The king bathed alone, but at least twenty fawning nobles stood around him, bearing towels and clothes, food and drink. Their shouts and laughter almost drowned out the abbey’s bell as it rang for sext. Disdaining assistance, Henry pulled himself out of the pool by the strength of his long, muscular arms. An earl handed him a linen towel edged with lace. He rubbed it briskly over his deep chest and a belly that was already showing a slight tendency to swell with fat.
Raine had been to the abbey well once before. When he was six he had been forced to make a pilgrimage here, along with the other Chester stableboys. The castle chaplain had told them a story about the well, about a Welsh girl by the name of Winifred who had been a beautiful virgin dedicated to her chastity. As Raine remembered it, one day a horn-mad prince had come along and decided, naturally, that he wanted to tup her. When she denied him, he struck off her head in a fit of temper. Winifred’s head had rolled down a hill and where it came to rest a spring gushed forth, the holy well now known for its miraculous cures.
As a boy, Raine had pictured the lady’s head bouncing down the hill like an inflated pig’s bladder, and he’d laughed out loud. The priest had given him a clout on the ear for it, but he still thought it funny.
“Do you find something amusing, big brother?”
Raine turned at the sound of his brother’s voice. His smile widened when he saw that Hugh’s flushed face was topped by an overly large gold-tissued cap that didn’t quite hide the purple crust of clotted blood along his temple. He wondered how his brother, who hated fighting, had acquired the wound. “What happened to you? Did you run into a Welsh ambush too?”
“At least I didn’t lead my king into one.”
“Neither did I,” Raine said, but his voice was cut across by King Henry’s roar.
“You will cease this childish bickering at once, the pair of you!” The king stood before them with his bandy legs spread wide, his fists on his hips. “For God, I will banish you both if you insist on disturbing my peace!”
Hugh flushed and mumbled an apology. Raine met the king’s fiery gaze with a blank expression, though he knew that if Henry decided one of them must go, it would not be Hugh.
But King Henry’s temper had always sputtered and flared like a guttering candle. Now he was smiling at Raine, drawing him to his side. Draping his arm around Raine’s shoulder, he led him around the well toward the open doors of the abbey church. Water lapped over the edge of the pool. The air smelled sickly sweet from the queer reddish grass that grew on the stones that lined the basin.
Henry gestured to the bottom of the well. “They say ’Tis Saint Winifred’s hair and blood that we see.”
“It looks like moss to me, Your Grace.”
Henry barked a laugh and his arm squeezed Raine’s shoulder in a rough embrace. “God’s eyes, you’re a cynical bastard. Don’t you believe in anything?”
“Precious little,” Raine said truthfully.
Henry stopped and turned Raine to face him, his big hands resting heavily on the knight’s shoulders. “I’d like to think you believe in me. For you’re a damn fine man to have guarding one’s back.”
“I am your liege man, sire,” Raine said, but there was an edge to his voice. The code of a knight, the code he lived by, was the only thing in this world he still believed in. But he was afraid, so very afraid, that he had even stopped believing in that years ago. And if that were true, then he would have nothing.
Henry said nothing, but his pale eyes misted and he punched Raine lightly on the neck. It was a gentler version
of the buffet given to a man on the day he was first knighted and swore allegiance to his liege lord. “Come with me, for I would seek your advice on what to do about these accursed Welsh,” he said, then turned and strode briskly into the church, leaving Raine to follow in his wake. “I trow, there is no honor among the Welsh,” he tossed over his shoulder.
Raine said nothing. It was his experience that there was no honor anywhere.
The king was using the church as his headquarters. Bedding and cooking fires Uttered the nave. Horses, tied to the columns, fed from oat bags and staled into the rushes. Armed men lounged along the aisles, playing at draughts and dice, while varlets scurried about, bearing baskets of bread loaves and jacks of ale.
A trestle table draped with white cloths had been set up for the king’s repast, but Henry hated the idea of sitting down for anything. Now he paced the aisle of the nave, chewing on a capon leg. Raine wondered if he dared to bring up the subject of Rhuddlan again. He’d already spoken to the king about it once, on that long overnight ride. But he’d been given no definite promise.
Raine mouthed a silent curse. To hell with it—he would come right out and ask Henry for the fief and accept the decision, be it aye or nay. But then the sight of Hugh strolling toward them down the nave stilled his tongue. The earl’s lips bore a satisfied smirk, but Raine detected the small tick at the corner of his right eye that meant Hugh was nervous. Raine began to hope again.
Until Henry turned to him and said, “Your brother the earl has put in a claim for Rhuddlan. I regret to say this, for I know how you’ve set your heart upon it, but he does have a measure of right on his side.” The king, who had a fascination with the law, went on to explain with some exuberance the legal precedence for the Earl of Chester’s claim.
Raine wanted to put a fist through his brother’s gloating
face. He told himself that it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter, there would be other castles, other chances, but he was twenty-five … twenty-five and all he had to his name was a sword.
A procession of chanting, white-cowled monks entered the transept, drowning out the king’s words. A squire genuflected before Henry, presenting a wine cup. Raine’s gaze fell on the top of the squire’s bright coppery curls.
The squire started to back away and Raine’s hand lashed out, jerking the boy to his side. “What in Christ’s name are you doing here?” he growled beneath his breath. “Where’s the Gwynedd wench?”
“She’s safe, sire. Never fear.”
“Safe? What is that supposed to—” But Taliesin wriggled free, slithering like an eel in and out among the columns to disappear into the crowd.
“Goddamn it!” The monks suddenly ceased their chanting and Raine’s curse echoed against the soaring ceiling like the clap of a bell.
“Raine?”
Raine jerked his eyes from the last place Taliesin had been and onto his king’s perplexed face. “I’m sorry, Your Grace. I wasn’t listening.”
“I said that it is impossible to wage a proper war against a people who refuse to stand and fight in the open. What say you to the notion of making inquiries of this petty prince? To see if he is whipped enough to sue for peace.”
“I say we don’t stand a piss-pot’s chance of conquering the Welsh.” Raine saw Hugh roll his eyes, but he knew King Henry preferred plain speaking and he went on. “But then neither can Gwynedd defeat us. It’s a stalemate and Owain knows it. He might agree to talk peace. The best you can hope for out of it all is to compel him to do homage to you for Wales, then let him rule his country as he wills, declare yourself the winner and leave.”
Henry nodded reluctantly. He might not like his alter
natives, but he was no fool. “And if he doesn’t agree to my terms?”
“He will.” Raine allowed a slow smile to curve his lips. “Particularly when you inform him that we have his daughter.”
Henry’s protruding eyes bulged even further with his surprise. “We do?” He tossed the naked capon bone into the rushes and slapped his greasy hands together. “Ah, Raine, Raine, my best and bravest knight,
do
we?”
“How on earth did you ever acquire Gwynedd’s daughter?” Hugh asked, a worried frown on his face.
Taliesin came toward the king bearing a tray of nuts and wafers.
“Aye, Your Grace, I have her,” Raine said, silently praying that was still the case and trying to catch his squire’s eyes.
“Then we shall send a messenger to Owain immediately,” Henry exclaimed as he paced. “By God’s eyes, but I would barter my immortal soul to see the fellow’s face—”
“If I might make a humble suggestion, Your Grace,” said a clear, young voice.
Henry stiffened and whirled, to gape at the kneeling servant who had suddenly spoken without permission. “Who are you to dare interrupt your king?” he roared.
Raine sighed. “Forgive him, Your Grace. The lad is my—”
“Bard,” Taliesin supplied, with a bright smile.
“Squire,” Raine ground out between clenched jaws.
“Your bard!” Hugh hooted. “You have no land, no castles, yet you have yourself a bard.” His laughter boomed throughout the nave. “I suppose no self-respecting knight-errant should be without one.”
Henry quelled Hugh with a single look. His big hand fell on Taliesin’s shoulder, propelling the boy to his feet. “You are Welsh, lad, are you not? I detect a certain accent in your speech.” Raine had detected it as well. The
wretched boy had spoken flawless French for two years and now he had suddenly acquired a Welsh burr on his tongue.
“I have heard that yours is a race of people that believes in the freedom to speak one’s mind, even in front of a prince,” Henry was saying with a hard-edged smile. “So I will listen to what you have to say, and afterward Sir Raine will have you flogged for your impertinence.”
“Aye, well …” Taliesin cast an apprehensive glance at Raine, then focused all his attention onto the king, flashing a smile so dazzling that Henry blinked. “Your Grace, do not ransom the Lady Arianna back to her father. Rather, keep her as hostage, as surety against the prince’s future aggression.”
He paused, and when this elicited no response from the three men he plunged on. “As your hostage she becomes your ward and you can dispose of her as you will, either to convent or marriage. I say give her as bride to the new Lord of Rhuddlan. For the prince will not likely attack the man and castle that harbors his only and most cherished daughter.” A stunned silence followed this speech. Taliesin kept his gaze carefully fixed on the king.
“But I’m already married,” Hugh finally said.
Raine said nothing, merely stared at his squire with an utterly appalled look on his normally impassive face.
The king stroked his beard. “There is merit to what you suggest …”
Taliesin’s head bobbed with his enthusiasm. “Aye, aye, much merit, milord. And think, too, since Your Grace is torn over the disposition of Rhuddlan, perhaps Your Grace might want to hold a tourney to decide who wins the honor. A trial by mock combat. A tourney would also be a grand celebration to mark your victory in Wales, milord.”
A slow smile broke over Henry’s face. “Aye … Aye …”
“But … but …” Hugh sputtered.
Taliesin turned the full power of his beautiful smile onto Hugh. “Should you win the tourney, my lord earl, you could always reward a most deserving and loyal vassal with the fief and the bride.” His gaze passed on to Raine’s frozen face. “You, sire, are of course free to take the Lady Arianna to wife.”
“Fight a tourney for Rhuddlan!” Hugh exploded. “That is the most ridiculous—”
“By God’s eyes!” Henry roared. “But I do like the way this lad thinks. He has a brain like mine.”
“He’s a God-cursed fool,” Raine said, completely unmindful of the fact that he’d just insulted his king. He rather liked the idea of settling the issue of Rhuddlan in a tournament, for he had no doubt that he would win. But to have to take Owain’s daughter to wife … For this I will kill the boy, Raine thought. This time, for certes, I will kill him.
But to his horror Raine heard the king’s bullish voice exclaiming, as if it had been his idea all along, “You, Sir Raine … and you, my lord Earl of Chester, will meet man-to-man in a joust with blunted lances. And the winner will get Rhuddlan and Owain’s daughter as the prize!”
“Up, up, up, milady!” The bed curtains snapped apart with a rustle of embroidered damask and a cloud of dust. Bright sunlight pierced through the closed lids of Arianna’s eyes.
Groaning, she rolled onto her stomach and pulled the pillow over her head. “Go away, Edith. Leave me alone.”
There was no reason why she should get up. Not when this day promised to be another like yesterday. A day spent spinning out the hours shut up in this bedchamber within Rhuddlan’s great hall, while the King of England met with her father. And used her as a whip to bring Gwynedd to heel. Even now they were probably setting
the price of her ransom. She dreaded finding out what her life would cost her father, and Wales.
The maidservant had not gone away. She pulled back the bedcovers, exposing Arianna’s naked flesh to the sting of the cold morning air.
“God’s death!” Arianna leapt up, snatching at the fur-lined robe Edith held out. But the woman’s bovine smile didn’t waver. She had a round, poxed face, with small, squinty eyes like squash seeds and wren-brown hair that hung in strings over her bony shoulders, like a hank of flax. She had yet, in four days, to say anything to Arianna beyond the commonest banalities.
“It’s too fine a day to be a slug-a-bed, milady,” Edith said, and smiled again.
Arianna gritted her teeth around another blasphemous curse. Couldn’t the fool woman see that she was a prisoner? She could spend the day abed or up and pacing the floor and it would make little difference.
Nevertheless Arianna did get up, going over to the laver by the window. As she washed, the ringing of the chapel bell drifted in on the breeze, calling the faithful to worship. But she wouldn’t be able to attend Mass until after the nooning. It was the only time she was allowed out of the bedchamber, and even then she was accompanied by guards—two thick, knotty fellows, each big enough to carry off the prize ram at a wrestling match.
On a stool beside the empty brazier, Edith had set a tray of manchet bread glazed with honey and a pot of ale, and Arianna sat down to break her fast. “ ’Tis wash day, milady,” Edith said, as she stripped the bed. “You’ll be having nice fresh, clean sheets this night.”
“Thank you, Edith,” Arianna said, giving the woman the warmest smile she could muster. It was hardly Edith’s fault that she was a prisoner of the Normans, and Arianna felt guilty for having taken her temper out on the hapless servant.