by Jason Vail
“You want fast?” Harry said. He dug in the oars and gave a monstrous pull that jolted the boat forward.
Gilbert was still on his feet and the jolt caught him unprepared. He staggered back and fell over the back of the boat. Only a desperate grasp on the rudder and digging his heals into the rear thwart saved him from a full dunking; as it was, his butt got submerged.
“For God’s sake, man!” Gilbert sputtered. “Help!”
Harry swung an oar around so Gilbert could get hold of it and pull himself back in.
“You could have killed me, damn you!” Gilbert gasped as climbed back in the boat and slumped at the tiller.
“Mind your job,” Harry said, pointing to the tiller. “Anyway, it was Stephen’s idea that I go fast. Direct your curses where they belong.”
Sometime later, when Harry and Gilbert changed places, Harry muttered to Gilbert in a voice so low that Stephen, in the bow, could barely make out he said. It was, “Sorry about that.”
An apology from Harry was so unusual, that Gilbert blinked and made no response other than a startled nod.
A thin crescent moon smiled down on them as the afternoon wore on. It set shortly after sundown, and a long twilight followed that gave ample illumination to avoid a collision with a bank. Then as the light faded and night settled, the clouds wisped away, leaving an almost gray rather than a black sky brilliant with bright stars. The night was dark, but not so dark that the man at the tiller couldn’t see well enough to steer by. The absence of clouds would have been celebrated, but it was accompanied by a chill wind that rattled the grass at the top of the bank, and hissed about their ears. Thankfully, it was a north wind and did not impede their progress, although it left those not working the oars to shiver and drape their cloaks close about their shoulders.
Stephen kept time by the wheeling of the stars, and required a change in the rower each hour to avoid anyone getting over tired. This meant that a settled sleep was hard to come by.
It was a good thing that Harry was at the tiller deep in the night. He spotted the place where the Severn divides above Gloucester at the Upper Parting. Had Stephen or Gilbert been steering, it was likely they would have missed it since it looked like a tributary to the river in the dark rather than a part of the river itself. Had they missed the Parting, they’d have missed Gloucester altogether, since it lay on the east fork of the river and the wider channel, the one Stephen or Gilbert would have taken, was the west one.
The creaking of a waterwheel was the first indication they had arrived at Gloucester.
“That will be the bridge mill,” Harry said at the tiller referring to the fact that there was a mill beneath the city side of the bridge.
Stephen, at the oars, glanced back to get a view of it and of the bridge across the east branch of the Severn, glad they had arrived. It was several hours after midnight by the stars, he was dead tired, and his hands hurt, adding to the persistent misery of his calves. He had a blister on one hand and another growing on the other; the tide had turned an hour or so ago so that the river flowed upriver and he had to fight hard against the in-coming current. He wanted nothing more than to put into shore and fall asleep.
There was something wrong, though. As the boat neared the bridge, Stephen noticed Harry staring upward with a surprised look on his face. Stephen craned to see what might have provoked Harry — the middle span of the bridge was missing.
Puzzling at things overhead caused Harry to neglect his primary duty, which was steering the boat. His eyes fell to the river and he hissed as he slammed the tiller over, “Hard right, damn it! We’re going to hit a support!”
These were stone columns that held up a wooden bridge.
Stephen dug in the right oar to add force to the turn. But it was not enough. The boat bumped hard against one of the pillars with a loud knock. The boat rocked from the impact and an instant later Stephen’s right-hand oar struck the stone pillar, driving the oar handle into his stomach. His wind went out with a sharp “oof!” and he made strangling noises trying to get it back as he pushed away from the pillar with a hand, catching a glimpse of the mill and a small structure just below the bridge that housed the mechanism for raising and lowering a boom chain that stretched across the river to impede traffic until shipmasters had paid the toll. Stephen dug the oars in to give the boat some headway so the bite of the tiller could set the bow right again.
He heard commotion overhead at the gate securing the eastern side of the bridge. A voice called, “Who goes there!”
Stephen’s first impulse was to say nothing, hoping to glide away unseen. But another voice cried, “There they are!”
“Archers, nock your arrows!” the first voice commanded, sending a chill through Stephen.
“Travelers!” Stephen cried. “We’re travelers fleeing the troubles up north!”
“The devil you are!” the commander’s voice cried. “We’re under attack! They’re crossing the river! Loose!”
They’re crossing the river! A flash of insight told Stephen the situation. The bridge gate, known as the West Gate, served only to guard the bridge. The street running eastward from the river was a suburb of Gloucester that was unprotected by a wall. The men above him thought that the enemy, surely another rebel army, were on the west bank and trying to assault the town by crossing at night on boats.
“Down! Get down!” Stephen cried to Gilbert and Harry as he dived to the bottom of the boat. Its sides were not high, but they were all the protection they could get.
He had no sooner called out than arrows hissed around them. Some thunked into the boat’s strakes with enough force to send shivers through the boat; others splashed into the water.
Another volley followed and then a third. Without anyone rowing, the boat began to eddy upriver back toward the bridge. They would be sitting ducks, easily shot down from the heights of the bank and bridge.
A quick peek over the side revealed the silhouettes of men on the city-side bank. Every now and then, one of those men paused and sent an arrow in their direction.
Then the vagaries of the current pushed the boat against the western bank, where it snarled in the weeds.
One of the pursuers said, “Do you think we got them?”
“Looks like it,” another said.
“Do you see any more boats?” the commander called.
“No, sir! That’s the only one.”
“Do you think they were travelers after all?” someone on the bank asked.
“Probably,” came a reply.
“We killed innocent men, then.”
“Ah, so what? Better to be safe than sorry. Don’t lose any sleep over it.”
Stephen lay in the bottom, breathing shallowly so he didn’t make any noise and provoke further shots from those on the east bank.
Someone came down the bank, rustling the weeds, and grasped the bow. Stephen looked up at the figure of man aiming at him with a crossbow.
“Out now, and be quick about it, if you know what’s good for you,” said the man with the crossbow.
Their captors were astonished at Harry when he swung himself out of the boat and gained the top of the bank with as much ease as Stephen and Gilbert, although he had to rely on his hands. They wanted to move quickly away, however, since enemy sentries could be heard on the other side of the river, so not trusting that Harry could keep up, they forced Stephen to carry Harry. The leader ordered several of his men to collect their things, and there was some further astonishment at Stephen’s war gear.
“You’re a spy, are you?” the leader asked Stephen as they crossed a broad field.
“Not a spy,” Stephen grunted, since it could be hard to talk while carrying the stony weight of Harry at the pace the leader set. He grappled with how he was going to explain himself. If this indeed was a rebel army, and he had no reason to think otherwise, he was in grave danger, not of death, but of being held for ransom if anyone found out who he was. Much of his money was in the sack Gilbert was carrying, which
obviously would be taken from him as a spoil of war, and the rest might not be enough to satisfy the demand, which meant he was likely to rot in some gaol for quite a long time. Years, even. Gilbert faced the same danger as a prosperous merchant, but he would probably be able to conceal his identity better than Stephen. Harry, poor Harry, might even be killed out of hand, although the fact he had not been slaughtered on the riverbank gave some room for hope.
“What are you, then?” the leader demanded.
“I’m a man without a horse,” Stephen managed to say. “It was stolen.”
“Stolen, you say,” the leader said with contempt. “What knight has his horse stolen out from under him?”
“A man whose horse was not under him at the time,” Stephen grunted.
“I’d like to hear that story when you tell it to Sir Guy,” the leader said.
They passed through a hedge and crossed another field without further interrogation, clambered through a second hedge, and followed a road for some distance until they reached a camp. The sentries at the camp demanded who was there, exchanging passwords, all in good order. The leader guided Stephen and Gilbert to a large tent. He announced to a servant he had captives. There was some delay while candles were lighted and Sir Guy was awakened.
The tent was divided in half by a curtain. Sir Guy came through the curtain, rubbing his eyes and clad in a long robe with a fox fur collar since he had not felt it necessary to interrogate prisoners while fully dressed. He was Stephen’s age, shorter but broader with deep lines on both sides of his mouth, which was good at frowning and was frowning now. The sight of the man filled Stephen with relief.
“What is it, Oxeman?” Sir Guy asked the leader.
“Caught these fellows trying to sneak by on the river,” Oxeman said. “I thought they might be spies.”
Sir Guy focused on the prisoners. He regarded Stephen with some surprise. “You’ve come to join us, eh, Attebrook?”
“Not exactly, Mortimer,” Stephen said. Guy Mortimer was a junior member of the great family of the Earl Roger Mortimer, who was Guy’s cousin, the leading Marcher noble, and the late holder of Wigmore. Like many Marcher barons, Roger Mortimer called himself an earl. Stephen had grown up on a manor only ten miles from Guy’s. The family strongly supported the king, so Stephen was among friends. “I had no idea you were here.”
“Well, now that we’re here, we can use you,” Mortimer said. “No horse, I take it?”
“No,” Stephen said.
Mortimer’s eyes fell on Harry at Stephen’s feet. “Who’s that? We’ve no use for a man like him.” He looked up at Oxeman. “Get rid of this poxy fellow. Another useless mouth to feed. We’ve enough of those already.”
“He stays,” Stephen said.
“Stays?” Mortimer asked, disbelieving what he heard. “What is he to you?”
“My man.”
“No wonder you couldn’t run off the rebels when they paid your manor a visit. The fellow couldn’t dispatch a small child.”
“Harry’s tougher than he looks. Anyway, he wasn’t there. He keeps my townhouse. You heard about the attack on my manor?”
“Yes. The bastards burned my two manors. My cousin lost Wigmore, too, although his wife held out in the keep. Unimaginable. He’s very angry about it. That fellow keeps your townhouse?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Oh, well. I wonder how that works.” Mortimer settled onto a folding chair. He motioned for Stephen to take a seat on a similar chair, but offered none to Gilbert. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Who commands here. You?” Stephen asked instead. “Your cousin?”
“Lord Edward and Duke Richard,” Mortimer said.
“I thought they were at Hereford.”
“We came here when the city fell to the rebels.”
Hereford had fallen to the rebels? Stephen was shocked to hear this. “I need to see Lord Edward right away. We’ve just come from Worcester, which was sacked yesterday. The army that did so will be here tomorrow evening.”
Chapter 12
Stephen was surprised to learn that Lord Edward, Earl Roger and Duke Richard were not in the encampment. They were across the river in Gloucester Castle with a sizeable force from the royalist army to reinforce the castle garrison, which had narrowly held out against attacks by a rebel army led by John Giffard, baron of Brimpsfield.
“Giffard’s a clever one,” Mortimer said on the ride to the river crossing, a bridge spanning the Severn to the castle, which lay in the south part of town. “He got through West Gate with a small party pretending to be Welsh wool merchants.”
“Him personally?” Stephen asked.
“Yes. Or so we heard.”
“It’s surprising no one recognized him.” Stephen had heard of Brimpsfield, Giffard’s main holding. It was in Gloucestershire only eight or nine miles away, and Giffard should have been well known in the town.
“We think he had help from within the town. Those on guard that day were rebel sympathizers.”
“He attacked the West Gate,” Stephen mused. “That seems odd.” Since Brimpsfield lay to the east, Stephen would have expected Giffard to muster his forces there and attack the town from that direction.
Mortimer said reluctantly, “He was among those involved in the taking of Wigmore and the ravaging of our lands. After the castle fell, he came south to take Gloucester.”
Stephen understood his reticence. It meant that Giffard had marched his force around Hereford, which lay west of the Severn like Wigmore, to reach Gloucester. This was a major embarrassment for Edward, who should have prevented it. The revelation also meant something else of significance. The rebels had divided their army, Giffard coming here, and Henry de Montfort and Ferrers heading for Worcester. Divided, these armies might be defeated piecemeal, but combined they might outnumber Lord Edward and Duke Richard.
“How many men do you have?” Stephen asked, trying to make the question seem offhanded, as if he wasn’t that interested. It was not the sort of information an army leader should give out to anyone who happened by.
“We’ve fifteen-hundred, give or take when you add our people to those Lord Edward brought with him,” Mortimer said.
Stephen nodded, as if they had been talking about the weather. But the number was an interesting news. Fifteen hundred men was a sizeable army.
Dawn was close when they approached the earth and wooden barbican defending the castle bridge. The castle bridge differed from the town bridge upstream. Where the town bridge at West Gate rested on stone piers, this one was made entirely of wood, no doubt to make it easier to destroy in the event of an attack. Attacks coming from Wales to the west were an ever-present danger, after all. It was not an impressive bridge, however; there were only two planks laid across the span suitable for a man to cross on foot.
The guards at the barbican took charge of the horses and waved them through. Stephen and Mortimer crossed the planks on foot; walking on them was a bit harrowing since the boards were not nailed down, although there was a rope handhold. They had to scramble around workmen halfway over who were further repairing the bridge, adding planks and supports.
“So it will take horses and wagons,” Mortimer said, commenting on the work as they edged by. “Then we can get the army over.”
Across the bridge on the quay, there were several knights, double their number of men-at-arms and twenty odd spearmen standing watch on the quay where, on the other side of the castle ditch, a small body of enemy knights and men-at-arms had gathered to observe the progress of the bridge repairs. There were also a dozen enemy archers further down the quay, but they seemed checked by the presence of thirty royalist archers at the head of the bridge.
Other friendly men-at-arms waited at the water gate to the castle. But they recognized Mortimer and made no comment as the two men passed into the bailey.
Mortimer led Stephen into the hall, a four-story stone building on the other side of the bailey.
Alth
ough it was early, Lord Edward, Roger Mortimer and Duke Richard were already up when Stephen and Guy Mortimer entered the hall. They were sitting at a table set up by the central hearth for what warmth they could glean from it in the chilly hall. All were slumped over the table and could have been mistaken for men waiting for breakfast in any inn or tavern. Duke Richard had his face in his hands. Lord Edward, the king’s son, sat across from him looking grim. Roger Mortimer looked a bit less unhappy. A fourth man who must have been at least sixty whom Stephen did not recognize, tall but muscular with thick wrists, sagging jowls and thin gray hair, sat with crossed arms and squinting eyes.
Guy Mortimer marched up to the table through a screen of servants setting up tables for breakfast.
“My lords!” Guy announced to get the nobles’ attention.
“What is it, Guy?” Roger Mortimer asked. He was only a few years older than Stephen. He had an angular face that might be called handsome when he smiled, which wasn’t often. His skin was ghastly pale, almost like that of a corpse. Black hair inherited from his Welsh mother framed that formidable face. Mortimer glanced at Stephen, who had stopped a pace behind Guy. “I know you.”
Stephen inclined his head. “My lords.”
Edward brought up his large head, his dark blond hair falling thickly in clumpy unwashed strands about his long face with his unshaven, cleft chin. He hated shaving and submitted to the razor only once a week in normal times. It looked as though it had been longer than that now.
“Attebrook,” Edward said irritably. “What are you doing here?”
“Among other things, I’ve come to warn you, my lord,” Stephen said.
“The last time you showed up, you brought nothing but trouble,” Duke Richard said. He was the king’s younger brother, a man in his middle fifties, slender and of average height. He had the same small mouth and dog-like brown eyes as King Henry, which in Richard’s case resembled a bloodhound’s, but where the king’s expression was often a friendly smile, Richard was more content to wear a frown. He looked as though he’d be more comfortable in a soft chair or copying a book in some monastery. He was a prickly man with a quick temper who hated easily and forgave grudgingly. “So, you’ve brought us trouble again, have you?”
