one else can make me as angry as you do. You are impulsive and impractical and so stubborn that-”
Ranulf stopped her words, effectively and pleasurably. When Annora got her breath back, she gave a low, shaken laugh. “You ought not to have interrupted me, for I was going to admit that I am utterly besotted with you, for better or worse.”
“Are you? Prove it,” Ranulf challenged, and she set about convincing him, with such success that he was soon unfastening the lacings of her gown. She was reaching up to unbraid her hair, knowing how he loved it loose and free-flowing, when they were jarred by a sudden, sharp knocking on the door. Sitting up, they hastily adjusted their clothing, waiting to see if the knocking would stop.
It did not. “Ranulf, it is me-Maud. Let me in.”
As soon as Ranulf unbarred the door, Maud swept into the chamber. She never just entered a room; she made an entrance. This one was more dramatic than usual, for her face was flushed and her dark eyes were flashing. “Men,” she exclaimed, “are the most vexing creatures in Christendom-never around when you want them, always underfoot when you do not. My husband, who is supposed to be at Lincoln, has ridden into the bailey.”
Ranulf and Annora’s instinctive alarm passed as soon as they saw that Maud was irritated, not fearful. They hurriedly smoothed the rumpled bedcovers, were making a final check for incriminating evidence when they heard Chester’s voice blaring in the stairwell, loud enough to rival any hunting horn. “Maud? Where the Devil are you?”
Like his wife, Chester never simply entered a room, instead hurling himself across the threshold as if he were about to launch an assault. But he was not in a rage; quite the contrary. Taking hold of Maud’s hands, he grinned down at her cheerfully. “Glad to have me home, girl?” Not waiting for her response, he kissed her exuberantly, bending her backward in a passionate embrace, one that seemed likely to lead straight to their bed-had he not caught movement from the corner of his eye and realized they were not alone.
“Who are you?” he asked, staring at Annora in surprise; he’d yet to notice Ranulf.
“This is Annora Fitz Clement, Randolph, one of my oldest friends. I am sure you must remember how often I’ve talked about her in the past.”
“Of course I remember,” Chester insisted, his eyes flickering over Annora, without any real interest. “I trust you are enjoying your visit with Maud,” he added politely, if unenthusiastically, and then swung around as Ranulf stepped forward.
They knew no reason why Chester should look so startled at sight of Ranulf, for he was Maud’s favorite uncle. But it was quite clear to them all that Chester did not expect to find Ranulf here. “Why are you not with Maude, now of all times?” he demanded. “It is an incredible stroke of luck, for certes, but she must act swiftly if she is to take full advantage of-Why are you looking at me so oddly? Unless…you do not know, do you? You’ve not yet heard about Stephen!”
“I heard he went north,” Ranulf said warily. “What else should I know?”
Chester shook his head impatiently. “Stephen left York after Easter. He’d gotten as far as Northampton when he was stricken with a fever, the kind that burns hotter than any fire, that consumes a man like kindling.” Chester saw Ranulf’s shock and he smiled, grimly, with infinite satisfaction. “He is said to be dying.”
Stephen had never been trapped in a nightmare like this one, for it would not end. Somehow he knew it was a dream, and he kept trying to wake up. But it was as if he were caught in a riptide, being dragged farther and farther from shore and safety. He would not give up, though, and struggled on toward the light.
When he finally broke free, he found himself in a stranger’s bed in an unfamiliar bedchamber. Even his body seemed to belong to someone else, for the coverlets were weighing him down like lead and his lungs wheezed and heaved as if he were starved for air. He wanted to say that he was thirsty; the words stuck in his throat. When he tried again, they emerged as the thinnest and weakest of whispers.
“Stephen? Thank God All-merciful! Henry…Henry, come quickly!” This voice was a woman’s. The face bending over him was pale and tear-marked. “My love, do you know me?” Matilda pleaded, and when he mouthed her name, she fumbled in the blankets for his hand. “You’ve been so ill,” she said, almost inaudibly. “The doctors despaired. Do you…remember?”
“I think so…” His lips were chapped and raw, blistered by fever. “You kept calling to me,” he said hazily. “I followed the sound…”
And then his brother was there, shouldering Matilda aside in his urgency. “Stephen, listen to me. You’ve not been shriven, for you’ve been out of your senses with the fever. You must make your confession to me now, so you can go to God cleansed of your sins.”
“Am I dying?”
Matilda made an involuntary movement, quickly checked. But the bishop did not flinch. “I hope not,” he said, “I truly hope not. But we cannot put your immortal soul at risk, for we are all in God’s Hands, and I would not be so presumptuous as to promise you what only He can decree.”
“I agree.” Stephen’s voice was slurred and scratchy, and when Matilda put a cup to his lips, he drank gratefully, greedily. “I want to be shriven. But not by you, Henry.” He looked up at his brother, the corner of his mouth curving as he added, “You already know…too many of my guilty secrets…”
The bishop was not amused. “Very well,” he said stiffly, “if that is your wish. I shall fetch your confessor straightaway.”
Matilda saw that half-smile of Stephen’s through a blur of tears, for she was suddenly hearing her own words, so often directed at her lighthearted husband in gentle, bemused reproach, that he’d be jesting verily upon his deathbed.
“Tilda.” Stephen cut his eyes toward the cup she still held, and she helped him to drink again. “Thank you,” he said, and then, softly, “Do not be afraid. I am not going to die.”
She swallowed. “You promise?”
“Yes,” he said, and squeezed her hand before giving her another ghostly shadow of a smile. “It would give you too much pain and my enemies too much pleasure.”
Maude’s shrinking circle of partisans had been summoned back to Devizes Castle on a wet, warm day in mid-June. As they gathered in the great hall, waiting for the council to begin, there were gaps in their ranks, missing faces. The Scots king had elected to remain on his own side of the border. Rainald was still in Cornwall, trying to save his imperiled earldom. More dubious allies like Hugh Bigod and Geoffrey de Mandeville’s brother-in- law the Earl of Oxford were keeping their distance. But Miles Fitz Walter was there. So were Baldwin de Redvers and the exiled lord of Shrewsbury, William Fitz Alan. From Wallingford had come Brien Fitz Count, and from Marlborough, John Marshal, the worst of his wounds hidden behind a rakish eye patch.
As they waited for Maude and Robert to join them, they swapped stories about the dangers of the road these days. Roving bands of outlaws were springing up like dragon’s teeth, for there was no more fertile soil for banditry than a realm in the throes of civil war and anarchy. They then shared the latest rumors about Stephen’s health. By now they knew the worst-that those early reports of his death had been regrettably premature. While he’d been laid up at Northampton for the entire month of May, word filtering south was that he was expected to recover. They indulged in some grim, gallows humor at Stephen’s expense, but their jests were labored, for Stephen’s death would have won them a kingdom. Few in this war-battered and bleeding land would have had the stomach to continue the struggle on behalf of Stephen’s young son Eustace.
And so they cursed Stephen’s luck and sheer stamina, and cursed, too, the doctors who’d tended to him and the priests who’d prayed for him. But by common consent, they did not discuss the reason for their presence at Devizes on this Trinity Sunday-to hear Geoffrey’s answer. It had taken three months for Maude’s envoys to bring back her husband’s response, and they did not think that boded well for their cause.
When Robert and Maude entered, with Ranulf following a step behind, their faces were somber enough to confirm the worst. Miles was the one to put it into words, saying with a soldier’s bluntness, “Geoffrey balked at coming, did he not?”
To their surprise, Maude shook her head. “No, he did not refuse,” she said, but then added reluctantly, “… outright. He says he is loath to break off his campaign in Normandy, for he has met with considerable success. He is willing, though, to consider it, if we can convince him that his presence in England could truly mark a turning point in our war to overthrow Stephen. But he says the only opinion he can trust is Robert’s, and so he insists that Robert come back to Normandy to discuss it in person.”
“A long and dangerous trip,” Robert said morosely, “and most likely a futile one. Geoffrey does not want my counsel, he wants my help in his war. Too many Normans view Angevins as spawns of the Devil. With me riding at
