Couldn't put it down! This novel is a frame story. It starts in 1180 with an ailing abbot telling the story of a mercenary, a young peasant girl from the fens, and a daughter of a noble house in England years before, in 1141, during the time when the countryside was devastated by a civil war as King Stephen and his cousin, the Empress Matilda and the daughter of King Henry I, fight for the crown of England.
Although Henry on his deathbed in 1135 insisted that his nobles swear an oath to uphold Matilda, his only remaining legitimate child, as their queen, some of those same nobles supported Stephen, who raced to England from Normandy to grab the crown before Matilda, the widowed empress of Germany and wife of Angevin Geoffrey Plantagenet, could arrive. In 1139, Matilda and her army invade England to fight for that which her father had granted her. By the time the story begins in 1141, Stephen had disenfranchised many of his supporters, some of whom changed sides and supported Matilda's claims to the throne as a result of foolish decisions such as dismissing lowborn but clever men who ran Henry's government efficiently and replacing them with his own favorites who lacked the knowledge necessary to govern, as well as arresting three bishops who displeased him and seizing their castles, demonstrating a lack of care for the rights and liberties of the Church.
During this dangerous time, the reader first meets Emma, who is the eleven-year-old red-haired daughter of a family in the fens. When mercenaries pass through the area, they bring with them a monk with a deadly interest in young girls with red hair. Captured on her brave mission to distract the men from her defenseless mother and sister while gathering peat for the village women (the men have been taken as soldiers), Emma is left for dead in a burned-out church where she is found by chance by Gil, an archer with his own reasons to get back at the mercenary band. Gwil takes Emma with him, dressing her as a boy to help her avoid unwanted attention. Emma becomes known as Penda, and Penda turns out to have an amazing instinct with a bow and arrow.
Maud is the sixteen-year-old chatelaine of Kenniford, a small but strategically important castle that she is determined to protect from the war between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda. Forced to marry one of Stephen's barons, Maud eventually winds up providing refuge for the Empress, and Stephen's armies lay siege to Kenniford Castle. Aided by a garrison of mercenaries, including Gwil and his apprentice, Penda, they must survive a long winter under siege. It's a brutal season that brings all the main players to Kenniford, including the sinister monk who has never stopped hunting for Emma and the clue she unwittingly holds to his identity and, with it, his destruction.
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Robert Hagen
It finally arrived and I was satisfied :)
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 23, 2021