“Holy Cross, it is Mistress Rosamund!”
Turning, Henry saw that the boy was right; one of the women in the bailey below them was indeed Rosamund Clifford. Hugh was heading for the ladder, at such a pace he’d be lucky not to take a headlong fall. Henry followed more slowly and with much less enthusiasm.
The Marcher lord, Walter Clifford, was greeting his daughter Rosamund and another woman whom Henry guessed to be his wife. After making the introductions to Hugh, who’d managed to get down in one piece, Clifford ushered the women toward Henry.
“My liege, may I present my wife, the Lady Margaret?” Wherever Rosamund had gotten her uncommon beauty, it was apparently not from her mother, a pleasingly plump woman in her forties with pale-blue eyes and the complacent composure of one born to a life of privilege.
“I believe you already know my daughter.” Clifford’s smile was so smug that Henry’s first impulse was to turn on his heel and stalk away. For the girl’s sake, he resisted the urge and managed a cool civility. Rosamund was more discerning than her father and her own smile faltered. Clifford was professing surprise that his womenfolk had come to visit him, jovially asking Hugh if he could find them a bed at the castle, and Hugh, beaming, declaring nothing would give him greater pleasure, while Rosamund looked at Henry in bewilderment, not understanding. Henry excused himself, climbed back up to the battlements, and stared out over the river at his misfit Irish fleet.
Supper that evening was not a festive affair. Hugh’s cooks did their best to provide a tempting meal, but Henry picked at the minced pork and venison pie without either interest or appetite. Hugh had gallantly invited Clifford, his wife, and daughter to join them at the high table. His attempts at flirtation proved futile, though. Subdued and silent, Rosamund kept her eyes upon her trencher, pushing food about with her knife but eating very little, occasionally casting covert glances at Henry when she thought he wasn’t watching. Hugh’s spirits soon flagged in the face of her obvious indifference. Clifford was growing increasingly annoyed by his daughter’s diffidence, scowling at her from his end of the table. The only one who seemed to be enjoying the meal was Henry’s uncle Rainald, who never let other people’s discomfort affect his appetite, and he at least did justice to the varied and highly seasoned dishes prepared by Hugh’s cooks.
After supper, Hugh summoned a minstrel to perform for his guests. But the entertainment was no more successful than the meal, if judged by Henry’s brooding demeanor. He may have heard the minstrel’s songs, but he did not appear to be listening, his private thoughts obviously far from the hall of Chester Castle. Through the open windows, the sky was turning from a twilit lavender to a rich plum color as a messenger was ushered toward the dais. Kneeling before Henry, he proffered a parchment bearing the seal of a French lord of opportunistic allegiances, Simon de Montfort, Count of Evreux. As Henry scanned the dispatch, his body language alerted those close to him that something was wrong. Stiffening in his seat, one hand clenching upon the arm of his chair, he looked up, his mouth set in a taut line and his grey eyes frosted, filled with distance. He did not share the French count’s news, but rose instead, making an abrupt departure, leaving behind a hall abuzz with conjecture.
It was fully dark now, but the air still held some of the warmth of the day. The sudden stretch of fine weather had seemed like the ultimate ironic joke to Henry; where had the sun been when he’d had such need of it? One of the castle dogs trailed after him as he entered the deserted gardens, but soon veered off on the scent of unseen nocturnal prey. Henry was regretting not revealing the contents of de Montfort’s letter. More precisely, he was regretting not having someone to confide in, someone who’d understand his misery without the need of words. His ambitions were dynastic, his greatest wish to see his empire ruled by his sons after his death. Eleanor understood that. So had Thomas Becket-once. And Ranulf.
He did not like the direction his thoughts had taken. Some roads were better left untraveled. He had jammed the count’s letter into his belt as he left the hall. Now he pulled it out again, wishing he had a fire to thrust it into. On impulse, he drew his dagger and began methodically to slash the parchment into ribbons. He felt faintly foolish; destroying the evidence would change nothing. But he did not stop until the sheepskin was in tatters, letting the scraps fall to the ground at his feet.
“My lord…”
He’d not heard the light footsteps in the grass, and he spun around at the sound of a soft female voice. Rosamund Clifford stood several feet away, her face blanched in the moonlight, her small fists balled at her sides. It occurred to Henry that she looked frightened and that saddened him. It did not take much to sadden him these days. He laughed suddenly, mirth lessly. God’s Bones, he was as maudlin tonight as any drunken lout deep in his cups and without the excuse of wine, for he was cold sober.
He saw that his laughter had distressed her still further, for she’d understood that there was no humor in it. She was more perceptive than he would have expected of a convent-reared virgin, the self-serving Clifford’s flesh and blood. “Why are you wandering about in the gardens, Mistress Rosamund? Trying to avoid Hugh?”
Rosamund blushed; she hadn’t realized that he’d noticed Hugh’s attentions. “I was looking for you, my lord.” She hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that, had hoped he might think their meeting was accidental, unplanned. But face to face with him in the moonlight, she found herself too flustered for subtlety. She could only tell the truth, or as much of it as she dared. “I was worried about you, my lord. That letter seemed to trouble you so…”
“This letter I was just ripping into shreds?” Henry at once regretted the sarcasm; why take out his temper on the lass? “You might as well be the first to know. All of Paris is rejoicing; it’s a wonder we cannot hear the church bells pealing across the Channel. The Almighty has finally taken pity upon the French king. On the fourth Sunday of August, his queen gave him a son.”
He expected that he’d have to explain the political and dynastic significance of that birth. Rosamund did not give him the chance. “I am sorry to hear that,” she said softly. “Sons-by-marriage of a king have influence for certes. But uncles of a future king will wield much more.”
Henry looked at her in surprise. “So you know Louis’s current queen is of the House of Blois?”
She nodded shyly. “And I know, too, that her brothers, the Counts of Champagne and Blois, are men who bear you a mortal grudge.”
She could see that he was pleased she was so knowledgeable and she felt faintly guilty, as if she were flying under false colors. The truth was that he was her abiding interest, not matters of state. In the two years since their encounter in the gardens at Woodstock, she had studied him as a scholar might study holy writ, asking questions when she could, eavesdropping when she could not, learning as much as possible about Henry Fitz Empress.
She knew that he’d been crowned Duke of Normandy when he was but seventeen, that he’d become king of the English at one and twenty, that he was wed to a legendary beauty, that he could be lenient to rebels but unforgiving of betrayal, that his memory was extraordinary and he was said to have some knowledge of all the tongues spoken “from the coast of France to the River Jordan,” that his energy was boundless and his curiosity all-encompassing, that his anger could scorch hotter than the flames of Hell but to the downtrodden and Christ’s poor, he was unfailingly courteous, that he was unpredictable and passionate and often enigmatic even to those who knew him best, and each time she looked into his eyes, her pulse began to race and her breath quickened.