Sarum

by Edward Rutherfurd

  At their last few meetings Godric was aware of a new mood in the girl: a certain shyness and hesitancy, as though a struggle was taking place within her. The look of defensive suspicion in her eyes had changed to a softer uncertainty and fear. He had understood, and pressed on.

  It was early evening that shearing day when Mary came up from the valley. She was walking alone.

  In the fields, the wheat and the barley were already showing green; the hay in the meadow below was turning to gold. She left the fields behind her.

  All day she had been working in the dairy beside the manor house where the great vats of milk were brought and the cheeses of cow’s and goat’s milk were made. She carried a small goat’s cheese with her now and half a loaf of bread.

  As she looked at the ridge in front of her, Mary knew that once she was over it there could be no turning back. She did not hesitate.

  She had considered her future carefully. She was still very young, but then her life might well be short, nor was there any reason why it should be particularly pleasant. After that – Heaven or Hell she supposed. Who knew? Meanwhile, there were only two things she needed to know: she must eat and, if possible, she must find a man.

  She had just passed puberty; soon these questions would become urgent; and her prospects were not good.

  She had, for the moment, one tiny advantage. Her body was still almost that of a child, yet it had a certain awkward freshness about it that the young shepherd with his bent back, at any rate, had found appealing; and in her wisdom she had realised: I shall never look any better than I do now: probably worse.

  Sometimes, in moments of weakness, she had allowed her mind to wander and consider which men she had seen that she found attractive. The knight of Avonsford was one. Handsome, greying, remote, so far from the clumsy peasant folk of the little village; so tall, so straight: she tried to imagine what might go on in his mind. He was a figure from another world, however, only to dream of. But when she thought of the men she knew in Avonsford, there were none that attracted her; and of those she had seen on her occasional visits to Sarisberie or Wilton, none that had ever spoken to her.

  But Godric had spoken to her, which was why she had been so suspicious. After all, she knew she must not hope for much from life: it was her only way of protecting herself from humiliation. If he spoke to her, therefore, it was only because he could find nobody better. But he spoke to her all the same, and if that was because he thought he would not find anyone better, then at least, she conceded with a shrug, he was being practical.

  For since she had always known she would have a struggle to survive, she had no use for anything that was not practical. And indeed, as time went on, it was the young man’s competence that did attract her. She admired the way he carved; she liked the way he fed her; several times in the previous weeks, if she had not been so cautious she would have smiled.

  Her father now spoke well of him: that was a point in his favour.

  And strangely, his bodily affliction gradually became an attraction to her as well. Not because she felt sorry for him – she did not think she could afford the luxury of feeling sorry for anyone. But as she considered her own unattractive features, she was comforted by the thought: at least he can never despise me.

  So it was, at the ripe season of the year, that she had struck her bargain with fate in deciding to make the little fellow with his bent back a present of her life.

  As she passed, the men on the slopes turned to watch her. It was as though, by some ancient instinct, they knew what her journey meant.

  The shadows were just starting to lengthen when she reached the place where the men were shearing. Over a wide area, the ground was white with wisps of wool and the dust in the air shimmered over the place like a haze. And here too, as she walked by, the men glanced up from their busy work to stare at her.

  The shearing had been going on ever since early morning, and though it would probably be two more days until it was completed, the pace had slackened. Here and there men were standing together by the piles of sacks containing the fresh wool, quietly chatting. The place had the air of an untidy camp. The sharp-sweet smell of sheep-droppings was everywhere.

  Godric was busy helping the men collect the wool, and though Harold rose and ambled over to greet her, he did not notice her at first. When he did, he smiled and came towards her.

  “Finished at the dairy?”

  She nodded.

  He noticed the little package she was carrying.

  “What’s this?”

  She held out the little cheese, her face impassive.

  “It’s for you.”

  He looked at her carefully, then took it solemnly from her. She had never given him a present before and he knew what it meant: she had made her decision. The men standing nearby were grinning.

  “We’ll be some time,” he began . . . but from thirty yards away he heard the voice of the reeve.

  “Godric Body: you’ve finished for today.”

  There was laughter all around. Godric blushed, and glanced towards the reeve, who was smiling broadly. It was not often that the reeve gave him a friendly look. “Go!” he shouted.

  Godric looked down at the girl. For the first time since he had started to court her, he now felt awkward.

  “Shall we walk?”

  She nodded. “That way.” She pointed across the high ground, away from the valley.

  As they moved away, and he felt the sun on his back, she slipped her arm through his. Ahead of them Harold happily bounded, chasing his own shadow across the turf.

  They walked for nearly half an hour, neither saying much. Here and there was a clump of trees, but almost all the ground was bare. The grasses were just beginning to become parched. The chalk ridges were mostly deserted as the sheep had been driven to the shearing.

  At the outer edge of the land where the Avonsford flocks were grazed, there was a dip in the ground, at one end of which lay a long stone building. Centuries before it had been a farmhouse; now it was used only for sheep; and on the open land a little way off there was a large, round depression in the ground, some five feet deep at its centre, which even now, at the dry height of summer, contained more than a foot of water.

  Here they sat down and ate the bread and cheese she had brought.

  Mary squinted at the pond curiously. There seemed to be no stream to feed it, and Godric, following her gaze explained:

  “This is a dew pond. It was made up here for the sheep.” And he outlined how, once in a generation, the men would go and line the bottom of the pond with clay and straw, packing them so tight that no water was lost. “And then,” he went on, “when the dew falls on the ground around, it drains into the pool so that the sheep can drink here right through the summer.”

  And as he enthusiastically explained about it, Mary decided that she was glad he was a shepherd, and that she was even proud of him.

  It was a pleasant spot, but she was not ready to stop yet; the sheep house was still too near the place where the men were shearing; so after a little time she made him get up and they walked on.

  They walked together for another half an hour, with nothing, now, except the blue butterflies for company.

  It was evening, but still warm when they reached the henge.

  Only a third of the huge sarsens were still standing, and less than a third of the smaller bluestones within the ancient circle. The earth wall and ditch was only a little bigger than one of the earth banks dividing the strips of furrows in the open fields. The ceremonial avenue had almost disappeared and only one of the two gateway pillars remained. As the midsummer sun bathed the worn grey stones in its red-gold light, the ancient henge seemed a quiet, harmless place.

  “They say giants built it,” he remarked. “It’s magic.”

  She took his hand.

  “Come,” she said softly.

  As the sun sank over the henge, he was not aware of the fact that at dawn its first rays would run to the centre of the sacred
circle up the faint path of the great avenue, nor that the moon that day rose opposite the place where the sun had set; nor in the exultation that took both of them by surprise, did he know that the place was reserved for the shedding of blood.

  He knew that when she was pregnant they would marry, and he was content.

  On St John’s Day, June 24, 1139, the crisis that had so long been threatening Stephen’s reign at last broke, and the period of English history known as the Anarchy was begun.

  The trouble was not unexpected. The chances that the weak rule of Stephen would be challenged from within, or more likely, by his sterner-minded cousin the Empress Matilda, had been growing stronger every year. “There’s more of the spirit of the Conqueror and his sons in the Empress than in Stephen,” Godefroi himself had had to admit. And the rumours of her expected arrival were constantly growing.

  But the beginning of the drama did not involve the Empress, but the Bishop of Sarisberie.

  The first act took place at Oxford, where Stephen had summoned his magnates for a council meeting; and the spark that lit the fire was nothing more than a brawl at an inn between some of Bishop Roger’s men and a group of retainers in the service of the other magnates, that had arisen over an argument about their lodgings. Some said that it had been planned by the king. It was possible. Several men were wounded and one knight killed.

  Whether he planned it or not, it was the excuse that Stephen had been looking for: Bishop Roger’s men had broken the king’s peace: he was responsible. Immediately he summoned not only Roger but his son the chancellor and his two nephews, the Bishops of Ely and Lincoln into his presence. They must make reparation for the brawl, he told them; and for the time being, they must surrender the keys of their castles to him as guarantees that they could be trusted.

  It was one of his shrewder moves. The bishops were undefended, away from their strongholds: they were taken by surprise; but if they were loyal, they would deliver the keys at once.

  They hesitated.

  The king knew what he must do. He let them return to their lodgings. Then he sent his men to arrest them.

  But as usual, Stephen failed to close the trap properly: Bishop Roger, his son, and the Bishop of Lincoln were captured; but Nigel, Bishop of Ely escaped.

  “And he has gone to Devizes,” the excited messenger told Godefroi. “He’s holding the castle and the king’s on his way there now.”

  This was it. The picture was only too clear. The towns that lay in a great ring around the high ground of Sarum: Marlborough, twenty-five miles to the north, then Devizes, Trowbridge, Malmesbury to the north west, Sherborne to the south west, and finally Sarisberie at the centre – market towns each with their own stout castles – would become the scene of operations. Thank the Lord he had sent his family to London. Anything could happen; but as for his own position, he was going to get as close to the centre as possible, to see which way the wind was blowing. He would have to act quickly.

  Within an hour he was speaking to Nicholas.

  “Fortify the manor, Masoun,” he told him. “I am going to Devizes.”

  The king’s camp outside Devizes was, like so many of Stephen’s operations, a hastily constructed and rather disorganised affair. It did not take Godefroi long to find the two tents occupied by William of Sarisberie and his brother Patrick, and before he went in, one of the young squires brought him up to date with news.

  “Bishop Roger’s in detention,” he waved towards a tent where two men were standing guard. “He hasn’t eaten since we left Oxford. And his son the Chancellor’s in chains.”

  Godefroi whistled softly. This was an extraordinary reversal for the powerful upstart family.

  “And in there?” He indicated the stout castle keep inside the town walls.

  “The Bishop of Ely’s in there. And he’s got Matilda of Ramsbury there too.”

  This was the striking dark mistress of Bishop Roger and mother of the Chancellor.

  The knight laughed. “Quite a family affair. The king really means to break them then?”

  The young man gave him a curious look.

  “If he can. You’d better go in.”

  The two brothers were standing together in the tent, deep in conversation. Several other knights crowded the place as well. When William saw Godefroi come in he looked surprised, then shot the knight a careful look of suspicion; but obviously deciding it was unlikely that the knight from Avonsford was intriguing with other parties, he came towards him with an outstretched hand. Like his brother he was a tall, spare figure with a long, fine face only marred by a brutal and slightly crooked nose.

  “We didn’t send for you, Richard, but we’re glad you came,” he said easily. “You’ve heard the news?”

  Godefroi nodded. William turned confidentially to one side.

  “It looks as if the king may win this skirmish, if he sticks it out,” he murmured.

  “Will he?”

  William grimaced.

  “God knows. He’s like the wind: always moving but constantly changing direction. He starts things well but never finishes them, you know. He’s just as likely to get bored and break the whole siege off.”

  “If he does, what then?”

  The magnate looked at Godefroi carefully.

  “We’ll tell you what to do,” he said, and turned away.

  Several times that day Godefroi saw the king. Stephen went about the camp bare-headed usually, accompanied by a group of magnates. Godefroi noticed that his curly hair was thinning. He seemed cheerful though. His general, William of Ypres, had stationed his men in front of the castle gates, and was prepared to settle down to a regular siege. But on the afternoon that Godefroi arrived, a messenger suddenly ran out of the king’s tent and galloped towards the town.

  Even William of Sarisberie was surprised by the king’s message.

  “He’s told them that unless they surrender, he’ll hang the Chancellor in front of the gates,” he explained to Richard. “As for Bishop Roger, the king says since he’s started to fast, he may as well continue it indefinitely. He’s getting nothing – not even water.”

  But if King Stephen thought this would bring matters to a head, he under-estimated the Bishop of Ely.

  “He says the king can hang and starve who he likes,” the squire at William’s tent told Godefroi excitedly, and William soon confirmed it.

  “He’s called the king’s bluff,” he remarked coolly. “Now we shall see.”

  The next morning they brought the stout, balding Chancellor out of his tent. His hands were bound and there was a noose round his neck. They put him on a horse and led him up to the castle walls before taking him back to the camp. But still there was no response from within.

  In the afternoon they tried another tactic: they sent out Bishop Roger to talk to the rebels.

  Godefroi watched him as six men-at-arms led him past: even under guard and after several days of starving, he was a frightening sight; his fast had done nothing to reduce his massive paunch; his heavy jowl shook as he walked. He stomped along looking neither to right nor left, and out of sheer force of habit, Godefroi shivered. The aura of power and menace he remembered had not left him.

  But the conference that took place in front of the town between Bishop Roger and his nephew was a failure. Roger, with his practical eye, had seen at once that it would be better to surrender the castle and win back the easy-going king’s favour; the resistance was only making his cause weaker and might cost his son’s life. But Nigel of Ely was indifferent to his cousin’s death, or his uncle starving, and after a short while Roger returned to the castle.

  The next day the test of wills went on. William of Sarisberie grew impatient.

  “If the king’s going to hang the chancellor, then why doesn’t he do it?” he asked irritably.

  It was his lack of ruthlessness that made Stephen such a poor leader; if the king would not carry out his threat then even a humble knight like Godefroi could see that there would never be order in the
kingdom.

  Another day passed.

  And then, unexpectedly, Stephen won everything he wanted. A messenger came out of the town and offered surrender if Bishop Roger and his son were set free. Within minutes, terms were agreed and the king walked through the camp beaming.

  But the magnates were less impressed.

  “It wasn’t the Bishop of Ely who sent the messenger,” William told Godefroi. “It was Matilda of Ramsbury: she couldn’t bear to see her son hanged.” He grimaced with disgust. “The king’s been lucky. But if the empress invades, he won’t be able to frighten her so easily.”

  For the time being however, Stephen was satisfied. He had the castles of Devizes, Malmesbury, Sherborne and Sarisberie: not only that, he had all the treasure and arms that Bishop Roger had amassed in them. The immediate crisis appeared to be over.

  That night there was a feast, to which Godefroi was summoned by William, and the next morning the men began to break camp.

  But there was one more surprise in store for the knight from Avonsford. Just as he was saddling his horse, an unexpected arrival made his way through the tents and packhorses. It was William atte Brigge.

  His face was sullen but determined. He loped through the camp, only stopping to ask the way to the king. For the cantankerous tanner, hearing the king was so near, had come to seek royal justice in the case concerning the Shockley farm.

  Such quests were not uncommon: the king’s court existed at whatever place the king was, and any free man had a right to royal justice. Before now litigants had followed the Norman monarchs all over the island, and even across the sea to Normandy to try to get their case heard.

  As soon as Godefroi saw the tanner’s dark face he guessed why he was there; since he had just sent the farmer of Shockley to London with his wife, he could not help feeling responsible for him. With an oath, he hurried after him.

  He need not have worried. When William atte Brigge reached the place where the king and a group of his nobles were standing, he blurted out his demands to the squire who was sent to ask him his business. He was a wronged man, dispossessed of his farm; he had come to the king for justice. His angry words tumbled out all together. He seemed to expect the king to hear the matter at once.