Lady of the English - By Elizabeth Chadwick Page 0,189

straw-filled stall. He was showing his years, his muzzle silvering and his once broad rump beginning to resemble the bony rear end of a cow. After this, they had one more long ride to make, and then their journey was done.

In the hall, William Giffard, Matilda’s chancellor, was working at a lectern by the light from a window. A brazier stood nearby, the heat keeping his writing hand warm. When he saw Brian, he stared through him for a moment, before recognition dawned. “Sire, I did not know you.” Hastily he rose and bowed his tonsured head.

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“Well, that is no surprise, because I do not know myself either these days,” Brian said heavily. “I am here to see the empress.” Giffard gave him a pained look. “Since we heard the news about the Earl of Gloucester, she has kept to her chamber except to go to church. She has taken his loss very hard indeed.”

“It is a grief to us all.” Brian signed his breast, but the gesture felt empty, because he was empty. “Will you at least tell her I am here?”

Giffard swiftly set his quill back in the ink well. “Indeed, sire,” he said. “I will bring you to her. She may even talk to you as she has not done to others.” He led Brian up a twist of stairs, along a gallery, and rapped on a closed oak door with his chancellor’s staff of office.

“Domina,” he called out, “my lord FitzCount is here.” There was a long silence. Giffard looked at Brian and shook his head. Brian took the rod from him and banged on the door again with the brass knurl on the end. “Domina, I must speak with you and I would rather not shout my business through four inches of oak.”

Giffard raised his brows but said nothing. There was another long silence. Brian leaned his head against the door and closed his eyes. “I am prepared to wait all day and night.”

“Sire, you cannot stay here,” Giffard said reluctantly.

Brian rounded on him. “Then fetch soldiers and have me dragged away, because I will not leave of my own accord. Do you think I mean harm to the empress after all I have done?”

“No, sire, but…”

The door opened and Uli stood to one side of it. She silently beckoned him into the chamber. Brian thrust the rod into Giffard’s hands, turned, and stepped over the threshold.

Matilda was standing in the middle of the room, isolated like a lone tree. She was wearing one of her German court robes and everything was bound up and stiff and overlaid by jewels.

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Her face was tight, her skin grey as stone, so she might almost have been her own effigy. She fixed him with an empty stare.

“Robert is dead,” she said in a distant voice. “How can that be?

Why isn’t Stephen dead instead? Why not me?” Brian swallowed, feeling the sickness rise in him again. He wanted to embrace her, but feared she would push him away as she pushed everyone. And he would deserve it. Her knight Drogo had once said to him that she had a hard exterior sheltering softness within, but no one would ever knew how soft, because she refused to let anyone close enough to find out. His voice emerged as a hoarse croak. “It is the will of God you should live, domina. I too would more than gladly have taken his place.”

“And why was it God’s will that he should die?” Her chin trembled. “When last I saw him he was tired, as we all are, but still whole and strong, so I thought. To die of a congestion…I thought I would see him again and we would be together for our brother’s anniversary and that of our father. He was supposed to be here to help and guide Henry and be his backbone…as he was mine. What am I going to do now he is gone?” A shudder ran through Brian and he was suddenly riddled with guilt. What if she asked him to be her backbone when he did not have one himself?

“I brought him to this by relying on him,” she said. “I should have seen beyond my own cares and known he was unwell, and now it is too late to do anything but say ‘should have.’” She pressed her palm across her mouth.

“Don’t,” Brian said. “It was his cause too. He was never going to rest