Fires of Winter

by Roberta Gellis

  Over the next few days, Sir Grolier came twice more, each time speaking to the king alone by coming to him while I was out. That did not trouble me, although now I think I should have wondered why a man in Gloucester’s service should be so eager to speak alone with the king. Then I did not think of it; I was accustomed to the fact that men who wished to curry favor with the king preferred to present their cases in private. Each time Sir Grolier brought the king a few tidbits of fresh hope, as if he spent his time fishing for news and brought in his catch every few days. One time he had discovered that the earl of Surrey and the earl of Northampton had gone to the queen and pledged their support; another time he reported that William Martel had refused to yield Sherborne Castle even in the face of excommunication.

  After that visit the king had begun to think in terms of waging war rather than in terms of being still loved by those he had uplifted and enriched, and he soon came to the unpleasant conclusion I had reached immediately. “I am glad I still have friends, Bruno,” he said, frowning, “but unless some great victory is achieved very soon, you and I are likely to grow old here.”

  Since it was highly preferable to me to have a lively and hopeful companion than one who lay and looked at the walls or wept and raged, I temporized rather than agreeing. “That may be true, my lord,” I admitted, “but it is also possible that some other medium of exchange—”

  Stephen cut me off with a sharp negative. “There is too great advantage in keeping me. They have a leader; my force has none. Even the faithful grow weary when there is no symbol around which to rally. Time will favor them. There is only one answer. We must escape.”

  Every particle of my being leapt up in response to those words. I am sure the king saw my eagerness because he gripped my arm so hard his fingers left marks. God knows for me it sounded like salvation. I had never been asked to give my parole—I do not know whether Gloucester had simply forgotten me or considered me unimportant or believed I would be bound by the king’s vow; whatever the reason, he had not asked me to swear to accept captivity in lieu of physical chains. But the king had so sworn.

  “My lord,” I whispered, “you know I am willing, but you will have violated your assurance to Gloucester that you would not seek to gain your freedom. If we are not successful, I think you will be made to pay.”

  “Pay what?” Stephen asked, his voice hushed but his eyes alight. “My life? That will not be so high a price. Can what we live here be truly called a life? And even if I die, there will be gains. Matilda will then hold no pawn that can be used to blunt an attack on her. Eustace is nigh old enough to rule, and betrothed to Constance as he is, he can call in the full power of the king of France. No, Bruno, I am not afraid to die. Are you?”

  When he spoke like that, gaily and proudly in the face of danger, a finger of the old magic that had bound me to him touched me—but it was only a finger, not a hand that could grasp me and hold me. I loved him, for he had great courage and it was true he did not fear death—but that was only because, like a child, he did not really believe it could happen to him.

  “Yes,” I said bluntly, “I am afraid to die, but I am not much worried about dying. Remember that Gloucester never threatened death. You said yourself, my lord, that you are worth too much alive. He said chains. If you are caught, they will make you suffer, not kill you.”

  “Well, that will have a benefit too.” He grinned at me. “If Maud hears that I am ill-treated, she will move heaven and earth to free me at once. She is cautious by nature and might delay long waiting for the best time if she believes I am safe and comfortable.”

  Later that remark added to my anxieties, for I knew what the king said was true, and if the queen was made desperate, she might attack and fail. But at the moment Stephen named his wife, all I could think of was my own. I had not thought about Melusine by day for a long time—I was not quite so successful at keeping my fears and my desires out of my dreams at night and woke quite often sobbing, my pallet all wet with tears. At first I had spent a great part of my many idle hours recalling our times together. However, as my captivity lengthened, I found it necessary to stop myself from thinking of Melusine. It was not only my desire for her that tormented me—I would have welcomed that torment gladly—but I was afraid.

  I knew that it was only Maud’s fear of Stephen’s displeasure that had protected Melusine and forced the queen to keep her among her ladies before we were married. Perhaps Maud had come to suspect Melusine less, but would she welcome my wife as a companion in this dreadful time? Was it not more likely that the queen would use her as a scapegoat for the real enemies she could not reach?

  I told myself again and again that Maud was a kind and sensible woman and that she must have come to like and value Melusine, but with each piece of bad news I grew less hopeful. I had visions of Melusine abandoned without money, without a single man to protect her—for I thought then that Fechin, Cormi, and Merwyn had been killed or taken prisoner in the battle. What would Melusine do? How could she make her way across a war-torn country to the safety of Jernaeve? When I imagined what might happen to a woman traveling alone through a country infested by outlaws and marauding war bands, I beat my fists bloody against the wall.

  After that, I knew I would have to give up the joy of thinking of Melusine or go mad. But when Stephen spoke of Maud, I was off guard. Maud’s name instantly brought into my mind what I had seen so often in the past: the queen in her chair by the fire and Melusine close by, sitting on a stool with her embroidery on her lap, looking up and holding out a hand to me. I was seized by so violent a pang of longing that my eyes filled with tears and I turned away. Stephen seized my arm.

  “Have you changed your mind at the thought of chains? Do you fear them worse than death?” he asked with a sneer.

  Rage leapt up to burn Melusine out of my mind. How dare Stephen sneer at me? It was not I who wept like a babe with hopelessness and blamed everyone but myself for my ills. “Yes, I fear them worse,” I told him coldly, “since they are more likely to be my fate than death, but I fear nothing so much I will not perform my duty and obey you.”

  As soon as he saw he would get his way, Stephen was all smiles again. He had not even noticed that he had hurt me and that I was angry. He thought his sneer had erased my doubts. “You worry too much,” he said. “We will not be caught. When shall we go?”

  Did he expect me to say, “Now” and lead him out of the keep and through the city of Bristol? If so, he was sadly disappointed. I pointed out the difficulties and the need of making plans. “The guards may have grown less watchful than they were at first, but even blind guards would notice if we just walked out.”

  He laughed and struck me lightly with his fist. “Then let us make plans if we must, but they must not delay our freedom too long lest the rising hope of which Grolier speaks be crushed.”

  Stephen’s idea of making plans was suggesting that we enter the forbidden armory, seize weapons and armor if we could find it, and fight our way out. When I remembered the dead around him at Lincoln, the idea did not seem quite as ridiculous as it would have been for another man; however, as I reminded him, numbers would pull down any man at last, no matter how strong.

  “They did not pull me down,” he said pettishly. “No man could come so close. My helm was lost, and I was stunned by a stone. There are no stones here.”

  “No,” I snapped, “but there are clubs and knives and spears. And even if we could fight free of the keep, there is the whole city to traverse. How can we do that if a hue and cry were raised?”

  “How can we escape without a hue and cry being raised? I did not mean that we should start a fight here in the keep. I thought we could go quietly, kill the guards at the gate, and run. You said yourself that we cannot simply walk out.”

  “We cannot walk out as ourselves, but if we were disguised as serfs who have come in to do a day’s labor, we could walk out. It is possible that none
would notice we were missing for some hours, and by then we could be out in the countryside. Who would notice two poor hinds trudging from one task to another?”

  Stephen looked at me as if I had grown two heads, but after some discussion he began to see the merits of the idea—or to think that it would be an amusing adventure. Anyway, he entered into my attempts to obtain disguises for us with an enthusiasm that grew greater with each of Grolier’s continued tidbits of hopeful news. The first step was to get my hands on money—that did not have to be done secretly; I could pretend I wanted it for the games of chance I had often been invited to join.

  It was easier than I expected. I was able to sell, as a keepsake, one of Stephen’s shirts embroidered by Maud with the arms of England. I think the man who bought it believed I had stolen it from my master, but it was Stephen who had suggested that I sell everything I could. He pointed out, we could not take anything with us so we might as well get what we could from the garments we would have to abandon. Unfortunately I could not sell much because I was afraid that would arouse suspicion.

  The next step was to steal from the serfs. I hoped my depredations would arouse no outcry because I left a silver coin for each ragged garment I took, and that hope was fulfilled. In less than a week, I had collected two ragged cloaks and two dirty tunics. Such garments were often laid aside for mornings were cool in May, whereas hard work warmed a man in the afternoon when the sun shone. The tunics gave me the most trouble because there were few serfs who were as large as Stephen and me. I could not get braies or shoes and stockings at all. Men do not take those off, and I could not get into the outer bailey where the huts of the demesne serfs were. Finally I realized I could make those from our own garments by tearing and befouling them with water and soil.

  I had to be careful in gathering and bringing in the soil, but there was still some awe of the king and I think Gloucester had ordered that he be treated with respect. None came into his chamber without invitation, so I could hide both what I did and the besmirched garments without danger. It was just as well for another reason too. Once Stephen had got over the shock of the idea of wearing torn and soiled garments, he seemed to find it a novelty. Twice I came in to find him trying them out to see which filthy tunic and ragged cloak better befit him. I warned him of the danger to us if anyone at all saw him, and I thought he looked guilty and that there was an uneasy note in his laugh when he assured me that no one knew of the disguise. I suppressed my doubts. I could not believe he would lie on so important a subject.

  We were ready by the middle of May. It was a poor time for such an escape because dusk lasted a long time, unlike winter when dark came swiftly on the setting of the sun. However, to delay would only make that problem worse, and we were presented with a temptation we could not resist only one day after I had assembled everything I could for our escape. Because the king was confined in Bristol keep, many more men than usual were quartered in the place. That meant that more supplies came in, that more garbage was created and needed to be removed. It was the coming and going of serfs and villeins who were not well known to the guards upon which I had counted to allow us to leave without question.

  I had intended to make the king watch the behavior of these people and try to imitate it for a few days. He laughed at me at first, but when I insisted he come down to the bailey with me and pointed out the differences, he admitted grudgingly that the demeanor of the knights, who walked proudly erect with heads high and eyes either fixed ahead or staring haughtily at some person or object, was not like that of a serf. A serf, even the young whose bodies were still straight, always went with bowed head and with eyes that flicked here and there, watching for a summons or an order or a blow.

  When we were alone again, Stephen praised me for my ability to notice such a thing and asked how I had come to look so carefully at the serfs. I reminded him flatly that so had my mother walked and looked and so would I had not Audris loved me and Sir Oliver been a good and honorable man. The king then looked a little embarrassed and agreed to practice that evening after we were supposed to be asleep, but he seemed to scorn his role. To my fury he laughed and appeared almost proud at his lack of success. After I pointed out that failure and a life in chains would be the price of his pride, he worked a little more earnestly at being humble and frightened. I think I would have given up then if I had not known that nothing could turn Stephen from this attempt.

  Then, before my resentment faded, there came the temptation that seemed so good a stroke of fortune that we would deserve to fail if we ignored it. Not only were more supplies needed owing to the large garrison in the keep, but the garderobe filled more quickly so it was necessary to remove the waste often. Usually this was only done when the lords had left and the keep was near empty, but Gloucester was taking no chance of transporting the king around England. For one thing, there was no equally safe and strong place to keep Stephen; for another, taking him into the open was just asking for an attempt to rescue him by a strong attack. Thus, the very day after Stephen had taken so lightly the need to imitate a serf, a large group of them was admitted to clear out the garderobe in addition to the group delivering supplies and carting garbage out to be rotted and used on the fields.

  Stephen saw them from the window of his antechamber and rushed out to find me on the walls. I had seen them also and cursed them for coming a few days too soon, but when the king gripped my arm and said, “Today I will go,” I did not protest. I knew protest would be useless; he was so set now on this escape that he would go without me if I refused, and that my duty would not permit. Besides, in such a crowd we might truly go unnoticed, and the need to clear the garderobe would not come again for several months.

  “Very well, my lord, today,” I agreed. “Do not eat your dinner—I will give you mine if you are sharp-set—and go down several times to the privy wearing your cloak. If someone asks, say you are chilled. I will ask for a physician later in the day, saying you are purging. Do not let him bleed you. I will replace the medicine he compounds with wine or water. One of the times you go to the privy, I will come and we will choose a place for you to hide. Just before dusk, go again to the privy, hiding the serf’s garments under your cloak. Change, and remain hidden. I will come in a few minutes, don your cloak, and return to your chamber.”

  “Then how will you come out? I am not so sure of how to slip into a group of those people.”

  “I will make your cloak and other garments into a body in your bed and just walk out, saying the physician’s remedy has worked at last, that your belly gripes are finally stilled, and that you are asleep. I am so often in and out of your chamber that none will remember I have not returned, or they will think I am walking the walls, as I often do, even after dark.”

  I was not very excited at first. Stephen’s light attitude toward the details of our escape had lessened my hope of success, but as the day passed, my excitement grew. The king’s acting of his illness was so fine that he not only fooled the physician into real anxiety but nearly convinced me his belly pained—enough so that when we were alone I asked if he were too sick to go. He laughed at me so hard, he nearly brought up what he had eaten of my dinner.

  He was perfect too in groaning that this was an evil day for serfs to be working in the garderobe. He cursed the physician roundly for saying, sick as he was he should use the chamber pot, shouting that he was not a babe nor yet so weak—although he knew they all desired he grow weak and die—that he must perch on a pot. The physician swore a hundred times that the last thing any of them desired was that he die and that Gloucester would doubtless have his head if Lord Stephen did not recover. Then he bade him use the garderobe anyway, saying it would not matter to the creatures cleaning it if he shit on their heads, but the king said indignantly that he would not so treat a dog or a horse, nor even a pig, and would not so treat a human servant either.

  Then he shouted at me that he needed no man to watch him and drove me out of t
he chamber. Nor would he allow me to help him to the privy when I offered to lend him my arm because he seemed doubled over with pain. Thus, out of courtesy the men looked aside and did not stare at him when he struggled down the stairs to shit and crept up again as if spent.

  I managed to dispose of whatever medicine the physician compounded, and Stephen cleverly pretended that the dose had helped, sending for the physician and thanking him for his new ease. But late in the afternoon, he staggered out of his chamber again and called for another dose of the drug. Then he pretended to sleep until the last time. After I had crept back in his cloak, I came out in my own and went for a third dose. Then I remained in the chamber for a little while before I came out with my own serf’s garments under my cloak. My heart leapt into my mouth when the constable stopped me, but it was only to ask how my master fared and I said he slept but lightly and I thought I would leave him alone until he was deeply asleep, so that any small noise I might make would not disturb him. I hoped, I added, that none other would disturb him.

  When I had changed, I found a broken fork and a dull wooden spade and we went and joined a group that was dumping soil into a nearly full cart. Stephen did far better at looking cowed and frightened than I expected. We had smeared our faces with dirt and to my joy it had started to rain, so we could pull our hoods over our heads. Still when the cart moved out, I could not believe we would escape. I was so sure we would be stopped that I had to force myself forward as we drew near the gate, and I did not dare look back at Stephen, who was a step behind me, but I was sure he had forgotten to slump his shoulders like a beaten man and hang his head. But the guards on the gate of the inner bailey seemed indifferent, and the cart went onto the inner drawbridge with us behind it.