The Fatal Crown (6 page)

“You see? My little empress has sound political instincts,” the Emperor said, smothering a yawn. “And, if you were to ask, she would be able to tell you the best alliance for her father to make. She knows every important house in Europe. Have I not trained her well?” He sat back with a look of pride on his face but his smile had become fixed, and the lines around his mouth had deepened.

Maud flushed with pleasure. As the visitors seemed to have nothing more to say, and the Emperor was obviously beginning to tire, Maud rose to her feet.

“My husband has not been well, an inflammation of the liver, his physicians say. It’s time he rested. If you will excuse us, the steward will show you to your quarters. We look forward to seeing you both at Vespers.”

As soon as a servant had escorted the two men out, Maud asked her husband, “Are you feeling any better? Was the interview too much for you?”

He sighed and rubbed his side. “One day better, another worse. What does it matter?” He reached for her hand. “Interesting news, eh?” He regarded her with an enigmatic look.

“Why do you stare at me like that?”

“I was thinking about what I said earlier: At this moment you are the King of England’s only legitimate child.”

She gave him a puzzled smile. “I can’t see why that’s important.”

“Perhaps it isn’t. But your father grows no younger, as you pointed out, and if he ails as much as I do—” The Emperor sighed again. “Neither of us will live forever.”

Immediately Maud knelt on the stool beside him and put a hand over his mouth. “Don’t speak of such things,” she said. “With God’s grace you have many more years left, as does my father.”

Maud did not understand why her husband talked so often of death when dying was the farthest thing from her thoughts. In truth, men like her father and husband seemed immortal. Both strong, ruthless monarchs, it was impossible to imagine the world without them. She picked up the Emperor’s thin veined hand and held it to her cheek. The skin felt dry and fragile as an autumn leaf.

“Would you like to return to England?” he asked.

“Return to England?” She looked at him in shock. “Of course not. I hardly know anyone except my father and Robert. My home is with you, traveling around the Empire. I don’t want anything to change.”

“All things change, Liebling, that is the way of the world. If your father does not produce an heir, the future of the Norman realm may be of grave concern to you one day in the future.”

Sweet Marie, Maud thought. How could the future of England and Normandy be of grave concern to her?

A
LMOST FIVE YEARS
later Maud was a widow, in May 1125 the Emperor died, and with his passing her glorious years of prestige and authority came to an abrupt end. As Maud had borne no children, the Imperial throne passed to a cousin of the Emperor’s house, who, along with many other important German nobles, assured her that everyone would be honored if she continued to make Germany her home.

Stunned by her husband’s death, a week after the obsequies were over Maud retired to a remote castle in Bavaria which had been bestowed upon her at the time of her marriage. Here, surrounded by her women and a small household staff, she nursed her grief. Morning after morning Maud would don her gloves, the fingertips removed, and set out her needles and silken thread. Then she would pull up her cushioned stool against the open casement window, take up a square of linen to embroider, and gaze upon the white-tipped peaks sharply outlined against a curve of bright blue sky.

Unable to do more than pick at her food, she soon became listless and pale. She slept poorly, lying awake night after night, unable to think of anything but her wonderful life with Heinrich.

In June Maud was invited to attend the new Emperor’s coronation, but she declined. She was surprised at how much she minded being relegated to the background and wondered if she would ever totally adjust to her diminished circumstances. She had always enjoyed being involved in great events, pleased that the mantle of her husband’s power had covered her as well. The realization that she was no longer a participant but merely a spectator doubled her sense of loss. At twenty-three her life was virtually over, she told Aldyth.

“I never heard such nonsense. Think of how fortunate you are,” Aldyth reminded her. “The Emperor has left you wealth and property in your own right; the Germans honor and respect you. No one pines forever. In time, perhaps, a suitable marriage—”

“Never,” Maud stopped her. “Who could I possibly marry after the Emperor?”

“There’s finer fish in the sea than have ever been caught,” Aldyth replied firmly.

Maud was too melancholy to argue.

A short while later Maud received a formal message of condolence from her father with an unexpected summons to return at once to his domains. Henceforth, he wrote, the Norman realm would be her home; he had always been devoted to her, and now sorely missed the only daughter of his late queen. He longed to have her by his side in his declining years.

“Devoted to me? I never saw any evidence of it,” Maud said, surprised. “I wonder what lies behind this offer.”

“When the fox preacheth keep an eye on your geese,” Aldyth muttered darkly. As a Saxon, she had never entirely trusted the Norman king, all her love and loyalty having been lavished on Maud’s mother.

But Maud was inclined to agree with her. She had not seen her father since leaving England fourteen years earlier. Their infrequent letters dealt only with matters of unusual interest: her father’s remarriage almost four years ago; her half-brother Robert’s accession to the earldom of Gloucester, his marriage and the birth of his sons.

However, despite her pleasant memories of England, the only relative whom she remembered warmly was Robert. Maud had little desire to visit her native land now, much less make it her home.

She thanked her father for his offer, explaining that she did not want to leave Germany, nor could she see any valid reason for doing so. The King quickly replied, insisting that it was imperative she return at once, but refusing to tell her why. As tactfully as possible, Maud again firmly refused. She wrote that the Germans did not wish her to leave and she was comfortably settled. She assumed that would be the end of it.

A month later, in early August, a troop of Norman knights and archers clanked into the small courtyard of her Bavarian retreat.

“We have come to escort you to Normandy,” announced the captain of the escort, handing Maud a roll of parchment.

It was a formal message from her father, reminding her that as a childless widow she now fell under the control of her nearest male relative, in this case, himself. The law was clearly on his side, King Henry went on to say, and no German official, not even the new emperor, would dare to interfere with his orders. She was to leave for Normandy at once.

Completely shocked, Maud let the scroll drop from her hands onto the tiled floor of the courtyard. She was well aware of the law regarding widows. It had simply never crossed her mind that her father would invoke it against her.

“But I’m still in mourning for my dead husband,” she protested. “My father has no right to intrude upon my privacy in this unseemly fashion. Suppose I were to refuse?”

Unmoved, the captain said, “I’ve been instructed to tell you that should you refuse King Henry’s summons he has ordered me to remove you by force.” He paused. “But I’m sure the situation won’t come to that, Madam.”

Maud was aghast. Remove her by force? Her head began to throb as she fought to maintain her dignity before her father’s minion. But inside she was filled with a helpless rage. It made no difference to the King that her heart lay in Germany, or that if she left she must forfeit all the wealth and property that the Emperor had bestowed on her. The image of herself being trussed up like a goose for market and stuffed into a litter was even worse than the knowledge that she would now be wholly dependent upon her father. As in all her past dealings with King Henry there seemed to be no choice but to obey. By evening her head ached so badly that she could not sleep and had to be dosed with white poppy.

“However you may feel at the moment, this might be the best thing that could happen,” said Aldyth the next day, pleased to be returning to her native land. She gave Maud a sly glance as she packed boxes and stuffed saddlebags. “Certainly you’ve come up out of the doldrums, quick enough!”

Maud glared at her because what Aldyth said was true. Her sense of grief and loss had given way to anger and a resurgence of life as she imagined ways to get back at her father.

In mid-August, accompanied by her father’s escort, women attendants, grooms, servants, as well as all her personal possessions, Maud left her adopted country. Surrounded by two score knights and archers, she felt more like a prisoner than a daughter returning to the bosom of her family. As her procession traveled through Germany, people came out in droves to express their affinity and mourn her departure. They would never forget her, they cried, their good and virtuous little empress. Maud was moved to tears. Her bitterness against her father increased.

The journey across Europe took a month. In early September they crossed the Norman border, stopped at an inn with a nearby church in time for Vespers, and started up again when the bells rang for Matins. With any luck they would reach Rouen before the following night, the captain of the escort told Maud. She then fell asleep to the rocking motion of the litter.

Slowly Maud opened her eyes. For some time now she had been trying to ignore the sounds of hammering, carts being unloaded, and horses stamping their hooves against the earth. How could they have arrived in Rouen so quickly? she wondered. Yawning, Maud stretched her arms, arched her spine like a cat, then opened the leather curtains, curious to see Normandy’s capital. She gazed out upon a pink September dawn, just visible through a fragile curtain of mist, unprepared for the sight that met her eyes.

The procession of carts, litters, and sumpter horses was scattered over a wild overgrown meadow bordered on one side by an apple orchard. A warm wind swept through the fruit-laden boughs, carpeting the meadow floor with a profusion of apples, some red as blood, others a soft rose color.

As the captain of the escort rode by on a chestnut stallion, she hailed him: “Why have we stopped to set up camp? Surely this cannot be Rouen.”

“No, Madam. While you slept a herald met us on the road, turned the procession aside and led us to this village—St. Clair. Your pavilion has just been erected and the women are already unloading your belongings.”

A short distance away, surrounded by carts and pack horses, Maud saw a familiar green tent. Two servitors lifted wooden boxes and roped bundles from the carts and carried them into the tent, followed by two others who staggered under the weight of a wooden tub of water. Through the open door of the pavilion, Maud could hear the voices of Aldyth and her German women.

“The King is here?” she asked, incredulous.

“Across the river, Madam,” the captain told her.

Maud slowly descended from the litter. Yes, there was the King’s camp, a huge cluster of pavilions backed by a squat stone church and a cluster of thatch-roofed huts. Despite the morning’s warmth she shivered.

“If you will excuse me, Madam, I have much to attend to,” said the captain. He bowed his head and rode off.

She had been expecting a ceremonial entry into Rouen; instead she found herself in the midst of a wilderness. Simply one more humiliation to add to the others she had endured. Bitterness twisted like an adder inside her.

Two grooms passed by leading four horses to the river. One of them gave her a friendly smile. “Welcome to Normandy, Madam,” he said in Norman French.

“She cannot understand you, Pierre,” said the other. “I imagine she only speaks German.”

“Well, she had better learn our language again if she intends to stay,” retorted the first groom.

They passed out of earshot. Maud wanted to explain she still spoke their language as well as ever but did not have the heart to call them back. The realization that she was little better than a captive in her father’s domains was a heavy weight pressing against her chest.

“Lady?” Aldyth’s round face, soft and creased as a dried apple, poked through the door of the tent. “I was about to wake you. Come, the bath is poured. You must be ready when the King sends for you.” She withdrew her head.

Maud could not bring herself to go inside the pavilion but continued to loiter outside, wanting to extend these treasured moments of freedom for as long as possible. The reeds that grew beside the river trembled, as if someone moved behind them. She began to walk toward the riverbank.

Stephen of Blois, Count of Mortain, suddenly opened his eyes, awakened by an indefinable sense of danger. He threw off the gray blanket of unwashed wool, then, like a great golden cat, slowly uncoiled his supple limbs and silently rose to his feet. Now, crouched naked on his pallet, he looked carefully around the tent he shared with his two closest friends, Earl Robert of Gloucester, the King’s bastard son, and Brian FitzCount, Lord of Wallingford, one of his uncle’s trusted advisers.

He could see nothing out of the ordinary in the familiar shambles of crumpled tunics, swords, shields, ivory dice, wooden cups, and an empty henap of wine scattered over the floor. Wrinkling his nose, for the pavilion smelled like a vintner’s stall, Stephen stretched his lean body, then ran his fingers through a tangle of honey-brown hair.

Still the sense of danger persisted. It must be coming from outside. Careful not to disturb his sleeping companions, Stephen pulled on a white linen shirt that fell to mid-thigh, unsheathed a knife from the embossed silver scabbard attached to his leather belt lying on the floor, and tiptoed out of the pavilion.

Outside it was still early; over the brow of the hill the King’s camp was just beginning to stir. A heavy dew had fallen overnight, drenching the meadow grasses and gnarled apple trees heavy with fruit. Stephen looked to his left but saw only the familiar red-and-gold banners of the King’s tent and the outline of village huts and church spire beyond. On his right, wreaths of smoke from the cooking fires rose lazily in the air; a light breeze carried the spicy odor of game roasting over an applewood fire.