And since then, nothing. October had yielded to November and then December. The snows came and the noose tightened. What, indeed, was there to talk about?
Alexander was too restless to sit for long and soon wandered off. Ranulf and Hugh were trying to muster up enough enthusiasm for another game of merels when Rob d’Oilly headed their way. Never the most articulate of men, he seemed even more tongue-tied then usual. “Did Maude tell you about our talk?” When Ranulf shook his head, Rob frowned and worried his thumbnail between his teeth. “I spoke to her last night. I told her that…that we ought to consider surrendering.”
Ranulf’s “No!” merged and echoed with Hugh’s equally impassioned protest, and Rob flushed. “I do not want it that way,” he insisted, “God knows I do not. But there comes a time when resistance for its own sake makes no sense. We’re past the point of hope, and are merely prolonging our own suffering. I understand if you do not want to hear that, but it must be said. And Maude knew that, too, for she did not argue.”
“She agreed with you? I do not believe that!”
“Well, she did not say it in so many words, Ranulf, but she listened to what I had to say and made no protest. If you want my opinion, I think she is losing heart for this struggle. Women are not meant for hardships and privation, after all. They despair more easily than men-”
“You’re raving! Maude is braver than any man I know!” Ranulf snapped, and Hugh chimed in, no less indignantly, arguing that Maude would starve ere she’d surrender.
“Then why is she acting so oddly? Why did she say nothing when I talked of surrender? And…and there is more, Ranulf. When I came to her chamber this morn, she was behaving in a most peculiar manner. She and Minna…they were sewing!”
Ranulf and Hugh exchanged astonished glances, and then both burst out laughing. “Good God-sewing? That is indeed proof of madness!”
Rob bridled, his face getting even hotter. “Do not mock me till you’ve heard it all. The room was in utter disarray, the coverlets thrown on the floor, the bed stripped, coffers open as if they’d been searching for something. And there they were, sewing away in the midst of all this chaos, so intently you’d think they were getting paid by the stitch. And mind you, they were not mending old clothes, or even making new ones. They were cutting up and hemming bed sheets!”
“Sheets?” Ranulf said blankly. “Are you sure, Rob? What could they possibly make out of bed sheets?”
“That is what I’ve been trying to tell you.” Rob frowned again, lowered his voice, and said uneasily, “I’ve thought upon it and I can come up with only one answer-a burial shroud.”
Ranulf did not share Rob’s anxiety about Maude’s emotional state; he knew their sister better than Rob. He was curious, though, about those mysterious bed sheets. But when he sought Maude out, she shrugged off his curiosity with a cryptic smile, saying she’d explain that evening, after Vespers.
The twilight service was held in the chapel adjoining St George’s Tower. It was well attended; most men found that their piety increased in direct proportion to the urgency of their need. Once it was over, Ranulf accompanied Maude and Minna across the snow-drifted bailey, back to Maude’s chamber in the upper story of the keep. There they found Alexander de Bohun, Hugh de Plucknet, William Marshal, and Adam of Ely, Maude’s clerk, awaiting her return. They were soon joined by William Defuble, another of Maude’s knights.
Ranulf could not help smiling, thinking they made an odd sight, indeed: muffled in mantles up to their ears, their breath frosting the air as they searched for seats; the castle’s chairs, benches, and stools had long ago gone up in smoke. Rob d’Oilly was the last one to arrive. As a rule, Maude did not like to be kept waiting. Tonight, though, she seemed quite tolerant of Rob’s tardiness, which confirmed Ranulf’s suspicions-his sister had something in mind, and he’d wager the surety of his soul that it was not surrender.
“I have been giving thought to what you said, Rob, and I have decided that you are right. Our men have put up a gallant defense, but they have endured enough. The time has come to put an end to this. If you offer to surrender the castle, you ought to be able to get generous terms from Stephen, a promise that the garrison goes free.”
Rob looked relieved, the other men stunned. “Maude, no!” Ranulf exclaimed. “It may seem hopeless, I’ll not deny that. But you cannot give up. If you surrender, you’ll be shut away from the world for the rest of your life. Stephen will never let you go!”
“I am not giving up, Ranulf. And I have no intention of surrendering to Stephen. But it is obvious by now that we have no reasonable hopes of being rescued. Robert would never abandon me. If he has not come to my aid, it is because he cannot. So it is up to me to save myself-if I can-by escaping from the castle.”
“My lady, I doubt neither your resolve nor your enterprise, and for certes, not your courage. But this time I fear you are well and truly trapped. You cannot very well fly over the castle walls, and every gate is watched night and day by Stephen’s sentries, even the little postern in the west wall.”
“No, Hugh, I cannot fly over the wall,” Maude agreed, with just the hint of a smile. “But I could be lowered down from St George’s Tower onto the iced-over moat. The marshes must be frozen solid by now, and the river, too. If I am right, I ought to be able to cross in safety. If I am wrong…” A slight shrug. “As I see it, I do not have much to lose.”
She did, of course. She was putting up the highest of all stakes-her life. But Ranulf would have made the same wager, had he been the one facing a lifetime’s imprisonment. “You are proposing, then, to walk right through Stephen’s lines? That is without doubt the maddest idea I’ve ever heard. When do we try it?”
Maude looked at him and laughed. “Tonight…after it is full dark.”
“Would it not be safer to wait until the snow stopped? To be out and afoot on such a night…you’d have as much to fear from the weather, Maude, as from Stephen’s men.”
Marveling at his slowness, Maude said patiently, “What better cover could I have, Rob, than a snowstorm? Stephen’s guards will not be able to see beyond the noses on their own faces, and they’ll be too cold and wretched to be showing much zeal for sentry duty. With but a bit of luck, we ought to be well-nigh invisible. Show them, Minna.”
Even as Minna reached into the closest coffer, Ranulf had a sudden epiphany. “The sheets!” he cried, bursting into enlightened laughter. Hugh began to laugh, too. The others remained perplexed-until Minna straightened, holding up her handiwork for them to see: a hooded mantle as white as milk…or newly fallen snow.
By now they were all laughing. Maude passed the white cloaks around for their admiring inspection. “I count four of these remarkable garments,” Hugh said, “and since two are already spoken for, I hereby lay claim to the third. Who gets the last one?”
Alexander de Bohun looked irked that it should even be open to question. But before he could speak, Maude headed him off. “I would like you to remain at the castle, Alex, so you might assist Rob in striking a deal with Stephen.” The words themselves were bland; the real message was relayed as their eyes met. They’d been together long enough to read each other without difficulty, and Alexander understood at once what Maude was telling him-that she wanted him to keep Rob from making any costly errors in the negotiations with Stephen. He did not like it any, but he did not argue; he shared her doubts about Rob’s judgment.
“The fourth man has to be a local lad,” Ranulf pointed out, “someone who knows every lane and deer track in the shire. Stephen’s sentries are not going to be the only snow-blind ones out there. Without a truly trustworthy guide, we’re likely to wander around out in the woods till we freeze to death.”
Their eyes all turned toward Rob, who was quiet for a few moments, his brow furrowed in thought. And then he smiled. “I know just the man you need. He was born and bred in Berkshire, could probably find his way to Wallingford in his sleep. And he is cocky enough to jump at the chance to show off his tracking skills. Moreover, he has a brother or a cousin-I’m not sure which-who took vows at St Mary’s Abbey. You will be heading for Abingdon first?”
Maude nodded, moved to the coffer chest, and drew out a small leather-bound book. “Rob, I want you to keep this safe. There are two letters hidden in the binding, one to Robert, telling him that this was my doing and my choice, and one to my sons…just in case.”
They looked at one another, the edgy laughter stilled, acknowledging in their sudden silence the magnitude of the risk and the slim likelihood of success.
They gathered in an upper chamber of St George’s Tower shortly before midnight. The only light was a flickering oil lamp, and when they were ready to unlatch the shutters, Minna prudently blew upon the sputtering wick, for darkness was their only defense, the continuing snowfall their only hope.
