“From here where I stand now,” said Cadfael,pondering, “these things seem strangely distant and unreal.If I had not been forty years in the world and among the armiesmyself, I doubt if I could believe in the times we live in but as adisturbed dream.”

“They are not so to Abbot Radulfus,” said Hugh withunwonted gravity. He turned his back upon the mild, moist prospectof the garden, sinking gently into its winter sleep, and sat downon the wooden bench against the timber wall. The small glow of thebrazier, damped under the turf, burned on the bold, slender bonesof his cheeks and jaw and brows, conjuring them out of deepshadows, and sparkling briefly in his black eyes before the lidsand dark lashes quenched the sparks. “That man would make abetter adviser to kings than most that cluster round Stephen nowhe’s free again. But he would not tell them what they want tohear, and they’d all stop their ears.”

“What’s the news of King Stephen now? How has heborne this year of captivity? Is he likely to come out of itfighting, or has it dimmed his ardour? What is he likely to donext?”

“That I may be better able to answer afterChristmas,” said Hugh. “They say he’s in goodhealth. But she put him in chains, and that even he is not likelyto forgive too readily. He’s come out leaner and hungrierthan he went in, and a gnaw in the belly may well serve toconcentrate the mind. He was ever a man to begin a campaign orsiege all fire the first day, weary of it if he got no gain by thethird, and go off after another prey by the fifth. Maybe nowhe’s learned to keep an unwavering eye fixed on one targetuntil he fetches it down. Sometimes I wonder why we follow him, andnever look round, then I see him roaring into personal battle as hedid at Lincoln, and I know the reason well enough. Even when he hasthe woman as good as in his hands, as when she first landed atArundel, and gives her an escort to her brother’s fortress