When Christ and His Saints Slept

28

Devizes Castle, England

June 1143

June was a good month for Maude; her son was back at Devizes Castle. His visits were never long enough, left her yearning for more. But boys of Henry’s age did not belong with their mothers. Only a man could teach them the navigational skills they would need to reach the distant shores of manhood. Or so Society and the Church dictated. Maude had reluctantly acquiesced, entrusting Henry into her brother’s keeping, for motherhood could not compete with kingship. No matter what she must do or endure or sacrifice, it would be worth it-on the day her stolen crown was placed upon Henry’s head. That, she did not dare to doubt.

On this sultry June Saturday, Ranulf and Hugh de Plucknet had taken Henry on a hunt in the royal forest of Melksham, and they did not return till dusk, grimy and sweat-soaked and tired and triumphant. This was Henry’s first hunt, and his enthusiasm was so intense that his audience knew it was witnessing the birth of a lifelong passion. One of his arrows had helped to bring down a hart, and with each telling, the tines on the stag’s antlers grew more numerous and awesome. Maude listened patiently as he relived the hunt for her, praising the lymer hounds and recounting the chase and describing in detail the moment when their quarry turned at bay. But when he started to explain how a skilled tracker could determine a stag’s size by the shape of its droppings, Maude called a halt.

“Deer droppings? That explains why you smell so ripe,” she teased, and Henry grinned, for being dirty and bedraggled was part of the fun. “Go bathe and then you can come back and teach me all about the mysteries of deer dung,” she promised, and he began grumbling good-naturedly about taking a bath, bargaining for a lesser washup, not conceding defeat until Ranulf weighed in on Maude’s side.

“You need not bathe, Harry, not as long as you stay downwind at supper,” he suggested, and Henry grinned again, for he was old enough now to laugh at himself. But Maude turned to look at her brother in surprise.

“‘Harry’?” she echoed. “Where did that come from?”

“You did not tell your mother yet, lad? He wants to be called ‘Harry’ from now on.”

Just as Henry had feared, his mother’s brows slanted downward in a disapproving frown, and he said hastily, “Why not, Mama? I’ve always hated Henry; it sounds like the name of a priest or…or some peddler’s nag. It is just not a heroic name, Mama. I like ‘Harry’ much better, and that is the way the English say Henry, and since I’m to be king of the English, I ought to have an English name, and-” At that point, he broke off, not having run out of arguments, just out of breath. But before he could rally, Maude shook her head.

“Henry is what you were christened, and Henry you will remain. Nicknames are undignified.”

Ranulf started to speak, stopped himself. Henry was not as prudent. His disappointment was too sharp to swallow; instead, he let it out in anger, saying accusingly, “That is not fair! It is my name, not yours!”

“That is so,” Maude conceded coolly, “but it is also so that you are ten years old. Once you are grown, you may call yourself whatever you choose. Until then, you must make do with Henry.”

The obdurate look on her son’s face was one she was becoming all too familiar with. “It is not fair,” he said again, but this time as defiance, not complaint, and when Maude showed no signs of relenting, he turned away abruptly, deliberately knocking over a chair on his way to the door. But he did not get far. His mother’s voice froze him in his tracks.

“Henry, I will not abide such churlish behavior, and you well know it. Go and take your bath-now!”

Ranulf had watched in astonishment, and as soon as Henry had gone, he admitted, “That is the first time I’ve seen the lad flare up like that. Has he done this before?”

“Yes, I am sorry to say. Once when he did not get his way, he broke a pitcher.”

“So…he inherited his share of the infamous Angevin temper, after all.”

“Tempers can be controlled. Geoffrey controls his. No, Ranulf, these fits of temper are not a tainted legacy of the blood. Henry was not given to tantrums, not whilst he was in my care. These sprang up in my absence like weeds, and took root once he saw how well they worked. I suppose it was only to be expected, for Geoffrey was always overly indulgent with our sons, and whilst he was off waging war in Normandy, there were few to say no to Henry or his brothers. That is another reason why I agreed to put Henry into Robert’s keeping, for I knew Robert would never brook disobedience or deliberate mischief.”

“Indeed not,” Ranulf agreed ruefully, remembering his own apprenticeship under Robert’s tutelage; his brother was even more of a disciplinarian than Maude, with no tolerance for tomfoolery. “Robert will set the lad straight if anyone can. But if you do not mind my meddling, I think you were too hard on him about the name. What harm in letting him call himself Harry? Did you never want to change your name? I did, for certes!”

“Truly?” Maude sounded so puzzled that it was obvious this particular childhood craving had eluded her altogether. “What did you want to be called?” she asked curiously, and Ranulf hesitated.

“I’ll tell you only if you promise not to laugh. I was so bedazzled by the hero’s exploits in The Song of Roland that-Maude, you are laughing!”

“No, I am not,” she insisted, untruthfully and unconvincingly. “Roland Fitz Roy…I cannot believe our father countenanced that!”

“You do not think I ever asked Papa? No, that was whilst I was still a page in Stephen’s household, and if memory serves, he called me Roland for nigh on a fortnight-and with a straight face, too-till the whim passed.”

“He would,” Maude said tartly, but she fell silent after that, and Ranulf hoped she was pondering what he’d said; if Geoffrey had to learn how to rein Henry in, she needed to learn how to slacken those reins. Changing the subject, he asked her about Geoffrey’s last letter, and she told him of her husband’s victorious siege of Cherbourg. All of Normandy south and west of the River Seine was now his, she reported, but with a discernible lack of enthusiasm. He understood why; as much as she wanted to see the duchy conquered for Henry, it had to rankle-that Geoffrey was succeeding spectacularly in Normandy, whilst her English campaign was mired down in controversy, buffeted by setbacks and shadowed by defeat.

From Normandy, their conversation shifted to the latest news from the French court. Urged on by Eleanor, the French king had invaded Champagne to punish Count Theobald for championing Raoul de Peronne’s repudiated wife, and the resulting carnage had been shocking even to an age inured to bloodshed and civilian casualties. When the French army had swept into the town of Vitry-sur-Marne and laid siege to one of Theobald’s castles, the frightened townspeople had taken refuge in their church. But when the town was fired, the wind shifted and the flames spread to the church. Within moments, it became an inferno, and few escaped; more than thirteen hundred bodies were later found in the smoldering ruins. The young French king was a horrified eyewitness, and his sleep was said to be haunted by those dying screams even now, six months after Vitry’s fiery death throes. But the king’s anguished conscience had not bidden him to withdraw his troops from Champagne, and the campaign continued.

It was, Ranulf and Maude agreed, incredible folly-fighting a war to vindicate an illicit love affair. When her own peace was troubled by memories of the terrible suffering in Winchester, Maude confided, at least she knew her cause was just; her son’s kingship was worth fighting for, even dying for.

Henry chose that moment to reenter the chamber. His mother and uncle scowled at sight of him, and his disgrace stung anew, for their good opinion mattered greatly to him. “You could not possibly have taken a bath already,” Maude said suspiciously, and he readily admitted that he had not.

“The servants are fetching the bathwater. But I did wash my face and hands and even my neck…see?” he said, tugging aside his tunic to show a patch of newly scrubbed skin. “I came back, Mama, to say that I was sorry for being rude.”

Maude’s mouth softened. “You deserve to be forgiven, then. But do you know what I would value as much as an apology? Your promise that it will not happen again.”

Henry hesitated. “I’d rather not, Mama,” he said at last. “I cannot be sure I could keep that promise. And if I could not, then my sin would be twofold-rudeness and bad faith, too.”

“Very scrupulous of you, Henry,” Maude said dryly. “But I would suggest that you try to mend your manners in the future, that you try very hard.”

“I will, Mama. I will not throw any more chairs about. And I’ll make no more mention of names, will not ask you again to call me Harry,” he said solemnly, and then heaved a wistful sigh. “Papa will agree, and I’ll just have to settle for that.”

Ranulf coughed to camouflage a laugh, while Maude wavered between exasperation and amusement. “I may not know as much about military tactics as your uncles, but that is one I do recognize-divide and conquer, no?” Henry grinned at being caught out, and she beckoned him forward. “Fortunately for you, your uncle Ranulf has been pleading your case, and he would have made a worthy lawyer, for he convinced me that Harry is a fitting name for an English king.”

“Thank you, Mama! And you, too, Uncle Ranulf!” Henry beamed at them both. “But you’d best write and tell Uncle Robert that you agree. I asked him last week, and he looked at me like I’d lost my wits!”

Henry had no time to savor his triumph, for a sudden commotion had erupted out in the bailey, demanding investigation. Darting across the chamber, he knelt on the window seat and leaned recklessly out the window. “Armed riders,” he reported breathlessly, “lots of them! And one of them is your friend, Uncle Ranulf-Gilbert Fitz John!”

Gilbert bore an urgent summons for Ranulf and Maude’s household knights. “You know, my lady, how Stephen tried to recapture Wareham Castle, but backed off once he saw how well defended it was. He has since moved into Wiltshire, and he is now at Wilton.”

Ranulf and Maude exchanged glances, for Wilton was only twenty-one miles from Devizes. “What does Robert think he has in mind? An attack on us?”

“Possibly. Earl Robert’s spies have warned him that Stephen has sent out writs, summoning his lords and vassals to Wilton. In the meantime, he has taken over the nunnery, is using it as an outpost whilst he builds a castle. He could then isolate Salisbury, since the river crossing is at Wilton, and threaten all our holdings in the west. But he has made a grievous mistake, madame, for Wilton cannot withstand a siege, not yet.”

“Robert means to take him by surprise?”

Gilbert nodded. “He sent me to fetch you, Ranulf, and as many men as Lady Maude can spare. He wants us to ride on to Marlborough and alert John Marshal. He and Lord Miles will join us there, and then swoop down upon Wilton without warning.” Gilbert smiled grimly. “God Willing,” he said, “it will be another Lincoln.”

Wilton was situated at the conflux of the Rivers Nadder and Wylye. It had a prestigious past, for it had once been a royal borough of the Saxon princes. It was still an important town, with a thriving market, the wealthy and renowned abbey of St Mary, which regularly drew pilgrims to its shrine of St Edith, and the hospital of St Giles, founded by a queen, the old king’s Adeliza.

But Stephen’s arrival had shattered the security and threatened the prosperity of its citizens. The market had attracted customers from all the neighboring villages, but no more, for few were willing to visit a town occupied by soldiers. The local tradesmen suffered, too, and their shops remained shuttered. The town’s Jews had been the first to flee, for they knew from bitter experience that they were the most vulnerable in times of upheaval. Some of the citizens-those with daughters or young wives-had sent their families to the greater safety of Salisbury. The dispossessed nuns had found shelter at the nearby nunnery in Amesbury. Most of the townspeople, though, had nowhere to go.

And so they kept indoors as much as possible, watched the slow progress of Stephen’s castle, and prayed that once it was done, he and his men would ride off and leave them in peace. But as soured as their luck seemed to them that June, it was about to get far worse.

The first day of July got off to a bumpy start for Stephen; he had an uncomfortable audience with the abbess of St Mary’s Abbey, and his charm and promises had not placated her in the least. Then one of their scouts reported that armed riders had been spotted to the north. Since the three closest castles in that direction-Ludgershall, Marlborough, and Devizes-were all hostile, Stephen dispatched the Earl of Northampton and a contingent of Ypres’s Flemings to investigate and engage the enemy if need be. He was just sitting down to dinner with his brother the bishop in the abbey’s great hall when a bleeding youth burst in, breathlessly gasping out his bad news as he stumbled toward them. The Earl of Northampton had run into trouble, for the force was larger than they’d expected. They’d skirmished with the enemy and were attempting to retreat back toward the town, but they needed help, and fast. By then chairs were being shoved back, trenchers pushed aside. Within moments, the hall had been emptied of all save the bishop, his clerics, and servants. The other men were already out the door, shouting for their horses.

Galloping out of the abbey precincts, Stephen led his men up East Street and onto the road north. It was a hot day, the sun at its zenith, for it was almost noon, and their horses kicked up clouds of dry, choking dust. Stephen could feel sweat trickling down his ribs, and even before the town receded into the distance, his head had begun to throb under the weight of his helmet. Fighting in the heat of high summer was almost as debilitating as a winter campaign. But he was usually impervious to the discomforts of weather, and he wondered if he was beginning to feel the aches and woes of age; after all, he was forty-seven now, and his youth was long gone.

“I’m getting too old for all this excitement,” he said wryly to William de Ypres. But the Fleming, who seemed as ageless to Stephen as Wiltshire’s eternal oaks, merely glanced over at him with a bemused frown, his every thought already focused upon the coming conflict. And then they heard it, the clamor of fighting up ahead. Spurring their horses, they charged forward.

They came upon a scene of chaos and impending catastrophe. Northampton and his men were in retreat, with their foes in close pursuit. “Holy Christ,” Stephen breathed, for he knew at once what he was seeing. This was no foray into hostile territory, no scouting expedition to test Wilton’s defenses. He was facing an enemy army, and even before he saw it, he knew whose banner they were flying. Only one man could have assembled a large fighting force with such deadly speed and accuracy-just as he’d done at Lincoln.

Ypres had come to the same appalled conclusion. “God smite him,” he swore, “it is that misbegotten hellspawn, Gloucester!”

Stephen hastily unsheathed his sword. By now Northampton’s men were almost upon them. Within moments, they’d been sucked into the battle. There was so much confusion that men struck down their own comrades by mistake, for it was no easy task, identifying the enemy in the midst of a maelstrom. Dust clogged their throats, stung their eyes, and the glare of the sun on the metal of chain mail and swords was blinding. Horses reared up, savaged one another as they collided, and when they fell, dragged their riders down with them. Stephen was soon splattered with blood. So far none of it was his…yet. But they were outnumbered, off balance, and if defeat was still inconceivable, it was also inevitable.

“My liege, you’ve got to get away whilst you still can!” William Martel had fought his way to Stephen’s side. “You cannot let them take you-not again!”

“He is right!” Although Ypres was close enough to grab Stephen’s arm, he had to shout to make himself heard. Knowing Stephen’s stubborn streak was apt to surface at the most inconvenient times, he was already anticipating opposition, and rapidly assessing the arguments most likely to convince. Scorning appeals to common sense or safety, he chose to remind Stephen, instead, that “You promised your queen! You vowed no more Lincolns!”

Stephen realized the truth in their entreaties, but flight was an alien instinct, for his code of chivalry had always been long on gallantry, short on realism. His hesitation was almost fatal; a shout went up, one of recognition. “Jesu, the king! There, on the roan stallion!” Ypres seemed almost ready to snatch at his reins, and the other man’s urgency prevailed over Stephen’s own doubts. Swinging his destrier about, he gave the command to retreat.

As Stephen raced his qualms and his enemies back toward Wilton, his steward flung himself into the breach, fighting a desperate rearguard action to save his king from capture, just as Robert had done for Maude at the Le Strete crossing. Because of William Martel’s courageous, doomed stand, Stephen and Ypres and the others were able to reach Wilton. By the time Robert had fought his way into the town, it was too late. Wilton was afire and Stephen was gone.

Robert refused to believe it. At his urging, his men fanned out through Wilton’s narrow streets and lanes, forcing their way into homes, shops, and churches. They concentrated their search upon the commandeered nunnery, and soon flushed out fugitives from the battle. They dragged out sanctuary seekers from the town’s eight churches, infuriating the parish priests. And they discovered coffers and chests for the plundering at the abbey, belongings left behind by Stephen and his men. But they could only confirm the worst of Robert’s fears, that Stephen had indeed escaped.

At the guildhall, Robert was timidly accosted by Wilton’s leading merchants, seeking to deter him from taking out his anger upon their town, in case he was so inclined. They were much relieved to find that he was not, although the damage done-deliberate or not-was already considerable; a number of the houses were in flames and his soldiers had engaged in some selective looting even as they pursued the hunt for Stephen.

The merchants, eager to curry favor with their new conqueror, were able to provide eyewitness accounts of Stephen’s flight. He had ridden into the town at a flat-out gallop, they reported, pausing only to warn the bishop of his peril. He and the Fleming and the Earl of Northampton had then raced off down the road to the south, with the bishop and his retainers not far behind. They were not sparing their horses, could not long maintain such a killing pace, they predicted, but Robert spurned their crumbs of comfort, for he knew Stephen’s brother had a castle less than ten miles away at Downton, where they could obtain fresh mounts.

He went through the motions, sending John Marshall off in pursuit. But it was an empty gesture and he knew it. Stephen had only to avoid the main roads, then circle back and head for safety at Winchester. He’d had his chance and it had come to nothing. In time, he’d accept the loss with grudging grace-but not now, not yet.

Miles was herding prisoners into the marketplace, arguing all the while with several indignant priests. At sight of Robert, the bolder of the two strode over to lodge a complaint against this breach of sanctuary. Robert responded for once not as a diplomat, but as a hunter robbed of his prey, and he rebuffed the priest with a brusque reminder that not all churches could claim the right of sanctuary. The priest retreated, but his banner was snatched up then by a new adversary, no less determined.

“My lord earl, a word with you!” The voice was educated, peremptory, female, and furious. Bearing down upon him was a tall, stately nun, garbed in the stark black of the Benedictine order, coming at such a brisk pace that her flowing garments and wimple caught the wind, giving him the incongruous image of a ship under full sail. He knew without being told that this was the abbess, a woman with a legitimate grievance. But he was in no mood to hear her out, and he started to turn away, leaving Ranulf to mollify her if he could.

He’d taken but a few steps, though, before he heard his name echoing across the square, and this was a voice so familiar that he spun around in astonishment. He’d not noticed the second nun. As Ranulf deftly intercepted the abbess, her companion cried out again, “Robert, wait!”

He did, for she was family, Hawise Fitz Hamon, his wife’s younger sister. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “We heard all the nuns had been moved to the convent at Amesbury.”

“I came back with the abbess, hoping to shame the king into returning our abbey to us. What we got for our pains, though, were smiles and fair words. And now…with your men swarming over the nunnery like bees at a hive, I shudder to think what we will find. We need to fight the fires you started if the town and abbey are not to burn to the ground.”

“It is being done,” he said, and she turned, saw that Ranulf was indeed responding to the abbess’s demand. But she did not seem satisfied, continuing to glare at her brother-in-law, arms akimbo, chin jutting out, looking eerily like Amabel, camouflaged for some unlikely reason as a nun.

“It will take our nunnery years to recover from this outrage,” she said angrily, and he reminded her, no less sharply, that the abbey’s adversity was Stephen’s doing, for he was the one who’d seized it for his own purposes.

“Of course Stephen is at fault,” she snapped. “But what does that matter now, with our town in flames and the abbey plundered? Look around you, Robert, at what you and Stephen have brought to Wilton. What did we do to deserve this misery? You think that burned-out wain-right cares whether the crown goes to Stephen or Maude? I assure you his only worry is how he is going to feed his family now that his shop has been gutted. Ask the draper in Frog Lane, his shelves plucked bare and every scrap of cloth stolen. Ask my sisters in Christ, forced to take refuge in Amesbury whilst God’s Acre is turned into a killing ground!”

“Hawise, enough! Innocents suffer in war. You think I do not know that? I sympathize, but-”

“Sympathy makes a poor gruel, Robert, fills no empty stomachs. Just tell me this, in all honesty. How much longer is this accursed war to continue?”

“I thought,” he said bitterly, “to end it here and now-at Wilton. Suppose you answer a question for me, Sister Hawise. Tell me why the Almighty chose to let Stephen escape, to let the war go on.”

She looked at him in silence, having no answer for him. But he’d not expected one.

AS hot and dry as July was, August was even more parched and scorching. A people usually starved for sun now had too much of it, and the crops began to wither in the fields. To a troubled, lawless land came new woes in this eighth year of Stephen’s reign-a fear of famine.

Matilda was walking across the garth toward Westminster’s abbey church, accompanied by Cecily, and her confessor, Christian. The subject was one dear to her heart, the distribution of alms to Christ’s poor, but she found herself increasingly distracted, for Eustace and Constance were quarreling again.

They had the sense to keep their voices low, but Matilda could still hear more than she wanted to. Constance’s usual weapon was silence, a tactical retreat into an inner fortress where Eustace could not follow. But this afternoon, she was speaking up, insisting stubbornly, “I did not!” “Yes, you did!” Eustace countered, with the certainty he brought to all issues, and Matilda shot them a warning glance over her shoulder.

She did not seek, though, to learn the nature of their quarrel, for she well knew they disagreed over trifles. Their arguments were superficial, their differences so deep they burned to the bone. Eustace was thirteen now, Constance a year older, and they were getting dangerously close to the day she dreaded, the day when they were old enough to share a bed as man and wife. She already knew the marriage was a mistake; consummation would be throwing clods of dirt upon the coffin.

“Eustace!” There was so much alarm in Constance’s cry that Matilda spun around, half fearful of what she would see. But for once Eustace was not the cause of his young wife’s dismay; she was staring across the garth at the men just emerging into the sunlight, her blonde fairness fading into an ashen, greyish pallor. Eustace pulled her in behind him, at once protective and defiant, for in this alone were they utterly united: in their shared loathing for Geoffrey de Mandeville.

Mandeville never even noticed them. He was carrying on an intense, angry conversation with William de Warenne, but he broke off at sight of Matilda and strode toward her. “I am glad you are here, madame. Mayhap you can talk some sense into the king.”

Matilda’s reply was icy enough to defy the oppressive August heat. “It is not my place to question the judgment of the King’s Grace, my lord earl.”

Mandeville did not have the sort of incendiary temper that started so many fires for the Earl of Chester. But it burned deep if not hot, and Matilda suspected that he stored away grievances for kindling. His dark eyes narrowing, he said with lethal courtesy, “Correct me if my theology is flawed, madame, but I was taught that infallibility is an attribute of the Pope, not the King of England.”

The temptation to lash back was a strong one, but Matilda had never lacked for control; she could wait. Her pressing need now was to learn the cause of his anger. Fortunately a more reliable source was approaching, and she hastened to intercept William de Ypres so they could speak together in private, with the candor queens were rarely allowed.

Ypres was no less provoked than Geoffrey de Mandeville, and he did not keep Matilda in suspense. “We finally heard from Robert of Gloucester, damn his soul. He has offered to ransom William Martel-for Sherborne Castle.”

“Oh, no…”

He nodded bleakly. “Without Sherborne, we cannot hope to challenge Gloucester’s hold upon the western shires. It is too great a price to pay for any one man, but your husband, God save him, means to pay it, and I doubt that even you, madame, can talk him out of it.”

“I am not sure,” Matilda confessed, “that I would want to try. We owe William Martel so much, Willem! If not for him, Stephen would have been captured for certes. How can we turn our backs on him now?”

“A king owes other debts, too, madame-to his supporters, to the men who’ve fought and bled for him, and to the subjects he rules. I’ll not pretend that I care tuppence for the English people, but I know that you and the king do, and yielding Sherborne Castle will prolong the war. Even Stephen admits as much.”

“What would you have him do, Willem? Abandon the man who sacrificed himself so he could escape? You know Stephen could never do that.”

“Yes, I do know…and so does Gloucester. But why does the cup always have to be brimming over or empty? Why will half measures never suffice? Offer a lesser ransom for Martel, one we can afford to lose, and in time, Gloucester will let him go. A year or two in confinement against the loss of Sherborne-I’d say that was a fair bargain.”

“But you’d not have to pay it, Willem. If you were the one being held in a Bristol dungeon, can you honestly say you’d not want Stephen to offer the sun and moon for your release?”

“Of course I would,” he said impatiently. “But I am not the King of England…am I? It seems to me, madame, that we had this same conversation once before, in a Guildford chapel more than two years ago. Not much has changed since then, has it? That hawk still will not hunt.”

Matilda found Stephen in the church, standing before the tomb of the sainted Confessor, the last but one of the Saxon kings. He’d just lit a candle, but at sound of her familiar footsteps, he turned so abruptly that the flame guttered out. When she was almost close enough to touch, he said softly, “I have to do this, Tilda. I cannot let Will barter his freedom for mine.”

“I know.”

“Do you think I am wrong?”

She was silent for some moments, considering. “As your wife, I would gladly give a dozen Sherbornes to gain Will’s release. As your queen, I have doubts. It is a difficult decision, Stephen, and I am glad it is not mine to make.”

Stephen reached out to her then, entwined her fingers in his. “It was not difficult for me. You must understand that. For me, it was an easy choice, for it was the only choice.”

“I know,” she said again, and coming into his arms, she clung tightly, resting her cheek against his chest as she sought to comprehend the ultimate irony, she who had no irony at all in her soul, that the qualities she most loved in Stephen were the very ones that were crippling his kingship.