The King's Man

by Elizabeth Kingston

  She let her eyes fall from his, examining the finely spun wool of his tunic, the heavy gold belt slung low on his waist, the soft leather that covered his feet. Such finery he dressed in, and all of it amplifying his comeliness in a way she could not ignore. With hair black as night and eyes made yet more blue by the tunic he wore, it almost embarrassed her to look at him. He was too handsome. What a sad figure she must cut, next to him. All the riches of Ruardean could never make her a beauty.

  “We are commanded to look over the marriage contract to find any alterations demanded by the passing of these many years. Your dowry, if the properties have changed – the lawyers will know it and begin at once. Edward forbids new negotiations over the particulars. He would have us wed before a fortnight is passed.”

  Such haste. “But my mother, and my family –”

  “It would seem their presence is not required,” he said, with something like his dry humor. She was still absorbing it, that the king meant for this union to happen as soon as possible and with no chance of interference, when he spoke again. “Tell me true, does Edward have aught to fear of your mother?”

  She looked at him warily, more suspicious yet. Everything since she had stepped into the hall had felt like a trap. Robert de Vere was not the ally she thought, the English king used her like a pawn in a move he must have planned for some time, and now she stood with a man who only yesterday had been an enemy of her family but would now be her husband. Already he could control her with the secrets he knew of her, and soon he would control her marriage portion, and all her fate. All was to his advantage, and so she could not but feel it was all by his design.

  “My lord has met my mother. I would be amazed to hear you did find something to fear from her. She concerns herself with the keeping of the Ruardean estate, and little else.” This was not quite true, but she could see no profit in speaking of her mother’s politics, no matter how private this place may be.

  It was as though he could see her thoughts. “Is her dealings with the Welsh prince that Burnell would have me learn.”

  This sent a spike of alarm through her and though she schooled her face to show nothing, she could see that he sensed it immediately. In one long stride he was there, reaching for her. Her hand went immediately to where her sword should be, but was not – because she was a woman, in soft woman’s clothes, and this was a different kind of battle. He was gripping her arm, and she bid herself to think in the manner of her mother, in political maneuverings and careful words.

  “Say me the truth of this.” When she did not speak, he gripped harder, his voice urgent. “Gwenllian!” How strange, to hear her name in his mouth. He shook her. “Think you this marriage is naught but a simple legal move? Your mother grows powerful in your father’s absence and it is years until your brother is old enough to rule. Nor do I need tell you the danger it is to Edward to have the strength of Ruardean in the hands of a Welsh upstart.”

  She hardened her jaw and pulled her arm out of his hand. “Ruardean is not Welsh.” Resentment swelled within her. She was equally Norman as she was Welsh, yet this court would see her only as a dark and suspicious other in their fair midst. Ranulf of Morency would be made her husband and granted all power over her, and she could wear no armor against it, nor carry a sword to defend herself. Verily, she thought she might choke on the bitterness of it.

  He stared hard at her, and she stared back, unwavering. He was so tall as to make her glad of her own ungainly height, that she did not have to tilt her head too far back to meet his gaze. What he saw there must have satisfied him. Or perhaps he had no wish to argue.

  “Ruardean’s loyalty is in question, and I am to ensure its fealty to Edward,” he said simply. “My own loyalty is proven by this service.”

  So he was under suspicion, and her mother was under suspicion. Her terrified respect for King Edward deepened, knowing that he had unerringly chosen Gwenllian as the best way to control the situation. Her mother could not use the power of Ruardean to any effect, without Gwenllian. And my life and fortune will be tied to a man who must obey the king lest he lose his own head, she thought. Oh he was clever, this king. It was a perfect way to constrain them all.

  “Well, then,” she observed, “we shall be very, very good children, you and I.”

  He made a sound that was equal parts amusement and hopelessness. “Aye. We shall.”

  He turned to walk away but stopped after a few steps and spoke to her over his shoulder. “Be wary when you speak with your cousin.” Of course he would know she would waste no time in speaking to Madog, and that there was no use in trying to keep her from it. She nodded in agreement.

  His eyes dropped to her shoulders, waist, feet, before something between a pained grimace and a genuinely amused smile crossed his face. “Praise God there will be time to find a more comely dress for the bride.”

  Madog immediately sent four of the men in a race to Ruardean with a message in hand for her mother. Two days later, Gwenllian had him dispatch another party with a copy of the proposed revisions to the marriage contract. She had hoped that there was something complicated within the old contract that her father had drawn up those many years ago, something that she could reasonably demand required oversight from her uncle. But if it was there, neither she nor the lawyer could find it. She hoped that perhaps her mother might. In truth, it could not be more straightforward, and little more need be done than to change the name of Aymer to Ranulf. The king approved and Robert de Vere approved and the lawyers all approved. She must admit she could find nothing to protest, and so they were told they would be wed on the earliest day that the Church, with all its fasting days and holy days, would allow.

  She saw him but rarely in the days before they spoke their vows, which suited her well. Most of her time was spent in the gardens, where she tried to identify every growing thing and where one time she saw a servant boy ripping wild burnet from the ground where it grew near the wall. She wondered if the fool who had set him this task knew that the roots were useless in summer. She thought of telling him that if gathered in autumn they would make a powerful tonic to stop hemorrhage – but then she heard the tinkling laughter of court ladies strolling nearby and stopped herself.

  The women here stared at her rudely, and whispered as she passed. Their looks told her she did not belong; their pointed discussions about the coarseness of sun-darkened skin on a woman – or broad shoulders or uncommon height – were meant to wound. It shamed her that it did wound her, here in this place where such things mattered. The servant continued his work, weeding valuable medicine as rich women laughed at trifling things, and she did not stop him. She considered it charity in kind if such as these were to die bleeding for want of burnet tonic.

  The next day one young lady, who cared for embroidery no more than Gwenllian did, approached her in the solar and she repented of her earlier unkind thoughts. The highborn girl ignored the general chatter of ladies over their needlework, and offered Gwenllian a book to read. It was filled with stories of King Arthur, and the girl asked if it were true that Arthur was Welsh. It seemed well-intentioned enough, and it was a far more interesting topic than the number of roasted swans that might be served for her wedding feast, so she sat in a corner with the girl and discussed how best to slay a dragon.

  It was not long until they left the solar in search of a certain tapestry which the girl, Suzanna, said beautifully depicted Saint George slaying his dragon. Finding and admiring it, they were remarking that perhaps embroidery wasn’t so very useless after all when the sounds of swordplay reached them.

  Suzanna tugged at her hand. “Come, we shall see who among these men could slay such a beast.” And in a few steps, they were looking out on the bailey.

  He was there. Her eyes found him immediately. He was not fighting, but leaned against a wall and watched other men spar. The sun was hot, and he wore only a linen shirt that clung to his sweating body, front and back, outlining every detail. He laughed at something said to him and
reached for a wooden cup to slake his thirst, the lithe, fascinating muscles stretching with his movement.

  “Haps the king has made a love match.” Suzanna was looking at her, full of playful mirth. She smiled and leaned in, as though to share a secret with laughter in her eyes. “I am assured it be not sin to admire your husband for more than his lands.”

  Gwenllian snorted at this, but felt the embarrassed flush spreading across her face. She could think of no response beyond, “Is not a love match. Only duty.”

  The girl made a small grimace. “Know you my betrothed, Lord Ferrante? He is a fat Italian prince with a wen and a bad temper. Were that my own duty were so well-shaped as yours.”

  Poor Suzanna could not be more than fifteen years of age and yet, Gwenllian reflected, it was unusual she was not already bearing the fat Italian’s children. She would have asked why the girl was not already in Italy, but now he was walking toward them. For a confused moment, she was frozen with panic as she could think of no reason he would approach her except to talk of swordplay. But Suzanna’s words were still hanging in the air – betrothed, betrothed – and she remembered he would have more to speak about than who between them was better with a blade.

  He greeted them both, and Suzanna engaged him briefly on the topic of dragon-slaying. His courtly manners were irreproachable, and she watched him speak easily to her with just enough gallantry and charm to make the girl feel flattered by his attention, but not so much that she mistook it to mean anything more than a passing conversation. She could wish he had exercised such care with his words for all the long days he had spent in her company. But then, it seemed he was entirely happier here.

  No sooner had she thought it than he contradicted this assessment. “My lady Gwenllian,” he said, “I have made arrangements for our travel to Morency. We can depart at our leisure after the wedding feast.”

  She blinked. Would not Edward think it strange, would the king not want them at Ruardean? But she could only say, “So soon?”

  “If it pleases my lady. I have neglected it too long, and I would have my people make acquaintance of their new lady.”

  She inclined her head in what she hoped was a believably meek fashion. “As it pleases my lord.”

  The men had begun to call to him, and so he took his leave and walked back to where they practiced. Suzanna was talking again, but Gwenllian ignored her chatter as they turned away and began walking down the enclosed walkway that surrounded the bailey. There was something in the manner of the men that held her attention, and she found herself stopping at the nearest arched window so that she could watch them, unseen. They had put her strongly in mind of her own men, their comfortable bantering, but now she could see at a glance that it was not so comfortable among this group.

  There was a burst of laughter, then silence – a sure sign that at least one among them was not as amused as the rest. Immediately following this, there was a distinct tension in the group, the kind she was sure meant that there was a challenge issued. One man detached himself from the group to call to a squire for his sword. With a sinking sense of dread, she saw it was Morency. It was easy to identify the fool he would fight by the pale, pained expression on the man’s face.

  It sent Suzanna into raptures to see the famed Ranulf of Morency reach for his sword with a grim look on his face. But when he turned back to the white-faced man and the others made a space for them to fight, the poor fool seemed to stammer apologies and threw down his weapon. Suzanna was vexed, but only for a moment.

  “The insult must be grave indeed,” she said with not a little excitement when Morency gestured to the fallen sword, bidding the man to pick it up, rejecting the apology.

  It was a quick fight, finished swiftly when Morency disarmed the man on the fourth blow with a brutal and unrelenting strength. It should have been enough to disarm the opponent, especially for a practice yard, but he pinned the man beneath his blade, point at his throat, and forced him to yield. Arrogant man.

  Gwenllian turned away again and they made their way back to the solar. The girl beside her chattered on about what could have sparked the display, but Gwenllian did not answer. She kept seeing how he moved with the sword, each and every movement calculated to humiliate his opponent with an efficiency that in other circumstances would be deadly. It seemed a lifetime ago, that night when they crossed swords. She thought herself lucky beyond measure now, even as the pride of her triumph over him returned to her.

  “I shall write to you at Morency when you have gone,” Suzanna was saying as they paused outside the solar where the other court ladies sat. “By Mary, I should like a friend who can converse so well of dragons.”

  Her sincerity startled Gwenllian. It must have shown on her face, for the girl looked down, played with the hem of her sleeve, and whispered, “So alone will I be in Italy, when I am wed.”

  She had never had a female friend before. Even when she was a child, it was her male cousins whom she played with and confided in.

  “Is a poor friend I may make,” she warned Suzanna. “I do not concern me much with gossip or fashion, as the ladies here.”

  A sunny smile spread across the girl’s face. “Verily, I would not wish a friend who would write of such. I will be in sore need of wise counsel, chiefly in household matters, may it please my lady to so advise me.”

  So hopeful was the look on the girl’s face that Gwenllian found it impossible to deny her. Thus did she make a friend in her few days at the court of the king.

  CHAPTER 11

  Long ago, in another life, she had memorized all the lands and homes that were part of the Morency inheritance. She had all but forgotten them in the interceding years, just as she had forgotten how to anticipate being a man’s wife. All her life, until Aymer had been killed, she was to be nothing more or less than the lady of some great estate. Marriage had been her fate, until it wasn’t. She could dimly remember hoping as a child that she might wed one of the Welsh princes. But in the end her father had chosen Morency for her, and her vision of her future easily adapted to that fate.

  Even more easily had she adapted to her unlikely freedom from that future. With her father gone on crusade, her mother had never spoken again of marriage for her daughter. There will be time for that if God wills it, she had said, and then set about indulging her daughter’s various whims. Thoughts of marriage receded as she happily immersed herself in the study of physicking, and swordplay with her cousins. Once she had begun to wear armor, the very idea of becoming any man’s wife was as distant as the moon. Her mother had conceived of a new fate for her, one that had nothing to do with wifely duties.

  When the chief steward came to consult with her on the preparations for the wedding feast, she fought an immediate surge of irritation that she should be expected to manage a feast – until she recalled that the larder, and not the armory, was to be her concern now. Yet she had little recollection of how it should be done, and could only stare at the man stupidly until he began to detail the plans already in place. It became clear that this was mere courtesy, a chance for her to state her preferences, and they were both relieved when she said the matter was well in hand and he need not fear her interference.

  A thousand times a day, she wished she could simply walk to the gate house, through the doors, and go to Madog and Davydd, who waited just outside the curtain wall for her command. But there was nothing to command, and so she drifted about the palace hoping her mother would send a message of some kind, any word at all, before an army of cooks began roasting peacocks and pheasants by the score for her wedding.

  She had reason to be glad of her new friend when the draper arrived with a great bundle of goods for her to look at. Suzanna had had the presence of mind to bring him to a more private room, away from the great gaggle of court ladies, where there was no one to see how very unenthusiastic Gwenllian was about this task. She ran her hand over a bolt of soft white linen, and thought that it would indeed be nice to have a new undertunic, at least. Only w
hen Suzanna asked why there was no color did she realize that all the cloth presented here was white. The draper revealed that the cloth for the gown was already settled, and that Gwenllian was only to choose a fabric for her undertunic. She wanted to laugh at that. Did he imagine she could see any difference among these many whites?

  But Suzanna was scandalized. “What mean you, that the gown is already settled! Whom but my lady may settle such a thing?”

  The draper bowed in polite apology. “My lord of Morency did purchase it when he visited my shop yesterday. I have brought a length of it, to aid you in choosing such jewels and embellishments as you may wear.”

  Jewels and embellishments. She hoped that was the sort of thing Suzanna might care to attend to, for the very idea that she should wish to embellish a gown was alarming. The only jewels she may lay claim to were at Ruardean. In any case, she was very aware that adorning herself with beauteous things would only draw attention to all her most unwomanly features. Yet it must be done, lest she look a pauper to the court.

  Suzanna was determined even in the face of Gwenllian’s obvious indifference, and was busy remarking on how they must find a girdle and a veil for her hair that would look well with the gown, when the draper unfolded a length of cloth that stopped her words with a gasp. Even Gwenllian could find nothing to say as she stared hard at it.

  It was a red silk, deeper than any red she had ever seen. Even she could see that it would look very well with her coloring. But it was the pattern woven into it that robbed her of her words. In gold and silver thread, an uncluttered design featuring vines and leaves winding around pomegranates repeated over the fabric, interrupted only by a narrow strip at the hem where the weaver had cleverly left the red silk bare in the shape of a dragon. A red dragon, the symbol of Wales, repeated discreetly all along the border.