Sharon Penman - Time and Chance

“Jesu!” Cold air was seeping through the shutters, the window seat under siege by icy drafts. “Are you not half-frozen by now?”

“No.”

Roger was encouraged that he’d gotten an answer, any answer. Sure that he could outwait his cousin, he said nothing, let the silence settle around them. He could hear Henry’s breathing, shallow and uneven, could hear the other man shifting position on the seat. When Henry finally spoke, his voice was as constricted as his breath.

“As God is my witness,” he said, “those men did not murder him at my bidding.”

“I know,” Roger said, thankful that he need not lie about that.

There was another prolonged silence. “Do you think that Thomas knew that?”

“Yes, he did,” Roger said, with such certainty that Henry came abruptly to his feet.

“If I wanted to be fed pap, there are more than enough men eager to serve it up to me. That question was not easy to ask. I agreed to see you because I thought you’d be the one man who’d give me an honest answer!”

Roger rose, too, unable to endure the window seat chill any longer. “You want more from me than honesty, Harry. You want absolution.”

Henry started to make an angry denial, stopped himself. “What if I do?”

“I cannot give it to you,” Roger said and again it was quiet.

“I know,” Henry said at last, so softly that Roger barely heard him.

“But I can give you this much. I can tell you for certes that Thomas knew his killers were not there at your behest. He said so, you see. When they first confronted him in his bedchamber, he told them that he did not believe they came from the king.” Thrusting into the pouch at his belt, he drew out a letter. “This was written by William Fitz Stephen within hours of the murder. Read it for yourself if you doubt me.”

Henry reached out, but his fingers just brushed the parchment. Roger turned away, dropping the letter onto a nearby table, and strode toward the hearth. Picking up fire tongs, he began to prod the embers back to life. “I am going to light a candle now,” he said and when Henry did not protest, he did so, cupping the flame once it had kindled and holding it aloft.

Henry flinched away from the light at first, but then he raised his head and met Roger’s gaze full on. “Do I look like a man with blood on my hands?”

“You look,” Roger said, “like a man who has not slept or eaten for days.” Setting the candle down, he started toward the door. “If I order milk of almonds, will you drink it?” Taking Henry’s silence as assent, he opened the door just wide enough to issue instructions. Neither man spoke until a timid knock announced a servant’s arrival. Thwarting the curiosity of those hovering out in the stairwell, Roger did not admit the man, taking the tray himself and closing the door upon the waiting world.

Henry accepted the cup with indifference, but with Roger’s eyes upon him, he took a swallow, then another. His gaze shifted several times from his cousin’s face to Fitz Stephen’s letter. He was not ready to read it, though, and began to pace, retreating back into the shadows beyond the candle’s solitary glimmer.

“It does not matter that I never wanted this. I will be blamed for it.” It was not posed as a question, but Roger heard the echoes of one nonetheless. “Yes,” he said, “you will.”

Henry halted his pacing. “Do you blame me?”

“Yes,” Roger said implacably and Henry drew a sharp breath.

“You said you believed me! You said you knew I did not order his death!”

“I do believe that. But if you are not guilty, neither are you innocent. Your hot, heedless words set the killing in motion.”

“I did not want him murdered!”

“But he was murdered, and by men who killed in your name.” Henry shook his head vehemently. “It was not my doing, Roger! I spoke out in anger, no more than that. You know my temper, quick to kindle and quick to cool. I admit that my words were ill chosen, but this was not the first time that I’d flared up over one of Becket’s affronts. I cursed him out soundly and publicly at Chinon after learning that he’d excommunicated my justiciar, and I daresay my language was intemperate, even threatening. But no one acted upon my words!”

“Well,” Roger said, “this time they did,” and that, Henry could not deny.

January 1171

Trefriw, North Wales

Peryf Ap Cedifor looked haggard and tense, like a man in d ire need of sleep, one who’d forgotten how to laugh. Arriving at mealtime, he’d politely accepted the invitation to dine with them, but he’d yet to swallow a mouthful. His brothers Caradog and Brochfael, had eaten very little, too, and since Cedifor’s sons were as known for their prodigious appetites as for their powerful, wrestlers’ physiques, their indifferent eating did not pass unnoticed. Enid fretted and apologized for the “poor fare,” Rhodri kept urging them to try various dishes, and Ranulf’s own appetite dwindled each time he glanced at Peryf’s transparently troubled face.

Once the meal had finally ended and the servants had cleared the table, Ranulf chose to confront his demons head-on, waiting only until Morgan and Mallt were shepherded out of the hall. “I know you sent word to Hywel of his father’s death. But can you be sure your messenger reached him?”

“No,” Peryf admitted, “I cannot. Tathan is a good man, one I’d trust with my soul’s last breath. But soon after he sailed, the weather turned foul. For all I know, his ship was one of the hundreds that have foundered in that accursed Irish Sea. Even if he landed safely, he could still have come to grief ere he found Hywel. I was told that there was a man so eager to catch the ship that he was rowed out to board whilst it was making ready to leave the harbor. I could not help wondering if that unforeseen passenger had an urgent reason of his own-an ungodly one-for wanting to take Tathan’s ship.”

Rhodri looked perplexed, but Ranulf understood at once. He was taken aback, though, for Peryf’s fears were much darker than his. “You truly think they would try to murder your messenger?”

“What better way to keep Hywel from learning of his father’s death? To keep him in Ireland until it’s too late?”

Rhodri always kept his crutch within easy reach. As he pushed his chair back now, it clattered to the floor and he never even noticed. “What are you saying, Peryf? Who are they?”

“Cristyn and her brood. Who else?”

Peryf’s candor hushed the hall. Ranulf leaned across the table, clamping his hand upon the other man’s arm. “Have you any proof of these suspicions?”

“I do not need proof. I know in the marrow of my bones that Cristyn would scruple at nothing to gain power for her sons.”

Ranulf had often heard Hywel joke about his foster brother’s “doom and gloom disposition,” but he could not dismiss Peryf’s fears as easily as Hywel would have done. The natural optimism of his youth had been tempered by life’s ongoing lessons, his equivocal status as one who was both a king’s son and a bastard, and the sobering realization that the race was not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.

“What would you have me do, Peryf?”

Peryf’s smile was rueful. “Am I as easily read as that? I have indeed come to ask for your help, Ranulf.” Holding up his hand before Ranulf could respond. “Wait! Do not be so quick to agree, for it is no small favor I seek. Would you be willing to sail for Ireland and find Hywel?”

Ranulf’s acceptance would once have come as quickly and unthinkingly as his next breath. But it was not enough to understand that his wife deserved a say in their family’s future, not unless he also acted upon it. A winter voyage to Ireland was often a widow-maker. He looked over at Rhiannon, and with the intuition honed by two decades of marital intimacy, she sensed his eyes upon her, heard his unspoken question.