When Christ and His Saints Slept (39 page)

Brien shrugged. “I could not sleep, either,” he said, and looked pleased when Maude beckoned him toward her bench. He smiled as he sat beside her, and she found herself thinking that she liked his smile, liked so much about Brien Fitz Count—his insight and his loyalty and his competence; everything he did, he did well. He did not intrude now upon her privacy, seemed content to sit in silence, until or if she chose to speak. Maude appreciated his reticence, and soon realized that she did want to talk, after all.

“I had a letter this week from my son Henry,” she said. “His own letter, the first one that was not written for him by his tutor or a scribe…”

Her voice trailed off, as if she’d lost interest, but Brien knew better. He studied her profile, thinking that most women benefited from the more subdued, softer lighting cast by candles or stars, but not Maude. She looked her best in the bright light of day, able to take the sun’s glare full on, without flinching. “It troubled you, this letter?” he asked, and after a moment or so, she nodded.

“Henry asked me if I was ever coming back,” she said, and he thought he heard her sigh. “I’ve not seen my sons for more than a year, Brien, nigh on sixteen months. If this war drags on long enough, I’ll not even know them upon my return. They’ll be strangers…”

He would not trivialize her pain with facile denials or comforting banalities. The truth was that she’d never get back the time she’d lost with her sons. Childhood could not be relived; children grew up, and a quest for a crown could last for years. “To be a mother and a queen, too,” he said at last, “must be a burden no man could fully comprehend.”

“No man needs to understand, for no man needs to bear it,” she said, with more than a trace of bitterness. “What makes it so hard, Brien, is that I see no end in sight. Sometimes I find myself wondering where I will be in five years. Will I still be at Gloucester or Bristol, clinging to my shredded hopes whilst Stephen clings to his stolen crown? All I know for certes is that in five years, Henry will be almost thirteen.”

“I truly believe you will one day reclaim your crown,” he said softly, and she turned to look at him with a brief, bleak smile.

“I do, too,” she said, “most of the time. I am not often so downhearted, for I do not let myself dwell upon my disappointments or defeats. But none of the Christmas news has been good. Lord knows, the tidings from Cornwall have been dismal. Rainald is holding on to the one Cornish castle he has left, but Stephen has the shire, and Rainald’s prospects grow dimmer by the day. He has been excommunicated by the Bishop of Exeter, who blames him for the damage done to a Launceton church, and his wife…Rainald tries to make light of it in his letters, Brien, but others tell me the girl was so distraught and fearful at being caught up in the fighting that her wits have been affected. She weeps all the time and hears voices and cannot be left alone lest she do herself harm.”

“I’d heard the lass was…overwrought,” Brien admitted. “But just as those sick of body can heal, so, too, can the sick of mind. You must not give up hope, Lady Maude.”

“I inhale hope with every breath I take,” Maude said ruefully. “But lately it seems that if anything can go wrong, by God, it does. Robert is at odds with his younger son, Philip, as I expect you know; it is no secret that Robert rebuked Philip for being needlessly brutal during the assault upon Nottingham. And now he and Amabel have Maud to worry about, too. Miles is another whose temper is on the raw, and the same can be said for Baldwin de Redvers. In truth, everywhere I turn these days, I see naught but discontented, surly men and fretful wives.”

“What of Ranulf?” he protested. “That lad is cheerful enough to raise all sorts of suspicions!”

“How true,” she conceded. “If Ranulf were a cat, I’d be checking his whiskers for cream!”

They both laughed, and then Maude surprised herself by saying, “You’ve been a good friend, Brien, for longer than I can remember. You helped me get through the worst time of my life, and I never thanked you…not until now.”

She did not need to elaborate; he understood. Their memories were suddenly functioning as one, taking them back more than thirteen years. She had been twenty-five, and no longer able to resist her father’s will, agreeing at last to wed Geoffrey of Anjou. On her betrothal journey from England to Normandy, the old king had entrusted her to the custody of his eldest son, Robert, and his foster son, Brien. They had carried out the king’s charge, escorted Maude to Rouen for the plight troth, and the following year she and Geoffrey had been wed at Le Mans.

“Why should you thank me? I did as the king bade, turned you over to Geoffrey of Anjou, when I ought to have hidden you away where he could never have found you.”

Maude was startled. “You did what you could, Brien. You made me feel—without a word being said—that you understood, that you were on my side. That may not sound like much, but it was.”

“If I had it to do over again…” His smile held no humor, just a disarming flash of self-mockery. “I suppose I’d do the same, however much I’d like to think I would not. But my regrets would be so much greater, knowing as I do now how miserable he’d make you. I never forgave your father for that, for forcing you to wed a man so unworthy of you—” He stopped abruptly, and a tense, strained silence followed, which neither of them seemed able to break.

Maude was staring at Brien, a man she’d known all her life, and seeing a stranger. Had she lost her wits altogether? How could she have confided in him like this? She’d long ago learned to keep her fears private, her pain secret, all others at a safe distance, yet here in a barren winter garden, she’d lowered her defenses, allowing Brien to get a glimpse into her very soul. Even worse, she’d seen into his soul, too, discovered what she ought never to have known. She felt suddenly as flustered as a raw, green girl, she who was a widow, wife, and mother, a woman just a month shy of her thirty-ninth birthday, a woman who would be queen. Getting hastily to her feet, she drew her mantle close about her throat, chilled to the bone.

“I want to go in,” she said, sounding curt even to her own ears.

Brien had risen as soon as she did. “Of course,” he said. An awkward moment then ensued, for he started to offer his arm as chivalry demanded, but it was no longer a simple gesture of courtesy, and they both knew it. After a discernible hesitation, Maude let her hand rest lightly on his sleeve, and they walked in silence toward the great hall.

She would later wish fervently that she’d held her tongue. But she felt compelled to prop up her diminished defenses, and so as they reached the steps, she said coolly, “You should bring your wife with you the next time you come to Gloucester. It has been too long since I’ve seen her.”

She at once wanted to call her words back, for she saw the hurt they’d inflicted. His dark eyes searched her face, and in them she found a mute reproach. They had just shared all that they could ever have, a few brief moments of unspoken intimacy, cheapened now by her needless, heavy-handed rebuff. She understood, read his thoughts as if they were her own. But what he did not understand, and what she could never let him know, was that her pointed mention of his marriage was a reminder meant, not for him, but for herself.

“My wife will be pleased to attend you, madame,” he said tonelessly.

Maude was mercifully spared the need to respond, for a commotion had erupted up on the bailey walls. Shouts were echoing on the quiet night air, a challenge offered and met. Moments later, the drawbridge was going down, a lone horseman coming through.

Sliding from the saddle, the rider tossed the reins to the nearest of the guards. “You must awaken the Earl of Gloucester and the empress, for my news cannot wait!”

He was young, weary, and disheveled, but he was exhilarated, too, by the gravity of his mission, and somewhat nervous, now that his moment was at hand. He sounded bellicose, combative, for he was anticipating a refusal. But as he braced himself for a long, heated argument, he glanced across the bailey, recognizing the woman standing upon the steps of the great hall. “Madame, thank God and His good angels!” Unable to believe his luck, he hastened forward and dropped to his knees before Maude. “I am Sir Bennet de Malpas, my lady, cousin and liegeman to my lord Earl of Chester. I bring you his urgent appeal for aid, and his pledge of fealty.”

THERE
was to be no more sleeping at Gloucester that night. Rumors assailed the castle, soon spilling over its bailey walls into the town. The great hall was a scene of confusion and turmoil, but all knew the solar was where the significant activity was occurring. They’d been sequestered above-stairs for hours—Maude, Robert, Miles, Brien, Ranulf, and Baldwin de Redvers—and what they decided would affect many more lives than their own.

Within the solar, there was no sympathy to spare for Chester; he had no friends in this room, and few indeed in the rest of the realm. Nor did they give credence to his sudden conversion, his belated recognition of the justice of Maude’s cause. They well knew that Chester would have embraced the Devil himself in his hour of need. But all of their foregoing feelings were irrelevant to the issue at hand. They would do as Chester wanted, march to Lincoln and confront the king. They had no choice, for the chance might not come again. At Lincoln they could catch Stephen off guard, force a battle that might determine once and for all who would rule England—Maude or Stephen.

The dark had faded away, the sky lightening to a shade of misty pearl, for dawn was nigh by the time Maude returned to her chamber. Minna had turned back the bed coverlets invitingly, and put out a selection of sugared wafers and watered-down wine to break the night’s fast. But Maude had no appetite. Nor could she sleep. Crossing to the window, she opened the shutters, staring down at the uproar below her.

The bailey was crowded and chaotic, at first glance resembling a fairground more than a castle ward. People were rushing about, shouting orders and yelling out questions, trying to dodge the dogs and children darting underfoot. Half the men in the castle were either in the stables or already in the saddle, for they had levies to raise, vassals to summon to arms, horses and carts and supplies to requisition, buy, or barter. Time was the enemy as much as Stephen, and speed of the essence.

Maude did not feel the cold, not on a conscious level, but then Minna draped a mantle about her shoulders and she realized she’d been shivering. The German widow was not one for fussing or coddling; Maude would never have stood for it. But Minna could not help noticing the sleepless smudges under Maude’s eyes, the greyish pallor of her skin. “My lady, you look bone-weary. Can you not spare a few hours to rest?”

“I’d not be able to sleep, Minna.” Maude watched as Miles Fitz Walter bade farewell to his wife, Sybil, then mounted and joined his waiting men. “Last night I told Brien Fitz Count that I saw no end in sight. Now it may well end at Lincoln, might even be over by the start of Lent.”

“Does that not gladden you, madame? I ask because you do not sound glad.”

“There is too much at stake for gladness, Minna.” Maude swung away from the window to face the older woman. “Do you not understand? My hopes, my crown, my son’s legacy—all are balanced upon the blade of a sword. My future will be decided at Lincoln, but not by me. I cannot even be there to watch whilst others decree my fate. Because the Lord God saw fit to make me a woman, I can do naught but wait.”

13

Nottinghamshire, England

January 1141

I
F
winter was the enemy, January was its cruelest weapon. The weather was wet and raw, the road a quagmire of churned-up mud, the men sodden and cold and miserable. They were also uneasy, for warfare as they knew it was comprised of sieges and raids; pitched battles such as they faced at Lincoln were rare. But they kept slogging ahead, mile after plodding mile, impelled by the sheer force of Robert Fitz Roy’s will. He’d already done what many would have thought impossible; in just a fortnight, he’d assembled an army formidable enough to threaten a king. When he then announced that they must be at Claybrook in Leicestershire by January 26th, his men laughed among themselves and made skeptical jokes about sprouting wings. But they reached Claybrook on that last Sunday in January, just as Robert had determined they would, and found the Earl of Chester waiting for them.