When Christ and His Saints Slept

by Sharon Kay Penman

  “I’ll own up that I’m not losing any sleep over the outcome, either. I thought it was for the best when Stephen claimed the crown. But if a king cannot keep the peace, what good does he do us? The roads were never so dangerous whilst the old king was alive—”

  “Gunter? Is something amiss?”

  “It may be,” Gunter said, and there was suddenly so much tension in his voice that Oliver felt an instant unease. The older man was staring off into the distance, his eyes narrowed against the sun, riveted upon the horizon. “Do you see it? It would take a lot of men and horses to churn up that much dust.” Making up his mind, he swung around toward the cart, yelling for his hired man, asleep in the back. “Wat, bestir yourself! I want to get the cart off the road, into that grove of trees, and fast!”

  Oliver helped him lead the horses across the field, while Clemence and Monday clung to the cart as it swayed and bumped over the rough ground. “Is this truly necessary, Gunter? Even if it is an army, most likely it is Geoffrey de Mandeville, since they’re coming along the London Road. It was known in the city that the empress has summoned him to aid in the siege.”

  Gunter gave the young townsman the pitying gaze of a seasoned traveler for a rank novice. “The Pope himself could be leading that army and I’d still burrow down till they’d passed by. It matters little if they be friend or foe. Would you trust your wife with a tamed wolf?”

  Once they’d hidden the cart amid the sheltering trees, Gunter and Oliver crept forward to watch the road, hunkering down in the underbrush. After a while, the high grass began to ripple, and Gunter swore as his daughter crawled up beside them. “Get back to the cart,” he ordered, but then he grabbed her arm, pulling her down again, for it was too late. “Stay still,” he warned, and as they watched from their hiding place, the army’s scouts and advance guard rode by, sun glinting on the chain links of their armor, lean and fit and sun-browned and fascinating—at least to Monday, who’d never before seen men who looked like the heroes in her favorite minstrel songs, the ones about gallant knights errant who had amazing adventures and never failed to rescue highborn ladies in peril.

  After the advance guard passed, the army followed, men-at-arms and mounted knights. Monday was so enthralled that it almost made up for missing Winchester. She wished she could squirm closer to the road, but her father held her in an iron grip. “Oh, look, Papa!” she whispered. “A lady rides with them!”

  “Nonsense,” he said curtly, but when he raised up on his elbow, he saw that she was right. “Jesus wept,” he murmured, “it is the queen!”

  Oliver gaped at him. “How can you be sure?”

  “I’ve seen her before, once at the St Ives Fair and twice in London. It is Stephen’s queen and no mistake.”

  Oliver had gone very pale. He stared after Matilda, and when Monday glanced his way again, she was startled to see tears in his eyes.

  “Papa?” she whispered. “Why is he so distraught? Why does he weep?”

  “For Winchester, lass,” he said softly. “He weeps for Winchester.”

  20

  Winchester, England

  August 1141

  THE citizens of Winchester were still sifting through the ashes and charred debris of their homes and shops when the queen’s army descended upon them. Her forces augmented by more than a thousand Londoners, men from her lands in Boulogne and Kent, and the bishop’s vassals and tenants, Matilda posed a formidable threat, and Maude and Robert at once dispatched urgent messages to Geoffrey de Mandeville, the Earl of Chester, to all their allies not already in Winchester. Matilda was accompanied by several earls, but she entrusted the command of her army to William de Ypres, and he at once cast a net around the city, blockading all of the major roads leading into Winchester. With luck and knowledge of local terrain, a lone rider could still get through the lines. But cumbersome supply convoys were snared like flies in cobweb, and hunger soon stalked the streets of the beleaguered town. The besiegers had become the besieged, and the trapped citizens of Winchester could only pray for divine deliverance, entreating the Almighty to spare their city the fate that had befallen Lincoln.

  WILLIAM DE YPRES was returning from a foray into Winchester. That was not as reckless as it sounded, for their arrival had forced Maude’s men to withdraw into the city, thus raising the siege of Wolvesey. He had been admitted into the palace by a postern gate in the outer wall, and as he’d gazed down from the battlements at the deserted city streets, he’d marveled that the smell of smoke was still so acrid, three weeks after the fire. Looking out over the ruins of Cheapside, he’d laughed exultantly, for the scent of victory was in the air, too.

  Riding back to Matilda’s encampment south of the city walls, Ypres encountered William de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, who reported gleefully that yet another of Maude’s supply convoys had been captured. They’d soon be scouring the city streets for stray cats and dogs, he predicted, and as the siege dragged on, they’d be eating mouse soup and rat stew and thanking God for it.

  “As much as I’d love to see Maude gnawing on a mouse leg,” Ypres grinned, “it is not likely. In a siege, the townspeople starve first, for what food there is goes to the army. Ere the castle larders get bone-bare, they’ll try to break out of the trap. I’d say in a fortnight or so…assuming, of course that they do not get help from some of Maude’s missing barons. Any chance of a few of your kinsmen showing up on the wrong side, my lord?”

  There was no real malice in Ypres’s gibe; it was merely force of habit. It did no damage, though, for Warenne was not thin-skinned about the propensity of his kindred for fence-straddling. Waleran and Robert Beaumont were his half-brothers, the Earl of Warwick was his first cousin, and his sister was the wife of the Scots king’s son and heir, so their family history did indeed present a complex mosaic of contrary and uncertain loyalties. Warenne’s own allegiance to Stephen was shadowed by past conflicts and an outright betrayal: he was one of the earls who’d fled the battlefield at Lincoln. Like Ypres and Northampton, he was seeking now to make amends for that abandonment, and for that very reason, Ypres trusted him. Shame was a powerful inducement, even more of a goad than self-interest.

  They were passing Holy Cross, the hospital founded by the Bishop of Winchester to aid men indigent and infirm. The hospital had been far luckier than Hyde Abbey and the nunnery and much of Winchester, for the fires set by the bishop’s men had never spread south of the city; protected now by Matilda’s army, Holy Cross seemed likely to be one of the few buildings to survive the siege intact.

  Warenne glanced back at the hospital precincts, floating above the fray like an island haven in a storming sea. “I do not understand,” he said, “why the queen refused to stay at Waltham. She’d be safer for certes at the bishop’s castle, and more comfortable, too. Why did the bishop not insist upon it?”

  “The queen has a mind of her own, or so rumor says,” Ypres said blandly, but his mouth was twitching in an involuntary smile, for he was hearing again Matilda’s private comment, that she’d sooner seek shelter in a lazar house than under her brother-in-law’s roof. “She says she can do more good in our camp, and I’d be the last one to dispute that. She comforts the wounded, prays for the dying, never misses an opportunity to remind them—ever so gently—that they are fighting for their lawful king…and if she asked them to sprout wings and fly into Winchester, at least half would start flapping their arms for take-off!”

  Warenne laughed. “She does inspire devotion in the unlikeliest of men! Let’s hope that is a trick Maude never learns, for if—” Breaking off in surprise. “What is going on?”

  By now they’d reached the camp, and both drew rein, for men were bustling about, horses being unsaddled, additional tents being set up. “It looks,” Ypres said, “as if we have gained some new allies. Your brother Leicester?”

  Warenne shrugged; he knew Robert Beaumont wanted to see Stephen restored to the throne, but he also wanted to protect what was his. Dismissing their escorts, they dismounted before Ma
tilda’s tent, entered, and halted abruptly at the sight that met their eyes: Matilda sharing a wine flagon with the Earl of Northampton and Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex. Matilda greeted them with a tight smile, saying, “The Earl of Essex has come to pledge anew his allegiance to my lord husband.”

  “In truth,” Geoffrey de Mandeville said placidly, “my allegiance to the king never wavered. But when the Bishop of Winchester ordered all Christians to accept the Countess of Anjou as queen, I felt compelled to obey, as a good son of the Church, however little I liked it. You can well imagine my relief when the bishop recanted, for I was then free to follow my own conscience, to do whatever I could to gain the king his freedom.”

  Warenne looked dumbfounded by the sheer effrontery of it, but Ypres was delighted; his only regret was that the bishop was not present to hear himself blamed for Geoffrey de Mandeville’s defection. As for the unrepentant defector, he seemed equally indifferent to Warenne’s amazement and Ypres’s amusement. He was already on his feet, kissing Matilda’s hand with ostentatious gallantry. “By your leave, my lady, I ought to get my men settled in.”

  Northampton had risen, too. “I will keep a close eye upon him, madame,” he promised as soon as the Earl of Essex had departed, and ducked under the tent flap. Warenne followed, leaving Ypres alone with Matilda and her lady-in-waiting, for Cecily had stubbornly insisted upon providing Matilda with female companionship, mindful of the proprieties even in the midst of war.

  Matilda was staring down at her hand with an expression of distaste, as if she could still see the imprint upon her skin of Geoffrey de Mandeville’s mouth. Ypres helped himself to some of the wine, then refilled the women’s cups. “I suggest a scrubbing with lye soap for your hand, a few flagons of hippocras for the foul taste in your mouth. You ought to be very proud of yourself, my lady. I am, for certes. The temptation to spit in his face must have been well nigh irresistible—”

  “No, Willem, you are wrong,” Matilda said earnestly. “It never even occurred to me. I dared not offend him or let my true feelings show, not as long as he holds…”

  The rest of her sentence was lost in the depths of her wine cup. Ypres was about to finish her sentence for her with the obvious answer—the Tower of London—when Matilda said, “Constance.” He looked away quickly, lest she read his surprise in his face, for he did not want her to know he’d almost forgotten that Mandeville had abducted her son’s child-wife. Matilda set the wine cup down, snatching up a parchment. “He even brought me a letter from Constance! The gall of the man!” She sputtered indignantly, muttering something under her breath that he’d have taken for an obscenity—had it been anyone but Matilda. “He is still posing as Constance’s protector,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief, “promising to return her to me as soon as her safety can be assured.”

  “And what promises did he demand from you? What price does he put on his resurrected loyalty to the Crown?”

  “He wanted me to match all that Maude had given him at Oxford. Which I did, of course. It is passing strange, Willem. The more I lie, the easier it gets.”

  “Did I forget to warn you that sinning can be habit-forming?” But Matilda found no humor in his joke. She looked down at Constance’s letter again, and he said, quite seriously this time, “You are doing what you must, my lady.”

  “I know,” she said. “But what if it is not enough, Willem? What if it is not enough?”

  AS Ranulf crossed the castle’s inner bailey in response to his sister’s summons, he slowed to watch the crowd lined up outside the kitchen’s door. When they’d begun giving out bread, most of the supplicants had been women and children, for the townsmen had been shamed at having to rely upon charity and had sent their wives to collect their share. But that was no longer so. On this overcast afternoon in early September, most of the people in line were males, for no man wanted his woman or child out on the streets, not anymore. The danger was too great. Matilda’s blockade had brought more than hunger to the citizens of Winchester. Once she’d lifted the siege of Wolvesey, their town had become a battlefield. The bishop’s men prowled the battlements of both his strongholds, shooting at anything that moved, even venturing out occasionally to clash with the enemy, and they included the townspeople in that hostile category, for Winchester had backed Maude, not their bishop, and he was not likely to forgive or forget. The city was now split into two broken halves, divided by the blackened boundary of Cheapside; the bishop’s men held the south side, and Maude’s forces the castle and the damaged neighborhoods north of High Street. There were daily skirmishings, daily deaths, and many feared that the worst still lay ahead of them.

  Miles and Robert were standing on the steps leading up into the great hall. The tension between them was unmistakable, and not a surprise to Ranulf, for their rivalry was no secret, exacerbated by the very real differences in their natures and their approach to war; both men were capable battle commanders, but Robert was inherently more cautious than Miles, and that made conflict all but inevitable.

  Ranulf was near enough now to catch the gist of their argument, low-voiced but intense, nonetheless. He’d heard it all before, for Miles had been very vocal about his desire to fight fire with fire, insisting that they take advantage of the castle’s high ground to hurl firebrands down upon their enemies. He’d not been convinced by Robert’s counterargument, that if the winds shifted, the rest of the city could burn, and he’d not taken defeat with any measure of grace, continuing to complain long after the issue had been rendered moot by Matilda’s arrival upon the scene.

  They turned as Ranulf approached. He opened his mouth to remind them that Maude was waiting, instead heard himself say belligerently, “Robert was not the only one loath to put the city’s survival in peril. So was Maude.”

  Miles was caught off balance; he’d long ago tagged Rainald as the family hothead, not Ranulf. He recovered quickly, though, and said caustically, “I daresay Stephen would have balked, too, and where did his misguided mercy get him?”

  “We are wasting time,” Robert said impatiently, and turned on his heel. Miles and Ranulf followed in a strained silence. The others were already in the solar: Maude, her uncle the Scots king, Rainald, Brien, Baldwin de Redvers, William Pont de 1’Arche, and John Marshal.

  “We’ve been waiting for you,” the usually urbane David snapped; the siege was rubbing raw the nerves of even the most phlegmatic among them.

  Miles was irked, but not enough to contradict a king. Straddling a seat, he said, “We need to talk about that mob down in the bailey. I know charity is a virtue, but we can no longer afford to be quite so virtuous.”

  Maude frowned. “It is not a womanly weakness to feed hungry children, Miles!”

  “I did not say it was, madame. But it is an indulgence. We’ve already cut our daily portions in half, and even that may not be enough. You’ve not been in a prolonged siege, and I hope to God you never are, for it is an ordeal no woman ought to endure.”

  “He is right, my lady,” Baldwin de Redvers said emphatically. “I am indeed grateful that you were not at Exeter during Stephen’s three-month siege. My men ended up eating their horses, and when the well went dry, they had to put out fires with wine, until that ran out, too. Had they not surrendered when they did, they’d have been drinking their own piss.”

  Maude was not impressed; she hated it when men treated war as their own private province, acting as if suffering were a uniquely male experience that no woman could hope to comprehend. She was particularly vexed by Baldwin’s contribution, for he’d escaped at the start of the siege, leaving his wife behind in the castle. She yearned to point that out, but she resisted the temptation, contenting herself with a cool reminder that “Our well has not gone dry. Moreover, we are expecting aid any day now.”

  They had reason for optimism, for they’d sent out writs to Geoffrey de Mandeville, the Earl of Chester, his brother the Earl of Lincoln, the Earl of Warwick, the Earl of Oxford, and Hugh Bigod, among others. Robe
rt created a stir, therefore, by saying suddenly, “What if aid does not come? Mayhap we ought to consider a withdrawal.”

  “No!” Maude’s indignant cry was echoed at once by other voices, all expressing the same urgent argument—that Maude could not afford two successive defeats. After the disastrous setback she’d suffered in London, she must prevail here in Winchester. She dared not lose again.

  Robert did not dispute them, merely waited them out. “I am not saying that we should retreat. I am saying, though, that we need a plan should it become necessary.”

  “Why would it?” Rainald demanded. “Even if a few of these lords do not keep faith, they could not all fail us! Once we have more men, we can force a battle, put an end to this damnable war once and for all.”

  “We have to settle this, Robert,” Maude agreed. “If I were to withdraw, people would see it as running away. And what of the townspeople? What would happen to Winchester once we’d abandoned it to Ypres’s Flemings?”

  “In war, madame,” Miles said calmly, “soldiers expect to be rewarded for the risks they take. When a city falls, it is plundered by the victors. So it was at Lincoln, so it would be at Winchester.”

  Maude started to protest, stopped herself just in time. What could she say, after all? She had indeed accepted the suffering of the citizens of Lincoln as a necessary evil, war’s ugly aftermath. So why could she not do the same for Winchester? Was the suffering real only if she could see it for herself? But she had never seen suffering like this before—hungry babies and homeless women and a city in ruins. She could not admit that, though. They would neither understand nor approve. Compassion was a woman’s frailty, one she dared not show, for it would but confirm their qualms about her fitness to rule.