Time and Chance

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

January 1164

Clarendon, England

The Countess of Chester reached Clarendon at dusk. She knew her son was not going to be pleased to see her, but this was his first summons to the king’s council and she could not resist the temptation to watch him playing a man’s role. Hugh was a good-natured boy whose greatest flaw was that he was too easily influenced, too eager to please. Maud was not a woman who’d ever harbored illusions and she knew her firstborn was ordinary, a banked fire at best. She loved him fiercely, though, intensely grateful to God that he was so unlike the unstable, savage man who’d sired him, and now that he was in attendance upon the king, she meant to see that none of the court wolves harried her lamb.

Hugh was indeed embarrassed by her maternal solicitude, but too excited by the day’s high drama to make more than a perfunctory protest. “Have you seen the king yet, Mama? Did you hear what happened?”

“I spoke with Harry and Eleanor but briefly, upon my arrival. I could see that he was in a temper, though. Did he and Thomas Becket lock horns again?”

Hugh nodded solemnly. “When the council began, Cousin Harry declared that it was not enough for the archbishop and the other bishops to swear to obey the ancient customs of the realm. He said that was too vague, that there ought to be a clear understanding of what those customs were. But when he started to set them forth, Thomas Becket and the bishops balked, and he flew into a great rage. He… he is a daunting man to defy, Mama.”

Maud thought Henry’s fits of temper were mere child’s play when compared to the lunatic furies of her late husband. “I am sure that is exactly what he wants men to think, Hugh. Tell me about these customs. What are they, precisely?”

Hugh looked uncomfortable. “I cannot recall each and every one,” he said, so vaguely that she realized he’d been paying more heed to the fire’s flames than to the fuel feeding it. “There was talk of criminous clerks again, and I think the king wants to limit papal appeals…”

Maud didn’t bother to interrogate him further; it was obvious that she needed a more knowledgeable source than her sixteen-year-old son. And she had just the man in mind. “Where,” she asked, “is your uncle Roger?”

All but three of the bishops had answered the king’s summons to Clarendon, and no less than ten earls and numerous barons. Clarendon could not accommodate them all, and the participants had been forced to find lodgings in Old Sarum, four miles to the west, in nearby villages, even camping out in Clarendon’s deer park. Becket had quartered his retinue at Old Sarum, as had many of the other bishops, but Maud’s brother, the Bishop-elect of Worcester, had accepted the hospitality of the Augustinian canons at Ivychurch, a small priory just two miles from Clarendon, and it was there that she tracked him down long after darkness had fallen.

Unsullied snow shrouded the inner garth, ghostly white in the pallid moonlight. The night sky was clear of clouds, the air cold and crisp, with no hint of wind. The cloisters were quiet, providing a welcome refuge from the strife and rancor of Clarendon. Fatigue was deeply etched in the lines around Roger’s mouth, the furrows in his brow. His dark eyes had lit with pleasure, though, at the sight of Maud.

Worldly and cynical as she might appear to others, to Roger she would always be the guardian angel of his childhood, the glamorous elder sister who never forgot a birthday or betrayed a confidence, now the last link to his past. He’d been faithful to his vows, had sired no bastard children like the Bishop of Salisbury, had never taken a concubine or hearth-mate. His brothers were either dead, like Hamon and Philip, living in Normandy, like Richard, or one of God’s fools, like Will. Maud was all the family he had left.

Taking his arm, she let him lead her toward a bench in one of the sheltered carrels. “Is Ranulf at Clarendon?”

“No, his wife’s lying-in is nigh, and he was loath to leave her. Nor is our cousin Will here, either.”

That Maud already knew; Will had departed for Rouen soon after Christmas, seeking to find some solace in his mother’s sympathy. “Poor Will. He deserves better than to be made a pawn in this infernal chess game Harry and Becket are playing.”

Roger’s frown was faintly discernible in the blanched moonlight. “I can assure you, Maud, that the archbishop’s objections to Will’s marriage are valid. Canon law prohibits marriage if the man and woman are related within the seventh degree, either by blood or marriage. Will and Isabella de Warenne’s husband were third cousins. Moreover, the girl herself is kin to Will through William the Bastard.”

“Then that makes her kin to her husband, too, does it not? So why was that marriage permitted and Will’s denied? Would Christendom have been imperiled had a dispensation been granted? For pity’s sake, Roger, Harry and Eleanor are distant cousins, too!”

“Yes, but the archbishop was not asked to pass judgment upon the validity of their marriage,” he pointed out, so reasonably that she groaned.

“You sound just like Papa,” she said, “always so rational and logical!” If it was a complaint, it was also a compliment. Neither one could envision a greater tribute than a comparison with the father they’d both adored. After a moment, they smiled at each other in unspoken acknowledgment of that family fact, and Maud said forthrightly:

“I do not want to quarrel with you. We will never see eye to eye upon the merits or the motives of your friend, Thomas Becket. But if you hold him in such esteem, I may have been too hasty in my judgment.”

“I wish I could convince you of Thomas’s sincerity. He seeks only to protect the Mother Church. Mayhap he has not always been as tactful as he ought-”

That was too much for Maud, who gave a derisive hoot. “Come now, Roger. The word you are groping for is foolhardy, not tactless. Bearbaiting may well be an exciting sport for some, but it is a most dangerous one, too.”

“I know,” Roger said, with such stark, despairing candor that she at once regretted her levity.

“Tell me,” she said, “about the council meeting today. What are these customs that Harry is demanding you all abide by?”

“He claims that those pleas concerning advowsons belong in the king’s court. That no cleric may leave England without his consent. That no man holding his lands directly from the king may be excommunicated or his lands laid under interdict without the king’s prior consent. That sons of villeins may not be ordained without the permission of their lords. That appeals are not to be made to the papal court without first passing through the appropriate Church courts, and then not without the king’s consent. That the king should control vacant bishoprics, abbeys, and priories. That when there are evildoers whom people fear to accuse, twelve respected men of the town or vill shall be chosen to take oath that they will seek out the truth of the matter. That once criminous clerks have been taken before an ecclesiastical court, found guilty, and degraded of their clerical office, they should then be turned over to the king’s court for sentencing as laymen.”

It was an impressive display of memory, but no more than Maud would have expected. Her brother’s keen intellect had helped, as much as his royal connections, to propel him to prominence at such a young age. “Are they, indeed, the customs of the realm in the days of the old king, Harry’s grandfather?”

Roger nodded tersely. “With one or two exceptions, I would say so.”

Maud reached over and squeezed his arm. “Can you not accept them, then?”

“No…” The look he gave her was anguished, revealing not only the conflicted state of his soul, but his bleak awareness of the high stakes involved. “In good conscience, we cannot, Maud. How can we agree to let the king circumscribe appeals to the Apostolic See? That would violate our consecration oaths. And how can we accede to the king’s demand that we must secure his permission to leave the realm? That would hinder pilgrimages, at the very least. And what would I do if I were summoned to Rome by the Holy Father and the king then refused to let me go?”

“What did priests and bishops do in the old king’s time?”

He was silent for some moments, gazing out upon the expanse of pristine, moonlit snow. “There must be accommodation between Church and Crown. If the king refused to unsheathe his secular sword to enforce spiritual penalties, how effective would those penalties be? The Church might, of necessity, have to tolerate certain practices that are in violation of canon law. But it is not possible to confer official sanction upon those deviant practices. So we have no choice but to refuse.”

“You mean that by making this public demand, Harry has taken away your wriggling room?” It was a colloquial expression, but one that accurately summed up their dilemma, and Roger smiled in wry recognition of that. Maud understood perfectly what he meant; she was first and foremost a realist. But she understood, too, why her cousin had been driven to such measures.

“This accommodation you spoke of can work only if there is trust on both sides. And Harry no longer believes that he can trust Thomas Becket.”

“I know,” he admitted softly.

“What happens now?”

“When the council resumes on the morrow, we shall seek to make the king understand why we cannot accede to his demands.”

“And if you cannot?”

He slowly shook his head. “Then God help us all.”

The council was already in session the next morning when Maud slipped unobtrusively in a side door of the great hall. Her son was seated on one of the long wooden benches, next to his uncle, Rainald, Earl of Cornwall. Hugh looked ill at ease, but then, so did many of the men. The tension was almost tangible, blanketing the hall like wood-smoke. The only one who seemed unaffected by the disquieting atmosphere was Henry’s young son. Hal was presiding with his father over the council; just a month shy of his ninth birthday, he was fidgeting in his seat, scraping with his thumbnail at the candle wax that splattered the wooden arm of his chair. Maud had heard that he’d become very fond of Becket during his eighteen months in the archbishop’s custody, and she wondered if it was painful for him to see his father feuding so publicly and acrimoniously with Becket. At the least, she imagined it must be confusing for the boy. But his face masked his thoughts; a handsome, sturdy youngster, he looked bored and faintly sullen.

Henry was pacing like a caged lion, never taking his eyes off his archbishop. “We have gone over this again and again. I am not claiming the right to try criminous clerks in my courts. They will be judged first in an ecclesiastical court, and if found guilty, degraded of their priestly office. It is only then that they will be returned to the royal courts for sentencing. Where is the unfairness in that?”

Becket shook his head wearily. “As we’ve tried to make you see, my liege, that would still be a double punishment: first degradation and then whatever penalty your court might choose to mete out. That would be like… like bringing Christ before Pontius Pilate a second time.”

Henry stared at him and then exploded. “That is arrant nonsense! There is no honesty in your arguments, my lord archbishop, nothing but prevarication and contumacy. As long as you persist in this obdurate attitude, further discussion is meaningless. I would suggest that you and your fellow bishops retire to reconsider your position. And whilst you do, bear this in mind. I have sought to convince you by logic and common sense. But if need be, I can find other means of persuasion.”

Maud would not have believed that a crowded hall could have fallen so silent so fast. But in the moments that followed, there was no sound at all, no whispering or murmuring, not even the catch of indrawn breaths, only an unnatural stillness.

The chamber was heated by charcoal braziers, but they did little to chase away the cold. Roger was the youngest of all the bishops, but the stress was telling upon him, too, as their deliberations dragged on into a third day. He’d slept little that night and suspected that few of the other suffragans had either. So far this morning the arguments being made were merely a rehash of the previous day’s heated discussions. They’d already exhausted all their options. Roger knew that not a man among them wanted to swear to obey these abhorrent customs, for to do so would be a de facto concession that the king and not the Pope was the true head of the English Church. But did they have the collective courage to defy him? If they held firm, would he back down? Roger felt reasonably confident that his cousin was bluffing. Harry was neither a monster nor a fool. Surely he’d not bring down the anathema of Holy Church upon his head by persecuting the greatest prelates of his realm?

But others were not as sure of that as Roger, and several of the bishops were imploring Becket to yield. The Bishops of Salisbury and Norwich, in particular, were insistent that a compromise be sought, for they were already in Henry’s bad graces, and admitted quite candidly their fear that they would be the ones to suffer the most if Henry’s anger were not deflected or appeased.

In truth, few among them had the stomach for this looming confrontation between Church and Crown. By Roger’s reckoning, only he and Henry of Blois, the wily Bishop of Winchester, and possibly the Bishop of Hereford, backed Becket without reservation. The Archbishop of York so disliked his fellow archbishop that even his courtesy seemed grudgingly given. Gilbert Foliot had reluctantly concluded that they could not obey the customs. But he was furious with Becket for having allowed himself to be cornered like this, and his anger made him a prickly, irascible ally. Hilary of Chichester had so far taken little part in their emotional debates, which did not surprise Roger. His assessment of Chichester was of a man slippery and shallow and clever, an opportunist who’d seen the priesthood as a profession, not a vocation. The Bishops of Ely and Lincoln were elderly and ailing, poor soldiers in this war of wills. Bartholomew of Exeter and the Bishop of Coventry were good men, but not the stuff of which martyrs are made. And the Bishops of Durham, Bath, and Rochester were fortunate enough to be absent, spared this harrowing test of their own fortitude.

Roger glanced then toward the man in the center of the storm. Thomas Becket was very pale. His cheekbones were thrown into sudden prominence, and his eyes shone with feverish brightness. Roger knew, as few did, how delicate his friend’s health was, and he feared that the older man might fall ill under the strain. For the full brunt of the king’s wrath would come down upon those thin, squared shoulders. If they did not yield, what would their defiance cost them?

As troubling as that question was, there was one that weighed even more heavily upon Roger. What damage would be done to the Church as a result of this dangerous breach with the king? His eyes again sought out Becket. As much as he admired and liked the other man, he did not fully understand him. Although loyalty kept him silent, he agreed with Foliot that this was a battle that need not have been fought. But now that they were forced to fight it, they could not afford to lose. All they could do was to hold fast to their faith and hope that the king’s rage would cool enough for him to see reason.

The tension was such that they all flinched at the sudden loud knocking. Becket gestured for one of his clerks to open the door, frowning at the sight of Roger de Clare, for the Earl of Hertford flaunted his enmity like a battle flag. “What do you wish…,” he began coolly, then got hastily to his feet as the earl pushed past the clerk into the chamber, with others on his heels.

“We’ve grown tired of waiting,” Hertford declared combatively. “Do you mean to obey the king or not?”

Roger had risen, too, moving to stand at Becket’s side. He recognized most of these intruders: the Earl of Salisbury; the king’s bastard half-brother, Hamelin; the one-eyed John Marshal, a Wiltshire baron with the soul of a pirate; the Earl of Essex, whose father, Geoffrey de Mandeville, had died in rebellion against his king. Behind them, more men were seeking to crowd into the chamber, shoving and pushing and cursing. The bishops instinctively recoiled; only Becket, Roger, Gilbert Foliot, and the aged Bishop of Winchester stood their ground.

“We are not answerable to you,” Becket said sharply. “When our deliberations are done, we will return to the hall, not before.”

“What is there to deliberate? Either you are loyal to our lord king or you are not. Which is it?” Hamelin’s freckled face was suffused with angry color, his eyes narrowed accusingly; he looked so much like his elder brother that the Bishop of Norwich could not suppress a gasp, shrinking back in his seat as if to escape notice. Several of the other bishops were also trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible.

But the Bishop of Winchester reached for his cane, glowering at this threatening mob with the icy aplomb of a man in whose veins flowed the blood of William the Bastard, England’s conqueror. “Be gone from here,” he said scathingly. “You honor neither your king nor your God by this churlish display.”

“We have no intention of going anywhere,” Hertford insisted, “not until you agree to obey the customs as your predecessors and betters did!”

“We have nothing to say to you.” Becket sought to stare the earl down, without success. “Your intrusion into this chamber is an affront to the Almighty. Withdraw at once, lest you imperil your immortal souls!”

A few of the men had begun to squirm. But John Marshal sneered, “Better you should worry about yourself, priest! Your skin will bruise and your bones will break like any other man’s. Even the Pope will bleed if cut.”

“How dare you threaten the archbishop!” Roger found he was gripping his crosier as if it were a weapon, so great was his outrage. “If ever there was a man heading for Hell, it would be you, John Marshal. And the fires of Hell will be even hotter than the flames in that burning bell tower!”

Marshal scowled at this pointed reminder of the calamity that had cost him an eye. Before he could retort, though, there was a commotion to the rear. Men were reluctantly moving aside, clearing a path for the king’s justiciar and the king’s uncle.

The Earl of Leicester and Rainald bulled their way through the crowd, trampling on toes and jabbing their elbows into ribs. “What in hellfire are you fools up to?” Rainald’s florid face was nearly crimson now. “Who told you to harry the bishops like this?”

Leicester was shaking his head in disgust. “The lot of you ought to be ashamed of yourselves, threatening men of God. Get out of here, and just hope this deplorable lapse does not reach the king’s ears.”

Some of the men did seem shamed by the justiciar’s tongue-lashing, others merely disgruntled. But none of them resisted, and within moments all were in retreat. Leicester strode to the door, rather ostentatiously slid the bolt into place. “The king sent my lord earl of Cornwall and me to discuss this lamentable impasse-fortunately for you, my lord bishops. I regret to say that feeling is running high against you amongst the king’s barons. Who’s to say what those dolts might have done if we’d not arrived when we did?”

Roger swallowed a skeptical rejoinder, for he suspected this entire scene had been staged for their benefit, a not-so-subtle warning of what could befall enemies of the Crown. “Uncle,” he said coldly to Rainald, while wishing suddenly that his other uncle, Ranulf, had been able to attend the Clarendon council. Mayhap Ranulf could have talked some sense into the king. It would not even occur to Rainald to try.

“What would you say to us, my lord earls?” Becket’s pallor was stained by blotches of hectic color burning across his cheekbones. “Do you speak on the king’s behalf?”

“Nay, my lord archbishop. I speak for myself,” Leicester said, his eyes sweeping the chamber, moving slowly and searchingly from bishop to bishop. “The king wishes to know how your deliberations are progressing. But nothing has changed. He’ll not give ground on this, my lords, for he has the right of it. In those lawless years under the usurper, Stephen of Blois, Crown prerogatives were lost and Church encroachments proceeded apace, if you’ll forgive an old soldier for speaking bluntly. It is only natural that the king should want to recover what was lost, to restore the-”

“This serves for naught,” Becket interrupted, with a rudeness that betrayed the shaken state of his nerves. “We already know the king’s views on this matter. If you have nothing new to offer, I see no point in prolonging this conversation.”

“How can you be so shortsighted?” Rainald glared at Becket. “My nephew is an honorable, God-fearing man, one who has the makings of a great king. But he is known to be… hasty in his tempers. Do not push him so far, my lords, that he takes measures he may well later regret.”

Leicester nodded grimly. “I must obey the king’s commands. I believe myself to be a good son of the Church, and it would not be easy to arrest an archbishop. But I would do it, my lords, if the order were given. I would have no choice.”

“You do what you must,” Becket said. “As will we.”

After Leicester and Rainald had departed, the silence was smothering. No one seemed to have the heart for further argument. Slumped in their seats, the bishops stared off into space, each man lost in his own dark musings. Roger’s head had begun to throb, and he rubbed his temples gingerly. How were they to escape this trap?

The next ones to try their luck at breaking the bishops’ resolve were the Templars-the English Grand Master Richard de Hastings and Tostes de St Omer. With a solemnity that seemed more appropriate for a wake than a council, the two urged Becket and the other prelates to reconsider, to think of the good of the Church. That argument hit home with Roger, whose greatest fear was that this acrimony would poison the well for years to come. They had spoken with the king at great length, the Templars reported, and he was willing to be reasonable. If the bishops would agree to accept the customs, that avowal would be enough to satisfy the king.

“This we faithfully promise you,” the Templars’ Grand Master concluded earnestly, “and may our souls be condemned to eternal damnation if henceforth the king demands of you anything contrary to your will or your order.”

Becket heard them out in silence and then announced that he would go to the chapel to pray for divine guidance. The atmosphere lightened a bit after his departure. The Bishop of Winchester ordered wine and wafers to be brought in. He no longer seemed to harbor the political ambitions that had once helped to wreak such havoc upon the kingdom. Those days when he’d dreamed of the archbishopric of Canterbury for himself, the throne at Westminster for his brother, were long gone. Now in his life’s winter, he still retained a healthy appreciation for the pleasures of fine wine and good food, and he ate with a relish that few of the others could match.

Roger had no appetite. When Gilbert Foliot took the seat beside him, he found for the Bishop of London a crooked smile. “Well, it has been an interesting afternoon. Shall we toss a coin to see who gets to give the king the bad news?”

Roger’s flippancy didn’t go over well with Foliot, who was still silently fuming at the idiocy of it all. “As soon as Becket returns, we’d best go back to the hall and get this over with whilst we can still pretend to a semblance of unity.”

The Bishop of Winchester finished one wafer, reached for another. “Just be thankful,” he said, “that the king’s termagant mother is in Normandy. If you think Harry can be a raving lunatic, you ought to have seen the Lady Maude in one of her imperial fits of fury.”

His sarcasm struck a sour note with Roger; the Lady Maude, after all, was his aunt. It was also an impolitic reminder that Winchester had been on the wrong side in the great war that had torn England asunder for nigh on two decades. He was on the verge of an equally impolitic rebuke when the door opened and Thomas Becket entered the chamber.

He had the dazed look of a man bleeding from an inner wound, so ashen that even Foliot felt a twinge of involuntary pity for his plight. Waving aside Winchester’s offer of wine, he said abruptly, “If the king will have me perjure myself, so be it. I will agree to take the oath he demands, and hope to purge the sin by future penance.”

Roger was too stunned to speak. He stared at the archbishop mutely, having no idea what to say. Judging from the silence, none of the others did either.

Becket’s sudden capitulation was greeted by Henry’s barons with surprise and jubilation. They sat upright on their benches, listening intently as the archbishop promised that he would “observe the customs of the kingdom in good faith.” Even his enemies would later remark that the man looked ill, but he spoke out firmly, loudly enough to be heard throughout the hall. Henry showed no emotion, his face impassive, grey eyes guarded. Once Becket had recanted, he said:

“You have heard the archbishop’s promise. All that remains is for the bishops to do the same, at his command.” And that was done. It was then that Henry startled them all, barons and bishops alike, by insisting that the customs should be committed to writing so as to avoid future misunderstandings.

The law, as they knew it, was oral tradition, passed down from one generation to the next. This was an innovation, one that stirred suspicion and alarm. But Henry had the momentum and the control of events, and his opponents were too demoralized by Becket’s volte-face to muster further opposition. This, too, was done as the king commanded, and the Constitutions of Clarendon were duly set down in a chirograph on January 29, the text written out three times on the same parchment and then torn so as to validate all three copies when joined together. With that, the historic and contentious Council of Clarendon drew to a close.

Roger was so troubled by his friend’s despairing state of mind that he concocted an excuse to accompany the archbishop upon the first leg of his journey back to Canterbury. Becket had been bitterly assailed by some of the other bishops, accused of abandoning them in the midst of battle. Even his own clerks turned upon him, and as they rode toward Winchester, his cross-bearer, a fiery-tempered Welshman called Alexander Llewelyn, dared to accuse Becket of forsaking his flock and betraying his conscience, saying boldly, “When the shepherd has fled, the sheep lie scattered before the wolf.”

The archbishop offered no defense, flinching away from the words as if they were weapons. When Roger urged his mount closer so they might talk, Becket said huskily, “I have indeed betrayed my God, my friends, and myself. I do judge myself unworthy to approach as a priest Him Whose Church I have vilely bartered, and I will sit silent in grief until the ‘day spring from on high hath visited me,’ so that I merit absolution by God and the Lord Pope.”

Roger was taken aback by the emotional intensity of Becket’s remorse. But he did not doubt the other man’s sincerity and realized at once what this meant. His cousin the king may have won this battle, but the war would go on.

An icy February rain was drenching Winchester, turning the streets into muddy quagmires and driving people indoors, where they huddled around reeking hearths and cursed the vile winter weather. Within the castle, though, another storm raged, a battle royal between England’s king and his consort.

“I cannot believe,” Henry exclaimed, “that you are siding with Becket in this!”

Eleanor swore in exasperation. “Jesu! I am doing no such thing. I simply said that it might have been wiser if you’d concentrated upon a few important issues, such as the matter of the criminous clerks. You have the right of that argument and few save Becket would dispute it with you.”

“I have the right of all sixteen arguments-the Constitutions of Clarendon. They are indeed the customs of the realm from my grandfather’s time. I did not pluck them from the sky or invent them out of whole cloth.”

‘No, but you did a bit of embroidering,” she insisted, with a wry humor that he did not find amusing. “Harry, I think you overreached yourself, and for certes, you’d have done better not to have demanded that written recognition-”

“Christ on the Cross, woman!” Henry was stung by her criticism, for he was very proud of the Constitutions of Clarendon and could not understand why others were so leery of change. “How can rights be properly defined if they are not set down in writing?”

“But that makes compromise so much more difficult! Why can you not see that?”

“Because I have no intention of compromising with Thomas Becket, now or ever!”

“Like it or not, you may have to, Harry. The man is still the Archbishop of Canterbury… and whose fault is that?”

“I have admitted I made a mistake with Becket and do not need you to throw that in my face! But even the worst mistakes can be undone and I mean to undo this one.”

“I suppose it is too much to ask how you intend to bring this about? Why should you share your plans with me, after all? I am merely your queen!”

“Why should I want to tell you anything at all when this is the response I get-carping and disapproval?”

A timid knock on the bedchamber door interrupted the quarrel, although not for long; both their tempers were still at full blaze. Henry took the proffered parchment, dismissed the messenger, glared at Eleanor, and broke the seal. As Eleanor watched angrily, he moved toward the nearest light, a tall candelabra. His back was to her, but she saw him stiffen, heard his gasp, a cry broken off in midbreath.

“Harry?” When he didn’t answer, she moved toward him. “Harry… what is it?”

He’d crumpled the parchment in his fist. “Christ have pity,” he said, very low. When he looked up, his eyes were brimming with tears. “My mother has written to tell me…” He swallowed painfully. “My brother is dead.”

“God in Heaven! Will? What happened… a fall from his horse?”

“No… he sickened. He sickened and died on Friday last. My mother says he was not ailing long. According to the doctors, he had no fight in him, just gave up…”

Eleanor was shocked; Will was only twenty-seven. “I am so sorry, Harry,” she said, and put her arms around him. He held her so tightly that it hurt, burying his face in her hair. She could feel his breath rasping against her ear, could see the pulse throbbing in his temple. They stood in silence for a time and then he drew back. There were tear tracks upon his cheek, but his eyes were dry and hot.

“Will died of a broken heart,” he said. “Even the doctors think so. In denying him the wife of his choosing, Thomas Becket brought about his death.”

Eleanor did not argue with him. She reached out again, held him close, and let him grieve for his brother.

Heedless of the chill, Ranulf stood in the doorway of the great hall at Trefriw, gazing across the rain-sodden bailey at the chamber he shared with Rhiannon. Faint light gleamed through the chinks in the closed shutters, the only signs of life. The wind and rain were all he heard, although he doubted that Rhiannon would do much screaming; Eleri had once confided that during her previous birthings, she’d bitten down on a towel to stifle her cries. Thinking of the proud, vulnerable woman in that lying-in chamber, laboring to bring his child into the world, Ranulf felt fear prickle along his spine. Rhiannon was almost forty-one. Women died in childbirth all too often, and the older the woman, the greater the risk. What would he do if the Almighty took her, if she traded her life for the baby’s?

“For the love of God, Ranulf, shut the door!” Hywel shivered as a blast of wind invaded the hall. He and Peryf had arrived in midmorning, only to learn that Rhiannon’s pains had begun before dawn. He assumed that the birthing was proceeding as it ought; Eleri’s occasional updates were hurried, not alarmed. He felt confident that Rhiannon would safely deliver her babe. But then Rhiannon was not his wife.

“We’ve got the midwife to tend to Rhiannon. Mayhap we ought to fetch a doctor to tend to Ranulf ere the poor soul unravels like a ball of yarn.” While said ostensibly to Rhodri, the words were actually aimed at Ranulf. The gibe worked; Ranulf turned reluctantly from the door, joining them at the table. He stared down at the food upon his trencher, though, as if he’d never seen stewed chicken before, and had to be prodded into swallowing a few mouthfuls.

“So… tell me,” Hywel said with determined cheer, “what names have you chosen for the child? If it is a lad, I think Hywel has a fine ring to it.”

That roused Ranulf from his uneasy reverie. “You ought to have put in your bid sooner. Rhiannon and I have already settled upon the names.”

“Let me guess. For a daughter… Annora, perchance?” Hywel murmured, grinning when Ranulf threw a wadded-up napkin in his direction.

“If it is a girl, we shall name her Angharad, after my mother.”

Hywel nodded approvingly. “A name I’ve always fancied. I’ve bedded two lovely Angharads.” He started to joke “but not at the same time,” then glanced over at Ranulf’s son and thought better of it. Ranulf’s daughter had been sent to stay with neighbors, but Gilbert was in his thirteenth year now, deemed old enough to remain. He was slouched at the end of the table, saying little and eating less, and Hywel decided circumspection was in order. “What if it is a son?”

“We will name him Morgan, after one of Rhiannon’s brothers.”

“My Morgan died young,” Rhodri began somberly. As proud as he was to have the name live on in one of his grandchildren, he still felt an old sorrow at the memory of that lost son. But before he could continue, Gilbert flung his knife down, shoving away from the table.

“Why could you not have named me Morgan? Why was I the one saddled with an alien English name that no one can even pronounce?”

They were startled by the boy’s outburst, Ranulf most of all. “I never knew you felt like that, lad. I named you Gilbert after my best friend-”

“An Englishman!”

“Yes, Gilbert was English. What of it? I am half-English myself, as you well know.”

Gilbert was deeply flushed. No longer meeting his father’s eyes, he muttered something under his breath. Ranulf could not be sure, but he thought his son said that was nothing to boast about.

“What did you say, Gilbert?”

The boy shrugged. “I am not hungry. May I be excused?”

Ranulf hesitated, then nodded, and Gilbert snatched up his mantle, bolting out into the bailey. “I had no idea that he was harboring such resentment,” he confessed. “I suppose I should not be so surprised, though. Your brothers are not alone in their suspicions of me, Hywel. For all that I’ve lived here fourteen years, some people will always see me as the alltud — the alien Englishman in their midst, who may or may not be the English king’s spy. Some of that suspicion must inevitably spill over onto Gilbert.”

Hywel slid his mead cup across the table. “Do not make more of this than it deserves. I daresay the lad is scared and lashing out at the closest target-you. Once Rhiannon safely gives birth, it will be forgotten.”

Ranulf was not convinced of that. But Rhiannon’s need was paramount; Gilbert’s grievances would have to wait. He drank from Hywel’s cup, then sent it skidding back across the table just as they heard sudden shouting out in the bailey. For a moment, he froze, his first fear for Rhiannon.

Hywel’s hearing was more acute. “A rider is coming in,” he announced and within moments was proved correct. The messenger was soaked to the skin, trembling with the cold. Stumbling toward the hearth, he gratefully accepted a cup of mead, gulping it down before he drew a sealed parchment from his tunic.

“My lord,” he said, dropping to his knees before Ranulf. “I bring you an urgent message from the king.”

The hall quieted. Even those who did not understand French realized that something was amiss. All watched nervously as Ranulf broke the seal and read. He sat down suddenly in the closest seat, the letter slipping from his hand, fluttering into the floor rushes. “My nephew is dead.”

“Which one?” Hywel asked, hoping it was the least of the lot, that fool Gloucester.

“Will… the king’s brother.” Ranulf blinked back tears. But before he could tell them any more, the door was flung open and his sister-in-law plunged into the hall.

Eleri was wet and disheveled and jubilant. “God be praised, Ranulf, you have a son!”

After a visit with his wife and newborn son, Ranulf returned to the hall, where a celebration was in progress. Celyn soon arrived, and then their neighbors, for in Wales, word seemed to travel on the wind. Ranulf welcomed his young daughter home, assured her that her mother and baby brother were well, and generally tried to play the role expected of him, that of host and happy father. But Will’s plaintive ghost lingered in the shadows and Ranulf kept catching glimpses of him from the corner of his eye; once or twice, he even thought he heard Will’s voice, sounding sad and bewildered and wrenchingly young.

“When will you tell Rhiannon?” Hywel had come up quietly behind him. “I did not get a chance to say I was sorry. I know how fond you were of Will. He was good company…” Hywel’s smile flickered briefly. “… for an Englishman.”

“I did not want Rhiannon to know, not yet. She was fond of Will, too. I’ll tell her on the morrow.”

Hywel had brought over a brimming cup. “Drink this,” he directed. “You look as if you need it.”

“I do,” Ranulf acknowledged. “When Will died in Rouen, any chance of compromise between Harry and Becket died, too. Harry is very bitter, blaming Becket for his brother’s death.”

“Then the accord they reached at Clarendon is not likely to last?”

“No… not bloody likely. Becket seems to have repented of his submission almost at once. As soon as he returned to Canterbury, he did public penance, put aside his customary fine clothes for plain, dark garb, and suspended himself from saying Mass. You can well imagine Harry’s response to that.”

Hywel whistled softly. “Say what you will about him, the good archbishop has quite a flair for the dramatic. So their war goes on.” He hesitated then, dark eyes studying Ranulf’s face. “I am loath to add to your worries. But you’ll find out sooner or later, and mayhap you ought to hear it from me. Rhys ap Gruffydd has gone on the attack, overrunning Dine-far and chasing the Marcher lord Walter Clifford back across the border with his tail tucked between his legs. And we recently got word that the English king’s stronghold at Carreghwfa fell to Owain Cyfeiliog at year’s end.”

Ranulf’s breath caught. He’d known since the summer-since Woodstock-that trouble was brewing in the Marches. But he’d not expected the cauldron to boil over so soon. How long ere Owain Gwynedd cast his lot with Rhys ap Gruffydd and the lords of Powys? How long ere all of Wales took fire?

“If anyone asks after me,” he said, “tell them I’ve gone to look in on Rhiannon.”

Collecting his daughter as he left the hall, he agreed to take her along if she’d promise to be very quiet. Seeing Gilbert loitering a few feet away, he beckoned and the boy hurried over, with enough speed to give the lie to his feigned nonchalance. Leaving their guests to Rhodri and Hywel, he ushered his children out into the damp February night.

The midwife had departed, but Eleri was dozing in a chair by the hearth. She smiled at the sight of them, putting her finger to her lips and pointing toward the bed. Ranulf kissed her on the cheek and said softly, “Celyn is awaiting you in the hall. I’ll stay with her now.”

Mallt and Gilbert glanced at their sleeping mother, then followed Ranulf as he crossed to the cradle. Swaddled in linen strips and covered by warm woolen blankets, Morgan slept as peacefully as if he were still sheltered within his mother’s womb. He was larger than either Gilbert or Mallt at birth, with a faint bruise on his temple and a fringe of tawny hair, the exact shade of Ranulf’s own. The older children crowded eagerly around the cradle, but when Morgan continued to sleep on, their interest flagged and they soon slipped away. Picking up the chair, Ranulf carried it over to his wife’s bed.

Rhiannon awakened about an hour later, raising up on her elbows to listen for the sound of a familiar step, a known voice. “Eleri?”

“No, love, it is me.” Leaning over, he kissed her tenderly on the mouth. As quiet as they were, a sudden wail from the cradle signaled that Morgan was now awake and in need of attention. When Ranulf put the baby in Rhiannon’s arms, Morgan let out a few more tentative cries, as if testing the power of his lungs, and then settled down contentedly against his mother’s warmth. Rhiannon refused to engage a wet-nurse as ladies of rank usually did, unwilling to sacrifice the precious intimacy of that bond in the name of fashion. She guided Morgan’s mouth to a nipple, smiling as he began to suckle noisily.

Ranulf slumped back in his chair. The chamber was lit only by firelight, the hearth flames offering just enough illumination for him to distinguish the shadowy forms of his wife and son. As he watched Rhiannon nurse their baby, it should have been a moment of tranquil joy. But his eyes were stinging, his heart thudding loudly in his ears. Trefriw was the first real home he’d ever known, and he’d been happier here than he’d have believed possible. Now a storm was gathering on the horizon: dark, foreboding clouds and a rising wind. When war came to Wales, how would he be able to keep his family safe? His earlier rebuke to Gilbert seemed to echo on the air. He was indeed half-English, half-Welsh. What if he could not be true to both halves of his soul? Could he choose without destroying the rejected self? He’d lived his entire life striving to keep faith. But what if his loyalties became irreconcilable?