The Sword and The Swan Read Free Page B

consciousness of Eustace's hatred only by withdrawing from court, but to Maud it seemed essential to bind the vassal with new chains of obligation.
    Maud did not believe in oaths; she had broken too many herself, and there were signs and portents throughout the court. Leicester was more friendly than ever with the rebel lords, and Leicester was Rannulf's foster brother. If Robert of Leicester loved any man other than himself and his twin, he loved Rannulf of Sleaford; if he attended to any man's opinion, it would be to his. Maud did not really fear that Rannulf would turn on them, but he might slip into neutrality since he had no personal quarrel with the rebels.
    Maud had guessed Rannulf's attitude toward the rebels accurately. True, it was Robert, the first duke of Gloucester, who had started the civil war when the barons of England had invited Stephen of Blois to take the throne in preference to Gloucester's half-sister Matilda, but Rannulf did not basically object to that. It was fit that each man should fight for what he believed to be right, and it was senseless to carry political grudges over into private life; the way things were, a man would soon have no one with whom to exchange a word.
    As far as Rannulf of Sleaford was concerned, war was the natural state of living, and it was in no way dishonorable to sit down at table, when the battle was done, with the man with whom you had just been crossing swords. It mattered very little to him whether one fought over political ideals, to conquer new territory, or to suppress the people one had already conquered. War was war, and, one side or the other, Rannulf hated no man who fought it honestly.
    Shifting purposes Rannulf of Sleaford also understood, although he despised them. He despised them more in men like Gloucester than in the queen, being guided by emotion more than he realized; for their behavior was almost exactly the same and for similar reasons. But in most things, Rannulf did not permit his emotions to run away with his reason.
    Just now, though, he had done so, cherishing his rage until it had overflowed in a. way that was almost as detrimental to Stephen's cause as was the behavior of the rebels of whom Maud complained.
    The feeling was beyond his ability to express, however, since he was far more given to suppressing all thought of emotion than to discussing it. He took refuge, therefore, in a sullen silence, allowing Maud to direct her women to prepare a bath for him. With eyes stubbornly lowered and lips grimly set, he allowed the women to undress him and wash him in the hot, scented water. At last, as the maids wrapped him in a soft cloth for drying, feeling a difference in the atmosphere he looked at Maud and found her considering eyes upon him.
    "Do you see something upon me that interests you, madam?"
    Maud transferred her eyes from her guest's body to his face. "In a way. To Hereford, below, you said you were old, yet I find you to look both fresh and young." She rose and, without more embarrassment than if he had been her son, pulled loose the cloth to stroke the smoothly rounded, heavily muscled shoulder. "Look here. This is not the stringy strength of active age. What are your years, my lord?"
    Knowledgeable as he was in the queen's ways, and knowing that she loved her husband with an all-consuming passion that left no room for extramarital desire, he reasoned that there must be a purpose to this admiration; even so Sir Rannulf was still flattered. His voice was as harsh as ever when he spoke, but involuntarily his eyes dropped.
    "I have passed my fortieth summer. However I look, I am not young."
    "To one who has passed some few years more, that sounds most melancholy. I would that I appeared as fresh as you do. You hold yourself too cheap, my lord—" she laughed "—and I will think twice before I leave you in my maidens' hands when I am not by. Did you not see their eyes upon you?"
    "With five score young bucks to feast their eyes upon, I should