Brother Cadfael 17: The Potter's Field

'Yes,' said Aline, 'there is a bowman of the company has ridden in only this afternoon, the first word we've had. He got a graze in one skirmish they had, and Hugh sent him home, seeing he was fit to ride, and they had left changes of horses along the way. He will heal well, Alan says, but it weakens his drawing arm.'

'And how are they faring?' Cadfael asked. 'Have they managed to bring Geoffrey into the open?'

She shook her head decisively. 'Very little chance of it. The waters are up everywhere, and it's still raining. All they can do is lie in wait for the raiding parties when they venture out to plunder the villages. Even there the king is at a disadvantage, seeing Geoffrey's men know every usable path, and can bog them down in the marshes only too easily. But they have picked off a few such small parties. It isn't what Stephen wants, but it's all he can get. Ramsey is quite cut off, no one can hope to fetch them out of there.'

'And this tedious business of ambush and waiting,' said Cadfael, 'wastes too much time. Stephen cannot afford to keep it up too long. Costly and ineffective as it is, he'll have to withdraw to try some other measure. If Geoffrey's numbers have grown so great, he must be getting supplies now from beyond the Fen villages. His supply lines might be vulnerable. And Hugh? He is well?'

'Wet and muddy and cold, I daresay,' said Aline, ruefully smiling, 'and probably cursing heartily, but he's whole and well, or was when his archer left him. That's one thing to be said for this tedious business, as you called it, such losses as there are have been de Mandeville's. But too few to do him much harm.'

'Not enough,' Cadfael said consideringly, 'to be worth the king's while for much longer. I think, Aline, you may not have to wait long to have Hugh home again.'

Giles pressed a little closer and more snugly into his godfather's side, but said nothing. 'And you, my lord,' said Cadfael, 'will have to hand over your manor again, and give account of your stewardship. I hope you have not let things get out of hand while the lord sheriff's been away.'

Hugh's deputy made a brief sound indicative of scorn at the very idea that his strict rule should ever be challenged. 'I am good at it,' he stated firmly. 'My father says so. He says I keep a tighter rein than he does. And use the spur more.'

'Your father,' said Cadfael gravely, 'is always fair and ungrudging even to those who excel him.' He was aware, through some alchemy of proximity and affection, of the smile Aline was not allowing to show in her face.

'Especially with the women,' said Giles complacently.

'Now that,' said Cadfael, 'I can well believe.'

King Stephen's tenacity, in any undertaking, had always been precarious. Not want of courage, certainly, not even want of determination, caused him to abandon sieges after a mere few days and rush away to some more promising assault. It was rather impatience, frustrated optimism and detestation of being inactive that made him quit one undertaking for another. On occasion, as at Oxford, he could steel himself to persist, if the situation offered a reasonable hope of final triumph, but where stalemate was obvious he soon wearied and went off to fresh fields. In the wintry rains of the Fens anger and personal hatred kept him constant longer than usual, but his successes were meagre, and it was borne in upon him by the last week of November that he could not hope to finish the work. Floundering in the quagmires of those bleak levels, his forces had certainly closed in with enough method and strength to compress de Mandeville's territory, and had picked off a fair number of his rogue troops when they ventured out on to drier ground, but it was obvious that the enemy had ample supplies, and could hold off for a while even from raiding. There was no hope of digging them out of their hole. Stephen turned to changed policies with the instant vigour he could find at need. He wanted his feudal levies, especially any from potentially vulnerable regions, such as those neighbour to the Welsh, or to dubious friends like the Earl of Chester, back where they were most useful. Here in the Fens he proposed to marshal an army rather of builders than soldiers, throw up a ring of hasty but well-placed strongpoints to contain the outlaw territory, compress it still further wherever they could, and menace Geoffrey's outside