The Sword and The Swan (27 page)

"No," she added, "I fear it will be long and long before I know the comfort of his presence again."

"Have you bad news, madam? Is there danger of an attack on the keep?"

Mary was brightly excited; she had never seen a siege or a battle. Rannulf's major seat was too strong and too far out of the main path of the fighting in the civil war to have been the subject of assault. Norfolk was the only major magnate in the immediate area who could hope for any personal gain from attacking Sleaford, and thus far he had sufficient troubles of his own and too much respect for Rannulf to make the effort of overrunning the lands of Soke to get at someone who showed no signs of beginning hostilities.

"No, no," Catherine comforted quickly and instinctively, "we are safe, quite safe, but—" She cut that off. There was no sense in alarming the child. Mary might not care for her father, but she would understand that Rannulf's sudden death might leave them in a desperate situation.

If Geoffrey could control the vassals all might be well, but they would be absolutely at his mercy. If he could not, their state would be worse. Without the earl's strength to protect them, the two young sons would be targets for assassination and the women, particularly the daughter who had no vassals of her own as Catherine did, prey for the strongest man who could seize her. Even if the vassals were faithful and would protect the boys, a bastard daughter was no concern of theirs.

Mary's line of thought was completely different. She had a new and absorbing passion to which everything else was subsidiary. "Mary have mercy," she gasped under her breath, and then, tremblingly, "Has there been fighting? Has—have any of the men come to harm?" Catherine had forbidden her to speak of Andre until her father's permission could be obtained, and that was the nearest she dared come to asking about him.

"No fighting—yet. Pray for them. Pray for your father. Pray for them all."

It was well that Mary should do so, for Catherine knew that she would have little time for that duty and comfort. Mary returned to her spinning and Catherine bent her eyes and her mind on her instructions. Twice more she read the letter, feeling herself more incapable, more frightened with each reading.

How was she to do all these things and yet prevent her own men from becoming involved? She rolled the parchment again, very slowly, very deliberately, forcing steadiness on her fingers as if that could steady her trembling spirit. She tried to think quietly of what was most necessary, most efficient to do first. But her brain would not concentrate on the tasks before her; it only sought the image of Rannulf. Help me, my husband, she called to him across the miles, tell me what to do, what to think.

Catherine looked across the room to the patch of blue that showed at the stone-framed window, but there was no strength she could draw from the strong stone walls or the clear peaceful sky. Her eyes wandered to her stepdaughter where she sat at her spinning, her lips moving silently in prayer, and Catherine envied Mary her simple fear.

If that were all she had to fear, for the physical safety of the man she loved, she too could pray and give thanks. If she could only read the awkwardly written lines and bow her head and obey, it would be so easy. She and Rannulf were not alone, however, and Catherine's slender body trembled under the weight of her responsibility, for upon her lay the burden of Geoffrey and Mary and Richard and the vassals who called her countess and trusted her. Rannulf had said she must care for the children, but to care for the children it might be necessary to betray what Rannulf thought his interests were. Catherine felt torn in two between the needs of the children and the needs of the father.

The panic caught her and shook her as a large dog shakes a captured rat, but Catherine was only small and helpless in the same way a rat is. She could only be pursued so far; then she turned at bay to fight. That point was reached after she had decided she could not bear the burden placed upon her and had bent, weeping, over a reply to Rannulf.

She had written a full sheet of passionate expostulation, liberally spotted with teardrops; she had even rolled and sealed the missive when she realized there was nowhere to send it. Rannulf might be anywhere in England by now, and a messenger sent to follow his track might be weeks in finding him. Meanwhile, he would have depended upon the business he set her to being completed. There was no help to be had from her husband. Catherine was alone, and alone she must decide what to do.

Push away the terrors of the future. Pretend that there were no larger problems than the strict fulfillment of Rannulf's instructions. Well, then, it was best to do the easiest first. By far the matter of money was easiest. Little was to be had from Rannulf's serfs and nothing from his vassals, who would be called to fight and would need to support themselves and their men through their period of service. Her own serfs could be squeezed and would be, but she dared ask. nothing from her vassals either because of her promise.

In any event the serfs did not yield much, even when one stripped them bare—but there were others. The town merchants as well as the traveling merchants would pay, and she could easily demand one-third of their goods from the usurers. That would net a round sum, if she could get to all those in the large towns simultaneously. If they were approached one at a time, one warned the others and they had time to hide their goods and money.

So far so good, but to strike them all at once over a far-flung territory needed a large force, and Sleaford itself had only enough men-at-arms within it to defend the keep adequately.

Suddenly Catherine smiled, her fears of inadequacy dropping away as solutions for her problems fell into place. It was very simple. She would call up her vassals to collect the gold for her. They would be glad enough to do it because some of the money would probably find its way into their purses instead of hers, but that was a small price to pay for having them spread all over the territory.

Catherine drew a deep breath and bent over her embroidery. She would be obeying her husband's literal word—having told the vassals nothing and yet having them under arms. And she would have accomplished her own purpose equally well at the same time because, although already armed, it would take weeks, not days, to collect them into a force that could be used to aid the king. Perhaps the few weeks' delay would be enough to change the need for them, but if they should be summoned, the delay would certainly give Catherine a chance to invent new causes for delay.

Delay would save her, if anything could save her from coming into conflict with her husband's will. Catherine had decided long since in her own heart that the vassals of Soke would never fight either for Stephen of Blois or Henry, now Duke of Normandy.

No matter which side won, Rannulf would lose, for the Angevin would no doubt want vengeance against those who held out to the last against him, and Stephen's heir had already shown himself to be a monster of ingratitude. If the vassals of Soke remained neutral, however, Henry would have no cause to quarrel with them, and even Eustace would not interfere with them because he knew the value of the protection they afforded against Norfolk.

That Rannulf understood this was plain; that he would do his best to keep Catherine's vassals free of the fighting was also plain. Rannulf, however, was honor-bound to bring all his forces to Stephen's aid if ordered to do so, and Catherine knew that if he was pressed to that duty he would, indeed, try to obey the king's command.

A genuine and honorable reason for delay in the vassals' answer to the call to arms would be invaluable, for during the period of delay the problem might resolve itself. If not—Catherine's hand remained poised over her work as a shudder passed through her body, but her mind did not jib as her hand had. If not, she would have to order her vassals to disobey Rannulf's command.

He will beat me witless, Catherine thought, but she did not fear that. Her shudder was a response to the thought of Rannulf's emotional reaction to such behavior. It was a thing to cause the stoutest heart to quail, a thing to wake a loving wife screaming in the night. Could she bear losing her husband for the sake of his children, Catherine wondered. It was unthinkable, and Catherine, who was not given to indulging herself with the imaginary terrors she had created, pushed the thought away. It would never come to that. She would find a way.

The earl of Leicester had smiled too when he read through Soke's letter, but not because it revealed anything amusing about Rannulf's character. Leicester smiled with relief because one of the men he had known so long was acting true to form. Robert of Leicester had too much experience to expect perfect consistency of behavior from any man, but Stephen's apparent change of character from extreme malleability to extreme determination had thrown many of his plans into disorder and given him an unwelcome and unusual sense of insecurity. Rannulf himself had added to this insecurity by giving evidence of a strange and unnatural levity in the face of remarkably serious circumstances. He, at least, had returned to normal insofar as Leicester could judge from a letter.

There was relief in being able to answer his foster brother openly and honestly also, for as yet Leicester had nothing to conceal. He had tried hard to turn Stephen from his purpose of making war on the rebels, not because he was anxious to gain any advantage for Henry, but because he wished to spare himself useless expense and the country fruitless agony.

To Leicester's mind it was inevitable that the Angevin would come to the throne unless God intervened by snatching him out of the world. All Robert of Leicester desired was to keep first himself, then if possible the kingdom, free of a major war until Henry could mount the throne in peace.

He gave no consideration to the thought that Eustace could succeed his father. Before the battles of 1149 there had been that possibility, but Eustace's behavior since that time had fixed an active hatred for him even in the hearts of Stephen's most ardent supporters. Very few of them would feel driven by their honor to back Eustace if they were forced to choose between him and Henry of Anjou.

Leicester had no personal objection to Henry becoming king. He had endured a tyrant and found it distasteful; therefore, he had lent his support to Stephen of Blois. Under that king's reign Leicester had seen the effect of a weak king in anarchy and had found that even more distasteful than tyranny. For many years he had striven to bring the barons together and had seen, too, that they were more likely to combine against too great an encroachment of their liberty than to moderate that too great liberty for themselves.

Aye, he thought, smiling at the unrolled scroll before him which displayed the strong, awkward handwriting of a man more used to the sword than the pen, you and I, dear brother, desire the same thing. You, however, had the dreams of a child and, when your dreams were broken, you could not pick up the shattered pieces and build anew because the structure would be cracked and imperfect. Rannulf, Rannulf, I have built churches and I know—a cracked dream is better than none at all.

A low chuckle shook the heavy, stolid body. Leicester was imagining Rannulf's expression if he heard such poetic language from himself or if he were told that he was no more than a romantic dreamer—Rannulf, who prided himself on his bitter cynicism.

Well, it was amusing but such notions brought a man no farther along the path he must walk. Leicester pushed the scroll slightly aside and drew parchment and quill toward him to tell Rannulf the only two pieces of news he had. The first item was scarcely news, merely that there had been no turning Stephen from his purpose, even though the solid opposition of the barons to taking action had restrained him for the few weeks Rannulf had spent in Hereford's keep.

The real piece of news was the item that had precipitated the march to the west. Information had come to England that Louis of France had taken Neuf-Marche from Henry's adherents and, more, had instantly yielded it to Eustace for the better furthering of their combined assault on Normandy.

"From this cause," Leicester's quill traced the words slowly while his mind sought a felicitous way to make a point Rannulf would not want to believe, "the lords took heart, especially Northampton, and they at once acceded to the king's demands. It is their belief that, if Louis could do so much alone, he and Eustace together will conquer rapidly. I beg you to look with greater caution upon this event, remembering that the keep was strong but the master was absent from it. Surely if Henry discounted Louis's prowess, as he might with great justice, this will make him both angry and cautious. Moreover, he will certainly come himself to combat the double force now pitted against him. Bethink you also, my dear Rannulf, how a cart may well move forward better when hitched to a weak and silly ass alone than when a galled, stubborn ox and a silly ass both pull, but at different times and in different ways."

The note of warning was presented to blind eyes. By the time Leicester's letter reached Rannulf, the latter was deeply absorbed by the promise of a highly successful campaign. Never had he seen Stephen display such energy and decision except in the final few months of the war against Henry in 1149.

Beyond that, the information Leicester sent him faded into insignificance, for Stephen greeted Rannulf with open arms and showed him a letter from Eustace praising Rannulf's plan and efficiency. The letter, indeed, breathed so much of the Eustace who had existed before the campaign of 1149 that Rannulf's highest hopes seemed about to be exceeded. Everything was going well.

If Rannulf had any cause for dissatisfaction, it was with what he regarded as his own weakness in deviating from his normal policy that the best defense is a good offense. What weakness had afflicted him and caused him to desire peace so ardently he did not understand, but it was past now. He should have known that it was better to destroy enemies than compound with them, no matter how attractive their ideas or their persons.

Rannulf pushed apart the flaps of the tent that was his home on the field and made his way to the king's pavilion. The summonses to his vassals were ready to be sent, lacking only the place and date on which their duty would begin, and that information he needed from Stephen now.