“The truth, if not the whole truth. That Owain is able to keep Ranulf so busy on his own border that he’ll have no time to make trouble elsewhere. No need to make any real concessions to keep him quiet, but sweet talk can do no harm.”
“And no need to mention that you have an arrangement with Owain,” agreed Cadfael placidly, “to leave us alone here, and keep the earl of Chester off your back. It may not restore any of Stephen’s purloined castles in the north, but at least it keeps the earl’s greedy hands off any more of them. And what’s the news from the west? This uneasy quietness down there in Gloucester’s country has me wondering what’s afoot. Have you any word of what he’s up to?”
The desultory and exhausting civil war between cousins for the throne of England had been going on for more than five years, in spasmodic motion about the south and west, seldom reaching as far north as Shrewsbury. The Empress Maud, with her devoted champion and illegitimate half brother Earl Robert of Gloucester, held almost undisputed sway now in the southwest, based on Bristol and Gloucester, and King Stephen held the rest of the country, but with a shaky and tenuous grip in those parts most remote from his base in London and the southern counties. In such disturbed conditions every baron and earl was liable to look to his own ambitions and opportunities, and set out to secure a little kingdom for himself rather than devote his energies to supporting king or empress. Earl Ranulf of Chester felt himself distant enough from either rival’s power to feather his own nest while fortune favored the bold, and it was becoming all too plain that his professed loyalty to King Stephen took second place to the establishment of a realm of his own spanning the north from Chester to Lincoln. Canon Gerbert’s errand certainly implied no confidence in the earl’s word, however piously pledged, but was meant to hold him quiescent for a time for his own interests, until the king was ready to deal with him. So, at least, Hugh judged the matter.
“Robert,” said Hugh, “is busy strengthening all his defenses and turning the southwest into a fortress. And he and his sister between them are bringing up the lad she hopes to make king some day. Oh, yes, young Henry is still there in Bristol, but Stephen has no chance in the world of carrying his war that far, and even if he could, he would not know what to do with the boy when he had him. But neither can she get more good out of the child than the pleasure of his presence, though perhaps that’s benefit enough. In the end they’ll have to send him home again. The next time he comes - the next time it may be in earnest and in arms. Who knows?”
The empress had sent over into France, less than a year ago, to plead for help from her husband, but Count Geoffrey of Anjou, whether he believed in his wife’s claim to the throne of England or not, had no intention of sending over to her aid forces he himself was busy using adroitly and successfully in the conquest of Normandy, an enterprise which interested him much more than Maud’s pretensions. He had sent over, instead of the knights and arms she needed, their ten-year-old son.
What sort of father, Cadfael wondered, could this count of Anjou be? It was said that he set determined store upon the fortunes of his house and his successors, and gave his children a good education, and certainly he had every confidence, justifiably, in Earl Robert’s devotion to the child placed in his charge. But still, to send a boy so young into a country disrupted by civil war! No doubt he had Stephen’s measure, of course, and knew him incapable of harming the child even if he got him into his hands. And what if the child himself had a will of his own, even at so tender an age, and had urged the venture in his own right?
Yes, an audacious father might well respect audacity in his son. No doubt, thought Cadfael, we shall hear more of this Henry Plantagenet who’s minding his lessons and biding his time in Bristol.
“I must be off,” said Hugh, rising and stretching lazily in the warmth of the sun. “I’ve had my fill of clerics for today - no offense to present company, but, then, you’re no cleric. Did you never fancy taking minor orders, Cadfael? Just far enough to claim the benefit if ever one of your less seemly exploits came to light? Better the abbot’s court than mine, if ever it came to it!”
“If ever it came to it,” said Cadfael sedately, rising with him, “the likelihood is you’d need to keep your mouth tight shut, for you’d be in it with me nine times out of ten. Do you remember the horses you hid from the king’s roundup when - ”
Hugh flung an arm round his friend’s shoulders, laughing. “Oh, if you’re to start remembering, I can more than match you. Better agree to let old deeds rest. We were always the most reasonable of men. Come on, bear me company as far as the gatehouse. It must be getting round towards Vespers.”
They made their way along the gravel path together without haste, beside the box hedge and through the vegetable garden to where the rose beds began. Brother Winfrid was just coming over the crest from the slope of the pease field, striding springily with his spade over his shoulder.
“Get leave soon, and come up and see your godson,” said Hugh as they rounded the box hedge, and the hum and the bustle of the court reached out to surround them like the busy sound of bees in swarm. “As soon as we reach town Giles begins asking for you.”
“I will, gladly. I miss him when you go north, but he’s better there through the summer than here shut within walls. And Aline’s well?” He asked it serenely, well aware that he would have heard of it at once if there had been anything amiss.
“Blooming like a rose. But come and see for yourself. She’ll be expecting you.”
They came round the comer of the guest hall into the court, still almost as lively as a town square. One more horse was being led down to the stables; Brother Denis was receiving the arriving guest, dusty from the road, at the door of his domain; two or three attendant novices were running to and fro with brychans and candles and pitchers of water; visitors already settled stood watching the newcomers throng in at the gatehouse, greeting friends among them, renewing old acquaintances and embarking on new, while the children of the cloister, oblates and schoolboys alike, gathered in little groups, all eyes and ears, bouncing and shrilling like crickets, and darting about among the pilgrims as excitedly as dogs at a fair. The passing of Brother Jerome, scuttling up the court from the cloister towards the infirmary, would normally have subdued the boys into demure silence, but in this cheerful turmoil it was easy to avoid him.
“You’ll have your house full for the festival,” said Hugh, halting to watch the colored chaos, and taking pleasure in it as candidly as did the children.
In the group gathered just within the gate there was a sudden ripple of movement. The porter drew back towards the doorway of his lodge, and on either side people recoiled as if to allow passage to horsemen, but there was no sharp rapping of hooves striking the cobbles under the arch of the gateway. Those who entered came on foot, and as they emerged into the court the reason for making such generous way for them became apparent. A long, flat handcart came creaking in, towed by a thickset, grizzled countryman before, and pushed by a lean and travel-stained young man behind. The load it carried was covered by a dun-colored cloak, and topped with a bundle wrapped in sacking, but by the way the two men leaned and strained at it, it was seen to be heavy, and the shape of it, a man’s height long and shoulder-wide, brought mortality to mind. A ripple of silence washed outward from it, and by degrees reached the spot where Hugh and Cadfael stood watching. The children looked on great-eyed, ears pricked, at once awestricken and inquisitive, intent on missing nothing.
“I think,” said Hugh quietly, “you have a guest who’ll need a bed somewhere else than in the guest hall.”