“Papa!” Maud clutched Robert’s arm, pointing. “It is too late…look!”
The Bishop of Winchester was stalking up the path toward them, trailed by flustered clerics. His color was so florid that he looked to be in danger of succumbing at any moment to an apoplectic seizure, and his eyes were bulging, glittering with such utter, unforgiving fury that the others stared at him in consternation; even the blase Maud was impressed.
“Cousin? What happened?”
The bishop brushed past Robert as if he’d not spoken. But after a few steps, he stopped, turned back. “That woman,” he said harshly, “has no honour.”
“ Maude, have you lost your wits?”
“I will thank you, Robert, to keep a civil tongue in your head! I owe Uncle David this. He has stood by me, never once betraying his oath. Even you swore homage to Stephen, even you. But not David!”
“David is not the problem. Did you truly say that if Henry would not invest David’s man with the bishop’s ring and mitre, you’d do it yourself? Tell me you did not say that, Maude!” But he saw the flush rising in her face. “Jesus God…”
“Robert, he gave me no choice! He forbade me, and those were his very words. ‘I forbid it,’ he said, whilst a hall full of witnesses looked on. What else could I do?”
“The Church does not and will not recognize lay investiture. That is a battle our father and your husband both fought with the Church-and lost!”
“You think I do not know that, Robert? But this I know, too, that he would never have dared to defy our father like that-never!”
He started to speak, stopped, and looked again at her face. His relief was enormous. Thank God she’d not meant it! The threat was foolish, but she was a novice at this, would learn. “So he goaded you into it,” he said. “I can understand that, for I’ll not deny that Henry can be insufferable at times. But this is a fence we must mend. He is going to expect an apology, Maude, and-”
“No!”
“Maude, you misspoke. Now you must make it right, however little you like it-”
“No,” Maude said, “I will not,” and he stared at her in dismay, for she sounded no less implacable than their enraged cousin the bishop.
17
Westminster, England
June 1141
The great hall of Westminster was said to be the largest in all of Europe, a vast timbered structure two hundred forty feet in length, more than sixty feet wide. Gervase de Cornhill had seen it before; as one of London’s justiciars, he’d occasionally been summoned to attend the king. Each time he stepped across the threshold, he was awed by such earthly grandeur, marveling what mortal man had wrought. But on this humid June afternoon, his artistic appreciation was muted. He had eyes only for the woman seated upon the dais. She did look verily like a queen, he conceded, and a right handsome one at that. Pray God that she’d prove reasonable as well as comely. He glanced at his comrades, saw the same unease upon their faces. It was a sad day indeed for London when a good man like Stephen could be supplanted by a woman.
Once they’d been summoned, they knelt before Maude. They’d agreed that Gervase should speak for them, but when he started to introduce himself, a familiar male voice cut him off, saying, “Ah, but we know you well, Master de Cornhill.” The Londoners stiffened, watching apprehensively as Geoffrey de Mandeville sauntered up onto the dais to stand at Maude’s side.
His presence there was not a total surprise, for rumors had been circulating for a fortnight that Maude had made it well worth his while to switch sides. They’d been hoping it was not so, for he was no friend to London or its citizens. He’d been hostile to their commune from the first, had often used his power as the Constable of the Tower to intimidate and coerce, and his animosity now had a personal edge, for his father-in-law had been killed last month when a demonstration for Stephen had turned violent. But once Maude gave him leave to rise, Gervase strode forward purposefully, and launched into his prepared plea, that she should restore to them the laws of good King Edward, the sainted Confessor, whose reign had become enshrined in legend as a Golden Age in the brutal aftermath of the Conquest.
“My lord father ruled London for thirty-five years. His reign was peaceful and prosperous, and when he died, men called him the Lion of Justice in tribute to his enlightened and righteous kingship. Are you saying now that his laws were so onerous, so oppressive that you need relief from them?”
“No, madame, indeed not,” Gervase said hastily, and launched into a well-rehearsed explanation that stressed the Londoners’ reverence for the old ways, the old customs, while insisting that they were not disparaging the laws or courts of good King Henry, may God assoil him. When he was done, Maude said that she would take their request under consideration, a response that could promise all or nothing. But Gervase was already sure what her eventual answer would be, for as he studied her face, he’d come to a troubling conclusion. This new queen of theirs had no liking for the capital of her realm.
He had to persevere, though. “Madame, we have another petition to put before you. We beseech you to ease the burden our city is laboring under. We have been told that a new royal tallage is to be imposed upon us. But we are not able to meet this demand, for the city coffers are well nigh empty-”
“And why is that, Master de Cornhill?”
Gervase blinked. “Madame?”
“I asked why the city coffers are so bare. No, you need not fumble for an answer. I already know. For the past five years, your money has been propping up Stephen’s monarchy. Dare you deny it?”
Gervase shifted from foot to foot, hoping she was posing a rhetorical question. When he saw that she was not, he said haltingly, “Madame, he…was the king. What choice did we have?”
“Oh, indeed you had a choice. When he sought to usurp my crown, you could have barred the city gates to him!”
“Madame, that was not for us to do. We are not kingmakers.”
“Since when?” Geoffrey de Mandeville queried, and Gervase tensed, for he knew from personal experience that the earl’s smile was never so disarming as when he was about to draw blood. “Your sudden modesty is commendable, Master de Cornhill. But if my memory serves, that is exactly what you and your cohorts claimed, that it was the Londoners who’d brought Stephen’s kingship into being. And you in particular have been remarkably loyal to the man. Not only have you been urging your fellow citizens to keep faith with him, you’ve been doing some interesting almsgiving: to the Lady Matilda down in Kent.”
Gervase wasn’t the only one taken by surprise; so was Maude. “What?” she exclaimed, turning to stare at her new ally. “Are you sure of this, my lord of Essex?”
“Quite sure, madame. Master de Cornhill has been generously aiding Stephen’s wife in her efforts to engage Flemish hirelings…for what purpose we can only speculate about. Unless he’d care to tell us?”
“Madame, that is not so! It was not at all as the earl makes it sound. I agreed to lend the queen a sum of money, and she pledged one of her Cambridgeshire manors as collateral. It was purely a business transaction.”
“How very reassuring. Knowing that your treason was done for profit and not principle certainly sets my mind at ease!”
“Treason? Madame, I did not-”
“Yes, Master de Cornhill, you did. You are accomplices in Stephen’s usurpation, all of you Londoners who aided and abetted him in his treacherous quest for my crown. If not for your disloyalty, he’d never have become king. You rejoiced in his theft, and supported his outlaw kingship without conscience qualms. Even after God’s Judgment had been passed upon him at Lincoln, you still balked at recognizing me as England’s true sovereign. I ought to have been crowned months ago, but you made that quite impossible. And now you dare to ask me to remit your taxes? Better you should seek out Stephen in his Bristol prison, for you’ll get no such reprieve from me!”
“Madame, I entreat you to be fair, to-”
