When Christ and His Saints Slept

31

Chester, England

June 1145

The Benedictine abbey of St Werbergh held a three-day fair every year upon the Nativity of St John the Baptist. It was not a gainful time for the merchants of Chester; they were not allowed to sell their wares for the duration of the fair. But the monks profited handsomely from the rental of the booths and stalls set up in front of the abbey’s Great Gate, and people flocked to the fair from all over Cheshire.

The Earl of Chester was not present to open the fair, but his countess acted in his stead, and was warmly welcomed by the monks, for the earl was a generous benefactor to the religious houses in his domains. His enemies jeered that Chester knew his only hope of ever getting to Heaven was to buy his way in, but whatever his motives, the monks were appreciative of his bounty and lavished enough courtesy upon Maud to satisfy a queen.

Maud reveled in the attention, chatting with the merchants, making an occasional purchase as she wandered among the booths, scattering alms to the beggars and children following in her wake, and appearing not to notice as Ranulf and Annora lagged farther and farther behind.

They were attracting stares, too, for Ranulf was trailed by his canine bodyguard, and Annora was proudly showing off her new pet. Pausing to allow two small boys to admire the silvery-grey puppy, she gave Loth a bite of her meat pie; she’d become the dyrehund’s biggest fan since learning how he’d come to Ranulf’s rescue on the Newark-Grantham Road. After explaining to the curious children that the pup was Loth’s son, she picked the little dog up, laughing as he licked her cheek. “I’ve thought of a name for him,” she announced. “Since you gave him to me on the Feast of St John the Baptist, I shall call him John.”

Ranulf made a face. “That is no fitting name for a dog!”

“This from the man who burdened one of God’s beasts with a name like Loth?” Annora gave the dyrehund the rest of her pie and slipped her arm through Ranulf’s. “Where did your squire go?”

“He’s over there, watching that bout with the quarter-staff.” Although she’d voiced no objections to Luke’s presence, Ranulf felt compelled to add, “I finally had to promise Maude that I’d not go off on my own again. She knows about us, Annora, or at least suspects. You might say we’ve entered into an unspoken pact. She does not ask what she’d rather not know for certes, and I agree to take Luke with me.” He shrugged apologetically, but Annora surprised him.

“You think I mind? I only wish you had a dozen Lukes to keep you out of trouble. Or better yet, a dozen Loths! If not for him, I shudder to think what might have befallen you and those poor waifs. Were you ever able to find a home for them?”

“I thought I had. A Southampton merchant heard about them whilst in Bristol to buy wine and offered to take them in. He seemed worthy and had a heartrending story about a stillborn baby and a grieving wife. But it was all lies. He was no vintner, Annora. He ran a bawdy-house on the Southampton docks, and he meant to sell Jennet’s maidenhead to the highest bidder, then force her to whore for him whilst he put Simon out on the street to beg. He’d probably have crippled the lad first, since a lame beggar makes more-”

“Jesu, Ranulf, they did not-”

“No, praise God, but only because the man was careless. Thinking the children were asleep in the back of his cart, he talked freely to his servant about what awaited them in Southampton. Jennet heard and she and Simon fled at their first chance. Fortunately they’d not gone far, and they were able to get safely back to Devizes, scared out of their wits, and who can blame them?”

He shook his head grimly. “After that, I was wary of trusting to the kind hearts of strangers. But Robert’s chaplain eventually found a brewer and his wife who had no children, and since he spoke well of them, I agreed.”

“But you do not sound like a man relating good news,” Annora said, and he shook his head again.

“I was in Bristol a few weeks later, and I stopped by to see how they were getting along. They were toiling away in the brewery like galley slaves, free labor for the good brewer. He could not understand why I was so wroth. Surely I had not expected him to treat a villein’s children like his own blood?”

“So you took them back to Devizes.” Annora was frowning in thought. “Surely there must be something we can do. What if you offered a corrody for the lass?” Almost at once, though, she saw the flaw in that. “But then, no nunnery would accept a villein’s daughter, would it?”

“No, not likely. Besides, they ought not to be separated. All they have is each other.”

“And you,” Annora pointed out. “How long ere they start calling you Papa?”

Ranulf called her a brat, but he did not mind her teasing, for it was just that-teasing. Annora was one of the few people who not only understood but approved of his efforts on the orphans’ behalf. To others, the fact of the children’s low birth was all that counted. But to Annora, what mattered was their youth and their need. Ranulf had never known anyone so protective of children as she. She was not indiscriminate; she had met children she’d not liked. But she’d never met a child she would not help. “I wish I could take them,” she said, and sighed regretfully. “I know I could find a place for them on our Shropshire manor. But we cannot risk it. All we’d need would be for my husband to hear them chattering about the heroic Lord Ranulf, who catches arrows in his teeth and walks on water!”

The joke went awry, though, the word husband dragging it down like an anchor. Ranulf said nothing, but his silence spoke volumes. Annora at once realized her mistake and set about remedying it. Once she’d coaxed him into a better humor, he told her the rest. Back at Devizes, the children were safe and earning their keep, Jennet in the laundry and Simon in the stables. He had hopes, though, that better lay ahead. One of the grooms seemed smitten with Jennet, and since she was nigh on fifteen now…

Annora smiled, seeing where he was heading. He would provide a marriage portion for Jennet, she’d wed the stable groom, Simon would go to live with them, and all would be well. It was just like Ranulf, she thought; with him, a happy ending was always a foregone conclusion. But such was the power of his faith that when she was with him, she found herself believing in happy endings, too.

At her urging, Ranulf bought them both cups of apple cider, and they wandered over to watch a man entertaining the fairgoers with a trained monkey. Annora was more interested in Ranulf’s gossip, though, than the monkey’s antics. “Of course I remember John Marshal,” she said, “that madman who trapped poor Gilbert in the burning church belfry. Why? What has he been up to now?”

“For the past year he has been feuding with a neighbor, Patrick Fitz Walter, the sheriff of Wiltshire. It was a mismatch, for Patrick was much more powerful, especially after gaining the earldom of Salisbury. So John decided it would be prudent to make peace, and to prove his good faith, he offered to wed Patrick’s sister.”

“I thought Marshal had a wife?”

“Not for long. He is getting his marriage annulled, having discovered that he and his wife are related within the prohibited degree and have thus been living in sin for the past fifteen years.”

“You mean he is casting his wife aside like a worn-out pair of boots?” Annora exclaimed, and was indignant when Ranulf laughed.

“I was laughing,” he defended himself, “because those were Maude’s very words. She’d taken a liking to John’s wife and-Annora? Did you hear someone call out my name?”

Even as she shook her head, the cry came again, urgently. “Lord Ranulf!” One of Maud’s ladies-in-waiting was gesturing frantically. “The countess has been taken ill!”

Shouldering his way roughly through the crowd, Ranulf found his niece clinging for support to a draper’s booth, surrounded by alarmed attendants, flustered monks, and curious onlookers. Her face was waxwhite, her skin damp with sweat, and her eyes glazed with fear. “Take me home,” she gasped, and when he lifted her up in his arms, he saw the blood staining her skirt.

Ranulf knew as soon as Annora came slowly down the stairs from Maud’s bedchamber. “She lost the baby,” he said, and she nodded, reaching out to him for comfort. He held her close for a time, until her trembling stopped. “I did not even know,” he confessed, “that Maud was with child.”

“I do not think even her husband knew yet. She’d missed only two of her fluxes.”

“Can I see her?”

“The midwife is still up there.” When Annora raised her face to his, it was wet with tears. He was touched that she should be grieving so for Maud’s loss, but then she said, almost inaudibly, “You cannot imagine what it is like, Ranulf, no man can. Her baby was dying inside her womb, where he should have been safe. She could feel him slipping away, and she knew when it happened, for she suddenly felt so empty. And afterward…afterward she will blame herself. No matter how hard she tried to hold on to him, she ought to have tried harder…”

Ranulf was too shaken for speech. This was no past pain she was describing; it was so recent that it was still raw. “Annora…did you miscarry again?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “A fortnight before Christmas.”

“Jesus God…and you never told me?”

“What good would it have done, Ranulf? Could you have come to comfort me? Could we have mourned together?” She met his eyes levelly, almost accusingly. “As for the question you cannot bring yourself to ask, I do not know if it was yours. And do not look at me like that! I did not betray you by sleeping with my husband. You may lay claim to my dreams, but I live in the real world-with him.”

She’d often had cause to regret her intemperate tongue, but never more so than now. She could not deny what she’d said, though, for she’d spoken nothing less than the truth. “I ought to go back up to Maud,” she mumbled remorsefully, and was turning toward the stairs when he caught her arm.

“Annora, wait. You do not believe we’ll ever be able to wed…do you?”

He sounded angry, but she did not need to see blood to know she’d inflicted a heart wound. Tears filled her eyes. “Sometimes,” she said softly. “Sometimes I do…”

The summer was hot and dry and discouraging for those who believed in Maude’s cause. Geoffrey was faced with a rebellion in Anjou, led by his own brother. In England, Robert suffered a political defeat and a personal calamity when Faringdon Castle fell to Stephen. Robert had built Faringdon, strategically situated on the London-Bristol Road, at the behest of his son Philip, who hoped to cut communications between Stephen’s garrisons at Malmesbury and Oxford. But that July Stephen laid bloody siege to Faringdon, and when Robert was unable to come to the beleaguered stronghold’s aid, Philip was so enraged that he defected to Stephen.

Despite such setbacks-or perhaps because of them-Maude kept a particularly lavish Christmas court that year. The great hall of Devizes Castle was ablaze with candlelight and swirling color, for another carol was beginning. Standing on the steps of the dais, Ranulf watched the dancers whirl by. Familiar faces, the stars in Maude’s firmament.

Rainald and Beatrice had come from Cornwall, and were harvesting a crop of congratulations, for Beatrice had given birth that summer to their first child. Rainald had confided to Ranulf his disappointment that it was a lass and not a son, but he’d wasted no time suggesting to Baldwin de Redvers that his infant daughter would make an ideal bride for Baldwin’s young heir. Rainald was now dancing with such exuberant verve that Ranulf assumed Baldwin had been amenable to the proposal. Beatrice was not in the carol circle, but Ranulf had seen her earlier that evening, drifting about in the shadows. Motherhood had not anchored her to reality any more than marriage, he thought sadly, for she seemed as unsubstantial to him as a puff of smoke.

Robert and Amabel were not dancing; they were sitting together in a window seat, more like spectators than participants in the Christmas revelries. Although all were taking great care to make no mention of Philip, he was the uninvited guest at dinner, the unwelcome intruder in their midst, his betrayal the unspoken topic of conversation. None might ask Robert outright, but people still wondered and speculated. Even those like Ranulf, who knew of Philip’s troubled relationship with his father, did not understand what had driven him to an act so desperate and so despicable. Ranulf doubted that Robert understood, either.

When the carol ended, the dancers continued to mill about, awaiting the next one. Patrick Fitz Walter and John Marshal were nearby, exchanging mordant banter; marriage may have made them allies, but not friends. John Marshal’s new wife stood beside them, smiling placidly at their verbal sparring. She was not as handsome as Marshal’s discarded wife, but she was undoubtedly fertile; Marshal had been bragging to one and all that his bride was already pregnant. Ranulf wondered if the Lady Sybil’s complacency was due to that early pregnancy; if so, she must be conveniently forgetting that the cast-off Adelina had borne Marshal two sons. But then, Sybil was an earl’s sister, and just as that fact explained her marriage, it also guaranteed its survival.

While Marshal’s new marriage had made him an object of curiosity, Brien Fitz Count was the one attracting the most attention, the heartiest congratulations, and the most lavish-if puzzled-praise. Brien had just proved that he could wield a pen as well as a sword on Maude’s behalf; he had written a political treatise in support of her quest for the crown, marshaling arguments like armies as he sought to discredit Stephen’s kingship. He was, of course, preaching to the converted, but his efforts had been well received even by men of scholarly bent, such as Gilbert Foliot, the erudite abbot of Gloucester’s great abbey. The others were impressed, but bemused, too, by Brien’s foray into such alien territory; with the exception of Robert and himself, Ranulf doubted if there was a man in the hall who’d even read a book in its entirety certainly not for pleasure. Tonight, though, they were all claiming to have read Brien’s, counting upon his good manners to keep him from putting them to the test.

Watching as Brien shrugged off compliments with self-deprecating humor, Ranulf felt sympathy stirring, for he knew only one opinion mattered to Brien; his book may have been offered to the world, but it was meant for Maude. She had already thanked him, circumspectly, for his wife had accompanied him to Devizes and never strayed far from his side. It occurred to Ranulf that Brien’s renowned courtesy was camouflage for a profoundly unhappy man. There had always been a streak of melancholy in his nature, even in the best of times. How must it be for him now-a man of honour forced outside the law to feed his people, an idealist with no faith in his fellow men, ruining himself for a woman he could never have and a cause that, however worthy, was soaking England in blood.

Ranulf drew in his breath sharply; looking into the depths of Brien’s soul, he’d looked, too, into his own. He at once repudiated the vision. It was true that smoldering images of Cantebrigge had not faded from his memory. But as much as he lamented the suffering of the English people, he still believed Maude’s cause was just, her war could be won. And he and Annora would not be like Brien and Maude, lovers left with nothing but regrets for what might have been. No, by God, that would not be their fate, too. He would not let himself lose hope, not like Annora.

Ranulf could not deny, though, that his mood was far from festive. Sometimes he could feel his faith slipping away from him, and he feared the day when he could not hold on. It was no coincidence that he framed his thoughts in Annora’s words; six months afterward, he was still haunted by her confession, her miscarriage, and the realization that she had wanted the child-even if it were not his. Looking around for a wine bearer, he took refuge, instead, in the happiness of a friend, hastening over to join Gilbert Fitz John and his wife.

Even a stranger could have guessed that Gilbert and Ella were newly wedded, for the glow had yet to fade. Often a landless knight was never able to wed, unable to provide for a family. But Gilbert’s marriage had been made possible by Ranulf’s persuasive tongue and Maude’s generosity. Unable to bestow an earldom upon her youngest brother, she had compensated as best she could by giving him lands under her control in Wiltshire. When he’d asked for a manor on Gilbert’s behalf, she had agreed, and Gilbert and Ella were wed in November, just before Advent. Gilbert’s bride was so like him that they could have been siblings. Ella was as good-natured and practical and easily satisfied as her new husband, and they were mirror images-male and female-of each other, both of them fair-skinned, freckled redheads, tall and sturdy and perfectly matched.

“Why so downhearted?” Gilbert asked before Ranulf even opened his mouth; he’d always been able to read Ranulf with ease. “The news from Anjou is not bad?”

“Not at all. Geoffrey swiftly put down the rebellion and he’s now giving his rebel barons reasons aplenty to rue their folly. Apparently Helie thought he’d be able to talk his way out of trouble, but Geoffrey has never been one for forgiveness. He cast Helie into a dungeon at Tours, and is likely to keep him there until Helie goes grey…

He seemed to lose track of his thoughts, and his sentence trailed off. Following his gaze, Gilbert saw that he was staring at a newcomer to the hall. “You know that man, Ranulf?”

“Yes, I do. He is in my niece’s service.”

Gilbert was astute about shaded meanings. “You are saying he is loyal to her, not Chester?”

Ranulf nodded. “Maud has her own attendants, most of whom came with her from Robert’s household at the time of her marriage. They are utterly devoted to her, none more so than Nicholas. I’m surprised that she’d give him so simple a task as delivering a letter to her parents. He always seemed the sort,” Ranulf joked, “to be skulking around at midnight on life-or-death missions.”

As they watched, Nicholas was ushered toward Robert and Amabel. Within moments, it was obvious that something was wrong. When Robert started toward Maude, Ranulf hastened to intercept him. But before Ranulf could speak, Robert said in an urgent undertone, “Not now, lad. Meet me in my chamber after the guests have gone to bed. And till then, say nothing.”

That was hardly reassuring. Ranulf watched uneasily as Robert drew Maude aside for a brief colloquy, one that left her looking tense and preoccupied. When he sought her out he got only a whispered, “Not here, Ranulf…later.” After that, Ranulf could only wait and worry.

Ranulf was puzzled by the composition of the after-hours council: Robert and Amabel, Maude, Rainald, and Brien. If Robert’s news was a family matter, why include Brien? And if it was political, why were Baldwin de Redvers and John Marshal and Roger Fitz Miles excluded?

Robert was leaning back against a trestle table, Amabel at his side. “I know my behavior must have seemed odd tonight, but what I have to tell you cannot leave this chamber. Until it is common knowledge, we can say nothing, lest my daughter be put at risk. She has sent us a secret warning. After the Christmas revelries, the Earl of Chester and his brother are journeying to the town of Stanford, there to make their peace with Stephen.”

Rainald swore explosively. Brien was close enough for Ranulf to hear him suck in his breath, but he said nothing, keeping his eyes upon Robert and Maude. Ranulf was astounded, for he knew, if any man did, how much Chester scorned Stephen. “Why? Why now?”

“Maud says that after Faringdon Castle fell, Chester concluded that Stephen cannot be overthrown. He decided to make the best deal he could, whilst Stephen still needed him as an ally.” Robert’s shoulders had slumped; his face looked pinched and grey in the subdued light. “My son Philip acted as the go-between,” he said heavily, and no one spoke after that, not knowing what to say.

The silence was full of foreboding; they all knew what this unholy alliance could mean. Chester’s holdings rivaled the Crown’s; nigh on a third of England lay within his domains. Ranulf rose and began to prowl the chamber. His sister was standing utterly still in the shadows, so none could see her inner turmoil. Ranulf glanced toward her, and then away. With Chester as an active ally, Stephen seemed likely to prevail. Henry would not be left with nothing, for even if Maude did fail, Geoffrey had not. The duchy of Normandy would one day be Henry’s. But Ranulf knew that would not be enough for Maude, not ever enough. Her own dreams were dead. Ranulf did not think she could bear to see Henry’s dream die, too.