One Corpse Too Many bc-2 Read online

  “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.

  Chapter Two

  Long before noon it was all over, the gates fired with rushwood and battered down, the baileys cleared one by one, the last defiant bowman hunted down from the walls and towers, smoke heavy and thick like a pall over fortress and town. In the streets not a human creature or even a dog stirred. At the first assault every man had gone to earth with wife and family and beasts behind locked and barred doors, and crouched listening with stretched ears to the thunder and clash and yelling of battle. It lasted only a short while. The garrison had reached exhaustion, ill-supplied, thinned by desertions as long as there was any possibility of escape. Everyone had been certain the next determined attack must carry the town. The merchants of Shrewsbury waited with held breath for the inevitable looting, and heaved sighs of relief when it was called to heel peremptorily by the king himself — not because he grudged his Flemings their booty, but because he wanted them close about his person. Even a king is vulnerable, and this had been an enemy town, and was still unpacified. Moreover, his urgent business was with the garrison of the castle, and in particular with FitzAlan, and Adeney, and Arnulf of Hesdin.

  Stephen stalked through the smoky, bloody, steel-littered bailey into the hall, and despatched Courcelle and Ten Heyt and their men with express orders to isolate the ring leaders and bring them before him. Prestcote he kept at his side; the keys were in the new lieutenant’s hands, and provisions for the royal garrison were already in consideration.

  “In the end,” said Prestcote critically, “it has cost your Grace fairly low. In losses, certainly. In money — the delay was costly, but the castle is intact. Some repairs to the walls — new gates … This is a stronghold you need never lose again, I count it worth the time it took to win it.”

  “We shall see,” said Stephen grimly, thinking of Arnulf of Hesdin bellowing his lordly insults from the towers. As though he courted death!

  Courcelle came in, his helmet off and his chestnut hair blazing. A promising officer, alert, immensely strong in personal combat, commanding with his men: Stephen approved him. “Well, Adam. Are they run to earth? Surely FitzAlan is not hiding somewhere among the barns, like a craven servant?”

  “No, your Grace, by no means!” said Courcelle ruefully. “We have combed this fortress from roof to dungeons, I promise you we have missed nothing. But FitzAlan is clean gone! Give us time, and we’ll find for you the day, the hour, the route they took, their plans . . .

  “They?” blazed Stephen, catching at the plural.

  “Adeney is away with him. Not a doubt of it, they’re loose. Sorry I am to bring your Grace such news, but truth is truth.” And give him his due, he had the guts to utter such truths. “Hesdin,” he said, “we have. He is here without. Wounded, but not gravely, nothing but scratched. I put him in irons for safety, but I think he is hardly in such heart as when he lorded it within here, and your Grace was well outside.”

  “Bring him in,” ordered the king, enraged afresh to find he had let two of his chief enemies slip through his fingers.

  Arnulf of Hesdin came in limping heavily, and dragging chains at wrist and ankle; a big, florid man nearing sixty, soiled with dust, smoke and blood. Two of the Flemings thrust him to his knees before the king. His face was fixed and fearful, but defiant still.

  “What, are you tamed?” exulted the king. “Where’s your insolence now? You had plenty to say for yourself only a day or two ago, are you silenced? Or have you the wit to talk another language now?”

  “Your Grace,” said Hesdin, grating out words evidently hateful to him, “you are the victor, and I am at your mercy, and at your feet, and I have fought you fair, and I look to be treated honourably now. I am a nobleman of England and of France. You have need of money, and I am worth an earl’s ransom, and I can pay it.”

  “Too late to speak me fair, you who were loud-mouthed and foul-mouthed when there were walls between us. I swore to have your life then, and have it I will. An earl’s ransom cannot buy it back. Shall I quote you my price? Where is FitzAlan? Where is Adeney? Tell me in short order where I may lay hands on those two, and better pray that I succeed, and I may — may! — consider letting you keep your miserable life.”

  Hesdin reared his head and stared the king in the eyes. “I find your price too high,” he said. “Only one thing I’ll tell you concerning my comrades, they did not run from you until all was already lost. And live or die, that’s all you’ll get from me. Go hunt your own noble game!”

  “We shall see!” flared the king, infuriated. “We shall see whether we get no more from you! Have him away, Adam, give him to Ten Heyt, and see what can be done with him. Hesdin, you have until two of the clock to tell us everything you know concerning their flight, or else I hang you from the battlements. Take him away!”

  They dragged him out still on his knees. Stephen sat fuming and gnawing at his knuckles. “Is it true, you think, Prestcote, the one thing he did say? That they fled only when the fight was already lost? Then they may well be still in the town. How could they break through? Not by the Foregate, clean through our ranks. And the first companies within were sped straight for the two bridges. Somewhere in this island of a town they must be hiding. Find them!”

  “They could not have reached the bridges,” said Prestcote positively. “There’s only one other way out, and that’s by the water-gate to the river. I doubt if they could have swum Severn there without being seen, I am sure they had no boat. Most likely they are in hiding somewhere in the town.”

  “Scour it! Find them! No looting unti
l I have them safe in hold. Search everywhere, but find them.”

  While Ten Heyt and his Flemings rounded up the prisoners taken in arms, and disposed the new garrison under Prestcote’s orders, Courcelle and others with their companies pressed on through the town, confirmed the security of the two bridges, and set about searching every house and shop within the walls. The king, his conquest assured, returned to his camp with his own bodyguard, and waited grimly for news of his two fugitives. It was past two o’clock when Courcelle reported back to him.

  “Your Grace,” he said bluntly, “there is no better word than failure to bring you. We have searched every street, every officer and merchant of the town has been questioned, all premises ransacked. It is not such a great town, and unless by some miracle I do not see how they can well have got outside the walls unseen. But we have not found them, neither FitzAlan nor Adeney, nor trace nor word of them. In case they’ve swum the river and got clear beyond the Abbey Foregate, I’ve sent out a fast patrol that way, but I doubt if we shall hear of them now. And Hesdin is obdurate still. Not a word to be got from him, and Ten Heyt has done his best, short of killing too soon. We shall get nothing from him. He knows the penalty. Threats will do nothing.”

  “He shall have what he was promised,” said Stephen grimly. “And the rest? How many were taken of the garrison?”

  “Apart from Hesdin, ninety-three in arms.” Courcelle watched the handsome, frowning face; bitterly angry and frustrated as the king was, he was unlikely to keep his grudges hot too long. They had been telling him for weeks that it was a fault in him to forgive too readily. “Your Grace, clemency now would be taken for weakness,” said Courcelle emphatically.

  “Hang them!” said Stephen, jerking out sentence harshly before he wavered.

  “All?”

  “All! And at once. Have them all out of the world before tomorrow.”

  They gave the grisly work to the Flemings to do. It was what mercenaries were for, and it kept them busy all that day, and out of the houses of the town, which otherwise would have been pillaged of everything of value. The interlude, dreadful as it was, gave the guilds and the reeve and the bailiffs time to muster a hasty delegation of loyalty to the king, and obtain at least a grim and sceptical motion of grace. He might not believe in their sudden devotion, but he could appreciate its urgency.

  Prestcote deployed his new garrison and made all orderly in the castle below, while Ten Heyt and his companies despatched the old garrison wholesale from the battlements. Arnulf of Hesdin was the first to die. The second was a young squire who had had a minor command under him; he was in a state of frenzied dread, and was hauled to his death yelling and protesting that he had been promised his life. The Flemings who handled him spoke little English, and were highly diverted by his pleadings, until the noose cut them off short.

  Adam Courcelle confessed himself only too glad to get away from the slaughter, and pursue his searches to the very edges of the town, and across the bridges into the suburbs. But he found no trace of William FitzAlan or Fulke Adeney.

  From the morning’s early alarm to the night’s continuing slaughter, a chill hush of horror hung over the abbey of St Peter and St Paul. Rumours flew thick as bees in swarm, no one knew what was really happening, but everyone knew that it would be terrible. The brothers doggedly pursued their chosen régime, service after service, chapter and Mass and the hours of work, because life could only be sustained by refusing to let it be disrupted, by war, catastrophe or death. To the Mass after chapter came Aline Siward with her maid Constance, pale and anxious and heroically composed; and perhaps as a result, Hugh Beringar also attended, for he had observed the lady passing from the house she had been given in the Foregate, close to the abbey’s main mill.

  During the service he paid rather more attention to the troubled, childish profile beneath the white mourning wimple than to the words of the celebrant.

  Her small hands were devoutly folded, her resolute, vulnerable lips moved silently, praying piteously for all those dying and being hurt while she kneeled here. The girl Constance watched her closely and jealously, a protective presence, but could not drive the war away from her.

  Beringar followed at a distance until she re-entered her house. He did not seek to overtake her, nor attempt as yet to speak to her. When she had vanished, he left his henchmen behind, and went out along the Foregate to the end of the bridge. The section that drew up was still lifted, sealing in the town, but the clamour and shrieking of battle was already subsiding to his right, where the castle loomed in its smoky halo beyond the river. He would still have to wait before he could carry out his promised search for his affianced bride. Within the hour, if he had read the signs aright, the bridge should be down, and open. Meantime, he went at leisure to take his midday meal. There was no hurry.

  Rumours flew in the guest house, as everywhere else. Those who had business of unimpeachable honesty elsewhere were all seeking to pack their bags and leave. The consensus of opinion was that the castle had certainly fallen, and the cost would run very high. King Stephen’s writ had better be respected henceforth, for he was here, and victorious, and the Empress Maud, however legitimate her claim, was far away in Normandy, and unlikely to provide any adequate protection. There were whispers, also, that FitzAlan and Adeney, at the last moment, had broken out of the trap and were away. For which many breathed thanks, though silently.

  When Beringar went out again, the bridge was down, the way open, and King Stephen’s sentries manning the passage. They were strict in scrutinising his credentials, but passed him within respectfully when they were satisfied. Stephen must have given orders concerning him. He crossed, and entered at the guarded but open gate in the wall. The street rose steeply, the island town sat high.

  Beringar knew it well, and knew where he was bound. At the summit of the hill the row of the butchers’ stalls and houses levelled out, silent and deserted.

  Edric Flesher’s shop was the finest of the row, but it was shuttered and still like all the rest. Hardly a head looked out, and even then only briefly and fearfully, and was withdrawn as abruptly behind barred doors. By the look of the street, they had not so far been ravaged. Beringar thudded at the shut door, and when he heard furtive stirrings within, lifted his voice: “Open to me, Hugh Beringar! Edric — Petronilla — Let me in, I’m alone!”

  He had half expected that the door would remain sealed like a tomb, and those within silent, and he would not have blamed them; but, instead, the door was flung wide, and there was Petronilla beaming and opening her arms to him as if to a saviour. She was getting old, but still plump, succulent and kindly, the most wholesome thing he had seen in this siege town so far. Her grey hair was tight and neat under its white cap, and her twinkling grey eyes bright and intelligent as ever, welcoming him in.

  “Master Hugh — to see a known and trusted face here now!” Beringar was instantly sure that she did not quite trust him! “Come in, and welcome! Edric, here’s Hugh — Hugh Beringar!” And there was her husband, prompt to her call, large and rubicund and competent, the master of his craft in this town, and a councillor.

  They drew him within, and closed the door firmly, as he noted and approved. Beringar said what a lover should say, without preamble: “Where is Godith? I came to look for her, to provide for her. Where has he hidden her?”

  It seemed they were too intent on making sure the shutters were fast, and listening for hostile footsteps outside, to pay immediate attention to what he was saying. And too ready with questions of their own to answer his questions.

  “Are you hunted?” asked Edric anxiously. “Do you need a place to hide?”

  And: “Were you in the garrison?” demanded Petronilla, and patted him concernedly in search of wounds. As though she had been his nurse once, instead of Godith’s, and seen him every day of his life instead of twice or thrice since the childhood betrothal. A little too much solicitude! And a neat, brief breathing-space while they considered how much or how little to t
ell him!

  “They’ve been hunting here already,” said Ethic. “I doubt if they’ll come again, they had the place to pieces after the sheriff and the Lord Fulke. You’re welcome to a shelter here if you need it. Are they close on your heels?”

  He was sure by that time that they knew he had never been inside the castle, nor committed in any way to FitzAlan’s stand. This clever, trusted old servant and her husband had been deep in Adeney’s confidence, they knew very well who had held with him, and who had held aloof.

  “No, it’s not that. I’m in no danger and no need. I came only to look for Godith. They’re saying he left it too late to send her away with FitzAlan’s family. Where can I find her?”

  “Did someone send you here to look for her?” asked Edric.

  “No, no, none … But where else would he place her? Who is there to be trusted like her nurse? Of course I came first to you! Never tell me she was not here!”

  “She was here,” said Petronilla. “Until a week ago we had her. But she’s gone, Hugh, you’re too late. He sent two knights to fetch her away, and not even we were told where she was bound. What we don’t know we can’t be made to tell, he said. But it’s my belief they got her away out of the town in good time, and she’s far off by now, and safe, pray God!” No doubt about the fervency of that prayer, she would fight and die for her nurseling. And lie for her, too, if need be!

  “But for God’s sake, friends, can you not help me to her at all? I’m her intended husband. I’m responsible for her if her father is dead, as by now, for all I know, he may well be… .”

  That got him something for his trouble, at any rate, if it was no more than the flicker of a glance passing between them, before they exclaimed their “God forbid!” in unison. They knew very well, by the frenzied search, that FitzAlan and Adeney had been neither killed nor taken. They could not yet be sure that they were clean away and safe, but they were staking their lives and loyalty on it. So now he knew he would get nothing more from them, he, the renegade.