When Christ and His Saints Slept
To Valerie Ptak LaMont
Never before had there been greater wretchedness in the country…. And they said openly that Christ and his saints slept.
—
THE PETERBOROUGH CHRONICLE
Contents
Prologue: Chartres Cathedral, France
2. City of Angers, Province of Anjou, France
6. Tower Royal, London, England
22. Near Devizes Castle, Wiltshire, England
57. Dover-Canterbury Road, Kent, England
Prologue
Chartres Cathedral, France
January 1101
S
TEPHEN
was never to forget his fifth birthday, for that was the day he lost his father. In actual fact, that wasn’t precisely so. But childhood memories are not woven from facts alone, and that was how he would remember it.
He’d come with his parents and two elder brothers to this great church of the Blessed Mary to hear a bishop preach about the Crusade. He didn’t know who the bishop was, but his sermon was a long, dull one, and Stephen had fidgeted and squirmed through most of it, for he was safely out of his mother’s reach. She had no patience with childhood mischief, no patience with mischief of any kind. “Remember who you are” was her favorite maternal rebuke, and her older children had soon learned to disregard that warning at their peril.
But it puzzled Stephen; why would he forget? He knew very well who he was: Stephen of Blois, son and namesake of the Count of Blois and the Lady Adela, daughter of William the Bastard, King of England and Duke of Normandy. Stephen had never met his celebrated grandfather, but he knew he’d been a great man. His mother often said so.
Stephen knew about the Crusade, too, for people talked about it all the time. His father had taken the cross, gone off to free the Holy Land from the infidel. Stephen was still in his cradle then, and two when his father came back. There was something shameful about his return. Stephen did not understand why, though, for he was convinced his father could do no wrong, not the man who laughed so often and winked at minor misdeeds and had promised him a white pony for this long-awaited fifth birthday. Stephen had already picked out a name—Snowball—so sure he was that his father would not forget, that the pony would be waiting for them back at the castle.
Stephen had hoped they’d be returning there once the Mass was done, but instead they lingered out in the cloisters with the bishop, discussing the new army of crusaders that was making ready to join its Christian brethren in the Holy Land. Ignored by the adults, bored and restless, Stephen soon slipped back into the cathedral.
Within, all was shadowed and still. With the candles quenched and the parishioners gone, the church seemed unfamiliar to Stephen, like a vast, dark cave. Sun-blinded, he tripped over a prayer cushion and sprawled onto the tiled floor. But he was not daunted by a scraped knee, scrambled up, and groped his way down the nave toward the choir.
He was curious to get a better look at the Sancta Camisia, draped over a reliquary upon the High Altar. Up close, though, it was a disappointment, just a faded chemise, frayed and wrinkled. He’d expected something fancier, mayhap cloth of gold or spangled silk, for this shabby garment was among the most revered relics in Christendom, said to have been worn by the Blessed Lady Mary as she gave birth to the Holy Christ Child. Stephen’s eldest brother, Will, had once dared to ask how it could have survived so many centuries and their mother had slapped him across the mouth for such blasphemy. Carefully wiping his hand on his tunic, Stephen was reaching out to touch the Sancta Camisia when the door opened suddenly, spilling sunlight into the nave.
Stephen ducked down behind the High Altar, willing these intruders to go away. Instead, the footsteps came nearer. When he peeped around the altar cloth, he gasped in dismay. It would be bad enough to be caught by a priest, but this was far worse. He feared his mother’s wrath more than the anger of priests and bishops, even more than God’s, for He was in Heaven and Mama was right here in Chartres.
Adela stopped before she reached the High Altar, but she was still so close that Stephen could almost have touched her skirts. The second set of footsteps was heavier and familiar. Some of Stephen’s anxiety began to abate now that his father was here, too. He still hoped to escape detection, though, for discipline was his mother’s province.
