Afterward, Henry and Eleanor and Becket stole a few moments of privacy in the abbot’s lodging, temporarily turned into a royal residence for their stay. Eleanor listened without comment as the two men rehashed the events of the morning, sounding inordinately pleased with themselves. She did not begrudge them their satisfaction, for they had shrewdly anticipated their adversary’s weakness, then made the most of it. That was, she knew, a quality of the best battle commanders, and she was glad that Henry had been blessed with such a keen strategic sense. Now that the Bishop of Chichester had been thwarted, her husband had another fight looming on the horizon. From Colchester, he was heading west, for his next foe was Welsh.
RANULF FITZ ROY stood at the cliff’s edge, staring down into the abyss. The drop was not that great, for Rhaeadr Ewynnol was not one of the highest waterfalls in North Wales. But he felt at that moment as if a vast chasm was yawning at his feet.
He of all men ought not to have been surprised by how fast life could alter forever, in the blink of an eye or the fading of a heartbeat. Born a king’s son on the wrong side of the blanket, he’d come to manhood during those harrowing years when England was convulsed by a savage civil war. Ranulf had been forced to choose between his cousin Stephen and his half-sister Maude. He’d stayed loyal to his sister, but it had cost him the woman he loved.
They’d been plight-trothed, but when Ranulf balked at accepting Stephen’s coup, Annora’s father had disavowed the betrothal, wedding her to one of Stephen’s barons. Eventually the fortunes of war had reunited them, and they’d begun a high-risk adulterous affair. It had ended badly, inadvertently resulting in the death of Ranulf’s best friend, a consequence he’d never foreseen and could not bear. Fleeing his grieving and his guilt, he’d blundered into Wales and there he’d found unexpected refuge with his Welsh kin.
Until then, they had been strangers to him, as unknown as the cloud-kissed rough-hewn Eden they called Cymru and their enemies Wales. Ranulf’s mother, Angharad, had been Welsh, taken by the English king as spoils of war. She’d died in Ranulf’s eighth year, leaving him only a few shadowy memories and a vague curiosity about the land of her birth.
When fate finally brought him together with his mother’s Welsh family, he would not have blamed them had they shunned him, the spawn of an alien, conquering king. But they’d welcomed him as one of their own, nursing his ailing body and wounded soul back to health, giving him the courage to face down his ghosts, to learn to live with his regrets. Without realizing it, he’d fallen under the spell of this small, Celtic country his mother had so loved. In time, he took a Welsh bride, and made his home in the deeply wooded hills above the River Conwy.
Overhead, a kestrel stalked the skies in search of prey. Ranulf watched the hawk soar on the wind, higher and higher until it vanished from view. For seven years he had dwelled in his hard-won Welsh haven. His wife had given him a son, now in his sixth year, and a daughter, not yet two. He had been happy and he had been fool enough to think it would last.
Standing on the grassy bluff above the white waters of Rhaeadr Ewynnol, he gazed down into the rain-surged cauldron below and thought of Scriptures, the prophetic dream of Egypt’s pharaoh. Seven good years, years of plenty and peace, followed by seven lean years, years of sorrow. With the arrival of the king’s letter, Ranulf feared that he was about to pay a high price for those seven years of quiet contentment.
RANULF DID NOT RETURN to Trefriw until the daylight had begun to fade. He would have delayed even longer if only he could, for he knew what awaited him. They spilled from the hall as he rode in, gathering about him in the twilight dusk: his Welsh family. Rhodri, his uncle, with whom he shared this hillside manor. Rhodri’s much younger second wife, the lovely, complacent Enid. Eleri, his lively sister-by-marriage, and Celyn, her husband. And in the doorway, Rhiannon, his cousin and wife.
As Ranulf dismounted, they assailed him with anxious questions, for they knew about the letter, knew what it portended. For months the winds of war had been blowing toward Wales. They’d long raked the bor derlands, but they were now about to sweep into the Welsh heartland, into the high mountain domains of the man known as Owain Gwynedd.
“Ranulf, where have you been? Papa says the English king has commanded you to fight against the Welsh!”
“No . . . he has merely summoned me to his encampment at Saltney.”
Eleri looked at him blankly. “Is that not what I just said?”
“No, it is not,” Ranulf insisted, without much conviction, for even to him, that sounded like a distinction without a difference. “I owe knight service to the Crown for my English manors, but Harry has not demanded that of me. He asks only that I come into Cheshire to talk.”
“Talk?” Rhodri echoed incredulously. “What is there to talk about? How much of Wales he means to gobble up?”
Celyn, towering over Eleri like a lofty oak, was as laconic and deliberate as she was impulsive and forthright, usually content to let her do the talking for them both. Now, though, he overcame his innate reticence long enough to offer a practical solution. “If Ranulf were to send word to the English king that he was ailing—”
“Christ’s pity, Celyn!” Rhodri glared at his son-in-law. “Why should Ranulf concoct excuses? He ought to refuse outright, letting the English king know that his loyalties are to Wales now!”
“I cannot do that, Uncle.” Ranulf’s despair was yielding to anger, for he resented being forced to declare himself out here in the bailey, before them all. This was not the way he’d meant to do it. He’d wanted to tell Rhiannon first. She was still standing, motionless, in the doorway, and he started toward her. But he’d taken only a few steps before his uncle exclaimed in horror:
“What are you saying, Ranulf ? You cannot mean to obey that summons!”
“I must obey it. Harry is my nephew. But he is also my king.”
“So is Owain Gwynedd!”
“I do not need you to remind me of my loyalties, Eleri!”
“I think you do! You’ve not thought this through, Ranulf. Let’s say you go into Cheshire to meet with the English king. What then? Lest you forget, whilst you are visiting and catching up on family news, he is making ready to invade Wales. What will you do as he turns his army loose upon Gwynedd—wish him well?”
“Stay out of this, Eleri. I owe you no explanations, for this is none of your concern.”
“And what of me?” Rhodri demanded. “You are my son by marriage and my heir. I would not stand by and watch as you plunged off a cliff, nor will I keep silent now. You cannot do this, lad.”
Shifting awkwardly on his crutch, he limped toward Ranulf, dragging the leg broken and imperfectly set last year after he’d been trampled by a panicked, runaway horse. Pointing at his twisted limb, he said bitterly, “This crippled leg will keep me from riding to fight beside our lord king, Owain. But Celyn will answer his summons to arms. So will our neighbors, our friends. Do you want to face Celyn and your countrymen across a battlefield, Ranulf?”
Ranulf’s face contorted. “Christ Jesus, Rhodri, you know I do not!”
“Listen to your heart, then, lad,” the older man pleaded. “Tell the English king to rot in Hell as he deserves!”
“If you do not,” Eleri warned, “you will never be welcome again in my house, and I say that who has loved you like a brother. Tell him, Celyn.”
Celyn looked acutely unhappy, for he hated confrontations and was genuinely fond of Ranulf. But he did not hesitate. “If you do this,” he confirmed bleakly, “our door will be closed to you.”
“You hear them?” Rhodri grabbed for Ranulf’s arm. “If you back the English in this, Lord Owain might well cast you out of Gwynedd, and how could I blame him? You must—”
“Stop!” The cry was shrill, filled with such pain that they all fell silent.
The color had drained from Rhiannon’s face and her dark, sightless eyes were brimming with unshed tears. “Stop,” she entreated again, and when Ranulf called out her name, she followed the sound, moving swiftly toward him.
Rhiannon had been blind since childhood and had long ago memorized the boundaries of the only home she’d ever known. It often seemed to Ranulf as if she carried a mental map, so detailed that every stone, every tree root, found its reflection in her memory’s mirror. Now, though, she was too distraught to heed her interior landscape, and as Ranulf and the others watched, appalled, she headed straight for the well.
Shouting a warning, Ranulf lunged forward, but it was too late. Rhiannon hit the well’s stone wall with bruising impact, the windlass crank striking her on the temple, just above her eye. She reeled backward, blood streaming down her face.
Ranulf reached her first, with Rhodri a step behind. She had yet to utter a sound, but she was trembling visibly. She had a deep fear of falling, for she had more at risk than contusions or scratches. What to a sighted person would be a minor mishap was to Rhiannon a cruel reminder of her vulnerability, painful proof that her defenses were forever flawed.
Knowing that, Ranulf fought back the urge to sweep her up into his arms and carry her to safety. “You’re bleeding freely,” he said, “but head wounds usually do. Let’s go inside and tend to it.”
She nodded, fumbling for his arm. But when Rhodri and Eleri started to follow, she said, “No! I want only Ranulf.”
BRINGING A LAVER of water to the bed, Ranulf sat beside his wife and sponged the blood from her face. She lay still, her lashes shadowing her cheek, her breathing soft and shallow. Putting the basin aside, he took her hand. “I did not mean for you to find out like this . . .”
“I knew,” she said. “As soon as you got the letter, I knew you’d go to him.” A tear squeezed through her lashes and she turned her face away so he’d not see. Her father and sister kept talking about Ranulf’s loyalty to the English king. She would to God it was that simple.
“He is my nephew, Rhiannon.”
She could have reminded him that he had Welsh kin, too. But what good would it do? He was bound to Henry Fitz Empress by more than blood, by more than love. Another tear escaped, trickling slowly down her cheek. Her husband was an honorable man and he’d long ago pledged his honor to the English Crown, first to his sister and now to her son. His heart might belong to Wales, but his soul would forever be England’s. She’d always known the time would come when the English king would claim his own.
Ranulf was silent. When he’d refused to forsake his sister, Annora had stormed and wept and threatened, warning that she’d never forgive him. Nor had she. She’d committed a grave sin for him, betraying her husband and risking the safe, comfortable life she’d thought she wanted, but she’d never understood why he could not accept Stephen’s stolen kingship, why he could not put her first. What could he say to make Rhiannon understand?
“If you ask me not to go, Rhiannon . . .”
She did not need to see his face. His voice was hoarse, hurting. He was offering her what he’d not offered Annora. Sitting up, she held out her arms. She could hear his heart thudding against her cheek, and she listened intently until it seemed as if there was no other sound in her world, just the rapid rhythm of her husband’s heartbeat.
“RANULF!” THE EBULLIENT BELLOW rang out even above the considerable clamor of an army encampment. “Ranulf, over here!”
Ranulf recognized the voice at once; his brother could out-bay a pack of lymer hounds on the scent of prey. Turning, he saw Rainald Fitz Roy bearing down upon him. He’d put on weight since Ranulf had seen him last, a paunch and jowls testifying to the good living he was enjoying as Earl of Cornwall. Like Ranulf, he was one of Henry I’s many by-blows. Ranulf was the youngest but one of that misbegotten crop, and his elder brothers had all taken it upon themselves to look out for him, whether he’d liked it or not. He was thirty-eight now and his boyhood only a memory, but Rainald’s vision was clouded by nostalgia and he still saw Ranulf as the little brother, in need of older and wiser guidance, preferably his.
“I’m right glad to see you, lad. Not that I ever doubted you. It was the others who did. I wagered Fitz Alan and Clifford ten marks each that you’d come. Let’s go find them so I can collect my winnings and do a bit of gloating!”
Ranulf was not surprised that William Fitz Alan and Walter Clifford would wager against him. They were Marcher lords, men of Norman-French stock whose wealth was rooted in Wales, founded upon conquest. They often intermarried with the Welsh, so neither Ranulf’s Welsh wife nor his Welsh blood made him suspect in their eyes. It was that he did not share the cornerstone of Marcher faith—their belief that the Welsh were a primitive people in need of the civilizing influence of their superior culture.
“Who else is here besides the Marcher lords?”
Rainald cursed good-naturedly when a soldier lurched clumsily into their path. “Who else? Becket, of course, for wherever you find Harry these days, you’ll find our chancellor; a dog should be so faithful. Harry’s brother, the likable one, not Geoff. A few earls: Leicester and Salisbury and Hertford.” As an afterthought, he added, “And our nephew Will.
“The Welsh are here, too,” Rainald continued, “so that ought to ease your conscience somewhat. Owain Gwynedd’s own brother will be fighting against him.”
“It is hardly surprising to find Cadwaladr in the English ranks. In the five years since Owain chased him out of Gwynedd, he has done whatever he could to kindle a border war. For the chance to avenge himself upon Owain, he’d have made a pact with the Devil himself, or in this case, the King of England.”
Hearing his own words then, Ranulf smiled bleakly, knowing full well that his Welsh kin would say he, too, was making a Devil’s deal with the English king.