The Fatal Crown (14 page)

Maud pointed a trembling finger at the woman. “My mother,” she whispered, her face ashen. “It’s my mother!”

“Your mother?” Robert stared at her as if she had gone mad. He looked again at the crowd, then laughed in relief. “By the Mass, now I understand. We never thought to tell you how much your Cousin Matilda resembles her aunt, the late queen. That’s the Countess of Boulogne and Mortain, Stephen’s wife.”

The shock of that initial impact stayed with Maud as she made her entry into the courtyard of the castle, teeming with grooms, stewards, and servitors, and through the rushed ablutions of preparing for the evening meal. It was not until she was seated at the high table in the great hall that she had a chance to draw breath and observe Matilda at close quarters. All she knew about Stephen’s wife was that she was the only child of her mother’s older sister, and heiress to the Count of Boulogne.

Still clad in Our Lady’s colors of blue and white, Matilda had undone her hair which now fell in two silver-gilt braids to her waist. Her face was naturally grave, Maud noted, like her own mother’s had been, and although she was only two years older than herself, its fragile prettiness had already begun to fade. She had a small rosebud mouth and soft blue eyes which frequently cast adoring glances at her husband. Closer to view, her resemblance to the late queen, thank heaven, was less startling.

Having now recovered from her first reaction, Maud felt an overwhelming relief. Stephen’s wife was no beauty and therefore no real threat to her. The treacherous thought shocked her and immediately she felt consumed by guilt. Throughout the evening meal Matilda, obviously delighted to meet her cousin, chatted away like a gentle little wren. Maud barely heard a word as she was desperately trying to avoid Stephen’s gaze. The harder she tried the more compelling was the need to look at him. Every time their eyes did meet the air between them crackled like summer lightning, making her blood race even as it increased her sense of guilt. It seemed impossible that Matilda would not notice, but she remained oblivious, which somehow made matters even worse.

Mercifully, the meal was soon over and Maud was able to escape to her own quarters in the castle.

The next morning Aldyth told her Stephen and his wife had gone.

“Gone?” For a moment she could not take it in. “Gone where?”

“To London, where they live,” said Aldyth. “Together, if I may remind you. With their children.” She raised her brows and gave Maud a pointed what-did-I-tell-you smile.

Maud hoped her disappointment did not show. After all, she had no right to expect her cousin to remain at Windsor. Where Stephen was concerned she had no rights at all, she thought in despair, remembering how Matilda had looked at her husband.

“Why should that be of any concern to me?” she asked, determined to put him out of her mind. The sooner she stopped thinking about a man she could never have, the better off she would be.

“Why indeed. I have eyes in my head, if others do not,” Aldyth continued. “Far too intimate, you and the Count of Mortain, and—”

Maud tried to close out the accusing voice as she looked around her chamber, having been too exhausted to do so last night. With a pang she realized she was in her mother’s old solar, which the new queen had thoughtfully vacated in honor of her visit. Yes, there were the prie-dieu, the gold and scarlet hangings, worn and threadbare now, but achingly familiar. Even the blue coverlet was the same.

“What a turn the Countess Matilda gave me,” Aldyth was saying now. “Not only does she look like your mother, but has a similar nature as well, I’m told. A very saint they say, and devoted to her husband, who is far from being a saint, let me tell you. What I’ve heard about that one!”

“I’m not interested in servants’ gossip,” Maud retorted. “We only arrived last night yet already you seem to know all the scandal.”

“Naturally, I make it my business to know what goes on. What says the old saw? ‘Forewarned is forearmed.’”

Maud made a face. “Well, you can keep your hints and warnings to yourself.”

Aldyth, hands on hips, fixed Maud with a stern eye. “Hints and warnings is it? What I’m trying to tell you, plain as plain, is that it would be the height of wickedness to cause the Countess of Boulogne, your own cousin, mind, a moment’s unease.”

Maud colored as she pulled on her clothes. “Naught has occurred that would cause her a moment’s unease.” She forced a laugh. “Really, you make too much of—of nothing.”

“I’m relieved to hear it.” But Aldyth did not sound convinced.

Later, when Maud went down to the great hall, she found that Brian and Robert had also left at daybreak to return to their own lands. She was alone with her father, his queen, and the castle mesnie. She hadn’t yet met her new stepmother, a woman some months younger than herself, and was extremely curious to see what she was like.

In the early afternoon, Maud went riding with several grooms, reacquainting herself with the castle grounds and all her old familiar haunts. For the first time in some years she thought of her twin brother, William, remembering how hard she had tried to win his affection, receiving only hatred and envy in return. Though she did not miss him, still it was strange to be at Windsor without him, and she was reminded of the last time she had seen him, the day she left for Germany. Guiltily, Maud recalled how she had knocked her brother to the ground, provoking her father’s comment that she should have been the boy, and how he had then given her the crown to hold. What an odd sequence to remember, she thought, shivering, before retreating from the uncomfortable memory.

As she continued to explore the grounds Maud wished Stephen were with her. Yet at the same time she was relieved that he was gone. Without the impact of his physical presence, her cousin seemed much less of a threat to her peace of mind.

When Maud returned to the castle late in the afternoon, a page was waiting on the steps with a message that the King wished to see her. Aldyth and her new attendants, four Norman noblewomen, helped Maud change clothes, replacing her old riding garb for a gown and tunic of dove gray, set off by an ivory-colored headdress. The page led her down the passage and left her at the open door of a large chamber.

“Come in, come in,” boomed her father, seated in a wooden armchair, his booted feet stretched out in front of a charcoal brazier.

Inside, the chamber was hung with a huge tapestry in red and blue colors depicting Christ in Majesty surrounded by angels. In the center of the room stood a loom. Two women beat down scarlet wool to a tight warp, while another carded it. Her new stepmother sat on a tapestry-covered bench before the loom; when Maud entered she rose to greet her.

At this, her first sight of Queen Adelicia, Maud was struck dumb, trying to remember what the Emperor had told her about her stepmother: The daughter of the Duke of Louvain, she had wanted to become a nun when King Henry married her four years ago. The Emperor claimed she had the reputation of being the most beautiful woman in Europe. The trouvères vied with each other to sing her praises, declaring that “no fairer maid than she was ever seen on middle earth.” They dubbed her Alix La Belle and the name had stuck.

The most significant thing about her father’s second wife, of course, was the fact that she had failed to produce an heir. As providing a son was the only reason King Henry had married her, what kind of life must the poor woman lead, Maud wondered, her heart going out in sympathy to the hapless woman who was, easily, the loveliest creature she had ever seen—and the most unhappy looking.

Set in the perfect ivory oval of her face, the Queen’s liquid brown eyes, haunting as a doe’s, looked as if they would overflow with tears at any moment. Her mouth, the color of a crushed rose, trembled like a child’s. She had removed her white headdress and waves of thick hair, the color of yellow buttercups in spring, rippled down her back. She was dressed in a pure white gown and tunic confined at the waist by a girdle of wrought gold. Her only ornament was a jeweled ring and a tiny gold cross descending from a gold chain around her delicate neck. No
joi d’amour,
Maud thought, could do justice to such fragile loveliness. She brought to mind the fragrance of spring flowers, the serenity of a cloudless May sky.

“I wish to thank you, Madam, for letting me stay in your solar,” Maud said.

“Not at all, my dear,” the Queen said in a soft, slight lisp. “Please call me Alix. You’re in a strange land—despite it once having been your home. I felt the solar would be familiar to you, reminding you of your sainted mother—”

“Yes, well, sit down, Daughter,” the King interjected, giving his wife an impatient glance. He indicated a cushioned stool.

Alix seemed to shrink into herself. With a fearful look at the King, she resumed her seat at the bench and, picking up a basket of scarlet and blue wools, began to sort through them with trembling white fingers.

She is terrified of him, Maud realized, wanting to rush to the Queen’s defense but not quite sure how to do so. Why had her father married this woman? Maud wondered. Alix’s passive manner and tranquil air definitely brought to mind the cloister rather than the throne. Strange that the King, a lusty, powerful man, should have married two women destined for the convent, and more suited to such a life. A strained silence fell over the chamber. The King was regarding her with a look of speculation in his eyes, causing Maud to shift uneasily on the stool.

“I have something to tell you both,” he said abruptly. “At my Christmas court, three months hence, I shall have a very special announcement to make. All nobles in England and Normandy will be ordered to attend. Even the King of Scotland has been invited.” With a smile of satisfaction, his eyes lingered on Maud. “You two are the first to know.”

He waited a moment, as if expecting her to ask a question, but she only gave him a cool stare, although she knew instantly that the announcement concerned her. Despite her intense curiosity Maud felt it beneath her dignity to beg for information. She knew she was behaving childishly but every encounter with her father set her teeth on edge, compelling her to behave with an insolent defiance that she made little effort to conceal. The fact that this seemed only to amuse him irritated her the more.

The Vespers bell rang. With a yawn, King Henry rose to his feet. “Let us attend the service.”

He left the chamber, followed by the two women. At the door, Maud paused to let Alix precede her. The Queen hesitated for a moment.

“As a former empress you should walk before me,” she murmured. “I’m sure your father would wish it.”

“I doubt the King cares one way or the other as long as we both dance to his tune,” Maud muttered with a dark look at her father’s retreating back.

With a little gasp, Alix’s eyes widened in shock. Maud seized her soft white hand. “Never mind. We’ll walk together as equals, side by side,
contra mundem.”

Alix gave her a frightened smile but allowed herself to be led along the passage, down the winding staircase to the chapel. I shall have to teach this gentle creature some spirit, Maud decided, lifting her head proudly as she avoided the royal pew and sat by herself. Whatever her father had in store for her, she thought grimly, she would not go to it like a sheep to slaughter but like a knight to battle.

T
HREE WEEKS LATER STEPHEN’S
squire, Gervase, raced into the great hall of the White Tower and up to the high table where Stephen and his friends were just sitting down.

“There is to be a Christmas court,” he announced, “and the King will have a very special announcement to make. All nobles in England and Normandy are ordered to attend.”

“The King is back at Westminster?” Stephen’s heart skipped a beat. If the King were in London surely Maud would be, too. He had not seen her since he left Windsor. “The Queen and his daughter are with him?”

“Yes, they arrived last night,” Gervase continued, “and all Westminster is agog with the news. Not only that, my lord, the King of Scotland has been invited to attend the court as well.”

In stunned silence, Stephen glanced quickly at Brian FitzCount and Robin of Leicester, who were taking their evening meal with Matilda and himself. By God’s birth, this was news indeed.

“Something of great import must be afoot if my Uncle David of Scotland is coming,” Matilda said.

She caught her breath, her pale blue eyes suddenly widened, and her hands flew like small white birds to her face. “Stephen—you do not think—can it be—oh, my dearest!”

“My thoughts exactly, Lady Matilda,” Robin said softly. “If King David attends the court, it must be the news we have all been waiting to hear.”

Stephen’s heart began to pound as the meaning of their words became clear. Barely able to conceal his excitement, he looked to the Lord of Wallingford for confirmation. Stephen trusted Brian’s judgment above anyone else’s. Ambition did not goad him; neither fear nor favor swayed him.

Brian, picking his teeth with the point of his dagger, paused before replying: “Well, certainly that is a possible explanation.” There was a slight reservation in his voice.

Stephen frowned. Did Brian have doubts or was he merely being cautious? Impossible to know what the clever Breton was truly thinking.

Robin smiled and rose to his feet. “As always, the Lord of Wallingford is reluctant to commit himself. But I am not. In fact, it’s time to do honor to our host—and his lady.” He held out his goblet, his eyes radiating goodwill. “My friends, I give you the next King and Queen of England, long may they reign.”

Brian lifted his goblet and drank.

The words rang joyously in Stephen’s ears. A confluence of emotions—pride, triumph, satisfaction—surged through him. Rising to his feet, he spread his hands in a deprecating gesture.

“My dear companions, perhaps it’s premature to speak of such things. After all, my uncle still lives and the Queen may yet conceive—”

Robin interrupted him with an impatient wave of the hand. “And pigs may fly! Now is not the time for false modesty. If the King has at last decided to make a public announcement of what everyone has long since surmised, we will all breathe a sigh of relief.”