Chapter Three

William watched the party approach, listened to the joyous shouts of welcome, and reflexively – almost superstitiously – reminded himself that everyone used everyone. In the face of this happy spectacle, he seemed to need the reminder. It was an unavoidable truth, one that had played out before his eyes time and time again: each connection was an alliance to be exploited, and all affection came with a price. A vital fact of life, and perilous to forget.

But when he saw his sister with the guardsmen of Ruardean, he doubted it. He doubted it so deeply that he knew it would disturb him for days to come.

The men greeted her warmly, gathering around her before her mount had even passed the gatehouse. Only Vincent, the captain, reached up to clasp hands with her. The others stood near with hope in their eyes as she called out to some by name, in English or Welsh, her eyes moving by instinct to scan the ramparts and note who stood guard there. The youngest ones did not know her, because she had not come to Ruardean for many years, but they stood taller at the sight of her. Even they wanted her good opinion, though she was not their lady.

For years, she had led these men. Long before she married, she had secretly been one of them. The warmth that still lived between her and them was not a transaction; no favors were exchanged or expected. It was simply love, a camaraderie uncomplicated by ambition.

Everyone used everyone, it was true. Yet there was room in the world for this too.

When she passed under the portcullis and emerged into the forecourt where William waited, he smiled at the sight of the flower petals that clung to her. He smiled even more at how she brushed them off and gathered them up, a disapproving frown on her face. So predictable.

"Do not chide me, sister," he called. "I have said not a petal is to be wasted. Look you how they collect each one."

He gestured to the women who had been tasked with retrieving the blooms that had been tossed in a shower over the arriving party. But Gwenllian was already off her horse, coming toward him with her hands full of flowers. He had a moment to be glad of the wide smile on her face, so seldom seen, and then her arms went around him.

"Will." Her voice was at his ear without effort, because she was the rare woman who matched his height – and his strength, he was reminded as she embraced him tightly.

"Welcome home." He pressed a kiss into her cheek to stop her from saying it was not her home anymore. Happy cries and cheerful laughter rang through the forecourt. "See the joy that greets you."

She squeezed him a little tighter for a moment before pulling back to look in his face. "Verily, it is no welcome for me to see a waste of good marigolds." The smile was still there and she did not let go of him, but there was an exasperated scold in her voice. "They will be trampled and covered in dust, only because you must have a moment of color."

"Wash them and make them into a poultice, then, and not an infusion. And rest easy in knowing it is little more than a handful, I made sure of it." His sister hated to see waste of anything that might be used as a cure, but he had not been able to resist. He was too glad to see her here, no matter how briefly. "And who else but you will the people of Ruardean wish to shower in gold?"

She gave a good-natured scoff before putting up a hand to tousle his hair roughly. It was as tender a gesture as she ever made.

A quick glance around reassured him that all was in place – the servants tending to the horses, the people smiling, the buildings and the land well cared for. His sister loved Ruardean. Had she been born a man, it would be hers. If she could not have it, then the least he must do is keep it as well as she would.

As she pulled from his embrace he at last saw her son, Henry, bending a knee to Lady Margaret. She actually seemed graceful next to the boy, with his awkwardly long limbs and too-serious face. They were both so somber that Will wondered if there would be even less merriment in this household, now that the boy was come to stay. As though to confirm it, Lady Margaret turned an earnest face to Gwenllian.

"I have prayed these many days for your safe journey," she began, in the fervent yet somehow meek tone she employed for such declarations. "Praise God from whom all blessing come that you are both arrived in good health. We will have a mass to give Him thanks–"

"We will have Father Benedict say a blessing," corrected Will firmly. "And waste no time in going to the hall where refreshment awaits." He looked to his nephew. "Young Henry will be fair starved."

"Uncle." Henry nodded to him in greeting, and then launched into a grave description of the road and their journey. It was so different than when they had last seen each other and he had flung himself into Will's embrace with boyish enthusiasm. He had grown so much that it was almost painful to see the change. The years had slipped away somehow.

The thought gave him an unexpected moment of melancholy amidst the cheerful greetings. But then his gaze wandered back to his wife, and the little sadness was lost in a stab of anger. She was praying. She did it in that restrained and almost (but not quite) hidden way: lips moving silently, head lowered, fingers on the beads that perpetually hung from her belt. And all the while, she ignored their guests. This was the consequence of his thwarting her extended prayers of thanks.

"Come," he said quickly to his sister and her son, gesturing them towards the keep, hoping to distract them from this display. "All has been readied, and you may wash the dust of the journey away before you come to the hall. But do not delay, or Master Edmund will try to climb the stairs in search of you, and his old bones will not long bear such abuse."

He let them walk ahead and watched as they greeted other members of the household. Servants began to unload baggage. Horses were being led to the stables. All were occupied, paying little heed to where he stood beside his tiresome wife. He stepped close to her and spoke low.

"You will keep your prayers in the chapel." He felt her stiffen, but did not soften his tone. "My sister has little patience for it, and I have even less. Do you understand?"

She did not show any fear. She never did. She only looked pained, and a little defiant in spite of it. He perversely liked the defiance, even though it only ever appeared when she was objecting to his lack of piety. Now she clenched her teeth as though to stop herself from challenging him, the small muscle at the corner of her jaw tensing briefly. It was almost imperceptible, but he had learned to look for it.

"As my lord commands," she said, in the timorous manner that turned his stomach.

Her hands fell away from the beads as she turned her face down further, obedient and demure. But he caught the faint wave of contempt that came from her. There was no mistaking it, no matter how she might try to disguise it. It might trouble him if it were not entirely mutual.

"What think you?"

He asked it with only a fraction of the true care that lived behind the question. It mattered to him, what Gwenllian thought of his plans. He could feel his own hope vibrating in the air between them – a grievous mistake with anyone else, but his sister could be trusted.

She was studying the crude map he had created on the floor of the solar. The household slept now, after a day spent feasting and dancing to welcome her son properly, but Gwenllian had said she was not weary. He had taken the opportunity to bring her here to the solar where they had thrown cushions on the floor to represent mountains, a chess board to represent Jerusalem, his own boot the Apennine peninsula.

"I cannot like any plan that depends so much on a man I have not met." Her eyes were on the jeweled book he had put in the place where Persia would be. "Nor is it the first time the Mongols have been called on to join a crusade. Ever do they disappoint."

"They have a new leader. And this time, all will be in my charge. That matters not, let such details be my concern."

Her gazed fixed on his hand where it waved away her concerns. A tiny upward curl of her mouth appeared. "You sound like our mother."

He did not ask if that was a good or a bad thing. Likely it was both. He reached down to pick up the jug of mead that was playing the part of England. He poured more into her cup and said, "The plan of attack, Gwenllian. Do you think it sound?"

She cast her eyes over the objects on the floor, considering. For reasons known only to their mother, Gwenllian had been schooled in military tactics as well as any knight would be. She had as much talent for it as she had for physicking, though she had far more use for herbs and cures than she had for battle plans. He watched her struggle to set aside her natural inclination to consider the individual men who would fight, and turn her mind instead to the broader view.

"Aye it is sound. In this room, it is sound. But you do not wage battle in this chamber, Will." She took a swallow of the mead. "Do you take the cross yourself, and march to the holy land?"

He shrugged. "I have no wish to go."

His sister's eyes turned up to him now, large and gray like his own, and caught him in that look she had. It was solemn and piercing, a look that seemed to see inside him, past simple evasions. "You do not wish it," she said. "But will you?"

There was no choice but to be truthful, when she looked at him that way.

"If I must."

She only nodded before turning to look at the map again, the weight of her worries a new and silent companion that stood between them.

Their father had gone on crusade and not returned – not because he died in glorious battle, but because he had insisted that God commanded him to stay. For nearly fifteen years, long after his fellow crusaders had returned home, Lord Walter of Ruardean lived a devout life in Acre. In England there were whispers that he had gone mad. From afar, he had commanded that his young daughter be married and his even younger son sent to foster in the household of the king's brother. For years – nearly all of Will's life – their mother had ruled Ruardean while their father neglected all his duties and attended only to his prayers and his visions, until he had died alone in a far-off land.

And now his sister worried he would follow that path, abandon Ruardean for some dream of a re-captured Jerusalem.

I am not my father , he wanted to say. But he did not. Because they never spoke of their father.

"Even do I not journey fully to Cyprus, I will cross France." His foot nudged between the cushions that were heaped together at the top of the boot. "It is only through me that we will be given access to the mountain pass."

The chosen way through the Alps was controlled by a powerful lord who notoriously denied passage to any traveler who could not pay extortionate amounts. Exceptions were only made for family. Fortunately, this mountain lord had an English niece, and she was presently embarking on her second hour of nightly prayer in the chapel of Ruardean.

"You have gambled much on this venture," said Gwenllian, who did not favor risk-taking. "I hope your marriage gained you more than a route through the mountains."

"So too did it gain me a king's favor," he reminded her. "And Bohun's thanks, to say nothing of how Quincey is now wary of me, and de Vere now thinks himself safe, and Mortimer was thwarted in his plans to – ah!"

Her fist had struck him on the shoulder to stop his litany. Court intrigue exasperated her – his pride in it was no more to her liking – and she would not be so easily distracted from the heart of her question. "Tell me true, Will. Was it only for this that you married her, a game to gain a moment's advantage?"

" Only advantage? What else is marriage for, Gwenllian?" He laughed at his so predictably principled sister, but it was met with a telling silence. Her judgment pressed on him like a humid air, caused his laughter to die and his tongue to let slip a truth. Only to her could he admit it. "For Gruffydd, too," he said. "To spare him some of the king's wrath."

She did not answer this, but he immediately felt the warmth of her approval. Political maneuverings were nothing in her estimation, but to stand at a friend's side in his hour of need – that was something of value. And though there were other benefits to marrying Lady Margaret, none were so tempting that he would even have suggested it, if not for the aid it gave his friend.

"Never tell Gryff I said so." Will returned the cushions to the chairs by the fire and sat. "He will feel indebted, and it is no great sacrifice."

"No great sacrifice!" his sister scoffed as she lowered herself into the chair opposite him. "You need not pretend to me. Nor do I know how you can stomach her neverending prayers."

This was the mark their father had left upon her, the disgust for overt and excessive piety. Gwenllian hated it with a passion. She was older, and had memories that Will did not.

"I have made a practice of avoiding her," said Will, whose own aversion to religious fervor was not as strong as his aversion to meekness. Lady Margaret's lack of spirit was far more off-putting, though her incessant prayers did nothing to endear her to him. "But tell me the truth of it now, sister – why have you brought your son here to squire, when you should wish to keep him far from her influence?"

"There will be your influence as well," she answered, faintly defensive, and then cast a brooding look down at her half-empty cup. "Very nearly did he threaten to give himself to the Church, and it was only when I said he might come here and study under Master Edmund that he was satisfied. My lord husband says we may hope Henry sees the example your wife sets, and be fearful of becoming like her."

Will wished he could make light of it, but it was far too serious a matter. Young Henry was the heir to Morency and no matter how much the boy preferred more scholarly pursuits, giving himself to the Church was out of the question.

He looked at his sister as she frowned into her cup. She too had been a serious girl, devoted to her studies, but would have brawled with anyone who threatened to send her to an abbey.

"Do you regret he has not your nature, or your husband's?"

She shook her head immediately, but considered long before she answered. "I tell you true, Will, I want for him as I wanted for you: to learn much, and rule well, in whatever manner befits him."

"Whatever manner befits him – but I should take care that this manner is not a monkish one."

He loved her dearly, but he could never resist finding fault in her reasoning. Her eyes narrowed at him, but her reply was restrained enough.

"Nay, I only ask that you are watchful while my son is in your care." There was a long silence after this, in which she looked him over thoughtfully. After a swallow of her drink, she neatly changed the subject in her usual, direct way. "Wherefore do you shun the king's court for so long?"

He should have expected she would ask it. Others would read into his movements and assume what he wanted them to assume, if he had calculated well. They would see he retreated to Ruardean and never ask why, because they thought they knew – each of them with a different conclusion, one that he himself had planted and cultivated for months.

But Gwenllian saw the strangeness in it, and merely asked. He had no ready manipulation or deflection. Which was well enough, they would not work on her in any case. He drank a little more deeply, to make it easier to speak of.

"I have been too much absent from Ruardean," he said simply, careful not to let the guilt show, no invitation to her judgment. "I would not neglect my duty."

"To the Welsh?"

The warmth of the drink was spreading through him, pulling down his guard, letting him smile. "That is ever your concern. Nay, all is well in the Welshry." His wife never tired of looking to the needs of the poor and downtrodden Welsh. She was not entirely useless. "But there are knight's fees to tenant, and the honour court to attend…and I must get an heir. I have left it late."

After a moment during which she only silently looked into the fire, the beginnings of a smile crept across her face. "More than one, Will. And if it can be done, let them be children together for a time – not separated by years and distance, as we were."

Even if his children were separated by years, he would never have them raised in separate households for so long, as had been the way with Gwenllian and himself. But that was not his first concern.

"I will count it a little miracle to get but one child on her."

Her brows raised. "A miracle?"

"Only consider. In six years there has been no hope of a child. I have consulted with Master Edmund."

"And he has given you cause to doubt?"

Will shook his head. This was his sister's realm; she had studied with Master Edmund herself. The old man still spoke of what an excellent student she had been, so full of curiosity and natural talent. But now Will remembered that the two had not always agreed, that even now they often debated cures in their letters to each other.

"Nay, not yet. He advises me to bed her more frequently, and says that she cannot conceive without pleasure."

At this, Gwenllian's lips pinched together in a way that told him she held back a tart retort. "It is witless to think conception requires pleasure. You know this is poor reasoning, do you not?"

There was expectancy in her tone, a teacher chiding a lazy student, disappointed that he merely repeated what he heard. It was so like her, and it amused him even as it irritated him. His sister had never been afflicted with meekness, that was sure.

"Aye, it is witless," he dutifully replied, "Because too often are children got through force, which has naught to do with a woman's pleasure."

She nodded, satisfied. "And so dishonorable men do claim innocence of rape, for if a woman bears a child they say she must have taken pleasure in it. It is flawed logic and a vile philosophy. I have said so many times to Master Edmund and he has agreed. In faith, I worry his mind grows feeble with age."

"Or his wits are sharper than you imagine," countered Will with a laugh, a realization striking him. "It will take great effort to induce Lady Margaret to feel any pleasure of the flesh, so concerned is she with its mortification." He laughed again, because he really had drunk too much. "And so by order of the clever physician I am required to go to her bed far more often than I am wont, to put forth the effort prescribed."

Even Gwenllian snorted with laughter, and admitted it was likely the case. "He is clever indeed, and there are worse cures by far, brother."

That was true enough. And though he did not feel compelled to admit it aloud, he was sure he could find some pleasure for himself in it. Already it was a pleasurable thing, to imagine his stiff and righteous lady wife melting beneath him, mindless with lust. It was a task ripe with all manner of rewards.

So he would try to give his dull wife some kind of pleasure, and she would try to give him an heir. Everyone used everyone, after all, and this at least seemed a fair enough exchange.