both a long way from home, but they were bringing Maude wounding news, not the sort of grief to be delivered in a letter.
Maud had gone to the church, ostensibly to light a candle and offer up prayers, actually to give her aunt the only solace she could-some private time to grieve. Blinking in the glare of shimmering white sunlight, Maud paused in the doorway, waiting for Minna to catch up with her; the German widow was showing her age, moving stiffly and slowly even on warm summer afternoons.
Out in the garth, Ranulf was carrying on an animated conversation with a new arrival. The man was a stranger to Maud, and yet there was something vaguely familiar about him, enough to kindle her curiosity. He looked to be in his early twenties, with very vivid coloring-curly copper-gold hair, fair ruddy skin dusted with freckles, silver-grey eyes. Like Ranulf, he was a little above average height, but he seemed taller, for he was powerfully built, with a deep chest and broad shoulders that she was eyeing appreciatively when Minna’s startled “Mein Gott!” echoed behind her. “It is Lord Harry!”
“Harry?” Maud was astonished. “My cousin Harry?” Not having seen Henry on either of his last two trips to England, her memories were of a precocious ten-year-old. But what surprised her more than his maturity was how unlike his parents he was. He might have been a foundling, she marveled, so little did he resemble her aunt or Geoffrey. He did have Geoffrey’s coloring, but the freckles were all his own, and so was the brawn. He had none of his father’s flash, none of his mother’s aloof elegance. And when she went to greet him, she discovered that his personality was-like his appearance-very much his own, too.
For Maude’s son, he showed a remarkable indifference to protocol and ceremony, and his humor held none of Geoffrey’s darker undertones. He charmed Maud at once, for he was playful and irreverent and quite sure of himself. The rapport was mutual, like recognizing like, and with a fine feel for teamwork, they soon pounced on Ranulf, for his impulsive and hasty and unforeseen marriage was too tempting a target to resist.
“And so there I was,” Henry grumbled, “haunting all the ports in Normandy, waiting for reliable Uncle Ranulf to arrive as he’d promised. I spent so much time hanging around Barfleur that two of the fishing boats offered to take me on as a crew member. And just where was Ranulf whilst I was turning down a chance to catch cod? Off in the Welsh wilderness, taking advantage of a trusting damsel in distress.”
“One who was unable to see what she was getting,” Maud chimed in. “Although I know many wives who would count that as a blessing!”
Minna went hot with embarrassment. That Ranulf should have chosen a handicapped wife was a mystery she could not begin to fathom; the only thing more incomprehensible to her was that others would joke about it. She frowned at Henry and Maud, baffled and indignant that they could salt Ranulf’s wounds like this.
“There is a lot to be said for having a blind wife,” Ranulf protested. “She is sure to overlook my flaws, is she not? Nor will she care when I get grey and wrinkled. But even if she had keener sight than an eagle, Rhiannon would still turn a blind eye to my failings. I only hope you can find a wife as merciful, Harry, for from what I’ve heard, you’ll need all the forgiveness you can get!”
“Jesu, it is worse than we feared, Maud.” Henry was grinning. “Damn me if else, but the man has gone and fallen in love with his own wife!”
That got a laugh from all but the thoroughly mystified Minna. Ranulf had the last word, though. “Keep it up,” he warned, “and I’ll name the pair of you as godparents, which would necessitate a long and arduous winter journey into Wales for the christening.”
Maud was slow on the uptake for once, and yielded with a feigned gasp of horror. Henry was quicker. “Are we talking about a theoretical child,” he queried, “one likely to come in God’s own time? Or a flesh-and-blood babe, with a definite due date?”
“November,” Ranulf said nonchalantly, and then gave himself away with a radiant smile. “Rhiannon is vowing to deliver on my birthday and-”
At that point, he found himself fending off his niece, who was scolding him for not telling her while smearing his face with haphazard kisses. Henry offered his congratulations, too, plus a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that the baby be named after him. Ranulf agreed gravely that he would, provided it was a girl, and Minna gave up any pretense of understanding male humor. “Why are you here, Lord Harry?” she asked, as soon as she could get a word in. “We thought you and Lord Geoffrey were guarding the border against the French.”
“We have a truce in effect, for the French king has taken to his sickbed. What of you, Ranulf? What brought you and Cousin Maud to Rouen?”
“Bad news, I fear. A friend of your mother’s has died.”
“It has been a sad season for Mama,” Henry said regretfully. “In April, Adeliza died at a nunnery in Flanders; I suppose you heard? What of this latest death? Is it anyone I know?”
“Yes, it is. The lord of Wallingford Castle, Brien Fitz Count.”
Henry was quiet for a moment, thinking of his Christmas reunion with his mother at Wallingford. “She took shelter with Brien,” he said, “after her escape from Oxford. He was a man worth mourning.”
Brien’s shadow seemed to follow them back across the garth to Maude’s chambers. At sight of her son, Maude’s face lit up. Henry could not remember ever having seen his mother cry, but he noticed now that her eyes were suspiciously red-rimmed, the lids swollen and tender. “I know about Brien Fitz Count’s death. I am sorry, Mama. He was a good friend to us, a good man.”
Maude swallowed. “Yes,” she said softly, “he was.”
“It does not seem fair. Uncle Robert and Brien sacrificed so much for us. Of all men, they ought to have lived to see us triumph.”
Maude nodded somberly. Although she was gazing into his face, Henry had the odd feeling that she was not really seeing him. “The greatest regrets,” she said, “are always for what might have been.”
Although the French king had grudgingly recognized Geoffrey as Duke of Normandy, relations between the two men had always been strained, and deteriorated rapidly when they clashed over the fate of Giraud Berlai. Berlai was the seneschal of Poitou, a man who stood high in the French king’s favor. But if he was a loyal vassal to Louis, to Geoffrey he was merely a rebel, one of the ringleaders of an abortive rising of Angevin barons. Geoffrey had quelled the rebellion without difficulty, but Berlai had retreated to his castle at Montreuil-Bellay and begun to harass the countryside. After he’d harried monks from St Aubin’s, Geoffrey lost all patience and vowed to bring the man down, no matter how long it took. When he lay siege to Montreuil, Berlai was defiant, contemptuously confident that the castle could withstand any assault. He’d underestimated Geoffrey’s resolve, though. The siege had lasted three full years, but the fortress was now in ruins and Berlai in an Angers prison.
The French king was enraged by Geoffrey’s harsh treatment of his vassal, and dismayed by Geoffrey’s unforeseen decision to turn Normandy over to Henry. It was in France’s interests to make sure that Normandy and England were not united again, and Louis was not willing, therefore, to see Normandy ruled by a man with such a strong claim to the English crown. He’d refused to recognize Henry’s title, revitalized his alliance with Stephen, and invited Eustace to join his campaign.
The past year had been one of sporadic and inconclusive warfare. Henry had been besieging a rebellious lord at Torigny when he’d learned that the French king and Eustace were advancing upon Arques. He swiftly gathered a mixed force of Normans, Angevins, and Bretons and confronted the French. But Louis chose to withdraw and battle was averted. Geoffrey then seized a castle at La Nue belonging to Louis’s brother, and the French retaliated by burning the town of Seez. There were a few months of relative peace after that, but then, in midsummer, the French began massing troops along the River Seine between Meulan and Mantes, and Geoffrey and Henry hastened to protect their borders from this new threat.
War seemed to be inevitable-until the French king was stricken with a fever, necessitating his return to Paris. It was possible that he would now heed the advice of France’s premier churchman, the venerable Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, who’d long been urging peace. But it was just as likely that he’d resume hostilities once he recovered. Henry and Geoffrey could only wait and see.
Henry dominated the conversation at supper that night, thanking his mother for her continuing efforts to make the French king see reason, giving Ranulf and Maud an insider’s account of the political and military maneuvering that had occupied so much of his time this past year, telling them of the skirmishes and raids and Geoffrey’s prolonged siege of Montreuil-Bellay.
“Berlai bragged that the castle could never be taken, with a keep high enough to scrape the sky and double walls, encircled by a deep, natural chasm called the ‘Judas Valley.’ It kept my father from getting close enough to
