Time and Chance

Table of Contents

 

 

ALSO BY SHARON KAY PENMAN

A MARIAN WOOD BOOK
published by
G.P. PUTNAM’S SONS
a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.
NEW YORK

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

 

 

A Marian Wood Book
Published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons
Publishers Since 1838
a member of
Penguin Putnam Inc.
375 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014

Copyright © 2002 by Sharon Kay Penman

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not
be reproduced in any form without permission.
Published simultaneously in Canada

 

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission
to reproduce from the following:
“A Love Poem,” by Hywel ab Owain, translated by Carl Lofmark,
Bards and Heroes
(Llanerch Enterprises); “Battle of Tal y Moelfre,” by
Hywel ab Owain, translated by Joseph Clancy,
The Penguin Book of
Welsh Verse
(Penguin Books); “The Killing of Hywel,” by Peryf ap
Cedifor, translated by Tony Conran,
Welsh Verse
(Poetry Wales Press,
Ltd); “Ceridwen,” by Hywel ab Owain, translated by Robert
Gurney,
Bardic Heritage
(Chatto & Windus Ltd).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Penman, Sharon Kay.
Time and chance / Sharon Kay Penman.
p. cm.
“A Marian Wood book.”

eISBN : 978-1-101-15741-1

TO JILL DAVIES

MAP TO COME

A
gain I saw that under the sun the race is
not to the swift,
nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise,
nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to men of skill
but time and chance happen to them all.

 

 

 

 

 

ECCLESIASTES

CAST of CHARACTERS

Henry Fitz Empress, second of that name to rule since the Conquest, also Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou; first king of the Plantagenet dynasty

Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right, Henry’s queen; former consort of Louis VII, King of France

The Empress Maude, Henry’s mother, daughter of English king, Henry I; widow of Holy Roman Emperor and Count of Anjou

Geoffrey, late Count of Anjou, Henry’s father

Geoffrey and Will, Henry’s younger brothers

Rainald, Earl of Cornwall, illegitimate son of Henry I; Henry’s uncle

Ranulf Fitz Roy, illegitimate son of Henry I; Henry’s uncle

Rhiannon, Ranulf’s first cousin and wife

Maud, widowed Countess of Chester, daughter of Robert Fitz Roy, Earl of Gloucester; Henry’s first cousin and Bishop of Worcester’s sister

Petronilla, widowed Countess of Vermandois, Eleanor’s sister

Owain Gwynedd, Welsh king

Cristyn, his concubine

Davydd and Rhodri, their sons

Hywel ab Owain, Owain’s firstborn son by an Irish noblewoman

Thomas Becket, Henry’s chancellor

Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury

John of Salisbury, Theobald’s secretary

William Fitz Stephen and Herbert of Bosham, Becket’s chancellery clerks

Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of Hereford and later, London

Roger, Bishop of Worcester, son of Robert Fitz Roy, Earl of Gloucester; Henry’s cousin

Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester, King Stephen’s brother

Roger de Pont l’Eveque, Archbishop of York

Hilary, Bishop of Chichester

Jocelin de Bohun, Bishop of Salisbury

PROLOGUE

IT BEGAN WITH A SHIPWRECK on a bitter-cold November eve in God’s Year 1120. The English king Henry, son of William the Bastard, conqueror of England, lost his only lawfully begotten son in the sinking of the White Ship. In his despair, he named his daughter Maude, widow of the Holy Roman Emperor, as his heir. But his lords balked at being governed by a woman, and when the old king died, Maude’s cousin Stephen seized the throne.

Stephen was not feared by his lords, who dismissed him as a mild man, gentle and good, who did no justice. When the Empress Maude and her bastard brother Robert, the Earl of Gloucester, led an army onto English shores, many rallied to her cause. Even more served only themselves or the Devil. Outlaws roamed the roads and barons became bandits, raising up stone castles by forced labor, emerging from these wolf lairs to raid towns and plunder the countryside. Women, pilgrims, priests—none were spared by the lawless and the damned. Because men feared to venture into the fields, the earth was not tilled, crops did not grow, and hunger stalked the land. In this wretched way did nineteen years pass, years of suffering and anarchy, and people said openly that Christ and his saints slept.

The Empress Maude failed in her attempt to reclaim her stolen crown. But by her marriage to Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, she had given birth to a son who vowed to recover his lost birthright. He called himself Henry Fitz Empress and men began to hope that he might deliver them from their misery. It was said that he was Fortune’s favorite; when that was reported to him, he said a man makes his own luck and some thought that was blasphemy. He was only nineteen when he stunned Christendom by wedding Eleanor, the beautiful and headstrong Duchess of Aquitaine, less than two months after she’d been freed from her marriage to the King of France. He then turned his gaze upon Stephen’s unhappy realm. Within a twelvemonth, he had forced Stephen to recognize him as the rightful heir, and it was agreed that Stephen would rule for the rest of his days and then Henry would be king. In less than a year, it came to pass. He was but one and twenty when he was crowned as the second Henry to rule England since the Conquest, and the people rejoiced, for he promised them justice and peace.

CHAPTER ONE

 

 

 

 

AS THE KING OF ENGLAND crossed the inner bailey of Chinon Castle, his brother watched from an upper-story window and wished fervently that God would smite him dead. Geoffrey understood perfectly why Cain had slain Abel, the firstborn, the best-beloved. Harry was the firstborn, too. There were just fifteen months between them, fifteen miserable months, but because of them, Harry had gotten it all—England and Anjou and Normandy—and Geoffrey had naught but regrets and resentments and three wretched castles, castles he was now about to forfeit.

He’d rebelled again, and again he’d failed. He was here at Chinon to submit to his brother, but he was not contrite, nor was he cowed. His heart sore, his spirit still rebellious, he began to stalk the chamber, feeling more wronged with every stride. Why should Harry have the whole loaf and he only crumbs? What had Harry ever been denied? Duke of Normandy at seventeen, Count of Anjou upon their father’s sudden death the following year, King of England at one and twenty, and, as if that were not more than enough for any mortal man, he was wed to a celebrated beauty, the Duchess of Aquitaine and former Queen of France.

Had any other woman ever worn the crowns of both England and France? History had never interested Geoffrey much, but he doubted it. Eleanor always seemed to be defying the natural boundaries of womanhood, a royal rebel who was too clever by half and as willful as any man. But her vast domains and her seductive smile more than made up for any defects of character, and after her divorce from the French king, Geoffrey had attempted to claim this glittering prize, laying an ambush for her as she journeyed back to Aquitaine. It was not uncommon to abduct an heiress, then force her into marriage, and Geoffrey had been confident of success, sure, too, that he’d be able to tame her wild nature and make her into a proper wife, dutiful and submissive.

It was not to be. Eleanor had evaded his ambush, reached safety in her own lands, and soon thereafter, shocked all of Christendom by marrying Geoffrey’s brother. Geoffrey had been bitterly disappointed by his failure to capture a queen. But it well nigh drove him crazy to think of her belonging to his brother, sharing her bed and her wealth with Harry—and of her own free will. Where was the justice or fairness in that?

Geoffrey was more uneasy about facing his brother than he’d ever admit, and he spun around at the sound of the opening door. But it was not Harry. Their younger brother, Will, entered, followed by Thomas Becket, the king’s elegant shadow.

Geoffrey frowned at the sight of them. As far back as he could remember, Will had been Harry’s lapdog, always taking his side. As for Becket, Geoffrey saw him as an outright enemy, the king’s chancellor and closest confidant. He could expect no support from them, and well he knew it. “I suppose you’re here to gloat, Will, as Harry rubs my nose in it.”

“No, I’m here to do you a favor—if you’ve the wits to heed me.” The most cursory of glances revealed their kinship; all three brothers had the same high coloring and sturdy, muscular build. Will’s hair was redder and he had far more freckles, but otherwise, he and Geoffrey were mirror images of each other. Even their scowls were the same. “Harry’s nerves are on the raw these days, and he’s in no mood to put up with your blustering. So for your own sake, Geoff, watch your tongue—”