Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice

Who's to suspect that any motion of Henry's mind could be lurking behind Archbishop Theobald's hand? There isn't a man in the policies of king or empress who doesn't know how little love's lost between the two."
    Cadfael could not well deny the truth of that. The enmity dated back five years, to the time when the archbishopric of Canterbury had been vacant, after William of Corbeil's death, and King Stephen's younger brother, Henry, had cherished confident pretensions to the office, which he certainly regarded as no more than his due. His disappointment was acute when Pope Innocent gave the appointment instead to Theobald of Bec, and Henry made his displeasure so clear and the influence he could bring to bear so obvious that Innocent, either in a genuine wish to recognize his undoubted ability or in pure exasperation and malice, had given him, by way of consolation, the papal legateship in England, thus making him in fact superior to the archbishop, a measure hardly calculated to endear either of them to the other. Five years of dignified but fierce contention had banked the fires. No, no suspect earl approached by an intimate of Theobald's was likely to look behind the proposition for any trace of Henry of Winchester's devious manipulations.
    "Well," allowed Cadfael cautiously, "it may suit Ranulf to be civil, seeing his hands are full with the Welsh of Gwynedd. Though what Stephen can offer him by way of help is hard to see."
    "Nothing," agreed Hugh with a short bark of laughter, "and Ranulf will know that as well as we do. Nothing but his forbearance, but that will be worth welcoming, in the circumstances. Oh, they'll understand each other well enough, and no trust on either side, but either one of them will see that the other will keep to his part for the present, out of self-interest. An agreement to put off contention to a more convenient time is better at this moment than no agreement at all, and the need to look over a shoulder every hour or so. Ranulf can give all his mind to Owain Gwynedd, and Stephen can give all his to the matter of Geoffrey de Mandeville in Essex."
    "And in the meantime we must entertain Canon Gerbert until his horse is fit to bear him."
    "And his body servant and his two grooms, and one of Bishop de Clinton's deacons, lent as his guide here through the diocese. A meek little fellow called Serlo, who goes in trembling awe of the man. I doubt if he'd ever heard of Saint Winifred, for that matter - Gerbert, I mean, not Serlo - but he'll be wanting to direct her festival for you, now that he's halted here."
    "He had that look about him," Cadfael admitted. "And what have you told him about the small matter of Owain Gwynedd?"
    "The truth, if not the whole truth. That Owain is able to keep Ranulf so busy on his own border that he'll have no time to make trouble elsewhere. No need to make any real concessions to keep him quiet, but sweet talk can do no harm."
    "And no need to mention that you have an arrangement with Owain," agreed Cadfael placidly, "to leave us alone here, and keep the earl of Chester off your back. It may not restore any of Stephen's purloined castles in the north, but at least it keeps the earl's greedy hands off any more of them. And what's the news from the west? This uneasy quietness down there in Gloucester's country has me wondering what's afoot. Have you any word of what he's up to?"
    The desultory and exhausting civil war between cousins for the throne of England had been going on for more than five years, in spasmodic motion about the south and west, seldom reaching as far north as Shrewsbury. The Empress Maud, with her devoted champion and illegitimate half brother Earl Robert of Gloucester, held almost undisputed sway now in the southwest, based on Bristol and Gloucester, and King Stephen held the rest of the country, but with a shaky and tenuous grip in those parts most remote from his base in London and the southern counties. In such disturbed conditions every baron and earl was liable to look to his own ambitions and opportunities, and set out to secure a little kingdom for himself rather than devote his energies to supporting king or empress. Earl Ranulf of Chester felt himself distant enough from either rival's power to feather his own nest while fortune favoured the bold, and it was becoming all too plain that his professed loyalty to King Stephen took second place to the establishment of a realm of his own spanning the north from Chester to Lincoln. Canon