When Christ and His Saints Slept

42

Chester Castle, England

September 1148

“Maud?” The Earl of Chester plunged through the doorway of his bedchamber. “Where are you, girl?” Striding over to the bed, he jerked the hangings back, then glanced about in puzzlement. “Maud?” A moment later, his wife emerged from the corner privy chamber. She was fully dressed, her hair neatly braided, but she looked so pale and drawn that even her unobservant husband noticed. “Queasy again, eh?” he said, and she regarded him balefully.

“No, I spend so much time crouching over the privy hole because I like the view!”

Chester scowled, but held his peace, reminding himself that a woman had to be humored whilst she was breeding. “Well, I’ve news sure to cheer you. You’ve a visitor.”

“I’m not up to seeing anyone,” Maud said, settling herself gingerly upon the bed. “Unless it is my mother or His Holiness the Pope, tell them to come back later.”

“This is one visitor you’ll want to see,” Chester insisted, and before Maud could stop him, he opened the door, shouting into the stairwell. “Come on up!”

“Randolph!” Maud was furious, but it was too late. Already she could hear footsteps on the stairs. Reluctantly swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she pushed her husband’s arm aside when he offered his help. “You never listen,” she scolded softly, “never-Jesu!” Her morning sickness forgotten, she shot off the bed. “Ranulf!”

Chester watched with a smile as his wife and her uncle embraced. “I told you,” he said smugly, “that you’d want to see him!”

AN autumn rainstorm was drenching the Conwy Valley. Each time the door to the great hall was opened, damp drafts blew in, guttering the candles. But flickering candles were no inconvenience to Rhiannon, and she continued to sew. Eleri had pinned a strip of flat wood to the material to guide her stitches, but even so, it was slow, laborious going. “How does it look?” she asked as Eleri’s steps drew near. “Do I have to rip out this row, too? Tell me the truth.”

“It does not have to be perfect,” Eleri chided, moving closer to see.

“Yes,” Rhiannon said, “it does.” Once her sister assured her that the stitches were even, she bent over her handiwork again, concentrating so diligently that she did not at first notice her stepmother’s approach.

“What are you making, Rhiannon?”

“A belt for Ranulf. He told Papa that his birthday is in November.”

“Why not let me make it for you? I could do it much faster.”

“I am sure you could, Enid,” Rhiannon said evenly. “But I want to do it myself.”

“Are you so sure he is coming back?”

“Of course he is. He promised he would.”

“It might be better if he does not.”

Rhiannon stopped sewing. “I thought you liked Ranulf,” she said in surprise.

“I do like him. We all do…too much, I fear.”

“I do not understand.”

“We welcomed him into our home, our hearts. It was easy enough to do, for he is very likable. He filled an empty place at our table…Cadell’s place. But he is not Cadell and this is not his world. Sooner or later, he will choose to return to the world he knows.”

“That need not be so,” Rhiannon protested. “He seems happy here. He could decide to stay.”

“Ah, lambkin…you are fooling yourself.”

That was Rhodri’s pet name for Rhiannon. She never liked her stepmother to use it, especially in such solicitous, sympathetic tones. Theirs was an awkward relationship, not friends, no longer enemies…although that had not been true in the beginning. Rhiannon had, by her own admission, reacted badly to her father’s decision to remarry. Her mother was just dead a year and Rhiannon was not ready to accept another woman in Nesta’s place. Nor had Enid known how to deal with a blind stepdaughter. Her kindnesses seemed condescending, her good intentions invariably went astray, and her patience hovered on the border between sainthood and martyrdom; only her bafflement rang true.

Looking back upon those first troubled months, Rhiannon could admit now that Enid was unfairly cast as the wicked stepmother, guilty of missteps and gaffes, not mortal sins. But she was-quite unknowingly-serving as a scapegoat, for that was the year that Rhiannon collided with reality, the brutal reality that men feared blindness only a little less than they feared leprosy. She was old enough by then for marriage and motherhood. Her father could find no suitable husband for her, though. A blind wife was a contradiction in terms, a bizarre joke, a curse besotted men might fling at one another in an alehouse brawl. At eighteen, Rhiannon had finally understood just how barren her future was to be, and she’d taken out much of her heartbroken rage and frustration upon her beautiful, well-meaning, obtuse stepmother.

Seven years had passed since then, and they’d long ago made their peace, for whatever their differences, they both loved Rhodri. But Rhiannon would never have chosen Enid for her confidante, and she resented Enid now for voicing her own secret fear. She knew that Enid was right, that Ranulf was unlikely to stay in Wales. Saying it aloud, though, gave her a superstitious shiver. Hoping that her silence would communicate her unwillingness to discuss it further, she bent over her sewing again.

But Enid was never one for taking hints. “It is only a matter of time until Ranulf goes back to England-for good. The longer he lives with us, the more it will hurt when he does leave. That is why I said it might be better if he stayed in Chester, better for my Rhodri and Eleri…and above all, for you, Rhiannon.”

Rhiannon felt heat rising in her face. She wanted to demand that Enid explain herself, but she did not dare, for she was suddenly afraid of what Enid might answer. Was it possible that her stepmother could somehow have seen into her heart? “You are wrong, Enid,” she said tautly. “Ranulf will come back. He promised.”

During his six months in Gwynedd, Ranulf had been as secluded as any hermit, but Maud soon brought him up to date on the happenings in the world beyond Wales. Her most startling news was of the intensifying feud between Stephen and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Upon Theobald’s return from the Council of Rheims, a furious Stephen had punished his defiance by expelling him from England. He had settled in Flanders, at Matilda’s urgings, as she and an unlikely peacemaker, William de Ypres, sought in vain to reconcile this rift between Stephen and the Church. On September 12th, the archbishop’s patience wore out and he placed England under Interdict. This was the Church’s ultimate weapon, but this time it misfired. The Interdict was ignored throughout England, observed only in Theobald’s own diocese of Canterbury. As to what would happen next, none could say. But it was a blessing, indeed, for the Angevin cause, Maud and Ranulf agreed, that Stephen should have estranged himself from the most powerful churchman in his realm.

Maud had other news, as well, for Ranulf. She confirmed that his sister was now living in Rouen with her sons. She informed him that Matilda had spent much of the year in Canterbury, supervising the building of Faversham, the abbey she and Stephen were founding; rumor had it that she was in poor health. She told him that the Bishop of Winchester had been suspended by the Pope for supporting Stephen over the archbishop. She shared another rumor, that William de Ypres’s sight was clouding over. She had the latest stories from the Holy Land, where the French king was blundering badly, lurching from one mistake to another, nearly losing his life in a Turkish ambush. But the most shocking gossip concerned his queen. During their stay in Antioch, Eleanor had announced that she wanted to end their troubled marriage. Louis refused to let her go, and when they resumed their trek toward Jerusalem, Eleanor was taken by force from the city, compelled to accompany them.

This was high scandal, indeed. But Ranulf was even more astonished by what Maud revealed about Brien Fitz Count. Brien had turned Wallingford Castle over to his kinsman, William Boterel, and he and his wife had both taken holy vows, renouncing the world and their marriage and pledging the remainder of their lives to the service of Almighty God.

Maud bent over her son’s cradle, satisfying herself that he slept. “Are you still set upon leaving on the morrow, Ranulf? A fortnight is not a very long visit, not after vanishing into smoke for nigh on eight months.”

“I promised my Welsh kin that I’d be back by the first frost,” Ranulf explained, adding with a grin, “But I’ll come to see that new babe of yours, lass. Believe it or not, your husband actually invited me back once the babe is born, and how could I resist such an unlikely invitation?”

Maud returned his grin with one of her own. “Who would have guessed,” she said, “that hating Stephen would have such a beneficial effect upon Randolph’s manners? It seems he’ll go to any lengths to bring Stephen down, even if that means being polite to my kinfolk!”

Ranulf joined her at the cradle, gazing at her sleeping little son. “I think he looks like Robert,” he said, and Maud agreed readily, for she wanted to believe that, too.

“Well, if you must go, at least take Nicholas and some of our men with you. They dare go no farther than the abbey at Basingwerk, though. Are you sure you and Padarn can get safely back on your own to your uncle’s lands?”

When Ranulf nodded, Maud sighed, only half convinced. “Remember to talk to the abbot about the letters. If we are generous in our almsgiving, he ought to be willing to send one of his monks to Trefriw with letters for you. And they can also take letters of yours to me here at Chester. Even in these accursed times, monks are rarely attacked-if only because they have so little to steal.”

“You have a very practical turn of mind, Maud,” Ranulf said fondly. “Diolch yn fawr.”

He’d taught her that was Welsh for “thank you.” “Can you really speak Welsh all that well?” she asked curiously. “Randolph has not mastered a word of it, for all the time he has spent in Wales.”

“I doubt that he tried very hard. Since I used to speak it as a lad, I had a head start.”

“But your uncle knows French, does he not?”

“Yes…from what I gather, most of the men attending Owain Gwynedd’s court speak some French. Whether a man knows any French depends upon how much contact he has with England. As for their women, most speak only Welsh.”

“What of your cousins?”

“I’ve begun teaching them French…or trying to. Eleri loses interest too easily, but Rhiannon is a better pupil, most likely because her memory is honed sharper than my best blade. It has to be, for she must carry a mental map in her head in order to do the most simple task. Even crossing the hall can be fraught with peril if you cannot see where you are going.”

“You think highly of her,” Maud said, and he smiled.

“I always thought Maude was the bravest woman I’d ever known. Rhiannon has a quieter kind of courage, but in its way, it is even more impressive, for Rhiannon’s war will last until her dying breath.”

“Whenever I passed a blind beggar on the road,” Maud confessed, “I would throw a coin and then hurry on by, averting my eyes. I did not know what life must be like for the blind, did not want to know.”

“I asked Rhiannon once what it was like to be blind. She said, ‘I do not know. I can only tell you what it is like to be me.’”

“She sounds,” Maud said, “like a remarkable woman.”

“I hope I have not made her seem too good to be true. A saint, she is not. She can be vexingly stubborn, and she has the same sort of prickly pride as Maude does.”

“Why does that surprise you? For them both, pride is a defense, the only shield available to them. We all do what we can with what we have, Ranulf.” Maud bent over and brushed a soft kiss against her son’s dark hair. “Say something for me in Welsh,” she asked. “Something poetic or profound.”

Ranulf was quiet, considering. “Rhag pob clwyf eli amser,” he said. “‘For every wound, the ointment of time.’”

Their eyes met. “I thought you might quote me the Welsh equivalent of that Latin saying you always fancied, ‘Carpe diem.’”

“‘Seize the day’?” Shaking his head, he said softly, “I like this one better.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “so do I.” Leaning over, she kissed him on the cheek, as gently as she’d kissed her son. “Wales has been good for you, Uncle. The next time you come, bring those Welsh cousins with you. I should like to meet them. Now…where are the letters you have for me?”

“They are over here, on the table. They are done, but not sealed yet.” Reaching for the first on the pile, he held it up. “This goes to the priory in Bristol, where they are keeping Robert’s bequest for me. I’ve instructed them to reimburse you for the money you’ve lent to me. The next two letters go to the stewards of my manors in Wiltshire. This one is for Hugh de Plucknet, and these two go to Cornwall…to Rainald and Luke. I’ve written, too, to Brien, and will be grateful if you’ll see that he gets it.”

He gazed down at Brien’s letter, still marveling at his friend’s decision to become a monk. How little, he thought, do we know of the hearts of others. He wondered if Brien’s wife had truly wanted to be a nun, or if she’d sought to find in God what she’d lost in Brien. He wondered, too, what Maude’s reaction had been. Above all, he wished Brien well, hoped fervently that Brien might find what he sought in the austere discipline and cloistered world of the Benedictines: inner peace and salvation.

Picking up another letter, he said, “This is for your mother in Bristol. Lastly, these are to be dispatched to Normandy, to Maude and young Harry. I also wrote down the names of the Jewish peddlers who came to my aid on the Chester Road. I hoped you might let your brother in Bristol know about them, that I owe them a great favor, indeed.”

“I’ll tell him, but I cannot see Will’s bestirring himself on behalf of Jews, even ones who saved your life.”

Ranulf did not disagree; he knew his nephew. Passing strange, that the best of Robert’s manhood lived on in his daughter. Folding the letters, one by one, he reached then for the sealing wax. “Remind me to repay you for the cost of all this-you’ll be sending out couriers to the four winds!”

She dismissed the expense with a wave of her hand. “You know I like nothing better than spending Randolph’s money. But is that all? No other letters?”

Ranulf pressed his seal into the soft wax on the last of his letters. “What did you expect…that there would be one for Annora?”

“The thought did cross my mind.”

He slowly shook his head, watching as she poured wine for them both. Holding out a cup, she said, “I heard from her…from Annora. She wrote to me this past spring. She had her baby, a girl, born last November. They named her Matilda, after the queen.”

Ranulf drank in silence for several moments. “I am glad for her,” he said resolutely. “She…she did seem happy, Maud?”

“Yes…for now.” She wondered if she ought to warn him. Annora was still caught up in the newfound joy of motherhood, but in a year or two, the novelty of it might well begin to wane, and she might crave excitement again, once more yearn for risk and romance and Ranulf. It was not a good sign that she’d asked, so very casually, if Ranulf had returned to Normandy with the empress. Maud said nothing, though, for each man must find his own way. If Ranulf’s way led back to Annora, she would be sorely grieved. But the choice was his.

“‘For now,’” he echoed, sounding surprised. “You do not think her happiness will last?” She shrugged, and he leaned back in his chair, studying her pensively. “I thought you liked Annora?”

She shrugged again. “You loved the woman to distraction. What was I supposed to say-that I thought you could do better?”

He started to protest, then let it go. She saw the sadness shadowing his face, and she knew Annora was still in the room with them, the ghostly, unseen presence of a lost love, much in need of exorcism.

“Aunt Maude will want you to join her in Normandy,” she said abruptly. “Uncle Rainald is sure to urge you to come to Cornwall. Your Welsh kindred want you to return to Gwynedd. But there is a voice missing from this debate-yours. What of you, Ranulf? What do you want to do?”

He was quiet for a few moments, and then gave her a crooked, rueful smile. “That is the trouble, Maud. I would to God that I knew!”

Ranulf and Padarn had a blessedly uneventful journey and reached Trefriw safely in mid-October. Ranulf had spent lavishly in Chester, and their saddlebags were crammed full of gifts: a slender-bladed dagger for Rhodri, a polished metal mirror for Enid, an ivory comb for Eleri, a vial of Maud’s favorite perfume for Rhiannon, bolts of fine linen and wool. They were all delighted with their presents and made much ado over his generosity and extravagance. But he had the comforting certainty that he would have been welcomed just as warmly as if he’d come back emptyhanded.

He knew they were planning to celebrate his birthday, and so he had to stay at least through November. It seemed heartless, then, to leave so close to Christmas. And by then it would be foolhardy, indeed, to consider departing in the midst of a Welsh winter. And so the weeks passed into months, December into January, on into February, and then March of God’s Year, 1149, the fourteenth of Stephen’s reign, and Ranulf was still in Wales, continually telling himself he ought to go and always finding reasons to stay.

As much as Ranulf had come to value his mother’s homeland, he regretted its isolation. Cut off from England by mountains and miles-for it was well over two hundred miles from Trefriw to London-Wales seemed as remote at times as the island kingdom of Ireland. Stephen and the Archbishop of Canterbury had been coaxed by Stephen’s queen into making their peace in November, but word did not reach Owain Gwynedd’s court until December and it did not filter south to Trefriw for yet another month. It had begun to trouble Ranulf that he knew so little of what was occurring in the rest of Christendom, and he sensed that he would soon be ready to return to the other world, his father’s world…and his own.

The seclusion that Ranulf found so vexing was a source of reassurance to Rhiannon. To her, Trefriw was a refuge, cloistered and sheltered by the cloud-kissed mountain peaks the Welsh called Eryri-“Haunt of Eagles.” It was easy enough to forget there was another world beyond the River Conwy, and easy, too, to believe that because Ranulf seemed content with them, he would always be so. The only times she feared were when the letters came. Ranulf had told them of an ancient Greek legend, of mythical creatures, half woman and half bird, who lured sailors to their doom with their seductively sweet songs. It seemed to Rhiannon that these letters were siren songs, too, trying to beguile Ranulf back across the border, back to his former life.

There had been three of these letters so far, forwarded by the Countess of Chester to the White Monks at Basingwerk. The first had come from Ranulf’s sister in Normandy, the next from his brother the Earl of Cornwall, and the third from the countess herself, just a fortnight ago, sharing with Ranulf her joy over the birth of her second son. Each time one of these letters came, Rhiannon had waited anxiously to find out if the siren songs would prevail. Each time her relief had been overwhelming when they did not. But on this rain-dark day in late March, her peace was threatened once again by the arrival of a Cistercian brother from Basingwerk.

The White Monk was welcomed heartily and offered a bed for the night; to the Welsh, hospitality was the Eleventh of the Lord’s Commandments. They gathered around Ranulf then, as he read his letters. Rhiannon tensed when he announced that they were from his sister and nephew in Normandy, for she knew that the empress was her greatest foe. Ranulf read rapidly, exclaiming occasionally to himself in surprise. When he was done, he glanced up, saying, “My nephew Harry is returning to England, so that he may be knighted by the Scots king.”

It was obvious to them that this was a pretext; if knighthood were all that Henry craved, his father could easily have knighted him in Normandy. “How old is the lad now? Sixteen?” Rhodri asked, and when Ranulf nodded, he said, “It might have been better if he’d waited another year or two. But was there ever a sixteen-year-old who was not eager to play a man’s part?”

“Especially Harry,” Ranulf said and smiled. “He was eager to do that at age nine! What amazes me is not his boldness, nor that Maude has reluctantly consented to this rash venture of his, for I daresay he gave her no choice. No…it is that the Earl of Chester has agreed to meet Harry at Carlisle and there make his peace with his old enemy, the Scots king. That is not only astounding, it is downright miraculous! I can only assume that as much as Chester loathes King David, he now hates Stephen even more.”

Ranulf began then to tell them of Chester’s bitter feud with the Scots king, but Rhiannon was no longer listening. Chester’s feuding meant nothing to her. She waited mutely to hear all that did matter-whether or not Ranulf would be leaving them. She could not bring herself to ask outright, but her father soon did. “And will you be joining young Harry at Carlisle?”

“Yes,” Ranulf said. “I must, Uncle. My sister entreats me to look after Harry as best I can. If I stood aside and evil befell the lad, I’d never forgive myself.”

Rhiannon caught her breath, then deliberately dug her nails into the palm of her hand until she could be sure she’d not cry aloud in protest or pleading. But her sister had less restraint. “You cannot go, Ranulf! We need you here as much as Harry does, for we’re your family, too!”

Ranulf looked unhappily at his young cousin, not sure what to say. But his uncle said it for him. “You are not being fair, Eleri. Ranulf has to go, for it is a matter of duty and honour. What would you have him do, entrust his nephew’s safety to a knave like Chester?”

Eleri was more than willing to let Henry fend for himself, but she eventually subsided, on the verge of tears. Only then did Rhiannon reach out and touch Ranulf’s arm. “When,” she asked uneasily, “will you be coming back?”

She had her answer in Ranulf’s prolonged hesitation. “I do not know, Rhiannon,” he admitted. “I just do not know.”

Ranulf found it more difficult than he’d expected to bid farewell to his Welsh family. They’d followed him to the gateway to see him off, and were doing their best to be cheerful and matter-of-fact about his departure. But only Padarn’s enthusiasm was real, for he’d talked his father and Rhodri into letting him accompany Ranulf. For the others, Ranulf’s leave-taking was a painful one, and he well knew it. For Rhodri, he’d been a substitute son, a bandage for the wound caused by Cadell’s death. For Eleri, he’d been a big brother and a window to the world, able to give her intriguing glimpses of foreign lands and great cities. And for Rhiannon, he’d been what she needed most-a friend. When he rode away, he’d be leaving a jagged hole in their household, one that would not be easy to mend.

Spring had come to the Conwy Valley, and the hills were green with new growth and gold with wild gorse. The first butterflies of the season were fluttering about like flying flower petals, and high overhead, Ranulf heard the shrill cry of a kestrel, a soaring shadow against the halo cast by the sun. Never had Wales looked so beautiful, so deceptively peaceful, so hard to leave.

“I want to thank you all,” he said, “for the best year of my life.” He was embraced, then, by Rhodri, a vigorous, bone-bruising hug that squeezed the air out of his lungs. Enid gave him a languidly lovely smile, a decorous kiss on the cheek, and Eleri hurled herself into his arms, making a feeble joke about Englishmen and their bristly beards; it was, she complained tearfully, like nuzzling a hedgehog. From Rhiannon, he got a brief, heartfelt embrace, delicately scented with a fragrance of the Welsh meadows; it suited her better, he thought, than Maud’s more exotic perfume.

“God keep you all safe,” he said huskily, “until we are together again.” Padarn was already mounted, impatiently eager to be off. Swinging up into the saddle, Ranulf sent his stallion cantering toward the gate. He waved once, but after that, he did not dare to look back again.