"Brother, peace be with thee, from the Lord of peace, all good Saints aid thee; say nought of this to any one but me and thou wilt be safe."
He touched the bell, the infirmarer came in.
"God hath touched his heart, he will join our order; as soon as possible he shall take the vows of a novice and assume our garb, then neither Brian Fitz-Count nor any other potentate, not the king himself, can drag him forth."
The last words were uttered in a sort of soliloquy, the infirmarer, for whom they were not meant, did not catch them.
* * * * *
And so the days sped on towards the Feast of All Saints, darkening days and long nights too, often reddened by the light of distant conflagrations, for that terrible period of civil strife—nay, of worse than civil strife—was approaching, when, instead of there being only two parties in the land, each castle was to become its own centre of strife—declaring war upon all its neighbours; when men should fear to till the land for others to reap; when every man's hand should be against every man; when men should fill their strongholds with human devils, and torture for torture sake, when there was no longer wealth to exact; when men should say that God and His Saints were asleep—to such foul misery and distress did the usurpation of Stephen bring the land.
But those days were only beginning, as yet the tidings reached Dorchester slowly that the Empress was the guest of her mother-in-law, the Queen-Dowager, the widow of Henry the First, at Arundel Castle, in Sussex, under the protection of only a hundred and forty horsemen; then, that Robert, Earl of Gloucester, leaving his sister in comparative safety, had proceeded through the hostile country to Bristol with only twelve horsemen, until he was joined midway on his journey by Brian Fitz-Count and his troop from Wallingford Castle; next, that Henry, Bishop of Winchester, and brother of the king, had declared for her, and brought her in triumph to Bristol. Lastly, that she had been conducted by her old friend, Milo, Sheriff of Gloucester, in triumph to that city, and there received the allegiance of the citizens.
Meanwhile, the storm of fire and sword had begun; wicked men took advantage at once of the divided state of the realm, and the eclipse of the royal authority.
They heard at Dorchester that Robert Fitz-Hubert, a savage baron, or rather barbarian, had clandestinely entered the city of Malmesbury and burnt it to the ground, so that divers of the wretched inhabitants perished in the flames, of which the barbarian boasted as though he had obtained a great triumph, declaring himself on the side of the Empress Queen; and, further, that King Stephen, hearing of the deed, had come after him, put him to flight, and retaken Malmesbury Castle.