Richard raised his eyes to the stem countenance. "Oh, please, papa, I am sorry. Truly I am sorry, but you said you would return at once and then the servants began to pack your clothes and I knew you were not coming back. Let me stay with you, papa, oh, please, do not send me away."
That plea was completely natural, the child stuttering slightly in his earnestness, and Rannulf dropped his hand to the boy's head, all desire to laugh fading into tenderness. "The labor of keeping you does not fall upon me, my child. Nor is it safe, perhaps, to keep you in London where I have many enemies and one foot beyond these doors you are on a stranger's land—"
"You do not want me. You do not love me. You always go away from me or send me away from you." Richard's eyes filled with tears.
"Let him stay, my lord," Catherine pleaded. "I will not let him out from under my eye for a moment. No man shall harm him or take him—upon my life."
"Well …"
"Thank you, papa, thank you!"
A wet and smacking kiss was pressed on Rannulf's hand, and he shook his head. Give a child or a woman the smallest sign that a decision was not absolute and irrevocable and they assumed that the decision would be remade in their favor. Rannulf could not, however, destroy the joy that had filled his son's face. They were at peace; the danger to the child was not acute, and for some reason Catherine's assurance that she would guard Richard imbued him with perfect confidence.
"You should thank the Lady Catherine, Richard," he said, yielding completely.
The boy capered away, gave his benefactress a rough hug, and jumped upon the bed, sending a pile of neatly folded linen flying. "Oh," he laughed, "she does not mind. She likes to have me. She told me so."
"If you make her pick up what she has just folded ten times a day, she will soon be sorry."
Catherine moved to her husband's side, smiling at him with a genuine warmth. "Truly it is a pleasure to have him. He is such a clever child. Only think, he learned all that long speech and did not forget a word of it, and I only told him three or four times over what to say."
So she was not stupid at all! Rannulf burst into laughter. "I thought you meant me to believe those were his words."
"Nay, how could I be so foolish? A child does not speak so, and it would be an indifferent father who could not tell his own son's way."
Rannulf's eyes narrowed. Stupid! Perhaps she was altogether too clever. She seemed to read him very well. "And how is it known to you that I am not an indifferent father? What you saw of us together did not speak of great tenderness."
"How not? You were only afraid for the child's welfare. Have I not beaten my own child with one hand while I clasped him to my bosom with the other after he had committed some dangerous folly. My lord, even at the moment I came between you, I knew 1 did wrong."
Rannulf continued to frown, not angrily but thoughtfully, and Catherine, feeling that he might have a distaste for her discussion of her past life, changed the subject.
"Now, my lord, will you bathe and change your garments? You are wet and muddied. Did you ride far?"
"Not five miles, but the roads are very bad. I wish, however," Rannulf added caustically, "that you would content yourself with making my child and my house models of cleanliness and propriety. I am not four years old to be told when to change my clothes."
Looking sidelong under her lashes at him, Catherine thought that he was acting very little older. Still, if he wished to remain wet and dirty just because she had suggested that he change, it was his affair. In the future, she would know better how to manage. She would order the bath and lay out the clothing without question, and also, she decided, looking at her husband's face, she would employ a barber. A man should either grow a beard or shave, not walk around looking like a half-mown field. He was a well set-up man; he would look none so ill with those gray eyes and curly hair if he did but comb his disordered locks now and again.
Unobtrusively, Catherine put her scheme into practice. The bath and the barber appeared regularly; little by little, as she and the maids sewed them, new shirts, tunics, and chausses took the place of worn-out underclothing. The rents and stains disappeared from Rannulf's gowns and surcoats and new ones, beautifully furred and embroidered, gradually filled a sadly depleted wardrobe.
He noticed it—indeed, he was often the butt of sly jests about assuming finery to charm his new wife that sadly tried his temper—but again the situation was beyond his management. To send away a ready-prepared bath or refuse to don the garments handed to him seemed ridiculous, especially since there was no one to complain to but the maids who were only following orders.
Slyly, Catherine disappeared each time the bath or the barber was summoned or when a new set of clothing was to be introduced, and as long as she did not mention the subject at other times, Rannulf was at a loss for a reason to do so.
Occupied by her husband's needs and demands, by the training of Richard who had come to her hands with the manners of a wild animal covering his sweet nature, Catherine drifted into contentment. She thought no more of independent use of her father's vassals, but she was troubled by the political situation.
Catherine felt the tension in the court and, although she liked Maud and Stephen well enough, she had no sympathy with Rannulf's commitment to their cause. She had no leaning toward the rebels either, and wished that her father had taken the wiser course of holding himself aloof from all intercourse with either side. Then, perhaps, Rannulf would not freeze or look so black at her when she suggested that peace was a better state than war.
Neither side had the right of the matter completely, Catherine judged. The rebels were wrong because they had no right to fight against God's anointed king, but the king was not right because he had not fulfilled his duty to the country. Catherine flushed slightly with irritation. A pox upon both sides, she thought, as long as the disease does not infect my family.
The trouble was that she could not escape infection. Rannulf was bound to the king, and Lady Warwick said that his honor would not permit him to free himself from that tie. If anything disturbed the uneasy peace, doubtless Rannulf would drain her property as well as his own to support the king's war.
That notion annoyed Catherine, who not only felt that there were better uses for money but also knew her vassals would resent that use of their taxes. She did her best not to dwell on the subject for fear of quarreling with Rannulf.
The irritation, in spite of her efforts, was recurrent. After all, Rannulf himself had said once that the property was hers by inheritance and would go to her children. Why then should he be able to use it in a way of which she completely disapproved? She was sewing, puzzling the matter over in her mind once again when the page entered to tell her that Sir Giles Fortesque was below.
"Oh, he has doubtless come for Sir Rannulf's investiture, but he is an old friend. Send him up, I will speak with him since my lord is not here. It is not courteous to send him away without a greeting."
She advanced with a smile and an extended hand toward a man of about her husband's age. Sir Giles had been chief of her father's vassals and she knew him well. To her surprise, for he had always treated her as if she were another daughter, Sir Giles bowed profoundly and kissed her hand.
"Why, how formal you are grown," Catherine exclaimed. "Have you forgotten how you dandled me upon your knee?"
The man's leather face creased into smiles. "Nay, I have not forgot, but one does not dandle the countess of Soke upon one's knee. I would not fail in respect to my lady, presuming on past familiarity."
"I am countess of Soke because my husband is earl, but I hope I am still Catherine to you, Sir Giles."
"You are countess of Soke, husband or no husband, to us, my lady. I cannot tell you how grieved and enraged I was when we learned you had been stolen from us. I am to blame for that, I fear, but not through neglect or ill intention. I was so sure that Bigod would try to seize you that I summoned the men to guard that border. Alas, I did not know the king could be roused to such
early action, and by the time we turned to your rescue, Bigod was behind us. We were trapped between two fires. And the king's order that the lands go to this Sir Rannulf are no more than black scratches on white parchment. Your father's daughter is the Lady of Soke."
For a moment Catherine stood with wide eyes, then dropped her lids slowly until her lashes concealed the misty irises. "You mean you would have kept me from the king—and from Bigod too?"
"If our lives and lands held, we would."
Catherine searched the face before her from under her lashes, but there was nothing in it except anger and the honesty she had long respected. "And what would you have done with me?" she asked slowly.
"Done with you?" Sir Giles was shocked, but he thought he understood the ignorance that prompted the question. The late earl sheltered his daughter too much. In marrying her to a weakling and shielding her from all knowledge of affairs, he had done her more harm than good.
"You are our lady," he explained, "and what you wished to do was for yourself to decide. We would have hoped that in time you would choose as husband a man worthy to wield the lands of Soke. Until that time, it was our duty to protect you and obey you."
Catherine had not asked out of ignorance, and she was well satisfied with the answer. "Well, I have a husband. He is from home just now, but he will want to see you."
"I do not wish to see him, however. At least not until I have spoken my mind to you and heard your orders."
Catherine nodded her satisfaction and reseated herself. Rannulf was about to receive quite a shock.
"The man, we know, was none of your choosing, and that is bad. Also bad is the fact that your father loved Henry well but was content to send him money, and I know Sir Rannulf rides constantly to war in the king's cause. We do not desire to have our lands overrun by Norfolk on the one side and by the king on the other. On the good side is that we know Sir Rannulf to be a just and honorable man who would faithfully judge between us, as your father did, and as faithfully succor us in time of need. Therefore, all except a few of us are agreed that the matter should be left to your judgment."
Now Catherine was puzzled. "But my judgment about what? I am married to Sir Rannulf already. What can there be left to judge?"
"The same thing, madam," Sir Giles said, his face suddenly grim. "We will accept this man as earl of Soke only if you are content to have him to husband. If you wish to be rid of him and have a man—perchance one of us—of your own choosing, we will kill him in the tourney."
"No!" Catherine shrieked, leaping to her feet. "He is a good man. Before God he is my husband, my troth is plighted to him. Through that marriage and the king's gift, he is your earl. I will not have him murdered by his own men to smirch my name, and yours also, forever."
"Calm yourself, madam. I did not think you would be party to such a plan, but Sir Herbert Osborn bound me over to put it to you."
"Sir Herbert offered for me once," Catherine snapped. "Perhaps he thought to free me from Sir Rannulf to snatch me to himself." She received a strange, considering glance, but she was too much distressed to think what it meant.
"Perhaps," Sir Giles said. "But there are others of his mind. I must speak plain, my lady, even if I offend you. Dearly as I loved your father and just as he was, he did not oversee his barons closely. We are somewhat accustomed to our freedom. That is good, and even I would wish to keep it that way . . . except that with overmuch freedom comes trouble. There is a party among us now that seeks to oppress the others. Thus far I, and those who think as I do, have kept them in check with words alone, but I think that if a strong man does not take matters into his hands soon there will be fighting."
A rich and completely satisfactory sensation of pride filled Catherine. "There can be none stronger than Sir Rannulf," she said firmly, and then with narrowing eyes, "No doubt Sir Herbert leads that party also."
"Aye, that is true." Another thoughtful glance raked Catherine, but she had nothing to hide and ignored it.
"He was ever a maker of trouble. He caused my father much grief from time to time."
Catherine was about to tell Sir Giles to bring the problem to Sir Rannulf's attention and not trouble her with such matters when Lady Warwick's advice came to her mind. She no longer thought of needing her vassals' protection against her husband, but if she and the vassals stood together against involvement in the king's war, Rannulf might have to listen.
"Certainly," she continued, "the way things lie I would be a fool to align myself with one faction or the other among my own men, even if Sir Rannulf were not to my taste."
Sir Giles nodded in agreement. She was quick to see that, whatever might have been good before, now an outsider was needed to keep the men from struggling among themselves. If he, himself, had not been married, there might have been a benefit in Catherine taking him because the men, whatever their faction, were accustomed to obeying him. Since that was not possible, it was indeed likely that Sir Rannulf was best, providing he did not interfere too much in the old, established order in the earldom.
Catherine, meanwhile, flushed with confidence because of the assurances of loyalty Sir Giles had given her, had decided that since the men believed they were hers, hers they would remain.
"Of Sir Rannulf," she said with a certain asperity, a mistress' impatience with doubt in a servant, "you have heard the truth. He is both strong and just. For all your decision to do this or that, it is lighter, with such a man, to say than to do against his will. You had better leave him to me. Thus far we have no quarrel about the management of my lands or the disposition of my monies, so do as he bids you. On the matter of the war, I will tell him of your desire to remain apart from it."
Suddenly she smiled, looking at once like the Catherine he loved as a daughter. "Truly, I know little enough of the whys and wherefors of this madness that makes men tear each other apart," she admitted. "Do you wait on Sir Rannulf here about the prime tomorrow and hear what he has to say on the matter. Then, with your guidance I can decide what is best to do."
The remainder of the conversation was of commonplaces, her health, that of Sir Giles and his family. Catherine called Richard from the room below where he was playing among the men-at-arms and introduced Rannulf's younger son to Sir Giles.
The boy did her proud, his burnished hair neat, his clothing pretty and well-fitting, and his manner such a combination of innocence and childish dignity that stepmother and vassal had much ado to maintain their gravity. Catherine's devotion and the child's affection for her could not be mistaken, and Sir Giles saw that, whether she cared for the man or not, she was already irrevocably bound to him through his son.
Unfortunately the stimulation and excitement, the feeling of assurance that Catherine had in Sir Giles' presence, departed with him. When she thought over what she had done, she was appalled.
It was simple enough to say to Sir Giles that she would tell Rannulf this or that, but what reason could she propose to Rannulf for her interference? Sir Giles might say that she was still his lady, but Catherine was sure that Rannulf would not see it that way. Or, since he had said the money was hers, might acknowledge that the men were hers but had no right to follow the will of a fool of a woman.
Catherine bit her lip, her hands idle on the shirt she was sewing. She could tell him of the plan to murder him, she thought. Surely that would be excuse enough for her to have spoken her mind. No, she could not. To do so would surely set him against her vassals, and if they owed her loyalty she must protect their interests.
When Rannulf came in to dinner, she had still decided nothing, and she sought in vain throughout the meal for an opening that would not enrage his irascible temper.
"You are strangely silent, madam," Rannulf said at last.
It was not that Catherine was a chattering woman, but she had a well-bred way of making pleasant conversation at the table about things she knew would interest her husband. Having sought without result during the unusual silence that greeted his remark for somethin
g he could have done to annoy her, Rannulf turned on his son.
"Richard, have you distressed the Lady Catherine today? Do you have something to confess?"
The child's startled eyes proclaimed his innocence even before Catherine spoke. "No, my lord, indeed, he is very good. I—I do not feel very well today."
Rannulf turned his eyes to his plate. It was now almost a month that they had been man and wife. Possibly she was breeding. The thought gave him no particular pleasure although he liked children. He had an heir in his eldest son Geoffrey and a guarantee in Richard. True, it would be well to have a man-child out of Catherine for the better security of the lands of Soke, but there was time enough for that. Women died in childbearing.
"Do you wish that I stay within this afternoon?"
Catherine looked at her husband. His head was lowered over his food and his voice was harsh and angry, but it always was, except in lovemaking. Still, what he said in conjunction with her remark could only be meant as an offer of help and comfort.
Tears rose in her eyes at the thought of her intended duplicity. She knew he found her presence pleasant although he never spoke a fond word nor offered a caress. How could she have been so stupid as to endanger his growing attachment for her merely for the sake of a little power over her men? If she had been wiser and sent Sir Giles to him directly, her faith might have fixed his fondness on her more securely and in the end brought her more power, even if indirectly wielded. She had to think of some way out of the situation though, and to have Rannulf in the house would effectively paralyze her.
Catherine forced a smile. "No, thank you. I am only a little listless."
"Then I will take the boy that he may not plague you." He caught his wife's anxious glance. "I am only going to the armorer to see how goes my new hauberk. There will be much to interest him there. He will not plague me either."
"Will you buy me a sword, papa? Oh, please! You said I might have one soon."
The Sword and The Swan Page 8
