When Christ and His Saints Slept (83 page)

When he returned to the hall, the gathering had broken up into smaller groups. Amabel was conversing with Roger’s young wife, Cecily, and Sybil, Miles’s widow. Robert and Maude were talking with Gilbert Foliot, the abbot of Gloucester’s great monastery of St Peter’s. Across the hall, Roger was sharing a joke with Hugh de Plucknet, or so Ranulf assumed, for they were laughing. Closer at hand, Gilbert Fitz John had begun a game of tables with Alexander de Bohun, and Ranulf wandered over to watch his friend play. It was not long, though, before Hugh was beckoning to him.

“How would you fancy a foray into the town?” Hugh asked as soon as he and Ranulf were alone in the window seat. “Earl Roger says there is a new bawdy-house on Here Lane, just beyond the North Gate. You want to come with us after the women and Abbot Gilbert go up to bed?”

Ranulf raised an eyebrow, for he believed a husband owed his wife discretion, if not fidelity, and chasing after whores within shouting distance of Roger’s own castle seemed a foolproof way to set the entire town gossiping, gossip sure to find its way back to Cecily’s ears. He could not help glancing across the hall at Cecily, a plump, pretty girl with a throaty giggle, not yet twenty and already six years a wife. Although Ranulf would never shame Annora like this once they were finally able to wed, he decided that Roger was old enough—at twenty-one—to master his own conscience.

“Why not?” he said, and when he next caught Roger’s eye, he nodded to convey his interest in taking a tour of Gloucester’s best whorehouse. Roger grinned and began to drop such heavy-handed hints about the lateness of the hour that Ranulf and Hugh dared not look at each other, lest they burst out laughing.

Fortunately, indications were pointing to an early evening. Robert had begun to yawn and once Amabel noticed, she’d shepherd her sleepy husband up to bed. Cecily was still much too bright-eyed and chipper, but Maude was more promising, for a messenger had just arrived from Devizes, bearing a letter. She seemed so pleased that Ranulf knew the letter must be from her son or Brien, and as she excused herself to read it, he signaled to Roger and Hugh that they’d soon be on their way.

And indeed, Sybil was already bidding her family and guests goodnight. Robert and Amabel were starting to follow when Maude cried out, turning all heads in her direction. “Do not go, Robert, not yet. I’ve news you must hear.” Maude glanced again at the letter in her hand. “Geoffrey de Mandeville is dead.”

As they all crowded in close to hear, she told them what Brien had written. “Brien says that either Mandeville’s wound was more serious then he claimed or it festered. Whichever, that was an arrow directed by God, for he died a fortnight ago.”

There was a somber silence after that, for damnation was much more fearful than death, even when the man deserved it as much as Geoffrey de Mandeville did. He’d died excommunicate, and even a deathbed repentance was denied him, for the Bishop of Winchester had decreed in his waning days as a papal legate that only the Pope could absolve a man guilty of crimes against the Church.

They all knew, of course, that an excommunicate could sometimes escape his dreadful fate, for Miles had. He, too, had died accursed by the Church, cast out after a bitter clash with the Bishop of Hereford. But he’d had a powerful advocate in his cousin Gilbert Foliot, and after he was struck down on that ill-fated Christmas Eve hunt, the monks of Gloucester had quarreled with the canons of Llanthony Priory over which House would have the honour of burying him.

But they all knew, too, that there would be no such reprieve for Geoffrey de Mandeville. No priest would speak up for him. None would offer prayers for his salvation. His body would lie unclaimed, unable to be buried in consecrated ground. His title and lands would be forfeit, his family shamed. His name would be anathema, a curse to frighten children. And his soul would be forever lost to God, damned to the hottest flames of perdition.

No one spoke for a time. It was left to Ranulf to pronounce Geoffrey de Mandeville’s epitaph. None of them had ever heard him sound as he did now, implacable and unforgiving. “Even if Mandeville burns in Hell for all eternity,” he said, “that would not be long enough to atone for his sins.”

31

Chester, England

June 1145

T
HE
Benedictine abbey of St Werbergh held a three-day fair every year upon the Nativity of St John the Baptist. It was not a gainful time for the merchants of Chester; they were not allowed to sell their wares for the duration of the fair. But the monks profited handsomely from the rental of the booths and stalls set up in front of the abbey’s Great Gate, and people flocked to the fair from all over Cheshire.

The Earl of Chester was not present to open the fair, but his countess acted in his stead, and was warmly welcomed by the monks, for the earl was a generous benefactor to the religious houses in his domains. His enemies jeered that Chester knew his only hope of ever getting to Heaven was to buy his way in, but whatever his motives, the monks were appreciative of his bounty and lavished enough courtesy upon Maud to satisfy a queen.

Maud reveled in the attention, chatting with the merchants, making an occasional purchase as she wandered among the booths, scattering alms to the beggars and children following in her wake, and appearing not to notice as Ranulf and Annora lagged farther and farther behind.

They were attracting stares, too, for Ranulf was trailed by his canine bodyguard, and Annora was proudly showing off her new pet. Pausing to allow two small boys to admire the silvery-grey puppy, she gave Loth a bite of her meat pie; she’d become the dyrehund’s biggest fan since learning how he’d come to Ranulf’s rescue on the Newark-Grantham Road. After explaining to the curious children that the pup was Loth’s son, she picked the little dog up, laughing as he licked her cheek. “I’ve thought of a name for him,” she announced. “Since you gave him to me on the Feast of St John the Baptist, I shall call him John.”

Ranulf made a face. “That is no fitting name for a dog!”

“This from the man who burdened one of God’s beasts with a name like Loth?” Annora gave the dyrehund the rest of her pie and slipped her arm through Ranulf’s. “Where did your squire go?”

“He’s over there, watching that bout with the quarter-staff.” Although she’d voiced no objections to Luke’s presence, Ranulf felt compelled to add, “I finally had to promise Maude that I’d not go off on my own again. She knows about us, Annora, or at least suspects. You might say we’ve entered into an unspoken pact. She does not ask what she’d rather not know for certes, and I agree to take Luke with me.” He shrugged apologetically, but Annora surprised him.

“You think I mind? I only wish you had a dozen Lukes to keep you out of trouble. Or better yet, a dozen Loths! If not for him, I shudder to think what might have befallen you and those poor waifs. Were you ever able to find a home for them?”

“I thought I had. A Southampton merchant heard about them whilst in Bristol to buy wine and offered to take them in. He seemed worthy and had a heartrending story about a stillborn baby and a grieving wife. But it was all lies. He was no vintner, Annora. He ran a bawdy-house on the Southampton docks, and he meant to sell Jennet’s maidenhead to the highest bidder, then force her to whore for him whilst he put Simon out on the street to beg. He’d probably have crippled the lad first, since a lame beggar makes more—”

“Jesú, Ranulf, they did not—”

“No, praise God, but only because the man was careless. Thinking the children were asleep in the back of his cart, he talked freely to his servant about what awaited them in Southampton. Jennet heard and she and Simon fled at their first chance. Fortunately they’d not gone far, and they were able to get safely back to Devizes, scared out of their wits, and who can blame them?”

He shook his head grimly. “After that, I was wary of trusting to the kind hearts of strangers. But Robert’s chaplain eventually found a brewer and his wife who had no children, and since he spoke well of them, I agreed.”

“But you do not sound like a man relating good news,” Annora said, and he shook his head again.

“I was in Bristol a few weeks later, and I stopped by to see how they were getting along. They were toiling away in the brewery like galley slaves, free labor for the good brewer. He could not understand why I was so wroth. Surely I had not expected him to treat a villein’s children like his own blood?”

“So you took them back to Devizes.” Annora was frowning in thought. “Surely there must be something we can do. What if you offered a corrody for the lass?” Almost at once, though, she saw the flaw in that. “But then, no nunnery would accept a villein’s daughter, would it?”

“No, not likely. Besides, they ought not to be separated. All they have is each other.”

“And you,” Annora pointed out. “How long ere they start calling you Papa?”

Ranulf called her a brat, but he did not mind her teasing, for it was just that—teasing. Annora was one of the few people who not only understood but approved of his efforts on the orphans’ behalf. To others, the fact of the children’s low birth was all that counted. But to Annora, what mattered was their youth and their need. Ranulf had never known anyone so protective of children as she. She was not indiscriminate; she had met children she’d not liked. But she’d never met a child she would not help. “I wish I could take them,” she said, and sighed regretfully. “I know I could find a place for them on our Shropshire manor. But we cannot risk it. All we’d need would be for my husband to hear them chattering about the heroic Lord Ranulf, who catches arrows in his teeth and walks on water!”

The joke went awry, though, the word
husband
dragging it down like an anchor. Ranulf said nothing, but his silence spoke volumes. Annora at once realized her mistake and set about remedying it. Once she’d coaxed him into a better humor, he told her the rest. Back at Devizes, the children were safe and earning their keep, Jennet in the laundry and Simon in the stables. He had hopes, though, that better lay ahead. One of the grooms seemed smitten with Jennet, and since she was nigh on fifteen now…

Annora smiled, seeing where he was heading. He would provide a marriage portion for Jennet, she’d wed the stable groom, Simon would go to live with them, and all would be well. It was just like Ranulf, she thought; with him, a happy ending was always a foregone conclusion. But such was the power of his faith that when she was with him, she found herself believing in happy endings, too.

At her urging, Ranulf bought them both cups of apple cider, and they wandered over to watch a man entertaining the fairgoers with a trained monkey. Annora was more interested in Ranulf’s gossip, though, than the monkey’s antics. “Of course I remember John Marshal,” she said, “that madman who trapped poor Gilbert in the burning church belfry. Why? What has he been up to now?”

“For the past year he has been feuding with a neighbor, Patrick Fitz Walter, the sheriff of Wiltshire. It was a mismatch, for Patrick was much more powerful, especially after gaining the earldom of Salisbury. So John decided it would be prudent to make peace, and to prove his good faith, he offered to wed Patrick’s sister.”

“I thought Marshal had a wife?”

“Not for long. He is getting his marriage annulled, having discovered that he and his wife are related within the prohibited degree and have thus been living in sin for the past fifteen years.”

“You mean he is casting his wife aside like a worn-out pair of boots?” Annora exclaimed, and was indignant when Ranulf laughed.

“I was laughing,” he defended himself, “because those were Maude’s very words. She’d taken a liking to John’s wife and—Annora? Did you hear someone call out my name?”

Even as she shook her head, the cry came again, urgently. “Lord Ranulf!” One of Maud’s ladies-in-waiting was gesturing frantically. “The countess has been taken ill!”

Shouldering his way roughly through the crowd, Ranulf found his niece clinging for support to a draper’s booth, surrounded by alarmed attendants, flustered monks, and curious onlookers. Her face was waxwhite, her skin damp with sweat, and her eyes glazed with fear. “Take me home,” she gasped, and when he lifted her up in his arms, he saw the blood staining her skirt.