God’s Name do we do now?”
“I suppose,” he said, “we start climbing again.”
“How many of our men will have the heart for it?” Rising, she began to pace. “To come so close and then to have it all snatched away like this…it is so unfair, Robert, so damnably unfair!”
“Life is unfair,” he said, sounding so stoical, so rational, and so dispassionate that she was suddenly angry, a scalding, seething, impotent rage that spared no one-not herself, not Robert, not God.
“You think I do not know that? When has life ever been fair to women? Just think upon how easy it was for Stephen to steal my crown, and how bitter and bloody has been my struggle to win it back. Even after we’d caged Stephen at Bristol Castle, he was still a rival, still a threat…and why? Because he was so much braver or more clever or capable than me? No…because I was a woman, for it always came back to that. I’ll not deny that I made mistakes, but you do not know what it is like, Robert, to be judged so unfairly, to be rejected not for what you’ve done but for what you are. It is a poison that seeps into the soul, that makes you half crazed with the need to prove yourself…”
She stopped to catch her breath, and only then did she see the look on Robert’s face, one of disbelief and then utter and overwhelming fury, burning as hot as her own anger, hotter even, for being so long suppressed.
“I do not know what it is like?” he said incredulously. “I was our father’s firstborn son, but was I his heir? No, I was just his bastard. He trusted me and relied upon me and needed me. But none of that mattered, not even after the White Ship sank and he lost his only lawfully begotten son. He was so desperate to have an heir of his body that he dragged you back-unwilling-from Germany, forced you into a marriage that he knew was doomed, and then risked rebellion by ramming you down the throats of his barons. And all the while, he had a son capable of ruling after him-he had me! But I was the son born of his sin, so I was not worthy to be king. As if I could have blundered any worse than you or Stephen!”
Maude was stunned. She stared at him, too stricken for words, not knowing what to say even if she’d been capable of speech. Robert seemed equally shattered by his outburst: his face was suddenly ashen. He started to speak, then turned abruptly and walked out.
The night was bitter-cold and starless, the sky choked with clouds. Maude leaned into the embrasure, gazing down into the darkness of the bailey. She knew her presence on the battlements was making the guards uneasy. They kept their distance, but she could feel their eyes following her, curious, probing, wondering what she was doing up here, alone, at such an hour. She wondered, too.
It may have been memory that had drawn her up to the battlements. Shivering each time the wind caught her mantle, she remembered watching a summer sunset from this very spot, Brien at her side. Not so long ago, just a lifetime. Brien was back at Wallingford Castle now, not far away, twelve miles or so. As if distance mattered, as if what kept them apart could be measured in miles. She did not often let herself think of Brien, of what might have been and what could never be. But she did now, deliberately and unsparingly. She wiped away tears, and thought of them all. Robert, who’d turned into a stranger before her eyes. Robert, whom she’d trusted and taken for granted and never really known. Ranulf, who’d lost the earldom she’d promised and mayhap much more. Rainald, who’d profited, too, from her quest-a mad wife and a precarious hold upon a corner of Cornwall. Geoffrey, whom she’d loathed from the very day of her wedding, because it was easier to hate him than to hate her father. And her sons, growing up without her. Her sons, whom she’d not even seen in more than two years.
She lost all sense of time, and when the sky began to pale, it was with shock that she realized she’d passed the entire night out on the battlements, standing guard over the wreckage of her ravaged kingdom. The cold seemed to have penetrated into her very bones, yet for hours she’d not even been aware of it. She watched as the shadows receded and daylight slowly gained the ascendancy. Only then did she turn away from the battlements, go to find her brother.
As early as it was, Robert was already up and dressed, attended by a sleepy squire. The bed curtains were closed; Amabel still slept. But after one glimpse of Robert’s face, Maude was sure his night had been as wakeful as her own. The squire soon remembered an urgent need to be elsewhere, and muttering about bringing his lord cider and bread to break his fast, he made a swift, discreet exit.
Maude was still trembling with the cold, and she knotted her hands together to still their tremors. When Robert gestured toward the bed, she nodded and kept her voice low, no more wanting to awaken Amabel than he did.
“I am sorry, Robert. I do not say that as often as I ought, but never have I meant it more. You have been my rod and my staff, more loyal than I deserved. You would have made a very good king.”
His shoulders twitched, in a half-shrug. “Well, better than Stephen, for certes,” he said, with the faintest glimmer of a smile.
“Our father was a fool,” she said, and he did not dispute her.
“Robert.” Her mouth was suddenly dry. “I am never going to be queen, am I?”
“No,” he said quietly, “you are not.”
She’d known what he would say. But his uncompromising, honest answer robbed her of any last shreds of hope. She averted her face, briefly, and he, too, looked away, not willing to watch the death of a dream.
“I’d best go now, ere Amabel starts to stir.” She gave him a smile so pained that he winced.
“Maude.” She turned back to face him, slowly, and he said, “You are not giving up?”
“You know better than that, Robert. I may have lost, but I’ll not let Henry lose, too. I shall fight for my son as long as I have breath in my body. He must not be cheated of the crown that is his birthright.”
She saw sympathy in his eyes, and what mattered more, respect. “I will do whatever I can,” he vowed, “to make sure that does not happen.” And in that moment, she realized the truth-that he’d been fighting for Henry all along.
24
Devizes, England
March 1142
The Countess of Chester arrived the day after her aunt and father held an urgent council at Devizes Castle. Maud needed to take but one meal in their company to conclude that something was amiss, for her senses were finely attuned to emotional undercurrents. As soon as she could, she lured her mother away, and after some bantering about the tedium of the Lenten menu, she demanded to know why “Aunt Maude and Papa and the others look like mourners at a particularly dreary wake.”
Amabel settled herself in the window seat. “They have cause, child, for they have had to swallow their pride, and that goes down much harder than salted fish. They have decided to send envoys to Maude’s husband, asking Geoffrey to aid them in overthrowing Stephen.”
Maud’s eyes widened. “Were they sober at the time? I cannot believe they’d turn to Geoffrey!”
“Well, they did. Which proves, I suppose, just how desperate they are.”
Maud was still incredulous. “I would have sworn upon my very soul that Aunt Maude would never have agreed, no matter how great her need!”
“For herself, I daresay she would not. But there is very little she would not do for her son.”
Maud sat down abruptly, suddenly realizing the full magnitude of what her aunt had lost at Winchester. “It is not fair, Mama. She ought to have been queen!”
“Most people thought otherwise.”
Amabel’s tone had an edge sharp enough to slice bread, or so Maud thought. She was sorry that her mother and her aunt were so often at odds, for they were the two women who mattered most to her, but she was insightful enough to understand why it was so, and pragmatic enough to accept it. Diplomatically steering the conversation away from hidden family reefs, she said, “I understand now why Uncle Ranulf was in such a black mood. He trusts Geoffrey even less than he likes him, and he once told me that if he was given a choice between befriending Geoffrey and trying to tame a polecat, he’d take the polecat every time!”
“Do you remember that Bristol goldsmith’s son, Maud…the wretch who was caught setting all those fires? When he was asked why, he said he just liked to watch things burn. Well, Geoffrey likes to set tempers afire, and he does it right well. But Ranulf’s ‘black mood’ cannot be blamed on Geoffrey’s coming, for he has been troubled for
