They did, although it took a good quarter hour to gather them together. Stephen sat cross-legged on his bed, watching them jockey for position in the tent’s confining quarters. Robert Beaumont was comfortably seated on a coffer chest, swapping bawdy jokes with Miles Fitz Walter, but his blue eyes were keeping Stephen under an unobtrusive surveillance. Stephen had come to realize that the nonchalant affability of the Beaumonts masked a shrewd sense of their own worth and their own wants. He’d come, too, to rely upon that shrewdness, even if he sometimes fretted that their loyalties were not rooted deep. He did believe they’d keep faith, though, for no family had benefited as much from his kingship as theirs had done.
Geoffrey de Mandeville had profited, too. So had Simon de Senlis, for Stephen had restored to him part of his lost patrimony, granting him the earldom of Northampton to compensate for the earldom claimed by his stepfather, the Scots king. Stephen’s gaze rested upon them both for a moment before moving on to Maude’s men, for that was how he thought of Miles Fitz Walter and Brien Fitz Count.
Miles was not one to escape notice, for he had a redhead’s temper, a soldier’s taste for blunt speaking, and a steely-eyed stare that was in itself a formidable weapon. He looked like a man who’d spent most of his life outdoors, with flyaway reddish-brown hair that always appeared windblown and skin deeply freckled by the sun, taut as leather. Bowlegged and barrel-chested, he was a skilled huntsman and an aggressive, able battle commander. He cast a lengthy shadow over the Marches, sheriff of Gloucestershire and Staffordshire, and it was often said of him that he ruled the whole Welsh border, “from the River Severn to the sea.” He’d been devoted to the old king; his allegiance to Stephen had yet to be tested. But if he made an uncertain friend, he’d make a more dangerous enemy, and so Stephen was trying hard to convince himself that self-interest would keep Miles loyal.
If what first impressed about Miles was the coiled power, the sheer physical impact of his presence, the initial impression of Brien Fitz Count was of polished, impeccable courtesy, a disarming smile, and distance. The most superficial assessment revealed Miles to be just what he was-a man most at home in the saddle, sword in hand. Brien, attractive, urbane, and unusually well educated, was obviously a courtier, and thus easily dismissed by those scanning the horizon for political rivals. That was too simple, though, for there was nothing at all simple about Brien Fitz Count, a man who kept his own counsel, a cynic who was still saddened whenever his jaundiced view of mankind was confirmed, a man of deliberation and caution who was reckless in the extreme upon the battlefield, a man of noble blood and ignoble birth, tolerant of all failures but his own.
Stephen trusted Brien even less than he did Miles, for Brien was that rarity, a man who seemed willing to admit women into that select circle of those who wielded royal authority. Stephen had long suspected that Brien would defect to Maude within hours of her landing on English soil, and oddly, that hurt, for he had a genuine liking for this illegitimate, honourable son of a Breton count, sensing that they shared an uncommon willingness to forgive human folly. A great pity, he thought, that Brien should be so eager to entangle himself in Maude’s web.
They were all here by now, all but one. Stephen was not surprised that it should be the Earl of Chester who’d keep them waiting; nor did he doubt it was deliberate. Randolph de Gernons counted it a day wasted if he did not ruffle a few feathers, and if the feathers were royal, so much the better. He was a man with vast estates, numerous vassals, and equally numerous enemies, for he was as bad-tempered as a badger, as proud as Lucifer, and he collected grudges as if he thought they were coins of the realm. But even if he’d possessed the serene temperament of a saint, he’d have been the object of Stephen’s suspicions, for his young wife was Robert Fitz Roy’s daughter, not only Maude’s namesake but her favorite niece. So far, though, Chester had remained aloof from the political turmoil afflicting England and Normandy, and if he had any interest in making Maude Queen of England, he alone knew it.
Chester seemed to sense just how far he could push his provocations, and he made his entrance mere moments before Stephen’s irritation flared into active anger. Swarthy and stocky, with deep-set dark eyes half hidden under lowering brows, lanky ink-black hair that reached below his shoulders, and a harsh, gravelly voice that could rattle shutters when he was in full cry, Chester looked at first glance more like a brigand than a baron of the realm, and since he so often acted as if his only true peer were God, he got no warm welcome now from the other lords. Unfazed by the chill, he elbowed his way toward Stephen. “I assume this summons means we’ll be launching another attack, and high time, too!”
Stephen ignored the gibe. “We have no choice but to attack again, for it could take months to starve them out. And they’ve made it offensively clear that they’ll not surrender.”
“God’s Bones, why should they surrender? They know full well that their defiance will cost them nothing, no more than it did the garrisons at Exeter and Hereford.”
Stephen glowered at the outspoken earl. “And of course,” he said sarcastically, “men would be so much quicker to surrender if they expected to be hanged!” Satisfied with his riposte, he glanced back at the other men. “We have much to do and little time to spare, for I want the assault to begin at noon.”
There were surprised murmurs, for none saw the need for such haste. “Why today?” Miles asked curiously. “Why not wait till the morrow?”
“Because,” Stephen said, “we cannot be sure that on the morrow the wind will still be blowing from the north.” And he watched, smiling faintly, as he saw them absorb, understand, and approve.
The final assault upon Shrewsbury Castle began after a priest called upon the Almighty to grant them victory. The castle defenders, warned by the sudden activity in the royal encampment, had taken up position along the bailey walls, watching warily as the battering ram was brought up. They were puzzled, though, by what the king did next, for he dispatched a small armed force toward the castle. Crouching behind large shields, they advanced upon the castle moat. A deep, dry ditch, it had been filled in weeks ago by Stephen’s soldiers, heaped with dirt and brushwood and rocks. When the castle garrison realized that the men below them were throwing more brushwood and straw into the ditch, they understood, and arrows and stones began to rain down from the battlements. But they were too late. Torches were already searing through the air, aimed at the sun-dried straw, and within moments, the moat was filled with fire.
The garrison tried frantically to contain the flames, pouring water onto the timbered walls in a vain attempt to keep the blaze from spreading. But in fighting the fire, they exposed themselves to another sort of fire, coming from Stephen’s archers and crossbowmen. What drove them off the walls, though, was the smoke. Men were soon coughing and choking, for the wind was blowing dense black clouds over the walls. They retreated, reeling about blindly in the sudden dark smothering the bailey. And by then, the king’s battering ram was smashing into the smoldering wooden gates.
The siege of Shrewsbury Castle had lasted more than four weeks. The final assault lasted less than four hours. Once Stephen’s men had control of the bailey, they set fire to the door of the keep, forced their way into Fitz Alan’s refuge. The fighting was brief and bloody and over by Vespers. As the peaceful pealing of church bells echoed through the town, the fearful citizens bolted their doors, shuttered their windows, and prayed that Shrewsbury would be spared the fallen castle’s fate.
But Stephen’s triumph was flawed, and his initial elation was soon curdled by disappointment, for a thorough search of the castle revealed a frustrating fact-that William Fitz Alan had somehow managed to escape the trap. He was not among the prisoners taken, nor among the bodies being collected for burial. An interrogation of the survivors revealed nothing of substance, for Fitz Alan’s men were loyal and Stephen loath to resort to torture. Fitz Alan’s wife was gone, too, but Stephen had expected that, for rumors had circulated for weeks that all the women had been spirited out of the castle before the siege began. Fitz Alan’s flight was far more recent, possibly only hours old, and Stephen gave orders for a house-to-house search of Shrewsbury, although without any expectation of success. His men had barricaded both of Shrewsbury’s bridges, but he knew Fitz Alan could have gotten a small boat, crossed the river by night, and so there was no surprise when the town’s search proved futile.
If Fitz Alan had slipped through the royal nets, his uncle was not so lucky. Arnulf de Hesdin had remained behind, and that night he was escorted into the great hall to confront his king. The hall still bore the visible scars of the day’s assault. Broken tables and stools had been piled in a corner, forming a forlorn pyramid of splintered wood. There had been no time to sweep up the bloodied floor rushes, and the smell of smoke still hung heavily upon the air. Arnulf de Hesdin had not emerged unscathed, either, from the siege. His thinning hair was matted and snarled, his eyes smoke-reddened, a rivulet of dried blood smudging his cheek, caking in his beard. But he stode into the hall as if his chains were badges of honour, and faced Stephen defiantly, without a trace of fear or repentance. “I am here, my lord king. Do with me what you will,” he said, flinging down his submission as if it were a gauntlet.
“One might think you were the anointed king,” Stephen snapped, “instead of a miserable wretch of a rebel,
