Normandy’s lower capital was swathed in a wet February fog. It clogged the narrow, muddied streets, obscured the skyline of soaring church steeples, and muffled the normal noonday sounds, so that Caen seemed like a city asleep, as if night had somehow come hours before its time. From his vantage point in an upper-story window of the castle keep, Ranulf should have had a sweeping view of the town and its twin rivers, but when he jerked back the shutters, all he got was a surge of cold air, a glimpse of grey.
Robert glanced over at his wife and then got slowly to his feet. “I’d hoped I could make you understand, lad, but-”
Ranulf spun away from the window. “Understand? Not in this lifetime! How can you do it, Robert? How can you recognize Stephen as king?”
“How can I not? All have accepted him, Ranulf. Even Maude’s uncle the Scots king has come to terms with Stephen. If I alone continue to hold out, my defiance will cost me more than I can afford to lose. Unless I agree to do homage, he will declare all my lands forfeit.”
“Let him! At least you’d still have your honour!”
That was too much for Amabel. “Honour is a right tasty dish, too, especially when served with mustard! Is that what you’d have us feed our children, Ranulf?”
Robert shook his head, almost imperceptibly, and Amabel subsided, albeit with poor grace. “Think you that I want to yield to Stephen?” he demanded, and for the first time his voice held echoes of anger. “I am doing what I must. I am indeed sorry that Maude has been cheated of her birthright. But it is my son’s birthright I must try to save now. How will it help Maude if I forfeit the earldom of Gloucester?”
Ranulf had no ready answer, and he swung back to the window, looking out blindly at the fog-shrouded sky. “And what do we tell Maude? That it is all over, that Stephen has won? I cannot do that to her, Robert, and by God, I will not!”
“I said I had agreed to submit to Stephen. I did not say he had won.”
Ranulf turned around to stare at his brother. “What do you mean?”
“I told Stephen that I would come to his Easter court and swear homage to him as England’s king. I specified, though, that my oath would be binding only as long as he kept his promises, kept faith with me. Our father would never have agreed to such terms, not even with a dagger pricked at his throat. But Stephen did.”
“I still do not understand. So you swear to Stephen. What then?”
“We wait,” Robert said succinctly. “What happens after that will be up to Stephen. If he keeps faith with me, so shall I keep faith with him. But I do not believe he will, lad. He will begin to make mistakes, and then, to make enemies, and when he first feels his throne quaking under him, he will look around for a scapegoat, for someone to blame for all his troubles. As likely as not, he will look to me. But by then, he’ll no longer be the dragon-slayer. Men will have come to see his halo for what it truly is-a stolen crown. And they may well conclude that Stephen was not the lesser of evils, after all.”
Ranulf was not reassured by this prediction of coming strife. He was too young yet to feel comfortable with ethical ambiguities, and Robert’s pragmatic realism seemed somewhat cynical to him and not altogether admirable. Although he could not have expressed his need, in the wake of Stephen’s shocking betrayal, Ranulf yearned for moral certainties, for a world with no shadings of grey, no dubious choices, no compromises.
Robert easily read his inner agitation, for Ranulf’s was not a face for secrets. Thinking that innocence could be just as dangerous as a broken battle-lance or cracked shield, he urged, “Sail back to England with me, lad. Make your peace with Stephen. If God wills it, Maude’s chance shall come.”
“No,” Ranulf said hoarsely. “I’ll never recognize him as king-never!”
Such a dramatic declaration cried out for an equally dramatic departure, and Ranulf now provided one, striding purposefully from the chamber without looking back. Robert made no attempt to stop him, but he winced as the door slammed shut and sat down wearily in the window seat.
Amabel’s irritation ebbed, and she crossed quickly to her husband’s side, putting a sympathetic hand upon his knee. “How simple the world seems at seventeen. It is easy enough for Ranulf to pledge Maude his undying loyalty, for what does he have to lose?”
“I would that were so, Amabel, but the sad truth is that the lad has a great deal to lose. He may have no lands to forfeit, but his loyalty to Maude may well cost him what he values most-that lass of his. Raymond de Bernay is liegeman to Simon de Senlis, one of Stephen’s most fervent supporters. Unless Ranulf comes to his senses and does homage to Stephen soon, Bernay will disavow the plight troth for certes.”
“I trust that you pointed this out to Ranulf?”
“Of course I did. But he does not believe me. Ranulf has been cursed with a dangerous defect in his vision: he can see only what he wants to see. He remains convinced that a happy ending is not only possible, it is a certainty, so sure is he that virtue and justice must prevail. He can no more conceive of losing Annora than he can of Stephen triumphing over Maude.”
Amabel shivered suddenly. “Close the shutters, love, ere we catch our deaths. That ‘dangerous defect’ of Ranulf’s-you know who else shares it?”
“Stephen,” he said promptly, and she gave a satisfied nod.
“Indeed. I’ve never known anyone who thrives on hope as Stephen does. He never doubts that every storm must have a rainbow, and if he falls into a stream, he fully expects to rise up with a fish in his cap!”
Robert slid the shutter latch into place, closing out the cold but casting the window seat into shadow. “Well, I would wager that the next time our new king stumbles into a stream, he’ll find himself in water over his head. The pity of it,” he added grimly, “is that he’ll not drown alone, but will drag some good men down with him. I just hope Ranulf will not be one of them.”
Raymond De Bernay was a man of uncommon patience, and his fondness for Ranulf was genuine. But he was not willing to wait indefinitely, and on a cool, overcast day in early June, Ranulf at last ran out of time.
“I have been more than fair with you, lad. I’ve given you every chance to repent your folly and make your peace with the king. I will ask you but once more. Will you come to England, swear homage to Stephen?”
“No,” Ranulf said softly, “I cannot.”
Raymond had expected no other answer. “So be it, then.” Striding to the solar door, he beckoned to his son. “Ancel, you are to watch over your sister whilst she and Ranulf say their farewells,” he said, and although his voice held no anger, it held no hope of reprieve, either.
Ancel had not seen Ranulf in several months, for his father had taken him from Robert’s household as soon as Robert’s loyalty came into question, placing him with a lord whose allegiance was not suspect, Simon de Senlis. Ancel looked acutely uncomfortable; while he had no objections to being cast as the defender of his sister’s virtue, that was not a role he’d ever wanted to play with Ranulf. He mustered up a sheepish smile, a shrug, and was relieved when Ranulf smiled back.
“You need not be so discomfited, Ancel, for this came as no surprise. I knew how your father would react. Just as I know what a hard task lies ahead of me, trying to persuade Annora to be patient and-”
The door was thrown open with such force that the closest candle flame flared and then waned. Annora’s eyes were swollen and darkly circled, her pallor so pronounced that she looked ill. Wakeful nights and tear-drenched days, bewilderment and betrayal-it all showed so nakedly upon her face that Ranulf’s utter assurance faltered for a moment, much like that quavering candle. But Annora’s eyes were dry, for she’d vowed that she was done with weeping. She stopped just out of reach, and said bitterly, “So you are still set upon this madness.”
“I have no choice, Annora. I cannot do homage to a man who stole my sister’s crown and then perjured himself to keep-”
“Oh, you did have a choice! You chose Maude over me!”
Ranulf frowned. “That is not true. You know better, Annora, for we have talked about this, and I’ve told you my reasons, why I must support Maude’s claim over Stephen’s-”
“I do not want to hear any more, not another word! You knew that if you balked at swearing homage to Stephen, you’d lose me; you knew that, but still you clung to that haughty, vengeful bitch, still you-”
“Annora, stop it! You are not being fair, to me or to Maude. Yes, I am loyal to my sister. But you are the one I love, the one I mean to wed. We may have to wait awhile, but we will be wed, that I promise you,” he vowed, with all the conviction at his command. When he reached for her, though, Annora recoiled abruptly.
“Do not touch me,” she warned, “not ever again! You had your chance, made your choice, and I will never forgive you for it-never!” She was perilously close to tears, and she whirled, stumbling from the chamber before
