The King's Man

by Elizabeth Kingston

  “Why am I guarded, old man?”

  The healer did not look at all surprised by the interruption of his diatribe, nor offended by the abruptness of the query. He didn’t even glance to the door, where three armed and doggedly silent men had been posted outside since Ranulf’s arrival.

  “You are man not to be crossed, my lord,” he answered with smile. “At my instruction, the guard was put here to keep you to your bed. Rest has been essential to your mending.”

  “And now I am mended, yet here I stay confined. Is it a household of cowards, to fear one wounded man?”

  The old man raised his shaggy brows. “You cannot be ignorant of your reputation, my lord. Had Aymer of Morency been so craven as to fear an unproven boy of seventeen, he might still live.”

  It was said in an academic tone, without the usual contempt. Ranulf allowed himself a smile, admiring the other man in spite of the annoyance of that tired old complaint. Murdered these thirteen years past, and still the dead man’s shadow clung, even unto Wales – if that’s where this was.

  “But you do not answer me. Is this keep full of sleeping old men, that I am feared and kept under guard? I would gladly take my leave, now I am healed.”

  The healer placidly stirred some new potion, as though not concerned in the least that he was locked in a room with a confessed killer of old men.

  “Did I not tell you? I am to take you to the lady of this house, and she will tell you all you wish to know.”

  He turned to Ranulf, a wooden bowl of some grayish paste that was no doubt to be slathered across his chest and arm, the latest in a series of foul-smelling cures for wounds that were closed up and nearly healed. If not for the hellish itching, he’d have almost forgotten that the flesh had ever been torn.

  “Who is this lady, and what is this place?” Ranulf asked, eyeing the paste. “You would have me meet my host in ignorance, but I pray you bless me with knowledge. You seem ever pleased to educate me, old man, so tell me less about your herbs and more of my fate.”

  “In good time, my lord. She will tell you, not I.” With that, the healer approached with foul-smelling bowl and examined the scratches once more. “Free rein you’ll have in the yard and this tower, do you prove yourself of good faith. You are our honored guest.”

  Ranulf snorted. Under lock and key, closely watched and kept in ignorance. Truly, an honored guest. Through the window he had seen the outer ward, enough space to fit his own keep and all the outbuildings inside the curtain wall. It was no minor lord who ruled this place. Every stone smelled of power and wealth, yet it was an unnamed woman who would deal with this honored guest.

  He reached for the tunic the old man had brought, preparing to pull it over the borrowed hose. They’d not brought him his armor, and the clothes he had worn in his travels were torn and soaked with blood. He took comfort from the look of the clothing: it was simple and unadorned, but the fabric was fine woolen, suited to meeting a great lady.

  “My lord, if you will but allow me to anoint the wound–”

  “Enough of your salves,” Ranulf interrupted, finding a linen under-tunic in the pile of cloth. “Is healed as well as your medicines can make it.”

  The old man nodded, squinting at the line of angry flesh that snaked down from the elbow. “She was an excellent student, else you would even now be food for the worms, my lord.”

  The tunic hung limply from his hands, suspended there as he spoke into the silence. “She? You know the woman?”

  “Aye, and it’s a great debt you owe her. There are not many who could bring you through the fever so well.” The wrinkled face radiated satisfaction. “I was her teacher.”

  The bony old fingers traced the beginnings of the scar as Ranulf unfolded the linen in silence, guarded against showing the depth of his curiosity. “She dwells here?”

  She had not been in the party that brought him to the castle. She had vanished and left him alone among suspicious and armed men.

  Just as Ranulf began to pull the fabric over his head, the old man stopped him. “First the ointment, my lord, if it please you.” He held the bowl up as though it were an offering of sweet cream, ignoring the query. “It soothes all manner of itch and burn on the skin.”

  Ranulf slowly lowered the tunic, eyeing the odorous paste. He could either stand before his captors smelling of dung or scratching himself like a vulgar youth. “By all means, anoint me,” he instructed the healer. It was only fitting that he offend the finer senses of whoever held him against his will.

  “I would find her, and thank her for her care of me,” he said as the paste was spread thickly on his skin, “if she dwells here.”

  “I will give her your thanks, when next I see her.”

  Ranulf tried to hide it, but the exasperation crept into his voice. “Truly, my reputation must be worse than I knew, if you think me incapable of offering simple thanks. Are you her cousin as well, and stand as her protection against me?”

  Apparently, this was deeply amusing. The healer paused in his work to laugh too himself, almost gleefully. “I, offer her protection? There is no lady I can think of who needs less of it.”

  “Then why can I not speak to her myself?”

  The old man made quelling motions with his hands, setting the bowl of paste aside. “Is only healing I am to offer you, as I said, but a man of your reputation cannot wonder that we shield our most beloved daughters from you.”

  That was enough to silence him. Smeared with the remedy and dressed in borrowed clothes, he followed the other man, ducking beneath the doorway and twisting himself sideways to ascend the narrow stairs. The older man guided the way with no such discomfort, and the guard followed. The castles of Wales, if that’s where he was, were at least the same as Norman keeps in this one regard: they were not built for the comfort of tall men. Of all the men he knew, only Edward himself might be more crowded by the low ceilings.

  They at last came to rich apartments draped in tapestries, a great window open to the afternoon air. The room was outfitted to manifest power and wealth; as well the lady was, turning to him as he entered. She was dressed in deep blue, the gold of her under-tunic matching the silk net that bound her dark hair. For a jarring moment, he thought it was her again, the wide-set eyes and full mouth causing him to look more closely. But no – her brown hair was threaded through with silver, deep furrows marked her brow, lips pinched like she’d drunk sour wine.

  He stood waiting while she surveyed him as though he were a battle terrain, this lady who held his fate and freedom. So far he had met his mysterious angel’s cousin and teacher, and it seemed as though he was now meeting her mother. It vaguely upset him. He’d thought her a messenger from Heaven, or Hell, then a nameless Welsh commoner, then an invention of his fevered brain. To find that she might be part of this household, kin to this woman whose intent toward him he could not yet know… It felt as though he had been lured into a trap. The armed guard who had followed, now fading back into the shadows, did nothing to help the sensation.

  “It is well to see you recovered, my lord,” she said, inclining her head slightly. “I am the Lady Eluned. I regret my husband’s brother is not fit to greet so noble a guest, and so I welcome you myself to Ruardean.”

  Ruardean. The name sparked a series of memories, each like the sharp tooth of a beast he’d thought dead. Ruardean, held by the Courtauld family – so he was not in Wales. And this would be the wife of the errant crusader, the powerful Marcher lord who had ridden off to the Holy Land so many years ago and never returned. Ranulf may not know much of the Welsh and their ways, but he knew as well as any man the power of the Marcher lords. They were a law unto themselves, not held to the same rule as Edward’s other noble subjects.

  But there was more, something more that made this family known to him. He steeled himself against the instant alarm that rose up at the knowledge that he stood on such hostile ground. As he would on the field, he took the offensive here, striking the first blow to lay open her purpose
in holding him.

  “My lady, am I held here to await the verdict of that plaint your lawyers bring against me? The bed you provide me is soft, but I am loathe to grow old in it.”

  If she was surprised to have her cold courtesy returned with challenge, she did not show it.

  “Our grievance against you, my lord, did not bring you here. The complaint is an old fruit, ripened these many years. It will surely fall from the tree, in God’s own time.” She shrugged. If it were a lie, she told it well.

  “In God’s own time? If there is a natural fruit that rots on the branch without falling to earth after thirteen year’s corruption, I pray you show me this marvel,” he dismissed. “Though this business of yours smells as rotten as that.”

  For years, he had ignored the slow maneuverings of the civil and church courts. They thought to claim his holdings, all that had been bestowed upon him by the King’s own writ. He had not given it much thought, this assertion that his own estate in Morency should have gone to a ten-year-old child, daughter of the lord of Ruardean. Only a fool would contest the King’s right to give lands where he saw fit. A fool, or an estate as strong as Ruardean.

  Their claim may have been as true as Holy Scripture, but as far as Ranulf was concerned it had no merit. Morency had commanded a price higher than honor. He had paid for it with a coin more precious than gold, and he would not have it taken from him.

  “Morency is mine. Holding me here will not further your suit, but a woman would not see the uselessness of that. What has brought Ruardean so low that a woman greets me? Who rules here?”

  Her calm in the face of his insult was vaguely familiar. She merely glanced to the door, as though to assure herself that the guard was there, and she was safe from any real harm. “I hold the keep in my husband’s absence, with the aid of my husband’s brother,” she answered simply.

  He let her inadequate response hang in the silence between them as he looked down at her. He was kept here, under guard, refused his horse and armor; it reduced him to finding advantage in his height, which allowed him to loom over her in a satisfactory way while she flushed. A small step backward, a quick look to the side, and she answered him more fully.

  “Believe me or no, my lord, we did not lie in wait for you to cross into Wales and capture you. Was happenstance that led a party out of Ruardean to find you wandering in the wilds, no more than that.”

  Her words rang true, if only because reason could not have it otherwise. None knew where he traveled – even he had set out with little idea of where he went. He acknowledged the irony of it with a humored curl of his lip. It was hellish luck of a piece with the rest of this misadventure, that of all the misfortune that might befall him, it was Ruardean who stumbled upon him.

  “And my lady of Ruardean turns happenstance to fortune. I would say it is proof God supports your suit against me, if the clerics did not prove that false by their endless debate on the matter.”

  She forbore to respond to that, choosing a topic more near to his immediate interests.

  “Our physician tells me you are healing well. I offer you the hospitality of this manor until, in good time, you are well enough to travel.”

  “Pretty words,” he granted. “Your hospitality knows no bounds. Is a fine guard you set on me.”

  She nodded, all pretensions at hospitality falling away. “Our finest, my lord. You are welcome at the high board, and freely may you roam so far as your guard is with you. All guest-rights are yours, save that you may not bear arms, nor ride beyond the wall. In a week’s time, no more, you shall be returned to your king.” She raised her brows. “If that is what you wish.”

  “How now, the lady seeks to know my wishes,” he said dryly. It would gain him nothing to say that a return to Edward’s court was no more welcome than a forced stay in Ruardean. “Pray do not speak of my wishes, my lady. Your kindness smothers me. I’ll take my leave of you now and find what amusement I can in this great pile of stones.”

  Again she nodded. “As you will. Most of the household speak English and French, though some know no more than Welsh,” she instructed him. His face must have betrayed some confusion, for she added, “Is not uncommon in the marchlands. I am Welsh by birth, though my lord husband is Norman, and our households have mingled with no disharmony. I have asked them to show you every courtesy. You have only to ask, and the servants will attend you. I would hear it if they do not.”

  He paused in his turn toward the door, forgetting anger in favor of an answer to the mystery that plagued him still. “Tell me this. The party that took me…” He looked at her again, her features so reminiscent of that fever dream. “Who were they to you?”

  She looked startled by his curiosity. “They were my Welsh kin.”

  “And the woman who tended me? She had the look of you, about the eyes.”

  The Lady Eluned was evidently amused that he would ask. But there was more in her response, an uneasiness in the humor. He sought to allay both, saying, “I understand that I owe her my life, though more may weep for her compassion than laud it. Is she your own daughter?” he asked gruffly, unused to owing so great a debt, much less insisting on speaking that thanks so frequently in search of the woman.

  She did not answer, turning her head at a sound from the window, stepping closer to observe whatever disruption it was. Ranulf stayed where he was, but he could hear the cry rise into the air. Every man, woman and child in the yard seemed to be shouting to raise the portcullis. There was no alarm in it. It sounded almost like drunken jubilation – a celebration of so simple an act.

  “Is a tradition,” Lady Eluned explained over the noise. “When a party – when certain parties return, our people all demand that the gate be raised. We welcome those we love with glad heart and open hand.”

  By which he took to mean that he could draw the proper lesson from his own silent welcome. The noise died down, and he watched her looking out the window. No, perhaps this was not the mother of the woman who healed him. Lady Eluned was no taller than any woman, and he had a sudden memory of his lucid day in that peasant hut. The woman, her back to him as Madog ap Rhys handed her a stone jar. That nameless lady was nearly as tall as the man, and nothing like the delicate-boned Lady Eluned.

  As if she read his mind, Lady Eluned spoke from the window without turning to him. “The woman who healed you was not my daughter. I don’t know who that woman was.”

  He felt a relief that was as intense as it was unexpected.

  She looked out the window, rain beginning to fall, smiling to herself as if he’d said something amusing. “You have never met my daughter, my lord.”

  And with that, he took his leave of her.

  Gwenllian looked down on the yard from the tower room. The men were sparring, testing each other with steel. They looked small from up here, but she could see well enough to judge Philip’s thrust, Gwyn’s reaction to Richard Cryg’s sudden spin to strike at the shoulder, Vincent and Tegwarad and the others watching from the side.

  He was there, too. The present lord of Morency stood to the side, waiting his turn. Madog would keep it from boiling over, this mundane exercise that became something else now that Lord Ranulf had determined that he was well enough to match blades and test his strength.

  “Madog has given him a tourney sword,” she said over her shoulder, though she knew her mother would not concern herself overmuch with the men’s exercise. “Any who goes against him will have blunted weapons as well.”

  It would be more prudent to give them all wooden swords, she was sure. It was only last summer that Ranulf of Morency had killed Gaillard Renfry in a sparring match. A terrible accident, it was said. But it was said, more discreetly, that to see Morency with a sword was to know he had perfect control and left nothing to accident. The whispered doubts about Renfry’s loyalty to the crown ended with his sudden death, while the whispers about Morency only intensified. But whether it was misadventure or evil intent, he could not kill with a blunted weapon. Besides, the
men who would test their skill against his would scorn abundant caution.

  She didn’t tell her mother that she wanted to be out there with them, that she wanted above all to watch the famed Lord Ranulf wield a blade, any blade. It made her feel like a child again, watching the men from the solar window, wanting to be closer so she could see how it was done and who was best.

  Like some fatuous maid at tourney, she mocked herself. It was as bad as that, her wish to see him fight and how he would win. He always won. Even now, weakened from illness and his wounds still fresh, she wagered he could win. He was legend with the sword.

  “You must take him to Edward.” Her mother came closer to look out the small window, but Gwenllian pulled away. It seemed wrong – a betrayal somehow, to let her mother see her fascination with the man.

  At a safe distance from the scene below, she allowed herself to hear what her mother had said. “I must take him?” She felt the anger rise in her breast and took a deep breath. “Mother, you know I cannot. Better to let him go, once we discover his purpose in coming. You say you spoke with him?”

  Her mother turned back from the window and nodded. “I told him we would escort him to his king in a week’s time. So you will take him, Gwenllian.”

  Gwenllian set her jaw against annoyance. She knew her mother trusted her above any other. That she was proud of her daughter and loved her well was never in question. Oh, but Gwenllian would give anything for even a grain of equal respect. To be treated as more than a child, to have some say in these decisions.