Plot summary
In August 1138, King Stephen is besieging rebels now loyal to Empress Matilda in Shrewsbury Castle. Brother Cadfael welcomes the assistance of young Godric, brought to the Abbey by his aunt. Cadfael recognises that Godric is a girl. She is Godith Adeney, daughter of Fulke Adeney, a rebel leader inside the castle. Cadfael agrees to keep her secret, thus beginning 10 adventurous days.
Aline Siward and Hugh Beringar enter King Stephen's camp to pledge their loyalty. The King welcomes Aline Siward even though her absent brother Giles has declared for the Empress. He treats Hugh Beringar with more reserve, as he was betrothed as a child to Godith. To prove his loyalty, he is asked to find Godith and deliver her to the King. Beringar and Adam Courcelle, designated Deputy Sheriff once the castle falls, both fall for Aline on first sight. The castle falls the next morning, but FitzAlan and Adeney escape. Infuriated, King Stephen orders the ninety-four survivors of the turncoat garrison executed that very afternoon. Abbot Heribert of Shrewsbury Abbey offers to give Christian burial to the victims; King Stephen assents.
Counting the bodies, Cadfael finds not ninety-four, but ninety-five – one corpse too many. The extra corpse did not die by hanging, but by strangulation. Aline finds the body of her brother Giles among the ninety-four. Very upset, Courcelle gives Aline her brother's cloak. Later, Godric/Godith identifies the murdered man as Nicholas Faintree, a squire of FitzAlan. Cadfael visits Godith's old nurse, Petronilla Flesher for news. FitzAlan ordered squires Faintree and Torold Blund to slip out of the castle to take his treasury to safety in Wales, then to Normandy. She tells Cadfael that Beringar asked after Godith the day of the hangings, which means Beringar knows of the treasure.
Working in the corn harvest, Godric encounters a wounded man, Torold Blund. He relates how he and Faintree tried to carry FitzAlan's treasure as ordered. Faintree's horse was lamed by a caltrop, planted on the forested track not far from Frankwell. Faintree waited at a forest hut while Blund fetched a fresh horse. When Blund returned he found Faintree dead. Blund was attacked by a stranger, but escaped from him. Blund was blocked by the King's men on every road to Wales. He jumped into the river Severn in a hail of arrows, letting the horses go free. He hid the treasure under the bridge near the castle, hoping the soldiers took him for drowned.
Cadfael retraces Blund's path. In the hut, he finds a yellow topaz meant as decoration to a dagger in the dirt floor. Cadfael sends Godric with food and medicine to Blund, who is much recovered. Blund discovers that she is a girl named Godith. Cadfael joins them. He agrees to help them escape to Wales with the treasure. He and Blund hear footsteps, so stop their conversation. Later, Beringar asks Cadfael where he can conceal his two most valuable mounts before King Stephen raids for supplies. They take the horses to a grange belonging to the Abbey, south of Shrewsbury.
Cadfael sees that Hugh Beringar has a spirit like his own as to the cause of justice and a clever mind for pursuing it. He spends the next day testing his theory that Hugh is following him. Cadfael locates the treasure hidden in the river. He has a bundle matching it in appearance, which he carries to the grange. Once Beringar is away from the river, Godith and Blund fetch the treasure to a safe place.
Sheriff Prestcote begins the raids before Cadfael wakes. Godith wakes early, ensuring her own safety and that of the treasure. Aline tells Cadfael that Godric is safe with her. Blund spends the day on the run. He thinks, correctly, that Beringar saw him, yet did not seize him.
That night, Cadfael, Blund and Godith walk to the grange with the treasure. They hide the treasure in a tree that will be on the road to Wales, then swing back to approach the grange on the usual path. At the grange, Beringar and his men stop them. Beringar means to aid Godith in her escape, as his duty of honour. He wants the treasure for the King. Godith and Blund depart for Wales on Beringar's horses, pleased with Cadfael's success.
At Cadfael's workshop, Beringar finds the saddlebags filled with stones not treasure. He is mystified that they also contain Faintree's old clothes and the jewel from the dagger. Cadfael is thus satisfied Beringar had no part in Faintree's murder. Beringar laughs that Cadfael won the game, keeping the treasure with Godith. The two co-operate now. A beggar tells Cadfael events seen the night before the castle fell: Giles Siward slipped into the siege camp and betrayed FitzAlan's plan to the officer of the watch, Courcelle, in exchange for his life. Courcelle breaks the bargain, and then steals the dagger from Giles's corpse. Then Courcelle left the castle, to lay the trap for Faintree and Blund, seeking the treasure for himself. He fought with Blund in the hut. Beringar recalls Aline's mention of the family heirloom dagger lost when Giles was hanged. They conclude the murderer has the rest of the dagger.
Cadfael attends the farewell banquet for the King as servant to the Abbot. He sees a kitchen boy eating his own meal with Giles' missing dagger, fished from the Severn. At this banquet, Beringar accuses Courcelle of the murder of Faintree and the theft of the dagger, staking his life. He tosses the yellow topaz on the table. Cadfael gives the dagger to the King, who fits the two together, completing the proof. The boy identifies Courcelle. Courcelle denies all. The King is eager for justice, and impatient to move on. Instead of a trial, this will be settled by trial by combat, à l'outrance.
The lengthy combat between Beringar and Courcelle begins. Aline arrives knowing she loves Hugh Beringar. In close fighting, Courcelle falls on his own dagger blade and dies. With Beringar vindicated by fate, King Stephen appoints him Deputy Sheriff of Shropshire in Courcelle's place. He and Aline are betrothed. Cadfael, now his firm friend, gives him Giles's dagger, which has been restored by craftsmen at the Abbey, for Aline. Cadfael resolves to pray both for Nicholas Faintree, "a clean young man of mind and life", and for Adam Courcelle, "dead in his guilt", because "every untimely death, every man cut down in his vigour and strength without time for repentance and reparation, is one corpse too many."
Setting in history
The story takes place during The Anarchy, a term referring to the 19-year civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Maud, from 1135 to 1153. King Stephen, William Fitz-Alan, his uncle Arnulf of Hesdin, Abbot Heribert, and Prior Robert Pennant are all real people. Son of Alan fitz Flaad, baron of Oswestry, William FitzAlan was appointed Sheriff in 1137 by King Stephen. FitzAlan did go over to the Empress Matilda and held Shrewsbury Castle in her name. [9] There was a battle lasting four weeks in July and August, during which Arnulf hurled much verbal abuse of the attacking King Stephen, and which Stephen won. [10] Stephen indeed hanged all the defenders of the castle after taking it, save William who had escaped before Stephen's final success. [11] [12] [13] [14]
Wales is a preferred escape route from Shropshire and environs to France in the time of Anarchy, as the prince of Gwynedd, the principality of northern Wales, takes no side in the conflict and is pleased to have the English fighting each other, and not him. FitzAlan, with roots in that border area, had a relationship with Owain Gwynedd so he or his messengers could ask for the prince's protection to ride across to a port and seek ship for Normandy.
Trial by combat, used at the end to settle the guilt of Courcelle on one count of murder and another of theft not fit for an officer and gentleman, was used in England in the Middle Ages, especially from the time of the Norman conquest to the reign of King Henry II, who introduced a more efficient system of jury trials, but extending to the 16th century. When King Stephen uttered "à l'outrance", he meant the combat had to be to the death of one of the two. The phrase means to the uttermost in some usages, but to the death in this usage. [15] [16] [17]
In the novel, the body of a murdered man is slipped in among the bodies of the executed defenders; hence, there is one corpse too many.
The story takes place in Shropshire (also called Salop) in England. Shrewsbury Abbey and its outlying grange, the real town of Shrewsbury and its suburb Frankwell on the road to Wales are the locations for most of the story's action.
