Brother Cadfael 09: Dead Man's Ransom Read Free

it higher. Chester came after him, give him his due, there's not much can frighten Ranulf, and he might have been another stone in the rampart, but that the king's sword shattered. There was one somewhere close to him thrust a Danish axe into his hand in its place, but Chester had leaped back out of reach. And then someone clear of the melee grubbed a great stone out of the ground, and hurled it at Stephen from aside. It struck him down flatlings, clean out of his wits, and they swarmed over him and pinned him hand and foot while he was senseless. And I went down under another wave,' said Hugh ruefully, 'and was trampled below better men's bodies, to come to myself in the best time to make vantage of it, after they'd dragged the king away and swarmed into the town to strip it bare, and before they came back to comb the battlefield for whatever was worth picking up. So I mustered what was left of our own, more than ever I expected, and hauled them off far enough to be out of reach while I and one or two with me looked for Gilbert. We did not find him and when they began to come back sated out of the city scavenging, we drew off to bring back such as we had. What else could we have done?'
    'Nothing to any purpose,' said Cadfael firmly. 'And thanks to God you were brought out man alive to do so much. If there's a place Stephen needs you now, it's here, keeping this shire for him.' He was talking to himself. Hugh knew that already, or he would never have withdrawn from Lincoln. As for the slaughter there, no word was said. Better to make sure of bringing back all but a few of the solid townsfolk of Shrewsbury, his own special charge, and so he had done.
    'Stephen's queen is in Kent, and mistress of Kent, with a strong army, all the south and the east she holds,' said Hugh. 'She will shift every stone between her and London, but she'll get Stephen out of captivity somehow. It is not an ending. A reverse can be reversed. A prisoner can be loosed from prison.'
    'Or exchanged,' said Cadfael, but very dubiously. There's no great prize taken on the king's side? Though I doubt if the empress would let go of Stephen for any three of her best lords, even Robert himself, helpless as she'd be without him. No, she'll keep a fast hold of her prisoner, and make headlong for the throne. And do you see the princes of the church standing long in her way?'
    'Well,' said Hugh, stretching his slight body wincingly, discovering new bruises, 'my part at least I know. It's my writ that runs here in Shropshire now as the king's writ, and I'll see to it this shire, at least, is kept for the king.'
    He came down to the abbey, two days later, to attend the Mass Abbot Radulfus had decreed for the souls of all those dead at Lincoln, on both parts, and for the healing of England's raw and festering wounds. In particular there were prayers to be offered for the wretched citizens of the northern city, prey to vengeful armies and plundered of all they had, many even of their lives, and many more fled into the wilds of the winter countryside. Shropshire stood nearer to the fighting now than it had been for three years, being neighbour to an earl of Chester elated by success and greedy for still more lands. Every one of Hugh's depleted garrisons stood to arms, ready to defend its threatened security.
    They were out from Mass, and Hugh had lingered in speech with the abbot in the great court, when there was sudden bustle in the arch of the gatehouse, and a small procession entered from the Foregate. Four sturdy countrymen in homespun came striding confidently, two with bows strung and slung ready for action, one shouldering a billhook, and the fourth a long, handled pikel. Between them, with two of her escort on either side, rode a plump middleaged woman on a diminutive mule, and wearing the black habit of a Benedictine nun. The white bands of her wimple framed a rounded rosy face, well, fleshed and well, boned, and lit by a pair of bright brown eyes. She was booted