Winter Siege

by Ariana Franklin

  ‘How do you know I ain’t?’ she croaked querulously, peering suspiciously over the blanket at him. ‘Dying, I mean.’

  He stared back, dumbstruck. What she needed now was a woman, some kindly female who could explain the peculiar mystery of her sex to her, because he was damn sure he could not. But who? They knew no one and, besides, this morning of all mornings there wasn’t time to find one either.

  ‘Damn!’ he said, recoiling from her and turning away as an unwelcome memory of his own began to play itself out: of a damaged child, a savage wound and a ruined church.

  ‘And what do I do now, Lord, eh? Can’t pretend she’s a boy for much longer, can I?’

  Protect her, Gwil, like always. You’ll think of something.

  But what? How could he protect her from herself, from the burgeoning femininity that would make her vulnerable once more? His confusion was making him irritable; besides, it wouldn’t do to go soft on her now, she needed to pull herself together.

  ‘Get up!’ he said, his voice suddenly harsh. ‘Ain’t got time for this now.’ He turned his back, was heading for the door when another unbidden memory thumped into his head, this time of his wife curled up like a baby, pale and suffering and bemoaning the lot of a woman. He’d felt just as powerless then as now but he also felt pity infused with an overweening sense of duty.

  It was God’s fault.

  He had made him take the girl on, which meant that, for better or worse, he had to see her right. He took a deep breath and turned back to her.

  ‘Look …’ he said, struggling to find words he wasn’t sure he possessed: ‘It’s … it’s what gives you power, Pen.’ He could feel the colour rising in his cheeks. ‘It’s … it’s how you get to have a baby, see?’ Judging by her blank expression she did not. ‘It’s … oh Godandallhissaints!’ He clenched and unclenched his fists. ‘It’s how your body gets itself ready to have a baby … And, Pen …’ He paused, but it was too late to stop now. ‘Well … thing is, see … There are them’ll tell you it ain’t clean and that it’s wicked but it ain’t, Pen, it’s a blessing, a blessing in disguise … Might not feel that way now but one day you’ll come to appreciate it … or so they say.’ His voice tailed off as Penda’s bottom lip began to quiver.

  ‘But I don’t want a baby,’ she wailed and a slow tear rolled down her cheek.

  Gwil knelt beside her. ‘Don’t talk daft,’ he said tenderly. ‘Don’t mean you’re going to have a baby now, just means as how you could, one day, if you wanted.’ He stood up again. ‘Now you use them cloths to stop the bleeding, replace ’em when they’re wet. And hurry up about it – we been summoned, remember!’

  She did as he said, stuffing the cloths between her legs, waddling uncomfortably behind him like a newly hatched duckling as he strode towards the door. She still felt sick and her belly ached like the devil but something of what he had said resonated with her: ‘the curse of all women’, she had heard that somewhere before and somehow knew that it would be all right.

  They arrived at the hall as a trumpet blew from a point high up on the battlements and suddenly the bailey swarmed with a throng of men and women chivvying to their various posts in the blue dawn light.

  Maud had cleared the hall of the servants who slept in its niches by night, leaving Sir Rollo, Sir Bernard and Father Nimbus, her advisers, to discuss the matter of the siege with Alan of Ghent and Sir Christopher. They sat clustered around one end of the great table, the flames of a large candelabrum shining on worried, tired faces.

  The sharp eyes of the Empress spotted Gwil and Penda as they entered and, to their surprise, she gestured to them that they should join her.

  A vicious chill engulfed them all. The coverfeus that blanked all fires at night had not been removed yet. Penda started to shiver, which exacerbated the pain in her belly and, while the others leaned earnestly over the table towards one another, deep in conversation, she shrank back into her cloak, grateful for the warmth of its fox-fur lining.

  Outside the hall the castle bustled with activity. Somewhere below their feet, men with axes were enlarging the secret postern to take horses and were doing it as quietly as possible among disgruntled badgers while others were filling great vats of water set at intervals round the cellars. Sapping was the danger. More than one castle wall had been brought down from having its foundation dug out by hidden miners. A shiver on the surface of the water vats would mean the enemy was digging somewhere.

  After much chiding from his stepmother to be very careful, William had been allowed on to the roof to keep an eye on the enemy; he re-emerged every so often to report that its circle around the castle was thickening like a ring of scum around a bath. So far it had not attacked.

  ‘What are they waiting for?’ It was Maud who spoke.

  ‘To parley,’ Sir Christopher said. ‘Stephen won’t relish the idea of another siege this winter and who can blame him. He’ll want to negotiate a surrender.’

  ‘But we won’t surrender, will we?’ All eyes turned to Maud. ‘Surely we can’t.’ She looked pale, Penda thought, less sure of herself suddenly, and Penda also noticed that her hands were fidgeting in her lap as she spoke. ‘Kenniford will not be slighted. It cannot.’ It was more of a plea than a statement of fact and the tremor in her voice betrayed it.

  For a while nobody spoke and then Alan broke the silence. ‘There is no question of surrender at least until the Empress is safely out of Kenniford. But the question, madam, is how well you heeded my advice when last we met and how well provisioned you are for another siege.’

  Maud turned automatically to the reassuringly calm figure of Sir Bernard sitting beside her and put her hand on his arm. He cleared his throat.

  ‘We are well prepared, sir.’ He looked steadfastly into the mercenary’s eyes as he spoke, filling Maud with a sudden desire to throw her arms around his grizzled old neck in gratitude. Unaware of the emotion he had provoked in his young mistress Sir Bernard continued stolidly: ‘We have a hundred good men, including the fifty you garrisoned here previously. A good harvest means that stocks are plentiful and as long, God willing, as there isn’t another freeze, our water supply is sufficient.’

  Alan looked surprised but nodded. ‘Good,’ was all he said.

  Hah! Maud was exultant. Hadn’t expected that, had he? Damn his eyes! She sat up a little taller on her stool.

  Out of the corner of his eye Alan of Ghent, who noticed a good deal more about the chatelaine of Kenniford than she realized, also noted the change in her deportment and smiled to himself, then turned to the Empress. ‘Domina. Last night two men were dispatched to Bristol. As soon as I have news of the reinforcements they will ask for we will leave here, but first you must rest.’

  The Empress acknowledged him with a slight inclination of her head and stood up.

  She certainly was calm, Penda thought, you had to give her that; on the other hand, though, this was probably a normal day for her; her entire life a long litany of battles and sieges won and lost; today was just one more and she had the arrogance to assume that it wouldn’t be her last.

  The meeting ended to the scraping of wood on stone as they rose from their stools and benches. Just as they were about to leave the hall William and one of the guardsmen came rushing in with the news that three men from the enemy camp were approaching the castle gate.

  ‘They’re here! They’re here!’ he shouted.

  Alan turned to Maud. ‘Are you ready for the parley, madam?’

  Maud nodded curtly. ‘Indeed I am,’ she said, pushing past him towards the exit.

  Once outside Gwil grabbed Penda’s arm and spoke to her for the first time since they’d left the keep. ‘You stick close to me now,’ he said, swinging her round to face him, his hands gripping her so tightly that the metal links of her hauberk bit viciously into the flesh of her arms. She winced and tried to pull away but he maintained his pressure, glaring at her with an intensity that frightened her. ‘You don’t make a move until I say so and you keep your e
yes peeled. Understand?’

  Penda glared at him sullenly as she fought to free her arms.

  ‘DO YOU UNDERSTAND?’ He was shouting now. She felt tears burning her eyes but could not raise her hands to rub them away.

  ‘YES!’ she shouted back, hands clenched, cheeks livid with fury. ‘I understand! Now let go of me!’

  ‘Good,’ he said, smiling at last. ‘That’s better.’ Then he patted her roughly on the head and turned to follow the others towards the gate.

  She followed him up the steps to the ramparts, muttering under her breath as she went, cursing him, which made him smile again.

  He was glad she was angry. It was what he wanted her to be. She shot better when her blood was up and, today of all days, he needed her sharp.

  They reached the top and stepped out on to the allure. Through the loophole in front of her Penda saw, for the first time, the reality of war.

  The emissaries of death stood in rows on the far side of the river, the sun glinting blindingly off hundreds of metal helmets: in the front line the pike men and slingers, shifting from foot to foot behind an interminable row of wooden pavises, bracing themselves against the cold and the bitter thrill of battle; behind them the archers – at a rough glance she counted close to two hundred, including around fifty arbalists – and behind them the knights, their bodies swaying with the movement of their horses shifting restlessly beneath them; their hooves pawing testily at the ground. And then, beyond them all, like the background of a macabre tapestry, great plumes of smoke rose into the sky from the burning village. The King’s men had not been idle that morning.

  Penda looked towards Gwil, who was sheltering behind the merlon beside her, and saw him cross himself and mutter some incantation under his breath. She did the same, although her hands trembled as a bolt of fear and excitement shot through her.

  ‘You’re a brave little bugger, Penda,’ Gwil said, puffing hard as he slipped his foot into place in his crossbow’s stirrup to cock it against the ground. ‘And I’ve taught you as well as I know how. But you’ve never shot more’n a wolf and I’m fearful for you. You stay alive, hear me? By God’s eyes, I’ll do all I can to keep you that way but this ain’t our war, ain’t our siege. Our job’s to survive and theirs’ – he gestured towards the enemy lines in the distance – ‘is to kill us and I mean us, not them.’ He was pointing now back down into the bailey where the Kenniford knights were waiting. ‘Our lives is cheap, Pen, you gotta know that. Won’t be no knights lost in all this, too valuable as hostages, them, but we ain’t and what’s more we’re a bloody nuisance and Stephen’s men’ll kill us soon as look at us.’

  All the time he was ranting at her he’d been busying himself with the weaponry at his feet. When he had finished he looked up and saw her mouth quivering. ‘No crying now,’ he said with a sudden tenderness that made her want to sob out loud, but then he checked himself and the stern look and hectoring tone returned. ‘Ain’t no time for crying,’ he went on, turning back to his loophole. ‘Ain’t no place for crying in battle.’ He repeated it over and over again like a mantra until something in the dim reaches of Penda’s memory echoed back:

  ‘Fen women never cry.’

  She’d learned that once; someone had told her that once but who and why she couldn’t remember. She shook her head against the voice. Not now, not now. Whatever it was must not come back now. She couldn’t afford to remember now!

  The sudden screech and grind of heavy apparatus cranking into action dragged her back to the mêlée of the present and the booming exertion of male voices drowned out the ones clamouring in her head. Then a loud creak announced the raising of the portcullis and from her vantage point she saw Maud, Sir Rollo and Father Nimbus walk out over the drawbridge towards the three men waiting for them in the snow-laden field.

  Chapter Thirteen

  IT WASN’T EASY to walk confidently, Maud decided, in snow. Standing behind the gate as Milburga clucked and fussed around her like a mother hen, waiting nervously for the signal to egress, she’d planned to do so as elegantly as possible. She was meeting the King, after all, and as the representative of her beloved Kenniford, she might at least try to win the battle before it began with a display of her own personal invincibility. If she could hold her head up and convince Stephen that she and therefore Kenniford were indomitable, there might be a chance of negotiating a mutually beneficial truce. After all, there wasn’t much else she could do.

  Deep down, of course, she knew it was futile, had known it since she’d first clapped eyes on Stephen’s men on the far side of the river that morning and watched her precious village burn. Even Sir Rollo had flinched at the sight and although, as she was fond of telling people, the man was dull to the point of eye-watering tedium and could probably bore several men to death at fifty paces, there was no denying that he was also brave.

  ‘King Stephen has a reputation for goodness, you know,’ Father Nimbus had whispered as they waited for the herald’s trumpet to sound. He’d sensed her nerves, bless him, and was doing his best to quell them.

  And it was true, in the past Stephen had been reasonable, but it was also true that his reputation for leniency – which, according to his critics, had sometimes bordered on idiocy – had been hastily revised since the day, not so long ago, when he had hanged poor Ernulf of Hesding at Shrewsbury Castle along with four of his knights and eighty-eight other members of the garrison. This news coupled with the fact that he was famously kicking himself for allowing the Empress to escape him twice – first at Arundel and now at Oxford – meant that he was unlikely to embrace clemency, especially as regarded Matilda, ever again.

  As they stepped off the drawbridge the leather soles of her shoes began to move independently of her feet on the icy, rutted earth and she grabbed hold of Father Nimbus’s arm to steady herself.

  ‘There, there, my dear,’ he said, patting her hand although he was slipping and sliding like a skater himself. ‘All will be well. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and if we all remember to – whoops! Dreadful weather this! – er, just remember to, er, breathe in and out, God, I’m sure, will protect us.’

  He’d better, Maud thought to herself. If she were perfectly honest, she was beginning to wonder where exactly God was in all of this. How many times must she plead for the safety of her castle and the people in it? Why couldn’t they all just leave? Why, even the Empress! She could simply go back to Normandy, or wherever it was she damn well came from, and Stephen could go … well … anywhere, actually, she didn’t care, just as long as it was away from here. The anarchic spirit of the age had entered Maud’s soul. After all, this was now a land devoid of loyalty, where almost every man and woman was for him- or herself first and for the King or the Empress only as far as self-interest dictated. Why should she be any different? Why not capitulate? Why not emulate the bloody barons who changed sides as often as they changed horses? She owed nothing to either party! The King had foisted a drooling boor of a husband on her and the Empress a bunch of foul mercenaries. There was quite literally nothing and nobody to prevent her from declaring a truce with the King right then and there, thus saving Kenniford and relieving herself of the burden of the Empress and this damned, impending siege.

  And all this she might have done if it hadn’t been for a blasted blackbird trilling away in the distance somewhere on the Crowmarsh bank, reminding her of the two she had heard so poignantly as she swore her oath not only to the Empress but to God. And what was it she had said: I shall keep this vow, Lord. Because You have sent me a lucky sign to tell me that I must. And suddenly, for one rare moment in her life, devotion superseded pragmatism and she realized there was no getting out of it. Damn it!

  The King looked older than she’d imagined, slighter somehow. The deep lines around his eyes spoke of a weariness that no amount of sleep could ever salve and the set of his mouth betrayed a cynicism that no man was ever born with but, to her relief, she saw no cruelty there. None either in the man to his l
eft, whom she assumed was William of Ypres, Stephen’s mercenary commander-in-chief. He was a typical of his ilk, so cold and indifferent that he might have been hewn from granite, but she’d seen his like before and had his measure. No, it was the man to the King’s right, a cleric of some sort judging by his robes, who frightened her most. Cruelty was etched into every line of his face, and appeared to seep from every pore – she could practically smell it; and when she looked into his strange pale-green eyes she saw that they were as cold and ravening as a wolf’s. A sudden chill, like cold fingertips along her spine, made her shiver and she looked quickly away.

  At that moment the King stepped forward.

  ‘Lady Maud,’ he said. ‘Here we are in the midst of yet another godforsaken winter.’ He was looking down at the ice-encrusted hem of her cloak. ‘And only a madman – my condolences, by the way, for your husband’s affliction, I have only just heard the news – would relish the prospect of a siege in these conditions. So let us waste neither time nor words nor leave this parley without making peace.’

  Maud opened her mouth to reply but Stephen raised his hand to stay her. ‘Look yonder, madam,’ he said, gesturing towards his army. ‘Surely you can see that you are outnumbered and that beyond even those men my resources are limitless?’

  There was something in the weary authority of his tone which prevented her from replying even though her mouth had opened to do so.

  He continued: ‘Of course you might hold out against us for a day? A week? A month even, but as surely as night follows day we will batter your defences, destroy your garrison and starve you into surrender.’ He spoke in a strange monotone and it occurred to Maud that this was merely a recitation of a speech he knew off by heart and had made countless times before. They were wearisome statements of fact as far as he was concerned, nothing more, nothing less. He looked from her to Father Nimbus and Sir Rollo and back again. It was her turn to speak.