Brother Cadfael 02: One Corpse Too Many Read Free

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 dryly, '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