Ranulf shrugged. “I overslept.”
Robert’s reaction was hopelessly conflicted—enormous pride in Ranulf warring with an urge to grab hold of the younger man and shake some sense into him. “I should think that one fool in the family would be enough. You just be sure to get through this unharmed, or Maude will never forgive me.”
“Come on,” Ranulf said. “I’ll race you to Ludgershall.”
THEY’D come more than eight miles and were almost upon Le Strete; it was on the other side of the hill. Rainald signaled for a brief halt to ease their horses, and unwittingly earned Maude’s undying gratitude. She shifted gingerly in the saddle, seeking inconspicuously to tuck her skirts in under her legs. When Brien glanced her way, she mustered up a smile, for she was determined to keep her discomfort hidden as long as possible. Hopefully, it would not occur to them that skirts were not meant for riding astride. Nor were they likely to realize that her stockings were gartered at the knee, that with nothing between her inner thighs and the saddle leather, the constant jouncing had soon rubbed her skin raw. She was already chafed and blistered, and they had hours of hard riding ahead of them—if they could get safely across the River Test.
That was still in doubt, for they’d run into two of Ypres’s scouts a few miles back. Brien’s crossbowmen had brought one of them down, but the other had been luckier and had vanished into the woods. Their greatest danger lay just ahead at Le Strete, for there the Salisbury Road was joined by the one from Wherwell. If the scout had succeeded in giving the alarm, Ypres’s men could be waiting for them at the river crossing.
Maude was not the only one thinking of that. Brien moved his horse close so they could talk. “The man on the roan is a local lad, who’ll guide us across the downs to Ludgershall. He says there is a ford at Leckford, but it is too close to Wherwell for us to risk it. There is a royal manor at Le Strete, a handful of houses, and a bridge. If we can get across it without being seen by Ypres’s men, they’ll not know which path we took. Are you ready to ride as if the Devil were on our tails?”
She nodded. “If I had to choose between Ypres and the Devil, I’m not sure which one I’d pick. Let’s outrun them both.”
FOR Ranulf and Gilbert, the Battle of Winchester was chillingly familiar. It was as if they were reliving that frantic skirmish on the Wherwell Road, for once again they were being assailed from all sides, caught up in a surging, frenzied tide of thrashing bodies, panicked horses, and bloodied weapons. Only this time there was no abbey to take shelter in, just the road ahead and the enemy behind.
Robert was urging them to stay close together and to keep going, and they did their best to heed him, for his was the one voice of reason in a world gone mad, a world filled only with their enemies now that their retreat from Winchester had turned into this wild rout.
Miles had known they’d be pursued; what suspense there was lay in the timing of the attack. But he’d not expected his men to crack under the assault. It happened, though, and with shocking suddenness. His army had disintegrated as more and more men lost heart in this unequal struggle, sought salvation in flight, and Robert’s rear guard found itself on its own, fighting a desperate and valiant delaying action in a war already lost.
The battle raged along the Salisbury Road. The fugitives from Miles’s broken command were being chased down, bodies were being looted, and riderless horses seemed to be everywhere, circling about in confusion. Ranulf’s own mount was tiring; it had begun to shorten stride. He had to strain now to find Robert midst the crush of men and horses. They would have to make a stand soon; if not, they’d be cut to pieces. But where? The road was sloping up again. He glanced over his shoulder, seeking Gilbert, and was jolted to discover he’d lost his squire.
He twisted around in the saddle. Some yards back, a chestnut stallion was flailing about on the ground, unable to rise. It had a white blaze and foreleg, and so did Luke’s palfrey. As little as that was to go upon, it was enough for Ranulf, and he swung his horse about.
He soon spotted Luke. The youth was on his feet, although he seemed dazed by his fall, and did not respond to Ranulf’s shout. But he’d drawn the attention of these men searching a nearby body for valuables. Recognizing him as easy prey, the men moved in confidently.
Their cockiness almost cost them dearly. They scattered just in time as Ranulf’s destrier plunged into their midst. But they did not go far. Instead, they spread out and began to circle warily, swords and pike at the ready. Ranulf aimed his stallion at the closest of his assailants. Blood spurted, the man’s sword thudded to the ground, and he recoiled hastily. Ranulf turned to confront the others, only to find them in retreat, too, for he was no longer alone; Gilbert was coming toward them at a gallop.
“You came back for me!” Luke lurched forward, tripped, and nearly fell under the hooves of Ranulf’s stallion. Ranulf saw no blood, but the boy’s face was the shade of curdled milk. “I hurt my arm,” he said, sounding apologetic, as if his injury was somehow his fault. “I fear it is broken.”
Ranulf and Gilbert exchanged troubled looks. They could not leave the lad here, injured and on his own. But never could they have ridden away, abandoned Robert to his fate. They wasted no time in discussion, caught a loose horse for Luke, put his foundering chestnut out of its suffering, and hastened after their beleaguered comrades.
The battle had swept past them, over the crest of Winchester Hill. They spurred their horses up the road, glancing back to make sure Luke was following, and came upon the last bitter moments of the ill-fated seven-week siege of Winchester. It ended there at Le Strete, when Robert’s struggling rear guard collided with a contingent of Flemings coming down the Wherwell Road, ended in one final flurry of doomed resistance, dying, and defeat.
THE longest and most desperate day of Maude’s life was at last drawing to a close in the inner bailey of Ludgershall Castle. She was trembling, so great was her fatigue, and when she was helped from the saddle, she feared that her legs would not support her. Brien came to her rescue, offering his arm for support. She thought he looked exhausted, too. They all did, men and horses alike, drenched in sweat and choked with the reddish dust of the dry September roads. She allowed herself a moment’s indulgence, borrowed Brien’s strength. Then she squared her shoulders, and moved to meet the man just emerging from the tower keep.
She was not surprised that John Marshal was up and about, rather than languishing upon a sickbed. She knew the man well enough to have been sure that if he was not dead of his wounds, he’d be on his feet. She thought she was prepared for the extent of his injuries, but she was not. Her breath stopped as she saw his face. She forced herself not to avert her eyes, feeling that she owed it to him to look without flinching upon the wounds he’d gotten in her service. His eye socket was covered by a pusstained bandage, and from hairline to beard, his skin was raw and red and encrusted with scabs, slathered with goose grease. But she knew he’d have scorned her sympathy; in that, they were alike. So she said only, “Do you think you can find room for some unexpected guests?”
His mouth twitched. “I’ve never yet turned an empress away from my door.” A woman had come from the keep behind him, and he said, “Madame, may I present my wife, the Lady Adelina?”
Adelina made a graceful curtsy. Maude took one look and liked her not, for she was small-boned and fair-haired and flower-fragile—like Matilda. But when Marshal’s men began to crowd around, assailing them with questions, it was Adelina who saw Maude’s utter exhaustion. “I’ll not have it said that the mistress of Ludgershall does not know how to welcome a highborn guest,” she chided. “Explanations can wait. If you’ll be good enough to follow me, my lady…?”
Maude did, gratefully, and by the time she was seated upon the bed in John and Adelina’s private chamber, she’d completely revised her unfavorable impression of Marshal’s wife. Adelina brought her a laver of scented washing water, a soothing salve for her sunburned face, a flagon of spiced and sweetened wine, all the while carrying on an
easy conversation that was oddly comforting in and of itself, for she asked no awkward questions and gave Maude no time to dwell upon Winchester’s fall and the men who might be dying even now on her behalf. When she urged Maude to stretch out on the bed, Maude did not demur, although she insisted that she’d never be able to sleep.
“Just rest then,” Adelina said. “Supper can wait.” She’d already helped Maude to strip off her gown, lamenting its bedraggled condition and the fact that Maude was too tall to wear one of her own gowns. “Never you mind, though. We’ll clean and mend this one for you. I’ll look in on you later, my lady. Now I must tend to John. The doctor said I should soak his bandage in vinegar and change it often.”
“It is a wonder,” Maude murmured, “that the pain did not drive him mad…”
“Most likely because we kept him drunk for days…”
Adelina’s voice was lulling. Maude closed her eyes. When Adelina leaned over the bed and touched her shoulder, she thought at first that she’d just fallen asleep. But as she sat up groggily, she saw the night sky framed in the bedchamber’s open window.
“Madame, I am indeed sorry to awaken you, but I was given no choice. Your brother and Lord Brien insist upon leaving at once for your castle at Devizes. I urged them to let you sleep the night through, but they say the danger is too great for you here.”
Maude asked no questions, but she could not suppress a gasp when she swung her legs over the bed, for even that slight movement was painful. Her hair was trailing down her back, the true measure of her fatigue, for Adelina must have unbraided it while she slept on, unaware. As Maude tried again to get to her feet, Adelina gave a soft cry. “There is blood on your chemise! Did your flux come upon you of a sudden?”
“No, I had to ride astride like a man, but I lacked the undergarments that men wear, and my thighs blistered badly.”
“How can you ride on to Devizes, then? That is nigh on twenty miles!”
“I can and I will. I must. And you cannot tell the men, Adelina. I do not want them to know.”
The other woman nodded reluctantly. “Then you must let me do what I can to ease your discomfort,” she said, and turned aside to ransack a coffer by the foot of the bed. With gentle, deft strokes, she rubbed an herbal ointment into Maude’s blistered, abraded skin, then fashioned bandages from a pillowcase, and she understood when Maude’s “thank you” seemed grudgingly given, saying, “Those are words that catch in my John’s throat, too. He finds it hard to admit a need.”
Maude did not know what to say to that, for it seemed to require a confidence in return. But Adelina did not wait for a response, instead crossed the chamber to retrieve Maude’s gown. She was helping to lace it up when Brien and Rainald sought admittance.
Maude looked from one to the other. “Why must we leave Ludgershall in such haste? What is it that you’re so loath for me to know?”
Rainald cleared his throat. “Marshal sent a few of his men toward Winchester to find out what happened. Only one of them has gotten back so far, but after hearing what he learned, we knew we dare not stay here, for this will be the first place they think to look once they start searching for you in earnest. We’ve got to get you as far away as we can, as fast as we can. It will not be easy for you, but—”
“You think I care about my comfort? Just tell me, was there a battle?”
Brien nodded. “Ypres and the queen’s earls fell upon our army soon after they rode out along the Salisbury Road. Marshal’s scout says they scattered to the winds, every man for himself. He says not even the archbishop was spared, that the clerics were roughly handled, their horses stolen.”
“Oh, dear God,” Maude whispered. Minna. And what of Ranulf? Miles and David and all the others. “Tell me the rest,” she said, “the worst. Tell me about Robert.”
“We do not know for certes,” Rainald said, but he no longer met her eyes, and it was Brien who told her the truth.
“Marshal’s scout says that Robert’s men did not bolt like the others. They fought a running battle as far as Le Strete, where they were surrounded and overwhelmed by Warenne and Ypres and his Flemings.” Brien saw her shudder and started to reach toward her, then let his arm fall to his side. “They would have wanted to take Robert alive,” he said. “I swear to you that is true.”
Maude swallowed with a visible effort. “You are saying, then, that either Robert was captured or he was slain.”
Neither man spoke, but she had her answer in their silence, and she shut her eyes, squeezing back her tears. She would be able to weep soon, hidden by the darkness, riding through the night toward Devizes, but not now, not yet. She would leave Ludgershall dry-eyed and unbowed. She would not shame Robert with her tears.
CECILY watched anxiously as Matilda moved again to the tent entrance, but she no longer urged her mistress to attempt to get some sleep; she knew that Matilda would be up until dawn if need be, until she got the word about Maude. Rising, she poured a cup of wine and carried it across the tent. The other woman accepted it absently, continuing to gaze up at the star-dusted dark sky. “There is a fire in Winchester,” she said. “See…over to the east.”
“Come back inside, my lady,” Cecily pleaded, “ere you catch a chill. Try to put the town’s troubles from your mind. It does no good to dwell upon what cannot be helped.”
Matilda let the tent flap drop. “Stephen kept his army from pillaging and raping in Shrewsbury,” she said. “There must have been something I could have done…”
“And why did the king’s soldiers heed him at Shrewsbury? Because he’d just hanged ninety-four men from the castle battlements and they feared not to! My lady, this is the way of the war. We need not like it, but accept it we must. What other choice have we?”
“What you say makes sense, Cecily. But I doubt that I will ever understand. The Londoners were so fearful for their city, so afraid that Maude would wreak havoc upon their homes and families. How, then, could they have been amongst the first to despoil Winchester?”
“My lady, I cannot answer that. But this I do know, that you have nothing to reproach yourself for. You seek only to free your lord husband from unjust confinement, and against all the odds, you have prevailed. This day he has won his liberty and it was your doing!”
Matilda felt a prickle of superstitious dread. “We do not know that, not yet. If Maude escapes, all this suffering and dying will have been for naught. The war will go on, and…and Stephen’s life might well be forfeit, because of me.”
“That will not happen. She has been taken prisoner, I know she has!”
“I would to God I could share your certainty,” Matilda said wearily. “But she seemed sure to be taken at Arundel, too, and then again at Westminster, did she not?”
“The king’s gallantry spared her at Arundel and blind luck at London, luck that is fast running out.”
Matilda sat down at the table, pushed the candle aside, and leaned forward, resting her head upon her arms. But almost at once she straightened up. “Did you hear that? More men coming in…”
Her senses had been betraying her all night, hearing sounds that echoed only in her head. But this time she was right, and she was on her feet, waiting, by the time William de Warenne and William de Ypres pushed their way into the tent.
Warenne looked dirty and tired and jubilant. “God has shown us such favor, madame, for what a victory we had!”
“I know that,” Matilda interrupted. “But what of Maude? Is she captive?”
Ypres shook his head. “I regret not. That woman has the most unholy luck. She ought never to have been able to slip through our net, yet she somehow did. You need not fear, though, for we’ll soon track her down. We have men on her trail even now—”
But Matilda was no longer listening. “Then we lost,” she cried. “Can you not see that? Without Maude, we gained nothing!”
Neither man seemed fazed by her despair. They looked at each other and grinned. “Ah, but we did,” Ypres said. “Maude may have flown the n
est, but we plucked her tail feathers for certes!” And turning, he lifted the tent flap. “Bring him in.”
The man escorted into the tent was a stranger to Cecily. He was no longer young, for his brown hair was well salted with gray, and save for an ugly bruise under his left eye, he seemed unhurt. What struck her most forcefully was his composure; if not for his bound wrists, she’d never have known he was a prisoner. “Lady Matilda,” he said calmly. “It is always a pleasure to see you, although I would rather it be under different circumstances.”
Matilda was staring at him in shock. “Robert,” she breathed, so softly that only Cecily heard, and her eyes widened.
“My lady, is this man the Earl of Gloucester?”
“This man,” Matilda said unsteadily, “is Stephen’s salvation.” Her voice was muffled, midway between laughter and tears. Reaching for the Fleming’s hand, she held fast. “How good God is, blessed be His Name. And bless you, too, Willem, for you’ve given me back my husband!”
22
Near Devizes Castle, Wiltshire, England
September 1141
WHEN Maude’s lashes flickered, a voice said, “She is coming around.” She wondered hazily what Brien was doing in her bedchamber. The light seemed glaringly bright, and it actually hurt to look up at the sky. Sky? Her eyes opened wide, and she discovered that she was lying on the ground, a mantle wadded up under her head. “Brien…?” How far away her voice sounded, how weak. “Brien, what happened?”
“You fell from your horse. You do not remember?”
When Christ and His Saints Slept Page 46