"I think I shall go out with Gwyll today, my lord, with your permission, of course. Soon it will be too cold to dig up the plants I need. I have managed to find quite a respectable stock of things with which to make my medicines." She had recognized his surprise, and sought to cover it over and make him comfortable again.

"Of course," he said. "Go with Gwyll." He cast a sidewise glance at her. God! She was so lovely. With a terrible sinking feeling Merin ap Owen realized that the impossible had happened. The heart he had firmly believed he did not possess had surfaced from deep inside of him. For the first time in his life, he was in love. He was in love with Eleanore de Montfort. How had it happened? Perhaps he should have done what Isleen had wanted to do when he brought his captive to Gwynfr. Perhaps he should have incarcerated her in his dungeons, where he would not have been exposed to her charm, her beauty, her wit, and her genuine goodness. But it was too late now. He was in love with the lady of Ashlin, and if he was to return her safely to her husband, he was going to have to be certain that Isleen never found out his secret.

Oh, God, he prayed silently for the first time in years, please help me! He wondered if God would hear the prayers of a man such as Merin ap Owen. For Eleanore de Montfort’s sake, he hoped He did.

Chapter 17

The weather in the Channel was foul, and had been for days. A hard cold wind blew from the north. The rain came in torrents, and the sea was all afroth, the waves crashing over the seawalls in Barfleur. The king, snugly housed, groused and grumbled with his impatience to begin his journey. He must be crowned soon. England had been without a king for over a month. Henry Plantagenet could only pray that there was peace there, no civil war. The line of succession, he kept reminding himself, was clear and undisputed, but, still, the English were a most unruly people.

Ranulf de Glandeville seethed with impatience, too. All he had wished was to complete his mission for the king, get the little prince to England, and then go home to Ashlin. It had been almost five months since he had seen his wife and child. Eleanore’s sweet face haunted his dreams, and he longed to tell her that he loved her. Soon. Soon. He could have howled with outrage when he learned his services to escort the little prince to England were not needed at all. He had been brought to Normandy on a fool’s errand.

Queen Alienor, heavy with her second child, had insisted she would not be parted from her little son. The court had moved almost immediately following the king’s campaign in the Vexin to Barfleur. The empress was to remain behind in Rouen to govern Normandy in her son’s absence. She had sided with her daughter-in-law. So the little prince would travel officially with his parents and his own household.

"I am overruled by my womenfolk," the king said by way of apology, with a wry smile, "but my mother points out, and wisely, too, that Alienor must not be upset this far along in her confinement. I cannot help but concur, and my Provençal rose will have her son by her side." He shrugged with apparent helplessness.

"Then, I am free to return home to Ashlin," Ranulf said.

"Nay, my good de Glandeville, I would have you attend our coronation," the king replied. "You will remain with the court and cross over to England with us. I am grateful for your loyalty, and would offer you this small reward."

Ranulf bowed. "I thank you, my liege, but serving you with fidelity is naught worthy of a reward."

"Nonetheless, you shall have it," the king said jovially.

He was dismissed, and he knew it. Ranulf bowed again, and moved back into the crowd of milling courtiers. He wanted to go home! He didn't want to travel with Henry Plantagenet’s great train from Normandy to England and see him coronated in Westminster. He wanted to go home! He had come here on Henry’s whim. His mission had come to nothing because of a woman’s whim. His reward was to watch these two high nobles crowned king and queen of England. He had wanted a castle, but he had done nothing to warrant such a reward, nor would his Simon ever serve a prince as companion. Ranulf de Glandeville faced the fact that he was not an important man, although for a few brief months he had dared to dream.


***

On the morning of December seventh, the weather cleared just slightly. The king ordered their immediate departure, despite the fact the harbor master warned the weather would turn foul again before the sunset, and they would be caught in midchannel.

"We go!"the king said, and personally oversaw the loading of the boats with his knights and horses. The queen and her serving women were the only females with the great train; but Alienor, used to hard travel having gone on the first crusade to Jerusalem when she was France’s queen, was not fazed at all. She jollied her frightened servants along, walking up the gangplank of her vessel with her small son at her side, holding his hand.

The skies were gray, and the winds were brisk as they made their way out of Barfleur harbor. The seas grew rougher, and then a fog set in separating the ships of the great fleet from one another. Ranulf, Garrick Taliferro, and their squires had taken passage aboard a small smack with one of the king’s chaplains. They had secured the horses and the mule, sheltering them from the waves as best as they could. Then they sat together as the captain and his two sailors sailed their vessel toward England. Night came, and the sound of trumpets echoing in the fog to indicate where the vessels were, was somehow comforting. They shared their wine, bread, cheese, and sausage. The priest was, afterward, lost in his prayers for their safety as the ship bounced and bounded across the choppy waters. Up, up, up went the bow of the boat, and Ranulf could hear the wind rushing past beneath it just before it crashed into the sea again. The two young squires fell into a fitful sleep, their nerves raw.

The two men could not make out one another in the darkness, and so Sir Garrick did not see the look on Ranulf’s face when he said, "Why were you really in Normandy, my friend?"

There was surely no need for secrecy now, he thought. So Ranulf told his companion the truth, admitting to his confusion when the plans changed not once, but twice. "It was a fool’s errand, but how could I refuse a king?"

"You couldn't," Garrick replied. "Men like Henry Plantagenet are not like the rest of us. It would never have occurred to him that he was badly inconveniencing you. And indeed he meant no harm. You know that I envy you, Ranulf? I envy your manor and wife and child. You will go home now, and not have to depend upon the vagaries of a king’s wishes in the future."

"But I will not get my castle."

"Your castle?" Garrick was puzzled.

"I hoped that in doing the king a great service, he would allow me to build a small keep at Ashlin. We are so close to the Welsh, and a little castle would help to better control the king’s borders."

"He'll eventually make some kind of arrangement with the Welsh princes," Garrick told his friend. "You may be certain of it."

"But a castle would reinforce that arrangement. I know I'm no great lord, but still I had hoped to better myself by doing this favor for the king. In the end it has come to nothing." Ranulf sighed. Then he asked, "Did you not tell me when the king was crowned, you would go home and find a wife? What is to prevent you from doing that, Garrick? You have land. Take a wife from among the merchant class, preferably one who has a rich father. There is no shame in that, my friend."

"I think I shall," Garrick Taliferro said. "I am growing weary of this single life. My mother is no longer a young woman. She would be happy for a daughter and grandchildren."

In the morning the fog finally lifted, and they found themselves just outside of Southampton harbor. Shortly after landing, they learned the king’s vessel had been sighted, coming aground just a few miles down the beach near New Forest. Taking their horses, the two knights hurried to find their master, their squires coming in their wake. Word that the king had ridden on the very back of the storm to reach England with his queen and his heir soon spread. The English were joyous.

The great fleet had been badly scattered in the storm, but no ships had been lost. The boats came ashore up and down the coast, debarking their inhabitants and their horses, all of whom met at the various crossroads from Southampton to Winchester, where the king was to go first to secure the royal treasury. Those men who had been King Stephen’s strongest adherents waited fearfully to see what would happen, but none dared to call for a rebellion against Henry Plantagenet, grandson of Henry I, and England’s soon-to-be anointed king.

Thibault, the Archbishop of Canterbury, had gathered together all the bishops of importance to await the king’s arrival in London. The coronation would take place in Westminster, although the great cathedral was in poor condition from long neglect. Still, it was the traditional crowning place of England’s kings, and on the Sunday before Christmas in 1154, Henry Plantagenet and Alienor of Aquitaine were crowned king and queen of England. He was twenty-one, and she thirty.

Afterward the king and queen rode through London, showing themselves to the people, magnificent in their coronation garb. The king’s white velvet tunic was embroidered with lions and lilies. He was young, handsome, healthy. His willingness to come to England despite the season and the hard crossing told his people that here was a man who would rule with vigor and enthusiasm. The beautiful queen was garbed also in white velvet, her gold and be-jeweled girdle glittering in the rare sunshine on this cold December day, her gold hair caught up in a golden and pearl caul, a bejeweled crown upon her head. She looked no older than her husband.

"Vivat rex!" cried the Normans.

"Waes hael!" shouted those English of Saxon descent.

The king and queen acknowledged the joyful greetings of their new subjects as they made their way through the city, and from there to Bermondsey, where they had taken up residence. The palace at Westminster, rebuilt on the original Saxon site by the king’s great-uncle, William Rufus, and made even more beautiful by his grandfather, Henry I, had, like the great cathedral, been despoiled and given over to neglect in the civil war between Stephen and Matilda. A feast was held that night, and bonfires blazed all over the city and surrounding countryside in celebration of the new king.

The following morning Ranulf took his leave of the court, along with his friend, Sir Garrick Taliferro. Together the two men rode for a time until finally Garrick turned onto the road west into Glouster and Ranulf headed northwest toward Ashlin. With luck, he would be home in time for Christmas. Home! His Eleanore! Their son!

"My lord! My lord!" Pax called shortly after Garrick had left them. "We must stop and rest the horses. They are sorely winded. I, too, am anxious to get home, but 'twill take far longer if the horses die under us, and we must walk."

Laughing at himself for his boyish impatience, Ranulf heeded his squire’s warning. They slowed their mounts to a walk and finally stopped at a small inn nearby to rest the night. The innkeeper’s wife fed them bread and stew. They slept with their animals, however, for the area was remote and poor. They could as easily awaken in the morning to find their beasts gone and Ranulf’s armor with them. The following day the lord of Ashlin manor kept a more reasonable pace. The weather, while cold, was at least dry. The next few nights they managed to find shelter at monastery guest houses, where there was at least some element of safety for them and their horses.

Finally on the afternoon of December twenty-fourth, they realized the landscape about them was familiar, and now they unconsciously hurried their horses. Coming over a hill, they saw Ashlin valley below them and the manor with its village just beyond its hill. Even the animals, sensing home, moved more quickly. Ranulf saw the sheep in the meadows and the cattle browsing in the pastures nearby. Relief swept over him. The Welsh had left them in peace despite their active raiding season of the summer past. He noted with pleasure that while the drawbridge was down, one side of the gates were firmly shut. His instructions had been followed to the letter.