When Christ and His Saints Slept (100 page)

Rhiannon laughed and clapped her hands. “Let me,” she cried. “If dogs are brown, then cats are…green!” Ranulf laughed, too, and they expanded the game, deciding that harp music was green, too, that anger was red and pride blue. Ranulf did not know whether he’d actually helped Rhiannon to form a mental image of these colors, but he was sure he’d given her something she’d had too little of—fun.

Sharing the last of the cider with him, she shared, too, memories of her childhood. Her mother would have fetched for her, protected her, coddled her, but Rhodri would not allow it. He had encouraged her to defy the dark, to get up when she fell, to find out for herself what was possible and what was not. He’d taught her to ride, to play the harp, to turn her head in the direction of voices when she was spoken to, as a sighted child would have done. He’d taught her that she could be blind and self-reliant and proud. The great pity, Ranulf thought, was that he could not teach the rest of the world that, too.

Over these past few months, he’d told her of his own childhood, of Stephen and Maude and Robert and the war. But he’d told her nothing of his grieving or his guilt, and so he was taken utterly aback when she asked suddenly, “Ranulf, who is Annora?”

The silence lasted so long that she grew uneasy. “I did not mean to pry,” she apologized, and he reached across the blanket, patted her hand.

“You just took me by surprise, lass. How do you know about Annora?”

“I know only that you cried out her name when your fever burned so high. Even if I’d spoken French, I could not have made sense of your mumblings. But the name I did hear—often enough to remember. I can tell, though, that some wounds heal more slowly than others. We need not speak of her.”

“No,” he said, “I will tell you, Cousin Rhiannon. After all that you and your family have done for me, you have the right to know.”

And as if that secluded riverside clearing were a confessional, he told her about Annora, sparing himself nothing. She listened in silence, her thoughts hidden from him, for he’d kept his eyes upon the surging power of Rhaeadr Ewynnol until he was done. He waited, then, for her response, as an accused man might await a jury’s verdict, steeling himself for her disappointment, her condemnation, even revulsion. When he looked into her face, though, he saw only sadness.

“I am sorry,” she said at last, “for your friend’s death. I am sorry, too, that you blame yourself for it.”

“I was such a fool, Rhiannon. I truly believed that Annora would be able to divorce her husband and marry me, that wanting was enough to make it so. I never considered the consequences, not until it was too late.”

“I do not pretend to know much of such matters,” she said slowly. “But I would guess that most men—and women—share that same failing.” She hesitated. “Annora…do you still love her?”

He nodded, remembered such a gesture meant nothing to her, and said, with some reluctance, “Yes…I do.”

Rhiannon was quiet for a time. “And if you had it to do all over again, would you?”

This time his answer was immediate—and explosive. “Good God, no!”

“Well, then,” Rhiannon said, “there is hope for you yet!”

Ranulf stared at her, and then gave a startled and rueful laugh. “Who would have guessed,” he said, “that a butterfly could bite?”

“This one can,” she said tartly. “What would you have me say, that I’d want you to go on lusting after a married woman? The Lord God will forgive any sin if it is truly repented, but people who keep repeating the same sins must try His Patience for certes!”

Ranulf forgot and nodded again. “I do repent my sins, Rhiannon. And I mean to learn from my mistakes. I owe that to Gilbert.”

“I think learning from past mistakes would be a fine thing,” she said softly, and then she tilted her head, listening. “Eleri and Padarn…they are coming back.”

Ranulf heard the voices now, too, the playful bickering that passed for flirtation among the very young. “You have just enough time,” he said, “to bless me and tell me to go forth and sin no more.”

She turned her face toward him, with a smile that offered its own sort of absolution, and he reached for her hand. “Come on, Cousin,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

42

Chester Castle, England

September 1148

“M
AUD
?” The Earl of Chester plunged through the doorway of his bedchamber. “Where are you, girl?” Striding over to the bed, he jerked the hangings back, then glanced about in puzzlement. “Maud?” A moment later, his wife emerged from the corner privy chamber. She was fully dressed, her hair neatly braided, but she looked so pale and drawn that even her unobservant husband noticed. “Queasy again, eh?” he said, and she regarded him balefully.

“No, I spend so much time crouching over the privy hole because I like the view!”

Chester scowled, but held his peace, reminding himself that a woman had to be humored whilst she was breeding. “Well, I’ve news sure to cheer you. You’ve a visitor.”

“I’m not up to seeing anyone,” Maud said, settling herself gingerly upon the bed. “Unless it is my mother or His Holiness the Pope, tell them to come back later.”

“This is one visitor you’ll want to see,” Chester insisted, and before Maud could stop him, he opened the door, shouting into the stairwell. “Come on up!”

“Randolph!” Maud was furious, but it was too late. Already she could hear footsteps on the stairs. Reluctantly swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she pushed her husband’s arm aside when he offered his help. “You never listen,” she scolded softly, “never—Jesú!” Her morning sickness forgotten, she shot off the bed. “Ranulf!”

Chester watched with a smile as his wife and her uncle embraced. “I told you,” he said smugly, “that you’d want to see him!”

AN
autumn rainstorm was drenching the Conwy Valley. Each time the door to the great hall was opened, damp drafts blew in, guttering the candles. But flickering candles were no inconvenience to Rhiannon, and she continued to sew. Eleri had pinned a strip of flat wood to the material to guide her stitches, but even so, it was slow, laborious going. “How does it look?” she asked as Eleri’s steps drew near. “Do I have to rip out this row, too? Tell me the truth.”

“It does not have to be perfect,” Eleri chided, moving closer to see.

“Yes,” Rhiannon said, “it does.” Once her sister assured her that the stitches were even, she bent over her handiwork again, concentrating so diligently that she did not at first notice her stepmother’s approach.

“What are you making, Rhiannon?”

“A belt for Ranulf. He told Papa that his birthday is in November.”

“Why not let me make it for you? I could do it much faster.”

“I am sure you could, Enid,” Rhiannon said evenly. “But I want to do it myself.”

“Are you so sure he is coming back?”

“Of course he is. He promised he would.”

“It might be better if he does not.”

Rhiannon stopped sewing. “I thought you liked Ranulf,” she said in surprise.

“I do like him. We all do…too much, I fear.”

“I do not understand.”

“We welcomed him into our home, our hearts. It was easy enough to do, for he is very likable. He filled an empty place at our table…Cadell’s place. But he is not Cadell and this is not his world. Sooner or later, he will choose to return to the world he knows.”

“That need not be so,” Rhiannon protested. “He seems happy here. He could decide to stay.”

“Ah, lambkin…you are fooling yourself.”

That was Rhodri’s pet name for Rhiannon. She never liked her stepmother to use it, especially in such solicitous, sympathetic tones. Theirs was an awkward relationship, not friends, no longer enemies…although that had not been true in the beginning. Rhiannon had, by her own admission, reacted badly to her father’s decision to remarry. Her mother was just dead a year and Rhiannon was not ready to accept another woman in Nesta’s place. Nor had Enid known how to deal with a blind stepdaughter. Her kindnesses seemed condescending, her good intentions invariably went astray, and her patience hovered on the border between sainthood and martyrdom; only her bafflement rang true.

Looking back upon those first troubled months, Rhiannon could admit now that Enid was unfairly cast as the wicked stepmother, guilty of missteps and gaffes, not mortal sins. But she was—quite unknowingly—serving as a scapegoat, for that was the year that Rhiannon collided with reality, the brutal reality that men feared blindness only a little less than they feared leprosy. She was old enough by then for marriage and motherhood. Her father could find no suitable husband for her, though. A blind wife was a contradiction in terms, a bizarre joke, a curse besotted men might fling at one another in an alehouse brawl. At eighteen, Rhiannon had finally understood just how barren her future was to be, and she’d taken out much of her heartbroken rage and frustration upon her beautiful, well-meaning, obtuse stepmother.

Seven years had passed since then, and they’d long ago made their peace, for whatever their differences, they both loved Rhodri. But Rhiannon would never have chosen Enid for her confidante, and she resented Enid now for voicing her own secret fear. She knew that Enid was right, that Ranulf was unlikely to stay in Wales. Saying it aloud, though, gave her a superstitious shiver. Hoping that her silence would communicate her unwillingness to discuss it further, she bent over her sewing again.

But Enid was never one for taking hints. “It is only a matter of time until Ranulf goes back to England—for good. The longer he lives with us, the more it will hurt when he does leave. That is why I said it might be better if he stayed in Chester, better for my Rhodri and Eleri…and above all, for you, Rhiannon.”

Rhiannon felt heat rising in her face. She wanted to demand that Enid explain herself, but she did not dare, for she was suddenly afraid of what Enid might answer. Was it possible that her stepmother could somehow have seen into her heart? “You are wrong, Enid,” she said tautly. “Ranulf will come back. He promised.”

DURING
his six months in Gwynedd, Ranulf had been as secluded as any hermit, but Maud soon brought him up to date on the happenings in the world beyond Wales. Her most startling news was of the intensifying feud between Stephen and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Upon Theobald’s return from the Council of Rheims, a furious Stephen had punished his defiance by expelling him from England. He had settled in Flanders, at Matilda’s urgings, as she and an unlikely peacemaker, William de Ypres, sought in vain to reconcile this rift between Stephen and the Church. On September 12th, the archbishop’s patience wore out and he placed England under Interdict. This was the Church’s ultimate weapon, but this time it misfired. The Interdict was ignored throughout England, observed only in Theobald’s own diocese of Canterbury. As to what would happen next, none could say. But it was a blessing, indeed, for the Angevin cause, Maud and Ranulf agreed, that Stephen should have estranged himself from the most powerful churchman in his realm.

Maud had other news, as well, for Ranulf. She confirmed that his sister was now living in Rouen with her sons. She informed him that Matilda had spent much of the year in Canterbury, supervising the building of Faversham, the abbey she and Stephen were founding; rumor had it that she was in poor health. She told him that the Bishop of Winchester had been suspended by the Pope for supporting Stephen over the archbishop. She shared another rumor, that William de Ypres’s sight was clouding over. She had the latest stories from the Holy Land, where the French king was blundering badly, lurching from one mistake to another, nearly losing his life in a Turkish ambush. But the most shocking gossip concerned his queen. During their stay in Antioch, Eleanor had announced that she wanted to end their troubled marriage. Louis refused to let her go, and when they resumed their trek toward Jerusalem, Eleanor was taken by force from the city, compelled to accompany them.

This was high scandal, indeed. But Ranulf was even more astonished by what Maud revealed about Brien Fitz Count. Brien had turned Wallingford Castle over to his kinsman, William Boterel, and he and his wife had both taken holy vows, renouncing the world and their marriage and pledging the remainder of their lives to the service of Almighty God.