Time and Chance

CHAPTER TWO

May 1157

St John’s Abbey

Colchester, England

Adame, wait!” The hospitaller hurried along the cloister walkway, hoping to intercept the queen before she reached her destination: the abbey chapter house. He did not have high expectations of success, but he had to try. A woman-even a highborn one-could not be allowed to wander at will in this hallowed sanctum of holy men. He was taken aback when Eleanor stopped abruptly, then swung around to face him.

“You wish to speak with me, Brother Clement?”

“Indeed, Madame, I… I wanted to show you our herb gardens.”

“That is kind of you, but I’ve already seen them.”

He could think of no other pretext, could only blurt out the truth. “My lady, forgive me for speaking so boldly, but you do not want to enter the chapter house just now. The lord king and our abbot and Archbishop Theobald are discussing a Church matter and… and so lovely a lady would be bound to be a distraction.”

His patronizing attempt at gallantry had Eleanor’s ladies, Barbe and Melisent, avoiding each other’s gaze lest they burst out laughing. No monk in Aquitaine would have dared to presume so, but this English monk clearly knew little of his young king’s consort. Grateful that they were to be present at his epiphany, they smiled at him with malicious mischief that he, in his innocence, took for coquetry.

His sudden blush made him look so young and vulnerable that Eleanor felt a glimmer of pity and chose not to prolong his ordeal. “Your ‘Church matter’ is, in actuality, a trial, Brother Clement. When the Bishop of Chichester sought to exercise jurisdiction over the abbey at Battle, the abbot balked, contending that the abbey was exempted from episcopal authority by royal charter. Eventually this dispute came before my lord husband, the king, and we expect the issue to be resolved today.”

The hospitaller was staring at her, mouth agape, and she wasted no more time in driving the stiletto home. “Now you may escort me to the chapter house,” she said in a tone that he recognized at once, for all that it was sheathed in silk: the voice of authority, absolute and indisputable.

Eleanor’s entrance put a temporary halt to the proceedings. The chamber was studded with stars of the Church: the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of Chichester, Hereford, and Winchester. Eleanor harbored genuine respect only for the venerable Theobald of Canterbury. York and Chichester she considered to be self-seekers, men whose ambitions were thoroughly secular in nature. She did not know Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of Hereford, well enough to assess, and the aged Bishop of Winchester she utterly mistrusted, for he was the brother of the usurping Stephen, damned both by blood and history.

Henry was seated in a high-backed chair, more formally attired than usual for this was Whitsuntide, one of the rare times when he wore his crown. He was flanked by lords of his court: his brother Will; his uncle Rainald, Earl of Cornwall; the Earls of Leicester and Salisbury; his justiciar, Richard de Lucy; and his chancellor, Thomas Becket. Sitting nearby was the other litigant, Walter de Lucy, who was both brother to Henry’s justiciar and abbot of St Martin’s at Battle, the abbey under episcopal siege. The abbot was looking so complacent that Eleanor assumed the tide must be going his way.

The churchmen were regarding her with poorly disguised disapproval. They were far more worldly than the abbey’s hapless hospitaller, though, and none raised any objections to her presence, however unseemly they considered it. As she glanced toward Thomas Becket, Eleanor thought she detected the faintest shadow of disfavor, but if so, it was swiftly gone. Coming toward her with the grave courtliness that was his hallmark, he escorted her to a front-row seat, and she conceded that his manners were impeccable even if he did come from the merchant class. He found a cushion for her bench, which she graciously accepted; she was in her fifth month of another pregnancy and inclined to take what comforts she could get. She looked over then at Henry, curious to see how he was responding to her intrusion. She doubted that he’d be troubled by her trampling upon tradition, and he justified her confidence; as their eyes met, a corner of his mouth curved slightly and he winked.

Abbot Walter had royal charters from the last three kings; if he had one from Stephen, too, he was wise enough not to mention it. Becket was passing them to the king for Henry’s inspection. As he did, the justiciar continued the argument Eleanor had interrupted: that the wishes of the abbey’s founder, King William of blessed memory, ought to be honored, and his wishes were clearly set forth in the charter.

Eleanor was not surprised to see the bishops frowning at that; even Theobald, a man so good-hearted that some saw him as saintly, was jealous of the Church’s prerogatives, ever vigilant for Crown encroachment into clerical domains. Emboldened by the support of his fellow prelates, the Bishop of Chichester launched a counterattack, insisting that to exempt the abbey from episcopal jurisdiction was to violate canon law.

“The ‘wishes’ of King William, may God assoil him, are therefore not relevant, much less dispositive. I daresay he did want to exempt his abbey, as contended by Abbot Walter’s brother, the justiciar.” Chichester paused, then, to make sure that none in the room missed his unspoken accusation: that the abbot was trading upon his connections with one of the king’s chief officers. “But not even a king’s wishes can always prevail. Would a king be able to amend canon law to meet his own needs? No more than he could depose one of his bishops!”

Henry leaned over to murmur something to Thomas Becket, too softly for other ears to hear. Becket grinned, and Henry then turned his gaze upon Chichester. “Very true,” he agreed amiably, “a bishop cannot be deposed. But he can be driven out.” He demonstrated by pantomiming a shove, and the chamber erupted into the indulgent laughter that a king’s humor could inevitably evoke, no matter how lame the sally.

Chichester was not about to be sidetracked by a jest he found dubious at best. “The spiritual power of the Holy Mother Church must not be diminished or debased by temporal authority. No layman, not even a king, can confer ecclesiastical liberties or exemptions without the consent of the Pope. Therefore, since the original act of King William in granting a charter was ultra vires, it must stand that the exemption, too, was invalid.”

Henry leaned back in his seat, studying the bishop through suddenly narrowed eyes. “This is a strange thing I am hearing, that the charters of past kings, charters confirmed by the full authority of the Crown of England, should be pronounced worthless and arbitrary by you, my lord bishop.”

He’d spoken so quietly that Chichester did not at once realize how badly he’d blundered. “I am not saying they are worthless, my liege, merely that they are immaterial in this particular case. St Peter conferred his power solely upon-”

“What you seem to be saying, my lord bishop, is that the Crown must always defer to the Church. Have you forgotten that a king exercises his authority by God’s Will?”

Chichester flushed darkly. “It was never my intent to offend your royal honor or dignity, my lord.”

“But you did offend, my lord bishop,” Becket pointed out coolly. “You knew that the royal charters supported Abbot Walter’s claim to exemption. You knew, too, that if the charters were accepted as valid, you would lose your case. And so you sought to circumvent the king’s authority by soliciting a papal bull. Instead of trusting to the judgment of the king, whose liegeman you are, you secured from the Holy Father a letter warning Abbot Walter to submit to your authority, upon pain of excommunication.”

Hilary of Chichester was a man both clever and learned. But he lacked the fortitude to stand fast in the face of Henry’s anger, fearing the loss of his king’s favor far more than he did the loss of his claim against Battle Abbey. He realized that Becket had succeeded in putting his papal appeal in the worst possible light, implying that he’d been both underhanded and disloyal, and he panicked. “That is not true! I did nothing of the sort!”

Becket blinked, as if surprised. “You deny that you appealed to Pope Adrian? How, then, do you explain this?” Holding up a parchment roll that seemed to have materialized in his hand as if by magic. “I have here the very letter that His Holiness wrote to Abbot Walter, at your behest!”

It had been so adroitly done that Eleanor, watching with a cynical smile, wondered if it had been rehearsed. She had rather enjoyed seeing Chichester so thoroughly discomfited. Even his fellow bishops were recoiling, Theobald because he was truly offended by perjury and Winchester because he deplored ineptitude. She did regret, though, that Thomas Becket had been the instrument of Chichester’s downfall, for she felt he was already too well entrenched in her husband’s favor. Eleanor was astute enough to recognize a potential rival in whatever the guise.

The trial was over. There had been no need to declare a verdict. Theobald had passed judgment with his sorrowful observation that the Bishop of Chichester’s words had been “ill advised and derogatory to the king’s royal dignity.” Faced with the need to appease both his archbishop and his sovereign, Chichester renounced any and all claims to authority over Battle Abbey, and he and Abbot Walter solemnly exchanged a ceremonial Kiss of Peace. Henry was usually a gracious winner, an unexpected virtue in a son of the Empress Maude and Count Geoffrey of Anjou, and all had been concluded with civility, at least on the surface.

Afterward, Henry and Eleanor and Becket stole a few moments of privacy in the abbot’s lodging, temporarily turned into a royal residence for their stay. Eleanor listened without comment as the two men rehashed the events of the morning, sounding inordinately pleased with themselves. She did not begrudge them their satisfaction, for they had shrewdly anticipated their adversary’s weakness, then made the most of it. That was, she knew, a quality of the best battle commanders, and she was glad that Henry had been blessed with such a keen strategic sense. Now that the Bishop of Chichester had been thwarted, her husband had another fight looming on the horizon. From Colchester, he was heading west, for his next foe was Welsh.

Ranulf Fitz Roy stood at the cliff’s edge, staring down into the abyss. The drop was not that great, for Rhaeadr Ewynnol was not one of the highest waterfalls in North Wales. But he felt at that moment as if a vast chasm was yawning at his feet.

He of all men ought not to have been surprised by how fast life could alter forever, in the blink of an eye or the fading of a heartbeat. Born a king’s son on the wrong side of the blanket, he’d come to manhood during those harrowing years when England was convulsed by a savage civil war. Ranulf had been forced to choose between his cousin Stephen and his half-sister Maude. He’d stayed loyal to his sister, but it had cost him the woman he loved.

They’d been plight-trothed, but when Ranulf balked at accepting Stephen’s coup, Annora’s father had disavowed the betrothal, wedding her to one of Stephen’s barons. Eventually the fortunes of war had reunited them, and they’d begun a high-risk adulterous affair. It had ended badly, inadvertently resulting in the death of Ranulf’s best friend, a consequence he’d never foreseen and could not bear. Fleeing his grieving and his guilt, he’d blundered into Wales and there he’d found unexpected refuge with his Welsh kin.

Until then, they had been strangers to him, as unknown as the cloud-kissed rough-hewn Eden they called Cymru and their enemies Wales. Ranulf’s mother, Angharad, had been Welsh, taken by the English king as spoils of war. She’d died in Ranulf’s eighth year, leaving him only a few shadowy memories and a vague curiosity about the land of her birth.

When fate finally brought him together with his mother’s Welsh family, he would not have blamed them had they shunned him, the spawn of an alien, conquering king. But they’d welcomed him as one of their own, nursing his ailing body and wounded soul back to health, giving him the courage to face down his ghosts, to learn to live with his regrets. Without realizing it, he’d fallen under the spell of this small, Celtic country his mother had so loved. In time, he took a Welsh bride, and made his home in the deeply wooded hills above the River Conwy.

Overhead, a kestrel stalked the skies in search of prey. Ranulf watched the hawk soar on the wind, higher and higher until it vanished from view. For seven years he had dwelled in his hard-won Welsh haven. His wife had given him a son, now in his sixth year, and a daughter, not yet two. He had been happy and he had been fool enough to think it would last.

Standing on the grassy bluff above the white waters of Rhaeadr Ewynnol, he gazed down into the rain-surged cauldron below and thought of Scriptures, the prophetic dream of Egypt’s pharaoh. Seven good years, years of plenty and peace, followed by seven lean years, years of sorrow. With the arrival of the king’s letter, Ranulf feared that he was about to pay a high price for those seven years of quiet contentment.

Ranulf did not return to Trefriw until the daylight had begun to fade. He would have delayed even longer if only he could, for he knew what awaited him. They spilled from the hall as he rode in, gathering about him in the twilight dusk: his Welsh family. Rhodri, his uncle, with whom he shared this hillside manor. Rhodri’s much younger second wife, the lovely, complacent Enid. Eleri, his lively sister-by-marriage, and Celyn, her husband. And in the doorway, Rhiannon, his cousin and wife.

As Ranulf dismounted, they assailed him with anxious questions, for they knew about the letter, knew what it portended. For months the winds of war had been blowing toward Wales. They’d long raked the bor derlands, but they were now about to sweep into the Welsh heartland, into the high mountain domains of the man known as Owain Gwynedd.

“Ranulf, where have you been? Papa says the English king has commanded you to fight against the Welsh!”

“No… he has merely summoned me to his encampment at Saltney.”

Eleri looked at him blankly. “Is that not what I just said?”

“No, it is not,” Ranulf insisted, without much conviction, for even to him, that sounded like a distinction without a difference. “I owe knight service to the Crown for my English manors, but Harry has not demanded that of me. He asks only that I come into Cheshire to talk.”

“Talk?” Rhodri echoed incredulously. “What is there to talk about? How much of Wales he means to gobble up?”

Celyn, towering over Eleri like a lofty oak, was as laconic and deliberate as she was impulsive and forthright, usually content to let her do the talking for them both. Now, though, he overcame his innate reticence long enough to offer a practical solution. “If Ranulf were to send word to the English king that he was ailing-”

“Christ’s pity, Celyn!” Rhodri glared at his son-in-law. “Why should Ranulf concoct excuses? He ought to refuse outright, letting the English king know that his loyalties are to Wales now!”

“I cannot do that, Uncle.” Ranulf’s despair was yielding to anger, for he resented being forced to declare himself out here in the bailey, before them all. This was not the way he’d meant to do it. He’d wanted to tell Rhiannon first. She was still standing, motionless, in the doorway, and he started toward her. But he’d taken only a few steps before his uncle exclaimed in horror:

“What are you saying, Ranulf? You cannot mean to obey that summons!”

“I must obey it. Harry is my nephew. But he is also my king.”

“So is Owain Gwynedd!”

“I do not need you to remind me of my loyalties, Eleri!”

“I think you do! You’ve not thought this through, Ranulf. Let’s say you go into Cheshire to meet with the English king. What then? Lest you forget, whilst you are visiting and catching up on family news, he is making ready to invade Wales. What will you do as he turns his army loose upon Gwynedd-wish him well?”

“Stay out of this, Eleri. I owe you no explanations, for this is none of your concern.”

“And what of me?” Rhodri demanded. “You are my son by marriage and my heir. I would not stand by and watch as you plunged off a cliff, nor will I keep silent now. You cannot do this, lad.”

Shifting awkwardly on his crutch, he limped toward Ranulf, dragging the leg broken and imperfectly set last year after he’d been trampled by a panicked, runaway horse. Pointing at his twisted limb, he said bitterly, “This crippled leg will keep me from riding to fight beside our lord king, Owain. But Celyn will answer his summons to arms. So will our neighbors, our friends. Do you want to face Celyn and your countrymen across a battlefield, Ranulf?”

Ranulf’s face contorted. “Christ Jesus, Rhodri, you know I do not!”

“Listen to your heart, then, lad,” the older man pleaded. “Tell the English king to rot in Hell as he deserves!”

“If you do not,” Eleri warned, “you will never be welcome again in my house, and I say that who has loved you like a brother. Tell him, Celyn.”

Celyn looked acutely unhappy, for he hated confrontations and was genuinely fond of Ranulf. But he did not hesitate. “If you do this,” he confirmed bleakly, “our door will be closed to you.”

“You hear them?” Rhodri grabbed for Ranulf’s arm. “If you back the English in this, Lord Owain might well cast you out of Gwynedd, and how could I blame him? You must-”

“Stop!” The cry was shrill, filled with such pain that they all fell silent.

The color had drained from Rhiannon’s face and her dark, sightless eyes were brimming with unshed tears. “Stop,” she entreated again, and when Ranulf called out her name, she followed the sound, moving swiftly toward him.

Rhiannon had been blind since childhood and had long ago memorized the boundaries of the only home she’d ever known. It often seemed to Ranulf as if she carried a mental map, so detailed that every stone, every tree root, found its reflection in her memory’s mirror. Now, though, she was too distraught to heed her interior landscape, and as Ranulf and the others watched, appalled, she headed straight for the well.

Shouting a warning, Ranulf lunged forward, but it was too late. Rhiannon hit the well’s stone wall with bruising impact, the windlass crank striking her on the temple, just above her eye. She reeled backward, blood streaming down her face.

Ranulf reached her first, with Rhodri a step behind. She had yet to utter a sound, but she was trembling visibly. She had a deep fear of falling, for she had more at risk than contusions or scratches. What to a sighted person would be a minor mishap was to Rhiannon a cruel reminder of her vulnerability, painful proof that her defenses were forever flawed.

Knowing that, Ranulf fought back the urge to sweep her up into his arms and carry her to safety. “You’re bleeding freely,” he said, “but head wounds usually do. Let’s go inside and tend to it.”

She nodded, fumbling for his arm. But when Rhodri and Eleri started to follow, she said, “No! I want only Ranulf.”

Bringing a laver of water to the bed, Ranulf sat beside his wife and sponged the blood from her face. She lay still, her lashes shadowing her cheek, her breathing soft and shallow. Putting the basin aside, he took her hand. “I did not mean for you to find out like this …”

“I knew,” she said. “As soon as you got the letter, I knew you’d go to him.” A tear squeezed through her lashes and she turned her face away so he’d not see. Her father and sister kept talking about Ranulf’s loyalty to the English king. She would to God it was that simple.

“He is my nephew, Rhiannon.”

She could have reminded him that he had Welsh kin, too. But what good would it do? He was bound to Henry Fitz Empress by more than blood, by more than love. Another tear escaped, trickling slowly down her cheek. Her husband was an honorable man and he’d long ago pledged his honor to the English Crown, first to his sister and now to her son. His heart might belong to Wales, but his soul would forever be England’s. She’d always known the time would come when the English king would claim his own.

Ranulf was silent. When he’d refused to forsake his sister, Annora had stormed and wept and threatened, warning that she’d never forgive him. Nor had she. She’d committed a grave sin for him, betraying her husband and risking the safe, comfortable life she’d thought she wanted, but she’d never understood why he could not accept Stephen’s stolen kingship, why he could not put her first. What could he say to make Rhiannon understand?

“If you ask me not to go, Rhiannon…”

She did not need to see his face. His voice was hoarse, hurting. He was offering her what he’d not offered Annora. Sitting up, she held out her arms. She could hear his heart thudding against her cheek, and she listened intently until it seemed as if there was no other sound in her world, just the rapid rhythm of her husband’s heartbeat.

“Ranulf!” the ebullient bellow rang out even above the considerable clamor of an army encampment. “Ranulf, over here!”

Ranulf recognized the voice at once; his brother could out-bay a pack of lymer hounds on the scent of prey. Turning, he saw Rainald Fitz Roy bearing down upon him. He’d put on weight since Ranulf had seen him last, a paunch and jowls testifying to the good living he was enjoying as Earl of Cornwall. Like Ranulf, he was one of Henry I’s many by-blows. Ranulf was the youngest but one of that misbegotten crop, and his elder brothers had all taken it upon themselves to look out for him, whether he’d liked it or not. He was thirty-eight now and his boyhood only a memory, but Rainald’s vision was clouded by nostalgia and he still saw Ranulf as the little brother, in need of older and wiser guidance, preferably his.

“I’m right glad to see you, lad. Not that I ever doubted you. It was the others who did. I wagered Fitz Alan and Clifford ten marks each that you’d come. Let’s go find them so I can collect my winnings and do a bit of gloating!”

Ranulf was not surprised that William Fitz Alan and Walter Clifford would wager against him. They were Marcher lords, men of Norman-French stock whose wealth was rooted in Wales, founded upon conquest. They often intermarried with the Welsh, so neither Ranulf’s Welsh wife nor his Welsh blood made him suspect in their eyes. It was that he did not share the cornerstone of Marcher faith-their belief that the Welsh were a primitive people in need of the civilizing influence of their superior culture.

“Who else is here besides the Marcher lords?”

Rainald cursed good-naturedly when a soldier lurched clumsily into their path. “Who else? Becket, of course, for wherever you find Harry these days, you’ll find our chancellor; a dog should be so faithful. Harry’s brother, the likable one, not Geoff. A few earls: Leicester and Salisbury and Hertford.” As an afterthought, he added, “And our nephew Will.

“The Welsh are here, too,” Rainald continued, “so that ought to ease your conscience somewhat. Owain Gwynedd’s own brother will be fighting against him.”

“It is hardly surprising to find Cadwaladr in the English ranks. In the five years since Owain chased him out of Gwynedd, he has done whatever he could to kindle a border war. For the chance to avenge himself upon Owain, he’d have made a pact with the Devil himself, or in this case, the King of England.”

Hearing his own words then, Ranulf smiled bleakly, knowing full well that his Welsh kin would say he, too, was making a Devil’s deal with the English king.

The English King was not in his encampment at Saltney, having ridden over to inspect the defenses of Shotwick Castle. As it was only six miles away, it was not long before Ranulf saw in the distance the sun-glazed sheen of the Dee estuary. He found the young king on the castle battlements. Shouting down a cheerful greeting, Henry beckoned him up, and they were soon standing side by side, elbows resting upon the embrasure, looking out across the estuary.

They’d not seen each other since Henry’s coronation more than two years ago. They had much to share in consequence, and for a while, they were able to ignore the awkward fact that an English army was encamped just six miles to the south.

Henry had surprising news about his black sheep brother. He’d contrived to have the citizens of Nantes accept Geoffrey as their count. Buying Geoff’s cooperation was a gamble, he acknowledged wryly. “But Geoff is too boneheaded to scare and too highborn to hang. If I were Almighty God, I’d have decreed that all kings be only children.”

“If I were Almighty God,” Ranulf countered, “I’d have adopted the Welsh law code and allowed bastards to inherit.” He hesitated, then, not wanting to open an old wound. But would the wound left by a child’s death ever truly heal? “I was very sorry about your son,” he said, sounding as awkward as he felt.

“I know.” Henry’s tone was terse, almost curt, but Ranulf understood. They were silent for several moments, listening to the waves surging against the rocks below them. Down on the beach, gulls were shrieking, squabbling over a stolen fish. The sun was warm on their faces and Ranulf lamented that cloudless, summer sky. Welsh weather was usually as wet as it was unpredictable; more than one English army had been defeated by those relentless rains and gusting mountain winds. It was just Harry’s luck, he thought, to pick the driest, warmest August within memory for his invasion. Did even the weather do his bidding?

“I suppose you have not heard, then,” Henry said at last. “Eleanor is with child, the babe due in September.”

“Again?” Ranulf marveled. Four children in five years. Not bad for a “barren” queen. “Congratulations, although you truly are pouring salt into poor Louis’s wounds!”

Henry swung away from the battlements with a grin. “As hard as it may be for you to believe, Uncle, when I’m in bed with my wife, I have nary a thought to spare for the French king.”

Henry waited until echoes of their laughter had floated away on the wind. “I think it is time,” he said, “to talk of less pleasant matters. I know you do not want to be here, Uncle. I knew you would come, though, and it gladdens me greatly.”

“I wish I could say the same.”

“It is not as bad as you think, Ranulf. I want your counsel, not your sword. What I have in mind is not conquest. I know full well what it would take to subdue the Welsh: more than I’m willing to spend, in lives or money. I mean to remind Owain of the respective realities of our positions, preferably with as little bloodshed as possible. No more than that.”

“You truly do not intend to claim Gwynedd for the English Crown?”

Ranulf sounded so dubious that Henry laughed. “You doubt me? You ought to know by now that I do my lusting in the bedchamber, not on the battlefield.”

Ranulf did know that. His nephew had never lacked for courage, but his early introduction to war had left him with a jaundiced view of combat. He fought when he had to, and fought well, yet took no pleasure in it. Unlike most men of youth and high birth, Henry saw no glory in war and drank sober from the cup that sent so many into battle drunk on illusions. Remembering that now, Ranulf felt a flicker of hope.

“So why, then, are you leading an army into Gwynedd?”

Henry raised a mocking brow. “Since when are you so disingenuous? You may not want me here, but you know why I am here. Owain Gwynedd poses a serious threat to the English Crown. He is an able, ambitious man and if I turned a blind eye to his scheming for long, Cheshire and Shropshire would soon be speaking Welsh.”

“You exaggerate, Harry.”

“A king’s prerogative, Uncle. But I do not exaggerate by much.

Owain has proved himself to be much too adroit at exploiting English weaknesses. Look what happened during the chaos of Stephen’s reign. He seized control of the entire cantref of Tegeingl. Need I remind you how close that is to Chester? Or that the present Earl of Chester is a ten-year-old boy? Moreover, Owain has been casting out bait toward the Marcher lords, and some of them are greedy enough to snap it up, hook and all. After all, loyalty has never been a conspicuous Marcher virtue.”

When Ranulf did not respond, Henry correctly interpreted his silence as reluctant assent. “You know I speak true, Uncle, however little you want to admit it. But I do not begrudge your affection for the Welsh.” He glanced sideways at the older man, grey eyes glinting in the sun. “I never said, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me,’ now did I?”

Ranulf smiled. “You’re your father’s son, for certes, lad. That perverse humor of yours most surely does not come from my sister, God love her! So… why am I here, then? What do you want from me?”

“I am hoping that a show of force will be enough to tame Owain’s rebellious urges. If so, I’ll need you to negotiate peace terms. Right now I want the benefit of your seven years in Wales. You know the man, Ranulf. Tell me about him. What sort of foe-or friend-is he?”

Ranulf leaned back against the wall, shading his eyes from the glare of sun on water. “I respect him,” he said, doling out the words with miserly precision. “And there are few men I’d say that about.”

“Dare I ask if you include me in that small, select group? No.. better you do not answer,” Henry joked. “So you respect him. Why?”

“On your side of the border, the Welsh are viewed as a rash, passionate people. Whether that be true or not, Owain is neither. He is as shrewd as any fox, farsighted and pragmatic, deliberate in all that he does. He keeps his temper in check, his enemies close, and his thoughts to himself. He forgives, but I doubt that he forgets. Above all, he understands what Stephen never did-that he must put the king’s needs above the man’s.”

“He sounds like a man worthy of your respect,” Henry conceded. “A pity he is not more like his brother. Cadwaladr is a ship without a rudder; no one ever knows where the winds or his whims will take him. Owain is much the older of the two, is he not?”

“I think there are about ten years between them, mayhap a few years less. I know Owain’s next birthday is his fifty-seventh, for he was born in God’s Year 1100. But he is aging like an oak, stunting the sons growing in that vast shadow. He has nigh on a dozen, some by his wife, several by his current concubine, the rest by other bedmates, including the best of the lot, Hywel, whom I count as a friend. I would not want to encounter Hywel on a battlefield, Harry.”

Ranulf said it smiling, but Henry caught the undertone. “I hope you will not, Uncle. Truly I do.”

“But no promises?”

“No,” Henry said slowly. “No promises. Mine would not be worth much on its own. You’d need one, too, from Owain Gwynedd.”

“Yes,” Ranulf agreed, “I suppose I would.” And after that, they stood without talking for a time, gazing toward the west, toward Wales.