When Christ and His Saints Slept (70 page)

Stephen looked at the man’s earnest face, then back at the river. “This is probably not one of my more rational decisions,” he said at last, “but I say we risk it.”

William de Ypres shrugged. “Why not? It is as good a day to drown as any, I suppose.”

“If Robert Fitz Roy could cross the Fossedyke at flood tide in the dead of winter, then we ought to be able to survive a September dunking in the Thames. Besides,” Stephen smiled suddenly, “if the Almighty meant for me to drown, he’d have let me sail on the White Ship.”

“Even God can change His Mind,” Ypres pointed out, but he was already gesturing to one of their scouts. “Tell my lord Earl of Northampton and the others that we are going to cross at the ford. Have them stand ready to move onto the Grandpont.”

Mounting his stallion, Stephen glanced at his waiting men, handpicked by Ypres and eager to reap the bounty that victory would bring. “Now,” he said, and plunged into the river. Their guide had not lied. There was indeed a ford there, but it was not for the faint of heart; the current was strong and the water level dangerously deep for such a crossing. Splashing toward the shore, swimming at times, Stephen’s stallion scrambled up onto the bank, and the others soon followed. Only one man had been swept from his saddle, and he’d managed to grasp his horse’s tail, holding fast until he could regain his footing in the shallows. Stephen looked them over, his eyes moving from face to face, shadowed by their conical helmets. Satisfied by what he found, he unsheathed his sword. “A gold ring,” he promised, “to the first man into the city!”

They were soon spotted by sentries up on the city walls, who hurried to sound the alarm. But by then it was too late. Rob d’Oilly’s men were not expecting a flank attack on their own side of the river. They recoiled in confusion, and as Rob and his captains frantically tried to regroup, the main body of Stephen’s army came charging across the causeway and into the fray. Assailed from two sides, the defenders broke rank and sought to retreat back into the town. But when the guards up on the walls opened the South Gate to admit them, Stephen’s soldiers surged in, too, and the battle for Oxford was suddenly being fought in the streets of the city.

FROM
the keep battlements, Ranulf and Hugh de Plucknet and the others had watched helplessly as Stephen and Ypres bore down upon Oxford’s defenders. Racing to aid their beleaguered comrades, they were halfway down Pennyfarthing Street when the first fugitives from the battle fled into the town. Warned by the noise ahead, Ranulf slowed his stallion. The men with him reined in their mounts, too, just as the wind brought to them one of the most dreaded of all cries: “Fire!” As soon as they saw the smoke swirling up from the direction of Southgate Street, Ranulf and Hugh looked at each other in appalled understanding. “Christ, they are in the city!”

Swinging their mounts about, they galloped back to the castle. There was no need for words; they all knew what must be done if they hoped to survive Stephen’s assault. Fortunately, Maude had anticipated disaster, and servants were already heating water in huge cauldrons. Once it reached the boiling point, they carried it up onto the wall-walk on either side of the gatehouse, knowing they’d have no margin for error and but one chance.

Oxford was in chaos. The citizens had no training in the skills of war, and many of them panicked now, fleeing from Stephen’s pursuing soldiers instead of defending themselves. Stephen’s men were throwing torches into shops and onto roofs, and people were soon stumbling out of their barred and shuttered houses, coughing and choking. Some tried to take refuge in St Frideswide’s Priory, clambering over the monastery walls when the monks refused to open their gate. Knights on war-horses rampaged through the streets, and a few unlucky souls were trampled when they fell under the plunging hooves.

There was some resistance offered, and the fighting was bloodiest in Great Bailey Street, where Rob d’Oilly and his knights were attempting an ordered retreat back to the castle. Once they were within sight of its walls, the drawbridge was lowered and they sprinted desperately for safety. When the enemy followed, seeking to rush the castle gates as they had the town’s gate, the men up on the walls poured scalding water down into their midst. There were terrible screams, most scattered, and several rolled on the ground in agony. Before the attackers could try again, the castle defenders raised the drawbridge.

Rarely had a city been captured with such ease. Stephen could afford to be magnanimous, and sent some of his men to help put out the fires they had set, thus sparing Oxford the massive fiery destruction that had devastated Winchester. But when a town was taken by storm, it was turned over to the victorious army for their sport. Knowing what to expect, some of Oxford’s women had fled, hiding themselves in the woods or seeking refuge in the nearby nunnery at Godstow and the priory at Osney. Oxford’s shops were located mainly in Northgate Street and High Street, and these neighborhoods were pillaged first. Private homes could be plundered, too, and often were, for crimes were not crimes if committed in war. The townsmen concealed their valuables as best they could, feared for their wives and daughters, and prayed for Oxford.

Not all the citizens were so distraught, of course. Some were relieved, for the suffering of those trapped in a besieged city could be terrible. Now at least they need not fear starvation. And the alehouses and brothels in Gropecunt Lane would thrive under the occupation.

They were in the minority, though, and most of Oxford passed a nervous, wakeful night, the quiet broken by the brawling of celebrating soldiers, by laughter and cheerful cursing and, occasionally, a woman’s screams. In the morning, the city reeve, the prior of St Frideswide’s, and several members of the merchant’s guild made their way to the king’s encampment and pleaded for an audience with Stephen. When they finally returned, they brought comforting news for their anxiously waiting colleagues. The king had assured them that he held no ill will for the citizens of Oxford, and as long as they cooperated fully with his army, they’d not be harmed. All he wanted was the castle and the woman trapped within.

MAUDE
stood at the open window in the upper chamber of the castle keep, looking out at her cousin’s army. It was three years, almost to the day, since she’d gazed out upon a similar scene at Arundel Castle. But there were deadly differences between that siege and this one. Robert would have been able, then, to come to her rescue. Now he was in Normandy and unaware of her peril. Nor was Stephen going to set her free, send her safely on her way in another act of mad gallantry. Oxford was not Arundel. This time there would be no reprieve.

26

Cérences, Normandy

November 1142

W
INTER
came early that year to Normandy. Upon his arrival at Cérences, the latest Norman stronghold to yield to his father, Henry was delighted to find a dusting of snow upon the ground. He’d spent several hours collecting enough to build a snow fort and two days later, it remained intact out in the bailey, not yet melted. Although a blazing fire burned in the open hearth, the great hall still held a chill. Henry had a wax tablet propped up on his knees, and a bone stylus clutched in his fingers. He was supposed to be practicing his declensions of Latin nouns and adjectives, for he’d promised that his brief visits to his father’s sieges would not disrupt his studies, but he’d gotten no further than amicus magnus and amici magni.

He knew what came next—amico magno—but instead he scratched Bastebourg into the wax, followed by Trevieres, Villiers-Bocage, Briquessard, Aunay-sur-Odon, Plessis-Grimoult, Vire, Tinchebray, Teilleul, St Hilaire, Mortain, and Pontorson. He had just space enough to add Cérences. He’d not made a conscious effort to memorize his father’s conquests, but he’d followed the campaign so closely that he now knew the names of the captured castles as well as he did the names of the servants who tended to him back in Angers.

They were getting easier, these victories. Cérences had surrendered at once. Glancing across the hall, Henry studied his father and uncle as he should have been studying his Latin. He knew about their quarreling; all of Normandy knew. One more castle. It was always one more castle. They would triumph and then they would argue and his father would make Robert more promises, promises few thought he had any intention of keeping. Henry did not understand the rules about lying. His tutor said that lying was a grievous sin. But his father often joked that life without sinning was like food without salt, pure but tasteless. As far as Henry could figure, some lies were harmless, some were necessary, and some were unforgivable. But what if people could not agree which was which?

Men kept coming into the hall, seeking shelter from the frigid November wind. Some of them Henry knew from past visits to siege sites. Fulk and Hugh de Cleers were rarely far from his father’s side. But his uncle Hélie was usually as far away from Geoffrey as he could get; men jested grimly that they could teach Cain and Abel about brotherly rivalry.

Tonight Hélie was dicing with Henry’s cousin Philip. Philip’s family ties were tattered, too, these days; Henry hoped his father would never look at him the way he’d caught Robert looking at Philip, with disappointment too deep for words. Henry did not like Philip; he was moody and sarcastic and insisted upon calling Henry “Nine and Eight” after hearing Henry explain that he was nine years and eight months old. Henry didn’t mind being teased—his father teased him all the time—but he did mind being mocked; to his thinking, those eight months mattered.

He did like the man watching the dice game, one of his uncle’s knights. He’d been put off at first by Gilbert Fitz John’s odd appearance, for he had but one eyebrow and no eyelashes. But Gilbert never failed to smile at sight of Henry, he’d patiently answered Henry’s questions about the fire at Wherwell nunnery, and Henry no longer even noticed his scars.

Geoffrey was usually the focal point of all eyes; that was a role he relished. Tonight he was sharing center stage with a new arrival, a man unfamiliar to Henry, a tall, fair-haired lord with a loud laugh and a tendency to run roughshod over any conversation but his own. Men seemed willing to listen to Waleran Beaumont, though, for he’d just come from Paris and was well informed about the great scandal sweeping the French court.

Henry already knew about the scandal, for they’d been gossiping about little else back in Anjou. The Queen of France’s younger sister, Petronilla, had fallen in love with the Count of Vermandois. Count Raoul de Péronne was the French king’s cousin and his seneschal. He was fifty to her nineteen, an age that seemed vast indeed to Henry, but it was not the age difference that troubled people; it was not so uncommon for men to take much younger wives. The problem was that Raoul already had a wife. Petronilla would have him, though, wife or no, and she’d gotten her sister the queen on her side. Eleanor in turn had won over her husband, and to please her, King Louis set about finding a way to get rid of Raoul’s unwanted wife. The Bishop of Noyon, who happened to be Raoul’s brother, declared himself willing to dissolve the marriage on the grounds of consanguinity, and Louis found two other compliant bishops to go along with him. The marriage was invalidated, the countess and her children packed off to her uncle, and Petronilla and Raoul married before the ink was dry upon his annulment decree.