“I would like to hear it, Rainald.”
The others were now watching, for Rainald’s discomfort was too obvious to overlook. He scowled, ran his hand through his hair until it bristled like the quills of a ginger hedgehog. “Ah, Maude…it was a joke not fit for female ears. Can we not leave it at that?”
“I am not likely to swoon, Rainald.”
Rainald ruffled his hair again, at a loss. If only she’d give him enough time, he might be able to come up with a less objectionable joke. But she was not about to wait, had that stubborn look he knew all too well. No, best to tell her and get it over with, but why did she have to be so damnably difficult? “Have it your way, Maude, but you’ll not like it any. You asked what the Londoners wanted of you, and he…he said ‘ballocks.’”
It was passing strange. Maude had expected such an answer, and yet she still felt as if she’d been slapped in the face. From the corner of her eye, she saw Miles and Ranulf struggling to hide grins. Were Robert and Brien laughing at her, too? “Very amusing,” she said, with a smile that dripped icicles. “I want to be sure to give credit where due. Whose joke was it…John’s or Baldwin’s?”
Rainald’s mouth dropped open. “I do not remember!”
“Rainald, tell me!”
“No…no, I will not!” he snapped, and spun on his heel, ignoring her demand that he halt, that he come back.
No one else had moved. But the slamming door broke the spell, and Ranulf leapt to his feet. “I’ll go after him, Maude, talk to him once he calms down.” The door banged again, and a strained silence settled over the room. Miles had risen, too. Striding forward, he kissed Maude’s hand, then gave her a level look.
“You are too thin-skinned, Lady Maude. If you bleed so profusely from a mere scratch, how will you protect yourself from a much greater wound?”
“I am no fragile flower, Miles,” Maude said stiffly. “You need not fear. I will meet whatever challenges lie ahead, and prevail over them.”
“I do not doubt that, madame.” At the door, he paused. “Even so,” he said, “it was just a joke.”
Robert was the next to depart. More tactful then Miles, he kept his opinion to himself, but Maude knew him well enough to read disapproval in his very reticence. She spun around, crossed to the hearth, waiting for the sound of the door’s closing yet again. But it did not come, and she glanced over her shoulder, saw Brien still standing by the table.
“I suppose you think I made too much of it, too,” she said, seeking to sound matter-of-fact, but sounding defensive, instead.
“Yes,” he said, “but I think I understand why you did so.”
Maude’s smile was skeptical. “Do you, indeed?”
He nodded. “A joke about the gallows would find no favor in the house of a man who’d been hanged.”
Maude took a quick step toward him. “Mayhap you do understand. Brien, this is not at all as I thought it would be. Why is it still so hard? Why are they still fighting me?”
“Nothing frightens men more than the unknown. Stephen might be discredited and defeated, but his flaws are familiar and therefore, safer.”
Maude’s mouth twisted. “Better a weak king than a strong queen?” she said bitterly, and Brien nodded again.
“It is so unfair, Brien! For five years, I fought to reclaim the crown that Stephen stole from me, and it cost me dear. Now that crown is within my grasp, and still there are men who would deny it to me. Miles says I am too easily wounded. Not by my enemies, by my friends, my own kinsmen. Those are the wounds that fester…”
“Maude.” It was the first time he’d used her given name, but in the intensity of the moment, neither noticed. “You will be queen,” he said, “and I will serve you faithfully until my last breath, that I swear upon the surety of my soul.”
He raised her hand to his lips, and for a moment, their fingers entwined. “May I speak freely?” She nodded, but still he hesitated. “I would cut out my tongue ere I’d offend you. But there is this I must say to you, my lady. Fear cannot always be banished by force of will. Sometimes it needs to be coaxed away. Mayhap if you sought to sooth their fears with soft words…”
“Oh, no, Brien,” Maude said earnestly, “you are wrong. I dare not, for they would take that as weakness. I must prove that I am my father’s daughter, in deed and word as well as blood. It is the only way.”
IF fortune had been fickle in April, it proved bountiful in May. Maude enjoyed some signal successes. Her uncle David, the Scots king, arrived. In Normandy, Robert Beaumont made a truce with Geoffrey. Geoffrey de Mandeville came to terms with her, too, and promised his aid in bringing the recalcitrant Londoners to heel. That did not prove necessary, though. A delegation of Londoners met Maude at St Albans, had a long discussion with Robert, and bowed to the inevitable. During the third week in June, Maude was given a subdued but courteous welcome into the capital, and was finally installed in the royal palace at Westminster.
Robert had just met with the Archbishop of Canterbury, discussing the plans for Maude’s coronation. He was on his way back to the great hall when he was waylaid by his daughter. The Earl of Chester had yet to put in an appearance at Maude’s court; rumor had him busy settling scores with William Peverel and the Earl of Richmond. But Maud was not about to miss her aunt’s coronation, and she’d joined them at Reading. Robert was delighted to have her with them, for Amabel had been forced to remain at Bristol to watch over Stephen. He followed Maud now into the gardens, and soon unbent enough to play with her exuberant little lapdog. But this rare moment of relaxation was fleeting, for Gilbert Foliot was striding up the path toward him, with a haste that bespoke urgency.
“My lord earl, I’m indeed glad I found you. The Bishop of Winchester has arrived, and he no sooner paid his respects to the empress than they got into a right sharp argument. I thought it best to come looking for you, for they’re going to be sorely in need of a peacemaker, and you’re the only one they’re both likely to heed.”
Robert swore, profanely enough to startle his daugther. “Wherever did you learn such foul language, Papa…from Mama?” But her teasing was wasted, for Robert was already heading for the great hall, and she had to hurry to catch up.
“If I may be blunt,” Gilbert Foliot continued, “the fault lies with the Scots king. If he were not so set upon having his chancellor named as the next Bishop of Durham-”
“Let me guess,” Robert interrupted wearily. “Maude told the Bishop of Winchester that she’d approved the appointment of David’s man to the Durham see, and the bishop took it amiss-badly amiss.”
“You must have second sight, for that is indeed what happened. Lady Maude’s temper could melt wax at twenty paces, and Bishop Henry is no meek Lamb of God. When I left, they were shouting at each other in a most undignified way, to the wonderment of a hall full of witnesses.”
Robert swore again, quickening his stride, and Foliot did, too. “You know I have no great regard for Bishop Henry, my lord, but he has the right of it in this quarrel. The monks of Durham do not want the King of Scotland picking their bishop. Moreover, Lady Maude did promise the bishop that he’d have the final say in all Church appointments. As little as I like the man, I can understand his anger. It was very foolish of him, though, to scold the empress as if she were a wayward child. Any chance he may have had of prevailing ended as soon as the words ‘I forbid it’ passed his lips.”
“He said that? Christ!”
“Papa!” Maud clutched Robert’s arm, pointing. “It is too late…look!”
The Bishop of Winchester was stalking up the path toward them, trailed by flustered clerics. His color was so florid that he looked to be in danger of succumbing at any moment to an apoplectic seizure, and his eyes were bulging, glittering with such utter, unforgiving fury that the others stared at him in consternation; even the blase Maud was impressed.
“Cousin? What happened?”
The bishop brushed past Robert as if he’d not spoken. But after a few steps, he stopped,
turned back. “That woman,” he said harshly, “has no honour.”
“ Maude, have you lost your wits?”
“I will thank you, Robert, to keep a civil tongue in your head! I owe Uncle David this. He has stood by me, never once betraying his oath. Even you swore homage to Stephen, even you. But not David!”
“David is not the problem. Did you truly say that if Henry would not invest David’s man with the bishop’s ring and mitre, you’d do it yourself? Tell me you did not say that, Maude!” But he saw the flush rising in her face. “Jesus God…”
“Robert, he gave me no choice! He forbade me, and those were his very words. ‘I forbid it,’ he said, whilst a hall full of witnesses looked on. What else could I do?”
“The Church does not and will not recognize lay investiture. That is a battle our father and your husband both fought with the Church-and lost!”
“You think I do not know that, Robert? But this I know, too, that he would never have dared to defy our father like that-never!”
He started to speak, stopped, and looked again at her face. His relief was enormous. Thank God she’d not meant it! The threat was foolish, but she was a novice at this, would learn. “So he goaded you into it,” he said. “I can understand that, for I’ll not deny that Henry can be insufferable at times. But this is a fence we must mend. He is going to expect an apology, Maude, and-”
“No!”
“Maude, you misspoke. Now you must make it right, however little you like it-”
“No,” Maude said, “I will not,” and he stared at her in dismay, for she sounded no less implacable than their enraged cousin the bishop.
17
Westminster, England
June 1141
The great hall of Westminster was said to be the largest in all of Europe, a vast timbered structure two hundred forty feet in length, more than sixty feet wide. Gervase de Cornhill had seen it before; as one of London’s justiciars, he’d occasionally been summoned to attend the king. Each time he stepped across the threshold, he was awed by such earthly grandeur, marveling what mortal man had wrought. But on this humid June afternoon, his artistic appreciation was muted. He had eyes only for the woman seated upon the dais. She did look verily like a queen, he conceded, and a right handsome one at that. Pray God that she’d prove reasonable as well as comely. He glanced at his comrades, saw the same unease upon their faces. It was a sad day indeed for London when a good man like Stephen could be supplanted by a woman.
Once they’d been summoned, they knelt before Maude. They’d agreed that Gervase should speak for them, but when he started to introduce himself, a familiar male voice cut him off, saying, “Ah, but we know you well, Master de Cornhill.” The Londoners stiffened, watching apprehensively as Geoffrey de Mandeville sauntered up onto the dais to stand at Maude’s side.
His presence there was not a total surprise, for rumors had been circulating for a fortnight that Maude had made it well worth his while to switch sides. They’d been hoping it was not so, for he was no friend to London or its citizens. He’d been hostile to their commune from the first, had often used his power as the Constable of the Tower to intimidate and coerce, and his animosity now had a personal edge, for his father-in-law had been killed last month when a demonstration for Stephen had turned violent. But once Maude gave him leave to rise, Gervase strode forward purposefully, and launched into his prepared plea, that she should restore to them the laws of good King Edward, the sainted Confessor, whose reign had become enshrined in legend as a Golden Age in the brutal aftermath of the Conquest.
“My lord father ruled London for thirty-five years. His reign was peaceful and prosperous, and when he died, men called him the Lion of Justice in tribute to his enlightened and righteous kingship. Are you saying now that his laws were so onerous, so oppressive that you need relief from them?”
“No, madame, indeed not,” Gervase said hastily, and launched into a well-rehearsed explanation that stressed the Londoners’ reverence for the old ways, the old customs, while insisting that they were not disparaging the laws or courts of good King Henry, may God assoil him. When he was done, Maude said that she would take their request under consideration, a response that could promise all or nothing. But Gervase was already sure what her eventual answer would be, for as he studied her face, he’d come to a troubling conclusion. This new queen of theirs had no liking for the capital of her realm.
He had to persevere, though. “Madame, we have another petition to put before you. We beseech you to ease the burden our city is laboring under. We have been told that a new royal tallage is to be imposed upon us. But we are not able to meet this demand, for the city coffers are well nigh empty-”
“And why is that, Master de Cornhill?”
Gervase blinked. “Madame?”
“I asked why the city coffers are so bare. No, you need not fumble for an answer. I already know. For the past five years, your money has been propping up Stephen’s monarchy. Dare you deny it?”
Gervase shifted from foot to foot, hoping she was posing a rhetorical question. When he saw that she was not, he said haltingly, “Madame, he…was the king. What choice did we have?”
“Oh, indeed you had a choice. When he sought to usurp my crown, you could have barred the city gates to him!”
“Madame, that was not for us to do. We are not kingmakers.”
“Since when?” Geoffrey de Mandeville queried, and Gervase tensed, for he knew from personal experience that the earl’s smile was never so disarming as when he was about to draw blood. “Your sudden modesty is commendable, Master de Cornhill. But if my memory serves, that is exactly what you and your cohorts claimed, that it was the Londoners who’d brought Stephen’s kingship into being. And you in particular have been remarkably loyal to the man. Not only have you been urging your fellow citizens to keep faith with him, you’ve been doing some interesting almsgiving: to the Lady Matilda down in Kent.”
Gervase wasn’t the only one taken by surprise; so was Maude. “What?” she exclaimed, turning to stare at her new ally. “Are you sure of this, my lord of Essex?”
“Quite sure, madame. Master de Cornhill has been generously aiding Stephen’s wife in her efforts to engage Flemish hirelings…for what purpose we can only speculate about. Unless he’d care to tell us?”
“Madame, that is not so! It was not at all as the earl makes it sound. I agreed to lend the queen a sum of money, and she pledged one of her Cambridgeshire manors as collateral. It was purely a business transaction.”
“How very reassuring. Knowing that your treason was done for profit and not principle certainly sets my mind at ease!”
“Treason? Madame, I did not-”
“Yes, Master de Cornhill, you did. You are accomplices in Stephen’s usurpation, all of you Londoners who aided and abetted him in his treacherous quest for my crown. If not for your disloyalty, he’d never have become king. You rejoiced in his theft, and supported his outlaw kingship without conscience qualms. Even after God’s Judgment had been passed upon him at Lincoln, you still balked at recognizing me as England’s true sovereign. I ought to have been crowned months ago, but you made that quite impossible. And now you dare to ask me to remit your taxes? Better you should seek out Stephen in his Bristol prison, for you’ll get no such reprieve from me!”
“Madame, I entreat you to be fair, to-”
“I’ve heard you out. That is fairer than you deserve. Go home, Master de Cornhill, and tell your friends that a bill has come due, five years late, payable upon demand.”
They’d gathered to hear Ranulf’s report of his reconnaissance mission into London. He was relishing the attention, and spun out for them a vivid account of his reconnoitering. “I think I might have a promising career as a spy,” he boasted, “for I was able to mingle freely without arousing any suspicion. But it is just as you feared, Robert. I wandered about the marketplace; I tarried in alehouses and taverns and the cookshop down by the river. I even paid a visit to the Friday horse
fair at Smithfield. No matter where I went, the talk was of Maude and it was blistering hot. They are angry and fearful and some of them are defiant, too. They accuse Maude of being overweening and unwomanly, of seeking to bleed them white and destroy their commune. They are even quoting from Scriptures, that ‘The Lord will be a swift witness against those that oppress’ and ‘All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman.’ I’ve never seen London in such a furor. Maude has stirred up a hornet’s nest for true this time.”
“I know,” Robert conceded. “This is why I’ve asked you all here. We have a problem for certes. Maude seems set upon doing herself grievous harm, and we must find a way to limit the damage. We have to act, for she is losing the Church, the Londoners-”
“Her mind,” Rainald said acerbically, and Robert glared at his brother.
“This is no time for joking, Rainald.”
“Who is joking? I think she has gone stark, raving mad! How else explain it? It cannot always be her time of the month, can it? But what do you propose, Robert? I see no means of silencing her, shy of stuffing a gag in her mouth, and she pays you no more heed these days than-”
“This serves for naught,” the Scots king interrupted impatiently, and Rainald yielded, grudgingly deferring to the other man’s greater age and rank. “I am not here to mock my niece, but to determine why she has gone astray and figure out how to correct her course.”
“I was thinking,” Ranulf said pensively, “that it might be that her first taste of power has gone to her head. She has never had any, after all, not until now. Wine always hits a man harder if he is not one for drinking. Mayhap it is like that for Maude…” He trailed off, a little shy before the Scots king, and was pleased when Brien concurred.
“I know I am not her kinsman, as the rest of you are, but I think Ranulf might well be right. Lady Maude has always been compelled to obey, as a daughter and a wife, even as a widow. If you cage an animal up from birth, it takes time to adjust once it is finally set free.”
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