by Jason Vail
“I am afraid trouble is on its way whether I am here or not, your grace,” Stephen said. “I’ve just come from Worcester. Rebels under Robert de Ferrers and Henry de Montfort sacked the town the day before yesterday. They are marching here now, and should arrive this afternoon.”
The muscular, elderly man laughed, a bark without humor. “So much for your plan, my lord,” he said to Edward.
Duke Richard glowered at the old man. Then his expression softened. “You were right to advocate haste, Bohun,” he said, and Stephen guessed that the old man must be Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford. “I was wrong. We shouldn’t have delayed until the bridge was finished.”
“God’s knuckles! Just when we are about to stuff Giffard in the bag!” Edward shouted and banged the table with such force that it jumped. The servants in the hall jumped, too, and stared aghast at the tableau in fear of a further eruption that might sweep them away even if they were innocent of any transgression. Edward shot to his feet, trembling. Stephen thought for a second the prince might give the servants a second shock by overturning the table. But that would have required Edward to tip it on his uncle, so he spun about and paced away.
“Tell me what you saw,” Edward said over his shoulder.
“How many men does Ferrers have?” Edward asked when Stephen finished his tale.
“Ferrers has perhaps a hundred men,” Stephen said. “I don’t know about Henry de Montfort. Word on the street there put his complement at four hundred. But there’s no telling if that’s true.”
One might think this was good enough, given the circumstances. But Edward snapped, “What good are you!” as if Stephen had told him nothing useful.
“I’m sorry, my lord, but I was so intent on saving my skin that I failed to count them,” Stephen said.
“You are an impertinent bastard,” Edward snarled. “As we all know from your misbehavior at Windsor!”
“But a truthful one, my lord.” Those words leaped out of Stephen’s mouth before he could recall them. He was truthful about most things, but there was a terrible secret he had kept from Edward — that his wife was pregnant by another man. It was to keep this secret that Edward’s wife, Leonor, had granted him one of the manors she had been given by the king.
“It’s not his fault, my lord,” Mortimer said. “The question is, what do we do now?”
Edward returned to the table and the four men began a discussion about how to respond to this new development, ignoring Stephen and Guy Mortimer. The prudent thing was to withdraw, but Stephen was curious. He remained where he was, intending to stand there until they told him to go away. Evidently, Guy was curious, too, because he stayed at Stephen’s side.
From bits and pieces of what they said and whispered questions and answers from Guy Mortimer, Stephen got a picture of what had happened during the last two weeks. It seemed that King Henry had given Mortimer clandestine permission to attack Montfort’s holdings in the midlands. Mortimer had summoned his liegemen and, leaving his lands in the March largely undefended, had driven east and carried out a series of raids, burning and pillaging a dozen Montfort manors. The rebels’ response — decided on by Henry de Montfort and an elderly cousin called Peter de Montfort without Earl Simon’s consent — had been to march with a sizeable army from their stronghold at Northampton into the March. There, they had responded in kind to Mortimer’s holdings as well as wrecking vengeance on the properties of other royalists, which explained the sack of Halton Priors. Edward and the king did not sit idle, however. When Mortimer appealed for help, Edward had marched out with the bulk of the royalist forces, about thirteen-hundred men, to aid him, leaving King Henry in Oxford Castle with a skeleton force — Mortimer was too valuable an ally to do nothing. Joining forces with Mortimer at Hereford, and bringing their total to fifteen-hundred, they had attacked various parties of rebels about the March countryside and recaptured several castles that had fallen to the rebels. Faced with a superior force and wanting to avoid a battle, the rebel response was to split their army. Half under Henry de Montfort went to Worcester and the other half under John Giffard went to Gloucester. Their plan was to isolate Edward and Mortimer on the west bank of the Severn by seizing the bridges over the river, while Peter de Montfort rode hard to Earl Simon in an effort to persuade him to take this opportunity to seize the relatively undefended king at Oxford. Edward had not known that the enemy split their army. He followed Giffard to Gloucester, thinking Giffard led the entire army. When the royalists arrived, they learned from refugees that Giffard was inside the town with a mere six-hundred men and the earl of Hereford was holding out in Gloucester Castle with only a garrison of fifty. The earl of Hereford was trapped in the castle because the castle’s bridge was uncrossable, with several spans having fallen in. But two days ago, Edward had repaired the bridge enough to get a hundred men into the castle, beating back an assault and carrying the fighting into the streets outside the main gate, where many men on both sides were killed.
As the discussion went on, servants set up tables and benches about the nobles in preparation for breakfast. When they were done, one of the underchamberlains approached Lord Edward and spoke in his ear.
“It’s time, my lord,” the servant said. “We’ll need to remove this table now.”
Edward nodded and stood up.
Before the nobles could retire to the high table at the far end of the hall, Stephen drew close to them.
“Excuse me, my lords,” he said. “May I ask a question?”
“What is it?” Edward grumbled.
Stephen took that as permission. “Is it your intention to repair the castle bridge and use it to move the army across the river?”
“An idiot can see that’s what we have to do,” Duke Richard said with a sneer.
“The enemy must see it, too,” Stephen said. “And they aren’t idiots.”
“No, they aren’t,” Mortimer said. “What are you getting at?”
“Have the enemy tried to attack the bridge yet?” Stephen asked.
“No, they haven’t,” Edward said.
“We’ve too many men about either end for them to succeed,” Richard said. “You saw them coming in, surely.”
“I did indeed, my lord,” Stephen said. “Perhaps the enemy is waiting for the right time to attack.”
“When would that be?” Richard asked. “Next week? When we’ve gone?”
“When the enemy can gather one or two ships or ferries and turn them into fire vessels,” Stephen said. “We saw several ferries that would suit on the way down from Worcester.”
Edward pulled his lower lip thoughtfully. “That’s what you would do, eh?”
“Yes, my lord,” Stephen said. “Pack a ferry full of flammables and ram it into the bridge. The supports are old. I’m sure they’d burn like candles. Then support the fire ships with an attack along the quay. No — I’d precede the fire ship attack with one along the quay to divert your attention.”
“And I suppose you have a plan to defeat such an attack,” Richard said in a tone that suggested he didn’t believe Stephen had thought that far ahead, a circumstance he might relish pointing out — exposing Stephen as a man who wasn’t as clever as he wanted to appear.
“In fact, I do,” Stephen said. “Stretch a chain or a thick hawser across the river above the bridge. Chain would be preferable — harder to cut through.”
“And where are we to get chain or hawser?” Richard snorted. He waved a hand. “There are no such things here.”
“There is a boom chain at the West Gate,” Stephen said. “I’m sure there’s one at Over Bridge as well.” It made no sense to have a boom chain at Gloucester and not at Over Bridge on the other branch of the Severn. If the town had no chain there, traffic going up and down river could avoid paying at West Gate by the simple expedient of taking the open branch. “We just put the Over Bridge boom above the castle bridge.”
Edward’s tight face relaxed. He nodded thoughtfully. “Not a bad idea. Guy, you a
nd Attebrook see it done.”
Stephen and Guy Mortimer collected five men-at-arms, twenty spearmen and archers, and a wagon at the camp, and crossed Alney Island on the causeway road to Over Bridge, which spanned the west fork of the Severn and connected the island with the mainland.
The bridge here was like the one to the east, a wooden structure wide enough for two horsemen abreast, three infantrymen or one cart. The toll booth on this side of the bridge was deserted. It was quiet. There was no movement in sight but that of ducks on the river.
The chain house here was a squat tower made of red stone. It sat at the shoulder of the bridge on the downriver side, where a path ran through the water weeds and grass to it.
They left their horses at the foot of the bridge and went around to the chain tower.
Stephen expected to find the door locked, but it had been chopped apart by axes. The top quarter of the door hung by a hinge. When Stephen pushed it inward, the surviving hinge gave way with a long shriek of tortured iron. The remaining chunk of the door fell to the ground.
The interior was illuminated by light coming through the door, slit windows and a slot in the wall to allow the chain to rise when it was winched out of the water.
Stephen stepped into the dimness, his heart hammering, his face just beginning to feel the flush of embarrassment, although he had no real reason to feel embarrassed. None of what lay before his eyes was his fault. But he could already hear Duke Richard’s ridicule.
For there was no chain attached to the winch. There was only an iron lug in the center of the winch where the chain should have been attached.
Guy, who had followed Stephen, bent and recovered a portion of an iron link that had been sawed through. This will have been the link attaching the chain to the winch’s lug.
“Someone’s stolen it!” Guy said.
“Enterprising fellows taking advantage of the chaos of war,” Stephen said, bitterly. He held out his hand for the broken link. He had never seen iron sawed before. It was as neatly done as if it had been wood. He wondered how the thieves had accomplished the feat.
“That’s that, then,” Guy said.
“No, it isn’t,” Stephen said.
“What do you mean?” Guy asked.
“There’s always the boom chain at West Gate. We steal that one.”
Chapter 13
Harry was by one of the campfires regaling the cooks with tales of how he had wrestled five men at once on a bet and beaten all of them when Stephen and Guy Mortimer returned to the camp.
“Bet you couldn’t do that now,” one of the cooks said as Stephen and had come up.
“It was after I lost my legs,” Harry said. “And I didn’t break a sweat. I was tired by the last of them, though. He’d have run away if I hadn’t sunk my teeth into his ankle.”
“Get on!” several of the listeners cried.
“You wouldn’t happen to know how this was done,” Stephen interrupted as Harry drew a breath to go on with another outrageous lie. He gave the sawed iron link to Harry.
Harry paused giving additional details to his avid listeners, who may not have believed the story but were entertained nonetheless, to examine the iron link.
“Hacksaw,” Harry said dismissively, returning the damaged link.
“Hacksaw,” Stephen said. He knew something about saws, having observed their use, but he was not familiar with a specimen called a hacksaw.
“Right,” Harry said. He turned his head as if he intended to address the cooks with more details of his victory.
“Used to saw iron,” Stephen said. This was hard to believe.
“Well, they’re not normally used for that but I’ve done it a few times,” Harry said. He glanced at Guy, who was looking elsewhere but was close enough to overhear. Harry lowered his voice. “You know, in my former life. With Theo, when we …” He spread his fingers and wobbled his hand back and forth. Theo was Theobald Tennet, Harry’s brother-in-law and sometime professional thief. Harry had worked with him occasionally on illegal jobs before his injury. He pulled Stephen’s head close and whispered, “We cut a few locks that way.”
“Ah. Where would I get one?” Stephen asked.
“Any woodworker. I have one myself. You gave it to me. Don’t you remember?”
“I remember a toolbox. I can’t recall everything that was in it.”
“Well, you did.”
“Lucky you. It seems like no man should be without a hacksaw. Handier than they look. There aren’t too many woodworkers around here, though.”
Harry looked disgusted. “You walked right past a pack of them. At the castle bridge. Didn’t you notice all the hammering and sawing? Ask one of them.”
Stephen straightened up. “Do they make much noise?”
“Do what make much noise? Woodworkers? Of course, they do. You couldn’t get Mistress Bartelot to stop complaining about what she claimed was my racket.”
“Not workers. Hacksaws. When you use them to cut iron.”
“Not if you’re careful. Are you thinking of turning to a life of crime?”
Stephen smiled as he put the damaged link in his pouch. “Didn’t we do that some time ago?”
“Not me. But I can’t vouch for you.”
Stephen crawled the last few yards to the river’s edge through tall grass that whipped his face and itched his naked chest; he was stripped to his underdrawers because woolen clothing would drag him down once he entered the water. He was already shivering from the cold and it would only get worse.
He stopped at the top of the bank and lay flat in a place where he could see the water, a gray ribbon in the dark, and the opposite bank with the roofs of houses near the West Gate silhouetted against a moonless sky partly obscured by low clouds. The bridge was to the immediate left. It was about two hours after midnight and he heard no voices from across the way. It didn’t mean that watchers weren’t there, though.
Somewhere just beneath the bridge was the boom chain house, a faint square in the dark.
He was not looking forward to what must happen next. It was cold enough for snow and his breath hung about him in a cloud. When Guy had awakened him a couple hours after sundown, Guy had informed him that there were no volunteers to undertake this task. The excuse was that no one could swim well enough to carry it off. Stephen chuckled without humor. Finding an Englishman who could swim was hard, but it was impossible to believe that in an army of more than fifteen-hundred men, not one could swim. Yet no one had come forward.
So, it was up to Stephen alone to swim the river and free the boom chain. Using a boat to cross would attract too much attention.
The best time was at the end of a watch, when the watchmen were tired and less attentive. Scouts had informed Stephen before he set out that the watch was standing two on, meaning the watch was two hours long. The lead scout had told Stephen that the midnight watch was half an hour from ending. So, he couldn’t put this off any longer. He had to go.
He had planned to carry the borrowed hacksaw across in his teeth, but Harry had scoffed at that idea. “You’ll be so damned cold and your teeth will chatter so much that you’ll lose the thing before you’ve gone halfway,” Harry said.
“He’s right,” agreed Gilbert, who had some experience with the temperature of the Severn from his near dunking on the way downriver.
“Of course, I am,” Harry said. “When have you ever known me to be wrong?”
Neither Stephen nor Gilbert was in the mood to argue the point, although with some effort Stephen was sure he could come up with many examples. Gilbert pulled one of his bootlaces out, and he made a cord out of it to hang the saw from Stephen’s neck.
And now Stephen pressed the saw to his chest so it wouldn’t flap about as he slipped down the bank to the edge of the river.
He would have liked more than anything to stop there; he knew well the unpleasantness and danger to come. But he could not afford to linger, since he was probably visible from the opposite bank, which was just ov
er a stone’s throw away, forty yards or so. The distance had not seemed wide when he came down it on a boat or when he had looked upon it from the bank. But now it seemed far, very far. He not only had to get across, but he then had to get back.
He put one hand and then the other into the dark water, river mud seeping between his fingers which were instantly chilled.
Then he wormed in like an eel.
The effect was immediate and catastrophic. His breath wanted to come in great, jolting gasps; had he indulged them, they would have awakened a person out of a dead sleep a hundred yards away. So, fighting against the gasps, he shuddered and gulped.
Struggling to breathe, fighting not to make noise, Stephen stroked away from the west bank toward the enemy shore. The stone piers of the bridge, devoid of the roadway they had supported, rose as dark columns to the left. One hand found a fallen bridge timber, Stephen’s fingers already stiff and resistant to work. He pushed off the timber, and stroked onward; his arms and legs seemed to grow weaker with each stroke.
Finally, his hands brushed the mud bottom. He was on the other side. He scuttled out on hands and knees, dripping and gasping, breathing fast. He craned his neck to check the West Gate, two stone towers on either side of the bridge. It was quiet up there, as if he was in the Spanish wilderness at the bottom of a mountain cliff in winter. A gust of wind ruffled his hair and caressed a cheek.
Stephen crept toward the chain house on hands and knees. He fumbled his way around two corners to the door. No padlock secured the door as had been the case at Over Bridge. Still on his knees, Stephen held his breath and lifted the latch. There was a faint click within the door, the latch rose, and the door opened, emitting a creak that made Stephen cower and glance up at the gate tower. No voices came, no thumping of men moving about, no calls of alarm.
