“Hush,” she said, putting her fingers up to his lips. “We can only cross one river at a time.”
“I know… ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’ ” he agreed, reaching for her hand. Although they both knew there was nothing more to be said, they lingered a while longer in the churchyard, midst the familiar sounds of spring and the enduring silence of the dead.
The day had begun with a sunburst dawn the color of molten gold, but as the afternoon advanced, dark clouds gathered along the horizon and the June warmth soon slipped away. Usually men on a hunt were boisterous and rowdy, but this hunt had been different from the first. Their quarry was a large male wolf that had been killing sheep in Herefordshire and Shropshire, so light in color it had become known as the “grey ghost.” While wolves were often hunted in France par force de chiens-by strength of hounds-in England they were looked upon more as pests than prey, and men were commonly hired to set traps and snares when villagers complained to their liege lord of slain livestock. But as soon as Henry heard about the grey ghost’s depredations, he had determined to hunt the creature down, insisting that a wolf could not be permitted to roam the countryside at will; today it was taking lambs, but on the morrow it might carry off a child.
Henry’s companions knew the real reason for his sudden hunting fervor: he was growing bored and restless at Ludlow Castle, impatient to speed up the preparations for next month’s invasion of Wales. The others showed little enthusiasm for tracking a wolf, an animal generally viewed with unease. But Henry was not to be denied, and a hunting party was soon galloping west into Herefordshire.
The grey ghost proved to be well named, elusive and spectral. Although the dogs had been able to pick up its scent at its latest kill, the trail soon petered out. The men finally halted in a clearing for a meal of dried beef, washed down with ale. A would-be poacher crept closer to observe them, seeing more than two dozen men sprawling in the shade, sweat-stained and muddied. He knew they must be men of rank, their dishevel ment notwithstanding, for hunting with hounds was the sport of the highborn. But he’d have been stunned had he known that he was spying upon England’s king, the Earls of Leicester, Cornwall, and Chester, the Bishop of Worcester, and the king’s out-of-wedlock kin, Ranulf and Hamelin. Deciding to postpone his own hunting for a safer day, he made a stealthy retreat, as soundlessly as the great grey wolf itself.
Rainald announced he was going to “take a piss,” shrugging off the inevitable round of ribald jokes about the dangers of stinging nettles. When he returned, he headed toward a large oak and dropped down into the grass beside his younger brother.
“I’d rather be hunting any prey but wolves,” he grumbled. “There’s no sport in it since they won’t turn at bay the way a boar does. And if that were not enough, the wretched creature has a poisonous bite.”
Ranulf swiveled around to stare at him. “Where did you hear nonsense like that?”
“It is not nonsense,” Rainald insisted. “All know it to be true, most likely because they eat toads.”
“Next you’ll be telling me that a man who eats chickens will start to lay eggs,” Ranulf scoffed, laughing in spite of himself.
Rainald grinned triumphantly. “I knew I could get a smile out of you if I tried.”
“I do not have much reason for smiling these days, Rainald.”
“I keep telling you this war with Wales will be over in a fortnight. The Welsh princes will submit, as they always do, and Harry will pardon them, and we’ll all go home. Ere you know it, you’ll be back on that Welsh mountain of yours, counting your sheep or whatever you do to pass the time.”
Ranulf knew better. A sudden burst of laughing echoed across the clearing and he turned toward the sound.
“That was a most unseemly joke for a bishop to be telling,” Henry declared, frowning in mock disapproval at his cousin.
“So why did you laugh at it?” Roger queried innocently, and Henry grinned.
“So I’d not hurt your feelings, of course.” Getting to his feet, he sauntered across the glade toward his uncles. “Why are the two of you hiding over here? Surely you’re not still brooding about the Welsh matter, Ranulf? I assure you that I want you there merely as an interpreter and peacemaker once the fighting is done. As well as you know Owain Gwynedd, you’re the best man for-”
The rest of his sentence was lost in a sudden clap of thunder. The horses stirred uneasily and Rainald lumbered to his feet. “Enough is enough, Harry. We’ve been chasing this phantom wolf for half a day and all we have to show for it are saddle sores and sweat. I’m damned if I’ll get drowned in the bargain, too. I say we go back to Ludlow.”
“I’ve never heard of a man melting in the rain like a lump of sugar, Uncle,” Henry scoffed, but the other men then added their voices to Rainald’s, and he reluctantly agreed that the hunt was over. Mounting up, they headed toward the east, toward Ludlow.
But the approaching storm outran their lathered horses, and they found themselves caught in a drenching downpour while the castle was still miles away. Rain pelting their faces like liquid needles, seeping down the necks of their tunics, collecting in the brims of their hats, they were soon thoroughly miserable and arguing that they ought to find the closest shelter. Henry merely laughed at their complaints. Then the storm intensified. Half deafened by thunder, flinching each time lightning seared the black-smoke sky above their heads, the men struggled to control their skittish stallions and urged Henry to reconsider.
By now even Henry was impressed by the fury of the elements. But when his brother Hamelin suggested that they head for Avreton, where the Marcher lord Fitz Hugh had a castle, he balked. “Ludlow is only four or five miles past Avreton. We’re already soaked to the skin, so we might as well press on toward-”
Lightning forked from the clouds, shooting earthward with a blinding flash. There was a bang and then the smell of burning wood as a nearby tree was riven in two. The accompanying crack of thunder filled their world with reverberating, roaring sound, and in the ensuing chaos, one of the Earl of Leicester’s squires was thrown from his panicked horse.
The boy’s face was pasty-white under a smear of mud and a drizzle of blood. “I am sorry, my liege,” he gasped as Henry knelt by his side. “I think I’ve broken my arm…”
“You’ll be all right, lad,” Henry said reassuringly. Straightening up, he blotted rain from his face with a soggy sleeve. “Well, you milksops win,” he said. “Avreton it is.”
Avreton perched on top of a steep, rocky hill, on the Herefordshire side of the River Thames, just west of the tiny village of Boiton. A deep ditch encircled the outer bailey, a narrow causeway in the south-east side giving entry to the castle. As the men rode into a small inner bailey, a woman teetered on the steps of the great hall, flanked by servants. She was clad in an oversized mantle that enveloped her from head to toe and seemed loath to brave the storm. But from the moment that the king’s identity had been shouted up to the guards upon the ramparts, events had taken on a momentum of their own. By the time they dismounted, she had overcome her reluctance and was gingerly edging around the muddi est puddles toward them.
“My liege, I… I am so honored,” she stammered. “My lord husband is not here, for he rode to Ludlow this morn upon learning of your presence there. He… he will be back soon, I think…”
Henry was accustomed to having this effect upon people. “Lady Fitz Hugh,” he said, kissing her hand with a courtliness that would have amused Eleanor enormously. “One of our men has been hurt. We need to get him inside.”
Deftly steering the flustered woman toward the hall, he supervised the move of the injured squire, while the Fitz Hugh servants hastened to lead the horses to the shelter of the stables. The rest of the hunting party and their dogs followed Henry and their fretful hostess into the hall, where confusion soon reigned. Amice Fitz Hugh was so obviously incapable of taking charge that Henry found himself giving the necessary orders: sending a rider out into the storm to fetch a doctor from Ludlow, instructing servants to heat water and stoke the fire so that they could wash up and dry their sopping clothes.