Ellis Peters: One Corpse Too Many

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.