The Heretic's Apprentice Read Free

over a shoulder every hour or so. Ranulf can give all his mind to Owain Gwynedd, and Stephen can give all his to the matter of Geoffrey de Mandeville in Essex.’
    â€˜And in the meantime we must entertain Canon Gerbert until his horse is fit to bear him.’
    â€˜And his body-servant and his two grooms, and one of Bishop de Clinton’s deacons, lent as his guide here through the diocese. A meek little fellow called Serlo, who goes in trembling awe of the man. I doubt if he’d ever heard of Saint Winifred, for that matter – Gerbert, I mean, not Serlo – but he’ll be wanting to direct her festival for you, now that he’s halted here.’
    â€˜He had that look about him,’ Cadfael admitted. ‘And what have you told him about the small matter of Owain Gwynedd?’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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 south-west, based on Bristol and Gloucester, 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 favoured 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.
    â€˜Robert,’ said Hugh, ‘is busy strengthening all his defences and turning the south-west 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 intentions of sending over to her aid forces he himself was busy using adroitly and successfully in the conquest of Normandy, an enterprise which interested