ruefully, “and was trampled below better men’s bodies, to come tomyself in the best time to make vantage of it, after they’d dragged theking away and swarmed into the town to strip it bare, and before they came backto comb the battlefield for whatever was worth picking up. So I mustered whatwas left of our own, more than ever I expected, and hauled them off far enoughto be out of reach while I and one or two with me looked for Gilbert. We didnot 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 havedone?”

“Nothing to any purpose,” said Cadfael firmly. “And thanksto God you were brought out man alive to do so much. If there’s a placeStephen needs you now, it’s here, keeping this shire for him.”

He was talking to himself. Hugh knew that already, or he would never havewithdrawn from Lincoln. As for the slaughter there, no word was said. Better tomake 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 strongarmy, all the south and the east she holds,” said Hugh. “She willshift every stone between her and London, but she’ll get Stephen out ofcaptivity somehow. It is not an ending. A reverse can be reversed. A prisonercan be loosed from prison.”

“Or exchanged,” said Cadfael, but very dubiously.“There’s no great prize taken on the king’s side? Though Idoubt 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’llkeep a fast hold of her prisoner, and make headlong for the throne. And do yousee 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 writthat runs here in Shropshire now as the king’s writ, and I’ll seeto it this shire, at least, is kept for the king.”