When Christ and His Saints Slept

by Sharon Kay Penman

  His hesitation stirred up Rhiannon’s anxiety into outright alarm. “You must tell me if it is so,” she entreated. “If you have misgivings, better that we talk about them now…ere it is too late.”

  “No, it is nothing like that, lass.” Stepping toward her, he reached for her hand. “I am not sure how best to explain this. Until I walked through that door and saw you thrashing about in the floor rushes, I admit I was feeling some unease, fear that I would let you down or cause you hurt. I was thinking of our marriage in sobering terms—responsibility and commitment and duty. What I should have remembered, though, is that I am still getting to know you…and you are constantly surprising me.”

  Rhiannon tilted her head, listening as much to his intonation as to his words. He did not sound as if he were weighed down with regrets, but mayhap she was hearing only what she wanted to hear. “I am not following you.”

  “There seem to be so many Rhiannons. First there was the nurse, striving to save my life. Then my cousin, who soon became my companion and confidante. Even my confessor,” he said, and for a moment, they both remembered that summer afternoon by the rushing waters of Rhaeadr Ewynnol. “But now…well, now I am seeing you in an altogether different light.”

  He could not help smiling then, for he saw she still did not understand. But she did not realize how she looked—barefoot in her chemise, russet hair in beguiling dishevelment down her back, wispy white feathers kissing her cheek, her throat, the curve of her bosom. Half waif, he thought, and half wanton, a woman to cleave unto, as Scriptures said.

  “What I mean,” he said, “is that I am of a sudden seeing you as a bedmate, Rhiannon.”

  He could see a blush tinting the whiteness of her throat and cheeks, but there was nothing shy in the smile she gave him. “Well, then,” she said happily, “we’d best be married as soon as possible.”

  THEY were, much to Enid’s chagrin. She argued in vain that such a hasty wedding would be sure to give rise to scandal, but her protests fell upon deaf ears. Rhodri did not believe that anyone could think ill of his Rhiannon. Eleri took the opposite tack, pointing out with cynical but accurate insight that the marriage was bound to cause gossip in any event. And Rhiannon and Ranulf cared only about getting married before the start of Lent, when marriages were prohibited. They settled upon Shrove Tuesday, beating the Lenten deadline by one day, placating the indignant Enid by agreeing to have a lavish celebration after Easter, then upsetting her anew by not bothering to post the banns.

  They were wed in a simple ceremony at Llanrhychwyn, a small stone chapel in the hills above Trefriw. It was nothing like the great cathedrals where Ranulf had witnessed the weddings of his Norman-French kin, but it was newly whitewashed with lime, aglow with candles, fragrant with scented floor rushes, and in the secluded stillness, they could hear the rustling of yew trees in the wind, the clarion cry of a soaring hawk, even the distant howling of a Welsh wolf.

  Afterward, they had a quiet wedding dinner back at Rhodri’s manor, attended only by the members of his household, a meal of roast goose and baked trout and mead and harp music. Instead of the usual raucous bedding-down revelries, Rhiannon’s sister and stepmother then accompanied her up to the wedding chamber, where they made her ready for Ranulf, while he enjoyed a final flagon with the man who was now both his uncle and father-in-law.

  As a king’s son, Ranulf had witnessed more than his share of weddings, and he knew from experience how bawdy and boisterous the bedding-down revelries could get, the humor both explicit and uninhibited, a carnal and often crude celebration of life and lust and the anticipated pleasures of the marriage bed. But Ranulf felt sure that their bedding-down revelries would have been dreadfully different. They would have been subdued and decorous and seemly enough to have satisfied the most pious of priests, for the wedding guests would not have known how to deal with a blind bride. They’d have been painfully polite, offering Rhiannon their pity instead of their lewd mockery, and Ranulf was very glad she’d been spared that. She already knew full well that others viewed her as an oddity. Tonight he hoped to show her that she was a desirable woman to the only man who mattered, the one she’d married.

  That proved to be very easy to do, for once they were lying together in their marriage bed, she soon discovered incontrovertible proof of his passion, and he discovered in his turn that her other senses were functioning perfectly. She was eager to touch what she could not see, eager to please him, and afterward, he felt confident that her deflowering had been as satisfying for her as it had been for him. “I did not hurt you too much, did I?” he asked drowsily, surprised to realize how much that mattered to him.

  She shook her head, tickling his chest with a long strand of her hair, and then trailing it still lower, across his belly. “Ranulf…do we have to wait till morning ere we can do it again?”

  “Shameless wanton,” he murmured, and there was such tenderness in his voice that she found herself blinking back tears.

  “Ranulf…I want you to know that I understand divided loyalties. You chose me and Wales, but that does not mean you repudiated your past life. England will always exert a powerful pull upon you, and whenever you feel the need, you must follow it. You may return to England as often as you wish and I’ll not object…just as long as you keep coming back.”

  “I do have other loyalties,” he admitted. “But from now on, my first loyalty will be to you. That I promise you, Rhiannon.”

  She wondered if that was an oblique reference to the woman he’d loved so deeply and disastrously. But she dared not ask, dared not summon up Annora’s restless spirit to haunt their marriage bed. Instead, she settled back in his arms, shifting so she could hear his heart beating against her cheek until she fell asleep.

  46

  Rouen, Normandy

  August 1151

  MAUDE could have lodged in Rouen’s great castle, as Geoffrey did whenever he was in the city. Or she could have moved into the royal residence adjacent to the priory of Notre-Dame-du-Pré. Instead she chose to live among the monks, dwelling in the guest quarters of the priory, an austere and surprisingly stark milieu for a woman who’d once reigned over an imperial court.

  ON the first Sunday in August, Ranulf and his niece the Countess of Chester arrived at the priory. They were both a long way from home, but they were bringing Maude wounding news, not the sort of grief to be delivered in a letter.

  Maud had gone to the church, ostensibly to light a candle and offer up prayers, actually to give her aunt the only solace she could—some private time to grieve. Blinking in the glare of shimmering white sunlight, Maud paused in the doorway, waiting for Minna to catch up with her; the German widow was showing her age, moving stiffly and slowly even on warm summer afternoons.

  Out in the garth, Ranulf was carrying on an animated conversation with a new arrival. The man was a stranger to Maud, and yet there was something vaguely familiar about him, enough to kindle her curiosity. He looked to be in his early twenties, with very vivid coloring—curly copper-gold hair, fair ruddy skin dusted with freckles, silver-grey eyes. Like Ranulf, he was a little above average height, but he seemed taller, for he was powerfully built, with a deep chest and broad shoulders that she was eyeing appreciatively when Minna’s startled “Mein Gott!” echoed behind her. “It is Lord Harry!”

  “Harry?” Maud was astonished. “My cousin Harry?” Not having seen Henry on either of his last two trips to England, her memories were of a precocious ten-year-old. But what surprised her more than his maturity was how unlike his parents he was. He might have been a foundling, she marveled, so little did he resemble her aunt or Geoffrey. He did have Geoffrey’s coloring, but the freckles were all his own, and so was the brawn. He had none of his father’s flash, none of his mother’s aloof elegance. And when she went to greet him, she discovered that his personality was—like his appearance—very much his own, too.

  For Maude’s son, he showed a remarkable indifference to protocol and ceremony, and his humor held none of Geo
ffrey’s darker undertones. He charmed Maud at once, for he was playful and irreverent and quite sure of himself. The rapport was mutual, like recognizing like, and with a fine feel for teamwork, they soon pounced on Ranulf, for his impulsive and hasty and unforeseen marriage was too tempting a target to resist.

  “And so there I was,” Henry grumbled, “haunting all the ports in Normandy, waiting for reliable Uncle Ranulf to arrive as he’d promised. I spent so much time hanging around Barfleur that two of the fishing boats offered to take me on as a crew member. And just where was Ranulf whilst I was turning down a chance to catch cod? Off in the Welsh wilderness, taking advantage of a trusting damsel in distress.”

  “One who was unable to see what she was getting,” Maud chimed in. “Although I know many wives who would count that as a blessing!”

  Minna went hot with embarrassment. That Ranulf should have chosen a handicapped wife was a mystery she could not begin to fathom; the only thing more incomprehensible to her was that others would joke about it. She frowned at Henry and Maud, baffled and indignant that they could salt Ranulf’s wounds like this.

  “There is a lot to be said for having a blind wife,” Ranulf protested. “She is sure to overlook my flaws, is she not? Nor will she care when I get grey and wrinkled. But even if she had keener sight than an eagle, Rhiannon would still turn a blind eye to my failings. I only hope you can find a wife as merciful, Harry, for from what I’ve heard, you’ll need all the forgiveness you can get!”

  “Jesú, it is worse than we feared, Maud.” Henry was grinning. “Damn me if else, but the man has gone and fallen in love with his own wife!”

  That got a laugh from all but the thoroughly mystified Minna. Ranulf had the last word, though. “Keep it up,” he warned, “and I’ll name the pair of you as godparents, which would necessitate a long and arduous winter journey into Wales for the christening.”

  Maud was slow on the uptake for once, and yielded with a feigned gasp of horror. Henry was quicker. “Are we talking about a theoretical child,” he queried, “one likely to come in God’s own time? Or a flesh-and-blood babe, with a definite due date?”

  “November,” Ranulf said nonchalantly, and then gave himself away with a radiant smile. “Rhiannon is vowing to deliver on my birthday and—”

  At that point, he found himself fending off his niece, who was scolding him for not telling her while smearing his face with haphazard kisses. Henry offered his congratulations, too, plus a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that the baby be named after him. Ranulf agreed gravely that he would, provided it was a girl, and Minna gave up any pretense of understanding male humor. “Why are you here, Lord Harry?” she asked, as soon as she could get a word in. “We thought you and Lord Geoffrey were guarding the border against the French.”

  “We have a truce in effect, for the French king has taken to his sickbed. What of you, Ranulf? What brought you and Cousin Maud to Rouen?”

  “Bad news, I fear. A friend of your mother’s has died.”

  “It has been a sad season for Mama,” Henry said regretfully. “In April, Adeliza died at a nunnery in Flanders; I suppose you heard? What of this latest death? Is it anyone I know?”

  “Yes, it is. The lord of Wallingford Castle, Brien Fitz Count.”

  Henry was quiet for a moment, thinking of his Christmas reunion with his mother at Wallingford. “She took shelter with Brien,” he said, “after her escape from Oxford. He was a man worth mourning.”

  Brien’s shadow seemed to follow them back across the garth to Maude’s chambers. At sight of her son, Maude’s face lit up. Henry could not remember ever having seen his mother cry, but he noticed now that her eyes were suspiciously red-rimmed, the lids swollen and tender. “I know about Brien Fitz Count’s death. I am sorry, Mama. He was a good friend to us, a good man.”

  Maude swallowed. “Yes,” she said softly, “he was.”

  “It does not seem fair. Uncle Robert and Brien sacrificed so much for us. Of all men, they ought to have lived to see us triumph.”

  Maude nodded somberly. Although she was gazing into his face, Henry had the odd feeling that she was not really seeing him. “The greatest regrets,” she said, “are always for what might have been.”

  ALTHOUGH the French king had grudgingly recognized Geoffrey as Duke of Normandy, relations between the two men had always been strained, and deteriorated rapidly when they clashed over the fate of Giraud Berlai. Berlai was the seneschal of Poitou, a man who stood high in the French king’s favor. But if he was a loyal vassal to Louis, to Geoffrey he was merely a rebel, one of the ringleaders of an abortive rising of Angevin barons. Geoffrey had quelled the rebellion without difficulty, but Berlai had retreated to his castle at Montreuil-Bellay and begun to harass the countryside. After he’d harried monks from St Aubin’s, Geoffrey lost all patience and vowed to bring the man down, no matter how long it took. When he lay siege to Montreuil, Berlai was defiant, contemptuously confident that the castle could withstand any assault. He’d underestimated Geoffrey’s resolve, though. The siege had lasted three full years, but the fortress was now in ruins and Berlai in an Angers prison.

  The French king was enraged by Geoffrey’s harsh treatment of his vassal, and dismayed by Geoffrey’s unforeseen decision to turn Normandy over to Henry. It was in France’s interests to make sure that Normandy and England were not united again, and Louis was not willing, therefore, to see Normandy ruled by a man with such a strong claim to the English crown. He’d refused to recognize Henry’s title, revitalized his alliance with Stephen, and invited Eustace to join his campaign.

  The past year had been one of sporadic and inconclusive warfare. Henry had been besieging a rebellious lord at Torigny when he’d learned that the French king and Eustace were advancing upon Arques. He swiftly gathered a mixed force of Normans, Angevins, and Bretons and confronted the French. But Louis chose to withdraw and battle was averted. Geoffrey then seized a castle at La Nue belonging to Louis’s brother, and the French retaliated by burning the town of Séez. There were a few months of relative peace after that, but then, in midsummer, the French began massing troops along the River Seine between Meulan and Mantes, and Geoffrey and Henry hastened to protect their borders from this new threat.

  War seemed to be inevitable—until the French king was stricken with a fever, necessitating his return to Paris. It was possible that he would now heed the advice of France’s premier churchman, the venerable Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, who’d long been urging peace. But it was just as likely that he’d resume hostilities once he recovered. Henry and Geoffrey could only wait and see.

  HENRY dominated the conversation at supper that night, thanking his mother for her continuing efforts to make the French king see reason, giving Ranulf and Maud an insider’s account of the political and military maneuvering that had occupied so much of his time this past year, telling them of the skirmishes and raids and Geoffrey’s prolonged siege of Montreuil-Bellay.

  “Berlai bragged that the castle could never be taken, with a keep high enough to scrape the sky and double walls, encircled by a deep, natural chasm called the ‘Judas Valley.’ It kept my father from getting close enough to use his siege engines. So do you know what he did? He moved the yearly fair from Saumur to Montreuil, and paid the fairgoers to assist his soldiers in filling up the ditch!”

  Henry laughed and pushed his chair back. Ranulf glanced toward Maude, for it could not be easy for her to hear Henry speak so glowingly of Geoffrey. But she showed no overt displeasure; he supposed she’d had to accept it, that her son and his father would always be close. He’d noticed, though, that she no longer spoke of Geoffrey with such searing bitterness. Mayhap what he’d heard was true, that they’d finally made their peace. A pity they could not have done so twenty years ago. Why was it, he wondered, that whatever came to his sister, always came too late?

  “Was that how Geoffrey took the castle?”

  Henry shook his head. “No, Cousin Maud. Even though his mangonels were then able to do
considerable damage, Berlai still held out. Whenever breaches were made in the walls, they repaired the damage with oaken beams, and Berlai boasted from the battlements that he’d never surrender. But he’d reckoned without Vegetius, a Roman sage who’d written a classic treatise on siege warfare. Papa got an idea from his writings, and he filled an iron vessel with Greek fire, then used a mangonel to hurl it at the castle walls. It ignited on impact and the wooden beams caught fire. Greek fire is very hard to put out and they could not keep the flames from spreading.”

  “Greek fire,” Ranulf echoed thoughtfully. “Crusaders brought back tales from the Holy Land of Greek fire. But I’d not heard of it’s being used in the West ere this.”

  “Papa was the first,” Henry said proudly. “When his father went off to wed the Queen of Jerusalem, he learned the ingredients and shared the secret in a letter to Papa. I’m not sure what he mixed—naphtha and lime and tar and sulphur—but whatever, it worked. In no time at all, Berlai and his men came—as Papa put it—slithering out like snakes!”

  “Is it true that the French king got Abbot Bernard to excommunicate Geoffrey for refusing to set Berlai free?”

  Henry looked over at his uncle and nodded. “It seems the Church has a third category of sin; in addition to mortal and venal, there is also political.” His mouth quirked at the corners, in just the suggestion of a smile. “Fortunately,” he said, “Papa appears to be bearing up rather well.”

  “I expect he would,” Maude said dryly, for the counts of Anjou had always taken excommunication in stride; one of Geoffrey’s more infamous forebears had sinned on such a grand scale that he’d made no less than three pilgrimages of atonement to the Holy Land. “How long do you think this truce will last, Henry?”