Ranulf stopped her words, effectively and pleasurably. When Annora got her breath back, she gave a low, shaken laugh. “You ought not to have interrupted me, for I was going to admit that I am utterly besotted with you, for better or worse.”
“Are you? Prove it,” Ranulf challenged, and she set about convincing him, with such success that he was soon unfastening the lacings of her gown. She was reaching up to unbraid her hair, knowing how he loved it loose and free-flowing, when they were jarred by a sudden, sharp knocking on the door. Sitting up, they hastily adjusted their clothing, waiting to see if the knocking would stop.
It did not. “Ranulf, it is me-Maud. Let me in.”
As soon as Ranulf unbarred the door, Maud swept into the chamber. She never just entered a room; she made an entrance. This one was more dramatic than usual, for her face was flushed and her dark eyes were flashing. “Men,” she exclaimed, “are the most vexing creatures in Christendom-never around when you want them, always underfoot when you do not. My husband, who is supposed to be at Lincoln, has ridden into the bailey.”
Ranulf and Annora’s instinctive alarm passed as soon as they saw that Maud was irritated, not fearful. They hurriedly smoothed the rumpled bedcovers, were making a final check for incriminating evidence when they heard Chester’s voice blaring in the stairwell, loud enough to rival any hunting horn. “Maud? Where the Devil are you?”
Like his wife, Chester never simply entered a room, instead hurling himself across the threshold as if he were about to launch an assault. But he was not in a rage; quite the contrary. Taking hold of Maud’s hands, he grinned down at her cheerfully. “Glad to have me home, girl?” Not waiting for her response, he kissed her exuberantly, bending her backward in a passionate embrace, one that seemed likely to lead straight to their bed-had he not caught movement from the corner of his eye and realized they were not alone.
“Who are you?” he asked, staring at Annora in surprise; he’d yet to notice Ranulf.
“This is Annora Fitz Clement, Randolph, one of my oldest friends. I am sure you must remember how often I’ve talked about her in the past.”
“Of course I remember,” Chester insisted, his eyes flickering over Annora, without any real interest. “I trust you are enjoying your visit with Maud,” he added politely, if unenthusiastically, and then swung around as Ranulf stepped forward.
They knew no reason why Chester should look so startled at sight of Ranulf, for he was Maud’s favorite uncle. But it was quite clear to them all that Chester did not expect to find Ranulf here. “Why are you not with Maude, now of all times?” he demanded. “It is an incredible stroke of luck, for certes, but she must act swiftly if she is to take full advantage of-Why are you looking at me so oddly? Unless…you do not know, do you? You’ve not yet heard about Stephen!”
“I heard he went north,” Ranulf said warily. “What else should I know?”
Chester shook his head impatiently. “Stephen left York after Easter. He’d gotten as far as Northampton when he was stricken with a fever, the kind that burns hotter than any fire, that consumes a man like kindling.” Chester saw Ranulf’s shock and he smiled, grimly, with infinite satisfaction. “He is said to be dying.”
Stephen had never been trapped in a nightmare like this one, for it would not end. Somehow he knew it was a dream, and he kept trying to wake up. But it was as if he were caught in a riptide, being dragged farther and farther from shore and safety. He would not give up, though, and struggled on toward the light.
When he finally broke free, he found himself in a stranger’s bed in an unfamiliar bedchamber. Even his body seemed to belong to someone else, for the coverlets were weighing him down like lead and his lungs wheezed and heaved as if he were starved for air. He wanted to say that he was thirsty; the words stuck in his throat. When he tried again, they emerged as the thinnest and weakest of whispers.
“Stephen? Thank God All-merciful! Henry…Henry, come quickly!” This voice was a woman’s. The face bending over him was pale and tear-marked. “My love, do you know me?” Matilda pleaded, and when he mouthed her name, she fumbled in the blankets for his hand. “You’ve been so ill,” she said, almost inaudibly. “The doctors despaired. Do you…remember?”
“I think so…” His lips were chapped and raw, blistered by fever. “You kept calling to me,” he said hazily. “I followed the sound…”
And then his brother was there, shouldering Matilda aside in his urgency. “Stephen, listen to me. You’ve not been shriven, for you’ve been out of your senses with the fever. You must make your confession to me now, so you can go to God cleansed of your sins.”
“Am I dying?”
Matilda made an involuntary movement, quickly checked. But the bishop did not flinch. “I hope not,” he said, “I truly hope not. But we cannot put your immortal soul at risk, for we are all in God’s Hands, and I would not be so presumptuous as to promise you what only He can decree.”
“I agree.” Stephen’s voice was slurred and scratchy, and when Matilda put a cup to his lips, he drank gratefully, greedily. “I want to be shriven. But not by you, Henry.” He looked up at his brother, the corner of his mouth curving as he added, “You already know…too many of my guilty secrets…”
The bishop was not amused. “Very well,” he said stiffly, “if that is your wish. I shall fetch your confessor straightaway.”
Matilda saw that half-smile of Stephen’s through a blur of tears, for she was suddenly hearing her own words, so often directed at her lighthearted husband in gentle, bemused reproach, that he’d be jesting verily upon his deathbed.
“Tilda.” Stephen cut his eyes toward the cup she still held, and she helped him to drink again. “Thank you,” he said, and then, softly, “Do not be afraid. I am not going to die.”
She swallowed. “You promise?”
“Yes,” he said, and squeezed her hand before giving her another ghostly shadow of a smile. “It would give you too much pain and my enemies too much pleasure.”
Maude’s shrinking circle of partisans had been summoned back to Devizes Castle on a wet, warm day in mid-June. As they gathered in the great hall, waiting for the council to begin, there were gaps in their ranks, missing faces. The Scots king had elected to remain on his own side of the border. Rainald was still in Cornwall, trying to save his imperiled earldom. More dubious allies like Hugh Bigod and Geoffrey de Mandeville’s brother-in-law the Earl of Oxford were keeping their distance. But Miles Fitz Walter was there. So were Baldwin de Redvers and the exiled lord of Shrewsbury, William Fitz Alan. From Wallingford had come Brien Fitz Count, and from Marlborough, John Marshal, the worst of his wounds hidden behind a rakish eye patch.
As they waited for Maude and Robert to join them, they swapped stories about the dangers of the road these days. Roving bands of outlaws were springing up like dragon’s teeth, for there was no more fertile soil for banditry than a realm in the throes of civil war and anarchy. They then shared the latest rumors about Stephen’s health. By now they knew the worst-that those early reports of his death had been regrettably premature. While he’d been laid up at Northampton for the entire month of May, word filtering south was that he was expected to recover. They indulged in some grim, gallows humor at Stephen’s expense, but their jests were labored, for Stephen’s death would have won them a kingdom. Few in this war-battered and bleeding land would have had the stomach to continue the struggle on behalf of Stephen’s young son Eustace.
And so they cursed Stephen’s luck and sheer stamina, and cursed, too, the doctors who’d tended to him and the priests who’d prayed for him. But by common consent, they did not discuss the reason for their presence at Devizes on this Trinity Sunday-to hear Geoffrey’s answer. It had taken three months for Maude’s envoys to bring back her husband’s response, and they did not think that boded well for their cause.
When Robert and Maude entered, with Ranulf following a step behind, their faces were somber enough to confirm the worst. Miles was the one to put it into
words, saying with a soldier’s bluntness, “Geoffrey balked at coming, did he not?”
To their surprise, Maude shook her head. “No, he did not refuse,” she said, but then added reluctantly, “…outright. He says he is loath to break off his campaign in Normandy, for he has met with considerable success. He is willing, though, to consider it, if we can convince him that his presence in England could truly mark a turning point in our war to overthrow Stephen. But he says the only opinion he can trust is Robert’s, and so he insists that Robert come back to Normandy to discuss it in person.”
“A long and dangerous trip,” Robert said morosely, “and most likely a futile one. Geoffrey does not want my counsel, he wants my help in his war. Too many Normans view Angevins as spawns of the Devil. With me riding at his side, some of them might be more willing to accept his lordship. I do not doubt that he’ll be lavish with his promises, but I do doubt that we’ll ever see him set foot on English soil.”
It was unlike Robert to be so imprudent; speaking out so harshly in public about a man they needed to win over was impolitic at best. There could be no more convincing proof of Robert’s discontent than this uncharacteristic outburst, and the men exchanged disappointed glances, seeing yet another opportunity slipping away from them.
Once again it was Miles who gave voice to their misgivings. “I daresay you are right, Robert, to suspect the man’s good faith. But a reed-thin chance is still better than none, and if you do not even try to persuade him, we’ll never know if you might have prevailed or not. I urge you to think again ere you refuse.”
“There is no need for that,” Maude said, sounding very tired. “Robert has agreed to go.”
“Yes,” Robert said tersely, making no effort to hide his frustration. “Geoffrey has left me no choice. So…I will sail for Normandy and I will do my utmost to gain his support. But I expect-nay, demand-something from all of you in return. Whilst I am gone, I want your sworn oaths that you will see to the safety of my sister, let her come to no harm.”
They responded without hesitation, promising to protect Maude in Robert’s absence. Maude said nothing, but hot blood scalded her face and throat. Ranulf noticed, understood, and sympathized, for he knew how she hated any reminder of her special vulnerability as a woman. He was impressed now by her restraint, for it was not so long ago that she would have rebuked Robert sharply for shaming her by his unwanted solicitude, however well meant. But she was not the same woman who’d blundered so badly that she’d gotten herself chased out of her own capital city. She had learned from her mistakes. It seemed bitterly unfair to Ranulf that she had learned too late. They could not give up, though. It might be too late for Maude, but not for her young son. They must do whatever it would take to claim the English crown for Henry-even if that meant doing the bidding of Maude’s hated Angevin husband.
Matilda was very glad to be back in London; more and more, it seemed a haven from the troubles besetting the rest of her husband’s realm. On this morning in early July, she was performing one of her more pleasurable duties as queen: bestowing largesse upon the neediest of her subjects. Her servants loaded a cart with jars of honey, sacks of flour, baskets of eggs, loaves of bread, woolen blankets, even a few toys-whipping tops and balls. Matilda then mounted her favorite white mule, and she and Cecily and her escort set out to deliver her bounty to London’s two hospitals.
St Giles in the Fields was a leper hospital just outside the city walls, founded by a queen, Maude’s mother. Matilda felt great pity for those poor souls afflicted with such a fearful malady, although she found it exceedingly difficult to look upon their dreadful deformities. But she forced herself to smile and show none of her revulsion when they came forward to thank her, and afterward she confided to Cecily her awed admiration for Maude’s mother, who had kissed lepers and washed their ulcerated sores with her own hands to demonstrate they were still beloved by God.
Cecily agreed that such a woman well deserved to be known as Good Queen Maude, although she could not help adding mischievously that it explained much about the Empress Maude, child of such a disparate mating-a notorious lecher and an earthly saint. Matilda laughed, commenting that Stephen’s parents were surely an oddly matched pair, too, but then her smile faded, for she found herself thinking of yet another incompatible couple-her brash young son Eustace and Constance, his timid French bride.
From St Giles, Matilda continued on to the hospital of St Bartholomew, situated next to the Augustinian priory of the same name in West Smithfield. St Bartholomew took in the needy and orphans as well as the sick, and it was for the orphans that Matilda had brought tops and balls. Her own children had puppets and wooden swords and dolls and whistles. But toys were a luxury, and she knew the skinny, solemn youngsters at St Bart’s were unlikely to have had any but makeshift playthings-scraps of rope and stones and hollow reeds. She was warmly welcomed by the hospital’s master and nuns, but the memory she took away with her was of the shrieks and laughter of boys playing with their first real ball, a pig’s bladder filled with dried beans.
They reentered the city through Cripplegate, headed back toward the Tower. Matilda’s progress was a slow one, for people flocked to her as she passed by, seeking to find out if the king was fully recovered from his near-fatal fever. If the questions directed at her were occasionally intrusive or overly familiar, Matilda did not object; had the Londoners not been so forthright and cocky, they never would have dared to defy Maude. And so she waved and smiled and assured them that the king was on the mend, of good cheer, and eager to take up the reins of kingship again.
Just how eager Stephen was, she was soon to discover. Upon her arrival at the Tower, she hastened up to the royal apartments on the top floor of the soaring, whitewashed keep. There she found her husband sitting around a table with his brother and William de Ypres and William Martel, his steward. They had a large map spread out before them, but that was not what caught Matilda’s attention; it was the charged atmosphere, one of barely suppressed excitement. “You look,” she said, “like foxes who’ve just found a way into the hen roost. What has happened that I do not yet know about?”
There was a time when she would never have spoken up so boldly, but now she did not even hesitate, taking it for granted that she had earned the right to share in their decision making. And of the men, only the bishop thought her candid curiosity was unseemly, but even he held his tongue, tacitly acknowledging that Matilda would not be retreating back into the shadows. For better or worse, he conceded, hers had become a voice to be heeded.
“We have gotten some very interesting news, Tilda.” Stephen leaned back in his chair, smiling at her. “Maude’s brother has gone to Normandy to meet with Geoffrey. Robert sailed for Barfleur a week ago.”
“Leaving the hen roost unguarded,” William de Ypres said happily. “I never thought I’d owe Geoffrey of Anjou such a debt of gratitude!”
Matilda’s first reaction was unease. Stephen might be ready for the rigors and risks of an active campaign, but she was not; her memories of his Northampton illness were still too raw. But she did not confess her qualms, for fear was a wife’s burden, to be borne alone. “What are you planning?” she asked, and Stephen beckoned her toward the map.
“Robert sailed from there-from Wareham-putting his firstborn in command. But the son is not the man his father is, and he promptly went back to the greater comforts of Bristol, leaving the castle poorly garrisoned. If we capture it, we can deny Robert a safe port for his return.”
“Where is Maude now…still at Devizes?”
“No, she is back at Oxford Castle, with Miles Fitz Walter, Baldwin de Redvers, and Ranulf, amongst others, keeping a close watch upon her. Robert seems to have been so worried about her safety that I’d almost think he had second sight!”
Matilda did not share Stephen’s smile. “That does not sound like an unguarded hen roost to me.”
“No…not yet. Maude is well served at the moment. That is why I do not plan to besiege Oxford afte
r we capture Wareham. No, there is our next target,” he said, “Cirencester. For however devoted Maude’s men are to her, they’re not likely to stay cooped up at Oxford if their own lands in the west are threatened. My raid on Cirencester will draw them away from Oxford, and then,” Stephen said, with a grim resolve he’d not often shown, “we take Maude captive and end this accursed war once and for all.”
25
Oxford, England
September 1142
Oxford, like Winchester, had two royal residences, the eleventh-century castle by the river and the “king’s house” just north of the city walls. The latter was the more comfortable of the two, but Maude always chose to stay at the castle, for its castellan, Robert d’Oilly, was a loyal supporter and kin by marriage, his stepson being one of Maude’s numerous half-brothers.
Even by English standards, it had been an unusually wet summer and autumn. But this 26th day of September dawned dry and clear and mild. Ranulf was standing on the steps of the great hall, savoring the sun as men passed in and out of the bailey. More riders were coming in, a dozen or more-not an uncommon sight these days, for only foolhardy or desperate travelers braved the roads alone. As they dismounted, Ranulf started forward, catching a glimpse of a familiar figure.
At sound of his name, Bennet de Malpas turned around, his dark face lighting up with a grin of ready recognition. Ranulf was not surprised that Bennet should be so well mounted and armed, for he was one of the Earl of Chester’s household knights, the man entrusted by Chester with that urgent appeal for Maude’s help. He and Ranulf had struck up a casual friendship on their wretched winter march to Lincoln, and renewed acquaintance this past April at Chester Castle. He seemed genuinely pleased to see Ranulf now, although he was deliberately vague about his current task, saying only that he’d been to Coventry at the earl’s behest.
Ranulf would have loved to learn more about Bennet’s mysterious mission for the earl, for he was morbidly curious about Chester’s doings; he’d never been able to resist turning over rocks, even if he knew he’d not like what lurked beneath them. But Bennet would not be revealing any of the earl’s secrets. Although Chester might not practice what he preached, he demanded complete discretion and utter loyalty from those who served him. Ranulf could only hope that Chester was not casting his nets wide enough to entangle Maude, and he said cautiously, “What brings you to Oxford, Bennet?”
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