nothing to spare; the last thing the town needed was more orphans.”
He was talking faster than usual, partly from embarrassment and partly to keep Maude from interrupting until he was done. So far she’d listened in silence, although she’d occasionally shaken her head at the risks he’d taken. “I thought,” he said, “that we could ask the priests in Devizes and Bristol for help. They might know of a family willing to take Simon and Jennet in, mayhap one who’d lost a son-”
He stopped in surprise as Maude jumped to her feet. “I cannot talk about this,” she said sharply, “not now!” And before Ranulf could react, she spun away from him, exiting the hall so rapidly that it was almost as if she were fleeing. Ranulf was nonplussed. He’d been braced for gibes and raillery, knowing full well that few would understand his compassion for a runaway serf’s children. But he’d counted upon Maude to be more indulgent, if only because women were taught to be tolerant of male folly. The rebuff stung all the more, then, for being unexpected.
Staring after Maude, Ranulf started at the sound of “Uncle Ranulf,” for he’d not noticed as Henry edged unobtrusively within eavesdropping range. The boy looked unhappy, much too mature for his years. “Mama is not angry with you,” he said. “She has been grieving ever since we heard, and-”
“Jesu,” Ranulf breathed, for his sister’s words had suddenly come back to him, taking on a new and sinister significance. “I thought,” she’d cried, “you were dead, too!” Ranulf started to speak, had to swallow first. “Who?” he asked hoarsely. “Who died, lad?”
“The Earl of Hereford.”
“Miles?” Ranulf sank back in the chair he’d just vacated. “How? I did not know he was ailing.”
“He was not. He was slain on Christmas Eve…by mischance. He’d gone hunting in Dean Forest, and one of his companions misfired an arrow. It hit him in the chest and he died there in the woods.”
“What a meaningless way to die…” It occurred to Ranulf, then, that most deaths seemed meaningless these days; for what greater good had the citizens of Cantebrigge died? “May God forgive his earthly sins,” Ranulf said softly. He’d never shared Maude’s fondness for Miles. But the political ramifications of his death were far-reaching and dangerous. He’d been one of Maude’s most powerful and steadfast supporters, one she could not afford to lose.
“Uncle Ranulf, there is more. Mama got a letter yesterday from my father. He wants me to come back home.”
Ranulf sat upright. “And she agreed?” he asked, too surprised for discretion.
“Not at first. Not until I…I told her that I wanted to go.” Henry’s lashes swept down like shields, but not in time, and Ranulf felt a wrenching pang of pity for the boy. He wanted to assure Henry that missing his father was no cause for guilt, but he knew it was futile; in this war of tangled and torn loyalties, Henry’s conflicted battlefield was his heart.
Simon and Jennet had trailed timidly after Henry, and Ranulf summoned them over. “You will be staying here for now,” he said, and they nodded solemnly, for they never asked questions, their faith even stronger than their fear. No one had ever shown such utter confidence in him; it was both a great compliment and a great burden.
Leaving them with Henry, he started to go after Maude. He stopped, though, before he reached the door. He knew now what had sent her fleeing from the hall-his careless talk of “losing a son.” She’d not thank him for following her. She was as shy of showing her pain in public as her ten-year-old son. But Harry would outgrow his emotional skittishness. For his sister, it was too late.
Stephen hastily gathered an army to put down Geoffrey de Mandeville’s rebellion. But Mandeville refused to do battle and retreated deeper into the Fens. Stephen set about erecting castles in an attempt to contain the bloodshed. He then marched north in the hopes of catching the Earl of Chester’s garrison off guard at Lincoln Castle.
For most of England, it was neither a happy nor a peaceful spring. Maude’s partisans were still mourning Miles. Stephen’s supporters were troubled by his failure to bring Geoffrey de Mandeville to swift, summary justice. In Yorkshire, the Earl of Chester was pillaging the lands of the rival Earl of York. And in the Fens, the killing continued.
By May, the royal gardens at Westminster Palace were in bloom, and Constance was able to pick an armful of primroses and daisies and violets, intending to surprise her mother-in-law with the first bouquet of the season. But she was the one who got the surprise, for she found Matilda in tears. Constance froze, jolted by fear. Eustace had gone north with Stephen to Lincoln Castle, having persuaded his father that he was old enough, at fourteen, to witness his first siege. But it never even occurred to Constance that he might be in peril. Dropping the flowers, she ran toward the bed. “Maman, what is wrong? Nothing has happened to Papa Stephen?”
Matilda sat up, wiping away tears. “No, child, no. The last I heard from Stephen, he and Eustace were quite well, although sorely vexed because the siege was going so poorly.”
Constance sighed with relief. She might loathe her husband, but she adored her in-laws, felt far closer to them than to her own parents. She’d been just eight when her father died; she remembered only a gross mountain of flesh, a man grown so corpulent that he could no longer ride a horse or fit onto a throne, known to the more irreverent of his subjects as Louis le Gros. Her mother had been a remote, detached figure, seldom seen and soon gone; after quarreling with her lively and willful young daughter-in-law, the dowager queen had conceded the field to Eleanor, withdrawing to her own dower estates and wedding again in unseemly haste. While Constance was fond of her brother, the French king, and dazzled by the siren he’d married, she’d been on the periphery of their hectic, whirlwind lives. She’d not learned what it was like to belong until she’d come as a child bride to this alien land of England.
Perching on the foot of the bed, she asked shyly, “Why then, are you so sad?”
“I had bad news this morn. The castle at Rouen surrendered to Geoffrey of Anjou on the 23rd of April.”
Constance did not know what to say, for surely Matilda must have expected this; the city itself had yielded back in January, and all knew the castle would eventually fall, too. “I suppose,” she ventured, “this means Lord Geoffrey will claim the duchy for himself?”
“He has already done so, Constance…and with the blessing and full consent of the French Crown.”
“My brother has agreed to recognize him as duke? But…but why?”
“Because Geoffrey agreed in his turn to cede Gizors and the Vexin to Louis,” Matilda said, truthfully but tactlessly. She at once regretted her candor, for Constance blushed deeply, as if she were the one shamed by her brother’s diplomatic double-dealing.
“I…I am so sorry, Maman,” she stammered, and Matilda hastily reached for her hand, giving it a reassuring pat.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, child. I am the one being foolish, for I knew this day was coming. I ought not to have let it disquiet me so. But this bodes ill for England, for any faltering hopes of peace. Even if Stephen were able to drive Maude and all her kith and kin into the sea, that would not end the war…not now. Too many of Stephen’s barons have holdings in Normandy.”
She did not elaborate, nor did she need to. Constance understood. With England and Normandy now severed, the English barons were confronted with a hard choice. If they recognized Geoffrey as their liege lord in Normandy, they risked having their English estates confiscated by Stephen. But if they balked at acknowledging Geoffrey, that would place their Normandy lands in jeopardy. Loyalty to Stephen kept Matilda from admitting it, but Constance knew what she feared-that men would conclude it was more dangerous to antagonize Geoffrey than Stephen.
“Do not fret, Maman. Papa Stephen will win his war, for surely the Almighty must favor him over that shrewish woman and her accursed Angevin husband. Back in Paris, all knew the Angevin counts sprang from the Devil’s loins. Papa Stephen will prevail, you’ll see. He’ll have a long and peaceful reign and…and by the time Eustace follows him to the throne, no one will even remember Maude’s name.”
She’d meant to offer comfort, but Matilda frowned and looked away, and Constance caught her breath, stunned by what she’d seen for an unguarded moment in her mother-in-law’s eyes. She detested Eustace, and Matilda loved him, but they shared the same secret unease, the same unspoken doubts about what kind of king Eustace would be.
Maude had seen little of Robert and Ranulf that summer; they’d spent most of it in the saddle, chasing after Stephen. After some skirmishing around Malmesbury, Stephen had moved on to lay siege to the nearby castle at Tetbury. Robert and Miles’s eldest son, Roger, had then swooped down upon Tetbury. But Stephen’s outnumbered barons had refused to fight, and he’d broken off the siege, once again thwarting Robert’s hopes of forcing a resolution upon the field of battle.
After the disappointment at Tetbury, they returned to Gloucester and Maude joined them there during the
