Part 5 (1/2)

”Thou art but a traitor,” cried the warder. ”Long live the empress-queen!” shouted divers armed men who ran to the battlement, and as they did shout did also bend their cross-bows. But by this time we had all put spurs to our horses, and we dashed past the ugly castellum and across the ford without receiving any hurt, albeit a quarrel did hit the lord abbat's steed near unto the tail and make him caper. Had our party been less numerous and warlike, doubtless we had been lodged that night among Brian Fitzcount's prisoners.

The town and abbey of Abingdon we did also avoid, keeping a little to the westward thereof; for another tyrant and man destroyer had built himself a great castle in that vicinage, and there had been many feuds and factions and changing of sides among the monks of Abingdon, while the best and most trusty of that community were known to be at the house at c.u.mnor with their abbat. The roads were deep and miry, the way was long, the days were short, and the weather of the saddest; but on the third evening after our departure from Reading we arrived at the Cell of c.u.mnor, where our lord abbat was hospitably received by the abbat of Abingdon, and where we of less note found good lodging and entertainment, to wit, a blazing wood fire whereat to dry our clothes, clean straw to sleep upon, and salted meats and manchets to eat, and good Oxenford ale to drink.

On the morrow, when it wanted but two days of the feast of St. Thomas the Apostle, King Stephen with a few lords and knights rode from the beleaguer of Oxenford Castle to c.u.mnor, and did there confer with the two abbats and other ecclesiastics. What pa.s.sed in the council chamber I cannot tell; but it was seen by all of us that the king wore a cheerful aspect, and it was told unto us all that the castle was reduced to extremity, and that, there being no escape thence, the countess must soon surrender or die of starvation. When the conference was over, and when the king had been entertained as royally as the abbat of Abingdon could do it in that place and at that time--and when Stephen had laid his offering upon the altar in the church, he rode back to the siege, and our lord abbat of Reading, and all of us who had come with him, attended the king to Oxenford, intending there to tarry until the surrender of Matilda.

”With the saints to my aid,” said our abbat, ”I may prevail upon this perverse daughter of the Beauclerc to deliver herself quietly up, and upon King Stephen to be merciful unto her in her captivity. If the Angevin countess should still persevere in the wickedness of her ways, and attempt to escape again on a bier instead of putting an end to the woes of the land by a surrender, forty good swords the more may do service for the king. My children, my friends, ye will all be vigilant in this matter, and do duty like good soldiers, if it should be required of ye!” And as the good lord Reginald went into Oxenford town and saw the palace which the Beauclerc king had there builded, and saw the engines of war, and heard the horrid noise of war all about, he heaved a sigh and said, ”_Eheu! quantum mutatur!_ How be all things changed! Here in the days of Henricus Primus, that peace-loving king, _Rex pacis_, have I seen nothing but quiet scholars and learned men, and the court of a king that was an academe and a sanctuary of letters. Wot ye, my boy Felix, why it was that Henricus did build him a palace here?” And I having confessed my ignorance as became me, our abbat went on to say, ”Felix, my son, the Beauclerc had collected in his most royal park at Woodstock many wild beasts from foreign parts, such as lions and bears, leopards and lynxes, and porcupines, and of these he had a wonderful great liking, and here at Oxenford learned men were collecting every year in greater numbers, and in the company of these scholars his grace did take marvellous delight: in truth it were not easy to say whether he liked the beasts better than the bookish men, or the bookish men better than the beasts; but, to have the enjoyment of both, he ofttimes fixed his residence between them; and therefore was it, my son, that Henricus Primus raised this royal dwelling, and preferred it above his other houses.” That very night, albeit I knew it not then, there came to King Stephen the very unfavourable news that the countess's half-brother, the great Earl of Gloucester, who for some months had been absent, had returned into England with a great body of Angevin and Norman troops, and had brought with him Henry Fitz-empress, Matilda's young son and heir, had stormed and taken the castle of Wareham, had been joined by many traitorous barons who had but lately given fresh oaths of fidelity to Stephen, and was marching through the land to relieve his sister in Oxenford Castle and fall upon her besiegers. Maugre the pains that were taken to conceal this intelligence, it got abroad, and was by some double-dealer conveyed to Matilda within the castle.

That night there fell a great fall of snow, and after the snow a sharp and most sudden frost did set in, which in less than twenty-four hours did cover the river Isis and the moat of the castle and the circ.u.mjacent marshes with thick ice. The beleaguerers made themselves great fires, and seemed not to remit in their watchfulness. I, Felix, with Philip the lay-brother, and Sir Englehard de Cicomaco, did mount guard and stand wakeful all that bitter night, opposite to a postern gate of the castle.

From time to time some great officer of King Stephen went from watch to watch, and all round the lines to see that the people did their duty and slept not. Joy came to my heart, and the deadening cold seemed to quit my body, when I saw Sir Alain de Bohun come to the place where I stood.

”Watch well to-night, oh Felix,” said that brave and always courteous lord; ”watch well to-night, and to-morrow will we have our enemy in our hands--and dear friends, too. Felix! I have had a.s.surance that my son and thy little friend is within those walls! To-morrow Matilda must yield; so watch well that postern.”

I kissed Sir Alain's hand, and vowed that not so much as a famished cat or rat should come forth of that gate, nor did there while my watch lasted.

On the next day, the vigil of St. Thomas, as soon as it was light, a white flag was raised in the camp in token of peace or truce, and our lord abbat, with a goodly train of ecclesiastics, bearing church banners and elevated crucifixes, came down to the very edge of the castle moat, and demanded speech of the countess; and Matilda ascended to the battlements, but rather to rebuke them than to hear them. I, Felix, being relieved from my night watch, did see that stern woman of many adventures and indomitable pride stand on the castle top in that cold, grey, leaden air. Thin was she, and gaunt and pale, like one that had suffered long fasting and sickness; but she had the same flas.h.i.+ng eye and resolute look as at the time when she dictated her will to our house at Reading; and if her voice was more hollow, it was not less imperious and awe-commanding now than it was then. The lord abbat entreated her to give up the castle, promising, in the name of King Stephen, that no harm should be done to her or to any that were with her; that she should be honorably escorted to the coast, and there embarked for Anjou; that lands and money should be given to her and her adherents with a liberal hand; and that the king would take all her partisans into his peace, if they would but be true to treaty, and give up a war which had already lasted so many years to the reproach of Christendom, and to the utter undoing of the people of England. The abbat told her that her famis.h.i.+ng state was known, and that hope of escape there was none.

”And who told thee, oh meddling monk, that I ever thought of escape?

Dost not know that the Earl of Gloucester is at hand, to do the thing which he did aforetime at Lincoln? We have meat and meal yet, and will abide the earl's coming. I will not throw open these gates, or quit these walls, until I see the false recreant Stephen in chains at my feet, praying again for that life which I ought to have rid him of long since.”

As the proud woman said these words, I could see that many of our bystanders looked at one another with perplexity and alarm, and that divers even of the churchmen put on very thoughtful countenances, and did nothing and said nothing to aid our lord abbat, or to rebuke the countess, who in a great pa.s.sion of wrath threatened to have him hanged for a felon under the archway of his own abbey.

Some there were that would have counselled an immediate a.s.sault upon the fortress; for albeit no breach had been made in those formidable walls, the moat was so frozen that it would bear any weight, and scaling ladders and other needful materials were not wanting. But the more cautious sort said that the famis.h.i.+ng garrison were very numerous and very desperate; that it would be better to wait a day or two, and have the castle upon composition; that the Earl of Gloucester had yet sundry days of march to perform; and that if he came with ever so great a host, he would find it no easy work to break through our barricades and defences, and get into the town. Some of the churchmen, moreover, did say that no enterprise of war would prosper during the festivals of the church; and, certes, the major part of King Stephen's soldiers did seem fully determined to keep this the vigil, and to-morrow the festival of St. Thomas the Apostle, according to the rubric, whether the king would have it so or not. Hence there was a very visible relaxation of vigilance. Refreshed by a short sleep in the day, I did watch again that night with the beleaguerers; but my post was not where it had been the night before, and in the morning, before I could be relieved, I learned that the countess had escaped through the postern which I had watched so well. Marvellous, truly, was the skill and fortune of the Beauclerc's daughter! She had escaped from Devizes by putting on the semblance and trappings of the dead, and now she had escaped from Oxenford like a sheeted ghost! A little after the midnight hour she had dressed herself all in white, and had thrown white sheets over Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe, and three others of her knights; and she and these four sheeted warriors had stolen out of the castle by the postern gate, and had crossed the moat on the ice and traversed the ice-bound Isis, and creeping on their hands and knees over the deep white snow, they had escaped detection, and got safely through our lines and all our outposts. On foot, in the deep snow, Matilda with her attendant spectres travelled to Abingdon; but there they found friends and horses, for the news of the coming of the Earl of Gloucester had reached the place, and had been very fatal to men's loyalty unto Stephen. From Abingdon, without resting there, the countess rode through that cold night to Wallingford Castle, where Brian Fitzcount received her very joyfully.

But these things came to my knowledge afterwards; and when it was first heard that the countess was gone, none could tell how she was gone, or whither she had betaken herself. The notice was not given until more than seven hours after her departure, when, as the day began to dawn, a starving man-at-arms cried out from the battlements that the garnison were ready to throw open the gates unto King Stephen, and so save themselves from death by hunger, as the queen had fled thence, and was no longer in any danger. At first the news was not credited by any of the king's people; but soon the governor of the castle sounded trumpets for a parley, and held out a flag of truce, and offered to deliver up the castle upon condition that his life and the lives of his people should be spared. King Stephen himself came rus.h.i.+ng to the post opposite the castle gate to learn the truth, and settle the conditions of surrender; and with him came Sir Alain de Bohun, mortified yet rejoiced, a much perplexed yet a happy man; for though it should be found that the scourge of England had escaped, he had a confident hope that she could not have carried away his son with her.

King Stephen spoke aloud to the castellan, and said, ”This is but a fabulous rumour! The countess of Anjou is where she hath been these last three months! Unsay what hath been said! Tell me that she is within those walls, and, starving as thou art, I will give thee more than the conditions thou askest--I will give thee wealth and honours! Only say that she hath not escaped.”

”Earl of Moriton and Boulogne!” shouted the proud castellan, ”if the empress queen were within these walls I would starve and die, but never open these gates unto thee! Let mine offer to surrender be a proof that she is gone hence. I swear, by the holy rood, that she hath been gone ever since midnight.”

”Whither hath she gone?” cried Stephen.

”I know not, and would not tell thee if I did know; but 'tis likely she will soon tell thee where she is.”

While the castellan was talking in this guise on the outer walls, many of our lords and knights, with their men-at-arms, got them to horse, and, dividing into different parties, went scouring over the country in all directions, some along the road that leads to Woodstock, some on the Abingdon road, some down the river towards Newnham, some towards Forest Hill, and some across the hills towards Islip and Weston-on-Green.

Many slips and falls had they on the frozen ice and slippery roads; yet was it all but a bootless chace. The party that went along the Abingdon road, and that came back even faster than they went, as Sir Brian Fitzcount had advanced a body of horse to the towns.h.i.+p of Abingdon, had met on their advance an aged shepherd who had been out in the night in search of some sheep that had been lost in the snow drifts; and this aged man had told them that about the midnight hour he had seen gliding along the road between Oxenford and Abingdon five ghosts or revenants all in white, which he took to be the uneasy spirits of some who had perished in our diurnal slaughters; and this was all that was learned by our too late pursuing companies.

In the first heat of his wrath and bitterness of his disappointment the king refused to admit the garnison to capitulation, and threatened to hang them all, together with many of his own watch; but our lord abbat moderated his wrath. Sir Alain de Bohun, eager for sight of his boy, and always averse to bloodshed, did recommend mercy and moderation; and so, about mid-day, terms were granted, and the castle was given up to Stephen. I was among the first that entered with our good Lord of Caversham. Sir Alain found many friends among those who had been kept as prisoners by the Countess; but for some time he could not find his son, or hear anything concerning him, save that the boy had been seen in the castle a few days agone. Fearful thoughts agitated the loving father, and made him turn ghastly pale. Had the Countess in her rough nocturnal flight carried the boy with her? No, there was a knight who opened the postern-gate for her, and who swore upon his cross that none had gone forth but the empress-queen, Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe, and the three other knights. Had the desperate woman in her fury against one of the most constant of her enemies taken the life of the dear boy? None would confess to the atrocious deed, yet none seemed to know what had befallen Sir Alain's son. In truth they were all ravenous and stupified with their excess of hunger, and were only eager to get out into the town, and at the meat and drink which had been mercifully promised them; and for many a day few of them had taken any note of what was doing within the castle or in the lodging of Matilda. But the Lord of Caversham and the best of his own people, and I, Felix, and Philip, the lay-brother, did rush into the apartment of the Countess and ransack it well; and while we were in an inner room in the tower that looks upon Isis, we heard a feeble voice as of one lamenting, and pulling aside some hangings on the wall, we discovered a small low door under an arch, and thereupon Sir Alain, all of a tremble, cried out in a voice that went unto the hearts of all of us, ”Who lieth within? Is it thou, mine only son?” and the faint voice said ”My father,” and said no more. The iron-bound door was locked, and the key was gone; but spite of its thickness and strength, we soon burst the door open with a mighty crash.

I did enter that foul hole in the wall with Sir Alain, and did see and hear that which pa.s.sed when he raised his boy from the dirty straw upon which he had fainted; but I have not the power to narrate that which I saw and heard. Nay, to speak more soothly, I did see but faintly, for the light that came into the cell through a narrow loophole was but scant, and my gus.h.i.+ng tears did almost blind me. But we soon carried the boy out into wholesome air, and put wine to his lips; and he recovered and knew his father. And when he had eaten and gained strength, he told his sire, who had never before been seen so wrathful, that he had not tasted meat or drink for two whole days and nights. Verily it did seem that the Countess had destined him to die of starvation, and that she had herself secreted him in that hideous hole in the castle-wall, for none of her attendants would confess any knowledge of the thing. But Sir Alain would not give credit to these protestations of ignorance, saying that some of the Countess's people must have known what was done in her own apartment, and sorely did he beat with the flat of his sword an old foreign hag that had been the Countess's chamber-woman, and two Angevins that had been in constant attendance upon her; and he swore more oaths than had ever come from his lips, that were it not for the love of the king his master, and for the king's honour, and for his own religious respect for compacts and treaties and capitulations of war, he would hang them all three on the top of that accursed tower.

So soon as I saw that the hope of the house of Caversham was restored to some of his strength (and he gave me a proof thereof by saluting me and taking me by the hand as an old friend), I went forth to try if I could gain some intelligence of the little Alice, who was not born to live separated from Arthur, and likewise of my whilom friend and companion John-a-Blount from Maple-Durham, who had fled from our house at Reading with the novice Urswick, of unhappy memory. I soon learned from some retainers of Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe that the little maiden, before the coming of King Stephen to Oxenford, had been bestowed with her step-mother in the strong castle at Old Speen, which Sir Ingelric had rebuilded; but the fellows knew not, or pretended not to know, anything touching our fugitive novice John-a-Blount. Therefore did I put my soul and body in peril by going into the very midst of the Countess Matilda's black-eyed damsels; for I thought in the nature of things that he should be among those young Jezebels who had first led him astray.

Albeit the merciful terms of capitulation were faithfully observed, and knights of good repute were stationed in the castle to see that no harm was done to those that had surrendered; the interior of the fortress was still a scene of unspeakable confusion and alarm. Fierce knights that had not prayed for many a day, and rough outlandish soldiers who knew not how to say a credo or an ave, were muttering orisons and telling their beads, or holding their crucifixes in their hands, crying ever and anon to the more truculent visaged of the king's people, ”We have all rendered upon paction--We be all in the king's mercy and honour--Touch not our lives or limbs, or eyes, but give us to eat, or we peris.h.!.+”

The women of the countess, whose eyes were much less bright and dangerous than when I last saw them in their pride and insolency at our abbey, lay all huddled and crouching together in a corner of the castle-yard, where divers clerks of Oxenford, with the marshal of King Stephen's camp, were making lists of the names and qualities of the prisoners. Many men, as well English as foreign, were standing near these affrighted and more than half-famished women; and a few young knights and esquires seemed to be speaking words of comfort to divers of them; but among these men I could not see John-a-Blount, from Maple-Durham, nor any young man that resembled him; and when I asked of many, they all told me that they knew nothing of the said John: which was grievous unto my soul, for I had hoped to find him there, and to reclaim him, and thereby save him from the fate of the unhappy Urswick.

As I was about to turn from that company of women, I was brought to a pause by a pair of eyes, swimming in tears, that did bind me to the spot, like one spell-bound. They were the large black eyes of that damsel in the short green kirtle, and of the incomparably small feet and ankles that had come salting and dancing up to me in the garden of our house at Reading; but alack, she danced not now, and seemed scarcely able to stand, and instead of the laughingest she had the saddest face; and she was all thin and haggard as the poorest of the wandering houseless beggars we had met on our march from Reading to Oxenford. I had the remnant of a manchet in the sleeve of my monastic gown, and though many eyes were upon me, and others might be as hungry as she was, I took forth the blessed piece of bread, and thrust it into her skinny hands, and then hurried away to Sir Alain de Bohun, who did forthwith order some meat and drink to be given to those poor outlandish starvelings.

On the day next after the surrender of the castle, the foreign women--praise and thanks to the Lord for that same!--were all sent away under a strong and reliable escort for the city of London, there to be kept by Stephen's good queen Maud until they should be ransomed or exchanged for other prisoners. And in the current of that same day we did hear but too surely what the escaped countess was a-doing. She had gone forth from Wallingford Castle with Brian Fitzcount and a great host of foreign mercenaries, and was marching to the westward to meet the Earl of Gloucester, who was not so near to Oxenford as had been reported, and she was again marking her evil path with blood and flames. King Stephen resolved to follow her and bring the great earl to battle; but the countess and her half-brother having met in Wilts.h.i.+re, retreated rapidly to the west, where lay their great strength in partisans and castles, and they threw themselves into the castle of Bristowe, which was their strongest hold all through the war. The king would have turned back to lay siege to Wallingford Castle, in the absence of its terrible lord the merciless Brian Fitzcount; but a plot broke out in the vicinage of London, and sundry barons raised the banner of Matilda in Ess.e.x, thereby obliging Stephen to march with all speed to the eastward. So Wallingford Castle remained in the hands of the robbers, to be a curse to the country and a den of torture: but we, the monks of Reading, with little aid but what the saints sent us, and with no loss of life to our party, did prevail over another band of thieves and destroy their den, to the inestimable relief and comfort of that country side.