“There was some talk of your castellan in Ludlow being none too reliable,”observed Cadfael. “For all King Stephen set him up in the honor of Lacy, andtrusted Ludlow castle to him, there have been rumors he was casting his eyestoward the empress. Touch and go with him, as I heard it, if the king had notbeen close and with a sharp eye on him.”

Anything Cadfael had heard, Hugh had certainly heard. There was not asheriff in the land who had not all his intelligencers alerted,these days, and his own ear to the ground. If Josce de Dinan, in Ludlow, hadindeed been contemplating defection, and thought better of it, Hugh was contentto accept his present steadfastness, but with reservations, and was watchinghim still. Distrust was only one of the lesser horrors of civil war, butsaddening enough. It was well that there could still be absolute trust betweentried friends. In these days there was no man living who might not suddenlyhave acute need of a steady and stout back braced against his own.

“Ah, well, with King Stephen on his way to Worcester with an army, no one isgoing to lift finger or show face until he draws off again. But for all that, Inever stop listening and watching.” Hugh rose from the bench against the wallof Cadfael’s workshop, brief refuge from the world. “Now I am going home to myown bed, for once—even if I am banished from my wife’s by my own arrogant brat.But what would a devout religious like you know about a father’s tribulations!”

What, indeed? “You must all come to it,” said Brother Cadfael complacently,“you married men. Third and unwanted where two are lost in admiring each other.I shall go to Compline and say a prayer for you.”