THE day’s last light was fading along the horizon. But the sky was lit by a hundred fires. The church of St Peter was the heart of Le Sap. Now flames were shooting from every window. As Maude and Ranulf watched, the rafters gave way and the roof collapsed with a hellish roar. Embers and sparks and burning brands rained down upon the spectators, spooking several horses and unseating their riders. As the wind shifted, Ranulf found himself choking on dense, swirling smoke. He could hear screaming, and hoped it was not coming from the church, for it was utterly engulfed in surging, wind-lashed flames. The air was hot enough to sear his skin, and when his stallion panicked, he was tempted to let it bolt, for in that moment his desire to put Le Sap’s death throes far behind was almost overwhelming. Instead, he calmed the fearful animal, then reined in beside his sister.
Maude had clapped her veil over her nose and mouth. “Well, Le Sap is ours, what is left of it. It looks like the castle has fallen, too. But—”
“Lady Maude!” Striding toward them out of the murky smoke and cinders was an armor-clad giant, his coif pulled back to reveal a tousled head of curly, damp hair, his face streaked with soot, his hauberk liberally splattered with blood. “Thank God you’re here, for you’ve got to talk some sense into that lunatic you married!”
Maude’s smile was sour; as if she could! “You give me too much credit, Will. Where is Geoffrey…at the castle?”
“No, he is still being treated by the doctor.”
“Doctor? Geoffrey has been hurt?” Maude slid from the saddle before the Duke of Aquitaine could offer his assistance. “Is it serious?”
“No, more’s the pity,” he snapped, and Ranulf barely stifled an involuntary laugh. But the duke, whose tactlessness was legendary, seemed unaware how inappropriate a remark that was to make to a man’s wife, even a less than doting one. “It happened about noon,” he said, “whilst we were besieging the castle. One of their crossbowmen got off a lucky shot and hit Geoffrey in the foot. I’ll not deny it is a nasty wound, for he broke a few bones, and those fool doctors did almost as much damage as the bowman when they cut out the bolt. So there has to be a goodly amount of pain. But Christ on the Cross, Maude, a man cannot give in to it!”
“Geoffrey has never been wounded before, Will, not even so much as a scratch. In fact, he rarely gets sick at all—mayhap a fever or cough, but no more than that since we’ve been wed. It is not surprising, then, that he’d be such a poor patient, for he’s had no practice at it.”
“No, Maude, you do not understand…not yet. He says the campaign is over, says he is going home to Anjou on the morrow!”
THE doctor was standing in front of Geoffrey’s command tent. At sight of Maude, he looked like a man reprieved from the gallows. “Madame, how glad I am to see you! If you could talk to the count, mayhap you could—” But Maude brushed past the man as if he didn’t exist, with Ranulf and the Duke of Aquitaine hard on her heels.
Geoffrey had been trying to drown his pain in wine, but he’d succeeded only in making himself queasy, too. His face was grey and beaded with cold sweat; he looked so haggard that even Ranulf felt a flicker of pity. Maude hastened toward the bed, snatching up a candle along the way. “Geoffrey?”
Blinking in the sudden flare of light, Geoffrey focused hazily upon the white, tense face so close to his. “Get me a doctor,” he said huskily. “That dolt out there could not heal a blister without holy help from Above…”
“Geoffrey, you cannot give up the campaign! If you retreat now, you’ll lose all you’ve gained so far, and your suffering will have been for naught!”
“And my suffering just breaks your heart,” he muttered, gesturing toward his wine flagon. After Maude had helped him to drink, he struggled upright with difficulty. He acknowledged neither Ranulf nor the unhappy doctor, hovering nervously in the entrance. But he targeted the Duke of Aquitaine with a bloodshot, accusing glare. “Did you bother to tell her about my wound first, Will? Or did you plunge right in, bemoaning all your lost plunder, your chance to spill some blood?”
The duke glared back, calling Geoffrey an obscene name that was wasted upon Ranulf, for he spoke no langue d’oc, the native tongue of the duke’s domains. Maude ignored the acrimonious exchange, keeping her eyes riveted upon her husband’s face.
“Geoffrey, this is not a decision to be made in haste. I’m sure you’ll see it differently on the morrow—”
“And how would you know that, Maude? Have you ever been wounded in battle?”
No, but I damned near died bearing your son! Maude somehow managed to bite the words back; what would it serve to squabble over who had suffered more? “Geoffrey, I am not making light of your pain. But with so much at stake, you must not lose heart. If you do, we’ll lose Normandy!”
“Normandy will wait for me to heal at home. And so will you…dear heart,” he added, investing the endearment with such lethal sarcasm that Maude’s temper took fire.
“‘Heal at home,’” she echoed scathingly. “For God’s sake, Geoffrey, you were not gut-shot! Since when is a foot wound fatal?”
Geoffrey’s hand jerked, spilling his wine onto the bed covers. “You meddlesome bitch, look what you’ve done! I curse the day my father yoked me to a spiteful, provoking scold like you, and God help me, but you get worse with age! If I say we go back to Anjou, we go, and I’ll hear no more on it, not unless you want me to leave you behind to fend for yourself. Now fetch me more wine, and then find me another doctor, a competent one this time.”
Maude went hot with humiliation and impotent fury. Her face flaming, she drew back into the tent’s shadows until she could trust herself. He’d said worse to her, done worse, too, but not in public. She would never forgive him for shaming her like this before Ranulf and the duke, and it took every shred of her self-control to keep silent. But she must think of her sons, think of her Henry, who would one day rule England after her. She would not let Geoffrey steal her sons as Stephen had stolen her crown. Damn his poisoned tongue and that bowman’s wretched aim and Robert’s defection, damn all the men who treated their dogs better than their women! Bracing herself, she turned around then, her head high, only to find that Ranulf and the duke had gone, leaving her alone with her husband.
RANULF was sitting upon an overturned bucket within view of Geoffrey’s tent. He’d wangled a joint of roast beef from one of the camp cooks, although he’d ended up sharing most of it with his dogs. For the past hour he’d been trying to convince himself that he’d done the right thing, the only thing he could do. He knew Maude’s pride, hoped he’d been able to salvage some of it.
It had been hard, though, saying nothing whilst that misbegotten hellspawn humbled his sister as if she were a serving wench. And yet what could he say? Even the duke had held his peace, and he wanting only to throttle Geoffrey there in his bed. But they could not meddle between a man and his wife, however much they wanted to. The female dyrehund seemed to sense his mood, nudging his knee fondly, but keeping an eye peeled on that beef bone. “Here, girl, catch,” he said, and watched as she disappeared into the darkness before her mate could claim the bone.
When Maude emerged from the tent, he jumped hastily to his feet. She paused, then came toward him. They walked in silence for a time. Whenever they passed a soldier carrying a torch, Ranulf studied her face, not even sure what he was searching for. He wanted to ask if she was all right; it seemed safer, though, to pretend nothing had happened. But there was something they could not ignore: Geoffrey’s threat.
“Do you think he meant it?” he asked, and Maude nodded.
“He meant it,” she said tersely. “We depart on the morrow for Anjou.”
Ranulf had been half expecting to hear that, but it still had the power to shock. “Our father must have been mad to make you wed that man!” Maude shrugged; he could read nothing in her profile, and he reached out uneasily, touched her arm. “Maude…you are not giving up?”
She turned to face him then, giving him a glimpse of narrowed dark eyes, cheekbones
burning with feverish heat. “Give up? No, Ranulf,” she said, sounding desperate and determined and bitter beyond words. “I will never give up, not until my dying breath, and not even then.”
7
Falaise, Normandy
June 1137
AFTER fifteen months as England’s king, Stephen felt secure enough upon his throne to turn his efforts toward Normandy. Determined to bring the duchy more firmly under his control, he crossed the Channel in March. At first he met with heartening success; the French king recognized his claim to Normandy. But in May, Geoffrey led an army across the River Sarthe.
Stephen was besieging Mezidon by then, punishing a recalcitrant baron. He wasted no time, though, in dispatching a large armed force to block Geoffrey’s invasion. Having ravaged the countryside around Exmes, Geoffrey then pressed northward, leaving behind a trail of charred ruins, skeletal, smoke-blackened silhouettes rising up like ghostly tombstones to mark his army’s passing. He’d advanced within ten miles of Robert’s stronghold at Caen when he encountered Stephen’s army at Argences.
A battle seemed imminent, one that might settle the disputed succession once and for all. But Stephen’s army was an uneasy mix of Norman barons and Flemish mercenaries, and they were as wary of one another as they were of Geoffrey’s Angevins. Stephen had entrusted command to William de Ypres, a Flemish adventurer with a chequered past, an abundance of courage, and a skeptical streak far wider than the stream separating the two hostile armies. Ypres’s suspicions were aimed at Robert, for he was convinced that Maude’s brother was a Trojan horse in the Norman camp, awaiting an opportune moment to switch sides. He made no secret of these suspicions, and Robert withdrew angrily to his castle at Caen, amid a flurry of mutual, embittered accusations. Robert’s departure demoralized his fellow barons, and Norman-Flemish hostility soon reached such a pitch that Ypres abandoned his campaign, riding off in a rage to join Stephen at the siege of Mezidon.
Geoffrey decided it would not be prudent to force Robert to make a choice just yet, and he withdrew as far as Argentan. Stephen soon followed, though. By June, he’d summoned his army to Lisieux and was preparing to launch an assault upon Argentan. Once more it looked as if England’s crown would be won or lost upon the thrust of a blade, bought with blood.
THE tavern was hard to find, tucked away at the end of an alley in one of the more disreputable neighborhoods of Falaise. By the time he finally spotted the protruding ale-pole, Gilbert Fitz John had gotten his boots thoroughly muddied, almost had his money pouch stolen by a nimble-fingered thief, and had been forced to fend off so many beggars and harlots that he doubted he’d reach the Rutting Stag with either his purse or his honour intact. Brushing aside the most persistent of the beggars, he plunged through the open doorway and found himself in a crowded common room that stank of sweat and unwashed bodies and cheap wine. The chamber was meagrely lit by a few reeking tallow candles, and Gilbert backed into a corner until his eyes adjusted to the gloom, all the while trying to appear inconspicuous, no mean feat for a youth with flaming red hair who towered head and shoulders above the other tavern customers.
“Do you know what you look like? A man who’s strayed into Hell by mistake, and is politely pretending not to notice the flames, brimstone, and burning flesh.”
At sound of that familiar voice, Gilbert sighed with relief, then said grumpily, “Given a choice, I think I’d take Hell over the Rutting Stag. Leave it to you to pick a hovel like this!”
Ranulf grinned. “Say what you will of this sty, it is not a place where I am likely to be recognized.”
“You hope,” Gilbert said, with fervor. “You have not changed a whit, have you, Ranulf? God save us both, as reckless as ever, with Stephen’s army barely a stone’s throw away and Falaise aswarm with his spies!” Ranulf shrugged. “If I am crazed for setting up this meeting, what does that make you for agreeing to it?”
“A fool, for certes. But I’m here now, and we may as well make the best of it. You can at least buy me a drink ere some of Stephen’s Flemish hirelings drag us off to gaol.”
Ranulf laughed. “Wait till you taste the wine they sell here; it puts swill to shame!” Once they’d shoved their way to a corner table, Ranulf leaned forward, resting his elbows upon the warped, greasy wood, and studied his friend. It had been more than fifteen months since they’d seen each other, for Gilbert had continued to serve as one of Robert’s squires, following his lord to Stephen’s English court. “I’m right glad you came, Gib. Damn me if else, but I’ve even missed you…a little.”
“Of course I came,” Gilbert muttered, sounding both pleased and embarrassed. “And so will Ancel. He’d never miss a chance to risk his neck.” He knew what Ranulf was about to ask, and tried to head it off, saying hastily, “I did not see much of Ancel these months past, for Lord Robert came to the king’s court only when summoned. Robert did not even sail for Normandy with Stephen’s fleet, preferring to cross the Channel in his own ship.”
“You’ll not be struck by a lightning bolt if you say her name aloud,” Ranulf said, and Gilbert ducked his head, staring down at the table as if he were intent upon memorizing every crack, splinter, and stain.
“Annora de Bernay. See…no thunderbolts. I am not loath to talk about Annora. I just hope Ancel had the mother wit to seek her out ere he left England. If he has forgotten to bring her letters, I’ll be tempted to prod his memory with a poleax! Keep this betwixt us, but I never thought our separation would last this long, Gib. It would ease my mind greatly if I could reassure Annora that our waiting is almost done. There is no chance of that, though, not unless I learn to walk on water.” Ranulf paused, waiting for a response that didn’t come, and gave an exaggerated, comic sigh. “Friends are supposed to laugh at each other’s jokes, no matter how lame.”
Gilbert managed a dutiful, unconvincing chuckle. “So you think, then, that Stephen is riding close to the cliff these days?”
“Any closer and he’d better hope his horse sprouts wings! Robert could earn his living as a soothsayer if needs must, for he predicted it with dead-aim accuracy—that Stephen would begin to make mistakes and then to make enemies. He infuriated the Marcher lords when he balked at putting down that rising in Wales last year. Then that Flemish brigand of his, William de Ypres, caused a breach with Robert, the one man Stephen should be trying to win over. And rumor has it that he has fallen out with his brother, for it’s been six months since the Archbishop of Canterbury died and Henry’s patience is wearing thin. I can understand why Stephen is wary of nominating him, but if he does not, Henry will never forgive him. No, Gib, Stephen’s crown has lost a lot of its luster. Once he loses Normandy, too, his hold upon England will crack beyond mending.”
Gilbert did not agree that the loss of Normandy was a foregone conclusion, not with Stephen’s army just twenty miles away, poised to launch an assault upon Argentan. But he kept his doubts to himself, instead asked Ranulf if Maude was still at Argentan with Geoffrey.
Ranulf shook his head. “Maude is often at Argentan; she believes that her presence in Normandy helps to strengthen her claim to the duchy.” Leaving unsaid the obvious, that Maude’s unhappy marriage was another reason why she’d prefer Argentan to her husband’s domains. “But when Geoffrey invaded Normandy last month, he forced Maude to withdraw with their sons to Domfront. Supposedly it was done for their safety’s sake, but I think Geoffrey just wanted Maude out of the way. He’s not one for letting a minor detail—that Maude is the rightful heiress—interfere with his ambitions. Remember, Gib, how we used to worry that Geoffrey might insist upon sharing Maude’s throne? Well, that fear was for naught. In truth, Geoffrey would not care if England sank into the sea without a trace. It is Normandy he covets, and you may be sure—”
A large hand clamped down on Ranulf’s shoulder. Startled, he spun around to confront a burly stranger, one with heavily muscled arms, a massive chest, and a face twisted askew by several puckered scars. “I know who you are!” the man cried, and Ranulf jerke
d free, fumbling for his sword hilt. But his blade never cleared the scabbard, for his assailant was already backing away. “I meant no harm! Your friend said it was just a joke!”
Ranulf snatched up his wine, gulping it down in two swallows. Gilbert drained his own cup just as fast. As they watched, Ancel tossed a coin to his baffled accomplice before sauntering toward them. “Well?” he demanded, “have you no greeting for me?” and then pretended to stagger backward, arm upraised to ward off the wave of scalding invective coming his way. When Ranulf and Gilbert had exhausted their supply of obscenities, if not their indignation, Ancel straddled a bench and began to laugh. “I am sorry to say this, Ranulf, but being around Maude has not been good for you; you’re becoming as grim and humorless as she is! Now our poor Gib never had a sense of humor to lose, but I did expect better of you.”
“When I called you a misbegotten, witless whelp without the brains God gave a flea…I was being too kind.”
Ancel laughed even harder at that, then waved an arm expansively about the tavern. “A great place you picked for our reunion, Ranulf. What…the lepers would not let you use their lazar house?” Catching a serving maid’s eye, he pantomimed a drink order. “If I pay for the next round of the local poison, can we agree to a truce? So tell me, why are you not barricaded with Geoffrey behind Argentan’s walls? Poor Maude—her luck has soured for certes. What irked her more, being penned up with her loving husband or missing the wedding in Bordeaux?”
Ranulf knew at once what he meant, for there were only two topics of conversation that summer, the war and the wedding. The Duke of Aquitaine had gone off on pilgrimage after his abortive campaign with Geoffrey, and he’d died that past April in Spain, lingering long enough to arrange a marriage between his fifteen-year-old daughter, Eleanor, and Louis, the son of the French king. It was his deathbed hope that he was thus safeguarding Aquitaine for Eleanor, giving her a husband powerful enough to protect her inheritance. The wedding was to take place in July, and had the circumstances been different, Ranulf would have enjoyed attending the revelries, watching Eleanor the Fair take her first step onto the road that led to the throne of France. But he was not amused by Ancel’s jest, for he resented its implications, that Maude was a vain, frivolous female, one who’d give equal weight to a crown and a wedding fête. He’d become very protective of his sister in these past eighteen months, had long since forgotten that he’d once harbored the same doubts about feminine resolve or womanly valor, and he said impatiently: