Stephen’s generosity and none of his charm.
Matilda’s dream was at first fanciful and then increasingly erotic. Stirring drowsily, she opened her eyes and discovered this dream was-at long last-real. “Are you getting hungry again, my love?” she murmured, and Stephen laughed into her hair.
“I did not mean to wake you. I was just taking inventory of treasures I’ve been too long without. I ought to warn you, Tilda, that we are likely to create something of a scandal, for I may not let you leave this bed for days.”
“Promise?” she said and he laughed again, drawing her in against him until they lay entwined, two halves made whole. “I was so proud,” she said, “of the way you accepted them back into the fold, all the sheep who had strayed…Willem and Northampton and Warenne and the others.”
“‘Willem’?” he echoed, as if affronted by the intimacy. But she caught the playful tone, and bit him gently when he traced her mouth with his fingers.
“It was easy enough,” he said lightly, “for I believe in redemption. I would that I could say I also believe I am my brother’s keeper, but that saintly I am not, sweetheart.”
She saw through the flippancy, for she knew that of all the betrayals he’d suffered, none wounded so deeply as his brother’s defection. Shifting so she could cradle her head in the crook of his shoulder, she said, “I think Henry will be loyal from now on…in his own, odd way. At least you need not fear any more dalliances with Maude. He’s burned that bridge for certes.”
“Along with most of Winchester,” he said, “and I wonder if he spares any regrets for the city when he mourns all his losses.”
“Speaking of loss,” she said softly, “I came too close to the abyss, Stephen. You must promise me that you’ll never put yourself so at risk again. You have nothing to prove, for not even your most bitter enemies have ever questioned your courage. No more Lincolns, my love…promise me.”
“Such a promise would be hollow, Matilda, unless it came from the Almighty. I cannot promise you that I’ll never come to harm. I can pledge to you that I will not be so careless of my own safety in the future. Lincoln was…my Antioch, but that is not a mistake a man makes twice.”
Lincoln and Antioch. The similarities between the two sieges had occurred to Matilda almost at once, so striking were they. The crusaders capturing Antioch, Stephen besieging Lincoln Castle. Both armies then caught by surprise, confronted by a large enemy force. Stephen’s father had abandoned the siege, rode away from Antioch and-fairly or not-into infamy, disgrace that not even his subsequent martyr’s death had fully expiated. Stephen had chosen to stay and fight. It was Matilda’s belief that he’d been paying off his father’s debt, but she had not expected him to see that for himself, as he was the least introspective of men.
He sensed her surprise and said wryly, “Solitary confinement gives a man plenty of time to think. What else was there to do?” Reaching for her hand, he kissed her fingers, one by one. “I do not have too many memories of my father, Tilda, for I was only five when he took the cross again, at my mother’s insistence. But I do have one very strong memory of a church, probably the cathedral at Chartres. He was telling me about Antioch, and what I remember was the sadness in his face…”
Raising up on her elbow, Matilda brushed her lips against his cheek. What a heartless wife Adela had been, that she could have valued her husband’s honour above his life. She was no longer threatened, though, by her indomitable mother-in-law, for Adela’s shadow had receded in the three years since her death in the cloistered quiet of a Marcigny nunnery. Matilda supposed most people would say her life had been a great success. Daughter, wife, widow, mother, and nun-she’d never failed to play the part expected of her, and lived long enough to see one son as a prince of the Church, a second as Count of Blois and Champagne, and a third as England’s king. But when Adela died, few had grieved for her.
Stephen had been stroking her hair, sliding his hand down her back, along the curve of her hip. Before his caresses could become more intimate, she laced her fingers through his, holding his hand still against her thigh. “Stephen…we need to talk about betrayals, those beyond forgiving.”
“Geoffrey de Mandeville?”
“Yes. I realize that you can take no action against him now, not yet. But he must be punished for what he did. I entreat you to see that he is, to hold him accountable for his treachery.”
“Of course I will. Jesu, the man abducted Constance! Moreover, he abandoned you when your need was greatest. Do you truly think I could ever forgive him, Tilda?”
“Forgiveness comes easily to you, my love, sometimes too easily.” Her smile was tender enough to take any sting from her words. “You are not a man to nurture grudges, and I admire you greatly for that. But Mandeville owes us a debt that cannot be remitted. Promise me, Stephen, that you will harden your heart against him. He is not deserving of clemency, yours or the Almighty’s.”
She kissed him then, a kiss so soft and seeking and full of promise that he began to laugh. “What is hardening at the moment,” he said, “is not my heart!”
She laughed, too, and gave herself up gladly to the joys of the marriage bed, those pleasures of the flesh that were so sweet and mayhap sinful, for the Church said passion was suspect, even if sanctified by wedlock. But it seemed a strange sin, indeed, that of loving her husband overly well, and she could not believe it was one to imperil her soul. “I’ve been so wretched without you,” she confided, and those were the last words she got to say for some time thereafter.
Later-much later-as they lay at ease in each other’s arms, he could not resist teasing her about her “sudden thirst for blood.” Dropping a quick kiss on the tip of her nose, he said, “Can this truly be my Matilda? My gentle little wife who would not even frown at a mangy dog or a surly beggar? Can this be the same woman who now plies her seductive wiles with a skill that Salome might envy?”
Matilda was unperturbed. “If I remember my Scriptures,” she said placidly, “Salome did her dance of the veils for the head of John the Baptist. But I do not want you to kill Geoffrey de Mandeville, Stephen.” She turned her head on the pillow and smiled at her husband. “Just ruin him.”
Upon Robert’s arrival at Oxford, Maude celebrated his freedom with a lavish supper of roast swan, stewed venison, baked lamprey, and a sugared subtlety sculptured to resemble a unicorn. Wines were poured freely, her minstrel entertained them between courses, and all did their best to act as if they truly had cause for rejoicing.
Afterward, they retired to the solar, ostensibly for privacy, but also because they could keep up the pretense no longer. The castellan, Robert d’Oilly, and his stepson, yet another of the old king’s by-blows, had excused themselves as soon as they could, leaving behind a fractured family circle.
Rainald thought those remaining were as glum a bunch as he’d ever had the bad luck to encounter. Robert was so quiet one would have thought he’d taken a holy vow of silence whilst he was captive. Amabel and Maude were being polite to each other, but it was the kind of courtesy to set a man’s teeth on edge. And Ranulf was brooding again. He was usually good company, cheerful and obliging. But something was sitting heavy on his shoulders these days, over and above his natural chagrin at Maude’s rout from Winchester. Whatever it was, though, he was keeping it to himself. Rainald had made one attempt to find out what was festering, only to have the lad snap at him like one of those blasted dyrehunds.
Ranulf was staring intently into the fire, and did not even notice when Rainald leaned over and helped himself to his brother’s drink. It would be a shame to waste good wine, he reasoned. His gaze roamed the chamber, flitting over his wife, sitting meek and mute in the window seat, before coming to rest on Maude. She and Robert were hunched over a chessboard, but neither of them seemed to have much interest in the game. Rainald felt pity stir and looked away hastily, lest she read it in his face, for he knew she’d forgive him almost anything but pity. He did feel sorry for her, though, damned if he did not. He did not even blame her anymore for botching things so badly. Mayhap it was just not meant to be. At least he’d done better than most, for he’d gotten an earldom out of it all. If he could hold on to it. Getting to his feet, he reminded them that he was leaving for Cornwall on the morrow and bade them goodnight, remembering just in time to take Beatrice with him.
Amabel soon went off to bed, too; she was finding the atmosphere in the solar just as oppressive as Rainald had. Ranulf was the next to make his escape, claiming he had to let his dogs out, and Robert and Maude were left alone with a flagging chess game and a silence heavy with all that lay unspoken between them.
Maude pushed her chair back. “I cannot concentrate upon this game. I am truly glad to have you safe, Robert. But tonight I feel as if…as if we’d struggled and panted and clawed our way up a mountain, only to stumble just as we neared the summit and fall all the way down, landing in a bloodied, bruised heap at the bottom. What in
