When Christ and His Saints Slept by Sharon Kay Penman

Author:Sharon Kay Penman [Penman, Sharon Kay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Historical, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9781447228523
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2013-02-28T06:02:06+00:00

27

Oxford Castle, England

December 1142

IT was snowing again. From his vantage point up on the castle battlements, Ranulf gazed out upon a frigid, frozen landscape of barren, foreboding beauty. Stephen had set up his quarters at the king’s house north of the city walls. Much of his army was billeted within the town, but he’d established an outer defensive perimeter, and at night it looked as if the city were ringed with flames. Now it was midday and the blowing snow hid the smoldering campfires. So much snow had fallen in December that it even covered up the uglier scars of the siege: the newly dug graves in the outer bailey, the churned-up, pitted earth where mangonel missiles had landed, the ruins of the stables, which had been ignited by a flaming arrow more than a month ago. The snow muffled sound, blurred vision, and transformed the familiar and known into another world altogether, one pristine and alien and eerily, deceptively tranquil.

Ranulf did not remain up on the battlements for long; the wind soon drove him to seek shelter inside. Not that it was so much warmer indoors. As their food supplies had dwindled, so, too, had their fuel. Their firewood had been consumed weeks ago. These days they kept fires burning only in the great hall and the kitchen, but even so, they’d slowly stripped the castle of most of its furniture. Stamping snow from his boots, Ranulf hastened toward the open hearth. Other men were taking their turns there, too, thawing out. Only the ailing had the privilege of staying put, and there were always a few blanket-clad figures crouching close to the flames, for their increasingly Spartan diet and the constant cold were taking an inevitable toll.

The faces around him were grim and pale and gaunt, for hunger had become the enemy lurking within, Stephen’s remorseless accomplice. They had not been as careful with food as they ought in the beginning, confident that aid would be forthcoming. By Martinmas, though, they were on strict rationing, and Maude had contributed greatly to the men’s morale by insisting that portions be shared equally; the highborn usually claimed more than their just due.

As the provisions in their larder were depleted, they’d killed the castle livestock, one by one, and then their horses. Ranulf had hated that. But they had no more grain to feed the animals, and less and less to feed themselves, so it mattered little whether he liked it or not. If the siege dragged on for another month, he might have to make a wrenching decision about his dyrehunds. So far he’d been sharing his own meagre allotment with them, and even if men thought it was foolishly sentimental of him, they kept their opinions to themselves, for he was a king’s son and the empress’s brother. But that could all change if the spectre of starvation became a real danger.

Moving reluctantly away from the hearth, Ranulf began to look for Hugh de Plucknet. It took a while, for it was hard to distinguish one bundled form from another.

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