Brother Cadfael 11: An Excellent Mystery

castles in Winchester, the bishop and the empress, with the queen's armies closing all round the city and sealing off the roads. No supplies have gone in through that girdle for four weeks now, and they say there's starvation in the town, though I doubt if either empress or bishop is going short.' He was a man who spoke his mind, and no great respecter of high personages. 'A very different tale for the poor townsfolk! But it's biting even the garrison within there at the royal castle, for the queen has been supplying Wolvesey while she starves out the opposing side. Well, they came to the point where they must try to win a way through.'
    'I've been expecting it,' said Hugh, intent. 'What did they hit on? They could only hope to move north or west, the queen holds all the south-east.'
    'They sent out a force, three or four hundred as I heard it, northwards, to seize on the town of Wherwell, and try to secure a base there to open the Andover road. Whether they were seen on the move, or whether some townsman betrayed them - for they're not loved in Winchester - however it was, William of Ypres and the queen's men closed in on them when they'd barely reached the edge of the town, and cut them to pieces. A great killing! The fellow who told me fled when the houses started to burn, but he saw the remnant of the empress's men put up a desperate fight of it and reach the great nunnery there. And they never scrupled to use it, either, he says. They swarmed into the church itself and turned it into a fortress, although the poor sisters had shut themselves in there for safety. The Flemings threw in firebrands after them. A hellish business it must have been. He could hear from far off as he ran, he said, the women screaming, the flames crackling and the din of fighting within there, until those who remained were forced to come out and surrender, half-scorched as they were. Not a man can have escaped either death or capture.'
    'And the women?' demanded Hugh aghast. 'Do you tell me the abbey of Wherwell is burned down, like the convent in the city, like Hyde Mead after it?'
    'My man never dallied to see how much was left,' said the messenger dryly. 'But certainly the church burned down to the ground, with both men and women in it - the sisters cannot all have come out alive. And as for those who did, God alone knows where they will have found refuge now. Safe places are hard to find in those parts. And for the empress's garrison, I'd say there's no hope for them now but to muster every man they have, and try to burst out by force of numbers through the ring, and run for it. And a poor chance for them, even so.'
    A poor chance indeed, after this last loss of three or four hundred fighting men, probably hand-picked for the exploit, which must have been a desperate gamble from the first. The year only at early September, and the fortunes of war had changed and changed again, from the disastrous battle of Lincoln which had made the king prisoner and brought the empress within grasp of the crown itself, to this stranglehold drawn round the same proud lady now. Now only give us the empress herself prisoner, thought Hugh, and we shall have stalemate, recover each our sovereign, and begin this whole struggle all over again, for what sense there is in it! And at the cost of the brothers of Hyde Mead and the nuns of Wherwell. Among many others even more defenceless, like the poor of Winchester.
    The name of Wherwell, as yet, meant no more to him than any other convent unlucky enough to fall into the field of battle.
    'A good year for me, all the same,' said the wool-merchant, rising to make his way home to his own waiting board and bed. 'The clip measures up well, it was worth the journey.'
    Hugh took the latest news down to the abbey next morning, immediately after Prime, for whatever of import came to his ears was at once conveyed to Abbot Radulfus, a service the abbot appreciated and reciprocated. The clerical and secular authorities worked well together in Shropshire, and moreover, in this case a Benedictine house had been desecrated and destroyed, and those of the Rule stood together, and helped one another where they could. Even in more peaceful times, nunneries were apt to have much narrower lands and more restricted resources than the houses of the monks, and often had to depend upon brotherly alms, even under good, shrewd government. Now here was total devastation. Bishops and abbots would be called upon to give aid.
    He had come