The Raven and the Rose Read Free Page A

wife of the Count of Anjou, however. Despite having sworn to support her, most of the barons of England had disliked the thought of a woman ruling them, especially one married to a foreigner, and they’d backed her cousin, Stephen of Blois. War had been fierce for a while, but then it had simmered down to strife and local feuds, but King Stephen was weak. Many barons ruled their lands like princes, and the only law was the mailed fist.
    Now Countess Matilda’s son was of an age to take up the claim, and she had given her right of succession to him. In November, Henry, Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy and of Aquitaine, had landed in England to lead his family’s supporters in the struggle. Ever since, England had suffered under skirmish, siege, battle and destruction. A peace had been broken; a truce had come and gone. Mercenaries roamed the countryside, pillaging when not paid. Towns burned and people died, many of them innocent ordinary folk.
    Perhaps it was no wonder she dreamed of battle.
    â€œWho brought this latest news?” she asked as she rinsed the vat.
    â€œMarjorie Cooper, when she brought the new cask yesterday. When you were out cutting twigs.”
    The cooper’s wife was generally a reliable informant. Gledys scrubbed and rinsed. “The king and the duke made peace in the winter. Why couldn’t they hold to it?”
    â€œBecause it suited neither, as you well know.”
    â€œYes,” Gledys admitted.
    That agreement had been forced on both parties. Henry of Anjou would get the throne when the king died, but that could be years, for Stephen was only fifty-seven. King Henry had lived a decade longer than that. King Stephen would keep his throne, but deprive his own son of the succession.
    â€œIf the king was willing to hold to the arrangement,” Sister Elizabeth said, “his son, Prince Eustace, never will.”
    â€œEustace of Boulogne.” Gledys almost spat it. Twenty-three and steeped in evil.
    â€œAye, Marjorie says many of the barons who’ve supported King Stephen are going to Duke Henry’s side for that reason alone. They don’t want that young man on the throne.”
    Gledys looked up sharply. “Perhaps that gives hope of peace. And Duke Henry seems to be a godly man. Remember when his troops pillaged around Oxford? He commanded that all the booty be returned.”
    â€œGodly or clever,” said Sister Elizabeth dryly, “but either would be better than Eustace. The water’s boiling.”
    Gledys set the heavy vat beneath the boiler, then went to the stores for malt.
    War, active or merely simmering, had thrown England into chaos all her life, and it was hard for her to believe peace possible or even imagine what it would be like. She’d lived protected from war’s evils, but she’d heard of them: villages razed and towns burned, crops destroyed or stolen when they came to harvest. The strong oppressing the weak with no effective law to stop them, and endless feuding violence.
    Peace seemed as mythical as the holy cup Joseph of Arimathea had buried on Glastonbury Tor, and as impossible to find. She’d heard that people crept to the tor by night to dig, seeking the sacred chalice and the miraculous bounty it was said to provide.
    But in this day and age, miracles didn’t exist.

Chapter 2
    â€œWhat happened to you out there?” Rannulf demanded gruffly as he and the squire, Alain, helped Michael de Loury out of his battered armor. Michael winced as he bent his bruised arm. He also had a headache from that last blow.
    â€œDistracted.”
    â€œIn a battle, that’ll get you killed.” Rannulf was a rawboned, bowlegged man of fifty-six who served as Michael’s man-at-arms, but he’d been one of Michael’s trainers and never forgot it.
    â€œI know, I know. I thought . . .” Michael stopped himself from mentioning what he’d seen. Bad enough to let his mind wander