When Christ and His Saints Slept (116 page)

“Nothing of importance,” the priest cut in hastily. “My lord Henry…have you any questions?”

Henry shook his head, his mouth too dry for speech. But when they would have withdrawn, he reached out and caught Jocelyn’s sleeve. Neither spoke for several moments, the Angevin baron offering Henry what he most needed just then: silent sympathy. Jocelyn watched Henry glance toward the bed and then away, the muscles in his throat tightening convulsively. “What else, Jocelyn? What did the chaplain not want me to hear?”

“Thomas speaks fluent French and Latin and Provençal, but bless him, humor remains an alien tongue. He was not trying to keep anything from you, Harry. He just thought it unseemly that Geoffrey should be joking on his deathbed. But that is what I’d rather remember, and I suspect you will, too, lad. What vexed him the most about dying, he said, was the wretched timing of it, that the sainted Bernard should now get to claim the credit!”

Jocelyn was smiling through tears. When he looked into Henry’s face, he clasped the youth’s shoulder in a gesture of wordless and futile comfort, then retreated quickly.

Henry did not move until the door closed. Approaching the bed with a leaden step, he stood staring down at his father’s body. The doctor had done his work well, and Geoffrey’s features were composed, his hands folded peacefully on his chest, a rosary loosely entwined around his fingers. His skin had a waxen cast, and his lips were pale, but his body had not yet begun to stiffen, and it was possible for Henry to imagine that he was merely asleep, that at any moment, he’d open an eye and wink.

But it was no practical joke and only the Abbot Bernard would be laughing. Henry reached out tentatively, his fingers brushing back the hair falling across Geoffrey’s forehead. The skin still felt warm to the touch and he backed away. After a moment, he sank to his knees beside the bed. He did not pray, though. He wept.

GEOFFREY LE BEL
was buried, at his request, in the cathedral church of St Julien in his mother’s city of Le Mans, where he’d long ago wed the Empress Maude and where his eldest son had been born. After the funeral, Henry had no time to mourn. Riding for Angers, he claimed his legacy, accepting the homage of his Angevin vassals as the new Count of Anjou and Maine.

A BRISK
October wind was sweeping through the priory of Notre-Dame-du-Pré, sending clouds scudding across the twilit sky and stripping the trees bare in a foretaste of winter. Heedless of the chill, Maude was standing in the doorway, wrapping her arms around herself to stop from shivering as she watched her sons dismounting in the priory garth.

It took a while for them to get their men settled, their horses led off to the priory stables. Eventually, though, Maude was able to usher them inside, toward the hearth.

“Are you hungry? I can send to the kitchen for food…” Her offer was met with shrugs and silence. They looked exhausted, numbed and overwhelmed by the magnitude of their loss, all the more devastating because it had been as sudden as an amputation. The sight of their grieving tore at Maude’s heart. She would have given anything to be able to stanch their bleeding, but she did not know how. The ground she’d gained in these past three years was strewn again with pitfalls and snares, and Maude, the bravest of the brave, now found herself so afraid of making a misstep that she dared not move at all.

“Tell me about the funeral,” she said at last. “Did it go as planned?”

Henry nodded, slumping down in a chair close to the hearth. She’d rarely seen him look so listless, drained of his usual exuberance and energy. Maude knew he’d been accustomed since early youth to shouldering a man’s responsibilities. But she felt that burying his father was one burden too many. She’d have spared him that if she could, but she’d not been consulted. He’d taken it all upon himself, and she could see the cost now in the distance reflected in his eyes.

Will’s eyes were red-rimmed, and he was blinking so rapidly that he felt the need for a mumbled complaint about the smoky hearth. “It was a fine funeral, Mama,” he said and flushed when his voice cracked; he was fifteen now and had hoped that he’d outgrown that particular indignity. “We buried Papa in front of the High Altar, and Harry ordered a splendid tomb. Papa’s chancellor chose the epitaph, though. ‘By your sword, O Prince, the crowd of robbers is put to flight, peace flourishes, and churches enjoy tranquillity.’”

Will cast an oblique glance toward his eldest brother, then confided. “Harry says that if the fever had not killed Papa, he’d have died laughing at that epitaph. But I like it. What about you, Mama? What do you think?”

Maude hesitated, groping for a tactful response. But Geoff forestalled her. He’d yet to take off his mantle, and had been stalking about the chamber, giving off almost as much heat as the hearth. “Why ask her, Will?” he jeered. “The only epitaph she’d have favored would have been one that said, ‘Hallelujah—dead at last!’”

Maude gasped, for this resentful seventeen-year-old youth had the power to wound her as none of her enemies ever could. Will looked stricken, and Henry dangerously dispassionate, a sure sign that his temper was about to erupt. Their disapproval only made Geoff all the more defiant. “I am just saying what the whole world knows,” he insisted. “You hated Papa, and never made any secret of it. You can pretend now that you were not glad to hear he’d died, but what fool would believe—”

“Shut your mouth, Geoff!”

“You keep out of this, Harry! You may be Mama’s pet, but I take no orders from you!”

“Yes,” Henry said icily, “you do,” and Geoff discovered that running headlong into reality hurt far worse than any of the bruises and scrapes of boyhood mishaps. He could not remember a time when he’d not been jealous of his elder brother. It had gnawed away at him, that Harry was the heir, the firstborn, the favored one, that someday he would inherit it all—the lands, the titles, the power. Someday. Far in the future. Not now. Harry was not supposed to have it so soon. It was not fair. None of it was fair. Papa was dead, and he’d not even gotten to say farewell. Mama would now play the grieving widow. And Harry…his vexing, insufferable, boastful brother Harry was now his liege lord. It had happened in Angers. He’d gone from rival to vassal as he’d watched Harry being invested as Count of Anjou and Maine. But it was not until tonight that he had fully understood all the implications of that ceremony, and the realization was more bitter than he could bear.

“I’ve a right to speak my mind, Harry!”

“If your mind was a well, it would be bone-dry,” Henry said scathingly, and to Geoff’s secret shame, he was the first to look away. He did not lack for reasons to detest his brother, but this was the most compelling reason of all—that his will was always the weaker of the two, the first to break.

Saving face as best he could, he muttered that he was going off to bed. As much as he wanted to storm out in high dudgeon, he lost his nerve at the last moment, too shaken and miserable to dare to defy mother and brother both, and bade them goodnight with a poor pretense of civility. When they did not object, he felt as if he’d made his escape from enemy territory, and yet he was perversely aggrieved, too, that they’d been willing to let him go.

“Mama…” Will had far more freckles than either of his older brothers, scattered profusely across an open, appealing face, one that was not structured for secrets or scowls. He was the most equable of her sons, good-natured and accommodating, neither as moody as Henry nor as high-strung as Geoff. Henry and Geoff had inherited their fair share of Geoffrey’s sardonic humor, and a goodly portion, too, of the infamous Angevin temper. But not Will. He was an anomaly, an innocent in a domain in which innocence did not often thrive, and while Maude’s deepest love was reserved for Henry, her strongest protective urges were for Will. He was regarding her now with anxious blue eyes, slouching down further and further in his seat, like a turtle withdrawing into its shell. “Mama…Geoff was not right, was he? You were not glad when Papa died…?”

“No!” Maude’s protest was involuntary, indignant. She stepped toward her youngest, meaning to reassure him, when she happened to glance over at Henry. He, too, was watching her intently, even warily, and as their eyes met, she suddenly understood about the funeral.

It had been done very fast, allowing enough time for Henry’s brothers to ride from Angers to Le Mans, but not for her to travel the much greater distance from Rouen. She’d not comprehended the reason for the rush, as Henry’s claim to Anjou was uncontested; there were no rival claimants racing him to Angers. But now she knew, and she was sorry she did. Henry had been afraid to give her a chance to attend Geoffrey’s funeral, afraid that she’d have refused.

“No, Will, I was not gladdened by your father’s death. I will not lie to you, lad. There was a time—early in our marriage—when I might have been. But that was so long ago, Will, a lifetime ago. I was truly shocked by Geoffrey’s death…and pained by it.” If the pain had been more for her sons than for Geoffrey, she saw no reason to confess it. Will did not reply, but his shy half-smile told her that she’d found the right words, said what he needed to hear.

Turning then toward her firstborn, she reached out, letting her hand rest lightly on his shoulder. “I would have come, Henry,” she said softly. “I swear to you that I would have come.” He nodded and ducked his head, but not before she saw the tears shining behind his lashes.

“
YOU
look weary, my lady.” Minna’s fingers were not as nimble as they’d once been, but it never occurred to her to let one of Maude’s younger attendants tend to her needs; nor had it occurred to Maude. She tilted her head back so Minna could finish unfastening her braids, just as she’d done every night for more years than either woman could remember.

“I am tired,” Maude acknowledged, “too tired to sleep. I am afraid, Minna, that Geoff is slipping out of reach again. He is so angry, needing to blame someone for his father’s death, and I suppose it is either me or the Almighty.”

“You often despaired of ever breaking through all his walls,” Minna pointed out, “but he was slowly letting some of his defenses down, and he will again. Every freeze is followed by a thaw, madame.”

“I hope so, Minna, how I hope so. But I am not as confident as you, not about Geoff. You see, he could never forgive me for not loving Geoffrey. And now…now he cannot forgive me for loving Henry.”

As candid as they usually were with each other, Minna had learned to weigh her words when discussing Maude’s sons. She was very fond of Maude’s youngest, for Will had a singular sweetness, a naïf-like charm that was uniquely his own. Henry, she adored. Even at his wayward worst, he was still “Madame’s true son,” whose destined kingship would redress all of her lady’s struggles, all of her suffering.

But she viewed Geoff with a jaundiced German eye, seeing a spoiled young lordling with an overabundance of grievances and no sense of obligation or duty, only a sense of entitlement. That was an opinion, however, that she could never share with Geoff’s mother, and she concentrated, instead, upon brushing out Maude’s hair, still a deep, rich black, although her next birthday would be her fiftieth.

“They were afraid that I’d welcomed Geoffrey’s death,” Maude confided. “I swore to them that I had not, and that was the truth, Minna. I’d be the last one to doubt Henry’s abilities, but he is still so young. Geoffrey could have done what I cannot—keep the peace in Normandy whilst Henry seeks to overthrow Stephen. I can fight for my son, but not on the battlefield. It always comes back to that. Henry had need of his father. There was a time when I was not willing to admit that, but—”

The knock was so soft that Maude was not sure at first what she’d heard. When it came again, Minna hastened over and opened the door. Henry paused on the threshold at sight of his mother’s unbound hair. “You’re getting ready for bed. I’d not realized it was so late.”

Before he could back out, Maude beckoned him in. “I always have time to talk with you.” Minna had already disappeared, conveniently remembering a sudden need for night wine. Reclaiming her seat, Maude watched her firstborn prowl restlessly about the chamber. “Is Will abed?”

Henry nodded. “It upset Will that Papa left Chinon and the other castles to Geoff, nothing to him. I explained that these castles had long been regarded as the rightful appanage of the House of Anjou’s younger son, that Papa was merely following family tradition, and it in no way meant that he’d favored Geoff. I did my best to assure Will of this, and I also assured him that he’d not be left to beg his bread. But I think it would help, Mama, to hear it from you, too.”

“I’ll speak to him tomorrow,” Maude promised. “I’ll remind him that once he is of age, we’ll find him an heiress to wed.”

“There is something else I want to discuss with you, Mama. It is about what happened in Paris.”

“I was wondering about that,” Maude admitted. “Why did you change your mind about relinquishing the Vexin?”

“I daresay you’ve heard the rumors about the French king’s troubled marriage. Well, the rumors are true. Louis has decided to divorce his wife. And once he does, I mean to marry Eleanor myself.”