When Christ and His Saints Slept (16 page)

Annora pretended to pout. “I suppose you’d prefer a meek little lamb like the Lady Matilda—oh!” Her hand flew to her mouth, as if to catch her heedless words. The gesture was affected, but her remorse was real. “I ought not to have said that,” she said contritely. “My heart goes out to Matilda, Ranulf, truly it does. I can think of no greater grief than the loss of a child…”

Ranulf nodded somberly, and for a moment, they both were silent, thinking of the sudden death that summer of Stephen and Matilda’s son. Theirs was an age in which too many cemeteries held pitifully small graves; one of every three children never even reached the age of five. But Baldwin had been their firstborn, a lively, clever nine-year-old whose death had left a huge, ragged hole in their lives.

“Their grieving was painful to look upon,” Ranulf said sadly. “They buried him in London, at Holy Trinity Priory. They’re in Boulogne now; I’ve seen them just once since their return. They’ll probably come to Rouen, though, for my father’s Christmas court. Indeed, I do hope so. Mayhap it would cheer them somewhat, being at the revelries,” he said, with the well-intentioned, misguided optimism of youth, and sought to banish Death’s spectre then, by focusing all his attention upon the girl on his lap.

Annora cooperated so enthusiastically that the shadow of Stephen and Matilda’s small son soon receded, unable to compete with the lure of smooth, female flesh, soft curves, and the fragrance of jasmine. After a time, they broke apart by mutual consent, breathing deeply, and smiled at each other. Ranulf had begun to stroke her cheek, and Annora gave a contented sigh; as exciting as it was when the fire burned hot between them, she also took pleasure in quiet moments like this, for Ranulf could be gentle, too.

They talked idly of the upcoming Christmas revelries, and then Annora related the latest Paris scandal. Ranulf was not surprised that she should be so well informed about the bed-roving of the French nobility; Annora adored gossip the way a child craved sweets. But he was momentarily at a loss when she insisted, “Now you owe me some good gossip in return—and it has to make me blush or it does not count.”

Ranulf pondered for a moment. “Well…Queen Adeliza’s confessor is said to be smitten with one of her ladies-in-waiting, following the lass about like a lovesick swain—”

“Ah, Ranulf, Ranulf…you’ll have to do better than that. The Church can preach chastity for its priests from now till Judgment Day, and that will not change the fact that half the clerics in Christendom have wives or hearthmates. Jesú, what of the Bishop of Salisbury, the old king’s justiciar? He’s openly kept a concubine for thirty years, even got their bastard son appointed chancellor. No, my lad, you’d best look farther afield for scandal. Catching wayward priests is like spearing fish in a barrel; there is no sport in it.”

Ranulf laughed softly, pulling her back into his arms. “We’ll just have to make our own scandal then,” he said, and began to kiss her again. But the dogs were barking out in the bailey, and they reluctantly drew apart, hurriedly adjusting their clothing.

“I suppose that will be Fulk,” Ranulf said glumly, for there would be no dalliance with Annora as long as her elder brother was on hand. But the brother who now burst into the stable wasn’t Fulk; it was Ancel, who should have been at Lyons-la-Forêt with Robert and the royal hunting party.

“Ancel? What are you doing here?”

“Your brother sent me to fetch you straightaway. It is your lord father, Ranulf…He was taken ill soon after we arrived at the hunting lodge.”

“How ill? Ancel…how ill?” Ranulf repeated tensely, for it had not escaped him that Ancel had yet to meet his eyes.

“That is for the doctors to say, not me,” Ancel said evasively. “But Lord Robert said…he said for you to make all haste. He said not to tarry.”

Ranulf sucked in his breath, for he understood then what Ancel was so loath to tell him. They thought his father was dying.

WHEN
Ranulf had assured Robert that Bernay was just a day’s ride from Rouen, he’d stretched the truth somewhat; it was thirty miles, more or less, and indeed a hard-riding traveler could cover the distance in one day—a summer’s day. Travel on rutted and icy winter roads was a far riskier and slower venture. Ranulf knew, though, that he was racing Death, and he and Ancel spurred their horses without regard for their safety, making their way by glimmering lantern light as darkness fell. When they halted, it was only to rest their lathered mounts. But their reckless, breakneck dash through the frozen December countryside still took them all night and most of the following day. They reached the hunting lodge at dusk, only to learn that Ranulf’s father had died at dawn.

HAVING
completed his prayer for his father’s soul, Ranulf got stiffly to his feet and stood staring down at his father’s body. Henry seemed at peace; Ranulf had been assured that he’d died in God’s Grace, shriven of his sins by the Bishop of Rouen. Ranulf fervently hoped it was so, but his treacherous memory refused to cooperate, conjuring up shadows of his father’s blinded, maimed granddaughters, the ghost of a king slain mysteriously in the New Forest, a brother’s body abandoned in the woods whilst Henry raced for Winchester to claim a crown. Even if his father had sincerely repented all his earthly misdeeds, a lengthy stay in Purgatory seemed a foregone conclusion.

It was odd; he could have been looking upon a stranger. Why was he so calm, so queerly detached? He felt exhausted, numbed, regretful that he’d not been able to bid his father a final farewell. But his sorrowing was muted; his eyes were dry.

The door opened quietly behind him. Robert looked tired and tense, but composed. Ranulf glanced at his elder brother, then back at the dead man, thinking of Adeliza, his father’s queen. Would she weep for Henry? Would any eyes? It was a disturbing thought, that a man could wield great power as God’s anointed on earth, he could rule an empire, and yet leave none to mourn him when he died.

“People will say they grieve for him,” he said softly, “but they will be lying. He’ll be forgotten even ere he is buried, for men’s thoughts are already turning to tomorrow, to Maude. It sounds mad to say this, Robert, for I knew he would die one day, and I knew, too, that he’d not change his mind about the succession. So why does it come as such a surprise?”

“That he should die? Or that Maude should be queen?”

Ranulf considered. “Both, I think.”

Robert was quiet for a time. “In that, lad, I’d wager you’re not alone,” he said, and Ranulf turned, gave him a startled, searching look, half fearful of what he might find. If even Robert was so troubled by their sister’s coming queenship, it did not bode well for Maude, for England. Men might not mourn his father, but there’d be many who’d dread his death, dread the unsettled times that lay ahead.

“I’ve been praying for Papa, Robert. But mayhap we ought to be praying, too, for Maude,” he said, sounding so uneasy and so earnest that Robert reached out, let his hand rest briefly on the boy’s arm, a gesture that Ranulf found both surprising and bracing, for Robert was as reticent as Maude about open displays of affection.

“I think, lad,” Robert agreed, “that it would not be amiss to pray for Maude. And whilst you are at it, pray, too, for England.”

ANGERS
, the ancient capital of Anjou, was bisected by the River Maine. But the heart of the city beat upon the east bank, for there was to be found the abbey of St Aubin, the great cathedral, and the hilltop castle where generations of Angevin counts had dwelled and died. It was toward the castle that Ranulf rode, bringing his sister Robert’s letter, bringing the news of their father’s death.

Maude already knew. Ranulf saw that as soon as he was ushered into the great hall. She wore the somber shades of mourning, and her demeanor was solemn, as befitting one newly bereaved. But her eyes were as dry as Ranulf’s own. She welcomed him with the aloof dignity that public decorum demanded, her pleasure at seeing him revealed only in the slight curve of her mouth, the alacrity with which she suggested that they withdraw to her private chamber.

Once they reached her bedchamber, Maude sent a servant for wine and then turned to Ranulf, taking his hands in hers. “I am so glad that you’ve come,” she said. “Were you with Papa when he died?”

“No,” Ranulf said regretfully, “but Robert was,” and he handed her their brother’s letter. Because he did not know what Robert had written, he told Maude then what he had learned about their father’s death. “He was stricken on Monday eve, the 25th of November, after eating a heaping plateful of stewed lamprey eels, and died early the following Sunday.”

Maude had begun to read Robert’s letter, but at that, she slanted a sudden glance in his direction. “Lamprey eels,” she said, shaking her head. “The doctors warned him time and time again that he ought not to eat them. Of course he paid them no heed.”

Neither of them took notice of the opening door, assuming it was a servant with the wine.

“Well, if it is not the little brother.”

The voice was low-pitched and would have been very pleasing to the ear if not for the suggestion of smugness, echoes of the mockery that insinuated itself into Geoffrey’s every utterance; Ranulf doubted that he could even pray to the Almighty without sounding disrespectful. “The sight of you gladdens me, too, Geoffrey,” he said sourly, for he’d long ago learned the futility of squandering courtesy upon Maude’s husband.

Geoffrey seemed amused by Ranulf’s sarcasm; it vexed Ranulf enormously that his sister’s husband never took him seriously enough to quarrel with. He watched sullenly now as Geoffrey sauntered over, grazed Maude’s cheek with a careless kiss, while glancing covertly at the letter she held open in her hand.

Maude casually shifted the letter. “Did you want anything in particular, Geoffrey?”

“Why, I was looking for you, dear heart,” he said blandly. “I was told your brother had arrived. Alas, I was not told that it was the wrong brother.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I should think my meaning would be obvious. Robert ought to have come himself rather than send this green lad. You are, after all, more than his right beloved sister now. You’re to be his queen.”

It infuriated Ranulf to hear himself dismissed as a “green lad,” for the age difference was not that great; he was seventeen to Geoffrey’s twenty-two. Even more did he resent the slur upon Robert, and he said hotly, “Robert still had duties to perform for our father. He had to escort the body back to Rouen, and then go to Falaise, for my father had instructed him to withdraw sixty thousand pounds from the royal treasury to pay the wages of his servants and soldiers and give alms to the poor, that they might pray for his soul.”

Geoffrey’s mouth quirked. “If he thought to bribe his way past Heaven’s Gate, I daresay he found that even sixty thousand pounds would not buy him prayers enough. He’d have been better off spending the money to earn himself some goodwill amongst the Devil’s minions.”

Ranulf gasped, but Maude put a restraining hand upon his arm. “You would know more about pleasing the Devil than most men. The counts of Anjou trace their descent from Lucifer’s daughter, do they not?”

Geoffrey was not offended. “Her name is Melusine.” Seeing their blank looks, he added helpfully, “The Devil’s daughter who wed one of my ancestors—her name was Melusine.”

“I have the utmost trust in Robert,” Maude said, very coolly, and Geoffrey’s smile became a smirk.

“You trust the sainted Robert. You trust Cousin Stephen. You trust young Ranulf here, and God knows how many others in that flock of bastard brothers of yours. Dear heart, it pains me to say this, but you’re as free with your trust as a whore is with her favors, and you run the same risk that the whore does, for men hold cheaply what comes to them too easily.”

“The same can be said for your advice, Geoffrey. I might value it more if you offered it less.”

Geoffrey’s eyes narrowed, and Ranulf shifted uncomfortably. All his sympathies were with Maude; it still was no fun, though, to be caught in their crossfire. But at that moment a servant entered with the wine, dispelling some of the tension. Geoffrey and Ranulf drank in a less than convivial silence as Maude conferred with the servant. Once the man had withdrawn, she smiled at Ranulf. “Since you missed dinner, I’ve instructed the cooks to prepare an uncommonly lavish supper this eve in your honour. I told them to serve baked pike stuffed with chestnuts, for that is a favorite of yours, no?”

Ranulf nodded, pleased that she should have remembered. But Geoffrey’s brows shot upward. “Shall you be up to it? You must not be alarmed, Ranulf, if your sister bolts the hall in the midst of the meal. Other women suffer from morning sickness when they are breeding, but Maude is, as ever, a law unto herself, and her queasiness comes at night!”

Ranulf swung around to stare at his sister. “You are with child?”

Maude nodded, and Geoffrey moved to her side, striking the playful pose of a proud father-to-be. He might even be sincere, Ranulf allowed grudgingly, for to give the Devil his due, Geoffrey did seem fond of his sons. As he looked at them now, Ranulf could not help admiring the picture they presented, for whatever else might be said of them, they made a very handsome couple.

Handsome
was a word often applied to Geoffrey, for not only was he taller than most men, he’d been blessed, too, with an athlete’s build and a cat’s grace. His hair color was a bronzed reddish-gold, his eyes a compelling shade of blue-grey, fringed with thick, tawny lashes, eyes agleam with sardonic humor, boundless confidence, and a sharp, calculating intelligence, yet not a hint of warmth.

As for Maude, Ranulf had to acknowledge that her youth was gone, for she was thirty-three, past a woman’s prime. But her age had not yet impaired her ability to turn male heads. Like Annora, she’d been cursed with unfashionable coloring: she had inherited her father’s dark hair and eyes. But she was more fortunate than Annora in that her skin was fair and flawless, and her features so finely sculptured that none could deny her beauty; no man looking upon the high curve of her cheekbones or the red fullness of her mouth was likely to care that her eyes were brown.