The King's Man

by Elizabeth Kingston

  In a gentle flurry, they left the room. Ranulf’s eyes went to Adela and rested there a moment longer than they should, following her as she made her exit. In some distant part of her mind, Gwenllian thought she should hate the lovely girl and knew that, at the very least, she should wish to stick a dagger in her husband’s belly. Envy or jealousy or both, those would be the natural responses.

  But Gwenllian had known for some years that she was an entirely unnatural woman. In her heart, she could not fault him for being drawn to such a face. Had she herself not stolen looks at him at every chance? There was a power in beauty that she could never learn, not with any amount of close study. Unnatural woman that she was, she only felt a twinge of sadness, that she herself was not more fair to look upon.

  He turned his attention to the messenger and spoke.

  “What word bring you from York?”

  The messenger bowed his head and said with faint apology, “A message for the Lady of Morency, my lord, and no other.”

  “Do you speak Welsh?”

  She had asked it too quick, too sharp – and made the mistake of asking it in Welsh. She could feel Ranulf’s startlement, but the messenger only showed confusion as they both looked at him expectantly. She watched as he pulled out a letter.

  “I am bid give this to none other but the Lady Gwenllian, and to remain at her service.”

  There was more he did not say, she knew. She could sense that Ranulf knew it as well, but he stayed silent as she took the letter from the messenger’s hand. It was from Madog, the seal unbroken. Everything in the messenger’s demeanor told her to open it away from her husband, but she could not imagine how to hide it from him.

  “As your duty demanded she has received it of your hand,” said Ranulf, brusque, “and now will it please me to know who has sent you.”

  The messenger said nothing, only stared at a point somewhere in the vicinity of her right shoulder and waited. She too waited, feeling Ranulf’s impatience rise, her fingers itching to open the letter she held. But she wanted to learn the measure of this man Madog had sent, and this would tell her more of the messenger than she might otherwise ever learn.

  Ranulf narrowed his eyes at the continued silence, a menace suddenly in the air. “You’ll tell me the truth of this. You no more came through York than through Egypt.”

  He took a step closer to the messenger, who at last looked at him directly. The color drained from his face, but his gaze did not falter even as Ranulf said, in soft threatening tones, “Think you that I shall tolerate such a lie?”

  When the messenger kept silent for all the long, tense moments, and did not even glance in her direction, she lay her hand on Ranulf’s arm.

  “What is your name?” she asked the messenger.

  “Edric, my lady,” he said, relief in his voice as he at last looked to her. It was an English name, Anglo-Saxon.

  “You have done well by Madog, Edric. He chose well when he trusted you to bring word to me, and yet he is wrong to warn against my husband.”

  Edric nodded and spoke directly to Ranulf, as she broke the seal on the letter she held and read.

  “In Hereford did I meet the man who gave me this message, as well as a fine horse in payment for its safe delivery. He laid upon me a charge of secrecy, to tell none but my lady that he had sent me. Nor am I to speak to any of our dealings, for love of the lady’s life, and my own.”

  She barely heard him, her eyes scanning the letter, but the note in Ranulf’s voice drew her attention.

  “And what love have you for my lady’s life, that you would carry this danger for her so far?”

  The color had drained from Edric’s face again, and he had no ready answer.

  “Is gold that is so precious to him, and not my life,” she murmured, indicating the letter in her hand. “He is promised a sum and the gift of his horse, as well a place with Madog, does he perform his duty well. To this, we add the prize of a warm bed and a full belly. Find you the kitchens now, Edric, and eat.”

  He was very good. He did not protest that there was more to his message, or betray in any way that he might wish to say more. He only nodded, and bowed, and left her to her letter. And to Ranulf.

  The letter was in Welsh, and brief, and carefully written to convey certain details only to Gwenllian. Madog was in Hereford “as is my habit,” he wrote – which meant he had bought fine steel and armor for many men, the only reason he had ever had for traveling to Hereford. Just so he had written of other things, in ways that told her that Edric the messenger was to be trusted as well as any of her own men, that her mother met with Welshmen of means who would happily join their forces with hers, and that her men had traveled with Eluned to one of her Welsh properties to begin the business of rebellion before the snow fell.

  But it was what he wrote plainly that she stared at longest: Often does she weep for want of your counsel.

  “What news?”

  Ranulf’s hand hovered near the paper as though to take it from her. She felt a flare of anger, sharp and insistent, that he would so presume. But she forced it down and said, “Is in Welsh.”

  “It pains you,” he said, his eyes roaming over her face. “I would know what distresses you.”

  A new and terrible feeling came upon her, even as she struggled to absorb the import of the words Madog had taken such pains to send her. She looked at Ranulf and saw plainly his care for her, that he would comfort her. But she saw just as plainly that he wished to know the danger to himself and to his king, so that he might act upon it. She had a suddenly flash of memory of him, asking for a dull knife so that he might help her men build a bridge. How stupid she had felt when he had vanished. How poor her judgment of this man might be when their aims were not aligned.

  And yet she could not hide the whole of it from him.

  “She has removed to Wales,” was all she said.

  “She leaves Ruardean undefended?”

  There was a faint note of scorn in his voice. It made her grit her teeth.

  “Nay, she does not take all the household with her. Is a strong garrison that defends Ruardean, and its commander a fine man.” She had trained him herself.

  “Then she travels to Wales to meet more easily with the Welsh princes.”

  “Aye,” she answered. And for the men to survey and raid the English outposts, to test the strength of them. But she did not say it. “And I think not only the Welsh, though I cannot say who among the Norman lords might join with her.”

  At this, he scoffed outright.

  “None with any worth, is sure, and they more likely to follow the Welsh princes than a woman. Do you know these princes?” he asked, having roundly dismissed her mother’s role as insignificant. “How like are they to defy Edward in earnest?”

  Something in the careless way he spoke to her seemed to open a great chasm between them, and she gazed at him across it. He thought of his king, when she could only think of her men, of their families weeping when they were killed by Edward’s soldiers. Her mother, her men, everything she had ever loved at risk – yet he did not care. Why should he, after all?

  Numbly she gazed at his face, the deep blue of his eyes and the line of his jaw where she had pressed countless kisses. She saw with a breathtaking suddenness how far she had fallen from everything she had always known.

  She dropped her eyes to her hands. They were growing soft, the hard callouses from years of handling a sword beginning to fade. Almost unconsciously, she moved her shoulders to feel the fabric give easily where once it had strained against the bulk and breadth of the muscles there.

  She did not recognize herself, so different had her body become under his touch.

  “The Welsh princes,” she repeated, trying to remember what he had asked. “Only Llewellyn has any true power, of them all. Only if he acts will any others consider joining.”

  “And does she meet with Llewellyn?”

  “No,” she lied easily.

  In truth, she could not know, but
she had no doubt her mother was in contact with Llewellyn. If Madog had bought fine steel and more armor, then it would be to impress upon Llewellyn that Ruardean stood ready for his word. Her mother was no fool.

  “Then there is no need for worry.” His hand, warm and strong, came over hers where it clutched the paper. “She thinks herself capable of much, but she can accomplish little on her own.”

  “Can she not?”

  His thumb caressed the back of her hand. She felt her body respond even to that small touch, but her eyes stayed fixed on the letter she held. Often does she weep.

  “Haps she can achieve a rope around her neck, is she not careful.”

  She snatched her hand away and strode to the window, feeling a flush rise up her neck. There was jest in his voice, and under it was a thread of contempt that she could not mistake.

  “How lightly you speak of it.”

  For the first time in weeks, she missed her sword. She would have liked to run him through.

  “Well do you know the danger she courts.”

  “Aye, and well do I know her capable of it,” she countered. “You give her no more credit than a simpleton.”

  For a moment, he only looked confused. Then, slowly, a suspicion came into his face.

  “So did you give her little credit, until now.”

  His eyes dropped to the letter she held. She felt the heat rising from her skin, outrage and affront – for her mother or herself, she hardly knew. She closed her fist on the letter, pressing it neatly into a ball that she thrust at him.

  “Take it to Davydd, do you not believe me, and bid him read it to you. You’ll find no more than I’ve told you. “

  “And even that little may be enough to condemn her as traitor.”

  His voice had risen to meet hers, and now she felt herself more wild with anger than she had been since she was a child.

  “Shall you tell your king, then? Why wait for her to act when you can give him this to warn of her intent, and be done with it?”

  Edward’s butcher, they had called him. Little do you know of my sins, he had said. Oh, but now she knew.

  “Go on, then. Well do you know how to buy a king’s favor with a life.”

  In the hollow silence that followed, she watched as the face turn to cold stone. A piece of her wanted to take the words back, to turn her face down in shame of saying it. But a coldness had grown up inside her. She was not a delicate, golden-haired ornament. She knew what she was. She had always known, but had forgotten. He was Edward’s creature, and she was her mother’s. And so she did not look away from him, even as the silence and the tension grew, even though she feared what might come next. She stood tall and unflinching, ready for the fight.

  But there was no fight. There was only this man who was her husband, and his look that burned her.

  Finally, he opened his hand and let the crumpled letter fall to the floor. Without a word, he walked out of the room.

  She was left in the resounding silence, alone with the cold clarity that had come in the room with the letter that lay on the floor.

  An hour later she found Edric the messenger in the stables, where he waited patiently, brushing his horse until it gleamed.

  “A place will be made for you in the knights’ quarters, however long it may please you to bide at Morency. Does my cousin expect your early return?”

  His glance flicked to the boy who was sweeping dirty straw into a neat pile.

  “I am at my lady’s command, as he bid me, to bring your message back to him.”

  She nodded. Already she knew she would write him no message.

  The boy with the broom had moved farther away now, far enough not to hear. She feigned interest in Edric’s horse. “Is a fine mount indeed,” she said, moving closer and running a hand over its neck.

  She lowered her voice to a murmur.

  “Tell me,” was all she said.

  “They are at Tredum now and will stay there.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “Your cousin bids me tell you that unless the winter is unusual hard, they will not wait for winter’s end.”

  Sooner than her mother had originally planned. “He said not why?”

  “Lady, he did not even say what they wait for, nor who waits. Only with the words and not their meaning did he entrust me, so that if I am discovered naught is revealed.”

  She frowned. This great caution from Madog said much. And he sent this stranger instead of one of her own men, which told her that he could not spare even one of his best fighters now.

  “Is there such danger you would be discovered, then?”

  He shrugged. “I know not, my lady. I am to give the letter to none but you, and to tell you if you ask that they are at a place called Tredum, and in secret to say they will not wait for winter’s end. And did I swear not to say these things to any other person, on the soul of my wife and child.”

  She looked at the man blankly as her mind whirred, trying to calculate how many weeks were left until winter came, how many more until it ended. But something in her face must have urged the messenger to continue.

  “My wife was Welsh, my lady. A month ago, she was killed with the child inside her by soldiers sent from Edward to keep his peace.”

  His mouth was set in a grim line. There was no need to ask him the full story. Bloody tales of Norman cruelty fairly poured forth from every corner of Wales, since Edward had claimed it as part of his own kingdom. There was no shortage of men like this one, justification enough for her mother’s rebellion. Madog would trust a man who hated Edward, as this one surely did. And maybe he had meant it as a sign of his own sympathies, a reminder to her.

  “They are not all so barbaric, these Normans,” she said. “Only those they send to Wales.”

  Her hand went to her hip to grasp a sword that was not there. There was only a soft gown over a rounded curve. And this, the feel of her own body, seemed to answer a question she had not dared to ask.

  There was the world of men, who dealt in power and brute strength. And there was the world that was hers now, where she must decide the fate of sheep’s wool and grow softer by the day.

  She did not miss the world of men. But she knew herself there. That is who I am, she thought, with a conviction that startled her nearly as much as the sudden tears that pressed behind her eyes. Armor and hard steel and strength. Not this soft uncertain woman who only felt whole when a handsome man smiled, who lived from touch to touch.

  She bit her lips, banished the tears, and whispered to a waiting Edric.

  “Tomorrow you will go. Travel slowly, and on the third day I meet you on the road out of Ardleigh.”

  He nodded. She turned to see they were entirely alone now, the stable boy gone into the yard. Still she spoke softly as she moved to leave.

  “Tell no one,” she said. “Most of all do not tell my lord husband.”

  She must find Davydd. He was placed as squire to one of Ranulf’s knights, in hopes to swear fealty to Morency when he was old enough to be knighted. But still, she knew he could be trusted in this. She knew his allegiance as well as she knew her own mind, now.

  “I am commanded to tell you one thing more, my lady.” Edric’s words caught her before she had taken more than two steps. “That there is someone called Naydra who brings danger to your cousin’s company.”

  “Naydra?” she asked, puzzled. But as soon as the word left her mouth, she heard it. Not a name, but a neidr. A snake. A traitor.

  Edric the messenger shrugged. “Is because of this Naydra that I am sent, and not a man more familiar to you, and that I was warned to speak only to the Lady of Morency but not the Lord.”

  She felt her skin go cold even as her head gave a reflexive half-shake of denial. Madog suspected her husband, or at least did not rule him out as an informant to the king. But Ranulf had said he would wait, that he would breathe no word against her mother unless he must. In her head as well as her heart, she could not believe he would betray that promise. And yet, he was Edwar
d’s man.

  She must be careful. She must not suspect, lest she suspect wrongly and misplace trust. They could not know who it was, and she could not know if it was him. But it was another reason to go.

  “That is all your message?”

  “Aye, my lady.”

  She nodded, and spoke as she made her exit. “Leave quietly tomorrow. The road from Ardleigh, three days.”

  She did not feel the relief she expected as she buckled her sword belt and Davydd smoothed the mail over her shoulders. Instead, she felt the memory of Ranulf’s face pressed into her as he knelt before her and declared his heart a foul thing. She felt hollow, empty where he had lain his head. But her purpose was clear now.

  My mother weeps for want of me.

  She must go. She had no doubt of it.

  “Does my lord ask where you are gone, I can say only that you rode west, Pennaeth Du.” Davydd had been careful not to ask her purpose. He only said he would stay here, acting as squire to a knight of Morency, and she did not question why. “I can say with truth that I know not when you return.”

  She remembered the whiteness at the edge of Ranulf’s lips yesterday, as he dropped the letter to the floor and walked away from her, and wondered what he would think when he learned she had left. A sick fluttering in her belly compelled her to find him, go to him, to explain. But she ran her fingers over the buckle that Aidan had handed her, before Madog and her men left her.

  I belong with them, she thought.

  And the fluttering in her stilled.

  She struck west and then rode hard to the south, taking a path less likely to be followed.

  He had not come to her bed that night the letter had come. She had had her evening meal brought to her rooms and waited with her heart in her throat. But he had not come. In the morning he was gone before first light, riding out to meet tenants – or so said the servant sent by Hugh Wisbech, who had gone too. A week, perhaps. Five days at the least. Better luck than she had dared hope for. Yet still she felt the pain of it, that so soon would he shun her company.