When Christ and His Saints Slept (35 page)

“I’m so glad.”

Thinking back upon it much later, Ranulf could never be sure which of them had taken that first fateful step. But suddenly she was in his arms, and they were clinging tightly, with such urgency that further words were forgotten. They fused together, in an embrace so impassioned, so intoxicating, and so desperate that their return to reality stunned them both. It was the slamming of a door, a sound harmless in itself, but for Ranulf and Annora, fraught with the dread of discovery. There was a violence in their recoil, a tearing-away that left them momentarily bereft, unable to respond to their danger. Ranulf recovered first, flattened himself against the roodscreen and jerked his head toward the door. Annora drew a shaken breath, then stepped out to intercept the intruder.

The sight of a priest jolted Annora’s conscience back to life, reminding her that sinning in a church had to be one of those wrongs God could not forgive. At the same time, she was thankful that it was not her groom or her maid, for they knew her well enough to notice her agitation. But the priest was beaming, quite oblivious of anything untoward. “Lady Fitz Clement, this is indeed a pleasure. Your man told me you were within, and I did not want you to slip away ere I paid my respects.”

Annora faked a smile that would have fooled only an elderly cleric with dimming eyesight and a celibate’s innocence. “Yes, I…I wanted to light a candle for the king’s success.”

The priest nodded approvingly. “I was deeply dismayed to hear of Hugh Bigod’s rebellion, for he was amongst the most stalwart of the king’s men. Truly, the Devil is on the loose these days, ever ready to lead the unwary astray. Your lord husband…he is with you?”

“No,” Annora said, too abruptly, but she could not bear to talk of her husband in Ranulf’s hearing. “He is still in the North with the king.”

“And will return safe to you in God’s good time, daughter, never fear. Now…may I escort you back to the fair?”

“I should be delighted for your company.” Annora would have agreed to follow the priest to Hades and back at that moment, so frantic was she to keep him from entering the choir and finding Ranulf. “Father John, could you tell my man that I’ll be returning with you, and he and Joan can go ahead and meet us there, at the cook-stall? I’ll be out straightaway; I left my pater noster in the choir.”

She did not move until the priest started up the aisle, not returning to Ranulf until she was sure Father John was out of earshot. Even then, they waited for the sound of a closing door. Ranulf reached for her hard and pressed a kiss into her palm, silently mouthing a one-word question:
Where?

Annora was at a loss, for privacy was as scarce as sightings of unicorns. “I do not…,” she began dubiously, and then brightened. “Of course, the leper hospital at St Giles!”

Ranulf’s brows shot upward. “A lazar house?” he echoed in delighted disbelief, and began to laugh.

“Do hush!” Annora’s fingers flew to his mouth to still his laughter, but lingered to trace the curve of his lip. “I do not mean we should meet there, for pity’s sake! Just follow the Foregate until you get to St Giles. When you reach the fence, cross the road to your right and enter the woods. You’ll soon come to a canal, the runoff from the abbey mill. Wait there for me.”

She took his assent for granted, and hastened from the choir. But when she reached the door in the roodscreen, she paused, giving him a dazzling smile over her shoulder, so full of love that his breath stopped.

BEFORE
going to St Alkmund’s, Ranulf had tethered his dogs in the abbey garth, much to their indignation. He freed them upon his return, for they’d make useful sentinels for his rendezvous with Annora. Heading back to the fairground, he bought a wicker basket, a tablecloth, a wineskin, a loaf of freshly baked bread, a pot of jam, apples, and a single red rose, the same shade as Annora’s gown.

With the dogs at his heels, he walked briskly along the Foregate toward St Giles. The lazar house was situated just as Annora had said, where the road forked off toward London and Wenlock. The hospital buildings and cemetery were enclosed by a wattle fence, but several of the unhappy inhabitants were squatting by the roadside, for they were not permitted to beg within the town. The sight of their ravaged flesh and hooded cloaks would have been an unwelcome reminder to the fairgoers of their own mortality, a grim spectre of stalking Death in its most grisly guise, not what the merchants had in mind for fair entertainment.

Ranulf’s steps lagged as the lazar house came into view. To a man about to violate one of God’s Commandments, any encounter with lepers was bound to be chilling, for many believed that leprosy was a sinner’s disease. The Church sought to combat this bias by calling leprosy a “sacred malady,” but Scriptures stigmatized the leper as “defiled” and “unclean,” and most people were more inclined to see leprosy as divine punishment than as a manifestation of God’s Grace.

Ranulf’s gaze was drawn inexorably to those hunched figures, and then he strode toward them, dropped coins into their alms cups, and wished them as cordial a “Good morrow” as he could manage. Their hoarse expressions of gratitude, as much for his civility as for his charity, followed after him as he crossed into the woods, and Ranulf felt pity’s taste in his mouth, as bitter as gall.

He soon reached the millrace, where he sprawled in the grass by the surging current, and tried not to think about St Giles and the poor wretches in need of its sanctuary. The sun rose higher in the sky, the dogs foraged in the underbrush for mice or moles, and eventually he heard the snapping of twigs, the muffled echoes of woodland steps.

Ranulf jumped to his feet as Annora emerged from shade into sunlight. There was a moment or two of awkwardness, but then Ranulf gave her the rose and they smiled at each other. When he asked how she’d escaped her “keepers,” she looked quite pleased with herself. “I told them that I wanted to give alms at St Giles. The very thought of getting within shouting distance of a lazar house turned them greensick with fright. They started babbling that even a leper’s glance was dangerous, and when I agreed to let them await me at the fair, I thought they’d both kiss the hem of my gown!”

Ranulf took her hand in his and they began to walk. They did not talk; there was no need. Without haste, they followed the millrace as it curved toward the south, leading them farther and farther from the road. The sun spangled the water, and all about them were the soothing sounds of the summer forest. They soon turned away from the millrace, moved deeper into the woods until they found a secluded, quiet clearing, shaded by trees, screened by flowering shrubs of wild holly.

Ranulf spread out the tablecloth and Annora unpacked the food, but they knew they’d not eat it. Instead, Annora removed her veil, and then slowly and deliberately began to unwind the hair neatly coiled at the nape of her neck. When she removed the last pin, she shook it loose about her shoulders, and they both understood that to be a pledge of intimacy, for only a husband or lover ever saw a woman’s hair flowing free down her back. When Ranulf reached for her, she came eagerly into his arms. Her hair felt like silk; so did her skin. Her mouth was warm and sweet, her perfume scenting his every breath. It went to his head like wine. The clearing might have been crowded with their ghosts—her absent husband, all the women he’d bedded and forgotten afterward. But none of that mattered, not now. For Ranulf, there was no world beyond this cloistered glade, no woman but this one, only Annora, and when she cried out, shuddering and gasping his name, he found her climax even more satisfying than his own.

Afterward, he held her close, brushing butterfly kisses against her temples, her eyelids, the hollow of her throat, kisses so tender that tears began to seep through her lowered lashes. He tasted the salt on her skin, and was stricken by the realization that she was weeping, that he may have seduced her into a mortal sin. “Annora? Have you regrets?”

Sitting up, she flung back her hair, swiped impatiently at the tears streaking her face. “How can you even ask that? My God, if my regrets were raindrops, we’d both be in danger of drowning!”

When he reached for her this time, she pulled away. “How could we have been such fools? But no, you had to cling to Maude like a limpet, and I had to marry straightaway, so I could show you I no longer cared—Ranulf, how can you laugh?”

She glared at him, quite indignant, but Ranulf merely laughed all the more. “Because,” he said, “I thought you regretted this—our lovemaking!”

“Oh, no,” she cried, and threw herself back into his arms. “How could I ever regret this? Ranulf, this is a memory I shall have to live on for the rest of my life!”

“No,” he said, “that is not so. This is not an ending, love, but a beginning, that I promise you.”

She studied his face intently, and then got slowly and reluctantly to her feet. “Ranulf…if you are asking me to run away with you, I cannot do that.” Tears were glinting again on her lashes. “I love you,” she said. “I’ve loved you since I was old enough to know what that word meant, and I daresay I shall still love you as I draw my last breath. But I cannot be your concubine. I cannot shame my father and brothers like that. They do not deserve that, and…and neither does Gervase, for he is a decent man. I have the children to consider, too, and they—”

That had been Ranulf’s secret dread, a festering fear that he’d dealt with by denial, an option now no longer available to him. “Have you borne this man a child, Annora?”

“No,” she said, “oh, my darling, no!” She started toward him, but he was faster and caught her to him in an emotional embrace. Annora raised her face for his kiss, and then said, so softly as to be almost inaudible, “I miscarried in our second year of marriage, but I have not quickened again…” Although she attempted to sound dispassionate, Ranulf heard echoes of an old grief. She had mourned the child she’d lost, Fitz Clement’s child, and he did not know what to say, for he could feel only thankfulness that this accursed marriage of hers was barren. He stroked her hair gently, before saying quietly:

“What children do you mean, then, love?”

“Daniel and Lucette, my stepchildren. The other lad is older, but they are just babes, and they love me well. I would not have them think of me as a…a wanton.”

“I would not have a single soul in Christendom think you a wanton, Annora…and they will not. There will be no shame in our union, for it will be blessed by the Church and God, within holy wedlock.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What sort of daft talk is that? Lest you forget, I have a husband already, and one is all the law and Church allow!”

“Hellcat,” he said fondly. “Well, then, we’ll just have to get you shed of him, will we not?”

“What do you have in mind?” she said testily. “Murder?”

“Not unless you insist.” His teasing had always been able to fire her temper, and he grinned, for there was a reassuring, familiar feel to their squabbling. But he relented then, for she was getting truly angry. “I am speaking of a plight troth, Annora—yours and mine. Because we did not have the words said over us by a priest or put down in writing, your father did not bother to forswear it, I’d wager the surety of my soul on that. But the Church requires only that a man and woman pledge their vows, and we did. Which means that your marriage was not valid, for you were not free to wed anyone but me.”

She was looking at him in wonderment. “Oh, Ranulf, if only that could be!” Her hope deflated almost at once, though, and she frowned again. “You know better than that. The Church will annul a marriage for princes, but rarely for the rest of us. My father and husband both stand in high favor with the king. He would never agree to annul my marriage, for what would he gain by it?”

“No, most likely Stephen would not,” Ranulf agreed. “But Maude would.”

Annora exhaled a ragged breath. “Be sure, Ranulf,” she pleaded, “be very sure of what you say, for if it does not come to pass, my heart would surely break.”

“When Maude is queen—and she will be queen, never doubt that—I shall ask her to aid us in declaring your marriage void, and then we shall be wed. This I swear to you, my love, upon the life of our firstborn son.”

He was not jesting now; never had she heard him sound so serious, and she no longer doubted. “Tell me,” she said, “tell me how it will be,” and he laughed, drew her back into his arms, and between kisses, promised her love and lust and a lifetime in which to enjoy them. They soon sank down upon the tablecloth that served as their bed, and found in each other such passionate pleasure that it no longer mattered if it was outlawed. When they were wed, their sins would be forgiven by God; they’d already forgiven themselves.

IT
was very late when Ranulf reached Gloucester. Fortunately he was known on sight by now, and was allowed to pass into the city. He was admitted into the castle with equal ease, and was relieved to learn that Maude had already gone to bed, putting off their reckoning till the morrow. He paused briefly in the great hall to exchange greetings with a few friends, deftly parried their curiosity about his absence, and then headed for his own chamber, where he was given an effusive welcome by his squire, but given, too, news not to his liking.

“Earl Robert summoned you, Sir Ranulf, just two days after you’d ridden off. He was wroth not to find you at Gloucester, for he and Lord Miles were seeking to capture Bath, and he wanted you to ride with them. Their campaign came to naught, though, for the city was well defended and they were beaten back. Lord Robert said he wants you to come to Bristol to explain yourself, and Lady Maude…I fear she is sorely vexed with you, too, Sir Ranulf,” the boy concluded apologetically, sounding as if he and not Ranulf were the one at fault. “Ah, but I do have happier news. Sir Gilbert is here, awaiting your return.”

“I’m glad you warned me, Luke. At least I’ll be braced now when the storm breaks over my head! I know it is late, but I’m well-nigh starved. Think you that you could fetch me some wine from the buttery and then raid the kitchen for me?”

Luke promised to be back in a trice with food in plenitude, and Ranulf did not doubt he would, for Luke was just fifteen and overly eager to please. It still seemed odd to Ranulf, getting the sort of wholehearted devotion from Luke that he and Gilbert had given Robert. But then he would remember: he was one and twenty now, no longer a squire, Maude’s mainstay. “Prop of the throne,” he said aloud, liking the sound of that, and then set about unpacking his saddlebags, whistling a tune he’d picked up at St Peter’s Fair, finding it as easy as that to shrug off his coming confrontation with Robert and Maude. A man caught out in a summer squall might get drenched to the skin, but the sun would soon get him dry again. Angry words seemed a small price to pay for the miracle he’d wrought in Shrewsbury.