Stephen had been provoked into taking drastic action of his own, urged on by his brother, who blamed Theobald for thwarting his reappointment as papal legate. When the Pope summoned England’s bishops and abbots to a Church Council at Rheims in March, Stephen forbade the clerics to attend. Warned that Theobald meant to defy the ban, Stephen had then taken his court to Canterbury and put his ports under guard. But Theobald managed to slip through the royal net. Accompanied only by one of his young clerks, Thomas Becket, he’d arranged to board a small fishing boat in a secluded cove, and survived a perilous Channel crossing to be accorded a hero’s welcome by the Pope and his fellow clerics.
Matilda sympathized with Stephen’s indignation, but she was troubled by this widening breach with the Church; no good could come of it. Making the sign of the cross, she rose wearily to her feet; she tired more easily these days than she was willing to admit, even to Cecily, who awaited her now in the nave.
She should have said a prayer for Cecily, too, for all her attempts to find the other woman a worthy husband had come to naught. Most men were leery of Cecily’s falling sickness; her fits scared them more than her marriage portion tempted them. The only ones who seemed willing to take advantage of Matilda’s generosity were not the sort of men likely to make Cecily content. And Matilda’s disappointment was tainted by guilt, for in a small, selfish corner of her soul, she was glad that Cecily remained unwed, so deeply had she come to rely upon the younger woman’s loyalty and devotion.
As they left the church, it began to rain, and they quickened their steps. A sheltered passage led from the cloisters to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s great hall, sparing them the worst of the weather. Shaking moisture from their mantles, they hastened into the hall, and then stopped in surprise, for a raucous celebration seemed to be in progress.
Trailed by a puzzled Cecily, Matilda made her way toward the dais. Just hours earlier, the atmosphere in the hall had been as cheerless as the rain, for they’d learned only that morning of the archbishop’s daring escape. What, Matilda wondered, could have happened to dispel all the gloom?
As she tried to catch Stephen’s eye, she was grabbed from behind, and found herself enveloped in a breath-stealing bear hug. Her son was grinning down at her; at eighteen, he was already as tall as his father and towered over the diminutive Matilda. “She is gone, Mama,” he laughed. “The bitch is gone!”
“Are you sure, Eustace?”
He nodded and steered her protectively toward the dais. “She sailed for Normandy a fortnight ago. We ought to have heard ere this; too often, Papa is poorly served. But all that matters now is that Maude is no longer a threat. My only regret is that she never had to answer for her sins.”
“I doubt that she came away unscathed from this war, Eustace. No one did,” Matilda said, and held out her hand to her husband. Reaching down, he swung her up onto the dais, as jubilant as their son, for the passing years had tempered neither his capacity for exuberant rejoicing nor his faith in happy endings.
“It took us more than eight years, Tilda, to drive Maude from our shores, but she has finally gone back where she belongs—to Geoffrey—and I am not sure which of them I pity the more!”
“I am so glad,” she avowed, “so very glad that it is finally over.” But honesty compelled her to add a realistic qualifier: “…at least until Maude’s son is old enough to renew the war.”
Her men regarded her indulgently. She would always remain earthbound as they soared up toward the heavens, and whilst they pitied her lack of wings, they could not teach her to fly. “I may have to borrow money occasionally,” Stephen joked, “but I flat-out refuse to borrow trouble. Maude’s son is but a raw lad, not worth losing sleep over.”
“You worry too much, Mama. How much danger can Maude’s meagre whelp be?” Eustace scoffed. “With men as with horses, breeding always tells.”
“Indeed it does,” Stephen agreed, smiling fondly at his prideful heir. He’d long wanted to follow the Continental practice, have Eustace crowned in his lifetime. What better way to please his son and secure the succession? And what better time than now, with Maude in exile and her supporters in disarray?
Matilda smiled at them both. “It would be so wonderful,” she said wistfully, “to have peace at last…”
HENRY I’S royal manor at Quevilly, a suburb of Rouen, was adjacent to Notre-Dame-du-Pré, a priory of the great Benedictine abbey of Bec. Upon her arrival in Normandy, Maude chose to lodge in guest quarters at the priory rather than at her father’s palace or in Rouen’s formidable castle. And it was here that she was reunited with her husband, after a separation of more then eight years.
They were alone. Minna had reluctantly withdrawn, giving Geoffrey a baleful glance that catapulted him back in time, a time he did not want to remember, much less relive. Reaching for a wine flagon, he offered Maude wine and a sardonic smile. “I see the English climate has not mellowed your Minna any.”
Maude accepted the wine, ignored the sarcasm. Outwardly composed, inwardly she felt hollow, so tense it actually hurt to breathe. Much of it was nervous anticipation at seeing her sons again. But it was Geoffrey, too. Just the sight of him brought back too many ugly memories, churned up old emotions that had been stagnant, becalmed during her years in England. Why could this man disquiet her so? Why did she let him?
There was no longer a need for pretense, for the polite conversation they’d exchanged in front of the prior and Minna: queries about health, condolences over Robert’s death, those little courtesies that society expected of a man and woman nigh on twenty years wed. Geoffrey sat down in a high-backed chair, stretching long legs toward the hearth. It surprised her that he still looked so young. But why not? He was only thirty-four. She felt so much older, decades older.
Geoffrey was regarding her over the rim of his wine cup, an old trick of his, one that invariably made her shift self-consciously. “Since you chose to stay with the monks at the priory rather than with me at the castle,” he said dryly, “I suppose that is your subtle way of hinting that you are not overeager to sleep in our marriage bed.”
Maude sipped her wine. “I can assure you, Geoffrey, that I want to be in your bed just as much as you want to have me there.”
An eyebrow shot up, another familiar mannerism. “A jest…from you? You have changed, dear heart!”
“Jesú, I hope so!” she said, with such intensity that he stopped in the act of pouring more wine and stared at her. “I do not want to go back to the battlefield that was our marriage, and I cannot believe that you do, either, Geoffrey. I do not want to be held hostage to memories anymore, or to keep paying for past mistakes. I want…” She faltered then, for what did she want of this man? Her husband, her intimate enemy, poisoner of her peace. But how long ago it all seemed. What had happened to that wronged young wife, so choked with helpless hatred? England had happened.
“Can it be,” he said, “that you are offering to make peace, Maude?”
She swallowed a sharp retort. “And if I am?”
“You ask too much.” But he was smiling faintly. “Suppose we start with a truce…see how many days that lasts.”
His humor still held its buried barbs; they did not sting as much, though, as she remembered. “I’ll try if you will, Geoffrey.” Setting her wine cup down, she leaned forward. “Tell me of our sons.”
“They are good lads, for the most part. Geoff has a temper and Will is somewhat lazy, has to be prodded. As for Harry’s flaws…well, I need only remind you of last year, when he decided that invading England would be a marvelous way to get through the boredom of Lent. But why not judge for yourself?”
Maude stiffened. “They are here? You brought them?”
“The younger lads. Harry had gone off into town, but I left him word that you’d arrived.”
Rising, he looked down at her, and she realized that some things would never change; she still had no idea what he was thinking. But when he smiled, it caught unexpectedly at her heart, for it was
so like Henry’s smile. What of her younger sons? Would their smiles be familiar, too? Would they know her? For so long, she’d yearned for this reunion, so why did she feel so nervous? He was holding out his hand. “I am ready,” she lied, and let him help her to her feet.
WHAT shocked Maude the most was that she would not have recognized her own son. When she’d last seen Will, he was a chubby-cheeked child of three, and that was the image she’d kept in her mind for the past eight and a half years. But that little boy was forever lost to her, replaced by a russet-haired stripling in his twelfth year, as skittish as a young colt.
Geoffrey—or Geoff, as he’d brusquely corrected her—was no less unfamiliar, for great was the gap, too, between a five-year-old and one not far off from fourteen. Geoff had the same fair coloring as his brothers: bright, curly hair, a sprinkling of freckles, and wide-set grey eyes; no matter how troubled her marriage had been, not even Maude’s most virulent enemies could ever have challenged Geoffrey’s paternity. Geoff had some of his father’s swagger, too. He was leaning against the wall, arms folded, eyes guarded, for Maude had yet to recover from her initial misstep, when she’d remarked, before she could think better of it, that he bore a strong resemblance to Henry.
Geoffrey was also leaning against the wall, their poses too similar for coincidence; it was obvious to Maude that her sons sought to emulate him in all particulars, and that was not a comforting thought. This was not going well, not at all. The boys were wary, not readily tamed, and conversation was painfully stilted. They were just shy, Maude told herself, and that would pass. “I almost forgot,” she said, with forced cheer. “I brought you back presents from England.”
Putting Henry’s gift aside, an ivory and ebony chess set, she gave Will his gift first, a rare lodestone that acted as a magnet. Will seemed pleased, but her present for Geoff was not as successful. It was a book handsomely bound in red leather, The Song of Roland; she’d remembered Ranulf’s saying how much he’d enjoyed Roland’s adventures as a boy. Geoff thanked her politely enough, but then added snidely, “Harry is the only one who likes to read.”
“And the only one with manners, too,” Geoffrey observed. Although he’d spoken with a smile, it was clearly meant as a reprimand, and Geoff mumbled an apology. But it was Geoffrey he wanted to placate, not her. They were strangers, these sons of hers. Beloved strangers. Blessed Lady Mary, was it not enough that she’d lost her crown? Was she to lose her children, too?
Geoffrey was not surprised by the awkwardness of this meeting, nor that Will seemed so diffident, Geoff so sullen. He’d expected as much, for Will had no surviving memories of his mother, and Geoff resented what he saw as favoritism to his elder brother. But what Geoffrey had not expected was that he should actually feel a prickling of pity for Maude, laboring to bridge an eight-and-a-half-year gap in the space of a single afternoon.
They were all relieved by a sudden commotion in the outer chamber, welcoming the distraction. A moment later the door flew open and Maude’s firstborn burst in upon them. “Mama!” It had been almost a year since she’d seen Henry last, and he’d taken several consequential steps toward manhood in those intervening months. Had he not been her own, she’d have guessed him to be older than fifteen, for his shoulders were beginning to broaden, his voice had deepened, and he had none of the uncertainty, the gangling awkwardness of a boy growing into a man’s body; he seemed to have bypassed that stage altogether. But he still looked blessedly familiar and blessedly at ease with her, as he demonstrated now by striding forward eagerly and giving her a hearty, welcoming hug.
With Henry there, conversation no longer flickered like a spent candle; it flared brightly, feeding upon his enthusiasm, his obvious pleasure in having his mother home. During the next hour, the talk ranged far afield, touching upon a variety of topics. Maude’s voyage from Arundel. Memories of Robert. Archbishop Theobald’s dramatic arrival at Rheims. Henry’s new stallion. The latest news from the Holy Land, a bloody massacre of German crusaders by the infidel Turks. The Pope’s proposed elevation of their ally, Abbot Gilbert Foliot, to the bishopric of Hereford, an action sure to outrage Stephen. For it always came back to that, to Stephen and a stolen crown.
“I’d hoped to hold out for a few more years, until you were old enough to confront Stephen yourself,” Maude told her son, and Geoffrey could only marvel, for implicit in her apology was an admission of failure. He almost made a gibe about her newfound humility, remembered their tenuous truce just in time. Henry had turned aside to let Will show him how the magnet worked. But at his mother’s regretful words, he glanced up with a quick smile.
“You’ve nothing to reproach yourself for, Mama. Without Uncle Robert, how could you have continued the war? But what you began, I will finish.”
Maude had assumed that years must pass before Henry could mount a serious challenge to Stephen’s sovereignty. Looking now at her son, though, she realized that she’d not long keep him in Normandy. He was already racing headlong toward manhood and his destiny, to be decided upon an English battlefield. It seemed such a cruel irony that she’d finally gotten him back, only to have to let him go, much too soon.
Picking up Geoff’s discarded book, Henry began to leaf through it, and the book immediately became a gift of great value to his brother. He tried to snatch it back, and a brief scuffle ensued, which revealed to Maude that Henry liked to tease, and that Geoff’s jealousy was a banked fire, ready to flare up at the least provocation. Theirs was a bond much in need of mending, if it was not already too late. Geoffrey ought to have taught them better. But then, what did he and Hélie know of brotherly love? It saddened her that her sons should be rivals, not the steadfast allies her own brothers had been.
Almost as if he’d read her thoughts, Henry said suddenly, “Where is Uncle Ranulf? I assumed Uncle Rainald would stay behind in Cornwall, but surely Uncle Ranulf came back with you?”
“No…he did not.”
Henry’s disappointment was keen, for Ranulf was his favorite uncle. “Why not? I do not understand, Mama. Where is he, then?”
“I do not know, lad,” Maude admitted unhappily. “I do not know.”
39
Cheshire, England
March 1148
RANULF was not sure where he was—somewhere along the Cheshire-Shropshire border—but it did not really matter, since he did not care where he ended up. Like a ship that had snapped its moorings, he just went wherever the wind blew him.
When he’d ridden away from Devizes Castle in such a rage, he’d wanted only to put as many miles between himself and his past as possible. But he could outrun neither his grief nor his guilt, and after a fortnight of aimless wandering, he’d realized what he needed to do if he was ever to have any peace of mind again. It was what he ought to have done as soon as he learned of Gilbert’s death. He had to face Gilbert’s widow and ask her forgiveness.
It had taken him a week to gird himself for it, and then another week to find her, for she’d returned to her father’s manor near Hereford. But if he’d hoped for absolution, he’d come to the wrong woman. Ella’s widowhood was too new to allow for perspective, too wretched to allow for mercy. Anger was easier than acceptance, and she blamed Ranulf. Gilbert had confided in her about Ranulf’s clandestine affair with Annora Fitz Clement, and she reasoned that if not for his ill-fated passion for another man’s wife, her husband would not have died. And Ranulf could not argue with her, for he believed that, too.
Afterward, he truly was a lost soul. He’d slowly drifted toward the north, indifferent to direction or destination, rousing himself only enough to make a wide detour as he neared Shrewsbury. Eventually he would run out of money. Although Robert had bequeathed him a generous legacy and he still held the Wiltshire manors Maude had given him, he would have to return to claim them, and that he was not yet able to do. And so he continued his erratic odyssey through a countryside blighted by war, no longer even sure what he was fleeing, sure only that he could not go back.
On this blustery March Monday in Lent, he’d covered less than ten miles, for the night before he had drunk too much, picked up a prostitute, and tried to blot out his pain with cheap red wine and bought caresses. All it gained him was a miserable morning-after, the worst headache of his life, and an ugly scene with the girl, who’d sought to steal his purse while he slept. Hours later, he still felt queasy and shaken. His head was throbbing, he’d not been able to tolerate the weight of his hauberk, and for most of the day, the mere thought of food was repellant.
By midafternoon, he’d begun looking for lodgings. But the few villages he passed through were no more than hamlets and Chester was at least fifteen miles away, if not more. He was beginning to think he’d have to bed down out in the open when he encountered an elderly shepherd tending a handful of scrawny sheep. The man was fearful at first, for strangers were suspect in these parts; the border shires had never known much peace. But the fact that Ranulf spoke English reassured the shepherd somewhat, and after he’d stopped Loth from chasing off the man’s mangy dog, he got the directions he needed. Ahead lay the hamlet of Broxton, where a narrow lane forked off from the Chester Road, toward the west. If he followed it for a few miles, he’d reach the village of Farndon, and the priest there would put him up for the night.
It was a relief to know there would be a bed at the end of his journey, for the wind was rising and dusk settling in. Ranulf kept a wary eye on the sky as he rode; getting rained upon would be the final indignity of this utterly dismal day. Off to the side of the road, he caught sight of a grove of alder trees and he guided his stallion toward them, for alder trees were usually found near water. After dismounting, he led his horse forward, waiting while it drank its fill. Loth had ranged on, but Ranulf didn’t worry, knowing the dyrehund would not go far. Kneeling by the pond, he splashed water onto his face, and then cupped his hands so he could drink, too.