Godric stared, clawed up a sizeable stone, and heaved it heartily. His armswung far back, swung forward with his slight weight willingly behind it, andhurled the stone under-arm across the brook and into the shallows, with asplash that sent the heron soaring, certainly, but several feet from where hehad been standing.

“Well, well!” said Cadfael silently, and settled down to do somehard thinking.

In his siege camp, deployed across the entire land approach to the CastleForegate, between broad coils of the river Severn, King Stephen fretted, fumedand feasted, celebrating the few loyal Salopians—loyal to him, thatis!—who came to offer him aid, and planning his revenge upon the manydisloyal who absented themselves.

He was a big, noisy, handsome, simple-minded man, very fair in colouring,very comely in countenance, and at this stage in his fortunes totallybewildered by the contention between his natural good nature and his smartingsense of injury. He was said to be slow-witted, but when his Uncle Henry haddied and left no heir but a daughter, and she handicapped by an Angevin husbandand far away in France, no matter how slavishly her father’s vassals hadbowed to his will and accepted her as queen, Stephen for once in his life hadmoved with admirable speed and precision, and surprised his potential subjectsinto accepting him at his own valuation before they even had time to considertheir own interests, much less remember reluctant vows. So why had such asuccessful coup abruptly turned sour? He would never understand. Why had halfof his more influential subjects, apparently stunned into immobility for atime, revived into revolt now? Conscience? Dislike of the king imposed uponthem? Superstitious dread of King Henry and his influence with God?

Forced to take the opposition seriously and resort to arms, Stephen hadopened in the way that came naturally to him, striking hard where he must, butholding the door cheerfully open for penitents to come in. And what had been