The Sword and The Swan Page 23

  "Must I woo you as if you were maiden-shy?"

  Catherine turned into his arms, laughing also. "You need not, but it can do no harm."

  It was a gray morning, misty with rain as Catherine expected, and both she and her husband slept late. At that, Catherine was the first to wake, conscious of more than normal warmth in the bed and of a sag in the hair-and-feather-stuffed mattresses that tilted her downward. Cautiously she gathered her hair together and pulled it gently from under Rannulf's arm. Then she drew the bedcurtain aside to let in some light and lifted her head.

  The light was of little value, as was her change in position; all she could see was the back of a tangled head of curls, a broad, scarred shoulder, and the swelling biceps of one arm. Drowsily and happily, Catherine lay down again to think about getting up, but the second change in position disturbed Rannulf who, still asleep, moved also, seeking the pressure of her body against his. Seconds later he jerked awake at her mingled giggle and cry of consternation.

  "What is the matter, Catherine?"

  "Your poor face! Oh, Rannulf, I scratched you unmercifully."

  He smiled and stretched. "You do not have to tell me. I can feel it. What the castlefolk will say I shudder to think. You have made me a fine laughingstock before my servants. There is some consolation, however, in knowing that you would not yield tamely to a ravisher."

  "Did you think I would before this?"

  "No. Yet you look as if a strong breeze would blow you away. For all of that I have a growing feeling that you yield tamely nothing you do not wish to yield, Catherine."

  They had been speaking lightly, delighting in the warmth and relaxation between them, which had outlasted their lovemaking. Rannulf frowned slightly as he heard and comprehended his own words, however. There had been more truth in them than jest. Catherine, whose guilty conscience flinched, still managed to laugh as she turned away to pull on a robe.

  "Then you must have extra pleasure in the knowledge that I yield tamely to you."

  Rannulf put out a hand to detain his wife, frowning harder as he sought for words. "There is nothing in my life that has given me equal pleasure," he said awkwardly at last.

  Catherine's eyes filled with tears. For Rannulf that was probably equivalent to a passionate declaration of love. "Thank you, my lord," she murmured, "those are the sweetest words you have ever given me."

  "I am no hand at compliments," Rannulf replied defensively.

  He was uneasy, shying away from emotion. Catherine understood and hurried to his aid, smiling mischievously at him. "Oh, no, not at all. It is a matter of proper understanding. Whenever you do not knock me down, I know you are satisfied, and when you do not call me an idiot, I understand you to be uncommonly pleased with me. And when—"

  "Catherine, when have I ever knocked you down! Men punish saucy wives, Catherine."

  "Yes, I remember quite clearly that you told me as much before, when you were last at home. You inflicted a most severe chastisement upon me, but again I found that it was merely a question of how one looked at a thing. Being merely a woman, I was foolish enough to take that punishment also as a compliment. In any case, it gave me no distaste for being saucy."

  Rannulf's bewildered expression indicated plainly enough that he did not remember the incident to which she referred, but Catherine did not intend to explain. She slipped past the screen into the women's quarters where her husband was most unlikely to follow, and almost stumbled over Mary who was restraining Richard.

  Until he heard voices, the boy had been content to wait quietly until Rannulf woke because he understood that his father had ridden far and was tired. Now, however, he was straining and wriggling in Mary's arms and needed only Catherine's smiling nod to break free of his half sister's grip.

  A boyish shriek of joy and a loud, anguished grunt from Rannulf gave evidence of a happy reunion. Listening to the childish voice, shrill with excitement, and the deeper masculine tones quickened by love and pleasure, Catherine could have found it in her heart to pray that life would stop for all of them in this one happy moment.

  Neither time nor life does stop upon command, and Catherine wakened to this fact with a shock when she realized she had been waiting some minutes and the women had not brought her water for washing. A sharp question to Mary, a couple of slaps which landed with a more resounding crack than one would have expected from so delicate-seeming a hand and arm, and the maidservants got over their excitement and returned to their duties.

  To restore order among the servants was simple, but Catherine received an even greater surprise when she returned to her bedchamber and found Rannulf still abed. For Rannulf to lie abed after the sun was up was unprecedented. Richard was asking and he was answering questions, but ordinarily he would have done so while dressing and then taken the boy with him while he went over the keep to see that all was in order, inspected the men-at-arms who had remained behind, visited the armory, the smithy, the stables, the kennels, and the mews. It was excellent training for his son, and the men expected it. For the lord of the manor to show a lack of interest about the smallest detail of castle life was the first spot of a growing rot that could destroy that life completely.

  The devotion of the many castle servants to their duty was integral to the smooth functioning of the keep as a self-sufficient community. Since the servants were paid in no way except by occasional gifts and their easier lives and greatly increased social status over the field serfs, and since each position, whether armorer, executioner, or huntsman, was virtually hereditary, a word of praise from the master for work well done or blame and punishment for work ill done was all the incentive available. That, and the great joy of passionate and uninhibited argument with their lord when his opinion and theirs differed about the best way to manage their special sphere. The master by no means won all, or even any, of these arguments.

  Rannulf might have the right of life or death over his servants, but by long custom, he had no right to deprive them of their positions. For a sufficiently serious infraction of his trust, he might order a man to be killed or maimed, but since the man's son, or nephew, or cousin, or uncle would then inherit the position, severe or unmerited punishment was a double-edged sword. It was one of the few sure ways to destroy his own influence over his servants and the safety and comfort of his home.

  Far worse, however, was any attempt to interfere with the hereditary status of each servant. Many masters were cruel and unreasonable; servants accepted this as the will of God to try them. Usually they still did their work faithfully while they prayed for their master's early demise. After all, if one master was a devil, the next might be a saint, and their sons or their sons' sons would reap the benefit of their patience and forbearance. If the hope of that benefit were taken from them, the fabric of their lives would be torn and all endeavor would be worthless.

  Never had Rannulf failed in the minutest fulfillment of that duty. He knew each of the men who were the chiefs of the various aspects of castle life since childhood. He knew their wives and their children and which of their sons showed the most promise. He laid his hand to the bellows or the hammer in the smithy; he waked with his farrier when a promising mare was in foal; he selected puppies or held a sick hunting dog on his lap while his kennelman dosed or treated it; he put his shoulder to the uprooting of stumps with his forester and tracked game with his huntsmen.

  Most of all, he joyed in the verbal battles with old and faithful servants, descending to the vernacular and to their level of expostulation with grim pleasure, bearing unflinchingly language from them for which he would have killed an equal. Few men in the kingdom, king, earl or baron—other than his foster brother Leicester—dared call Rannulf a fool, yet his servants informed him trenchantly that he was an unripe gapeseed, a mutton-headed ass, a gaping cod, without fear and without restraint. Rannulf bore all, but not meekly; he returned the compliments in even less-elegant language.

  To see Rannulf, then, with his hands behind his head and half-closed
eyes while he replied to Richard's questions was a shock to Catherine. Skillfully ridding herself of the boy by sending him on a short errand, she attempted to renew her examination of her husband for wounds or illness. He defended himself with laughter, protesting that nothing but old age and indolence ailed him. At last, seeing that Catherine was really troubled, Rannulf admitted how he had hurried to be at home, thereby saving himself the time for this lazy pleasure.

  "You wish to be rid of me," he complained. "You wish to make the bed and attend to your women's duties without the burden of a lazy husband to mar your efficiency. Therefore you would drive me out to labor at dawn."

  "Dawn!" Catherine protested. "It is nigh time for dinner, and you are lying abed like a slug. Your poor men have been indeed laboring since dawn, and some of them all night from what I hear, cleaning and making all ready for your eyes. Do have mercy on them, Rannulf. The past two years they have had far too much of woman's governance. Get up now, my lord, do."

  She fetched a bedrobe from the chest and held it out to him, smiling warmly as she added, "It would be too unkind to deny your servants altogether, my lord, but I am very glad you have some time to spend on pleasure. I, too, have naught to do."

  She explained about leaving more and more of the work of the keep in Mary's hands and added, "She is a very good girl, Rannulf, hard-working, obedient, and of a sweet temper. She deserves well of you."

  "I suppose so, but if her temper is sweet, she has caught it from you. Certainly it came not from her mother nor from me."

  Catherine refrained from pointing out that Mary's mother had reason enough to be short of temper, merely thanking Rannulf for his compliment as she straightened the bed. She called past the screen for water for washing and, after watching her husband scrub himself in silence, decided to try his mellow mood a little further.

  "She is fifteen, Rannulf."

  "Who?"

  "Mary."

  "Oh, yes," he said indifferently.

  "It is time she was married."

  "There is time enough for that. She cannot be unhappy here with you, she is useful to you, and, in all truth, I have nothing to spare for her just now, neither land nor gold."

  Catherine knew that to be true and resented it. Everything seemed to be swallowed up by the fruitless, senseless war. She knew she should have been satisfied with the knowledge that Rannulf intended to dower his daughter, but the very fact that he had reminded her that all his resources were presently committed to war increased her sense of urgency.

  If anything happened to Rannulf, Mary's position would be desperate. Doubtless Rannulf had lands and possessions given him or won in war that were not entailed upon his eldest son. Most of these, of course, would go to enrich Richard's portion, adding to Adelecia's dower, which belonged to her son. Nonetheless, Rannulf could, if he chose, give some part of the free property as a gift to his daughter who, being illegitimate, had nothing by right.

  If he died before disposing otherwise of his property, it would all, except for Adelecia's dower, go to Geoffrey. Catherine did not really know Geoffrey. Perhaps he would wish to be generous to his half sister, but once the property passed into his hands, custom would bind him to pass it on to his own heirs. He might find money to give her, but certainly if the war continued there would be little left for him to find.

  "It cannot be done at once, I know," Catherine persisted, "but you could promise something definite, and if you have no particular man in mind for her—"

  "I have more to consider than a silly girl's marriage," Rannulf snapped irritably, aware that he had really opened his mouth to agree to anything Catherine suggested. Momentarily he was frightened by her power over him, but as he realized he had resisted it successfully, he regained confidence. "Do you think of nothing but the children?" he asked. "I have wrested two short days from a hard duty. Is it wrong to wish to give myself to pleasure without thought for two days?"

  "Of course not, Rannulf." Catherine crossed to where he was moodily looking out a window. How cruel she was to him. He was so duty-bound that it was a sin to spoil his brief release.

  "Look," Rannulf said suddenly, pushing away his fear, "the sky is clearing. What say you, my lady, can you spare the afternoon to come hawking with me? Shall we ride away from our duty and our labor to indulge ourselves in guilty pleasure?"

  Catherine giggled, partly at the notion of so innocent an amusement being called a guilty pleasure and partly with the sudden realization that Rannulf would not know a guilty pleasure if one bit him. Not that he had not tried them all. Catherine herself had never seen her husband more than slightly heated with wine, but there were tales of past carouses. He gambled, yes, and took some pleasure in it; only the vice had so little hold upon him that there could be no guilt involved. Nor had Catherine forgotten the women. There, if you wished, was guilt, but pleasure?

  That was the meat of the matter. Rannulf was so made that when he felt guilt, he could feel no pleasure. Even sadder, Catherine thought, glancing quickly at him, he had not called hawking a guilty pleasure entirely in jest. Any amusement indulged in merely for pleasure gave Rannulf a sense of guilt.

  "Oh, yes," Catherine sighed, sliding her arm around Rannulf's waist, "let us go and be guilty together."

  Without turning to look at her, as if he were afraid to acknowledge to himself what he was doing, Rannulf pulled Catherine still closer and, after a short, silent pause, pressed his lips to her hair.

  "Rannulf," Catherine added urgently, "do you have only the two days? Is there no way to stretch the time?"

  Again the twinge of fear that he would yield and stay. "I dare not," Rannulf said. "I have sent the summons out, but I am commanded to hand-pick the men who follow my vassals and, in truth, I believe much will depend upon their quality. If you wish," he continued as if the idea were new to him, "we may stretch the time of being together. You may travel with me to my vassals' keeps." He had planned to take her, but that she should come by her own desire was sweeter yet.

  A fool only, Catherine thought, walks wide-eyed into the maw of danger. Every hour in her husband's company carried the threat of the exposure of her plans and the clash of wills to follow. On the other hand, he had never been so soft to her. Perhaps now if she pleaded with him to withdraw from the king's war he would listen. Catherine snuggled closer to the hard body beside her as if she would seek shelter within it.

  "Thank you, Rannulf. I do desire to come."

  She had thanked him for what he would have demanded of her. Rannulf understood at last the strange juxtaposition of the ideas in the 23rd Psalm: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over."

  The rod and the staff, however, were not missing. Sometimes subtly, sometimes directly, but always mixed with an outpouring of love that disarmed Rannulf completely, Catherine pleaded expediency. In terms of her own fears, she pointed out how naked his lands would be when he had stripped them of their best fighters. She told him of her recurring nightmare, in which his vassals turned on him to be free of the unceasing, hopeless war, and murdered Richard and Geoffrey so that there would be no heirs of his name to take revenge. She clung and she kissed and she wept.

  Rannulf soothed her. He explained how the victories in France were healing Eustace's bitterness; how the rebels were shaken by those victories; how Stephen might at last be king of a peaceful realm. And each time he voiced these convictions, the optimism he had felt faded. Leicester's warnings, dismissed previously, burned in his brain, and Catherine's nightmare took such hold upon him that he scarcely dared close his eyes at night.

  Never had Rannulf suffered such torment. He had often been bitterly unhappy in his personal life. Now, lapped in love, dazed—glutted—with emotional satisfaction, he found the scaffolding of his life collapsing. The music of Catherine's voice was no happy contrast to the clamor of war he would soon hear. The rich green fields were no invitation to make desolation elsewhere. And nights of love do no
t well prepare a man to go and look upon death.

  CHAPTER 14

  Like a carved figure of obsidian touched with silver, the horseman sat in the moonlight. Before him, dropping away from the crest of the low hill, stretched the once-fertile fields around Wallingford. Even the night could not hide their ravishment. Nothing. Empty. There was a darker shadow, which might be a single mud wall of a serf's hut still standing. Here, closer, was a tree, gnarled, stark, obscene without leaves in the late summer, writhing as if it still felt the fire that had stripped it.

  A faint shudder disturbed the stillness of the horseman, and the moonlight flickered, a pale, cold flame without warmth or comfort, on the polished helmet. Another fitful gleam, light without light, showed faintly as a metal-sewn gauntlet moved the reins. The horse, dull-shining now in movement, went down toward that scorched nothingness, and behind, out of the shadows, came other horsemen whose accoutrements shone palely and faded. The silence was broken, but not by the voices of men. No command for silence had been given, for there was no danger in the empty fields for these horsemen, but their leader's burden lay upon them and they were weary.

  For some time the dull thud of hooves unmuffled by any green blade on that blackened earth made a monotonous music. Then, across the emptiness, hanging threateningly above it, rose the black towers of Wallingford keep, and on the near side of the river before it the men could see the campfires of the besiegers—red eyes that gazed hungrily at the great stone walls. Each man saw something different in those fires.

  To most they were the cheerful heralds of comfort, telling of food and drink and sleep. To Andre Fortesque they were leaping beacons of hope. To Rannulf they were the final touch to a nightmare, the fires of hell glowing red in a burnt and desolate land.