Not long did they hesitate. The river beneath was frozen hard; it lay silent and still in its ice-bound sepulchre. The darkness was penetrated by the light of the watch-fires in all directions: they surrounded the town on all sides, save the one they had not thought it necessary to guard against. There was a fire and doubtless a watch over the bridge, which stood near the actual site of the present Folly Bridge. There was a watch across Hythe Bridge; there was another on the ruins of the castle mill, which Earl Algar had held, under the Domesday survey; another at the principal entrance of the castle, which led from the city. But the extreme cold of the night had driven the majority of the besiegers to seek shelter in the half-ruined churches, which, long attuned to the sweet melody of bells and psalmody, had now become the bivouacs of profane soldiers.
The Countess Edith, the wife of Robert d'Oyley, now appeared, shivering in the keen air, and took an affectionate leave of the Empress, while her teeth chattered the while. A true woman, she shared her husband's fortunes for weal or woe, and had endured the horrors of the siege. Ropes were brought—Alain glided down one to the ice, and held it firm. Another rope was passed beneath the armpits of the Lady Maude. She grasped another in her gloved hand, to steady her descent.
"Farewell, true and trusty friend," she said to Robert of Oxford; "had all been as faithful as thou, I had never been brought to this pass; if they hurt thy head, they shall pay with a life for every hair it contains."
Then she stepped over the battlements.
For one moment she gave a womanly shudder at the sight of the blackness below; then yielding herself to the care of her trusty knights and shutting her eyes, she was lowered safely to the surface of the frozen stream, while young Alain steadied the rope below. At last her feet touched the ice.
"Am I on the ground?"
"On the ice, Domina."
One after another the three knights followed her, and they descended the stream until it joined the main river at a farm called "The Wick," which formerly belonged to one Ermenold, a citizen of Oxford, immortalised in the abbey records of Abingdon for his munificence to that community.