The Sword and The Swan (3 page)

"With five score young bucks to feast their eyes upon, I should not think you need worry over my influence with them," Rannulf replied drily.

"The young have not what you have, Sir Rannulf. There is a softness, even in their strength, that breeds insecurity. To look upon you is to be sure." There could be no harm in building up his confidence. Sometimes a man of his age, when faced with a much younger and very beautiful bride, developed fears of insufficiency.

Rannulf moved restlessly. All this had a purpose, but what it was he could not, for the life of him, guess. "Very well. A man of my age is a master of his own or no man at all. I did not realize that women felt masterfulness in a man to be an advantage."

It was useless to press him further, Maud realized, because he was growing suspicious. She asked after his children instead, thinking with half her mind as he answered her inquiries that his sons were the weakest chink in his armor. Perhaps she could use them in some way as a weapon to get him well married. In addition to her political designs, Maud owed Rannulf a deep debt of gratitude and she was determined to do him a good turn in spite of himself.

A little less than a year previously, Henry of Anjou had come from France to try to wrest the throne by force from Maud's husband. Rannulf, together with those barons who were faithful to Stephen, had rallied to the defense of the kingdom, and Rannulf had been attached to the army of Maud's eldest son, Eustace. He had performed his duty well, as he always did; in addition, he had kept a rein on his young leader's enthusiasm and courage in a way that had recommended itself strongly to the mother, although the son had written home three times a week to call his mentor a traitor.

In the fall of 1149, Eustace had launched a massive attack on the castle of Devizes, one of Henry's major strongholds in England, and had sworn that he would take the castle or die in the attempt. In fact, he had done neither. Henry and his chief ally, Roger of Hereford, had returned in time to defeat the prince's force, and, although Eustace had been prepared to fulfill his oath, Rannulf of Sleaford was far past any belief in such vainglorious swearing. He had knocked the young prince unconscious with a single blow from his mailed fist and carried him off to safety.

It was not this deed alone for which Stephen and Maud wished to reward their liege man, however. Only a few days after Rannulf's rescue of Eustace, Henry of Anjou had mysteriously given up the fight and returned to France. A few months later the earl of Leicester had arranged to mediate a truce between the king and the rebel lords. Peace, of a sort, had descended upon England.

No reason had ever been discovered for Henry's action, and the king and queen had finally put it down to discouragement, crediting Rannulf with the final blow to Henry's hopes of conquest. Their sincere good will for him had caused them to consider long and anxiously a suitable reward. The continuing civil war had sucked them dry and they had little to give beyond empty titles, which they knew Rannulf did not desire. In the midst of their perplexity a solution to their problem offered itself in the death of the earl of Soke, who left Lady Catherine, an only daughter, as his heir.

For once, Stephen did not vacillate or delay. Within hours of the time he had the news, he had set out alone with his household guard, leaving Eustace to marshal the barons if necessary, and had taken the chief castle at Bourne and the heiress into his hands.

At that, Stephen was only just in time, because Hugh Bigod, duke of Norfolk, had arrived the very next day with the same purpose in mind. The major portion of the lands of the earl of Soke stretched eastward along Norfolk's borders, and Bigod had desired to ensure the continued quiet of that border by marrying Lady Catherine to a man of his choosing.

Without sufficient force to fight a pitched battle, Stephen had raised the drawbridge and prepared for siege. News of Eustace's imminent arrival with a larger force and visual evidence that the vassals of Soke were gathering to his rear induced Norfolk to withdraw, and Stephen triumphantly returned to London bearing his prize with him.

That the prize did not wish to go mattered little, for Lady Catherine in her overlord's hands was nothing more nor less than a prize of war. She was a prize treated with great courtesy, but nonetheless a prize to be disposed of like any other piece of property.

In truth, Stephen did not even realize Lady Catherine's unwillingness, for she made no protest against going with him. Both her father and her late husband had remained totally aloof from the court and the civil war; even so, rumors and snatches of news came by way of traveling knights errant and merchants, and she had heard a good deal about King Stephen and about Hugh Bigod.

If she had to fall prize to either of them, Catherine considered herself lucky to have fallen into Stephen's hands. He was, she had heard, an exceedingly kind man—indeed, he acted kindly and spoke kindly to her—and Queen Maud was said to be very thoughtful and considerate of others when her family's interests were not involved.

This did not mean that Catherine thought any desire of hers would be consulted; she understood her position completely. It merely meant that, within the bounds of their own advantage, the king and queen would do the best they could for her.

Had it been absolutely necessary to marry her to an ugly, brutalized mercenary, even to a monster of degraded cruelty, they would have done so—with regret, but done so nonetheless.

As it was, when Maud told Catherine that she was being proposed as a third wife to Sir Rannulf of Sleaford, she congratulated the young woman on her good fortune. She pointed out that Sir Rannulf might seem to be a hard and bitter man and not young, but he had not actively mistreated his previous wives. He was just, honest beyond any doubt, and in excellent health and physical condition.

Privately Maud thought that it was unlikely that Rannulf would offer his wife either love or tenderness, but, on the other hand, he was equally unlikely to starve her, imprison her, steal her property, or beat her for amusement—all of which, if not common practice, were frequently enough encountered forms of behavior among unscrupulous husbands who married heiresses.

Lady Catherine, unlike Sir Rannulf, did not cry out against the marriage. For this there were many reasons, none of which included any satisfaction with the proposal. Her religion and training, as well as her knowledge that she was a virtual prisoner, predisposed her to be submissive to the will of authority; above and beyond that, Catherine was in a state of emotional paralysis brought on by a series of shocks of grief. So many sorrows had oppressed the young woman in quick succession that her strong steady spirit lay inert and her mind was dulled.

In the same moment that Eustace was being carried senseless off the field before Devizes, Catherine was burying her young husband and her three-year-old son. She had not been passionately attached to her husband, it was true. He had not possessed the strength or spirit that was necessary to arouse her love, but he had been chosen for her by her sweet-tempered, overindulgent father because of his gentleness, and he had fulfilled his father-by-marriage's expectations in the treatment of his wife.

Because he was kind and in love with her, Catherine had been fond of her husband, and her grief for him was sincere if not deep. Her feeling for her son was of a different order entirely. So violent had been her maternal agony at the loss of her child, that she had brought further tragedy upon herself and had miscarried, in the seventh month of her pregnancy, a desperately desired daughter. Received back into her father's keep with the tenderest sympathy, Lady Catherine had barely begun to recover some semblance of emotional balance when the final blow fell upon her—the earl of Soke also died.

Looking across the width of the fireplace at Rannulf of Sleaford, Maud wished irritably that he was as much a docile fool as the woman. She was tired and she did not wish to sit and reason with an unreasonable man who was ungratefully rejecting every offer made to him for his own advantage. If only he, like Catherine, would express neither joy nor repugnance, but sit with folded hands and eyes discreetly lowered, accepting as final all that he was told.

Maud almost giggled at the thought of Rannulf in such a position. The fool! He would not realize what a prize he was being given, and not in disposition only, for Lady Catherine was as beautiful as she was docile. A strong strain of Saxon blood had made her truly as fair as a snow maiden, her hair so pale a gold that it seemed silvery, her skin white and delicate as skimmed milk, and her large eyes of that soft, fathomless blue that makes the eyes of a very young child both infinitely mysterious and infinitely innocent.

Maud, however, had not yet introduced the lady into the conversation. By the time her inquiries about Rannulf's children were concluded, he was dressed. Instead of returning to the great hall, Maud had instructed her women to bring food to the solar and Sir Rannulf was now slumped in a cushioned, high-backed chair before the roaring fire, gnawing on the foreleg of a suckling pig. His eyes were not lowered, but fixed on his hostess, and their expression was an interesting mixture of fondness and caution.

"Nay," Maud smiled at him, "you need not regard me in that suspicious manner, my lord. You know and I know that I have kept you here to speak of my concerns as well as yours."

"You do well to speak honestly to me."

"I pay you that compliment, indeed, Sir Rannulf. You have been too long faithful to us for me to begin weighing my words to you now."

Rannulf vented his harsh, mirthless laughter. "If you have spoken an unweighed word to man or beast since you became queen of this realm, I will sharpen my sword on my own teeth before I next wield it in battle."

Maud was touched to the quick because he spoke the truth, and spoke with what seemed to be a spark of malicious enjoyment. Her tone sharpened. "Stephen and I do not pretend to be above other mortals, but why you should set us so far below them as to believe we cannot be honest with those we trust, I do not know."

Trust was an unfortunate word. Rannulf was very fond of Maud, but he did not trust her. "You have lost the habit," he replied with his usual tactless directness.

Maud sighed, realizing now that he probably had not meant to hurt her and that it was useless to bandy words with a man who always said exactly what he thought, feared nothing, and sought no favors. He seemed sorry now that the subject had come up and she had a slight advantage. Tired or not, now was the moment to get on with obtaining his agreement to accept Catherine.

"I am exceedingly sorry that we judged so far amiss in the matter of the heiress and the lands of Soke, Sir Rannulf. Truly, Stephen and I had no thought that you did not love the married state as such. We knew, of course, that Lady Adelecia was not an easy woman to live with and that you wasted no grief over her loss, but—"

"You did not think that ten years of marriage to her might not give even a saint a distaste for being a husband?"

"It might, indeed," Maud replied drily, "but you are no saint, and, moreover, you were little enough in her company."

"That little was too much."

Although she had heartily disliked Lady Adelecia herself, Maud was annoyed by the pigheadedness that blocked every opening she tried to make to reason about this new marriage. "You fathered a son upon her, nonetheless," she snapped.

The harsh laugh cracked and was stilled. "I would not lose her dower—what of that?"

It was true, of course, but Maud was frustrated again. If he had gone so far as to admit that there was a pleasure in begetting children, even upon a woman one did not care for, she would have had a chance to expatiate on Lady Catherine's perfections.

For a moment she sat staring at her hands in her lap and fighting her sense of fatigue, and then raised her head, realizing that he had given her a far more important opening. The dower of a woman who died childless reverted, under ordinary circumstances, to her family and Rannulf was too just and too honest to retain a childless wife's dower illegally… but Catherine had no family, none at all. And the king could grant that land freely to Rannulf.

"Aye, that is just what I wished to speak to you about. Adelecia brought nothing in comparison with the lands of Soke. Wait—I know you have said already that you have need of no more land, but I am sure you wish to keep what is yours in peace and quiet. Bethink yourself, my lord, who among those men who are free to marry would you desire as so close a neighbor?"

Rannulf continued to stare at the flames in the hearth for a few seconds longer, but finally he turned to look directly at the queen, his broad brows drawn together in a considering frown. Maud studied the face turned to her more carefully, for she wished to be able to describe it in minute detail to the woman who would be—she was determined upon that—his wife.

There was little enough in it to tempt a beautiful woman except its strength. It was a thin face, fortunately little marred by scarring, with a resolute jaw and a grim mouth. The beaked nose gave a predatory brightness to the clear gray eyes, and, although a full head of tangled curls showed no sign of thinning with age, enough gray was mixed with the brown to deny youth.

It would not be easy, perhaps, to make that face sound romantically attractive, especially when coupled with Rannulf's deliberately crude manners, but Maud had struggled with more hopeless tasks.

"I see," Rannulf was saying slowly, "that there are no trusty men of weight available, but surely among the penniless younger sons you might find dozens who would suit your purpose."

"Perhaps, although of that I am not so sure. Soke was Henry's man. The woman shows no leaning in that direction, but she could hide what she thought would sit ill here. A young man might be easily led . . . she is very, very fair. But more important even than that, would a penniless younger son suit
your
purpose? We owe you much, Stephen and I, and we spent some thought upon this matter. Would it be to your taste to have a land-hungry pauper wield the lands of Soke?"