dusk, but to the east, the sky glowed, and within a mile, he knew why-the city of Cantebrigge was afire. The first structure to come into sight were the stone walls of the castle, and then the rippling grey surface of the River Granta. The town lay just beyond, wreathed in smoke. Ranulf had been in Cantebrigge before, during his father’s reign, and as he looked now upon the charred and blackened shell off to his right, he knew it had once been a church, even remembered the name: All Saints by the Castle. Reining in his stallion, he stared at the ruins in shocked silence. All Saints was well away from the town; flames could not have spread that far. To have burned, the church must have been deliberately torched.
He was close enough now to see people wandering about, and it was like being back in the smoldering streets of Winchester, watching as dazed survivors stumbled about aimlessly in the wreckage of their lives. Loth growled softly, looking up at Ranulf with anxious eyes, for the scent of death was in the air. But it was then that Ranulf noticed the castle portcullis was up and the gates ajar. So it was over. The dying was done; the grieving only just begun.
Ranulf did not want to go any farther, to see any more. There would be bodies in the rubble of those smoking houses and looted shops. There would be bloodstains in the streets, but no screaming or wailing, not yet. When grief came so suddenly, the bereft were silent, too stunned for tears. He’d been at Lincoln, at Winchester, at Oxford. He knew what he’d find.
A slight, stooped figure was trudging up the street toward the castle, his priest’s cassock befouled with blood. He seemed unaware of his surroundings, but as he passed Ranulf, his step slowed and his aged eyes focused upon the younger man’s face. Recognition was mutual, and as dangerous as it might be, Ranulf did not deny it. Instead, he swung from the saddle to stand in the street beside the old man, chaplain for more years than he could remember at his father’s royal castle of Cantebrigge. “Father Osmond,” he said, “are you injured?”
“The blood is not mine.” If the priest was surprised to encounter the old king’s son in a town under Stephen’s dominion, he gave no sign of it. “I never thought,” he said, “to see such suffering, to see the innocents struck down in God’s Sight. There was killing even in the churches, where people had fled for refuge.”
He was far more feeble than Ranulf remembered, and he reached out, put a steadying hand on the priest’s elbow. “When did this happen?”
“Last night. They came in the night like thieves, but they came to kill. Some of the people were able to get into the castle, but the others…the ones caught in their houses, their beds…” His mouth trembled; he had a priest’s familiarity with death, but not like this.
“I looked upon evil, Lord Ranulf. We saw the Devil’s work. They showed no mercy, forced householders to divulge where their valuables were hidden, then cut their throats. They plundered St Radegund’s nunnery and raped honest women in front of their husbands. They deliberately burned churches and stole from God. They spared neither the young nor the old nor the weak, and their killing was wanton, done for the sport of it. And when they rode off, they took all our livestock and they loaded carts with their plunder and they carried off women, even some of the nuns. I know war and this was not war. Not even the infidel Saracens could be so cruel, so deserving of damnation…”
Ranulf, too, had thought he knew war. But never had he seen the sort of savagery the priest had just described. An outlaw army, composed of brigands and felons, the very dregs of the gutter, led by one who feared neither man nor God. And if he’d taken a different road, he and Jennet and Simon might have run right into them. “Who was it?” he said, already knowing what the priest would say.
“The Devil’s spawn. That son of perdition, Geoffrey de Mandeville.”
30
Devizes Castle, England
January 1144
The drawbridge was lowered at once for Ranulf, and by the time he’d dismounted, his squire was racing across the inner bailey. “Where have you been, my lord? We’d given up all hope of ever seeing you again!”
“I had my own doubts, too, Luke. But how did you know I was in trouble? I did not tell my sister when I’d be returning.”
“The empress had a letter from the Countess of Chester. Lady Maud was uneasy, not having heard from you as promised. And when you missed Christmas, we knew something was wrong. The empress wanted to send men out to search for you, but we did not know where to begin. My lord…may I speak freely? I do not know why you go off on these mysterious journeys of yours, and it is obvious that you do not want me-or anyone else-to know. But I would take your secret to the grave, that I pledge upon my honour and hopes of salvation. In Stephen’s England, life has become too cheap for a man to venture out alone.”
Ranulf was touched and gave the younger man a quick smile, although he avoided making Luke any promises. “If you’ll take our mounts into the stable,” he said, “I’ll get the children inside where they can thaw out.” At that, Luke abandoned his polite pretense of ignoring his lord’s unlikely traveling companions, but Ranulf deflected his curiosity with a murmured, “I’ll tell you about it once I’ve seen my sister.”
He led them toward the great hall, Simon and Jennet keeping so close to Ranulf that they were in danger of treading upon his heels. They’d almost reached the door when his nephew came bursting through it. “I knew you’d come back safe! But Mama has been fretting night and day over you, Uncle Ranulf, and she’ll likely scorch your ears for scaring us so. Of course if it was me, I’d have gotten my rump blistered, so you’ll be getting off easy!”
Ranulf laughed and ushered all three children into the hall. “Over to the hearth,” he directed, before adding, “Harry, I want you to look after Simon and Jennet whilst I seek out your mother.”
He’d become oddly protective of these orphans of the Fens, but he had no qualms now about entrusting them to Henry. His nephew had his share of swagger and was not one for backing down when challenged; in Bristol, he and Miles’s youngest son, Mahel, had gone from being rivals to outright enemies after a rough-and-tumble game of hot cockles. But as much as Henry liked his own way, he did not take unfair advantage of his privileged position. As young as he was, he seemed to understand that it was no more sporting to bully a servant than it would be to shoot a nesting bird, and Ranulf had concluded that a child was indeed more than the sum of his parents, for he did not associate a sense of fair play with Geoffrey, nor with his sister, either, for all that he loved her.
“You be on your best behavior with them, Harry, for they’ve never been in a castle before. Nor do they speak any French.”
“It is lucky then, that I’ve learned a little bit of English.”
Ranulf was not deceived by the boy’s offhand manner-he could recognize bragging in reverse when he saw it-and he made sure that his nephew got the praise he was craving. Turning then, to Simon and Jennet, he switched over to stilted English. “This is my nephew, the Lord Harry. He’ll stay with you till I get back.” They could not hide their dismay at being separated from him, even briefly, but he knew they’d do as he bade them; they were as trusting as Loth and far more obedient.
There was no need, though, to hunt for Maude. She was already rushing into the hall, a mantle hastily flung over her shoulders. “Ranulf, thank God! I thought you were dead, too!” A quick, convulsive hug; he could feel her trembling, her tension. She looked exhausted, her skin stretched as taut as her nerves, so pallid she might have just risen from a sickbed. Stepping back, she still held on to his arm, her fingers gripping hard enough to hurt. “Why were you visiting Maud in secret? And why in God’s Name did you go off on your own like that? Where have you been?”
“Cantebrigge,” he said simply, and she went even paler. Before she could speak, he drew her toward the hearth, appropriating a couple of chairs. “I know we’ve much to say to each other, and I am indeed sorry for worrying you. But first there is a story I must tell you, one I’d hoped to keep to myself. I brought back company- those two scared fledglings Harry has taken under his wing.”
As concisely as possible, he related then his adventures since encountering Simon and Jennet on the Newark-Grantham Road. “We finally reached Cantebrigge,” he concluded, “on the day after Mandeville’s raid. The town was still smoldering; it was Winchester all over again. And I could find no one who’d even heard of Jonas the tanner. If he’d ever been there, he was long gone.”
He grimaced in remembered frustration. “So…I took them back with me. What else could I do, Maude? They could never fend for themselves, would soon starve-if worse did not befall them. And the people of Cantebrigge had
