When Christ and His Saints Slept (55 page)

Several people were shouting, telling her to roll on the ground, but she was too terrified to heed them; Ranulf doubted that she even heard. A woman tried to catch her arm as she ran by, her fingers just falling short. Ranulf had better luck. Flinging himself forward, he sent the girl sprawling, then scooped her up and dropped her into the closest horse trough. She thrashed about wildly, drenching Ranulf, too, and when he lifted her out, sputtering and choking, she clung to his neck and sobbed. She was even younger then he had first thought, only ten or so, her entire body shuddering with every breath she took. Her wet hair was in his face, had an unpleasant burnt smell, but he couldn’t tell if she was trembling from fear or pain or both.

By now several would-be samaritans had gathered around, and when he asked, a gangling youth in a bloodied butcher’s smock identified her as “Aldith, the wainwright’s lass.” His squire was standing a few feet away, having somehow managed to keep their frightened horses from bolting, and Ranulf entrusted the weeping child into his care. “Take her back to the castle, Luke. This lad here will help you and then find her family…right?” The butcher’s apprentice nodded shyly, and the crowd parted to let them through.

The royal palace was just a few streets ahead. Already, Ranulf could feel the heat, could see the flames shooting skyward along the north side of High Street. Several shops and houses were ablaze, and the fire was moving with deadly speed. Even as he watched, flames leapt across the narrow width of the closest side street and ignited a thatched roof. When he reached the siege site, he stopped in shock, unable to credit what he was seeing. Firebrands were being shot from the palace walls, launched from mangonels in a sizzle of sparks and cinders, raining death down indiscriminately upon citizens and soldiers alike.

The scene meeting his eyes was chaotic. Men were shoving and cursing, coughing whenever smoke blew their way, loading mangonels with heavy stones as archers sought to drive the enemy off the battlements. In the midst of so much urgent activity, it took him some time to find Robert. His brother’s face was streaked with soot and sweat, his eyes red-rimmed, his voice hoarse from shouting orders. At sight of Ranulf, he said wearily, “Can you believe it? Those whoresons set fire to their own city.”

“I saw this done once before, in Normandy. The Breton commander put Lisieux to the torch rather than have it fall to Geoffrey. But he was a mercenary, whilst Bishop Henry…Jesú, Robert, he is a man of God!”

“Tell that to those people out on High Street, watching their homes and livelihoods go up in smoke.” Others were clamoring now for Robert’s attention: his own captains, a man who claimed to be the city’s royal reeve, some of the imperiled merchants…and a tearful nun. “Sister? You ought not to be here—”

“My lord earl, you must help us! Our nunnery is afire!”

Robert swore softly. “I’ll do what I can,” he said, seizing her elbow and steering her toward the greater safety of the barricades.

Ranulf’s first impulse was to follow, but he’d promised Maude that he’d report back to her straightaway. He hesitated, and then John Marshal solved his dilemma for him. “I’ve just heard that the fire is spreading to the west, and I own two houses on Scowrtene Street. I could use some help if it turns out to be true.”

Ranulf didn’t care for Marshal’s peremptory tone, but he didn’t take it personally, for those who knew him joked that Marshal would be barking orders to St Peter himself if ever he made it to Heaven’s Gate. Moreover, Scowrtene Street was on the way back to the castle, and so he and Gilbert trailed after John Marshal as he hastened along High Street, using his elbows and shoulders to clear his path.

By now the turmoil was spreading as fast as the fire. Most of the shops had family dwellings above-stairs, and frantic men and women were trying to save all they could, staggering out of their threatened houses with whatever belongings they could carry away. Others were desperately seeking to contain the fires: dousing nearby homes and shops with water, forming bucket brigades. Brooks ran down the center of several streets, but they were shallow, meandering streams, meant to sweep away garbage dumped into the streets, never to quench a conflagration such as this.

Ranulf marveled at the courage of the people. They kept plunging into smoke-filled buildings to retrieve what they could, and when they heard that St Martin’s Church in Fleshmonger Street was ablaze, they rallied to the rescue—the elderly and the young as well as the able-bodied—all responding to the priest’s frenzied plea for help.

John Marshal had quickened his pace, beginning to curse, for smoke was spiralling up ahead. By the time they reached the corner, Marshal’s worst fears were confirmed: one of his houses was already in flames and the other seemed likely to be consumed, too. The neighborhood residents were trying to save the rest of the street by soaking down the roofs. Some were demanding more drastic measures, insisting that they must pull down those houses already doomed in the hopes of creating a fire break. John Marshal at once allied himself with the men arguing against it, for his second house was among those to be sacrificed. Under normal circumstances, he would easily have prevailed, for he was a baron, a man with a notoriously quick temper and a sword at his hip. But the circumstances were anything but normal, and these men were in danger of losing all they had.

The argument raged on, and might well have come to blows if not for the screaming. It was high and shrill and filled with too much terror to ignore. They turned toward the sound as a woman lurched into their midst, falling to her knees. “You are lords,” she sobbed, “you can save him…”

John Marshal pulled away when she plucked at his arm; his sense of chivalry was stunted in the best of times. Ranulf was more obliging, but she was almost incoherent and he did not know what she wanted of them. It was not until she gasped out the word
pillory
that one of the men understood. “Oh, Christ! There was a man locked in the pillory—”

The woman sobbed again. “I could not get him free…” She choked, clutching now at Ranulf. “Hurry,” she pleaded, “please hurry!”

Ranulf was already in motion, running back toward High Street, the others at his heels. Turning the corner, he came to a horrified halt. The closest house was ablaze, and collapsing rafters had fallen upon the pillory, setting it afire. The man was engulfed in flames; even his hair was on fire, and there was a sickening stench of burning flesh. But he was still alive, his mouth contorted in a silent scream. Ranulf lunged forward, but the heat drove him back. When he tried again, Gilbert grabbed him by both arms.

“It is too late, Ranulf!”

“We cannot let him burn to death!” Ranulf wrestled free, but by then John Marshal was there, shoving him aside as he drew his sword.

Ranulf shouted, but the sword was already thrusting downward. It was a clean, powerful stroke, decapitated the man with one blow. Splattered with blood, Ranulf stumbled backward, fighting queasiness. The other men looked sick, too; one had doubled over and was vomiting into the dirt. Several were trying to keep the woman from seeing, to no avail. She screamed just once, then crumpled to the ground, almost at John Marshal’s feet. Sheathing his sword, he said matter-of-factly, “I’d hope that someone would do as much for me.” They watched him in silence, stunned not so much by his act as by the realization that he was utterly unaffected by it.

WITH
the coming of night, the city took on an eerie, awful beauty. Flames lit up the darkness for miles, smoke shrouded the town in a garish orange haze, and each time the wind shifted, embers drifted down like fiery snowflakes. It was past midnight, but no bells were chiming the hour; too many churches lay in ruins. A few fires still burned, but the worst seemed over. Ranulf fervently hoped so. Never had he been so exhausted. Finding an overturned horse trough, he sank down upon it, not looking up until he heard footsteps crunching through the ashes and debris.

Brien did not have to proclaim his fatigue; his slow, uneven step did it for him. Upon recognizing Ranulf, he limped over, and Ranulf made room for him on the trough. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“I fell off a ladder.” Brien did not elaborate, and Ranulf did not probe. They’d all seen sights this night that they’d want only to forget. They sat in silence for a time, absorbed in thoughts neither wanted to share. But then Brien’s head came up. “Horses,” he said, and they watched as riders emerged from the shadows. A moment later both men were on their feet, Maude’s name an unspoken echo between them.

They reached her even before she reined in, insisting that she should not be there, that it was too dangerous, that she must return to the castle where she’d be safe. Maude heard them out with unusual patience, and then said simply, “I could not wait any longer, had to see for myself. Do you know where Robert is? And is it true that St Mary’s nunnery could not be saved?”

“No, it all burned.” Brien moved closer to Maude’s restive mare, fighting the urge to reach for her reins. “I do not mean to belabor the point, but some of the bishop’s men might still be loose in the city, and if you were recognized—”

“Brien, enough!” Maude frowned, but as she gazed down into his face, her mood changed abruptly, and she surprised them by yielding. “If it will ease your mind, I’ll return to the castle. But I want you both to come back with me. You look as if either one of you could be toppled over by a feather, and little wonder, after such a night as this…”

Maude’s guards could not hide their relief, and hovered protectively around her when she insisted upon a pace slow enough to accommodate Brien and Ranulf. As they walked along High Street’s smoldering trail of misery, Ranulf found himself wondering what would become of these people, burned out of their homes and their shops. Winchester was in for a wretched winter, he concluded bleakly, just as a shower of sparks blew across their path, spooking the horses. Maude was a good rider and soon quieted her mare. But then she looked up uneasily at the sky. “Tell me I am wrong,” she said, “tell me the wind is not rising.”

They could not, for they felt it, too. The wind was indeed picking up. Flames that had almost died down were surging back to life, embers kindling anew, flames burning higher and hotter, putting the city again in peril.

THE
fire raged through the night and into the following day. Driven by gusting winds, the flames razed much of Winchester north of High Street. By midmorning, airborne embers and cinders had soared over the city wall onto the shingled roofs of Hyde Abbey. The monks managed to save most of their livestock. But their church, chapter house, infirmary, kitchen, and stables were burned to the ground.

THE
sky was an overcast, ashen shade, the air humid and still, as if the night’s firestorm had never been. Daylight revealed a scene of widespread desolation: ashes and rubble and charred fragments of shattered lives. Maude was shocked and shaken by what she saw. Had she been asked about a king’s responsibilities, she would have said that he must safeguard the subjects of his realm, for Scriptures spoke of saving the poor from the sword and feeding the hungry. But faced with the reality of it—a city in ruins, people homeless and in despair—she was suddenly at a loss. What could she possibly do to ease suffering on a scale like this?

She was accompanied by William Pont de l’Arche, sheriff of Hampshire and castellan of Winchester’s royal castle, by her brothers and Miles and Brien, all of whom had argued in vain against this expedition, and by the newly arrived Archbishop of Canterbury, who seemed stunned by what he was finding.

Maude and the archbishop had wanted to visit the burned-out nuns of St Mary’s, but Robert balked at that, for the nunnery was perilously close to both siege sites. He was so adamant that they had to content themselves with an offer of shelter until the nunnery could be restored. But who would rebuild the shops and homes of the townspeople? It was a question that shadowed Maude as they inspected the scorched wreckage of High Street, a troubling one, for she had no answer.

William Pont de l’Arche proved to be too knowledgeable a guide, for he had fought the fires all night long, and there seemed to be no tragedy that he’d not heard about, no sorrow that had escaped him. He pointed out a blackened shell where a child had died. He reeled off the casualty list of the city’s churches—at least twenty, he said, mayhap more. He showed them the spot where the pillory prisoner had met his gruesome death, and he told them what had occurred at St Mary’s Church over in Tanner Street. The priest had rushed back inside to retrieve the holy relics—St Swithun’s tooth and straw from the Christ Child’s manger—and had been overcome by smoke. When three parishioners attempted to rescue him, the roof collapsed, trapping them all inside. “Our city will never be the same,” he said mournfully, and there were none to refute him.

People were wandering about like sleepwalkers, as if the full magnitude of their loss had not yet sunk in. Many clutched bundled-up clothes, candlesticks, blankets, whatever they’d been able to snatch from the flames. Some merely stared blankly at Maude as she passed by. Others sought to get close to her, and when her guards kept them away, their voices echoed after her, crying out their fear and their grief and their pleas for help. She ordered her chaplain to distribute alms, but it seemed a futile gesture, offering good wishes to one bleeding to death, and Maude felt a rush of relief as they neared the castle, for there was naught she could do. But then she drew rein abruptly, common sense forgotten.

The woman might have been Maude’s own age, but childbearing and hard work had aged her beyond her years. She had three boys clinging to her skirts, a baby in her arms, and she was weeping silently, rocking back and forth as if oblivious to the devastation around her. It was the children who’d drawn Maude’s eye, for they all had curly reddish-copper hair—the same shade as Maude’s sons’. The smallest had looked to be about three, and in him, Maude saw her own youngest son, for Will had been just three when she left to claim her crown, when she saw him last…nigh on two years ago.