The Sword and The Swan (17 page)

"Stay a moment, child," she said softly. "I would like to present my husband's natural daughter, Mary, to you, Lady Warwick. She has been a great comfort to me, and a great help in my labor in Sleaford."

"What a pretty maid. Where have you hidden her all these years, Lord Soke?"

"She has always been in the keep," Rannulf snarled. "Lady Adelecia would take no pains with her, and I know nothing about the raising of daughters. It is one of my wife's virtues," he added caustically, "that she takes to her heart all stray lambs."

"You should be grateful that she cares so well for your children," Lady Warwick countered in a deliberately shocked voice, watching Catherine's color deepen still more.

Rannulf snorted. "Women! Carpets and children is all they can think of. Warwick, I expect that Leicester and Northampton will be here tomorrow. If you and I can settle what we think will be best, we can present a united front to them. Ride out with me where we will be free of this women's foolishness and we can talk at our ease."

The gibe was directed at Lady Warwick, but it was Catherine who rose to her feet. "We are in the way, Lady Warwick," she said in a trembling voice. "Let us withdraw to my solar. I would not have it said of me that I drove my husband from his own home."

"Nonsense, my dear." Warwick laughed. "I have no intention of leaving my wine or my comfortable chair just because Lord Soke has bad manners. I have known him for some thirty years, and have learned to put up with him."

He turned from Catherine to look at Rannulf, still laughing. "If you take Gundreda away, I will merely have to repeat the whole conversation to her to still her nagging, and I have no lust for such dull work. Besides—" he looked back at Catherine "—it is very pleasant to look at your sweet face, and I have no desire to lose that comfort when I am about to embark on what I know will be a very unpleasant discussion."

"Mayhap;" Catherine said bitterly, "my lord does not trust me to hear of these great matters."

Rannulf's face twisted with pain because it was true. Often it flickered across his mind that Catherine's coldness was not owing to Osborn's death but to his refusal to give up active participation in the king's cause. As fast as the flickers of doubt came, he damped them out. Better to blame her for loving Osborn. It was a more curable ill than a love for the rebel cause.

However, he did feel remorse for his sharp remarks about her housewifery. To a certain degree he resented Catherine's care for his home and his children because he felt that she threw her duty in his face, caring for everything of his but himself. And now, when perhaps his long absence had blurred her memory of the past, his foul temper had destroyed all chance of a reconciliation.

Having paused for a moment to give Rannulf a chance to repair his blunder, Warwick shook his head. "Sit down, Lady Soke. I assure you we shall say nothing that the whole world cannot hear. For myself, Soke, I would offer nothing, and I tell you that plainly, except that I see the necessity of ridding ourselves of Eustace."

"You are right, my lord," Lady Warwick concurred. "He has made himself so odious to the barons that more of them listen daily to Hereford's preachings. If he does not soon go forth from this country, they will turn on Stephen to be rid of his son."

"Now you go too far, Gundreda. Eustace has not behaved well. He has extorted money where he could and, worse, he has meddled with the vassals—I know he approached some of Leicester's men and some of mine too—but it is not senseless greed."

Rannulf's head came up. "What then, Warwick? Why is he changed from a most promising young man into a monster?"

"You do not read men well," the older man replied. "You speak what is in your mind openly for all to hear and you expect that others will do the same."

"Well, and if a man has honest thoughts, what else need he do?"

"There are other things in the world besides one man's honesty of purpose. Eustace might propose to rule the nation honestly, but he cannot well speak of it while Stephen is alive."

"Why should he think of it before his father be dead?" Rannulf's gray eyes were angry and his gesture impatient. "Oh, I read him well enough, but what does he gain? He flaunts his dishonesty in all men's faces and then is angered because they do not believe in him. What would things come to if all men behaved the same? What if my son were to cozen my vassals—no, make the case more like—my wife's vassals because he planned to rule them when I was dead."

Warwick smiled. "You have not reduced your estates to the case that Stephen's are in."

"That is not the point. It is not all Stephen's fault, as you well know."

"It is the point, although I agree that it is not all the king's fault. But Eustace, day by day, sees his patrimony dwindle and itches to manage it better himself. Above that lies the fear that there will be so little power in the king's hands when Stephen dies that it will be too late to hold even the loyal barons together except by force—so he gathers his forces."

"But nonetheless—"

"I do not say I believe this absolutely, Rannulf. This is what Leicester says, and I must admit, he is seldom wrong. Moreover, Eustace's succession is by no means certain. And that brings me to the other side of the case. I do not believe that it is a good thing to molest Henry of Anjou, and Leicester agrees with me in this also. If we leave the Angevin alone, he might be content with what he has already."

"No." Rannulf shook his head impatiently. "That I know from the talk with Hereford. Henry says that England is his by right and he will have it. He is power-mad, and that much even Hereford does not deny, although he overlays the facts with honeyed words of peace."

"Then it is mad to send forth our strength into France." Warwaick snapped. "Better we should keep our men here. I have given my fealty to Stephen, and I have sworn to him, personally, that I will support Eustace to succeed him. I am willing to do my duty to uphold my honor, but I am not clear in my mind what is best to do."

The women had been silently listening, Catherine with such intentness, because she had heard nothing of this before, that her pain and shame receded. Lady Warwick was more interested in her and her husband than in the subject, having known the facts previously. What Rannulf said and how Catherine reacted would determine her approach to the subject later.

"I too have so sworn and mean to keep my oath," Rannulf replied. "It is clear to me, however, that nothing but good can come of giving full support to Eustace in France. It is always possible that he will defeat, or, by God's mercy, destroy Henry. Yes, I know there is another son, but he is younger, of less weight, and has little interest in England. With Henry gone the way would be smooth. Also, while he is attacked in France, Henry cannot come here to trouble us."

"You will hold by Eustace then?" Warwick asked slowly. "I honor you, Soke, but I feel that I must warn you that Eustace appears to have an ineradicable hatred for you. Why it should be so, I cannot tell, for you have ever done well by him and spoken well of him. Still …"

"I know it," Rannulf said shortly, his mouth grim.

Lady Warwick sighed imperceptibly. Her husband had solved one problem for her in presenting Eustace's enmity to Rannulf and therefore, probably to Rannulf's heirs, to Catherine's mind. Rannulf's acknowledgment of the enmity had put the seal of truth on Warwick's statement. All that was necessary now was to show the young woman, who was obviously totally ignorant on political matters, that her husband's position was disastrous to himself and his children.

For many years the Warwicks had been staunch supporters of Stephen of Blois, the earl by virtue of his hatred for Matilda the empress and his personal loyalty to the king, the countess because she believed her good, her children's good, and her husband's good was best served by attachment to the throne. Her conviction had been somewhat shaken by Henry's behavior and victories during the campaign of 1149 and she had watched the developments and the shifting climate of the court with keen eyes since then.

Now Gundreda sensed unerringly the inevitable turn of the tide in favor of Henry of Anjou. Stephen was growing old; his charm and his good nature palled. Maud was weary; her eyes were still inscrutable, but more and more often there was exhaustion and despair behind them instead of plans and expedients. Eustace was no longer a bright hope against the harsh rule of another despot; to some he was merely greedy and unscrupulous, to others merely a less-appealing despot. Most important of all, however, the barons were glutted with lawlessness. More and more they desired a king to whom they could bring their wrongs, whom they could call upon to defend their rights, who could do more than "pray" a powerful neighbor to desist from molesting them.

There was no sense in wasting time and energy in arguing with her husband—so much Lady Warwick clearly understood. When Henry came again, as she expected he would, Gundreda of Warwick planned to yield her husband's property to Henry for the assurance that her children would inherit the estates and earldom of Warwick unmolested.

Her intentions in bringing Catherine around to her way of thinking were simple. If sufficient strength were mustered to the Angevin party, her husband and the few other major nobles who were faithful to Stephen, like Rannulf, might be brought to yield peacefully. A man could do very little if his estates were already in enemy hands. Furthermore, Gundreda had a genuine liking for Catherine while she disliked Rannulf. It seemed only right to show the young woman a way to protect herself from the catastrophe her husband was about to bring upon her by the stubbornness and folly he named honor.

CHAPTER 7

From a discussion of political generalities, which Catherine had found very interesting, Lord Soke and Lord Warwick drifted to particulars of men and arms, a subject she did not find nearly as fascinating. Lady Warwick, too, was indifferent to this aspect of the conversation at the present time. It did not really matter to her whether her lord furnished half- or full-strength forces for Eustace. She had no quarrel with fulfilling her obligations to Stephen as long as he remained king, all she wanted was assurance that Warwick would remain in the hands of her family with its full power no matter who was king. Therefore, when Catherine murmured an excuse and rose to see about some household chores, Lady Warwick followed her.

By the evening of that day, in bits and pieces, but nonetheless clearly, Catherine was presented with the history of the past seventeen years. She learned of the oath of fealty which Henry I, often called Beauclerc, had forced from his barons, making them accept his daughter, Empress Matilda, as queen after his death. She learned of the repudiation of that oath by the majority of the English nobility and the seating of Stephen of Blois on the throne.

Once more the nobles swore, and once more there were repudiations, but this time England was torn apart by civil war. Sometimes the war had raged in bloody battles, which had encompassed nearly the whole country; sometimes the fighting was localized while the true war was waged subtly at court.

In 1141, the Empress' forces had been so successful as to mount her on the throne. There her behavior was such that by 1142 she was in sore straits, only the western lords still faithful and the rest of England gladly swearing loyalty to Stephen again. By 1147 Matilda was convinced that she could make no headway, and she had retired to Anjou. In her stead had come her young son, but his mother's image was too clear in men's minds, and he, too, had retreated to France a few months later.

The battle that defeated the young Henry in 1147 had been waged at court, but when he returned in 1149 with the fiery earl of Hereford leading his armies, the fields and streams had run red with blood again.

That time there had been setbacks in his campaign, but no defeat. Actually, he had been dangerously close to success when, for no known reason, he had suddenly returned to France. The rest of the story, Lady Warwick said, was very recent history, and Catherine had doubtless heard of Henry's acquisition of Normandy, Anjou, Aquitaine, and Poitou, an acquisition that made him richer and more powerful than the king of France. With that power behind him, it was scarcely likely that the battle-weary nobles of England would care to contest his right to the throne when he came to claim it for the third time.

"Will you see your vassals ruined, their estates sequestered because your husband stubbornly follows a lost cause—and the lost cause of a man who hates him and would destroy him even if he did gain power? Your men even favor Henry, as did your father. Why should they and you be punished?"

"You are so sure the cause is lost and that Eustace could not be reconciled?"

"Believe me. I have spent my life in the court and I can sense the temper of the lords. You do not need to believe me. Listen closely to what your lord and mine say and you will hear the tolling of the mourning bells in their voices. They know too, but their honor—a pox take all men of honor for the grief they bring to all about them—will not permit them to yield. Oh, the fall may be delayed a few months or even a few years, but in the end it will be the same."

The light evening meal of bread, cheese, cold meat, and wine was consumed by Catherine in thoughtful silence. In silence, too, she sat over her embroidery, so absorbed in her own thoughts that she did not even hear when the chaplain finished the tale he was reading aloud. Her husband, who had not addressed a single word to her since the scene of the morning, glanced at her in surprise, for it was not Catherine's way to ignore her guests.

At last, when she did not move, he summoned Mary to show Lord and Lady Warwick to their bed. He watched Catherine for some moments longer, gazing at the play of the flickering light of candles and torches on her fair hair, at the long delicate fingers, pearly white, as they plied the silver needle, at the rounded cheek and throat, whiter still than her hands.

"Madam, where is my cloak?"

Catherine's great blue eyes went wide with astonishment. "Your cloak? Are you cold?"