Maude reached over to take a sip from his wine cup. He’d once told her that Geoffrey had claimed the best marriages were based upon detached goodwill or benign indifference. That was one of the rare occasions when Maude found herself in utter agreement with her husband. Passion was dangerous in any relationship, above all in marriage, for it was utterly unpredictable. She could only hope that her son was not about to find that out.
August had been hot and dry that year and the gardens at Woodstock were wilting despite the best efforts of the manor gardeners. Rosamund Clifford and her guests were playing a game out on the green, and each time one of the women rolled her heavy stone bowl toward its target, it stirred up puffs of dust and left a rut in the parched, browned grass. Whenever Rosamund’s sister Lucy got a strike, she laughed and clapped her hands, attracting admiring glances from the gardeners laboring nearby. While she had none of Rosamund’s ethereal beauty, Lucy was a very pretty young woman, blessed with fashionable fair coloring and more than her share of feminine curves.
The eldest sister, Amice, was neither as amply endowed as Lucy nor as radiant as Rosamund, and Meliora wondered if this was why there seemed to be so little warmth between them. Growing up in Cornwall, Meliora had squabbled and bickered with her own sisters more often than not. But for all of their jealousies and childish rivalries, they were fiercely devoted to one another, bonded by much more than blood. She sensed no such loyalties amongst the Clifford sisters and could not help recalling Henry’s acerbic opinion of Rosamund’s family. Rosamund, he’d once said caustically, must surely be a foundling. After a week at Woodstock with the Cliffords, Meliora found herself in hearty agreement with her king.
Rosamund’s mother, Margaret, was seated in the shade of a nearby tree, sipping a cider drink and fanning herself languidly with a napkin. Upon completing her turn at bowls, Rosamund hastened over to Margaret’s side. Meliora wasn’t close enough to catch her words, but she was sure Rosamund was inquiring after her mother’s comfort. She had been running herself ragged since their arrival, doing all she could to make their visit a pleasant one. And her reward, Meliora thought indignantly, was to be buffeted by their unending demands and worse, to be interrogated and prodded and pestered for the smallest scrap of gossip concerning her royal lover.
But Rosamund had shown a stubborn reticence whenever Henry’s name was dragged into the conversation. She willingly drew upon the resources of Woodstock to indulge her family’s whims. She listened attentively to the narration of their needs, promising to bring her brother Richard to the king’s notice, to seek a boon for Amice’s husband, Osbern Fitz Hugh, to pass on her father’s complaints about his ongoing troubles with the Welsh, to ask the king to allow her kinsmen to hunt in the royal forest of Clee. Yet when they pressed her for details of her liaison with Henry, she became tongue-tied, evasive, or shyly uncomprehending. She had yet to reveal anything but the most banal aspects of her new life as the king’s concubine. She had contributed nothing to the rampant rumors of an autumn confrontation with the queen at Woodstock. And she’d breathed not a word of her impending departure for Southampton, where she would take ship to join Henry in Normandy.
Margaret Clifford got to her feet, announcing that the gardens were too hot for her liking. Her daughters at once abandoned their game of bowls and clustered around her. Meliora doubted if the queen herself had people dancing such deferential attendance upon her as Rosamund’s mother did. They were heading toward the great hall when a horseman rode in through the gateway. Meliora recognized him at once, for Henry used the same trusted courier for his messages to Rosamund; ever since Eleanor’s surprise visit to Woodstock, he’d become a sincere, if belated, convert to the doctrine of discretion.
Catching Rosamund’s eye, Meliora jerked her head toward the rider, and then feigned a semiswoon, moaning that the sun was making her sick. None of the Clifford women appeared unduly alarmed by her distress, but she commandeered their aid by the simple expedient of stumbling and grabbing Margaret’s arm in a viselike grip. Wheezing and panting and thoroughly enjoying herself, she let her reluctant volunteers assist her across the bailey, giving Rosamund the opportunity to lag behind.
She continued the charade in the great hall, gasping weakly for water, going limp, and indulging her penchant for theatrics. The stratagem worked quite well; it was some time before anyone noticed that Rosamund was missing. At Margaret’s insistence, Lucy ventured out into the bailey in search of her sister, reporting a few moments later that she was nowhere in sight. Meliora gave a satisfied sigh and graciously accepted an offer of ale.
She was somewhat surprised, though, by Rosamund’s failure to return to the hall. As time passed, she felt a nagging sense of unease. If Rosamund had not resumed her role as hostess and dutiful daughter, it could only mean that Henry’s letter had conveyed bad news. Declaring that her sunsickness was much improved, she made an inconspicuous exit and went to find Rosamund.
Margaret had already sent a servant to Rosamund’s bedchamber, to no avail, so Meliora did not bother retracing his steps. Shading her eyes from the noonday glare, she sought instead to reconstruct Rosamund’s likely movements. She’d have wanted privacy to read her letter, so she’d not have lingered in the gardens. It was too hot for her to have walked down to the springs. After a moment to reflect, Meliora headed across the bailey toward the stables.
The barn was spilling over with shadows, the air still and pungent with the odors of sweat, dung, and horses. A plank had been laid across two overturned buckets and a meal set out on its rough-hewn surface-a chunk of cheese and half a loaf of bread-as if its owner had just been called away. A scrabbling in the straw and a pitiful squeak told Meliora that one of the stable cats had made a kill. Stallions nickered and snorted, and a restive dun gelding gnawed and slobbered on the corner of its manger. The country-bred Meliora made a mental note to mention to the grooms that her father had successfully treated this vice by removing the manger and feeding the horse on the floor. By now her eyes had adjusted to the gloom and as she moved forward, she glimpsed movement from the depths of an empty stall.
“Lady Rosamund?”
There was a long pause. “I’m here, Meliora.” Rosamund’s voice sounded as it always did, soft and slightly out of breath. But as she emerged from the stall, Meliora could see tear marks drying upon her cheeks. She clutched a sheet of crumpled parchment in one small fist; this one would not be joining the precious store of letters she kept secreted and locked in an ivory casket box under her bed.
“He is on his way into Brittany,” she whispered. “He could delay no longer, for the Viscount of Leon has joined the rebellion against him.”
“First waste the land, deal after with the foe.” That was a basic tenet of military strategy in God’s Year 1167. The castellan of Morlaix Castle had accepted it as gospel, as did most of the men who were trained in the arts of war. But the king of the English cared little for conventional wisdom. Instead of burning crops and sacking villages, then settling into a lengthy siege of the castle by blockading all access roads and controlling the countryside, Henry Fitz Empress had once again rewritten the rules of combat, relying upon speed, surprise, and a sudden assault.
His army had appeared before the walls of Morlaix before his foes were even aware of their danger. No one knew that he’d penetrated this far into Brittany. The sleeping garrison had rolled out of their blankets before dawn to a waking nightmare, to find Henry’s troops breaching the walls of the town, encountering little resistance from the startled citizenry.