“Are you saying you cannot keep me warm?” She laughed back at him, and he took the dare, kissing her with enough passion to keep the cold at bay, at least until Edith hastened outside and chased them both into the manor, grumbling about such unseemly behavior.
Annora had no memories of her mother, who’d died while she was still in her cradle. But she could not remember a time when Edith had not been part of her life: nurse, confidante, mainstay. She was quite unfazed, though, by Edith’s sermon; she well knew the older woman would forgive her any sin under God’s sky.
Ranulf was equally unperturbed by Edith’s scolding. For all that she freely sprinkled her conversation with “rascal” and “young rogue,” hers was a bark that lacked bite; Edith was utterly delighted that her “darling lass” was to wed the king’s son. At least this was what she told Annora, for she’d never admit that she found Ranulf’s ready grin and good humor as appealing as his royal bloodlines. Jesu forfend that Annora ever suspect the shameful truth, that she was a secret romantic with a weakness, even now, for a likely lad.
The Bernays’ cook also had a fondness for Ranulf, and sent out a heaping platter of hot cheese-filled wafers. As Ranulf divided his attention between Edith and the wafers, Annora fidgeted. When her patience, never in plentiful supply, ran out, she got to her feet so abruptly that she spilled Ranulf’s cider, insisting that he accompany her outside to see the stable cat’s newborn kittens.
As excuses go, it was pitifully thin; only nuns and an occasional eccentric viewed cats as pets. But Edith waved them on indulgently, for Annora’s elder brother Fulk was due back that night, and he’d be far more vigilant about safeguarding his sister’s virtue. Let her lamb and the lad have some sweet stolen moments together. Even if they could not be trusted to be prudent-and in her heart she knew that discretion was an utterly alien concept to Annora-at the very worst, they’d just have to hasten the date for the wedding. But she had no problems with that, for her lamb was fifteen now, old enough to be a bride, a wife and mother.
Ranulf and Annora reached the stables in record time. Once they were safely within its sheltering shadows, Ranulf headed for the nearest bale of hay and drew Annora down onto his lap. Pulling off her veil, he reached under her mantle, then began to kiss her upturned face.
By their society’s rigid standards, Annora was no beauty, for she bore no resemblance whatsoever to the tall, willowy, golden-haired maidens so admired by their minstrels and poets, fair maidens demure and docile and unfailingly deferential to male authority. No bards would be singing Annora’s praises; she was short and dark and stubborn and so volatile that her brothers called her Hellcat.
So did Ranulf, but on his lips, it became an endearment. He wished now that he could have unbraided her hair; when loose, it put him in mind of a hot summer night, so black and sultry-soft was it. But that was out of the question; he could not let her emerge from the stables looking like a wanton, hair unbound and clothes askew. What would be the measure of his love if he cared naught for her honour?
It had not been easy, putting limitations upon their lovemaking. But he meant for Annora to come to their marriage bed a virgin, even if his forbearance half killed him, and at times, he feared it might. It was not that he believed they’d be sinning, for he did not; they’d been plight-trothed since the summer, since Annora’s fifteenth birthday, and a plight troth was almost as binding as a church ceremony. It was not his sense of sin that had so far kept Annora chaste; it was his sense of honour. Annora’s father trusted him, allowed him to see her often and alone, and Ranulf could not bring himself to betray Raymond’s trust by seducing Raymond’s daughter, however much he wanted to-however much Annora wanted him to. Thankfully, their waiting was almost done; her father was talking of a spring wedding.
Ranulf was the one to end their embrace; Annora never made it easy for him. “I suppose,” he muttered, “that all this self-control will stand me in good stead should I ever decide to become a monk.”
“A monk? I thought you were aiming for sainthood,” Annora gibed, and then gave a squeal when he yanked her braid. “How long can you stay?”
“Just till week’s end. My father had a sudden urge to go hunting, so Monday off he went to his lodge at Lyons-la-Foret, with Robert, a handful of earls, and a bishop or two. When I reminded Robert that Bernay was only a day’s ride away, he gave me leave to ‘pay your respects to your betrothed,’” Ranulf quoted, switching to a passable imitation of his brother’s gravely deliberate tones. “I promised, though, to be waiting when they return to Rouen on Friday. But we’ll not be apart for long. I’m sure your father plans to attend the king’s Christmas court, does he not?”
Annora nodded. “Of course. Who would miss it? Ah…but Maude would, it seems. We heard she quarreled with your father, that she then dared to leave Rouen without his permission. Can that be true, Ranulf?”
“Yes,” he said reluctantly. “But it was not a quarrel of Maude’s making. My father had promised to yield some castles to her husband, and Geoffrey became convinced he was not acting in good faith. So he seized them, which vexed my father sorely. They’ve been squabbling about it all summer, whilst Maude sought to make peace betwixt them, to no avail. At last she wearied of all the strife, and returned to Geoffrey in Anjou. She ought not to have gone without bidding my father farewell, but I can understand her anger, Annora. My father forced her to marry Geoffrey, and for him now to berate her for Geoffrey’s sins is unjust, to say the least.”
Annora’s mouth curved down. “Sometimes I think you’ll be defending that woman with your dying breath. Why you’re so fond of her, I’ll never understand, for no one else can abide her foul tempers and arrogance-”
“You’re not being fair, Annora. People are too quick to find fault with Maude, judge her too harshly. It is true that she has ever been one for speaking her mind, and mayhap such forthrightness is unseemly in a woman, but I rather like it myself. There is no pretense to Maude; she says what she thinks and means what she says. As for her temper, I’ll not deny she is quick to anger. But if that be a sin, it is one she shares with most of mankind. And she is very loyal to those she loves. Do you remember me telling you about that remarkable dog I saw in Paris last year? It looked verily like a wolf, but with a jaunty, bushy tail curling over its back. It belonged to a Norwegian merchant, and he said such dogs were common in his homeland, known as dyrehunds, that they were bold hunters, able to track elk, moose, wolves, even bears-”
“I do not care if they can chase down unicorns! What do dyrehunds have to do with Maude?”
“If you’ll curb your impatience, you’ll find out. I was much taken with the dog, but the man would not sell it. I happened to mention it to Maude, and she sent for the man, secretly arranged for him to bring back two breeding pairs of dyrehunds on his next trip to Oslo, and surprised me with them on my birthday. Handsome beasts, I cannot wait for you to see them. But how many people would have done what Maude did for me? She has a giving heart, and that should count for more than a sharp tongue.”
Annora was not convinced. “I’m glad she got you the Norse dogs you fancied. But the world is still filled with people who love that lady not. At the mere thought of her queenship, my father turns the color of moldy cheese!”
“I know how common such qualms are,” Ranulf conceded. “We’ve never had a queen who ruled in her own right, and the novelty of that scares a lot of people. If only Maude were not wed to Geoffrey of Anjou! He may lack for scruples, but not for enemies, and every one of them is now Maude’s enemy, too, for they fear that he’d share her throne as he does her bed. Poor Maude, she cannot win, for when men are not berating her for her unwomanly willfulness, they are accusing her of being Geoffrey’s pawn! How can she be both a virago and a puppet?”
“Poor Maude, indeed! She was born a king’s daughter, wed first to the Holy Roman Emperor and then the Count of Anjou, she’s borne Geoffrey two healthy sons, she’ll one day be Queen of England and Duchess of Normandy, and the
Lord God saw fit to make her a beauty in the bargain. There has probably never been a woman so blessed since Eve woke up in Eden!”
Ranulf grinned. “I’d say you were more blessed than Maude. After all, you’re going to marry me!” he said, and stifled her riposte with a kiss. “What you say about Maude is true enough, Annora. But truth, as my cousin Stephen is fond of pointing out, has as many layers as an onion. Peel away a few of them and you get a different truth, a view of Maude’s life not quite so ‘blessed.’ She was sent to Germany at age eight, wed to a man nigh on twenty years her senior, a man of black moods and brooding temper, notorious for having betrayed his own father. She somehow made a success of the marriage, though, and won the hearts of her husband’s subjects, too. When she was widowed, they wanted her to stay in Germany. So did she, for she’d learned by then to look upon Germany as her home. But my father insisted that she return to England, and when she did, he named her as his heir.”
“Oh, no! To be burdened with a crown-that poor lass.”
Ranulf tweaked her braid again. “But the crown had a baited hook in it, for he then forced her to wed Geoffrey of Anjou. When she objected, he confined her within his queen’s chambers under guard, kept her there until she yielded.”
“I never knew that! The king made Maude a prisoner?” When Ranulf nodded, Annora felt a twinge of grudging pity for Maude; her own upbringing had been one of indulgence and coddling, as the youngest and the only girl in a family of sons. “I’ll admit that Maude’s marriage does sound like a match made in Hell. But they did in time make their peace, did they not?”
“More like an armed truce. It helped when Maude gave birth to a son two years ago, and then a second lad a year later. Both Maude and Geoffrey dote on the boys, especially young Henry, their firstborn. But for all that they’ve iced over their differences, a bystander could still get frostbite if he lingered too long in their company. Do you see what I am saying, Annora? Do you remember last summer, when Maude nearly died in childbirth? She was stricken with childbed fever, and for nigh on a week, she suffered the torments of the damned. I was there at Rouen; I saw her agony. We were sure she was dying. So was she, and she told us she wanted to be buried at the abbey of Bec. But my father…he said no, that he would have her buried in Rouen. Even on her deathbed, Annora, she was given no say.”
Annora reached up, put her fingers to his lips. “I yield. You’ve convinced me that some of Maude’s blessings have been bittersweet. But I still think she brought much of her trouble on herself. If she’d not been so haughty, if she’d been more tactful, more womanly-”
Ranulf laughed rudely. “Like you? Sweetheart, I’d back your claws against Maude’s any day!”
Annora pretended to pout. “I suppose you’d prefer a meek little lamb like the Lady Matilda-oh!” Her hand flew to her mouth, as if to catch her heedless words. The gesture was affected, but her remorse was real. “I ought not to have said that,” she said contritely. “My heart goes out to Matilda, Ranulf, truly it does. I can think of no greater grief than the loss of a child…”
Ranulf nodded somberly, and for a moment, they both were silent, thinking of the sudden death that summer of Stephen and Matilda’s son. Theirs was an age in which too many cemeteries held pitifully small graves; one of every three children never even reached the age of five. But Baldwin had been their firstborn, a lively, clever nine-year-old whose death had left a huge, ragged hole in their lives.
“Their grieving was painful to look upon,” Ranulf said sadly. “They buried him in London, at Holy Trinity Priory. They’re in Boulogne now; I’ve seen them just once since their return. They’ll probably come to Rouen, though, for my father’s Christmas court. Indeed, I do hope so. Mayhap it would cheer them somewhat, being at the revelries,” he said, with the well-intentioned, misguided optimism of youth, and sought to banish Death’s spectre then, by focusing all his attention upon the girl on his lap.
Annora cooperated so enthusiastically that the shadow of Stephen and Matilda’s small son soon receded, unable to compete with the lure of smooth, female flesh, soft curves, and the fragrance of jasmine. After a time, they broke apart by mutual consent, breathing deeply, and smiled at each other. Ranulf had begun to stroke her cheek, and Annora gave a contented sigh; as exciting as it was when the fire burned hot between them, she also took pleasure in quiet moments like this, for Ranulf could be gentle, too.
They talked idly of the upcoming Christmas revelries, and then Annora related the latest Paris scandal. Ranulf was not surprised that she should be so well informed about the bed-roving of the French nobility; Annora adored gossip the way a child craved sweets. But he was momentarily at a loss when she insisted, “Now you owe me some good gossip in return-and it has to make me blush or it does not count.”
Ranulf pondered for a moment. “Well…Queen Adeliza’s confessor is said to be smitten with one of her ladies-in-waiting, following the lass about like a lovesick swain-”
“Ah, Ranulf, Ranulf…you’ll have to do better than that. The Church can preach chastity for its priests from now till Judgment Day, and that will not change the fact that half the clerics in Christendom have wives or hearthmates. Jesu, what of the Bishop of Salisbury, the old king’s justiciar? He’s openly kept a concubine for thirty years, even got their bastard son appointed chancellor. No, my lad, you’d best look farther afield for scandal. Catching wayward priests is like spearing fish in a barrel; there is no sport in it.”
Ranulf laughed softly, pulling her back into his arms. “We’ll just have to make our own scandal then,” he said, and began to kiss her again. But the dogs were barking out in the bailey, and they reluctantly drew apart, hurriedly adjusting their clothing.
“I suppose that will be Fulk,” Ranulf said glumly, for there would be no dalliance with Annora as long as her elder brother was on hand. But the brother who now burst into the stable wasn’t Fulk; it was Ancel, who should have been at Lyons-la-Foret with Robert and the royal hunting party.
“Ancel? What are you doing here?”
“Your brother sent me to fetch you straightaway. It is your lord father, Ranulf…He was taken ill soon after we arrived at the hunting lodge.”
“How ill? Ancel…how ill?” Ranulf repeated tensely, for it had not escaped him that Ancel had yet to meet his eyes.
“That is for the doctors to say, not me,” Ancel said evasively. “But Lord Robert said…he said for you to make all haste. He said not to tarry.”
Ranulf sucked in his breath, for he understood then what Ancel was so loath to tell him. They thought his father was dying.
When Ranulf had assured Robert that Bernay was just a day’s ride from Rouen, he’d stretched the truth somewhat; it was thirty miles, more or less, and indeed a hard-riding traveler could cover the distance in one day-a summer’s day. Travel on rutted and icy winter roads was a far riskier and slower venture. Ranulf knew, though, that he was racing Death, and he and Ancel spurred their horses without regard for their safety, making their way by glimmering lantern light as darkness fell. When they halted, it was only to rest their lathered mounts. But their reckless, breakneck dash through the frozen December countryside still took them all night and most of the following day. They reached the hunting lodge at dusk, only to learn that Ranulf’s father had died at dawn.
Having completed his prayer for his father’s soul, Ranulf got stiffly to his feet and stood staring down at his father’s body. Henry seemed at peace; Ranulf had been assured that he’d died in God’s Grace, shriven of his sins by the Bishop of Rouen. Ranulf fervently hoped it was so, but his treacherous memory refused to cooperate, conjuring up shadows of his father’s blinded, maimed granddaughters, the ghost of a king slain mysteriously in the New Forest, a brother’s body abandoned in the woods whilst Henry raced for Winchester to claim a crown. Even if his father had sincerely repented all his earthly misdeeds, a lengthy stay in Purgatory seemed a foregone conclusion.
It was odd; he could have been looking upon a stranger. Wh
y was he so calm, so queerly detached? He felt exhausted, numbed, regretful that he’d not been able to bid his father a final farewell. But his sorrowing was muted; his eyes were dry.
The door opened quietly behind him. Robert looked tired and tense, but composed. Ranulf glanced at his elder brother, then back at the dead man, thinking of Adeliza, his father’s queen. Would she weep for Henry? Would any eyes? It was a disturbing thought, that a man could wield great power as God’s anointed on earth, he could rule an empire, and yet leave none to mourn him when he died.
“People will say they grieve for him,” he said softly, “but they will be lying. He’ll be forgotten even ere he is buried, for men’s thoughts are already turning to tomorrow, to Maude. It sounds mad to say this, Robert, for I knew he would die one day, and I knew, too, that he’d not change his mind about the succession. So why does it come as such a surprise?”
“That he should die? Or that Maude should be queen?”
Ranulf considered. “Both, I think.”
Robert was quiet for a time. “In that, lad, I’d wager you’re not alone,” he said, and Ranulf turned, gave him a startled, searching look, half fearful of what he might find. If even Robert was so troubled by their sister’s coming queenship, it did not bode well for Maude, for England. Men might not mourn his father, but there’d be many who’d dread his death, dread the unsettled times that lay ahead.
“I’ve been praying for Papa, Robert. But mayhap we ought to be praying, too, for Maude,” he said, sounding so uneasy and so earnest that Robert reached out, let his hand rest briefly on the boy’s arm, a gesture that Ranulf found both surprising and bracing, for Robert was as reticent as Maude about open displays of affection.
“I think, lad,” Robert agreed, “that it would not be amiss to pray for Maude. And whilst you are at it, pray, too, for England.”
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