One Corpse Too Many

One Corpse Too Many
Macmillan paperback edition
Author(s)	Ellis Peters
Series	Brother Cadfael
Genre(s)	Mystery novel
Publisher	Macmillan
Publication date	1979
Media type	Print (Hardcover, Paperback) & audio book
Pages	254 (paperback edition)
Preceded by	A Morbid Taste for Bones
Followed by	Monk's Hood

One Corpse Too Many is a medieval mystery novel set in the summer of 1138 by Ellis Peters, first published in 1979. It was adapted for television in 1994 by Central for ITV. Although it was the first novel in the Brother Cadfael series to be written, it was the second to be published, as the events of A Morbid Taste for Bones take place first, chronologically.

Explanation of the title

The story is set during an actual historical event - the siege of Shrewsbury Castle by King Stephen during the English civil war of 1135-1154. After Stephen's forces overran the castle, all the defenders of the castle were hanged.^[1] In the novel, the body of a murdered man is slipped in among the bodies of the executed defenders; hence, there is one corpse too many.

Plot summary

In the summer of 1138, King Stephen is besieging rebels loyal to Empress Matilda in Shrewsbury Castle. Across the river from the castle, Brother Cadfael is toiling alone in the vegetable and herb gardens belonging to Shrewsbury Abbey, the war having robbed him of his usual helpers. He welcomes the assistance of a young man called Godric, who has been brought to the Abbey by his "aunt" as a lay servant and potential novice. Cadfael is a practical man, a former soldier and sailor who became a monk only in middle age, and soon recognises that "Godric" is actually a girl. Chagrined at being discovered so soon, she admits that she is actually Godith Adeney, daughter of Fulke Adeney, one of the rebel ringleaders inside the castle. Cadfael agrees to keep her secret, and allows her to sleep inside his workshop, away from the other novices.

The day before Stephen launches his final assault on the castle, two people enter his camp to pledge their loyalty. The lady Aline Siward is welcomed, even though her elder brother, Giles, last heard of in France, has declared for the Empress. The young nobleman Hugh Beringar is treated with more reserve, as he was formerly an associate of the rebel ringleaders, and was even betrothed as a child to Godith. As a token of his loyalty, he is instructed to find Godith and deliver her to the King. Beringar has an eye for Aline, but she accepts one of Stephen's officers, Adam Courcelle, as her escort to shelter in the Abbey.

The King storms the castle, but the ringleaders FitzAlan and Adeney escape. Infuriated, King Stephen orders the ninety-four survivors of the garrison to be hanged, at the urging of Courcelle. Abbot Heribert of Shrewsbury Abbey is appalled at the spectacle and asks the King that the executed men be given Christian burial. Stephen assents, and Heribert delegates the task to Cadfael.

The next morning, Cadfael and his helpers collect and lay out the bodies. Counting them, Cadfael realises that there are not ninety-four bodies, but ninety-five, the titular one corpse too many. The extra body is a man who was not hanged, but strangled from behind with a garrotte. Cadfael reports the discrepancy to Stephen's newly appointed Sheriff Gilbert Prescote, who reluctantly announces it to the town, asking if anyone can identify the unknown man. Aline views the body but does not recognise him, but is horrified to find the body of her brother Giles among the other dead. Courcelle seems equally horrified. As she gathers Giles's possessions, Aline notes that a dagger, a family heirloom, has been stolen from Giles's body.

The King summons Heribert and Cadfael. He is impatient to move on, but he is stung by Cadfael's suggestion that a common murderer used his crude act of justice for cover, and allows Cadfael four days to uncover the truth.

Godith identifies the murdered man as Nicholas Faintree, a squire of the rebel leader FitzAlan. At her suggestion, Cadfael visits her old nurse, Petronella Flesher, and her husband Edric, the town butcher, to reassure them of Godith's safety. They tell him that just before the castle fell, FitzAlan ordered Faintree and another squire named Torold Blund to slip out of the castle and get his treasury to safety. Flesher led them to the treasury's hiding place in a barn in the suburb of Frankwell. The Fleshers believe that the apparently personable Blund must have murdered Faintree to steal the treasure. They warn Cadfael that Beringar has been asking after Godith, and has also probably learned of the treasury's disappearance through eavesdropping.

Cadfael goes to the barn in Frankwell and discovers the jewelled pommel of a dagger, broken off in a struggle and trampled into the floor. Aline identifies it as belonging to the dagger stolen from Giles.

The next day, while Godith is working in the fields with the other novices, she discovers a wounded man hiding in an old mill near the river. Cadfael treats his injuries, and the man admits that he is Torold Blund. As Cadfael and Godith walk back to the Abbey, they are joined by Beringar, who drops alarming hints that he knows who "Godric" is, while seemingly making casual conversation. At Vespers, however, he seems to lose interest while paying attention to Aline Siward.

Cadfael sends Godith with food and medicine to Torold, who is much recovered and tests his strength in a wrestling match with Godith, thus discovering that she is a girl. By the time Cadfael reaches them, they are in each others' confidence. Torold relates how he and Faintree tried to escape with Fitzalan's treasure but Faintree's horse was lamed by a caltrop, planted on a track by someone who knew in advance the route they would take. Faintree waited at the barn in Frankwell while Blund found a fresh horse. When Blund returned, he found Faintree, dead, and was attacked from behind by an unknown strangler. Blund fought off his attacker and fled. He hid the treasure under the bridge near the castle but was then pursued by the King's men and forced to jump into the river. Cadfael is neutral in the quarrel between King and Empress, but agrees to help Godith and Torold escape to Wales with the treasure.

Knowing that the King is about to commandeer horses for his army, Beringar asks Cadfael if there is a hiding place where he can conceal his two most valuable mounts. Cadfael decides to take advantage of the offer and takes the horses to a grange belonging to the Abbey, south of Shrewsbury. The next night, he recovers the treasure from the river and carries it to the grange, aware that Beringar is watching him.

To Cadfael's alarm, Sheriff Prescote raids the Abbey earlier than he had expected, to confiscate horses and to search for Godith. Cadfael's workshop is empty, to Cadfael's bewilderment, but Aline Siward tells him that Godith hid in her quarters at the first sign of trouble. (Though she is formally on Stephen's side, Aline has no interest in helping his men catch a young girl). Torold has also been forced to flee from the mill. He is convinced that Beringar saw him, but merely observed and did not raise the alarm.

That night, Cadfael meets Torold and Godith at the grange, to depart for Wales on Beringar's horses with the treasure, but Beringar appears with a pair of archers and tells them to surrender. However, Beringar's intentions are honourable; he has planned all along to let Godith escape to safety while securing the treasure, which he considers fair game, for the King. With his blessing, Godith and Torold depart for Wales on his horses. Hugh wryly comments that "she won't come to her father a virgin." Cadfael rejoins that she will likely come to her father a wife.

Cadfael and Beringar walk good-naturedly back to the Abbey, with Beringar carrying the saddlebags with FitzAlan's treasure. On reaching Cadfael's workshop, he is stunned to find them filled with stones; with a little sleight of hand, Cadfael had retrieved the treasure out of Beringar's sight, and left it in a convenient spot for Godith and Torold to pick up on their way. Beringar laughs at himself for being fooled, but is mystified that the saddlebags also contain Faintree's old clothes and the dagger pommel. It was a trap, but Cadfael is now satisfied that Beringar had no part in Faintree's murder. The two decide to cooperate to determine the truth.

While Beringar searches among King Stephen's soldiers for Giles Siward's dagger, Cadfael goes into Shrewsbury and encounters a beggar, Lame Osbern, who is wearing Giles Siward's cloak, a charitable gift from Aline. Osbern relates that on the night before the final assault on the castle, a man wearing the same cloak slipped into the Royal encampment and asked to see the King. Instead, he was taken to the officer of the watch, and returned to the castle, much relieved. Beringar, meanwhile, has not found the dagger, but has heard that when the garrison were hanged, a young officer was deliberately selected to die first, and was dragged to his death screaming that he had been promised his life.

Cadfael and Beringer are certain that the night before the castle fell, Giles Siward slipped into the siege camp and betrayed FitzAlan's plan to remove his treasury, to the officer of the watch - Courcelle - in exchange for his life. Courcelle, rather than reporting the matter to the King, arranged for Giles to be hanged first, and then laid a trap for Faintree and Blund, hoping to take the treasure for himself. It was also Courcelle who robbed the dagger from Giles's corpse, and was wearing it when he fought with Blund in the barn, where it was broken. When he realised that the man he had betrayed was Aline's brother, he presumably discarded the dagger rather than let her see it.

Cadfael's and Hugh's last chance to present their evidence against Courcelle is during the banquet at the castle on the King's final night in Shrewsbury, even though they lack Giles's dagger. Cadfael attends the feast, to wait on Heribert. He goes into the kitchens to fetch wine, and finds a boy cutting vegetables with a fine dagger missing its pommel.

While Cadfael is in the kitchens, Beringar accuses Courcelle in front of the King of the murder of Faintree and the theft of the dagger. Courcelle is scornful and defiant but Cadfael produces the kitchen boy, who unhesitatingly points out Courcelle as the man who threw the dagger into the river. The King himself determines that it matches the pommel stone, and Aline identifies it as belonging to Giles. The King is impatient to move on and cannot spare the time for a proper trial. He and Courcelle accept Beringar's suggestion that the matter be settled by trial by combat.

Beringar and Courcelle fight outside the town the next day, watched by a large crowd, including Aline who has realised that Hugh Beringar is the worthier suitor. They are evenly matched and the contest lasts for some hours. Towards the end of the day, Courcelle's sword breaks, but Hugh chivalrously discards his own and the two fight on with daggers. At the last minute, Courcelle throws his dagger aside and snatches up Hugh's sword to make the kill, but Hugh throws himself at him in a desperate attack. Courcelle lands on his own dagger blade and dies, proving to all witnesses that Hugh has justice upon his side.

With Beringar clearly vindicated by fate, King Stephen appoints him Deputy Sheriff of Shropshire in Courcelle's place. He and Aline are betrothed. Cadfael, who by now is also his firm friend, gives him Giles's dagger, which has been restored by craftsmen at the Abbey, and urges that he never let Aline know the truth of her brother's betrayal and death.

Cadfael concludes by resolving to pray both for Nicholas Faintree, "a clean young man of mind and life", and for Adam Courcelle, "dead in his guilt", because "every untimely death, every man cut down in his vigour and strength without time for repentance and reparation, is one corpse too many."

Historical references

King Stephen, William Fitz-Alan, Abbot Heribert, and Prior Robert Pennant are all real people. Although he was King Stephen's sheriff, Fitz-Alan did go over the Empress Matilda and held Shrewsbury Castle in her name,^[2] and as noted above, Stephen hanged all the defenders of the castle after taking it.

Television and radio adaptation

One Corpse Too Many was the first Cadfael book to be adapted for television by Carlton Media for distribution world wide, in 1994. The "Cadfael" series eventually extended to thirteen episodes, all of which starred Sir Derek Jacobi as the sleuthing monk. The series was filmed mostly in Hungary. The adaptation for One Corpse Too Many stuck closely to the original novel, with only minor plot or script deviations to cater for the different medium.

The book was also adapted for BBC Radio 4, starring Glyn Houston as Brother Cadfael. It has several times been rebroadcast on BBC Radio 7.

Notes

1. ^ Secret Shropshire
2. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica

External links

• One Corpse Too Many at the Internet Movie Database