Rainald grinned triumphantly. “I knew I could get a smile out of you if I tried.”
“I do not have much reason for smiling these days, Rainald.”
“I keep telling you this war with Wales will be over in a fortnight. The Welsh princes will submit, as they always do, and Harry will pardon them, and we’ll all go home. Ere you know it, you’ll be back on that Welsh mountain of yours, counting your sheep or whatever you do to pass the time.”
Ranulf knew better. A sudden burst of laughing echoed across the clearing and he turned toward the sound.
“That was a most unseemly joke for a bishop to be telling,” Henry declared, frowning in mock disapproval at his cousin.
“So why did you laugh at it?” Roger queried innocently, and Henry grinned.
“So I’d not hurt your feelings, of course.” Getting to his feet, he sauntered across the glade toward his uncles. “Why are the two of you hiding over here? Surely you’re not still brooding about the Welsh matter, Ranulf? I assure you that I want you there merely as an interpreter and peacemaker once the fighting is done. As well as you know Owain Gwynedd, you’re the best man for—”
The rest of his sentence was lost in a sudden clap of thunder. The horses stirred uneasily and Rainald lumbered to his feet. “Enough is enough, Harry. We’ve been chasing this phantom wolf for half a day and all we have to show for it are saddle sores and sweat. I’m damned if I’ll get drowned in the bargain, too. I say we go back to Ludlow.”
“I’ve never heard of a man melting in the rain like a lump of sugar, Uncle,” Henry scoffed, but the other men then added their voices to Rainald’s, and he reluctantly agreed that the hunt was over. Mounting up, they headed toward the east, toward Ludlow.
But the approaching storm outran their lathered horses, and they found themselves caught in a drenching downpour while the castle was still miles away. Rain pelting their faces like liquid needles, seeping down the necks of their tunics, collecting in the brims of their hats, they were soon thoroughly miserable and arguing that they ought to find the closest shelter. Henry merely laughed at their complaints. Then the storm intensified. Half deafened by thunder, flinching each time lightning seared the black-smoke sky above their heads, the men struggled to control their skittish stallions and urged Henry to reconsider.
By now even Henry was impressed by the fury of the elements. But when his brother Hamelin suggested that they head for Avreton, where the Marcher lord Fitz Hugh had a castle, he balked. “Ludlow is only four or five miles past Avreton. We’re already soaked to the skin, so we might as well press on toward—”
Lightning forked from the clouds, shooting earthward with a blinding flash. There was a bang and then the smell of burning wood as a nearby tree was riven in two. The accompanying crack of thunder filled their world with reverberating, roaring sound, and in the ensuing chaos, one of the Earl of Leicester’s squires was thrown from his panicked horse.
The boy’s face was pasty-white under a smear of mud and a drizzle of blood. “I am sorry, my liege,” he gasped as Henry knelt by his side. “I think I’ve broken my arm . . .”
“You’ll be all right, lad,” Henry said reassuringly. Straightening up, he blotted rain from his face with a soggy sleeve. “Well, you milksops win,” he said. “Avreton it is.”
AVRETON PERCHED on top of a steep, rocky hill, on the Herefordshire side of the River Thames, just west of the tiny village of Boiton. A deep ditch encircled the outer bailey, a narrow causeway in the south-east side giving entry to the castle. As the men rode into a small inner bailey, a woman teetered on the steps of the great hall, flanked by servants. She was clad in an oversized mantle that enveloped her from head to toe and seemed loath to brave the storm. But from the moment that the king’s identity had been shouted up to the guards upon the ramparts, events had taken on a momentum of their own. By the time they dismounted, she had overcome her reluctance and was gingerly edging around the muddi est puddles toward them.
“My liege, I . . . I am so honored,” she stammered. “My lord husband is not here, for he rode to Ludlow this morn upon learning of your presence there. He . . . he will be back soon, I think. . . .”
Henry was accustomed to having this effect upon people. “Lady Fitz Hugh,” he said, kissing her hand with a courtliness that would have amused Eleanor enormously. “One of our men has been hurt. We need to get him inside.”
Deftly steering the flustered woman toward the hall, he supervised the move of the injured squire, while the Fitz Hugh servants hastened to lead the horses to the shelter of the stables. The rest of the hunting party and their dogs followed Henry and their fretful hostess into the hall, where confusion soon reigned. Amice Fitz Hugh was so obviously incapable of taking charge that Henry found himself giving the necessary orders: sending a rider out into the storm to fetch a doctor from Ludlow, instructing servants to heat water and stoke the fire so that they could wash up and dry their sopping clothes.
Amice, a thin, wan woman dressed in an unbecoming shade of grey, relaxed somewhat once she saw that these royal intruders were on their good behavior and she even ventured to offer a timid invitation. “If you would care to stay the night, my liege, we would be so honored . . .”
Henry stifled a smile, for she’d used the word “honored” in virtually every sentence since their arrival. “That is most generous, Lady Fitz Hugh, but we do not wish to disrupt your household any more than necessary. If you can put the lad here up for a day or two, that is more than enough. We’ll be on our way as soon as the storm lets up.”
Amice demurred politely, her relief obvious. Turning her attention then to the ailing squire, she showed unexpected skill in soothing the boy’s fears. He became noticeably less agitated under her ministrations and even perked up enough to ask the identity of a girl just entering the hall. Amice glanced over her shoulder, then gave a shrug. “My younger sister,” she said dismissively.
She was alone, though, in her indifference to her sister’s entrance. Every male eye in the hall was upon the newcomer as soon as she shed her mantle, revealing a crown of curly blond tresses only partially covered by a crookedly pinned veil, and a surprisingly voluptuous body for one barely five feet. Her face was heart-shaped, her skin flawless and fair, and when she smiled, the squire momentarily forgot the pain of his broken arm. Hugh de Gernons, the young Earl of Chester, trampled on several toes in his haste to reach her side. But his gallantry was wasted, for her response was polite but preoccupied; from the moment she’d hurried into the hall, the only man she seemed to see was Henry.
Henry had noticed her, too; he always had an eye for a pretty girl. This particular pretty girl seemed vaguely familiar, though. Where had he seen her before? Ranulf was wondering the same thing. The memory was somehow connected with his son Gilbert, but it was as evasive as the wolf they’d been chasing all day. Henry’s memory proved more reliable. “Woodstock,” he said suddenly. “Clifford’s little lass . . . of course!”
Ranulf now remembered, too. “The girl you rescued out in the gardens. I knew I’d seen her somewhere. Well . . . she has grown up for certes, has she not?”
“That she has,” Henry agreed and moved to meet her. “Mistress Rosamund, this is indeed a welcome surprise. How is it that you happen to be at Avreton?”
“You remember me!” Her smile was blinding. “Amice is my sister—”
“Rosamund?” Amice was staring at the girl in disbelief. “You know the king?”
“Mistress Rosamund and I met at Woodstock two summers ago,” Henry said smoothly, “and it is a pleasure to be able to renew our acquaintance.”
“You are staying?” Rosamund entreated. “At least for supper?”
Amice started to shake her head, but Henry forestalled her. “Yes, we’re staying. Thank you, Lady Fitz Hugh, for your generous offer of hospitality.” He was speaking to Amice, but smiling at Rosamund Clifford.
ROSAMUND OFFERED to nurse Giles, the injured squire, until a doctor arrived from Ludlow, and stirred up massive envy in the younger men each time she gently bathed his face with a wet cloth or rubbed salve into his gashed forehead. Amice excused herself to change into her best gown, but Rosamund didn’t bother. Utterly unself-conscious in her faded everyday blue homespun, she seemed to have a remarkable lack of vanity for a young woman of such striking appearance. Neither flustered nor flattered by all the male attention she was receiving, she conscientiously tended to Giles until supper was served, but she so rarely took her eyes off Henry that even the most smitten of her swains, the Earl of Chester, could not help but notice. Some of the men began to joke amongst themselves that the king was about to make a conquest ere he even set foot in Wales, but the bawdy humor was curiously muted. If Rosamund’s bedaz zlement with Henry was innocently obvious, so too was she obviously innocent, and even men who normally took a predatory attitude toward women found themselves feeling unexpectedly protective of this one.
Supper that evening was a surprisingly festive affair for men who were soon to ride off to war. Jokes flew along the length of the table, and the hunt for the grey ghost was spun out for Rosamund’s benefit—greatly embellished, of course. The last course of roasted capon had just been served when Osbern Fitz Hugh arrived, accompanied by the doctor and his father-in-law, the Marcher lord Walter Clifford, who had joined the king at Ludlow several days ago. Amice Fitz Hugh had so far been sparing with wine and ale, for her husband was notorious for his frugality, not an admired trait in a man of rank. But the brash, overbearing Clifford would have none of that and immediately sent servants to raid the buttery. Wine was soon flowing freely and the only men in the hall not enjoying themselves were Fitz Hugh, who had to watch helplessly as his wine kegs were drained one by one, and Ranulf, whose thoughts kept stubbornly dwelling upon the coming bloodshed.
A harp and a lute were produced, and the members of the hunting party took tipsy turns dancing with Amice, her two ladies, and Rosamund. When Henry’s brother Hamelin tripped and nearly lurched into the fire while trying to show Rosamund a new version of the carol, Henry declared that one broken arm per hunt was more than enough and put a stop to the drunken dancing. Walter Clifford then announced that his youngest daughter would sing for the king. Rosamund’s reluctance was painful to the more sober amongst them, but her father was not a man to be gainsaid, certainly not by the females of his household, and she was soon obediently perched on a stool, clutching a harp. While she’d shown herself to be a graceful dancer, she’d not been blessed with a strong singing voice. Her song was hesitantly delivered, barely audible at times, and occasionally off-key. Nonetheless, she reaped a round of enthusiastic applause when she was done and only Henry’s merciful intervention saved her from the cries for more.
Sitting in a window seat, an untouched cup of wine in his hand, Ranulf watched the revelries and wondered how many of these men would be dead in a month’s time. The cockiness of the English notwithstanding, he was convinced that this war would be a protracted, bloody one. And whoever won, he would be the loser.
“There you are, Ranulf.” Henry sprawled beside him in the window seat, showing no ill effects from a day in the saddle, and not for the first time Ranulf marveled at his nephew’s almost inexhaustible store of energy. Laughing, Henry gestured with his wine cup toward Rosamund. “I could become fond of that lass. She looks as if she’s made of moonlight and gossamer, but she’s not all sugar. There is salt there, too. When I complimented her on her singing, she blurted out that I must be stone-deaf!”
Ranulf gave him a sideways glance. “So,” he said, “when is Eleanor’s babe due?”
Henry grimaced and then grinned. “Subtle, Uncle, very subtle indeed. I need no such reminders, for Eleanor is the last woman in Christendom a man could ever forget. But all wives should be as wise as she is. She knows full well that a man with an itch is going to scratch it, as she once bluntly put it.”
“I was not worrying about Eleanor. I was thinking of the girl. She is an innocent, Harry, and each time you smile at her, she glows like a flower that has been starved for the sun.”
“You’ve been living in Wales too long, Ranulf. Damn me if you’re not getting downright poetic—starved for the sun?”
Ranulf shrugged. “I’ve had my say. I just never thought you were one for hunting a nesting quail. Where’s the sport in that?”
“Not all hunts are done for sport, Uncle.” But even as he mocked Ranulf, Henry’s gaze wandered back toward Rosamund. As their eyes met, she smiled, then blushed, and after a moment, he sighed regretfully. “Hellfire . . . you’re right, I know. A lass’s maidenhead ought not to be sacrificed for a night’s pleasure—even if the pleasure was to be mine. I’d not want to jeopardize her chances of making a good marriage.”
“What is this talk about marriage?” Rainald demanded, weaving toward them so unsteadily that they hastily made room for him in the window seat.
“I was just taking counsel with the king’s conscience,” Henry said, unable to resist a good-natured jab at his uncle, whose scruples were both admirable and occasionally inconvenient.
Ranulf smiled, too, with a heartfelt hope that his nephew would listen to
the king’s conscience
during the war with Wales.
FROM LUDLOW, Henry continued on to Shrewsbury, where his army was assembling. He’d hired mercenaries from Flanders, summoned vassals from Normandy, Anjou, Poitou, and Aquitaine as well as England, and had even arranged for the services of a fleet with the Danes of Dublin. By the end of July, he was ready to take the offensive, and the largest English army ever to invade Wales crossed into Powys, heading for the town known as Oswestry by the Welsh and Blancminster by the English. Owain Gwynedd and the other Welsh princes awaited their coming at Corwen in the vale of Edeyrnion.