The King's Man

by Elizabeth Kingston

  “I do not call a wounded man my enemy,” she countered, keeping her voice firm and calm. “And my house is best served by honorable deeds. That is my reasoning.”

  “Do you fear him?”

  Hot anger flushed up her throat, but instinct held her in place. She wanted to turn on him in challenge, to bring the dagger up to his belly and dare him to repeat it. The ill-feeling among the men was worse than she’d thought, if even Madog would question her courage. She drew a breath and turned her head sharply to him, unable to prevent the anger from creeping into her voice. “I fear no man, and well you know it.”

  He nodded. “I know it. And you owe him nothing. Pennaeth Du, I tell you – leave him to die.”

  He tells me. She raised her chin minutely, staring hard at him and letting more of her anger show. “Do you give me that title only out of courtesy, Madog? I am like to think it holds no meaning for you.”

  Madog lowered his eyes and nodded stiffly. He lost the challenge as he often did, though she could not say if it was the warning in her stare or the dagger in her hand that won the battle for her. “Forgive me, Pennaeth Du.” He had the grace to sound truly repentant, appalled at himself. “I meant no offense.”

  She wanted to go to him, place a hand on his shoulder and make some jest that would replace his servile demeanor with their more usual camaraderie. But she knew fighting men, and how they thought, knew that obedience and discipline were not served by her more human inclination toward friendship at any cost. It was a lesson learned early, engraved now on her bones.

  “Help me gather the leaves, and all offense is forgotten,” she responded mildly. He reached to obey, stooping to the ground to search.

  The bandages would need changing soon. She turned her mind to the injured man, what other ailments he might have, and remembered how he winced against the dim light. His head ached, undoubtedly from the fall he had taken when her men had overwhelmed him. Lucky that the boulder hadn’t cracked his skull. She scanned the forest floor for anything that might ease the pain in his head, wishing the violets were in flower. Then she remembered the dried herbs in her saddlebag, put there to keep her robe fresh. They would work well enough.

  She stepped around a moss-laden tree. “We travel tomorrow,” she told Madog. “I will not delay longer. The men are rested?”

  “Aye.” Madog was less delicate than she, ripping leaves off plants with rough impatience.

  She carefully pinched a single leaf off the stem before her, then another, and another. A lark’s song drifted down from the trees overhead. “They will follow me?” She rubbed the soft down of a leaf across her fingers.

  His answer came swiftly, quiet reassurance that she had not lost what she’d worked at so long. “They would follow you unto death, Gwenllian.”

  She let out a breath. He called her by her given name; he calmly agreed with her directives. It was as it had always been between them, long before Ranulf of Morency came to upset the balance. She relaxed her commanding tone and walked ahead, searching for more leaves.

  “His fever is broken.” She willed herself to speak casually, but still it felt like a confession.

  Madog paused but a moment in his search. “He’ll sit a horse well enough, now his raving is done.”

  “He will,” she confirmed. The way he had looked at her face came back to her, the feel of his hand so certain on hers, guiding the knife to his heart. “Now he is awake, is better I hide my face from him. Let him think I am a fever dream. You will tend him.”

  Her cousin’s feelings on that were plain in the sour twist of his mouth. “Yes, Pennaeth Du.”

  “Make this men’s business now, no place for a woman in it. A woman complicates things, and Normans like a simple tale.” She could sense the resistance from Madog, but also the acquiescence. He would do it, as she asked.

  She watched him spy a plant and pull it up by the roots. She snorted. “Madog, gatherer of sweet violets.”

  He shook the dirt from the roots, giving her a look. “Gwenllian, mistress of flower gathering,” he returned.

  They exchanged wry smiles. Their camaraderie was re-established that quickly, her role and his confirmed. It had always been thus – hold fast to intention, never relinquish authority, and her word was not questioned; stare long enough at a man in challenge, and he backed down, looked away. Unless he was Ranulf Ombrier, the lord of Morency.

  Ranulf decided to take pride in the fact that he’d managed to pull himself upright without losing consciousness. It was an improvement over his previous failed attempts, and it seemed a cruel joke that his only reward was a fuller view of the dim hut he’d been lying in for – how long? And how much of it had been a dream?

  The woman may have been real, he thought, though he wasn’t sure he wanted her to be. Before that, he only remembered searching for the abbey, walking in the wild woodlands of the Marches. The journey was a discovery to him, this exotic fringe of Edward’s domain, so near to the kingdom of Wales. Though if Edward would have his way, all of it was England now and the land known as Wales was a mere principality. From what little Ranulf had seen and heard of the border country, he thought it unlikely the Welsh would be brought to heel as peacefully as Edward wished.

  He put a hand to his head, sliding his fingers back to feel the source of his pain. The lump seemed too small to have caused the never-ending pounding. A cloth covered his forearm from wrist to elbow. It wasn’t an accidental fall that had brought him here. But trying to solve the mystery of his injuries only caused the ache in his head to grow, so he turned his thoughts to his current predicament. Much as he disliked the sickbed, it gave him the best excuse yet to avoid the royal summons.

  He leaned his head in his hands, suddenly quite satisfied at being stranded in a hut in the middle of nowhere. Well, not exactly stranded. Assuming it hadn’t been a dream, there was a woman around here somewhere, to tend him. A woman not shy about stripping him and leaving only a blanket to be his modesty. He smiled to himself as he remembered her mouth, hoping he’d have a chance to taste it, now he was more fit.

  “You’re awake.”

  Ranulf winced at the voice that woke him from his carnal thoughts – maybe it had not been a female after all, he thought. He gingerly raised his head to search out the source of that gruff voice. It was definitely a man who stood in the doorway, the sunlight from behind hiding the stranger in shadow.

  “Aye, awake, and sore in need of ale,” Ranulf said hopefully. “God grant you peace, do you have some to share.”

  “No ale,” came the reply.

  “Well, then – wine?”

  “No wine.”

  No drink, and a pounding that would split his skull. “I am arrived in Hell at last.” Ranulf turned his face away from the door. Too much light would kill him faster than the lack of ale.

  “Not Hell,” came the reply. “Wales.”

  He snorted. “It needs a Welshman to find the difference.” Savages. Of all places to wander off to, he’d managed to find a land without ale. “It’s true what they say. I’m accursed,” he muttered. “Do the Welsh not drink at all?”

  The other man grunted. “Haps you can have mead.” There followed a series of outlandish syllables, a garbling of foreign words addressed to some unknown other outside the hut. A pounding headache, a festering wound, a primitive hut and a language near as melodious as cats fighting – at least his luck hadn’t changed when he crossed the English border, a fact that was confirmed when he was denied even the mead.

  His visitor left the door and moved toward the open stone hearth. Ranulf watched him lean toward the embers, filled with a sudden uneasiness when his features became distinct. The resemblance was remarkable. “I would know the name of my host,” he said a bit too sharply.

  Cool gray eyes lifted. “I am Madog ap Rhys.”

  Madog ap Rhys was nearly a twin to the angel of his fevered dreams. The eyes were not as piercing, but the same black lashes, improbably long, framed gray eyes. The lips were nea
rly as full, though hidden under a long and drooping mustache, the brows the same straight black. Just as Ranulf thought to speak, to ask if by some misbegotten nightmare this was the angel of whom he’d dreamt, another figure stepped into the doorway. He took great comfort in noting the silhouette was that of a woman.

  He couldn’t see her clearly. The light behind her threw her face into darkness, and when she moved away to enter the hut, she stepped quickly and turned her back before his eyes could adjust from daylight to the dark interior. She worked at the table, setting a leather pouch on the boards, drawing some implement nearer, as all the while he wished her to turn to him. And didn’t wish it. Then wished it again.

  The man called Madog carried a stone jar, full of boiling water dipped from the pot in the coals, over to where the woman stood. Her hands reached out to take it and she turned her head slightly, but not enough to see her face. She must be the woman of the powerful gray eyes, for Madog could not hold her silent gaze. Ranulf could feel her command from across the room, an uncomfortable shame rising in him for the sin of his earlier lustful thoughts.

  He had forgotten what she was, the nature of her. Forgotten how she’d looked at him, and how he had obeyed her without question. She was no wench to be bedded when he healed. He was half afraid to know what she was.

  It was Madog ap Rhys who spoke. “I ask your pardon, my lord. Was I who felled you when we came upon you these four nights past.” The man was like to choke on the apology, but he met Ranulf’s eye steadily. “I sought to protect my lady and saw danger where perhaps there was none.”

  Ranulf nodded gingerly, not trusting his head. “My pardon you have, and your lady as well, for tending me in my distress.” He waited for her to turn in acknowledgment, but she busied herself as though the men were not there at all, pouring out some water, dropping leaves into the jar, pulling a large stone from her pocket. His eyes followed her hands as though it was the Mass she performed, smooth and measured movements as she ground the herbs, wielding the heavy stone with no sign of clumsiness.

  An ordinary woman. She was mortal, and ordinary, and his fevered brain had run wild.

  “The lady is my cousin, a woman of good virtue.” Madog moved closer, drawing Ranulf’s eye to him as he approached. “Is her you have to thank for your life,” he explained, his voice low. He fixed Ranulf in a stare that was all too familiar. “For though I struck you in innocence, I tell you true – I would have left you for the wolves, Ombrier.”

  He wanted to correct him, to tell him to name him Morency, but it said much that he was called by his old family name and not by title. The woman, if his mind did not deceive him, had called him Ranulf. No – Sir Ranulf, as though he were a wandering knight without claim to estate. It was either ignorance of Norman ways, or insult. But it was no matter. They knew his name. Of course they knew his name, and with it, the whole of his life. It was always the way.

  He gently clasped his hand around his bandaged forearm, returning the man’s stare. “But I am one of theirs already, am I not?” he mocked. “Though if it be a choice between the wolves or a woman’s tender arms, I cannot say I regret your cousin’s kindness.”

  Madog’s hand dropped to his belt, curling around the dagger hilt there as though eager for a reason to use it. “There is still time for regret, I think.”

  A sharp sound came from the table. She held the stone, as large as a man’s fist, pounding it against the board and grinding it on the surface, her back still to them. It broke the moment, cut off the rising tension with a percussive echo. Madog took the noise as his cue and went to her side once again, where he was handed a handful of cloth strips and a bowl. He looked ready to balk at what was plainly the woman’s unspoken command, but he took them and came toward Ranulf, less menace in his step.

  “We’ll change the poultice,” he said tightly, kneeling next to Ranulf. The bowl was filled with a steaming green water. “Think you that you can sit a horse? We leave tomorrow, at first light.”

  Ranulf looked at the man – tall and hard, likely the same age as himself or older. Yet he obeyed a woman like an obedient dog. The dagger at his belt would not be drawn, not in the woman’s presence, not unless she willed it. How he knew it, he could not say, but somehow the woman held sway here. He had heard it said that Welsh law, debated and denied in Edward’s endless contention with the Welsh princes, gave more rights to the woman than the man. It was a claim he had paid no heed, dismissing it as unlikely, until now. Then again, it could only be that she held what seemed to be a small boulder and did not seem hesitant to use it.

  Reassured that the blade would not be drawn on him, Ranulf began to peel the flannel bandages from his arm, noting at once that the wound was not so deep nor nearly so inflamed as he had expected.

  “Aye, I can sit a horse,” he said. And he thought it was not pride alone that made him say it; the pounding in his head was lessening. “Bring me my own, if by God’s grace you did not attack my beast as well. When I point myself to the rising sun, how long until I am out of Wales?”

  “Better you answer why you were in Wales, on lands that belong to no Norman lord, and you all alone with no easy device to announce you.”

  He allowed his mouth to curve at the barely suppressed note of suspicion. “Think you I come to do business for the King?”

  Eyes narrowed and jaw hard, Madog hesitated before answering. Ranulf suppressed a laugh at the other man’s expression, waiting to see if hospitality would hold or if the Welshman would say it outright.

  “Your brain is cracked from the fall you took, if you think we’ll let Edward’s butcher loose in our lands with sword and mount, injured or nay.”

  Ranulf lifted his brows, the trace of humor draining from him. “You flatter me, Madog ap Rhys. But you needn’t worry.” He let a little silence settle, and leveled his eyes at the other man. “I kill only kinsmen,” he said, “and I have me no fathers left to die.”

  He waited patiently, looking steady at Madog until a contempt crept across the Welshman’s face. It was so predictable that it made Ranulf yawn as he looked down again to pick at the flannel dressing on his chest. He trained his gaze on the bandages, pulling them carefully away from his sore flesh, watching the wound ooze lightly when the cloth came away. This cut, too, was only a deep scratch running from his shoulder across to his breastbone. But it had festered, like the gash on his arm. He pressed the cloth against it.

  “You’ll ride with us,” Madog said. “By grace of God or the point of my sword, you’ll hold your seat and come to the keep, and others decide where you go from there.”

  He would have liked to dispute that, but the notion of a nearby castle, rife with meat and drink and a soft bed held too much appeal. He didn’t even bother to ask whose keep it was. He knew nothing of the Welsh lords. One was the same as another. Let them think he came on Edward’s business. Better that than what had really brought him here, or the humiliation of having lost his way so completely.

  No longer was he wandering unknown lands, nor lost in fever dreams of sin and death and damnation. He was Ranulf of Morency, the king’s loyal and lethal friend. He killed defenseless old men and valiant knights of the realm, and was never shamed by it. That was what men saw. That was what the skin he must live in.

  He looked at the coals on the stone hearth, considering whether or not to cast the old bandages into the fire. When he decided against it, he turned back to Madog, who held a cup in his hand and shook his head faintly at the woman’s back. She was leaving, walking out the door after having placed the cup in her cousin’s hands. She had come that close, and Ranulf had failed to turn his head in time to see her face, to learn if the angel was merely a delusion born of illness.

  “Drink.” Madog ap Rhys handed him the cup, which was the source of a new and pleasant smell. Lavender and rosemary and he knew not what else, but slowly it eased his headache until it was near nothing at all. The Welshman didn’t speak again, dipping the fresh cloths into the steaming bowl and lay
ing them across the wound.

  Ranulf didn’t need to be told to take his rest while he could. Tomorrow, he would have to ride in spite of his weakness, with a group of hostile, mocking Welshman and one mysterious Welshwoman as his pitiless audience.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Cease your poking, old man.”

  Ranulf sat on the bed he’d been given, stripped down to the waist. The old man–a physician, the seneschal had told him–pulled away without protest, withdrawing to study the bag of medicines at his side.

  “Your pardon, my lord,” he said mildly. “Curiosity is required of a physician. I always say there was never a wound healed without curiosity, for if man had not asked how to heal, he would never have learned, and never have mended anything.”

  He felt around in the bag, all the while prattling on in that singsong voice that had plagued Ranulf these two days past. The healer of this keep – whichever keep it was, for Ranulf had yet to pry the information from healer, steward, or the occasional servant who ventured into this room – was fond of pontificating and theorizing over most anything. Theology, herb lore, philosophy, politics: the old man could go on for hours in the voice of one in the habit of lecturing rapt students.

  But he never gave the name of this manor, nor would he even locate it for Ranulf. He had no idea if he sat in the middle of Welsh territory or if they had crossed back into the Marches on the journey. Two days they had ridden, through scenery he could not see for the rain and exhaustion that blurred his vision. That, at least, had not been as humiliating as he’d anticipated. The group traveled at a swift pace, but whenever Ranulf felt he had reached his limit of endurance, just as he began to fight against asking for a pause, they would stop for water or other refreshment, or sometimes only to slow the garrons to a walk.

  They’d come to this nameless castle in the dark of evening. It was large anyway, and well fortified. That much he had seen through the blinding rain, the silhouette of a fortress stretching across the horizon. Even the barest outlines of it intimidated, a stronghold of dark stone with sinister arrow-slits riddling the walls, so imposing that he later dreamt of the walls stretching to the sea and beyond, a barrier that would trap him where he could not avoid Edward. But on arrival, he had none of those thoughts. He’d been so damp and weary that he counted the small room and warm fire as a mark of the highest favor. Two days later, with no greeting but that of the evasive steward and no information save the healing properties of valerian, he was inclined to believe that he was being held captive in truth.