that craven Fitz Alan’s scapegoat.”
Arnulf flushed angrily. “My nephew is no coward! We insisted he get away whilst he could, for he’d be of no use to the Empress Maude in one of your prisons.”
Stephen had reddened, too. “How dare you speak so to me, your king? You come before me in chains, boast of your loyalty to that unworthy woman, and you expect me to do…what? Commend you for your candor? No, by God, no-I’ve had enough!”
Stephen paused for breath, his chest heaving. His rage was surging to the surface, like a river spilling its banks, for his resentment had been rising for months, and there in Shrewsbury Castle’s great hall, it at last reached flood tide, breaking loose in a torrent of infuriated, frustrated accusation and reproach.
“I swore to rule by law and God’s Holy Word, to do justice to every man, be he beggar or bishop. I sought no bloodshed, forgave betrayals with a good heart, and held out my hand to enemies and rebels and malcontents alike, for Scriptures would have us ‘forgive their inequity and remember their sin no more.’ And my reward was to be mocked, to be made the butt of jokes, to see my mercy scorned as weakness.”
Again, he paused. The hall was utterly silent. All were listening attentively for once. Let them listen, let them learn! “But Scriptures speak of more than forgiveness,” he said hoarsely, for his throat had become tight and raw. “They say, too, that ‘rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft’ and ‘the wages of sin is death.’ This man, Arnulf de Hesdin, was taken in rebellion against his lawful king. He deserves to hang…and hang he will.”
Stephen swallowed with an effort. Arnulf de Hesdin’s mouth was ajar, his color draining away. There was open surprise on the faces of his barons, and sudden wariness on the faces of the other prisoners, but not outright fear, not yet. They owed him a mortal debt, every man jack of them; did they think him too softhearted to demand payment? He’d show them otherwise. He knew full well what his uncle the old king would have done, and he said harshly:
“Hang the garrison, too. Hang them all.”
THE following day dawned in a burst of late-summer sunlight; by midmorning, the great hall was stifling. Stephen’s bitter satisfaction had ebbed away during the night; he awoke in an oddly morose mood, not sure why his triumph should have soured while he slept. He picked indifferently at the food on his breakfast trencher, and refused curtly when he was asked if he wished to watch Arnulf de Hesdin die.
The doomed men had been given a night’s grace to make their peace with God, but once the sky lightened, the executions began. There were too many for a gallows-ninety-four of them, more than Stephen had realized-and so his Flemish mercenaries were dragging them up onto the castle battlements. Bodies were soon dangling above the moat like grotesque decorations, a sight to strike terror into the hearts of the cowed townspeople, but death was much quicker this way, if less dignified: most of the men died of broken necks rather than the slow strangulation of a gallows execution. Stephen’s chosen hangmen went about their task with matter-of-fact efficiency, but the sheer numbers of the condemned slowed them down, and as the morning wore on, Stephen grimly concluded that the hangings were likely to take all day.
Stephen’s fraying temper was subjected to still more strain by the unexpected noontime arrival of his brother the Bishop of Winchester. Attended by his usual deferential entourage, the bishop swept into the great hall like an ill wind, made Stephen a perfunctory obeisance, subject to sovereign, and then demanded, brother to brother, to know what was going on.
“That should be obvious,” Stephen said tersely. “We are hanging the castle garrison.”
The bishop nodded approvingly. “God’s Will be done,” he said sententiously, and then lowered his voice, revealing he did have a modicum of tact. “I’m glad to hear that you’re finally showing some sense. In truth, Stephen, if you’d heeded my advice all along, you’d not be racing about the country like a crazed fire fighter, dousing one blaze only to have another flare up as soon as you move on.”
The bishop glanced about the hall then, frowning, for it was filled with men he little liked or trusted. One of those high-flying Beaumont hawks. Waleran? No-the other one, Leicester, for Waleran was in Normandy, trying to chase Geoffrey back into Anjou. The taciturn Earl of Northampton, a man likely to welcome salvation with a scowl. That hellspawn Mandeville, looking much too comfortable at Stephen’s side. Maude’s spies, Miles Fitz Walter and that Breton count’s bastard get. The Earl of Chester, holding court across the hall as if he and Stephen were competing kings. Not men he’d want as an audience. Not men he’d want within a hundred miles of his brother, but Stephen was a sheep stubbornly set upon running with wolves. “I need to speak with you, Stephen…in private.”
Stephen could guess what was in store for him: another of his brother’s lectures about his manifold failings as a king, interspersed with indignant rebukes for taking so unforgivably long to name him Archbishop of Canterbury. Not that Stephen could actually bestow the archbishop’s mitre, as that was for an ecclesiastical synod to do. But the king’s candidate would clearly have the advantage, and Henry was determined to obtain Stephen’s official endorsement, an endorsement Stephen was equally determined to withhold, for both he and Matilda were convinced that his brother could not be trusted with so much power. Yet he was reluctant to be the one to slay Henry’s dream, and so he’d been temporizing for months now, hoping that if the problem could be ignored long enough, it might somehow go away. Of course it did not; the bishop only grew more insistent, more aggrieved, and Stephen knew a confrontation was inevitable. But not today, God Willing, not today.
“I would that I could spare the time,” he said, “but I’ve promised to grant an audience to the townspeople and the monks from the abbey.”
The citizens of Shrewsbury had dreaded the castle’s fall, not because they were so devoted to Maude’s cause, or even to their lord, William Fitz Alan. Most of them cared little about who ruled in faraway Westminster, as long as they were left in peace. Instead, they’d found themselves caught up in a rebellion not of their making, spoils of war for Stephen’s much-feared Flemings, as it was customary to reward a victorious army with plunder and looting.
They were luckier than they knew, though, for William de Ypres was in Normandy with Waleran Beaumont. Had he been at the siege, the town’s fate might have been far different; he’d have insisted that Shrewsbury be turned over to his Flemish mercenaries for their sport. But Stephen had chosen to rein them in, much to their disappointment. There had been enough killing, he said brusquely, and although they’d continued to grumble among themselves, they’d not dared to disobey him. Those bodies already stinking in the sun were a convincing argument, indeed, that this king was not to be trifled with, after all.
The townspeople had selected their provost and a handful of their most prominent citizens to plead their case with the king. Stephen was not interested in their carefully rehearsed pledges of heartfelt support, only half listening to their predictable disavowals of entanglement in Fitz Alan’s treachery. But when they were done, he agreed to spare Shrewsbury his royal wrath, provided that they kept faith from now on. The delegation willingly promised loyalty to the grave, so great was their relief at their reprieve, and they then made haste to withdraw, lest Stephen change his mind.
Stephen was not as accommodating to the abbot of the Benedictine monastery of St Peter and St Paul, for he’d been stung by the monks’ attempt to remain neutral, as if he and Maude were claimants on equal footing, as if he were not a consecrated king and a good son of the Church. Nor was Abbot Herbert a particularly effective advocate, for he was a well-meaning man of limited vision, and not even ten years at the abbey’s helm had done much to expand his horizons. Stephen had already decided to levy punitive fines upon the townspeople and the monks. He was wondering whether or not the abbey might also benefit from a change of command when a courier was ushered into the hall, crying out that he was the bearer of news the king must hear straightaway.
The messenger was disheveled and dusty, his tunic sweat-stained, his fatigue as deeply etched in his face as the dirt of the road. He looked triumphant, though, and as he knelt before Stephen, he broke into a wide, cocky grin. “I come from His Grace, the Archbishop of York, my liege. He would have you know that a great battle was fought against the Scots army on Monday last at Cowton Moor near Northallerton. God was with us, my lord king, for your enemies were utterly routed. The field was strewn with their bodies and the Scots king fled like a hare! So did his son-”
But Stephen was no longer listening; the details could wait. Rising to his feet, he gave a jubilant shout, silencing the hall. “Did you all hear?” he demanded. “We have defeated the Scots king, slaughtered his army, and sent him slinking back across the border where he belongs!”
Stephen was immediately surrounded by men eager to offer their congratulations and share in his joy. Some were motivated by a desire to curry favor with the king. Others-such as Robert Beaumont-had a vested interest in Stephen’s survival. The Earl of Northampton rejoiced in David’s defeat fully as much as Stephen; he was actually
