When Christ and His Saints Slept (79 page)

The recent calamity in Winchester was a sore subject with all of Maude’s partisans. But Ranulf knew how much Annora loved gossip, and so he overcame his reluctance, told her the rather sad and sordid story of William Pont de l’Arche, his young, fickle wife, and the Flemish mercenary, Robert Fitz Hildebrand. The former castellan of Winchester’s royal castle had taken advantage of the Wilton debacle to regain control of the stronghold, and then appealed to Maude and Robert for aid. They’d dispatched Hildebrand—to their eternal regret—for welcomed as an ally by William Pont de l’Arche, he’d promptly set about seducing the latter’s wife, and with her connivance, his men overpowered the castle garrison, cast the cuckolded husband into his own dungeon, and then struck a deal with the bishop and Stephen. All in all, it was a sorry tale, a deplorable commentary upon the way this war was unraveling the country’s moral fabric, and Annora found it highly entertaining.

“How do you know this Robert Fitz Hildebrand seduced the castellan’s wife? Mayhap she was the one seduced him,” she suggested impishly, and then demonstrated that she was not lacking in seduction skills herself. They kissed and rolled, laughing, to the very edge of the bed, where they kissed again. But then Annora bolted upright and let out a piercing scream. “A rat! Ranulf, a rat bit my hair!”

As he started to look, she grabbed his arm. “Wait—get your sword first!” she insisted, and then, indignantly, “Ranulf! Why are you laughing?”

“Because,” he said, “you’re about to meet a rare Norse rat,” and she peered cautiously over the edge of the bed, frowning at sight of the dog looking gravely back at her.

“I knew no rat would dare venture into the chamber with Loth here. He’s the best hunter of Shadow’s sons. I once saw him take down a deer all by himself,” Ranulf bragged, reaching out to ruffle the dyrehund’s thick fur. “When your hair swung down, he probably thought you were playing with him.”

“Tell him, please, that I was playing with you, and three are not wanted in this game.” Annora frowned again; she liked dogs, but there was something unnerving about this one’s unblinking stare. “What did you call him—Loth? Wherever did you get an outlandish name like that?”

She was at once sorry she’d asked, for she’d unwittingly given Ranulf an opportunity to expound upon one of his more peculiar passions—his love of reading. It was called
The History of the Kings of Britain
, he informed her, written by an Augustinian canon named Geoffrey of Monmouth, and dedicated to Robert. The book was the most remarkable one he’d ever read, tracing English history back through the ages. He’d especially fancied the story of Arthur, King of the Britons, the people known today as the Welsh. He’d gotten Loth’s name from the book, he explained; Loth was Arthur’s brother-in-law, and with Arthur’s help, he’d become King of Norway. So what better name for a Norwegian dyrehund?

Annora agreed politely that Loth was indeed an inspired choice, only half listening, for she neither shared nor understood Ranulf’s enthusiasm for books. Her brothers had been taught to read and write—against their will—for her father had an almost monkish respect for education. When she’d wanted to learn, too, jealously intent upon following in her brothers’ footsteps, he’d indulged her, as always, even though their priest had insisted that women had no need for worldly knowledge. She’d soon lost interest, would not have persevered had Ranulf not come into her life when he did, Ranulf who truly took pride in being able to wield a pen like a common clerk. Now, of course, Annora was thankful for her education, scanty as it was, for her rudimentary skills enabled her to write to Ranulf and to read his letters. But as he continued to extol the virtues of this Geoffrey of Monmouth’s book with its oddly named heroes—Brutus, Arthur, Merlin, Loth—her eyes glazed over and her jaw began to ache from the yawns she was suppressing.

Not wanting Ranulf to know he was boring her, she took diversionary measures, with such success that they soon attracted Loth’s attention. Puzzled and protective, the big dog rose to his feet, head cocked to the side as he tried to make sense of the strange noises coming from the bed, not moving away until he had satisfied himself that all this sudden thrashing about did not put his master in peril.

RANULF
and Annora’s idyllic stay at Lincoln Castle came to an abrupt end the next day with the unexpected arrival of Maud’s husband. Their unease was soon dissipated, though, for it was apparent that Chester had no recollection of ever having met Annora before. Ranulf, of course, he did remember, greeting the younger man with a caustic “You here again? It is well that you are Maud’s uncle or else I might start wondering why you seem to be underfoot all the time.” But the insult was offhand; he had weightier matters on his mind than baiting Ranulf. “Set the servants to packing what you need,” he instructed his wife, “for I am taking you back to Cheshire, and I want to depart on the morrow.”

Ranulf and Annora were dismayed, Maud irked. “Why?” she demanded, and Chester scowled.

“It ought to be enough for you that I say so.” His complaint was perfunctory, though, for he was in suspiciously high spirits. Maud regarded him warily, knowing from past experience that he was never so cheerful as when contemplating the troubles of others. And indeed, his black eyes were agleam with the perverse pleasure that people so often take in being the bearer of bad news. “Like ancient Egypt, we have a plague loosed upon us,” he declared dramatically. “Geoffrey de Mandeville has rebelled.”

His revelation was fully as explosive as he’d hoped, and he found himself fending off questions faster than arrows. “If you’ll all stop talking at once,” he protested, “I’ll tell you what I know. Mandeville took advantage of Bishop Nigel’s absence to seize the Isle of Ely and capture Aldreth Castle. He then advanced upon Ramsey, drove the monks out, and took over their abbey.”

“Do you truly think he’d dare to lay siege to Lincoln Castle, Randolph?” Maud asked skeptically and he shook his head.

“Not likely. But until Stephen tracks the whoreson down, there’ll be a lot of bodies found floating in the Fens. It is an outlaw’s Eden, a murky, deadly maze of salt marshes and quagmires and bogs. If Stephen goes in after Mandeville, he’ll never come out,” Chester predicted and smiled at the thought.

“Well, I am flattered,” Maud murmured, half mockingly, half flirtatiously, “that you were so concerned about my safety.”

“No one takes what is mine,” he said, “be it a lamb, a wife, a sack of flour from my mill, a felled tree from my woods. Let Mandeville steal and plunder all he pleases on his way to Hell, but if he makes me his enemy, he is an even greater fool than Stephen. No, lass, better you should keep to Cheshire and away from the Fens. Until Mandeville’s body is rotting on a gallows for all to see what befalls rebels, there will be no peace in these parts, nothing but blood and tears and the wailing of widows.”

It was a phrase that seemed to echo out of Scriptures, trailing a whiff of fire and brimstone. But what startled Ranulf was not that Chester was prophesying ruin and perdition, it was that he appeared to relish the prospect. Ranulf felt repelled when he realized why: that the Earl of Chester saw Geoffrey de Mandeville’s mad, doomed rebellion as an opportunity in bloody guise, a chance to set his own snares and pursue his own prey while Stephen hunted in the Fens.

THE
next day, Chester and the women departed at first light with a formidable armed escort. But Ranulf was not among them, for a messenger had arrived soon after Chester did, bearing urgent word for Annora. Her husband had heard, too, of Mandeville’s rebellion, and Lincoln was too close to the Fenlands for his peace of mind. If the Countess of Chester would be good enough to provide Annora with an escort again, Gervase would meet her along the route. Maud dispatched a courier to let Gervase Fitz Clement know that she and Annora would be heading west in the earl’s company, suggesting that they rendezvous at Coventry. Gervase’s letter vexed Ranulf even more than his disappointment at having their tryst cut so short. It was as if the man had reached across the miles to claim Annora as his own, and he had to stand aside and let it happen.

Nor could he accompany them on their westward journey, for he dared not risk Gervase’s learning that he’d been in Annora’s company. Even the most complacent, trusting husband would not accept “happenchance” as the explanation upon finding his wife with the man she’d been pledged to wed.

Annora and Maud were both uneasy about his striking out on his own, but Ranulf had a more potent armor than his chain-mail hauberk—the invincibility of youth—and he’d assured them that he’d keep to the main roads, take no needless risks, and send word straightaway upon his safe arrival at Devizes. He set out the day after their departure, taking the Fosse Way toward Newark. There he would follow the road south to Grantham, where he would swing off onto the cross-country road that would take him through Leicester, Coventry, and on to Gloucester.

The roads were even worse than he’d expected, for temperatures had plunged and treacherous ice patches were not always noticeable until it was too late. It had taken Ranulf a full day to travel the fourteen miles to Newark, and as he left the town behind the following morning, the sky was overcast, as leaden and bleak as his mood. More snow seemed in the offing, but he hoped he’d be able to reach Grantham before the weather turned truly foul.

Even in winter, there should have been travelers on the road, but it was virtually deserted; he covered more than five miles without seeing another soul. Loth had ranged off into the bushes, having caught an enticing scent, and Ranulf halted his palfrey, giving it a rest until the dog returned. Gazing at the empty stretch of road, he found himself worrying just how serious this rebellion of Geoffrey de Mandeville’s was. Fear was clearly on the prowl.

He was not sure at first what he’d heard, and he tilted his head, listening intently. It came again and this time he had no doubts—it was a scream. Turning his stallion about, he followed the sound into a copse of trees off to the side of the road.

He came out onto a frozen meadow, where a hunt was on. The quarry, though, was not deer or rabbit. Two men were trying to run down a young girl. There was a second child, too, but the men had no interest in him, and when he slipped on the ice and fell, they veered around him, continuing their pursuit of the girl. She’d been attempting to reach the woods, but the snow was hampering her flight, and they were gaining on her with every stride. When she risked a glance over her shoulder, she dodged suddenly, making a desperate detour out onto the ice of a small pond. The men halted at the edge, cursing, for the ice would never support their weight; as light as the girl was, the surface was creaking ominously under her feet. The men swore again, for by the time they circled the pond, she would have gotten into the woods, where it would not be so easy to find her.

At first glimpse, one of the men bore a superficial resemblance to Gilbert, for he was a redhead, too, and tall enough to look down upon most men. His partner in crime was lean and spare and dark, lacking either the redhead’s brawn or his conspicuous coloring. But he was the dominant of the two. As the redhead continued to stand at the pond’s edge, thwarted and fuming, he swung back toward the boy.

The child was just getting to his feet. Pouncing upon him before he could scramble out of reach, the man stopped his struggles with a blow across the face and then crooked his arm around the boy’s throat, shouting, “You’d best come back, girl, or I’ll snap the whelp’s neck in two, by God, I will!”

The girl looked back and froze on the ice, steps away from safety. The boy squirmed, bit the hand clamped over his mouth, and cried, “Run, Jennet!” He paid a price in pain for that, kicked futilely as he was snatched off his feet, and then gagged as the pressure on his windpipe increased. The girl’s face was contorted in horror; she seemed unable to move, and the man grinned, sensing victory.

“If you care about the cub,” he warned, “you get over here now!” Jerking his head toward his partner, he said, “Go around the pond so you can head her off if she runs for the woods.”

The redhead was accustomed to taking orders and was starting to obey when he caught movement from the corner of his eye. He turned and his jaw dropped open. He wasted several precious seconds, staring, eyes wide and mouth ajar, as Ranulf’s stallion raced toward them, before blurting out, “Holy Jesus! Ned, behind you!”

The man called Ned was of a different mettle than the befuddled redhead. The shock of seeing an armed knight bearing down upon him must have been considerable. But his reaction was instantaneous. Without hesitation, he threw the child into the path of the oncoming stallion.

Ranulf yanked on the reins and the palfrey swerved, with not a foot to spare. But the horse’s sudden plunge carried it onto a glaze of iced-over snow. It skidded, started to slide sideways, and went down.

Ranulf flung himself from the saddle, and was fortunate enough to land in a snowdrift. For a heart-stopping moment, he could not see where his sword had fallen, then spotted it ensnared in a hawthorn hedge. The prickly spines inflicted deep scratches upon his wrist and hand as he snatched it out, but that was the least of his problems, for the men were almost upon him.

He was surprised at their boldness, for he’d had a few encounters with brigands of their ilk, and they invariably backed off from any confrontation with a knight, preferring easier prey. They may have been enraged over the loss of the girl, for both children had seized their chance to flee. Or they may have been hungry enough for Ranulf’s horse and trappings to forget caution. Whatever their motivation, they were closing in fast, and he got a second, nasty surprise, for they were better-armed than he’d expected. The big redhead had a rough-hewn wooden club studded with nails, and Ned had a sword, an unusual weapon for one of these outcast, masterless men.

It was a basic tenet of faith with men of Ranulf’s class that a knight, trained in the ways of war since boyhood, could easily vanquish lesser foes, as much a belief in the superiority of blood and breeding as in the benefits of battle lore and killing competence. Ranulf had accepted this comforting conviction, too, but no one seemed to have told his assailants that they were inferior adversaries.