When Christ and His Saints Slept (120 page)

A royal visit was never an unmixed blessing, for the cost of entertaining a king’s entourage could strip an abbey’s larders bare, especially if the king chose to linger in their midst. But the dismay that greeted Abbot Ording’s announcement went well beyond economic anxieties. The sad fact was that in this, the seventeenth year of Stephen’s reign, the English king found himself at war with his own Church.

This latest clash had been the most serious one yet. Stephen had become convinced that the only way to safeguard the throne for his son was to have Eustace crowned in his own lifetime, in accordance with Continental custom. But the Archbishop of Canterbury refused to cooperate and Stephen had at last lost all patience. Early in the year, he’d summoned a Church Council to London and demanded that they agree to anoint Eustace then and there. The archbishop had again balked, but this time his refusal rocked Stephen’s throne to its very foundations, for he claimed to be acting under direct orders from the Pope, who would not recognize Eustace’s right to an ill-gotten crown, one obtained by perjury.

Never before had the papacy spoken out so boldly against Stephen’s kingship. So great was Stephen’s outrage that he’d taken a very imprudent action, ordering the clerics arrested until Archbishop Theobald agreed to perform the ceremony. But in the confusion, the archbishop managed to slip away and once again fled England, seeking refuge in Flanders. Stephen soon came to his senses, released the clerics, and permitted the archbishop to return. But the rift had not been mended, and as long as Stephen remained at loggerheads with his chief primate, he would find no warm welcome in the abbeys and priories of his realm.

The monks of Bury St Edmunds did their best, though, to put their grievances aside for the length of the king’s stay. The guest hall was made immaculate, Abbot Ording turned over his own quarters for Stephen’s comfort, and the abbey cook served up a dinner that would have done any king proud: baked lamprey eels, stewed mutton, stuffed capon, custard, applesauce, a spiced chicken broth, and hot bread. The abbot was grateful that the fare was so appetizing, for he took his obligations as a host seriously. He could only hope that the pleasures of the meal would compensate for the stilted and desultory nature of the dinner conversation.

So much was not suitable table talk. Above all, no mention could be made of the nineteen-year-old youth who not only held Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, but who now had the blessings of the Pope as he cast his eyes toward England.

Abbot Ording sighed, for so many names would sink like stones in the conversational waters. The Earl of Chester, who’d dared to defy the Crown and gotten away with it…so far. Hugh Bigod, who was the reason why Stephen had gone north in a show of force, hoping—not very realistically, in the abbot’s opinion—to intimidate Bigod into obedience. Robert Beaumont, who was ostensibly loyal but rarely at Stephen’s court. Rainald Fitz Roy, who was rumored to be in Normandy at the behest of his fellow barons, urging his nephew to invade England as soon as possible. Roger Fitz Miles, who’d recently duped Stephen into believing he was contemplating a switch in loyalties, when in reality, he’d merely been trying to lure Stephen away from his siege of Wallingford Castle.

No, the list of safe topics was a short one, indeed. Political talk led invariably to Henry Fitz Empress, and discussion of Church matters would only remind them all of Stephen’s feud with the archbishop. Abbot Ording sighed again, not yet desperate enough to comment upon the mercurial spring weather, and then brightened. “Is the Bishop of Winchester still in Rome, my liege?” Although even that was a sensitive subject, for all knew Stephen’s brother had made the arduous journey to the papal court in a foredoomed attempt to regain some of his dwindling influence with the Vatican.

Stephen sopped up gravy with a bread finger, smiling at his uncomfortable host. “No, he has departed Rome. But I do not expect him to be back in England until the autumn, for he intends to return by way of Spain. He has always wanted to see the holy shrine at Santiago de Compostela.”

That drew a quick response from Stephen’s second son. “I’d rather see Paris myself, or mayhap Poitiers.”

The abbot had never met the young Earl of Surrey before. Will was, like all of Stephen’s children, quite good-looking, flaxen-haired and blue-eyed. He was also one of the wealthiest eighteen-year-olds in Christendom, for three years ago his father had secured for him a great child-heiress, Isabella de Warenne, who’d inherited the earldom of Surrey after her father died on crusade. He had a winning smile, the untested confidence of youth, and the brash cockiness so common to the sons of kings, laughing immoderately at all his own jokes and interrupting his elders much too freely for the abbot’s liking. But he still made a favorable impression, especially among those familiar with Eustace’s barbed defenses and sudden sarcasms.

“Poitiers?” Stephen was smiling quizzically at his son. He was, as the abbot and much of England well knew, the most indulgent of fathers, denying his children nothing. Not only had he bestowed the prestigious abbacy of Westminster upon his illegitimate and unqualified son Gervais—an appalling appointment in Abbot Ording’s judgment—but he’d even founded a Benedictine nunnery in Kent so that he could name his young daughter, Mary, as its prioress. It occurred to the abbot that his failings as a king had not served him well in fatherhood, either, for with his sons as with his barons, he could not bring himself to disappoint, to discipline, or to demand the respect due him. “Why Poitiers, lad?” he asked curiously, and Will grinned impishly.

“Because of the Lady Eleanor, of course! Poitiers will be attracting more pilgrims than any shrine in Christendom now that she is in the marriage market again.”

Stephen laughed, but Eustace did not. “If you’re looking for a whore,” he said impatiently, “you can find any number of sluts right here in Bury St Edmunds, Little Brother. There is no need to go all the way to Aquitaine for one.”

The silence that followed was stifling. Will flushed, but he was not as cocky as the abbot first thought, for although he glared at his elder brother, he held his tongue. The abbot was offended, as were most of those who’d overheard Eustace, for he’d just broken one of their society’s unwritten rules: Whatever men might say among themselves in private, a highborn lady’s honour was not besmirched in a public setting.

Stephen was no less dismayed than the monks. “Have you forgotten that we’re dining at God’s Table?” he asked testily. His first inclination was to insist that Eustace apologize to the abbot and his brethren, but his son was no errant schoolboy. At twenty-two, he was a man grown, a man who must accept responsibility for his own acts, his own words, no matter how ill-considered. Signaling for more wine, he regarded his eldest with baffled anger. Whatever had possessed Eustace to defame a woman who’d been his own brother-in-law’s queen? And within hearing of Bury St Edmunds’s abbot, of all men!

The abbot was watching Eustace, too, with more objective, and therefore more discerning, eyes than Stephen. He was not long in concluding that Eustace’s affront had been a deliberate provocation, well calculated to embarrass his father, the most chivalrous of men, before an audience of monks. But Eustace’s triumph did not seem to have given him much pleasure. His smile was at once defiant, brittle, and defensive, almost as if he’d been the one wronged, and somewhat to the abbot’s surprise, he found himself feeling a twinge of pity for them both. Fathers and sons. Always a Gordian knot, for certes, but how much more troubling when there was a crown caught up in its tangled coils.

No one seemed to know what to say. It was the abbey’s hospitaller who finally came to the rescue. “It is my duty and privilege, Your Grace, to meet all the needs of the guests staying within the walls of our abbey. May I ask how long you plan to remain with us?”

With an effort, Stephen forced his eyes away from his son. “We’ll be staying just one night, departing on the morrow.” Adding politely, “As much as we would enjoy your hospitality, my queen and the Lady Constance are awaiting us at Cantebrigge.”

The monks tried to conceal their relief that his visit would be so brief, with mixed success. But one of the other abbey guests, a prosperous wool merchant, was looking perplexed. After some hesitation, he said, “Begging your pardon, my liege, but I live in Cantebrigge. I arrived at the abbey last night, for I always stay with the good monks on my trips to Ipswich and—” Catching himself, he gave an abashed smile. “But that is of no earthly interest to you. What I wanted to tell you was that the queen is not in Cantebrigge. Not unless she arrived after I rode out yesterday morn…”

Now the perplexity was Stephen’s. “No, she ought to have reached Cantebrigge days ago. This makes no sense…” Frowning, he pushed his food around on his trencher, his appetite gone. After a few moments, he beckoned to a knight at the end of the table. “Everard, I want you to ride to Cantebrigge as soon as the meal is done and find out if the queen and the Countess Constance are there or not.”

Everard was one of Stephen’s household knights, in his service long enough to gauge the urgency of his king’s need. “I’ll be off as soon as I get my horse saddled,” he said, shoving away from the table. With that, Stephen gave up all pretense of unconcern. His eyes raking the hall, he found another face he could trust, and dispatched the man south to the Earl of Oxford’s castle at Hedingham, for that was Matilda’s last known stopping place. After that, the meal broke up, the monks and abbey guests scattering to their various pursuits, leaving the abbot to do his best to allay the unease of his king. But less than an hour had passed in this awkward manner before they heard shouting out in the garth.

Stephen came swiftly to his feet at sight of the man striding into the hall, for he should have been miles away by now, riding hard for Hedingham. “What in blazes are you doing back so soon, Guy? Hedingham is a good twenty miles away and if you expect to reach it by dark—”

Sir Guy now committed a serious breach of protocol; he interrupted his king. “My liege, hear me out. I encountered a messenger on the road, one of the Earl of Oxford’s men. He was on his way here, seeking you.”

A second man had followed Sir Guy into the hall. Coming forward, he knelt before Stephen. “My lord king, I am Sir Robert Fitz Henry. I serve the Earl of Oxford, am here at his bidding. A few days after her arrival at Hedingham, your lady queen took sick. She refused to let us send for you, insisting she’d not have you worried for naught. But she took a turn for the worse, and last night she asked for you and for—” He bit back the words so hastily that he seemed to have swallowed them, only making his omission all the more conspicuous.

Stephen frowned. “Who else did she want? Our daughter Mary?”

“Yes, my liege. But she also asked us to send to Holy Trinity Priory for…” Again his words trailed off, for he could see that Stephen still did not understand. He paused, then looked away so he’d not have to watch as Stephen finally realized what he was so reluctant to say. “She asked,” he said, “for her confessor.”

MATILDA
had always envisioned time as a river, flowing forward inexorably into the future, forcing people to keep up with the current as best they could. No more, though. Time had become tidal. Lying in the shuttered dark of an unfamiliar bedchamber, she could feel it receding toward the horizon, leaving her stranded upon the shore. As a little girl in Boulogne, she’d often walked along the beach, throwing back the starfish trapped by the ebbing tide. Now, forty years later, when it was her turn to be marooned by the retreating waves, there was no one to save her as she’d saved the starfish, but she did not mourn for herself. Dying was not so terrible, for all that people feared it so. She was in God’s hands, a feather floating on the wind, waiting to see if He would call her home.

If only Stephen understood that, if only he would not grieve so. He’d not left her bedside for days, pleading with her to hold on to hope, to fight off Death, not comprehending that Death was not always the enemy. She was so tired, so very tired. For too long, she’d been ailing, in body and spirit, struggling to keep her malaise secret from Stephen. So much bloodshed, so many graves, so many widows and orphans, and all for what? A tarnished crown that had brought them both more pain than pleasure. But he could not relinquish it, must keep on fighting to hold on to it—for Eustace. For the son she loved, who ought never to be entrusted with a king’s sovereign powers.

The chamber was dimmed, for the candles had begun to hurt her eyes. Stephen was clutching her hand, lacing her limp fingers through his, his grip so tight that her wedding ring was pinching her flesh. Constance was weeping again, crumpled in the window seat. Matilda ached for her, the daughter by marriage who’d become as dear as her daughters by birth. Will was swiping at his face with his sleeve, her fledgling, her secret favorite. And Eustace…half hidden in the shadows, ashamed to let anyone—even his stricken family—see his tears.

At sound of a woman’s step, her lashes fluttered, but it was Cecily again. Stephen kept insisting that Mary was on her way, likely to arrive at any moment, and she’d clung to his assurances with all the forgiveness and faith of the love she’d so long ago pledged to him. But this was to be one promise he could not keep. Mary would be too late.

“Stephen…” Not even a whisper in her own ears, but he somehow heard her and leaned over, vivid blue eyes of their lost youth, awash now in tears. “Look after Constance…” But who would look after him? Surely the Almighty would, for even his worst mistakes were well intentioned. Did this too-clever son of Maude’s have such a good heart? No…God would judge what mattered most.

Stephen was kissing her hand, pressing it against his wet cheek. His beard was grizzled with silver, like an early frost. How old he seemed of a sudden. She wanted to tell him one last time that she loved him, to promise that she’d be waiting for him at Heaven’s Gate. But she could not catch her breath. She closed her eyes and when she opened them again, the room was filling with light. She could hear sobbing, but it seemed to be coming from a great distance. It grew more and more faint, until at last she could not hear it at all.