Annora swallowed. “I…I am well. Truly, Gervase, I am. It is just so hot…” She managed a feeble smile, all the while keeping her gaze riveted upon Ranulf. Gervase and Lucette were fussing over her, insisting she move into the shade, signaling for a vendor to bring her a cider drink. As Ranulf watched her, it seemed to him as if the distance were widening between them, although neither one had moved. Color was slowly coming back into Annora’s face; she no longer looked so terrified, but her eyes were wide and dark, filled with mute entreaty. Ranulf took a backward step, then turned and walked away.
Ranulf left Shrewsbury that same day. He had no set destination in mind, wanting only to put as many miles as he could between himself and Gervase’s “Nan,” Lucette’s “Mama.” He was not ready to go home, though, and rode in the opposite direction, taking the road that led north.
It had not been a conscious choice, and he was halfway to Chester before he realized where he was heading. He was to be disappointed, for Maud was not at Chester Castle. She and her lord husband were awaiting the birth of her child upon one of his Welsh manors, the earl’s servants reported, and only then did Ranulf remember that his niece was less than a month away from her lying-in.
He could have continued on into Wales. But he was done with acting upon impulse, without thinking first, for where had it ever gotten him? He was not going to burden Maud with his troubles at a time when she ought to be thinking only of her baby. He lingered a few more days at Chester, and then slowly, reluctantly, started back toward Devizes.
The borderlands were lawless in even the best of times. But once again, Ranulf rode unscathed over some of the most perilous roads in Stephen’s realm. It may have been that indifference was the most formidable armor of all, that bandits somehow sensed the danger in attacking a man who felt he had nothing left to lose. It may have been no more than happenchance, sheer good fortune. Whatever the explanation, Ranulf reached Devizes safely in early September, bone-tired and disheveled and heartsick.
Night had long since fallen by the time Ranulf dismounted in the bailey of Devizes Castle. He was handing the reins to a stable groom when Hugh de Plucknet came hastening out of the hall, a swaying lantern held aloft. “Is that you, Ranulf? Good God, man, where have you been? We’d begun to despair of ever seeing you alive again. Do you…do you know?”
“Know what?” Ranulf asked, but without interest. “Whatever your news, Hugh, hold it till the morrow. Tonight I want only to get myself up to bed.” It was not to be that easy, however, for a woman’s figure was framed in the open doorway of the hall, familiar even in shadow. Ranulf heaved a weary sigh, cursed his wretched sense of timing, and moved to meet his sister.
“Maude, I know you are furious with me for going off as I did,” he said abruptly, hoping to delay her lecture. “I promise I’ll hear you out, offer you all the apologies you want, but not now, not tonight.”
Maude looked as exhausted as Ranulf felt, her dark eyes ringed with sleepless shadows, but he could find no traces of anger in their depths. “I am not going to reproach you,” she said. “But I must talk to you, Ranulf, and it cannot wait.”
Whatever she had to tell him, he did not want to hear, not more bad news, not tonight. But Maude would not be denied. Once they were alone in her dimly lit solar, she seemed in no hurry to unburden herself, instead fretting about the flickering candles, insisting upon pouring wine for them both, until he lost all patience and demanded to know what could not wait till the morrow.
Maude turned slowly to face him. “I have grievous news for you,” she said haltingly. “The day after you rode away on your own, your friend Gilbert Fitz John arrived, stopping over on his way to Bristol. When he learned that you’d gone off alone, he was so dismayed that he insisted upon going after you. He sent a message to Robert that he would be delayed, and then he and Luke and their escort set out after you.”
“I do not understand,” Ranulf said uneasily, “why they did not overtake me, then, for I tarried along the way. But I did not see them at Shrewsbury, nor on the road.”
“They never got there, Ranulf. They’d ridden less than ten miles when a fox chased a rabbit out onto the road, spooking their horses. The others were able to get their mounts back under control, but Gilbert was not so lucky and he…he was thrown.”
Ranulf’s mouth was suddenly dry. “Was he bad hurt?”
“I am so sorry,” she whispered, “so very sorry. He broke his neck in the fall. Ranulf, he is dead.”
36
Devizes, England
October 1147
“Ranulf…” Maude hesitated, unsure how to proceed. Her every instinct urged against trespassing across emotional boundaries, for she respected the privacy of pain as few others did. But she’d begun to feel as if she were witnessing a drowning, and her greatest fear now was that her lifeline would fall short.
“Ranulf…you know that a wound can fester if it is not tended, spreading its poison throughout the entire body. Grief can fester like that, too. My chaplain says that you refused to talk to him again.”
“I had nothing to say to him.”
“You have nothing to say to anyone these days. That is what worries me.” She waited, soon saw he was not going to respond. He’d picked up the fire tongs and was prodding the hearth back to life, his face hidden; all she could see was a thatch of fair hair, gilded by firelight. Maude watched him in silence for several moments, and then said purposefully, “Luke thinks that you blame him for Gilbert’s death.”
As she’d hoped, that got his attention. “That is not so,” he said hotly. “I do not blame Luke!”
“I know,” she said. “You blame yourself.” She closed the space between them, reaching for his arm. “Ranulf, listen to me. It was not your fault. How could you know that Gilbert would follow you to Shrewsbury? What befell him was tragic, but it was an accident. It could as easily have happened on the Bristol Road-”
“But it did not.” The words were wrenched from Ranulf, against his will. He at once repudiated them, saying huskily, “Maude, just let it be.”
She studied his face, and then reluctantly loosed her hold upon his arm. “I want you to go to Bristol,” she said. “I want you to find out how Robert’s plans are progressing for our new offensive against Stephen.”
He frowned. “Why me? Why not send Hugh or Alexander?”
“Because,” she insisted, “I want to send you.” At the door, she paused, glancing back over her shoulder. “If you cannot talk to me,” she said, “mayhap you can talk to Robert.”
Maude was wrong. Robert was the last one Ranulf could have confided in. What could he say, that because of his adulterous affair with another man’s wife, his best friend was dead? Even if he no longer deserved it, he could not lose Robert’s respect. He despised himself, though, for his moral cowardice. He’d not been able to bring himself to face Gilbert’s widow, Ella, and now he could not bear for Robert to know the truth about him. What was that if not the worst sort of cowardice?
But Ranulf’s shattered spirits flickered and the ache in his chest eased somewhat as the walls of Bristol came into view. Even if he could not unburden himself to his brother, just being with Robert would be a comfort. He could cling to Robert’s abiding calm like a shipwrecked sailor, like so many others in need. Robert was always there for them all, a refuge for the lost and the disheartened and the damned. Mayhap Maude had known what she was about, after all, in sending him to Bristol.
The east gate of the castle swung open as soon as Ranulf identified himself. He and his men dismounted in the bailey, and he handed the reins of his stallion to Luke. “If you’ll unsaddle him for me, lad, I’ll seek out my brother and see about getting us all fed.”
That sounded good to his tired and hungry men, and they headed for the stables, eager to get this final task over with. Luke nodded and followed, cheered by Ranulf’s smile; he’d not seen it for weeks. The bailey was oddly empty, no servants in sight. But Ranulf knew the layout of Bristol Castle well enough to find his way blindfolded; for the past eight years, it had been his second home. The stone tower of the keep rose up against the western sky, crested by sunset clouds, the most likely place to find his brother. He was halfway there when a familiar figure appeared in the doorway, cried out his name, and then started toward him at a run.
Puzzled, Ranulf quickened his pace. “Will?”
By the time Robert’s firstborn reached him, he was flushed and panting, badly winded by even so short a
