cheeks. “My father is in attendance upon the king, and he sent for me, Godstow being just a few miles away.”
“Godstow?” Henry echoed. “The nunnery… of course. You are being schooled there, then?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“But how did you come to be with that lecherous lout?” Will asked tactlessly, and she bit her lip, looking so embarrassed that he at once regretted the question.
Notwithstanding her discomfort, she answered honestly. “I met him in the gardens. He said he was a knight in the Scots king’s household and we began to talk. He was very well spoken and courteous and when he offered to show me the springs, I saw no harm in it…”
“Ah, child…” Henry shook his head ruefully. “There is a great difference between the convent and the court.”
“The fault was mine, then?”
She sounded so forlorn that Will made gallant haste to assure her that indeed it was not, an assurance echoed by Ranulf and then Henry, who added, “The fault lies with your father, for letting a lamb loose with so many wolves on the prowl. He ought to be taken to task for-”
“Oh, please, no! Do not tell my father, for he’d be so angry with me…” She laid a hand on Henry’s arm in timid entreaty, and then gasped. “Blessed Lady, it is you! The king!” She sank down at once in a deep, submissive curtsy.
Henry gestured for her to rise. “Calm yourself, lass,” he said soothingly. “I did not mean to cause you greater distress, will say nothing to your father if that is your wish.”
A moment ago, she’d seemed on the verge of tears. But her smile now was radiant, so bewitching that Gilbert heaved a small sigh. “Thank you, my lords, thank you!” The words were addressed to them all, but meant only for Henry. “This is not the first time you came to my rescue. You caught me when I fell out of a tree in my mother’s garden at Clifford Castle. Do you… do you remember, my liege?” she asked, so hopefully that Henry lied and nodded.
“Was that little lass you?” he asked, prodding his memory in vain. “So… you’re Walter Clifford’s daughter.”
“Yes, my lord king. I am Rosamund Clifford,” she said, and dropped another curtsy. She was so happy that Henry claimed to have remembered her that she now made Gilbert utterly happy, too, by turning to him and saying, “It was so long ago, the summer after the king’s coronation. He was putting down a Marcher lord’s rebellion and stayed one night at my father’s castle. I’d climbed the old apple tree in my mother’s garden and lost my balance when I tried to get down. I was clinging desperately to one of the branches when the king heard my cries and ran to my rescue. He caught me just as I fell, saved me from broken bones and mayhap even a broken neck, then dried my tears and agreed that my mishap would be kept a secret between the two of us.”
She smiled again at Henry. “So I owe you a debt twice-over, my liege, for that little girl in the apple tree and this foolish one at the Woodstock springs.”
It occurred to Ranulf that Rosamund Clifford was looking at Henry with the same starry-eyed adoration that his son was lavishing upon her. It was dangerous for a girl to be so pretty and so innocent, too; a convent was probably the safest place for her, at least until her father found her a suitable husband.
Henry was amused and faintly flattered, his thoughts echoing Ranulf’s own: that the sooner this little lamb got safely back to Godstow, the better. “The pleasure was all mine, Mistress Rosamund. But if you hope to keep your father in ignorance, we’d best see about repairing the damage done. We need someone who can be discreet, who can help the lass to stitch up the tear in her gown and find her another veil. Any ideas, Ranulf?”
“I know no one who appreciates intrigues more than Maud.”
“So I’ve heard,” Henry said, with a puckish smile that made Ranulf wonder suddenly if his nephew knew Maud had been the go-between in his long-ago liaisons with Annora Fitz Clement. It was soon agreed upon that Will would escort Rosamund Clifford to the manor and Gilbert would then go into the hall and fetch Maud, a plan that seemed to please Will and Gilbert more than Rosamund, who kept glancing back over her shoulder until she’d vanished into the gathering dusk.
Once she was gone, the two men looked at each other and laughed. “Were we ever that young?” Ranulf asked and Henry slapped him playfully on the back.
“Speak for yourself, Uncle. Need I remind you that I’m only thirty? I think I’ll have a word with Clifford, though, suggest that he send the girl back to Godstow without delay. Next time she might not be so lucky.” After a moment, Henry started to laugh again. “I was just thinking… Eleanor was about that lass’s age when she wed the French king. But somehow I doubt that Eleanor was ever that vulnerable or trusting. If any man had been fool enough to force his attentions upon her, I’d wager she’d have kicked him where it would hurt the most and then laughed about it afterward!”
Ranulf grinned. “I daresay you’re right.” The summer darkness was flowing about them now like a river, drowning the last traces of twilight. There was no point in continuing on to the springs and they started back. “Maud was a good choice,” Henry observed, “for she’ll not lecture the lass. Maud, bless her, is never judgmental. Did you hear about her brother?”
“No… what trouble has Will gotten himself into now?” Ranulf would never understand how his brother Robert, as fine a man as ever drew breath, could have sired a son as incompetent as Will. “I saw him in the hall, so if he got himself abducted by the Welsh again, he must have paid another ransom.”
“No, I’m talking of her younger brother, Roger. He is now the bishop-elect for the see of Worcester.”
Ranulf was delighted, for he’d always been very fond of Roger. “A pity his parents could not have lived to see that. How proud they would have been.”
“Roger is a good man, ought to make a good bishop. Even Thomas could find no objections to raise.”
“You make it sound as if Thomas is deliberately being contentious. Is that what you truly think, Harry?”
“In truth, Ranulf, I do not know what I think. I’d have sworn I knew Thomas to the depths of his soul. Now… now I look at him and see a stranger.”
By then they were almost upon the manor. It was clear that something out of the ordinary was occurring. Torches were flaring, voices raised, dogs barking. Ranulf figured it out first. “It is Owain Gwynedd,” he said.
The Welsh king’s entrance was so dramatic that Ranulf suspected he’d deliberately timed his arrival for nightfall. The molten-gold light of the torches flamed up into the darkening sky, casting eerie, wavering shadows, striking sparks against sword hilts and spearheads and the ruby pendant encircling the slender throat of Owain’s queen. Cristyn’s exotic, dark beauty had never struck Ranulf so forcefully, and he had the uneasy thought that this was a woman men would kill over, one with Delilah and Jezebel and Bathsheba. Did Hywel fully understand how dangerous it could be to underrate her?
Owain’s sons had accompanied him, well armored in pride and suspicion. Davydd and Rhodri, riding stirrup to stirrup, handsome and high-strung. Cynan, looking about with unabashed curiosity, and Maelgwn, meeting Woodstock with a scowl. Iorwerth, solitary even in a crowd. Several others, whose names Ranulf knew, but whose personalities eluded him. And then Hywel, reining in at Owain’s side, father and son gazing down upon their English audience, so impassive that even Ranulf, who knew them so well, could not be sure what they were thinking. With a silent, fervent hope that all would go well at Woodstock between his two kings, Ranulf stepped forward into the torch-glare to bid them welcome to his other world.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
July 1163
Woodstock, England
Sitting on a bench in the gardens, Ranulf was watching his children romp with a silver-grey puppy when he heard his name called. Rising, he moved forward to meet Thomas Becket. Two of the men with the archbishop were familiar to Ranulf, for William Fitz Stephen and Herbert of Bosham had been clerks in the royal chancellory before following Becket to Canterbury, and they exchanged amiable greetings.
“Where is the Lady Rhiannon?” Becket asked, demonstrating that his manners were no less impeccable as archbishop than they’d been as chancellor.
