Lady of the English (59 page)

Giffard raised his brows but said nothing. There was another long silence. Brian leaned his head against the door and closed his eyes. “I am prepared to wait all day and night.”

“Sire, you cannot stay here,” Giffard said reluctantly.

Brian rounded on him. “Then fetch soldiers and have me dragged away, because I will not leave of my own accord. Do you think I mean harm to the empress after all I have done?”

“No, sire, but…”

The door opened and Uli stood to one side of it. She silently beckoned him into the chamber. Brian thrust the rod into Giffard’s hands, turned, and stepped over the threshold.

Matilda was standing in the middle of the room, isolated like a lone tree. She was wearing one of her German court robes and everything was bound up and stiff and overlaid by jewels.

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Her face was tight, her skin grey as stone, so she might almost have been her own effigy. She fixed him with an empty stare.

“Robert is dead,” she said in a distant voice. “How can that be?

Why isn’t Stephen dead instead? Why not me?”

Brian swallowed, feeling the sickness rise in him again. He wanted to embrace her, but feared she would push him away as she pushed everyone. And he would deserve it. Her knight Drogo had once said to him that she had a hard exterior sheltering softness within, but no one would ever knew how soft, because she refused to let anyone close enough to find out. His voice emerged as a hoarse croak. “It is the will of God you should live, domina. I too would more than gladly have taken his place.”

“And why was it God’s will that he should die?” Her chin trembled. “When last I saw him he was tired, as we all are, but still whole and strong, so I thought. To die of a congestion…I thought I would see him again and we would be together for our brother’s anniversary and that of our father. He was supposed to be here to help and guide Henry and be his backbone…as he was mine. What am I going to do now he is gone?”

A shudder ran through Brian and he was suddenly riddled with guilt. What if she asked him to be her backbone when he did not have one himself?

“I brought him to this by relying on him,” she said. “I should have seen beyond my own cares and known he was unwell, and now it is too late to do anything but say ‘should have.’” She pressed her palm across her mouth.

“Don’t,” Brian said. “It was his cause too. He was never going to rest while Stephen was on the throne.”

“I will have to be Robert now, as well as myself, but how, when he was the better part? No one can take his place. Those who remain with me were already here when he was, so how can we make up for what is gone?” She made a soft, anguished sound.

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He came to her and set his arms lightly around her and for a moment she laid her head on his breast and they stood as close as lovers. Brian’s grief deepened. He ached beyond belief with emotion for her, but it was part of a much greater pain. “I do not know what to tell you.”

“And you were always so good with words.” Her voice was brittle. “Have you none for me now?”

“They are all ashes in the wind,” he said hoarsely. “I burned them as you bade me—all the ones that mattered anyway.”

She drew back to look at him, then her gaze dropped to the base of his neck and sharpened with concern. She reached to touch his throat and he felt her cool fingers burn on the sores there before he could pull away.

“Dear Jesu, Brian, a hair shirt!” Her eyes filled with shock.

“It is between my conscience and God,” he said tautly, “and no concern of anyone else’s. Not even you.”

“How long have you been wearing this?”

“Does it matter?” Leaving her, he went to the open window and stood in the cold draught. “It helps me stay sane,” he said bleakly. “Sometimes I think the dark thoughts in my head will send me mad, but this keeps them at bay—after a fashion.

While I have torment of the flesh, it lessens the torment of the mind.”

She had suspected for a while that something was wrong, but his words alarmed her, as did his appearance. This was not the vigorous, bright-eyed man who had met her on the road when she returned from Germany and raised a tent on a windy night.

He said, “When I was a little boy in Brittany, I had the freedom to run wild. Then my father arranged for me to be raised at the English court by your sire. It would be a fine opportunity, he said. I would be educated and trained and if I worked hard, I might one day be a great and important lord. I wanted to please him and I wanted to learn; I was always eager 471

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then for new experiences. I loved my lessons and I loved your brother. I was even fond of Stephen then, when we sat drinking wine on long summer evenings and dreaming of our futures—

of what we would become.” He looked over his shoulder at her. “I do not think any of us imagined it would come to this, not even Stephen.”

“Brian…”

“Is it worth it? Is any of this struggle worth the cost?”

“To do the right thing is never a waste.” Her throat was tight with tears.

“But what is the right thing?” he demanded. “To put a sword through a man because he opposes you? To burn down a village because it lies in your path and its occupants are beholden to another lord? To ignore the screaming women and children as you throw torches into their thatch and put spears through their menfolk? To rob merchant trains because they are on their way to enrich your opponent’s lands?” He raised and lowered both hands in a desperate gesture. “How does that benefit anyone? Does it make God smile? I have done all of those things and more, and my soul is sick.” He turned over his right forearm and looked down at his wrist where the veins stood proud. “I swore to serve you to the last drop of my blood. I know what you think of men who renege on their oaths, and too many have done so…”

He hesitated and she felt a tightening of dread in her solar plexus. “And you are about to renege on yours? Is that what you have come to tell me?”

He shook his head. “No, domina. I will serve you for as long as you desire.”

She did not want to see the desperate, hollow exhaustion in his eyes and turned away, rubbing her arms. She was so cold.

“Then I have things to tell you also,” she said. “The bishop of Salisbury is still badgering me to return Devizes to the see. I 472

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have promised him compensation and told him I will give the castle to him as soon as I am able.”

“You are surely not handing it over…” She heard the ghost of the old Brian suddenly thread through his voice.

“Not in the near future, of course not, but I have to show I am willing to conciliate. I cannot dislodge Stephen from my throne; I no longer have the men or the commanders to do so. If I could not accomplish it with Robert, then how am I to do it without? Even keeping a stalemate is hard. I must hold fast until Henry is old enough, and that means fostering strong relations with the Church—other than that snake the bishop of Winchester.” Her lip curled as she spoke of him. “Theobald of Canterbury is not inclined to crown Stephen’s son as the future king, and I must strengthen and encourage his resistance.

Everyone must look upon Henry as England’s rightful heir.

I have to keep up pressure on Stephen’s lords too. Even if I cannot field an army, I can still undermine his position. It is a different kind of war I am waging now.”

She paused to draw a deep breath. Behind her the fire crackled in the hearth and Brian was so silent, she only knew he was there because she could feel him. “My mistakes cost me my crown,” she said, “but even had I been made queen, I would never have been accepted. A woman may be the power behind a man, but she is not allowed to take power for herself.”

She turned to look at him. Still clad in his dark travelling cloak, his hood pushed back on his shoulders, he resembled a monk save for the tonsure. “Once I have made arrangements and spoken to all, I am going to Normandy to raise support. I am not leaving the fray, but the military side must be overseen by someone else. Henry is almost ready and I can do no more here. I have been thinking about it for a while, and now, with Robert’s death, it is time to let go of the rope and grasp it again in a new place.” As she spoke of rope, she thought of 473

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her escape from Oxford in the snowy night. That had been a triumph wrung out of a disaster. She was swinging on that rope in the darkness now, afraid but still defiant and resolute. Brian’s expression was unfathomable—or perhaps stupefied. “Have you nothing to say?”

“I thought you might ask me to take up the yoke of command,” he confessed, looking at her and away again. “I would have done so because I have made a promise, but I fear I would have failed you.”

“You have never failed me.” She dared not think in that direction, because she would have to confront her own fear that she had let down not only him but also England and her son.

“I beg to differ.”

“The differing is your choice, but I refuse to let you beg.”

He swallowed. “Then let me ask you to release me when you sail.”

She stared at him.

“I desire to make my peace with God and retire from the world.” He bowed his head. “As I stand now, I cannot go before my maker on Judgement Day and expect His mercy. I have no heirs. My wife intends entering the nunnery at Bec.

William Boterel will serve at Wallingford as he always has done.

Nothing will change there.”

“Where will you go?” She felt numb.

“Your uncle David has granted Reading Abbey the Isle of May in return for prayers and attending to pilgrims who come to worship at Saint Adrian’s shrine. I shall go there and live out whatever time is left to me in God’s service.”

“And you will take vows?”

“If I am deemed worthy…and if you will release me.”

“What use will you be to me if I do refuse?” she said with a break in her voice.

“No one rides a lame horse,” he agreed.

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Going to him, she took his hands in hers and turned them over. “Then go with my blessing when it is time, and commend me in your prayers, and ask God’s grace that my son become king…” Her voice shook. “And write to me. I want to think of you with ink-stained fingers.”

“But not putting up a tent.”

It was meant to lighten the moment and make her smile, but her eyes filled. “You are wrong,” she said. “I shall remember that of you first and always for the rest of my days.”

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Fifty-five

Arundel, February 1148

A deliza woke to the sound of soft conversation in her chamber. Beyond the bed curtains pale winter daylight entered the room through the open shutters. A brazier twirled scented smoke towards the ceiling.

She knew she must have slept for a long time, because it had been twilight when she retired exhausted to bed, and now it was plainly morning. She still felt bone-weary—

almost as if she had not slept—but her mouth was dry and her body ached with lying for so long a time. She had experienced bouts of debilitation before, but they had always eased after a short while. This current one, however, showed no sign of ending. It had been two months now, and was growing worse.

“Is there nothing you can do?” Will was asking on a pleading note.

The reply in a slightly higher tone came from Magister Vital, a physician who had been attending her ever since the lethargy had begun. “Sire, it is a wasting disease of the female embers.

Sometimes the fire dies so low in the body that it cannot sustain the energy needed for life and there is nothing that can be done. I have tried to revive the flame with poultices and bleeding to make the blood rise, but to no avail.”

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“I refuse to believe there is no cure!” Will hissed. “I will not let this happen!”

“It is God’s will, my lord. It is to Him that you should pray for a miracle. For the rest, she should have a regime of peace and quiet and contemplation, with food rich in hot elements to stimulate her humours. Ask others of my profession if you so desire, but they will give you the same answer.”

“Get out,” Will snarled. “What use are you to me if you do not have the skills to make her better? She is my life!”

“Sire, I wish I could help. She is a great and gentle lady.”

Tears seeped from Adeliza’s eye corners and trickled into the pillow. She heard the door close behind Magister Vital.

Breathing raggedly, Will went to the window, pressed his head against the wall, and struck the stone with the side of his clenched fist. “I cannot bear this,” she heard him whisper.

“Why her?”

Beyond the window she could hear their children shouting joyously as they played. The sound of their brightness seemed to come from far away and she knew what she had to do. She had had plenty of time to think of late.

Will sighed and, leaving the window, came to the bed and looked down at her with eyes full of anguish and anger. She returned his gaze.

“I heard,” she said, and her voice was hoarse and dry because she had been asleep for so long. “I cannot bear this either.”

“I will not let you be like this,” he said. Leaning over, he put his arms around her and helped her to sit up against the bolsters.

Her stifled gasp of pain made him tense and draw back. “There has to be a cure.”

She gestured weakly to the flagon at the bedside; he poured her some wine and then helped her to drink.

“Look at you. You are not even strong enough to hold a cup.”

She swallowed and felt the liquid warm its way down to 477

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