Chapter 15

In years to come, Oliver would always remember Lincolnshire as a flat, waterlogged land, devoid of colour in the bleak January weather. He would see again the boggy roads over which Earl Robert's army floundered and trudged, smell the mud, taste the all-pervading frozen damp that numbed the flesh and rusted mail overnight. He would also remember the anticipation and the sense of power as Robert's army united with Chester's and marched with dogged, inexorable purpose upon Stephen and Lincoln. The cold, the discomfort, were not lessened, but they were made bearable by the knowledge that the tide was no longer running in Stephen's favour but in theirs.

To reach Lincoln, the combined armies had to find places to cross the river Witham and an ancient Roman ditch called the Fossedyke, which protected the city. Their guide, a local villager, swore that there was a shallow ford on the latter, but when he led them to it, squelching and cursing across the boggy floodplain, it proved to be a swift-running channel of brown spate-water. On the other side Stephen had set a small company of guards. As Robert of Gloucester and Rannulf of Chester approached the water's edge to try and gauge its depth, they were assaulted by a barrage of stones, clods of mud and yelled insults.

Oliver drew rein and, with frozen hands, fumbled in his saddle pouch for his wine flask. Hero was caked belly-deep in stinking marsh mud and bore scarcely any resemblance to the groomed, silver-dapple stallion that had set out from Bristol less than two weeks since.

Oliver drank from his flask and as he washed the pungent red wine around his teeth, thought that he seemed to have been on the road for ever. Although it was only Candlemas now, the peace of Christmas was a distant star on a fast vanishing horizon. His glance strayed to the woven knot of hair laced to his scabbard attachments. Catrin had given it to him on their last night together as they lay in the loft above the stables, wrapped in their cloaks and each other's arms.

The thought of her added warmth to the wine as it flowed through him, and he touched the knot. It made the physical distance between them seem less. The threads of bright copper-auburn trapped his eye, causing him to shake his head in bemusement. Strange to think that Ethel was his kin in truth. He had not known her when her hair was this colour, for she had been well past her fortieth winter when he was born, her red colouring faded to a sandy-grey. He wondered if he would have treated her differently had he known she was family and was glad that he had been unaware until now. The obligation of blood was weighted with guilt, whereas the obligation to an old woman who had once lived on his family's lands was considerably more simple. He took another drink of wine and then hastily looped his flask back on his saddle as Miles of Gloucester and a companion drove their horses into the icy, swift-flowing water of the Fossedyke.

On the other side, King Stephen's men watched with growing apprehension. Their horses backed and circled. They hurled further flurries of mud and stones as Earl Robert's men plunged into the dyke. A spear flashed in the air and fell harmlessly between the horses. Before it could sink, someone leaned down from his saddle, caught it up and cast it back at Stephen's men. It landed in front of them, its tip quivering in the mud of the far bank as both a threat and a promise. A horse panicked and flailed into one of its companions, creating mayhem. Bravado evaporating, Stephen's small band of sentries turned tail and fled to raise the alarm, leaving their post unguarded and the way free.

Oliver set his teeth and spurred Hero into the churning spate of the dyke. He had been prepared to be frozen but still the shock took his breath away as the water immersed the stallion to the saddle girth and spray flew up drenching Oliver through mail and padding. He heard Gawin cursing the icy tug of the current as his dun splashed and floundered. Any man who fell off his horse or failed to keep his feet would drown, dragged under in seconds by the weight of his mail and sodden gambeson.

The first troops to gain the opposite side set about securing a rope across the dyke for the infantry to grasp as their turn came to dare the chest-deep water. There were many Welshmen among them, accustomed to fording deep streams and plodding through inhospitable terrain as part of their daily existence. They took the crossing with such a flourish that they encouraged their less experienced English counterparts to do the same.

'Hell's mouth, I want double wages for this! declared Randal de Mohun as he rode past Oliver on his bay stallion, water spraying from the high-stepping hooves. 'No one said anything about being a fish!

'If we win, you'll doubtless get them.

De Mohun snorted and set about mustering his men. 'It will be us that will have to do the winning first.

Oliver shook his head and went to seek Earl Robert for orders.


It was Candlemas: the feast of the purification of the Virgin, the ceremony based on the Roman worship of the Goddess Juno Februata, and Catrin was attending another childbirth amongst the soap-makers of the city, where she and Ethel had made a reputation for themselves. It was Aline Saponier's seventh confinement, and the baby came swiftly and smoothly into the world and immediately began bawling with lungs like a set of smithy bellows.

'A fine boy, smiled Catrin, receiving him into the waiting sheet. 'You scarce needed a midwife at all, Mistress.

'I'm told your skills make for an easy delivery, Aline panted from the birthing stool. 'Has he got all his fingers and toes?

'Whole in every sense of the word. Catrin gently rubbed the infant in the towel then folded over the ends and gave him to his mother.

Aline's sweaty face creased with a surfeit of emotion as she peered into the baby's new-born, unprepossessing features. 'He's beautiful! she sniffed, and started to weep.

'He is that, Mistress, Catrin said diplomatically, as she knelt to cut the cord and competently delivered the afterbirth.

The other women of the household crowded round, cooing, touching and commenting. There were three aunts, a cousin, and a toothless grandmother, all present to help and bear witness, thus making the event a tremendous social occasion. Catrin was accustomed by now to such gatherings, but there had still been a couple of times when she could cheerfully have gagged the grandmother with a swaddling band.

One of the aunts trotted from the room to announce to the waiting household that a new son had been safely delivered. Catrin saw the mother cleaned up, made comfortable with linen pads and helped back into the freshly made family bed.

The grandmother mumbled into her gums and patted Catrin on the shoulder. 'You've not done so badly for one so young, who's never borne a babe herself, she allowed.

'Thank you, Catrin said sweetly.

'Heard about you from Mistress Hubert at the house on the end. She said as you and the old woman were competent.

Catrin gave a preoccupied smile and set about returning her midwife's tools to her satchel, of which only the oil and the sharp knife had been required.

'But you came alone, her assailant persisted.

'My companion is not well enough to make the journey into the city, Catrin replied. 'The winter and her years weigh heavily on her. She compressed her lips. Ethel had been sneezing all morning and, despite being crouched over the fire wrapped in both her green mantle and a cloak, had been shivering fit to slough the flesh from her bones.

'Aye, well, I'm nigh on three-score-and-ten winters myself and I've had a cough worse than a dog's bark, said the old woman, not to be outdone. 'I tell you, sometimes it is as much as I can do to ease myself from my bed in a morning.

Which Catrin took with a substantial pinch of salt. She glanced round. Two of the aunts were bathing the baby in a silver basin while the cousin aired its swaddling before the charcoal brazier. A serving maid went round the room lighting the candles from a long taper. Catrin noted that the light was provided not by spindly, tallow dips but proper, heavy wax candles, the kind that burned in the Countess's bower.

Seeing the direction of her gaze, the old woman went to an aumbry in the wall and returned with three more of the candles, their surfaces smooth and creamily glossed. 'Here, take these, she said, 'in honour of the blessed Virgin whose feast it is.

Catrin accepted them with pleasure. She knew how fond Ethel was of beeswax candles. The gifts and tokens that grateful householders presented were one of the more pleasant aspects of being a midwife.

Outside, the February daylight was dull grey, and the wind was sharp on Catrin's face. She tugged her hood up over her wimple and secured the clasp on her cloak, her teeth chattering with cold. The church of Saint Mary le Port rang out the hour of Nones and was joined by the bells of Saint Peter. She thought of Oliver and wondered what he was doing. Was he riding blue-fingered in the cold or had they reached their destination? Was there peace or bloodshed? Two weeks of silence on the matter had shredded her equilibrium. She had taken to biting her nails and, despite Ethel's assurances that he would return, she worried constantly.

Godard's dark shape loomed out of the shadows at the side of the Saponiers' dwelling and he fell into step beside her, as huge and solid as a walking wall. She was grateful for his presence and his taciturnity. Talk for talk's sake only set her teeth on edge, when all she longed for, and dreaded, was news of Earl Robert's army.