sprint, for he was as indulgent in his habits as his father was sparing, and he’d begun to develop a paunch while still in his twenties. He was in his thirties now, several years Ranulf’s senior, cheerful and gregarious but not redoubtable, a sapling stunted by his sire’s formidable shadow. Ranulf had rarely seen him so flustered, for he’d inherited Robert’s equable temperament, if not his capacity for command. “How did you get here so fast?” he demanded. “We just sent a man out this morn. Where is Aunt Maude? She did come with you? Christ Jesus, surely she understood-”
“Understood what? Will, you’re raving. Start over-at the beginning.”
Will gulped in a great lungful of air. There was an autumn chill in the bailey, but beads of sweat had broken out upon his forehead. “You got no message, then? No, of course you did not. What was I thinking of? No man could get to Devizes and back in but a day-”
“Will! Name of God, man, what is wrong?”
“It is my father. It came upon him without warning, a sudden fever…” Will’s mouth trembled and he struggled to blink back tears. “Christ pity us all, Ranulf, for the fool doctors…they say Papa is dying!”
Ranulf was slumped in a window seat of his brother’s bedchamber, his muscles cramped and stiff from so many hours of immobility. He’d lost track of the days, could not have said how long he’d been at Bristol. He measured time differently now; nothing mattered but the dwindling number of Robert’s labored breaths. Night had fallen again, but the chamber was still crowded; men who’d come to bid their dying lord farewell lingered as long as possible, loath to let go.
Baldwin de Redvers stumbled away from the bed, blowing his nose in a napkin. William Fitz Alan was the next to go, head down, face wet. Each day brought more of them, Robert’s friends and vassals. Robert had insisted that longtime servants be admitted, too, and men-at-arms who’d bled for him and would have died for him now if given the chance.
The men usually withdrew at sunset; that was the family’s time. Ranulf knew the priests would not go far, though-just in case. Few kings had so many clerics at their deathbeds, but Robert had been one of the Church’s most generous benefactors. He’d founded a Benedictine priory in Bristol, established a Cistercian abbey at Margam in South Wales, and he’d shown particular favor to the abbeys of Tewkesbury and Gloucester and Neath. Gilbert Foliot and Abbot Roger of Tewkesbury were in daily attendance, praying first for Robert’s recovery and then, when the doctors could not bring down his fever, for his immortal soul.
Ranulf had seen fever scramble a man’s wits, but so far, Robert remained conscious and coherent. After he’d been shriven of his earthly sins, he’d made his will, provided for alms to the poor, asked to be buried at his Bristol priory, and sought promises from his liegemen that they’d be as loyal to his son as they’d been to him. He was dying, Ranulf thought, as he’d lived, competently and quietly and with dignity, and Holy God Above, what would they do without him?
Amabel was sitting on the bed beside her husband, his hand clasped in hers. When she was not bending over to whisper private endearments or encouragements, she was watching his heaving chest, almost as if she were willing his every breath. She was younger than Robert, who’d celebrated his fifty-seventh birthday that summer, but she seemed to have aged years in a matter of days. Ranulf could not look long upon her face, so naked was her grief.
Maude was standing by the bed. Silent tears were spilling over again; she made no attempt to wipe them away, did not even seem to notice. Robert’s children were clustered at the foot of the bed, as if afraid to stray too far. Roger’s pallor was accentuated by his dark priestly garb, but it was the son, not the priest, who occasionally choked back a sob. Hamon’s eyes were red-rimmed, his shoulders hunched and fists knotted in a futile defiance of Death. And Will sat, frozen, upon a coffer he’d dragged near the bed. He was about to come into his own, into great wealth and power. But he looked dazed, like a man soon to be cast adrift with no land in sight.
There were missing faces in the circle, loved ones whose absence grew more ominous as Robert’s strength waned. Brien was under siege again at Wallingford. Robert’s second son, Richard, was in Normandy, Rainald in Cornwall. Maud was on her way from Wales. And they all took great care not to mention Philip.
The room was shuttered against the cooling evening air, but Ranulf could still hear a muffled pealing in the distance. The churches of Bristol were tolling passing bells for their stricken lord on this All Hallows’ Eve. Getting wearily to his feet, he approached the bed. Robert had been sleeping for much of the day. Ranulf knew he should be glad, for Robert’s sake, that they were so close to the end, but he also knew he’d have done whatever he could to gain Robert more time, even if it prolonged his suffering. His brother’s face was gaunt, burning with false, feverish color, his hair soaked in sweat. A thin white scar angled up into his hairline. Passing strange, but Ranulf could not remember ever noticing it before. How could he have missed it? Now he’d never know how Robert had gotten it. Why that should matter so much, he could not explain, but suddenly it did-enormously.
Reaching over, he gently touched Amabel’s shoulder. As their eyes met, she drew a shuddering breath and covered his hand with her own; her skin was hot and her fingers had a perceptible tremor. When they looked back toward the bed, Robert’s eyes were open.
“Are you thirsty, love?” It was not so much a question as entreaty, so great was Amabel’s need to do something for him. When he nodded, Maude turned swiftly toward the table, poured hastily, and thrust a dripping cup into Amabel’s hand. Ranulf watched as Amabel helped Robert to drink, tears filling his eyes. Robert saw and when his whisper drew Ranulf closer, he said, faintly but distinctly:
“Not…not just my little brother…”
The others may not have understood, but Ranulf did and his throat closed up. Robert was saying what they’d both always known, that the bond between them was more than brotherly. He could have been one of Robert’s own sons, and he would mourn Robert all his days, as he’d never mourned his father.
Swallowing tears, he sought in vain to steady his voice enough to respond. Robert’s eyelids were drooping again and when Maude whispered wretchedly, “Ranulf, we’re losing him,” he could only nod wordlessly. It was then that the door burst open.
A mantled, hooded figure flew toward the bed. “Papa? Papa, it’s me!” Jerking back her hood, Maud turned a white, anguished face toward her mother. “For the love of God, Mama, tell me I’m not too late!”
She sank to her knees by the bed as Robert’s lashes flickered, searching for his hand midst the coverlets. He no longer had the strength to talk, but his eyes sent her the only message that mattered-one of recognition. Maud sobbed in relief, then cried out sharply, “Randolph, hurry!”
That turned all heads toward the door. So intent were they upon the bedside drama, they’d not noticed that the Earl of Chester had followed his wife into the chamber. Dressed in somber colors, his demeanor no less decorous, he greeted Amabel gravely, then stepped forward to pay his respects to his dying father-in-law.
His courtesy was flawless and so rarely seen that his audience could not help marveling at it, for he was not a man to care about propriety. Ranulf and Maude exchanged speculative glances, never doubting that his wife’s grief was not enough motivation to get him to join in Robert’s deathbed vigil. There had to be more to it. And when he turned then, toward Maude, kissing her hand with ostentatious deference, they knew what it was. This was Chester’s dramatic declaration of good faith, public proof that he was now dedicated to the Angevin cause, an ally to be trusted in the war against Stephen.
Maud tore herself away from the bed to embrace her mother. “Randolph,” she repeated urgently, “where is she?” Still playing the role of the attentive husband, he jerked the door open and a moment later ushered a young woman from the stairwell. Maud reached out and when the wet nurse placed a small, swaddled bundle into her arms, she swung back toward the bed. “Look, Papa,” she pleaded, “look at your first grandson!”
Robert did, and even as she saw the light dimming in his eyes, Maud was sure that he’d understood and died trying to smile at her son.
November swept October away in a deluge of early-winter rain, which did not slacken as the week wore on. London began to resemble a city under siege by nature; its citizens ventured out-of-doors only when they had no choice, the streets soon looked like deserted swamps, and the rain-swollen Thames became the enemy in their midst, threatening to flood with each high tide.
A fire roared in the hearth of the king’s chamber in the uppermost story of the Tower keep, but it could not banish the damp, only held it briefly at bay. Although it was midafternoon, the sky was smothered in so many rainclouds that the day’s dull light was already ebbing away, and Stephen, his wife, and William de Ypres had pulled their chairs close to the fire.
“I took care to mention no names, Will, but I’ve been consulting physicians about your…” Stephen paused tactfully. “…your problem.”
