reproved. Possibly not! “I’ll pay you trust for trust,” said Cadfael. “In my measure there’s little to choose between two such monarchs, but much to be said for keeping a man’s fealty and word. And now let me see you hard at work, and when I’ve finished my cabbage patch I’ll come and help you.”

He watched the boy set to work, which he did with immense vigour. The coarse tunic was cut very full, turning a lissome body into a bundle of cloth tied at the waist; possibly he had got it from some older and larger relative after the best of the wear was out of it. My friend, thought Cadfael, in this heat you won’t keep up that pace very long, and then we shall see!

By the time he joined his assistant in the rustling field of bleached pea-stems, the boy was red in the face and sweating, and puffing audibly with the strokes of the sickle, but had not relaxed his efforts. Cadfael swept an armful of cut haulms to the edge of the field, and said earnestly: “No need to make a penance of it, lad. Strip off to the waist and be comfortable” And he slid his own frock, already kilted to the knee, down from powerful brown shoulders, and let the folds hang at his middle.

The effect was complex, but by no means decisive. The boy checked momentarily in. his stroke, said: “I’m well enough as I am!” with admirable composure, but several tones above the gruff, young-mannish level of his earlier utterances, and went on resolutely with his labours, at the same time as a distinct wave of red arose from his collar to engulf his slender neck and the curve of his cheek. Did that necessarily mean what it seemed to mean? He might have lied about his age, his voice might be but newly broken and still unstable. And perhaps he wore no shirt beneath the cotte, and was ashamed to reveal his lacks to a new acquaintance. Ah, well, there were other tests. Better make sure at once. If what Cadfael suspected was true, the matter was going to require very serious thought.

“There’s that heron that robs our hatcheries, again!” he cried suddenly, pointing across the Meole brook, where the unsuspecting bird waded, just folding immense wings. “Toss a stone across at him, boy, you’re nearer than I!” The heron was an innocent stranger, but if Cadfael was right he was unlikely to come to any harm.

Godric stared, clawed up a sizeable stone, and heaved it heartily. His arm swung far back, swung forward with his slight weight willingly behind it, and hurled the stone under-arm across the brook and into the shallows, with a splash that sent the heron soaring, certainly, but several feet from where he had been standing.

“Well, well!” said Cadfael silently, and settled down to do some hard thinking.

In his siege camp, deployed across the entire land approach to the Castle Foregate, between broad coils of the river Severn, King Stephen fretted, fumed and feasted, celebrating the few loyal Salopians — loyal to him, that is! — who came to offer him aid, and planning his revenge upon the many disloyal who absented themselves.

He was a big, noisy, handsome, simple-minded man, very fair in colouring, very comely in countenance, and at this stage in his fortunes totally bewildered by the contention between his natural good nature and his smarting sense of injury. He was said to be slow-witted, but when his Uncle Henry had died and left no heir but a daughter, and she handicapped by an Angevin husband and far away in France, no matter how slavishly her father’s vassals had bowed to his will and accepted her as queen, Stephen for once in his life had moved with admirable speed and precision, and surprised his potential subjects into accepting him at his own valuation before they even had time to consider their own interests, much less remember reluctant vows. So why had such a successful coup abruptly turned sour? He would never understand. Why had half of his more influential subjects, apparently stunned into immobility for a time, revived into revolt now? Conscience? Dislike of the king imposed upon them? Superstitious dread of King Henry and his influence with God?

Forced to take the opposition seriously and resort to arms, Stephen had opened in the way that came naturally to him, striking hard where he must, but holding the door cheerfully open for penitents to come in. And what had been the result? He had spared, and they had taken advantage and despised him for it. He had invited submission without penalty, as he moved north against the rebel holds, and the local baronage had held off from him with contempt. Well, tomorrow’s dawn attack should settle the fate of the Shrewsbury garrison, and make an example once for all. If these midlanders would not come peacefully and loyally at his invitation, they should come scurrying like rats to save their own skins. As for Arnulf of Hesdin … The obscenities and defiances he had hurled from the towers of Shrewsbury should be regretted bitterly, if briefly.

The king was conferring in his tent in the meads in the late afternoon, with Gilbert Prestcote, his chief aide and sheriff-designate of Salop, and Willem Ten Heyt, the captain of his Flemish mercenaries. It was about the time that Brother Cadfael and the boy Godric were washing their hands and tidying their clothing to go to Vespers. The failure of the local gentry to bring in their own Levies to his support had caused Stephen to lean heavily upon his Flemings, who in consequence were very well hated, both as aliens and as impervious professionals, who would as soon burn down a village as get drunk, and were not at all averse to doing both together. Ten Heyt was a huge, well-favoured man with reddish-fair hair and long moustaches, barely thirty years old but a veteran in warfare. Prestcote was a quiet, laconic knight past fifty, experienced and formidable in battle, cautious in counsel, not a man to go to extremes, but even he was arguing for severity.

“Your Grace has tried generosity, and it has been shamelessly exploited to your loss. It’s time to strike terror.”

“First,” said Stephen drily, “to take castle and town.”

“That your Grace may consider as done. What we have mounted for the morning will get you into Shrewsbury. Then, if they survive the assault, your Grace may do what you will with FitzAlan, and Adeney, and Hesdin, and the commons of the garrison are no great matter, but even there you may be well advised to consider an example.”

The king would have been content enough then with his revenge on those three who led the resistance here. William FitzAlan owed his office as sheriff of Salop to Stephen, and yet had declared and held the castle for his rival. Fulke Adeney, the greatest of FitzAlan’s vassal lords, had connived at the treason and supported his overlord wholeheartedly. And Hesdin had condemned himself over and over out of his own arrogant mouth. The rest were pawns, expendable but of no importance.

“They are noising it abroad in the town, as I’ve heard,” said Prestcote, “that FitzAlan had already sent his wife and children away before we closed the way north out of the town. But Adeney also has a child, a daughter. She’s said to be still within the walls. They got the women out of the castle early.” Prestcote was a man of the shire himself, and knew the local baronage at least by name and repute. “Adeney’s girl was betrothed from a child to Robert Beringar’s son, of Maesbury, by Oswestry. They had lands neighbouring in those parts. I mention it because this is the man who is asking audience of you now, Hugh Beringar of Maesbury. Use him as you find, your Grace, but until today I would have said he was FitzAlan’s man, and your enemy. Have him in and judge for yourself. If he’s changed his coat, well and good, he has men enough at his command to be useful, but I would not let him in too easily.”

The officer of the guard had entered the pavilion, and stood waiting to be invited to speak; Adam Courcelle was one of Prestcote’s chief tenants and his right-hand man, a tested soldier at thirty years old.

“Your Grace has another visitor,” he said, when the king turned to acknowledge his presence. “A lady. Will you see her first? She has no lodging here as yet, and in view of the hour … She gives her name as Aline Siward, and says that her father, whom she has only recently buried, was always your man.”

“Time presses,” said the king. “Let them both come, and the lady shall have first word.”

Courcelle led her by the hand into the royal presence, with every mark of deference and admiration, and she was indeed well worth any man’s attention. She was slender and shy, and surely no older than eighteen, and the austerity of her mourning, the white cap and wimple from which a few strands of gold hair crept out to frame her cheeks, only served to make her look younger still, and more touching. She had a child’s proud, shy dignity. Great eyes the colour of dark irises widened wonderingly upon the king’s large comeliness as she made her reverence.

“Madam,” said Stephen, reaching a hand to her, “I am sorry indeed for your loss, of which I have this minute heard. If my protection can in any way serve you, command me.”

“Your Grace is very kind,” said the girl in a soft, awed voice. “I am now an orphan, and the only one of my house left to bring you the duty and fealty we owe. I am doing what my father would have wished, and but for his illness and death he would have come himself, or I would have come earlier. Until your Grace came to Shrewsbury we had no opportunity to render you the keys of the two castles we hold. As I do now!”

Her maid, a self-possessed young woman a good ten years older than her mistress, had followed into the tent and stood withdrawn. She came forward now to hand the keys to Aline, who laid them formally in the king’s hands.

“We can raise for your Grace five knights, and more than forty men-at-arms, but at this time I have left all to supply the garrisons at home, since they may be of more use to your Grace so.” She named her properties and her castellans. It was like hearing a child recite a lesson learned by heart, but her dignity and gravity were those of a general in the field. “There is one more thing I should say plainly, and to my much sorrow. I have a brother, who should have been the one to perform this duty and service.” Her voice shook slightly, and gallantly recovered. “When your Grace assumed the crown, my brother Giles took the part of the Empress Maud, and after an open quarrel with my father, left home to join her party. I do not know where he is now, though we have heard rumours that he made his way to her in France. I could not leave your Grace in ignorance of the dissension that grieves me as it must you. I hope you will not therefore refuse what I can bring, but use it freely, as my father would have wished, and as I wish.”

She heaved a great sigh, as if she had thrown off a weight. The king was enchanted. He drew her by the hand and kissed her heartily on the cheek. To judge by the look on his face, Courcelle was envying him the opportunity.

“God forbid, child,” said the king, “that I should add any morsel to your sorrows, or fail to lift what I may of them. With all my heart I take your fealty, as dear to me as that of earl or baron, and thank you for your pains taken to help me. And now show me what I can do to serve you, for there can be no fit lodging for you here in a military camp, and I hear you have made no provision as yet for yourself. It will soon be evening.”

“I had thought,” she said timidly, “that I might lodge in the abbey guest house, if we can get a boat to put us across the river.”

“Certainly you shall have safe escort over the river, and our request to the abbot to give you one of the grace houses belonging to the abbey, where you may be private but protected, until we can spare a safe escort to see you to your home.” He looked about him for a ready messenger, and could not well miss Adam Courcelle’s glowing eagerness. The young man had bright chestnut hair, and eyes of the same burning brown, and knew that he stood well with his king. “Adam, will you conduct Mistress Siward, and see her safely installed?”

“With all my heart, your Grace,” said Courcelle fervently, and offered an ardent hand to the lady.

Hugh Beringar watched the girl pass by, her hand submissive in the broad brown hand that clasped it, her eyes cast down, her small, gentle face with its disproportionately large and noble brow tired and sad now that she had done her errand faithfully. From outside the royal tent he had heard every word. She looked now as if she might melt into tears at any moment, like a little girl after a formal ordeal, a child-bride dressed up to advertise her riches or her lineage, and then as briskly dismissed to the nursery when the transaction was assured. The king’s officer walked delicately beside her, like a conqueror conquered, and no wonder.

“Come, the lord king waits,” said the guttural voice of Willem Ten Heyt in his ear, and he turned and ducked his head beneath the awning of the tent. The comparative dimness within veiled the large, fair presence of the king.

“I am here, my liege,” said Hugh Beringar, and made his obeisance. “Hugh Beringar of Maesbury, at your Grace’s service with all that I hold. My muster is not great, six knights and some fifty men-at-arms, but half of them bowmen, and skilled. And all are yours.”

“Your name, Master Beringar, is known to us,” said the king drily. “Your establishment also. That it was devoted to our cause was not so well known. As I have heard of you, you have been an associate of FitzAlan and Adeney, our traitors, until very recently. And even this change of heart comes rather belatedly. I have been some four weeks in these parts, without word from you.”

“Your Grace,” said Beringar, without haste to excuse himself or apparent discomfort at his cool reception, “I grew up from a child regarding these men whom you understandably name your traitors, as my peers and friends, and in friendship have never found them wanting. Your Grace is too fairminded a man not to admit that for one like me, who has not so far sworn fealty to any, the choice of a path at this moment may require a deal of thought, if it is to be made once for all. That King Henry’s daughter has a reasonable claim is surely beyond question, I cannot call a man traitor for choosing that cause, though I may blame him for breaking his oath to you. As for me, I came into my lands only some months ago, and I have so far sworn fealty to none. I have taken my time in choosing where I will serve. I am here. Those who flock to you without thought may fall away from you just as lightly.”

“And you will not?” said the king sceptically. He was studying this bold and possibly over-fluent young man with critical attention. A lightweight, not above the middle height and slenderly built, but of balanced and assured movement; he might well make up in speed and agility what he lacked in bulk and reach. Perhaps two or three years past twenty, black-avised, with thin, alert features and thick, quirky dark brows. An unchancy fellow, because there was no guessing from his face what went on behind the deep-set eyes. His forthright speech might be honest, or it might be calculated. He looked quite subtle enough to have weighed up his sovereign and reasoned that boldness might not be displeasing.

“And I will not,” he said firmly. “But that need not pass on my word. It can be put to the proof hereafter. I am on your Grace’s probation.”

“You have not brought your force with you?”

“Three men only are with me. It would have been folly to leave a good castle unmanned or half-manned, and small service, to you to ask that you feed fifty more without due provision for the increase. Your Grace has only to tell me where you would have me serve, and it shall be done.”

“Not so fast,” said Stephen. “Others may also have need of time and thought before they embrace you, young man. You were close and in confidence with FitzAlan, some time ago.”

“I was. I still have nothing against him but that he has chosen one way, and I the other.”

“And as I hear, you are betrothed to Fulke Adeney’s daughter.”

“I hardly know whether to say to that: I am! or: I was! The times have altered a great many plans previously made, for others as well as for me. As at this time, I do not know where the girl is, or whether the bargain still holds.”

“There are said to be no women now in the castle,” said the king, eyeing him closely. “FitzAlan’s family may well be clean away, perhaps out of the country by now. But Adeney’s daughter is thought to be in hiding in the town. It would not be displeasing to me,” he said with soft emphasis, “to have so valuable a lady in safe-keeping — in case even my plans should need to be altered. You were of her father’s party, you must know the places likely to be sheltering her now. When the way is clear, you, of all people, should be able to find her.”

The young man gazed back at him with an inscrutable face, in which shrewd black eyes signalled understanding, but nothing more, neither consent nor resistance, no admission at all that he knew he was being set a task on which acceptance and favour might well depend. His face was bland and his voice guileless as he said: “That is my intent, your Grace. I came from Maesbury with that also in mind.”

“Well,” said Stephen, warily content, “you may remain in attendance against the town’s fall, but we have no immediate work for you here. Should I have occasion to call you, where will you be found?”

“If they have room,” said Beringar, “at the abbey guest house.”

The boy Godric stood through Vespers among the pupils and the novices, far back among the small fry of the house, and close to the laity, such as lived here outside the walls on the hither bank of the river, and could still reach this refuge. He looked, as Brother Cadfael reflected when he turned his head to look for the child, very small and rather forlorn, and his face, bright and impudent enough in the herbarium, had grown very solemn indeed here in church. Night was looming, his first night in this abode. Ah well, his affairs were being taken in hand more consolingly than he supposed, and the ordeal he was bracing himself to master need not confront him at all, if things went right, and at all events not tonight. Brother Paul, the master of the novices, has several other youngsters to look after, and was glad to have one taken firmly off his hands.

Cadfael reclaimed his protégé after supper, at which meal he was glad to see that Godric ate heartily. Evidently the boy was of a mettle to fight back against whatever fears and qualms possessed him, and had the good sense to fortify himself with the things of the flesh for the struggles of the spirit. Even more reassuringly, he looked up with relief and recognition when Cadfael laid a hand on his shoulder as they left the refectory.

“Come, we’re free until Compline, and it’s cool out in the gardens. No need to stay inside here, unless you wish.”

The boy Godric did not wish, he was happy to escape into the summer evening. They went down at leisure towards the fish ponds and the herbarium, and the boy skipped at Cadfael’s side, and burst into a gay whistling, abruptly broken off.

“He said the master of the novices would want me, after supper. Is it really proper for me to come with you, like this?”

“All approved and blessed, child, don’t be afraid. I’ve spoken with Brother Paul, we have his good word. You are my boy, and I am responsible for you.” They had entered the walled garden, and were suddenly engulfed and drowned in all those sun-drenched fragrances, rosemary, thyme, fennel, dill, sage, lavender, a whole world of secret sweetness. The heat of the sun lingered, heady with scent, even into the cool of the evening. Over their heads swifts wheeled and screamed in ecstasy.

They had arrived at the wooden shed, its oiled timbers radiated warmth towards them. Cadfael opened the door. “This is your sleeping-place, Godric.”

There was a low bench-bed neatly arrayed at the end of the room. The boy stared, and quaked under Cadfael’s hand.

“I have all these medicines brewing here, and some of them need tending regularly, some very early, they’d spoil if no one minded them. I’ll show you all you have to do, it’s not so heavy a task. And here you have your bed, and here a grid you may open for fresh air.” The boy had stopped shaking, the dark blue eyes were large and measuring, and fixed implacably upon Cadfael. There seemed to be a smile pending, but there was also a certain aura of offended pride. Cadfael turned to the door, and showed the heavy bar that guarded it within, and the impossibility of opening it from without, once that was dropped into its socket. “You may shut out the world and me until you’re ready to come out to us.”

The boy Godric, who was not a boy at all, was staring now in direct accusation, half-offended, half-radiant, wholly relieved.

“How did you know?” she demanded, jutting a belligerent chin.

“How were you going to manage in the dortoir?” responded Brother Cadfael mildly.

“I would have managed. Boys are not so clever, I could have cozened them. Under a wall like this,” she said, hoisting handfuls of her ample tunic, “all bodies look the same, and men are blind and stupid.” She laughed then, viewing Cadfael’s placid competence, and suddenly she was all woman, and startlingly pretty in her gaiety and relief. “Oh, not you! How did you know? I tried so hard, I thought I could pass all trials. Where did I go wrong?”

“You did very well,” said Cadfael soothingly. “But, child, I was forty years about the world, and from end to end of it, before I took the cowl and came to my green, sweet ending here. Where did you go wrong? Don’t take it amiss, take it as sound advice from an ally, if I answer you. When you came to argument, and meant it with all your heart, you let your voice soar. And never a crack in it, mind you, to cover the change. That can be learned, I’ll show you when we have leisure. And then, when I bade you strip and be easy — ah, never blush, child, I was all but certain then! — of course you put me off. And last, when I got you to toss a stone across the brook, you did it like a girl, under-arm, with a round swing. When did you ever see a boy throw like that? Don’t let anyone else trick you into such another throw, not until you master the art. It betrays you at once.”

He stood patiently silent then, for she had dropped on to the bed, and sat with her head in her hands, and first she began to laugh, and then to cry, and then both together; and all the while he let her alone, for she was no more out of control than a man tossed between gain and loss, and manfully balancing his books. Now he could believe she was seventeen, a budding woman, and a fine one, too.

When she was ready, she wiped her eyes on the back of her hand, and looked up alertly, smiling like sunlight through a rainbow. “And did you mean it?” she said. “That you’re responsible for me? I said I trusted you to extremes!”

“Daughter dear,” said Cadfael patiently, “what should I do with you now but serve you as best I can, and see you safe out of here to wherever you would be?”

“And you don’t even know who I am,” she said, marvelling. “Who is trusting too far now?”

“What difference should it make to me, child, what your name may be? A lass left forlorn here to weather out this storm and be restored to her own people — is not that enough? What you want to tell, you’ll tell, and I need no more.”

“I think I want to tell you everything,” said the girl simply, looking up at him with eyes wide and candid as the sky. “My father is either in Shrewsbury castle this minute with his death hanging over him, or out of it and running for his life with William FitzAlan for the empress’s lands in Normandy, with a hue and cry ready to be loosed after him any moment. I’m a burden to anyone who befriends me now, and likely to be a hunted hostage as soon as I’m missed from where I should be. Even to you, Brother Cadfael, I could be dangerous. I’m daughter to FitzAlan’s chief ally and friend. My name is Godith Adeney.”

Lame Osbern, who had been born with both legs withered, and scuttled around at unbelievable speed on hands provided with wooden pattens, dragging his shrivelled knees behind him on a little wheeled trolley, was the humblest of the king’s campfollowers. Normally he had his pitch by the castle gates in the town, but he had forsaken in time a spot now so dangerous, and transferred his hopeful allegiance to the edge of the siege camp, as near as he was allowed to get to the main guard, where the great went in and out. The king was notoriously open-handed, except towards his enemies-at-arms, and the pickings were good. The chief military officers, perhaps, were too preoccupied to waste thought or alms on a beggar, but some of those who came belatedly seeking favour, having decided which way fortune was tending, were apt to give to the poor as a kind of sop to God for luck, and the common bowmen and even the Flemings, when off-duty and merry, tossed Osbern a few coppers, or the scraps from their mess.

He had his little wagon backed well into the lee of a clump of half-grown trees, close to the guard-post, where he might come in for a crust of bread or a drink, and could enjoy the glow of the field-fire at night. Even summer nights can strike chill after the heat of the August day, when you have only a few rags to cover you, and the fire was doubly welcome. They kept it partially turfed, to subdue the glow, but left themselves light enough to scrutinise any who came late.

It was close to midnight when Osbern stirred out of an uneasy sleep, and straining his ears for the reason, caught the rustling of the bushes behind and to his left, towards the Castle Foregate but well aside from the open road. Someone was approaching from the direction of the t9wn, and certainly not from the main gates, but roundabout in cover from along the riverside. Osbern knew the town like his own callused palm. Either this was a scout returning from reconnaissance — but why keep up this stealth right into the camp? — or else someone had crept out of town or castle by the only other way through the wall on this side, the water-port that led down to the river.

A dark figure, visible rather as movement than matter in a moonless night, slid out from the bushes and made at a crouching, silent scurry for the guard-post. At the sentry’s challenge he halted immediately, and stood frozen but eager, and Osbern saw the faint outline of a slight, willowy body, wrapped closely in a black cloak, so that only a gleam of pale face showed. The voice that answered the challenge was young, high-pitched, tormentedly afraid and desperately urgent.

“I beg audience — I am not armed! Take me to your officer. I have something to tell — to the king’s advantage …”

They hauled him in and went over him roughly to ensure he bore no weapons; and whatever was said between them did not reach Osbern’s ears, but the upshot of it was that he had his will. They led him within the camp, and there he vanished from view.

Osbern did not doze again, the cold of the small hours was gnawing through his rags. Such a cloak as that, he thought, shivering, I wish the good God would send me! Yet even the owner of so fine a garment had been shaking, the quavering voice had betrayed his fear, but also his avid hope. A curious incident, but of no profit to a poor beggar. Not, that is, until he saw the same figure emerge from the shadowy alleys of the camp and halt once more at the gate. His step was lighter and longer now, his bearing less furtive and fearful. He bore some token from the authorities that was enough to let him out again as he had entered, unharmed and unmolested. Osbern heard a few words pass:

“I am to go back, there must be no suspicion … I have my orders!”

Ah, now, in pure thankfulness for some alleviating merry, he might be disposed to give. Osbern wheeled himself forward hurriedly into the man’s path, and extended a pleading hand.

“For God’s love, master! If he has been gracious to you, be gracious to the poor!”

He caught a glimpse of a pale face much eased, heard long breaths of relief and hope. A flicker of firelight caught the elaborate shape of a metal clasp that fastened the cloak at the throat. Out of the muffling folds a hand emerged, and dropped a coin into the extended palm. “Say some prayers for me tomorrow,” said a low, breathless whisper, and the stranger flitted away as he had come, and vanished into the trees before Osbern had done blessing him for his alms.

Before dawn Osbern was roused again from fitful sleep, to withdraw himself hastily into the bushes out of all men’s way. For it was still only the promise of a clear dawn, but the royal camp was astir, so quietly and in such practical order that he felt rather than heard the mustering of men, the ordering of ranks, the checking of weapons. The air of the morning seemed to shake to the tramping of regiments, while barely a sound could be heard. From curve to curve of Severn, across the neck of land that afforded the only dry approach to the town, the steady murmur of activity rippled, awesome and exhilarating, as King Stephen’s army turned out and formed its divisions for the final assault of Shrewsbury castle.