Read Online When Christ and His Saints Slept by Sharon Kay Penman - Free Book Online Page B

October eve. Maude and Minna were seated before the solar hearth, playing a game of chess. Maude glanced up as the door opened, expecting a servant, and found herself gazing at her eldest brother and his wife.
    “Robert, thank God!” Maude was not demonstrative by nature, but now she flung herself into Robert’s arms and even embraced Amabel, although the two women had nothing in common except Robert. “Why did you not let me know you were coming? How the sight of you gladdens me! You…you do know about Geoffrey?”
    “Yes,” he said, “that is why I am here.” There was a brief delay while Robert and Amabel exchanged pleasantries with Minna and wine was served. But as soon as they were alone, Robert took a sealed parchment from a pouch at his belt and silently held it out to her.
    He watched sadly as Maude read their father’s letter, saw the color fade from her face, only to flood back as she continued to read, and then ebb away again. Raising wide, stricken eyes to his, she said, “Papa blames me, Robert. He says it is all my fault.”
    “I know.”
    “This is so unjust! Did he not get my letters? Did he read them?”
    When he nodded reluctantly, she reached out and caught his arm. “Then he knows how Geoffrey maltreated me! What did he say to that?”
    “I do not remember, lass,” he said, no longer meeting her eyes.
    “Robert, tell me!”
    Still he said nothing. It was Amabel who finally told Maude what her husband would not. “He said, Maude, that you’d likely brought it upon yourself.”
    Maude stared at her sister-in-law, then swung back toward her brother. “He truly said that?”
    “He was in a rage, Maude. When men are angry, they are careless, ofttimes say what they do not mean—”
    “No,” Maude said, “not Papa. He never says what he does not mean.” She was badly shaken, and it showed. “How can he be so uncaring? How can he take Geoffrey’s side over mine?”
    “Maude, he is not doing that.”
    “No? It certainly sounds that way to me! But I am not the one who murdered our marriage. It is Geoffrey’s dagger buried in the body, for it was Geoffrey who cast me out. What would Papa have me do? Beg him to take me back? This was not my fault, Robert. Why could you not make Papa see that?”
    “Ah, Maude…” He glanced at her, then looked away, and it was then that Maude saw the truth.
    “My God,” she whispered. “You, too? You think I am to blame?”
    “Maude, it is not a matter of blame. I am not defending Geoffrey, in truth I am not. But I would to God it had never happened, that you—”
    He broke off, but not in time. “Go on,” Maude challenged. “Finish the thought, Robert! What ought I to have done? Suffered in silence? Let him beat me black and blue without complaint?”
    “You know better than that,” he said quietly. “This serves for naught. We can talk in the morning when you are not so distraught. But for now, I think it is best that we bid you goodnight.” Stepping forward, he kissed her upon the cheek and then paused, as if waiting for her to speak. She did not, and he turned toward the door. Amabel followed.
    Maude moved to the hearth. She was suddenly so cold that she’d actually begun to shiver. When the door opened, she did not turn, assuming it was Minna. But it was Amabel.
    “There is something I would say to you, Maude. You must not blame Robert. This was not a mission of his choosing. His father commanded him to come. He would never willingly hurt you, and you ought to know that by now.”
    “All I know is that I was the one wronged. I am here because Geoffrey banished me from Anjou. So how is it that I am at fault? Suppose you tell me, Amabel. You’ve never been at a loss for words!”
    “Indeed, I do speak my mind. And I will now, woman to woman. I do agree that you have been wronged. If your marriage was a ship, Geoffrey was the one who ran it upon the rocks. But you ought to have seen this coming. A ship does not sink with no warning.