"It did not prevent me from thinking you were the loveliest maid I had ever seen," he said honestly. "I thought it sad that one so fair should spend the rest of her days a virgin."

"I thought my fate no hardship," Elf told him, equally candid.

He bent his chestnut brown head close to hers, and said low, "There will come a night, Eleanore, when I shall make love to you. Only then will you understand that I was right. You were not meant for the convent. You were meant for my bed and my heart." He kissed her palm.

She arose, wondering if anyone noticed the heat in her cheeks. "Come, Ranulf, and let me bathe you." Her fingers wrapped about his, and she led him from the hall into the solar where the bath awaited them, the great tub steaming with the heat of the water that filled it.

Ida awaited them, an apron about her stout figure. "Come, lord," she beckoned him. "Sit down, and I will have your boots. The mistress has undoubtedly explained to you that I will instruct her in the art of bathing, as it was not something taught her at her convent." She pulled his boots from his feet with an expert twist, then quickly rolled down his chausses.

He stood, and Ida took his tunic, and his two undertunics, his drawers. He stood in his knee-length chemise, which was cut to his waist on either side of the garment. He looked searchingly at the old woman.

She nodded her understanding and turned to Willa, handing her the garments already removed. "Here, girl, see the lord’s boots are cleaned, his tunic’s brushed, and his chausses and drawers washed and dried for the morning. You're much too young for such a fine sight yet," she cackled wickedly. "Go along, now! Lady, please take your husband’s chemise, and lay it aside. Then we will take up our brushes," Ida instructed Elf. She whisked the chemise from her master, handing it to Elf while Ranulf descended into the tub quickly so that his wife got no more than a glimpse of his bare buttocks.

"Hellfire! 'Tis hot," he yelped as his naked body made contact with the water. "Do you mean to boil me, then, old woman?"

"The lady must have her bath after you," Ida explained. "If the water is not hot to begin with, it will be cold when she enters it. Besides, men have tougher hides than we women. Come, lady, and take up your brush. The jar with the soap is there."

He stood in the water while the two women plied their brushes, and scrubbed him clean. Elf delicately averted her eyes as he stepped upon a stool within the tub so he might lift a leg up for washing. He smiled at Ida. There would come a time when Elf would not be shy of him, and indeed, the tub was big enough for two. He longed for the day when they would bathe together, and in doing so aroused himself to an upstanding state. The old lady chuckled conspiratorily at him, her eyes dancing with mirth. Gritting his teeth, Ranulf thought of his last jousting tournament before King Stephen, who had brought the sport to England despite the objections of the clergy. In remembering, his shoulder began to ache where he had been bruised by his opponent-and his immediate purpose was served: his lust was defused.

"Lady," Ida said, "wash your husband’s hair, being certain to pick out the nits first."

"I have no lice," he said indignantly. "I keep myself clean, old woman."

Ida ruffled her stubby fingers through his head, pushing the hair aside here and there. Finally she said, "He does not lie, lady."

Elf giggled. Looking at her, Ranulf laughed, too. "The king need not have bothered to send me to Ashlin, Eleanore," he said. "You already have a dragon to guard it."

"If he hadn't sent you," Ida snapped quickly, "this fair maid would have pledged herself to God. We are all lucky, but especially you, my lord."

Smiling, Elf lathered his hair with the thick soap, scrubbing it clean-for this was something she had done with the younger girls at the convent to help Sister Cuthbert-and then ducked his head beneath the water to rinse it. "You're done," she told him.

"Hold up his toweling, lady, and wrap him in it," Ida instructed as Ranulf arose up from the tub. "That’s right, now sit him by the fire, and dry him off while I get him a clean chemise. Then it is into bed with you, my lord, before you catch an ague!"

Shyly, Elf knelt and dried her husband’s legs and feet. Standing, she dried his back, his arms, his shoulders, his chest, his torso. He was such a big man; his muscled body scarred here and there.

"I'll do the hard part," he murmured to her, and she smiled up at him gratefully as he stood up and walked toward the bedchamber, where Ida was fetching the chemise for him. A moment later the old lady bustled out.

"You did well, lady," she said. "Now, let me help you."

Elf undressed slowly, handing Ida her garments until she wore nothing but her chemise. Boldly she pulled it off, pinning her braid up, and climbed into the tub. The water came up to her neck and shoulders. She sighed with pleasure, for it was still quite warm. After a few minutes of pure bliss, Ida broke into her reverie, telling her to stand upon the bath stool, and handing her a washing cloth and the soap.

"What of your hair?" her nursemaid asked when she saw Elf had finished washing herself.

"It was washed before my wedding," Elf said. "It will do for a few more days, Ida. Besides, it is late, and I cannot go to bed with long wet hair, can I?"

The old woman let out a rough laugh. "If I were wife to that big, warm-eyed man, I should want to hurry to my bed, too. Heh! Heh!"

"Fetch me a clean chemise," Elf said, feeling the heat come into her face with Ida’s ribald remark.

"What? You would sleep in a chemise next to that fine husband?" She sighed. "Well, I suppose it will take awhile to breed that convent prudery out of you, lady." She shuffled off into the bedchamber to fetch the requested garment. By the time she returned, Elf had exited the tub and was drying herself vigorously, for the air in the solar was cold after the warmth of the water in the tub.

Elf slipped her chemise on. "God give you a good rest, Ida," she told her old servant. "Tell Willa she may sleep here with you." Then she went into the bedchamber, closing the door behind her. Seating herself on the stool by the fire, Elf unpinned her hair and undid her thick plait. She took up the boar’s bristle brush Ida had placed upon the little table, and then his hand closed over hers.

"Let me," Ranulf said.

"I thought you asleep," Elf said softly.

"I was just keeping warm in the bed waiting for you," he said. Then he drew the brush through her long hair over and over and over again until the thick tresses were free of tangles and as smooth as a length of Byzantine silk. His hand followed each sweep of the brush into a rhythmic movement that she found very relaxing. "Your hair is so beautiful," he said. "You are beautiful, petite."

Turning slightly, she moved to take the brush from him. Their lips were so very close, and Elf’s heart beat a wild tattoo. For a moment their eyes locked, and she thought in that moment that she would melt, for the heat of his gaze was that strong. Then her fingers closed about the pear-wood handle of the brush, and she took it from him, looking away as she did so. "I must braid my hair now," she said low.

"Yes," he said, standing up. Outside the sounds of the serfs struggling to empty the tub and return it to its place could be heard. "I have had a thought," Ranulf began. "What if we cut a drain into the stone of the solar floor, and installed a spigot at the bottom of the tub? The tub can be placed, when in use, with its spigot over the drain, effortlessly emptied, and easily restored to its storage place."

"That’s a wonderful idea!" Elf said. She had finished restoring her hair to an orderly state. "How clever you are, Ranulf!" Going to her side of the bed, she knelt down. To her delight he joined her on his side of the bed, and together they said their prayers. Then they climbed into bed.

Immediately he took her hand in his, but tonight she was neither fearful nor afraid of him. She was beginning to believe that perhaps the abbess had been correct when she said God’s plans for Eleanore de Montfort had changed. It was obvious that God had sent her a good man and she must do her best to be a good wife to him. "I know nothing about you, Ranulf," she said to him, "while you know all there is to know of me. Will you tell me of yourself?"

"There is little to tell," he said. "My father, Simon de Glandeville, had lands in Normandy. He was killed in the Holy Land. My mother sent me to King Henry’s court to be raised. Then she remarried. My lands in Normandy were somehow absorbed into my stepfather’s holdings. When I was old enough to understand what had happened, I went to Normandy with the intent of reclaiming what was mine. I was sixteen at the time. My stepfather claimed that my mother’s marriage to my father had not been a legal union. As there were no other male heirs among the de Glandevilles, the lands dissolved upon my mother, and then to him upon their marriage. I had no power to refute his claim."

"But what did your mother say?" Elf wanted to know. "By saying such a thing, he defamed her character and that of her family."

"My mother had been the only child of elderly parents who were now dead. She had no one to defend her, and begged me to keep silent. Her husband, she promised, had sworn to keep her shame and my ill-born status a secret if I would simply accept what had happened. None of it was true, of course.

"My maternal grandmother had been alive before I was sent to King Henry’s court at the age of seven. My mother’s family was an ancient one, but poor. My father had been honored to have my mother as his wife. He took her without a dower just for her name, my grandmother always told me with pride. Our neighbors, the church, all treated my parents with great respect. This would not have happened had my mother been only my father’s leman and I born on the wrong side of the blanket. As a child my father had carried me on his saddle, introducing me to his villagers as le petit monseigneur, the little lord. They would always cheer. I was just five, and it was before my father departed for the Holy Land, but I remember it well.

"Still, I was only sixteen, and newly knighted by the king. I had neither wealth nor power with which to challenge my mother’s husband. If I allowed him to destroy my good name, I should have had nothing. What little I had would have been stripped from me, Eleanore. I told my mother that I should leave her in peace, but that I would pray for her. I thanked her husband for his generosity in protecting my mother’s reputation and my good name. He blustered and blew of how much he loved her, that she had been a good wife, that she had given him heirs, that she was deserving of his generosity. I had been raised well by King Henry’s court, he pompously told me, and, should anyone ever ask, he would be proud to call me his stepson.

"It was all I could do not to slay him where he stood, but I did not. I departed Normandy, returned to England, and pledged myself to the king’s service. I did tell King Henry the truth of my adventure. He complimented me on my wisdom, and advised me to make my home in England. When he died, and the quarrel between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda erupted, I did what any knight in my position would do. I chose a side, and I stuck with it. Men of power have, of course, changed sides in this dispute as frequently as the wind has changed directions, but knights like me cannot afford to do so unless the odds are so overwhelming that to stay with one’s choice would be foolish."

"I do not think you foolish," Elf said. "I think you are quickwitted and resourceful, Ranulf. You did the right thing to protect your mother from a husband who would steal from her child, and then threaten to destroy both her good name and his to keep the ill-gotten gains. He must be a very wicked man, for your mother is the mother of his own heirs, and her shame would reflect on them as well."

"Greed, my innocent little wife, does not know shame," he told her. "Your brother’s wife was surely proof of that. Our people have little good to say of her. Fulk tells me before her cousin arrived, she would often flirt with the men-at-arms. The king was right to order her put away where she can do no harm."

"I do not see Isleen going meekly into the confinement of a convent for the rest of her life," Elf said. "But let us not speak of her, Ranulf. It pains me to think she poisoned my poor brother. He was a good and gentle man."