FOR A MOMENT MAUD was so stunned, she could not believe what she had heard. Had the guards gone mad?
“Let me through at once,” she said, pushing against the crossed spears.
“My lady, I cannot let you pass without the King’s permission,” one of the guards said respectfully.
“But this is preposterous,” she protested. “Did the King say to treat me as a prisoner?”
The guards looked at each other in consternation.
Sensing their uncertainty, she pressed her advantage. “If you don’t let me through at once I will scream so loudly that the castle will be set on its ears.” She opened her mouth widely.
“Please, my lady, I beg you do nothing until I get further instructions,” the guard interjected hastily. “We were only told not to let you leave without further orders.” He sprinted down the staircase while the other guard remained outside the door.
Maud slammed the door shut and walked back inside the chamber. Sweet Marie, she understood only too well what had happened. The King, fearing she would tell someone of his scheme to marry her to the Angevin, hoped to guarantee her silence by keeping her under lock and key.
For the moment he had succeeded, she thought bitterly, but if he believed he could bring her to heel in this way, he was very much mistaken. Nothing would induce her to marry the young count. She ran to the turret window and peered out, but it was too dark to see clearly.
How long would she be kept here? She would perish of cold if she stayed in the chamber much longer.
What would the King do? What could he do?
Behind her defiance Maud was aware that she was behaving foolishly. In the end she must submit to her fate, as she always had, but this time she stubbornly refused to acknowledge it. When the door opened, she stiffened in sudden fear.
“We are ordered to escort you to the Queen’s quarters, my lady,” the guard said.
Without a word, Maud followed the guards out of the chamber, down the staircase, and into the courtyard where they were joined by four more men-at-arms. Outside it was bitter cold, with little flurries of snow powdering the ground, and a chill wind that cut right through her fur-lined mantle. As she crossed the courtyard surrounded by even more guards, Maud saw Stephen walking toward his horse.
“I was just now asking what had become of you,” Stephen called, catching sight of her.
“Excuse me, my lord,” one of the guards said with a deferential bow, “but we’re on the King’s business and may not be deterred. I must ask you to step aside.”
Stephen looked in astonishment at the men-at-arms. “I don’t understand.”
“Stephen, help me—” Maud began desperately, but two of the guards caught her by each arm, and fairly dragged her across the courtyard. The other four closed ranks behind them.
“I’m sorry, my lady, but you are forbidden to speak to anyone,” the guard said, hurrying her along.
The last glimpse she had of Stephen, he was standing in the middle of the courtyard, his hand on the hilt of his sword, his face a study in bewilderment.
The guards took her round the side of the castle into the kitchen courtyard and through a small door that led to the south wing of Westminster. It was a part of the castle Maud had not visited before. Inside, dominated by an enormous fireplace, was the largest kitchen Maud had ever seen. She caught a glimpse of iron cauldrons set on tripods over the open fire, a haunch of venison turning on the spit, and ropes of onion and garlic hanging from the blackened beams of the ceiling. Scullions were running to and fro with buckets of water. Agitated cooks shouted at one another as they bent over long wooden tables cluttered with basins, knives, platters, and bunches of herbs. No one paid the slightest attention to Maud and her escort.
The irony of the situation was not lost on her: Here was the future Queen of England being led through the kitchens like the meanest prisoner.
From the kitchens she was marched along a narrow passage, past the buttery and butler, up the main staircase, and down another passage on the second floor until they came to the Queen’s solar. With impassive faces, the guards waited until she had closed the door behind her.
Alix and her ladies were grouped together over a recently born litter of black-and-white puppies lying beside their proud mother in a wicker basket.
“Alix—” Maud began in a choked voice.
The Queen turned, startled. “Oh my dear, what a fright you gave me.” At the look on Maud’s face, she gasped, and one soft white hand flew to her mouth. “Leave us,” she told her ladies, who retired to a far corner of the chamber.
“Do you know what’s happened?” Maud asked in a trembling voice. “My father has made me a prisoner. I’m forbidden to speak to anyone, to go where I will!”
Her face ashen, Alix took Maud firmly by the arm and set her onto a scarlet covered stool. She was garbed in her habitual flowing white gown and tunic, and her eyes were shadowed with fear as she pulled up another stool. Taking Maud’s hands in icy fingers, she kept her voice low and composed.
“Listen to me, Maud. You have greatly angered the King over this matter of the Angevin marriage and I must warn you that when he is in this state he’s capable of anything. He will almost certainly require bleeding to release the foul humors that torment him. I beg you not to cross him.”
“Am I to submit to a hateful marriage so that this tyrant will not have to be bled?”
Alix cast an anxious look at her ladies, whispering together at the far end of the solar. “Oh, my dear, we must all submit to what God sends. And how well I understand what it means to be forced into an unwanted marriage.”
“Well, I’ve no intention of submitting! Not only is it a grave dishonor—he’s only a count, after all—but this Geoffrey is a mere child.”
“That does seem a bit—excessive, if you’ll forgive my saying so. One day you will be queen, surely that is honor enough? Geoffrey of Anjou will not always be a fourteen-year-old count, but your king-consort. And as matters now stand with the King’s health, you may not have many years to wait.” Alix signed herself.
Maud gave the Queen a suspicious glance. “You sound just like my father! Has he primed you to say these things to me?”
Alix grew even more pale in her distress. “As God is my witness, he did not! I truly believe what I have said. How could you think otherwise?” Her lower lip trembled.
Maud could have bitten her tongue in vexation. How could she have doubted the saintly Queen even for a moment? She caught Alix’s hand in her own. “Forgive me, but I’m not myself. The news of the marriage has so upset me that I’m no longer mistress of my tongue.”
Alix nodded her understanding. “When you’re over the first shock, then you will accept your future with good grace.”
“If only I could!” Maud rose to her feet. “The barons will side with me in this matter, you know. The Normans will never stomach an Angevin king.”
Alix regarded Maud with a sad expression. “The King will prevail in any dispute with his nobles, surely that is evident to you by now.” She walked over to Maud and laid a soft white hand on her arm. “Tell me the truth. Would an older husband, even a reigning king, really make a difference?”
Maud flushed. “What do you mean?” she stammered, surprised to see a glimmer of compassion in Alix’s lovely doe eyes. Did she suspect her feelings for Stephen?
How she longed to tell the Queen of her love for her cousin, that the thought of leaving him was unbearable, but she felt too ashamed to admit to anyone that this was the main reason behind her refusal to marry.
Alix sighed, and Maud sensed she chose her words with care. “You must not ask so much of life, Maud. You cannot take the world by storm and force your will upon it. You’re far more fortunate than most women. Accept your place in the natural order of things. Yield to your fate. Bloom where you’re planted.”
“Next you will tell me to be fruitful and multiply. Who can bloom in a wasteland?” Maud shook her head. “I’m not like you, Alix, if only I were! My nature is to fight for what I want until I have it.” She took a deep breath. “Had you held firm with your father you would now be serving Our Lord in the convent, not forced to deal with a headstrong stepdaughter.”
Alix’s eyes filled with tears and she clasped Maud in her arms. “Yes,” she whispered, “to seize life by the throat is the Norman way, and perhaps you will prevail in the end. I’m the last person to judge you, my dear. We must each follow our own nature wherever it leads us.”
Maud’s heart surged with affection for the gentle queen and she warmly returned the embrace. After a moment they broke apart, slightly embarrassed by their mutual display of warmth.
“What is to happen now?” Maud asked.
“You’re to remain here in my care until you agree to go to Anjou. There’s a small chamber attached to this one being readied for you now.” She pointed to a closed door at the far end of the solar. “You may neither leave nor entertain visitors. Food will be brought to you. Each day you are permitted to take the air upon the battlements, accompanied by guards. Aldyth may join you, should you desire her, but if so, she must suffer the same conditions.” Alix glanced toward her ladies. “Not even my women may talk to you alone.”
Maud clenched her fists. “And if I refuse to abide by these outrageous rules?”
“If you seek to violate them, the King says he will hold me responsible and act accordingly.”
A dart of fear shot through Maud. “He wouldn’t dare to hurt you.” But she was not really sure what her father might do if sufficiently roused.
Her eyes enormous, Alix said: “You threatened to tell the barons of the Angevin marriage, Maud, and when directly opposed the King can be merciless, ruthless!”
“But he breaks his sworn oath if he forces me to wed the young Count,” Maud countered.
“Do you imagine he will let that stand in his way? It is madness, madness to defy him!” Alix wrung her hands. “Surely you have heard the tale of how his own grandchildren were blinded?”
“That is a tale I have not heard,” Maud said slowly, “nor do I wish to hear it.”
“You must hear it, for your own good.” She led Maud to a corner of the room where a brazier burned brightly. “The King married Juliana, one of his illegitimate daughters, to the Count of Bretuil in Normandy,” Alix began. “After a time the King had reason to suspect that his daughter’s husband planned rebellion. The Count denied this and as an act of good faith, your father persuaded him to surrender his two young daughters as hostages. Henry’s grandchildren, mind you. In return, the Count was given another child as hostage. In time Juliana’s husband rebelled, even as the King had feared, and, as an act of defiance, blinded the child in his care.” Alix’s voice faltered. “Then—then at the King’s instigation, the father of that child blinded Henry’s grandchildren in turn.”
Maud was speechless with horror. Her father had a notoriously cruel reputation, but this—the bile rose up in her throat, almost choking her.
“What happened to my half sister, to Juliana?” Maud whispered.
“She went totally mad.” Her eyes brilliant with tears, Alix’s face began to crumple like a piece of old parchment. “Please, Maud, I beg of you, in God’s name, do as he wishes.” She fell to her knees. “I beg of you!”
Maud quickly pulled her to her feet. “Peace, peace. Do not fret,” she said, deeply shaken. “I cannot agree to the marriage, but I’ll abide by all the conditions and not cause any trouble.”
She held the weeping Queen in her arms, inwardly filled with rage and terror, sickened by the tale she had just heard. What a very devil of cunning was the King to have made Alix her jailer, for he knew full well that Maud would do nothing to put the Queen in jeopardy.
Several hours later, in the comparative safety of her newly readied chamber, Maud told Aldyth what had happened.
“Who would believe the future Queen of England a prisoner in her father’s castle?”
Aldyth gave Maud a bewildered glance. “In truth I cannot blame your father. By the Rood, you knew you’d have to marry someone. Now that you’re to be queen, what sense is there in resisting him? The Count’s only a lad, ’tis true, but you’ll have the molding of him this way, and that’s all to your advantage, I would have thought.” She looked around the cramped chamber, furnished with a large bed, a small trundle bed, an oak chest, and two threadbare stools. “The sooner we’re out of this wretched mousehole the better.”
Maud set her jaw in the stubborn manner Aldyth knew so well. “I want a grown man, already knowledgeable in the ways of the world! Someone of equal rank.”
Aldyth, who had begun to unpack a large box containing Maud’s belongings, shut the lid with a bang. “I know very well what you want, but you’ll never have him, not in this world, my lady, so make the best of what is offered. You need someone to make a woman and a mother out of you, and the sooner the better.”
“Why must you reduce everything to—to matters of midwifery?” Maud walked over to the tiny window and peered out. It was totally black, not a glimmer of moon or stars.
“Because for a woman, of low birth or high, that is all there is!”
“The Emperor never thought so.”
Aldyth planted her forearms on ample hips. “The Emperor was a monk, not a man, and you were his pupil, not his wife. When a woman behaves like a bitch-hound in heat, mooning about with lovesick dreams, then she is ready to be wedded and bedded.”
Her face scarlet with embarrassment, Maud turned on Aldyth. “Such talk is unseemly. If I continue to refuse, the King must give in.”
Aldyth sniffed. “Indeed? Stubborn he is, just like you.” She threw up her hands. “How far does the apple fall from the tree?”
The bells rang for Compline; in stony silence, the two women went to their separate beds.
Sleepless, Maud tossed under the fur coverlet, Aldyth’s words repeating over and over in her mind like a trouvère’s rondelet. She could not deny their truth. She was ready—more than ready—for love. But only one person could give her what she craved. Impossible to give herself to another. Tears coursed down her face, and she stifled her anguish into the goose-down pillow. It was almost dawn before she finally slept.
Next morning it was still snowing, the ground outside the window a blanket of white. Maud broke her night’s fast in the Queen’s solar, disappointed that the weather made it impossible to walk upon the battlements. She was already chafing against the unaccustomed inactivity.
“I must leave you again for a while, my dear,” Alix said, coming into the chamber from morning Mass. She wore a heavy brown cloak lined with gray fur and her face was pink with cold. “It’s the day my women and I go to St. Giles, founded by your sainted mother, to give alms to the good monks who care for the poor lepers.” She kissed Maud on both cheeks. “I’ve left you my tapestry to work upon, should you care to keep occupied. I find such work very soothing in times of inner upheaval.”
Maud smiled weakly, and looked with distaste at the tapestry frame set up on the floor.
Alix watched her with worried eyes. “I don’t like to leave you alone. Where is Aldyth?”
“She has gone—accompanied by an army of guards—to my old chamber to pack up the remainder of my belongings.” Maud paused. “I would see my father, Alix. Can you arrange this?”
“He told me he wouldn’t see you until you agree to his wishes.”
“I still don’t agree,” Maud replied, “but I wish further converse upon the matter.”
“He was adamant.” At the look of defeat on Maud’s face, Alix clasped her hands to her bosom. “I shall talk to him for you. Perhaps he will be more accessible today. Of course, I cannot promise—” She smiled bravely, and Maud could see that it would require all Alix’s courage to approach her formidable husband.
“Say nothing if it does not seem the right moment,” Maud said, noting the look of relief in Alix’s eyes.
“You must hear Mass, my dear, and then you will feel better. I will ask the King to send you a priest. Surely he cannot deny you the comfort of confession.”
Maud nodded absently, doubting whether a priest would provide any comfort.
Alix and her women left; Maud was alone. She walked from the solar into her own small chamber and back again. Charcoal braziers burned brightly in both rooms. A flagon of wine and a platter of honey cakes stood on the table in the solar. Nothing had been spared for her warmth and comfort, yet she was heartsick and confused. She knew her resolve was weakening, that she could not prevent the inevitable forever. Sooner or later she would be forced to accept her father’s command.
She stroked a sleeping puppy and looked at the tapestry: It appeared to be another religious work, the Crucifixion this time, portrayed in bright blue and red and green wools. Near the tapestry lay Alix’s psalter. Bound in an ivory and metal cover mounted on wood, the vellum pages were beautifully inscribed with gold and purple ink. Although Alix, like almost all women, was unlettered, her chaplain often read aloud to the Queen and her ladies. Maud, who read Latin fluently, sat down on a stool and picked up the psalter. She had just settled back when a loud knock interrupted her. A guard cautiously opened the door.
“A priest is here, my lady,” he said. “Sent by the King.”
“Oh, yes.” Maud shut the book and stood up.
It must be two hours yet before the noon Mass. Did her father hope to hasten her capitulation by sending the priest earlier so he could reason with her?
A shapeless figure cloaked from head to toe in black entered the solar.
“Come into my chamber,” she said over her shoulder, leading the way into her room. “Here we will not be disturbed should Queen Alix return.”
The cleric followed her silently. Once inside the chamber, he closed the door behind him and carefully bolted it.
“That is hardly necessary—” Maud began, surprised, then stifled a scream as the cleric threw back his cowl to reveal the green-gold eyes and flushed face of her cousin Stephen.