It is August in the Year of Our Lord 1138. Civil War rages across England between Stephen de Blois, King of England (Michael Grandage) and Matilda "Maud" de Normandie, one-time Holy Roman Empress and present Countess of Anjou, and the town of Shrewsbury near the border of England and Wales is caught in the crossfire. After Stephen storms Shrewsbury Castle and executes ninety-four soldiers who had supported Empress Maud, the local Benedictine monastery at Shrewsbury Abbey asks leave to give the dead men a Christian burial. That task falls to apothecary Brother Cadfael (Derek Jacobi), who realizes that there are, in fact, ninety-five corpses to bury, "one corpse too many". He examines the extra body and deduces that the man was murdered rather than executed—strangled on the ground instead of hanged—and concludes that the victim was deliberately placed among the executed men to conceal the crime.

As Cadfael searches for answers, he encounters Hugh Beringar (Sean Pertwee), a shrewd young nobleman with ambiguous loyalties. Initially suspected of being a spy for Empress Maud, Hugh soon proves himself to be an honorable man, albeit one seeking his own advantage in the shifting political landscape. Meanwhile, Aline Siward (Maggie O Neill), a young woman from Shrewsbury, desperately searches for her missing brother Giles (Nigel Hastings), who had fought for Maud, while Godric (Juliette Caton), a young novice whom the abbey assigns to Cadfael, turns out to secretly be the daughter of one of Maud's supporters and Hugh's intended.

Cadfael discovers that the murdered man, Nicholas Faintree (Bill Neville), was a fellow supporter of Maud sent to smuggle Lord FitzAlan's (Michael Cadman) treasury to France, and his inquiries uncover a plot involving the treacherous Adam Courcelle (Christian Burgess), who had an interest in silencing the victim. With Hugh's reluctant assistance, Cadfael unravels the mystery and brings the true culprit to justice.

In the process, Hugh Beringar solidifies his position by swearing loyalty to King Stephen, ensuring his own survival and eventual rise in rank. Meanwhile, Cadfael ensures that justice is done while remaining true to his own sense of morality.

Tropes in this episode:

• Accidental Pervert: When Godith (as "Godric") is scolding Torold Blund that he needs to stay in bed and let himself heal, he decides to show off how healed he is with some good-natured wrestling with Cadfael's "boy" assistant. Then his hand lands on the "boy"'s chest, and he freezes, feeling something that definitely shouldn't be there...
• Actionized Adaptation: Zigzagged. Stephen's men Storming the Castle, and Torold's subsequent moments of Assassin Outclassin' and escaping Stephen's patrols are shown rather than merely mentioned, but the trial-by-combat sequence is cut from several hours to a couple of minutes in real-time.
• Adaptational Jerkass: In the book, King Stephen is outraged by the news of a murderer carrying out a cowardly sneak attack on the road and using Stephen's lawful execution of the garrison to hide his crime, and promises Cadfael whatever support he needs. In the episode, Stephen says the death of one man is too trivial for his time, especially when the army is due to leave Shrewsbury in four days. Cadfael insinuates that if the King does nothing, Maude's partisans will seize on it as proof that Stephen is a "lawless" usurper rather than the rightful heir to the throne. Stephen sourly takes the point.
• Adaptational Romance Downgrade: The episode indicates a romantic attraction between Hugh and Aline Siward—she steals a kiss from him when he and Cadfael visit her partway through the episode—but this isn't explored any further after the King's banquet, and she never appears in the series again. In the original Brother Cadfael novel the episode is based on, they got married at the end, and she remained as a recurring character.
• Adaptational Villainy: In the episode, Stephen orders the entire garrison executed on his own initiative, seemingly out of spite for Fitzalan's treasury having gotten away. In the book, he did so in a Moment of Weakness under prodding from Adam and Prestcote (novelist Ellis Peters' explanation for an event that was historically out of character for King Stephen). He also cares less about the murder or the extra corpse and personally oversees the brutal torture of rebel castellan Arnulf rather than just give vague instructions to see if they can force any information out of him. Downplayed since Stephen isn't technically an antagonist at any point.
• Arranged Marriage: Exploited by Hugh Beringar. King Stephen reacts to his attempt to swear fealty with suspicion, noting among other things that Hugh is betrothed to Godith Adeney, a supporter of Empress Maud. Hugh deflects this by pointing out that the match was made when they were both children; he is currently romantically involved with Aline Siward.
• Artistic License – History:
  • The court language of England was still Norman French at this time, since The House of Normandy were, well, Normans, and would remain so until Henry IV and his successors. All dialogue involving King Stephen in this episode is in English, likely as Translation Convention (the common-born characters likewise don't speak period-accurate Middle English anytime in the series).
  • Cadfael refers to opium poppy by its Latin classification, Papaver somniferum. The Linnaean taxonomy system was not invented for centuries after the show's setting, therefore doubling as Improbable Taxonomy Skills.
  • Godith rides in a very nice forward-facing sidesaddle with a leaping horn... which wouldn't be invented for another seven hundred years. This is typical with period productions, as a real medieval sidesaddle — which did indeed face sideways and didn't allow the rider to control her own horse — is an insurance and safety nightmare; using the Victorian version allows A Lady Rides Aside to be in play and keeps the general 'period' feel of the film while minimizing physical risks.
• Assassin Outclassin': Torold Blund is attacked from concealment by Nick Faintree's killer, but manages to hit his attacker with a piece of wood he breaks off of a nearby manger and escapes while the man is stunned.
• Bathroom Break-Out: Two of the Empress's men escape the doomed castle by sliding down a waste chute into a manure pile.
• Bond One-Liner: "I trust I have proven my case," says Hugh to King Stephen after winning Trial by Combat against Courcelle via accidentally rolling him onto his own weapon. Stephen replies, "Your opponent proved it for you."
• Cheaters Never Prosper: Adam Courcelle fights dirty as hell in the Trial by Combat, starting with a Shield Bash to the back of Hugh's (helmeted) head before the official start of the duel. Hugh ultimately proves he's still the better fighter, as well as the more honorable one, so Courcelle ends up dead and Hugh is awarded his job.
• Chekhov's Gun: Cadfael loans a dagger he kept from the Crusades to Torold Blund in case he's discovered, but he leaves it behind when he hides from a search party and it's stolen by Adam Courcelle. Courcelle draws it in his duel with Hugh after losing his sword, but it's knocked out of his hands and he's ultimately killed when Hugh inadvertently rolls him onto it.
• Combat Breakdown: The duel between Hugh and Courcelle quickly degenerates from an honorable duel between highborn men-at-arms with sword-and-board, to both combatants losing their swords and shields and drawing knives, to an all-out brawl that ends as a wrestling match.
• Combat Pragmatist: Deconstructed. When Hugh challenges Courcelle to Trial by Combat, his opponent fights dirty as hell, cheap-shotting him before the start of the match and taking every dirty opportunity during it to try to get the upper hand. When Courcelle rolls back-first onto his own dagger that sank blade-up into the earth after trying to use it on Hugh during yet another dirty trick, King Stephen, who is overseeing proceedings, notes that it's the man's clear opportunism and lack of scruples as much as Hugh's victory that's convinced him of the killer's guilt.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Hugh is grudgingly impressed that Cadfael outwitted him with both Godith and FitzAlan's treasury, and honorable enough to still want the King's justice carried out in regards to the murder of Nicholas Faintree, which sows the seeds of their series-long friendship.
• Dirty Coward:
  • Giles Siward is one of the Empress's men but is terrified of dying to Stephen's forces. He first tries to volunteer to carry Lord FitzAlan's treasury to Maud so that he can escape the assault on the castle, then when he's passed over in favor of Nick and Torold (because they aren't known in the area and thus won't be identified on sight as loyalists of Maud), he tries to blow the whistle on them to King Stephen in exchange for his life. During the actual assault he hides in an outbuilding instead of fighting. None of his attempts are successful and he goes to the gallows with the rest of the garrison.
  • Courcelle also qualifies, despite his willingness to fight in the front line during the storming of Shrewsbury Castle. When Giles enters the garrison and offers to betray FitzAlan's treasury in exchange for his life, Courcelle pretends to accept, then delivers Giles to the hangman and secretly accosts the couriers with the treasury, strangling them from behind. During his fight with Hugh, he tries to gain an advantage by bashing him with his shield from behind. After being disarmed of his sword, he draws his dagger, and Hugh decides to fight fair by discarding his sword and shield and drawing his own dagger. Courcelle maneuvers the fight back to his own sword, snatches it up and tries to fillet Hugh. Fittingly, he gets impaled in the back on his own dagger.
    Hugh: I trust I have proven my case?
    Stephen: Your opponent proved it for you, all too well.
• Duel to the Death: Adam Courcelle demands a Trial by Combat between himself and Hugh after he and Cadfael accuse him of murder, which Stephen grants. Hugh kills him in their duel, and is awarded Courcelle's job.
• The End of the Beginning: Shrewsbury belongs to the King, there's a new Sheriff in town, and Cafael has a Friend on the Force. Everything is in place for a series of adventures.
  Hugh Beringar: I would know more of you, Cadfael. In this new town of mine I shall need a good friend, and I can think of none better than a rare Benedictine.
  Cadfael: Then in this end there is a beginning as well. And that is as it should be.
• Establishing Character Moment: Cadfael establishes his credentials as a Badass Preacher from the Crusades when he intervenes in a fight and knocks a sword from the hands of an aggressive soldier.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: Not for the last time, Hugh ends up caught between his fealty to King Stephen and his loyalty to his friends. He takes a job from Stephen to hunt down his fiancee Godith so she can be taken hostage, but ultimately lets her go rather than harm her or her protector Cadfael. He does try to take the saddlebags containing FitzAlan's treasury for the King, but Cadfael outwits him by replacing the treasure with rocks.
• The Ghost: Despite the importance of her bid for the throne to the plot, Empress Maud never appears: historically she was Countess of Anjou at the time and was in France.
• Glove Slap: Or Glove Throw, rather: when challenging Courcelle to Trial by Combat, Hugh hurriedly pulls off one of his gloves and throws it into Courcelle's chest, mainly to keep Cadfael from revealing evidence that could be damaging to his lady love Aline Siward.
• Historical Domain Character:
  • Series regulars Abbot Heribert and Prior Robert are both historical officers of the monastery at Shrewsbury Abbey.
  • Stephen de Blois of The House of Normandy is played by Michael Grandage throughout the episode, which is set during and after his historical 1138 siege of Shrewsbury Castle and the execution of its pro-Maud garrison.
  • A significant plot point revolves around the treasury of Lord William FitzAlan (played by Michael Cadman), the historical owner of Shrewsbury Castle and a supporter of Maud. He escapes when Stephen storms the castle, but his uncle Arnulf de Hesdin (Jeremy Young) is captured and executed by Stephen.
• Hoist With His Own Petard: Courcelle appropriates the dagger Cadfael gifted to Torold Blund and uses it in his duel with Hugh. It gets flung away in the fight and sticks into the ground point up. When they are wrestling on the ground, Courcelle inadvertently rolls onto the dagger and gets stabbed in the back.
• Honor Before Reason: In contrast to his Combat Pragmatist opponent, Hugh fights as fairly as he possibly can, even unnecessarily discarding weapons that his opponent has lost so that their armaments remain equal and fair. This impresses King Stephen, who historically believed very strongly in chivalry and honor.
• Improbable Taxonomy Skills: Cadfael once refers to opium poppy by its Latin classification, Papaver somniferum, apparently knowing Linnaean taxonomy six centuries early.
• Ironic Echo:
  Cadfael: Would you like to taste my wine?
  Hugh: Gladly. And I'll drink to your better success, against all opponents but Hugh Beringar.
  (opens the treasure sack and finds rocks)
  Cadfael: (handing him wine) Now I'll drink to your better success, against all opponents but Cadfael.
• Karmic Jackpot: Double-subverted, to a point. Hugh agrees to let his betrothed escape with the man she loves rather than deliver her to curry royal favor with King Stephen, but intends to take the treasury they're escaping with... but then discovers Cadfael has outsmarted him and he's only confiscated worthless rocks. Later, he takes the risk of fighting the murderer in a deadly Trial by Combat, and deliberately gives up many advantages to keep the fight fair, even as his dishonorable opponent repeatedly cheap-shots and otherwise seizes on every possible advantage he can take, and is rewarded with victory and his opponent's old job and title, as well as, it's implied, the hand of the woman he does want to marry. But it's worth noting that in this second case, Hugh might have been playing to his audience; King Stephen was a man who was known to respect and admire chivalry and showing himself to be honest and honorable lends weight to his accusation against an opponent who's showing his own unscrupulous opportunism.
• Last-Ditch Dagger: Brother Cadfael gave up most of his weapons when he retired as a soldier and took the cloth, but kept a finely made dagger, which he loans to Torold Blund while the man is hiding in Cadfael's workshop. That dagger is then stolen by Adam Courcelle, who, to Cadfael's horror, draws it as a backup weapon when Hugh Beringar disarms him in their Duel to the Death. In order to keep the fight fair, Beringar drops his sword and shield and draws his own dagger, and Courcelle ends up dropping Cadfael's dagger and then accidentally rolls onto it, killing him.
• Love Triangle: Exploited by Adam Courcelle. He and Hugh are both pursuing Aline Siward, which he uses in an attempt to deflect Hugh's accusation that he murdered Nicholas Faintree.
• Needle in a Stack of Needles: And if Cadfael hadn't been so observant as to notice the extra corpse and the manner of its death, it would have worked.
• Neutral in Name Only: The episode lightly implies that even though the Benedictines are supposed to be above such things as the Succession Crisis, Cadfael is a sympathizer of Empress Maud: he didn't exactly have to let Godith and Torold get away with Walter FitzAlan's treasury.
• No True Scotsman: Searching her brother's body and belongings, Aline Siward notes the absence of his jeweled dagger. Hugh says the King's Flemish mercenaries wouldn't be above robbing the dead, but the thief turns out to be Courcelle, who helped himself to the dagger after sending Giles to the hangman.
• Out-Gambitted: Hugh persuades Cadfael to help him hide his two best horses lest they be commandeered by the King, and uses that to find the place where Cadfael intends to rendezvous with Torold Blund. Cadfael knows he's spying on them, however, and hides FitzAlan's treasury at a dead drop elsewhere. He then plays on Hugh's Conflicting Loyalties to get him to let Blund and Godith go in exchange for the saddlebags that had contained the treasury, but now just contain rocks.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Godith as a male novice. She doesn't even bother to cut her hair. Cadfael does see through it immediately, but it's implied that it's due to his experience in the world. It takes Torold Blund accidentally grabbing her chest for anyone else to figure it out.
• Private Military Contractors: Stephen relies heavily on Flemish mercenaries to augment his army's numbers; being foreigners and ruthlessly professional soldiers makes them unwelcome in Shrewsbury, to say the least.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Before Shrewsbury falls, Giles Siward attempts to notify Stephen's forces that Maud's loyalists are sending a messenger to their allies, and, so he believes, is promised that he will be spared. He gets hanged anyway and is still protesting his innocence as he goes to the gallows.
• Secret Test of Character: Cadfael puts a murder victim's clothing in with a pack Beringar will open to see if he recognizes it. He doesn't, which satisfies Cadfael of Hugh's innocence.
• Shield Bash: Courcelle's opening move in the duel is to whack Hugh in the back of his (helmeted) head with his shield.
• Sinister Suffocation: The killer strangles both Nick Faintree and Torold Blund with a garrotte, though Torold manages to hit his attacker with a piece of a nearby manger and escapes while the man is stunned. The ligature marks left on Faintree's corpse clue in Cadfael that he died by a very different manner of strangulation than the hanged men (short drop was the usual hanging method in the period).
• Sobriquet Sex Switch: Godith Adeney pretends to be a boy named Godric.
• Small Role, Big Impact: FitzAlan is the leader of the rebels holed up in the castle, and his defiance leads to the execution of the garrison, Hugh being appointed deputy sheriff, and the town being more throughly dominated by Stephen, while the treasure he smuggles out of his castle helps finance Queen Maud for years of further warfare. He only has a few lines in the first couple of scenes before being permanently Put on a Bus after escaping the fall of his castle. This is still an improvement over the books, where he is The Ghost. (Historically, his impact went well beyond the events portrayed in this episode: after Maud lost the war, he befriended King David I of Scotland and ended up becoming the forefather of The House of Stuart!)
• Spotting the Thread: Cadfael notices there's one more corpse among the dead rebels than he was told, finds one that was strangled with a garrote rather than hanged, and realizes someone tried to conceal a murder victim among the dead.
• Storming the Castle: The episode briefly depicts the final assault on Shrewsbury Castle by King Stephen's army. They breach the front gate with a battering ram and rush inside, while several of the Empress's men escape through passages in the walls. Particular attention is paid to Lord FitzAlan's squires Nicholas Faintree and Torold Blund, who use the assault as a distraction to swim the moat with their lord's treasury, planning to smuggle it to Maud in France via Wales; and Giles Siward, who tries to hide in an outbuilding rather than fight. Two other men, Godith's father and FitzAlan escape down a trash chute and race off into the forest.
• Succession Crisis: The episode takes place with the historical Civil War between Empress Maud, daughter and designated heir of Henry I, and Stephen de Blois, Henry's nephew who seized the throne, as the backdrop, with the Inciting Incident being somebody trying to conceal a murder amidst Stephen's historical mass execution of the Shrewsbury Castle garrison.
• Sweet Polly Oliver: Godith Adeney, daughter of a pro-Maud officer, is taken to the Abbey to hide out as a male novice named Godric. Cadfael picks her out as a girl immediately and keeps her true identity a secret.
• Take Up My Sword: A villainous example. Cadfael gifts a dagger - the last remnant of his service in the Crusades - to Torold Blund for self-defence, but Blund has to leave it behind when Courcelle's party searches his hiding place. Courcelle decides to keep it, and Cadfael is stricken when Courcelle draws it in his fight with Hugh.
• Trial by Combat: Played somewhat more realistically than usual. Hugh challenges Adam Courcelle to a duel to keep Cadfael from implicating his lady love in the murder of Nicholas Faintree (they both know she wasn't involved but the circumstances look bad for her). Stephen agrees because the evidence presented is less-than-conclusive, but if he doesn't settle things quickly, it's going to be a massive pain in the rear for his campaign against the Empress's men. Hugh ultimately wins, but it's as much the un-chivalrous behavior by Courcelle during the duel—something Stephen was historically known to dislike—contrasted with Hugh's refusal to do likewise, that convinces him of Courcelle's guilt.
• Warrior Monk: Cadfael may be a gardener and a healer at the abbey, but he used to be soldier, and don't you forget it. When one of the Flemings is abusing a town vagrant, Cadfael grabs his arm and growls, "leave him be!" The Fleming shakes loose, draws his sword and pokes it into Cadfael's chest. Then he looks over his shoulder to share a laugh with his comrades, and Cadfael disarms him effortlessly.
• War Was Beginning: The episode starts In Medias Res with the historical siege of Shrewsbury Castle in 1138, which kicked off fifteen years of Civil War between King Stephen and Empress Maud.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: Stephen offers Hugh the late, unlamented Adam Courcelle's job as deputy sheriff following their duel, which he accepts.
• Your Reward Is Your Life: Subverted with Giles Siward, a Dirty Coward who informs King Stephen's forces that Walter Fitzalan plans to smuggle his treasury out of Shrewsbury Castle ahead of its expected fall. He believes he has the King's promise to spare his life in exchange, but he's hanged with the rest of the garrison instead.