his brother both laughed at that; the bishop did not.
“I will not permit you to take advantage of the king’s goodwill, his trusting nature,” Henry warned, his voice cutting enough to pierce the Beaumont complacency. Waleran scowled, but before he could retort in kind, Geoffrey de Mandeville began to laugh.
“Just out of idle curiosity, my lord bishop, how do you mean to do that?” he queried, turning upon them glittering dark eyes full of mockery. “We might as well be candid. Our choice was between Maude, who listens to no one, and Stephen, who will listen to anyone. As to which flaw be worse, only time will reveal, but I can tell you now which one is like to be the most profitable,” he said and laughed again.
He laughed alone, though. The other men were all glaring at him. A suspicious, tense silence settled over the hall as Stephen’s first Christmas as king drew to an uneasy end.
Matilda had not permitted any of her ladies-in-waiting to accompany her, as she had not known what might await her in England. With no one to help her undress, she had difficulty unfastening the wet lacings of her gown. Finally freeing herself from its sodden folds, she dragged a chair close to the fire, began to unbraid her hair with fingers that shook. She was exhausted, for it had taken almost three days to cover the seventy mudrutted miles from Dover, but she couldn’t go to bed yet, not until Stephen came to her. When he did, she gave him no chance to speak first. “Are you angry with me for not waiting in Boulogne?”
“Angry? My darling, I am delighted!” Taking her hands in his, he smiled down at her with so much pride that she felt tears prick against her eyelids. “I only wish, sweetheart, that you’d gotten here three days ago, in time to be crowned with me. But no matter, you’ll have your own coronation, Tilda, as splendid as I can make it, that I promise. What of Easter? Would that please you?”
She’d just been offered a crown, but her dreams had never been of thrones. “Stephen, why did you not tell me?”
“Tilda, there was no time. I had to sail with the tide for England; even a single day’s delay could have tipped the scales against me.”
She shook her head, unwillingly remembering that dreadful scene in their bedchamber at Boulogne, remembering her disbelief, her scared sense that the world had suddenly gone spinning out of control, listening as Stephen hurriedly explained that his uncle the king was dead and he was departing for England within the hour, that he meant to claim Maude’s crown for himself. “I am not talking of that…that day. Why did you keep your intent from me? You obviously laid your plans long before the old king’s death, yet you said nary a word to me-me, your wife! Why, Stephen, why?”
“We decided it was best that you not know beforehand.” He saw her face change and said hastily, “Of course I trusted you, Matilda! But I knew how you’d worry, and I wanted to spare you that if I could.”
She could not help thinking that he’d kept silent, too, lest she try to talk him out of it. “‘We decided,’” she echoed. “I assume you are not using the royal ‘we,’ so who, then? Your brother the bishop?”
Stephen stared at her, for that was as close as she’d ever come to sarcasm. “Yes,” he acknowledged. “Henry felt from the first that our uncle ought to have named me as his heir. I do not say this to disparage Maude, for I’m sure she would have done her best. But no woman could rule as a man must. My uncle was mad to insist upon Maude. Scriptures tell wives to submit themselves unto their husbands, tell women to keep silent in the churches. So how could it ever be God’s Will that a woman should wield royal power?”
The words were Stephen’s, but she knew whose voice she was really hearing. “And so you and Henry were ready when the king died…?”
He nodded. “Three weeks from my uncle’s death to my coronation; that is all it took, just three weeks. Surely that says much, Matilda, about the mood of the realm. No one wanted Maude to rule, sweetheart, you know they did not. There was no great rush into Anjou after my uncle died, was there? A number of lords at once sought out my brother Theobald, though, and I think it is safe to assume they had more in mind than telling him of the king’s death. The sainted Robert was with them, by the way, when they got word that they were too late, that I had been recognized as king. Some of them, I heard, had even urged Robert to claim the crown himself!”
He left unsaid that Robert had turned the offer down. Matilda bit her lip, waiting until she was sure she, too, would leave it unsaid. “And…and did it all go as planned? When I landed at Dover, I was told there had been trouble at the castle…?”
“Indeed, there was. They refused me entry, and so did the garrison at Canterbury. Not so surprising, I suppose, since they’re Robert’s castles, but still not the most auspicious beginning to my quest.” Stephen’s smile was rueful. “Thank God for the Londoners! If not for their heartfelt support, the warmth of their welcome, my hopes might well have withered right on the vine. From London I rode to Winchester, where Henry was waiting with my uncle’s justiciar. They recognized the validity of my claim and handed over the royal treasury. That left but one hurdle to overcome: the qualms of the Archbishop of Canterbury, for he, too, had sworn that oath to Maude.”
“So you reminded him that the Church does not enforce oaths sworn under duress.” It was easy enough to hazard such a guess, for what other argument could he have made? “You pointed out that none of you gave those oaths freely, that the old king would brook no refusal. And obviously you convinced him.”
Stephen surprised her then, by shaking his head. “No,” he said slowly, “not at first…” His reluctance was painfully apparent, but she was prepared to wait as long as necessary. Their eyes met, briefly, before his slid away. Faint patches of color suddenly stood out across his cheekbones. “It was Hugh Bigod who persuaded him,” he said at last. “He told the archbishop that he’d been with the king at Lyons-la-Foret, that the king named me over Maude as he lay dying.”
Matilda was shocked. “Was it true?”
The color was more noticeable in his face now. “Why should it not be true? All know how he’d quarreled with Maude ere he died.” He gave her one quick, sharp glance, frowned at what he found, and then admitted tautly, “I do not know, did not ask.”
“Oh, Stephen…” Matilda could not hide her dismay, for perjury was a far greater sin than a disavowed oath. “What have you done?”
She’d not meant to speak the words aloud, but there was no calling them back. He flinched, and then stepped forward, grasping her by the shoulders and compelling her to look up at him.
“What have I done? I have spared England a disastrous reign, one that was likely to end in bloodshed! Can you truly imagine men like Chester and the Beaumonts submitting to a woman’s whims, obeying a woman’s commands? They’d have defied her with impunity, for what could she do-take the field against them? Can you tell me in all honesty, Matilda, that you wanted to see Maude as England’s queen?”
“No,” she whispered, “you know I did not…” It was an unfinished sentence, but he did not seem to notice. His grip eased on her shoulders, and some of the tension left his face.
“I will be a good king, Tilda,” he said, “that I do swear to you upon the life of our son, our son who will be king after me. Tell me you believe that.”
She nodded mutely, with no hesitation, for as much as she cherished honour, she cherished Stephen more, and she understood now his need, his own inner doubts about what he’d done. Such doubts could not be left to fester; like proud flesh, they must be cut away. That much she comprehended of power and the conscience of kings.
Sliding her arms up his back, she rested her cheek against his chest. “I love you,” she said, not knowing what else to say. But it was what he needed to hear, and his arms tightened around her. She almost told him then of her own news, that she was with child again. She would be conjuring up a ghost if she did, though-Baldwin, their firstborn, who would never know his father had been crowned as England’s king. She clung to Stephen, thinking of her dead son and the baby now growing within her body, a secret she chose to keep to herself for a while longer, to keep safe.
Stephen was stroking her hair, smoothing it back from her face. “I bear Maude no ill will,” he said. “I understand her disappointment and her anger and blame her not, for the fault lay with my uncle, who ought to have known better. It is my hope, Tilda, that Maude will come to accept my kingship, and when she does, I shall make her most welcome at my court, shall do all in my power to mend the rift between us.”
Matilda tried to imagine Maude’s humbling herself to Stephen-tried and failed. “Do you truly think Maude will ever accept your kingship, love?” she asked dubiously, and Stephen gave her a quizzical smile.
“What other choice,” he asked, “does she have?”
