Lord Liar Part 44

"Will you marry me, Aldyth? As soon as it can be arranged?"

"Hurrah!" shouted Warin.

"Say yes, Aldyth!" Aldyth made a motion to shush her little brothefts exuberant yelling. She couldn't think.

"But can you really marry me? What of the king? What would he say?"

"Yes, I can, but as for Rufus, I'm not sure. He's in a very uncertain temper these days, what with so many rumors of plots coming to his ears. He's not certain who to trust. But I would have you mine in all honor, Aldyth, before G.o.d and all men."

"Warin, go to the kitchen and see if Cook does not have some tarts for you."

"Aw, Aldyth..." Warin muttered, but he strode obediently out.

"Oh, Ranulf, I would wed you now, this minute," she said as soon as they were alone, -"but I would not have you gain the king's wrath for it. Should we not wait until Prince Henry has the throne? In truth I feel your wife already-what difference would standing before the priest make?" He held her close, smoothing her hair with his strong hands.

"And you are my wife," he told her, lifting her chin up so that she looked into the deep brown pools of his eyes.

"But what if there was a child, sweetheart? What if there is 227 a babe even now growing beneath your heart? I would not have him--or her--baseborn, Aldyth."

She knew he was right. As yet she had not missed her fluxes, but they had only been intimate for a matter of weeks.

Aldyth took a deep breath.

"All right, we will marry, but secretly, here at Beauworth," she said.

"The priest here would be willing, would he not? Do you think 'twould be possible to have our parents here?"

"Yes, on both counts--Beauworth's priest will marry us and I'm sure we could get your father and my parents here.

Oh, and Warin, too, of course. But as to G.o.dric. I'm afraid my lord father reports he is not much changed in his dislike of all Normans. He does what my lord father bids him, but sullenly. I just don't believe we can trust him, sweetheart. I think it best that my father make some excuse for not bringing him when they come to visit so that he will not learn of our marriage until later. "

She sighed.

"I'm sure you're right, though it saddens me. Will G.o.dric ever see the light, I wonder? If only he could see that you, at least, are everything good and n.o.ble and kind" -- He kissed her, shutting off her flow of praise.

"Ah, but you're prejudiced, my love. Very well, we shall marry just as soon as we can arrange to have our parents and Warin here as witnesses."

Chapter Twenty- Two

By te next day, however, they knew they would not be able to send invitations to a wedding to Kingsclere and Sherborne for the time being. A messenger from the king n'ived from London on a lathered horse at noon, bearing ill, tidings for the lovers. gi king was summoning Ranulf and several other of his L n.o.bles to join his household troops in recunnoiterEngland, which seemed to be the hub of the n.o.bles. Lord Ranulf was commanded to leave preempt lye strikes against rebel garrisons at other key southeast towns, but word had leaked out and the rebels had gone force captured none of the imporas Bishop Odo, the king's uncle, or of Boulogne, or the Fad of Monthad apparently remained safely no word.

about what had been hap- any instructions for him.

pocket of his courier's sad- however, the courier secret letter to Aldyth, while a more innocuous missive was given openly to Sir Rene , in case any should question his errand.

Frustrated and furious, the king was not at all inclined to grant anyone leave, Ranulf wrote Aldyth. Rufus had oralered every n.o.ble present for the annual Faster crown- wearing to be held in London and drew his conclusions when he saw who was absent. Ranulf was sorry"More than you can imagine, my darling, for my heart and body ache for yours," he wrote--but it would be impossible for him to come to her. Also at Easter, the king had begun summoning the levies owed him by his n.o.bles, which meant Ranulf would have to begin drilling the men owed in knight service by his father as Earl of Kingsclere. He found it interesting, he added, that the king was busy recruiting as many loyal English to help his cause as possible. Aldyth's eyes blurred with tears as she reread the middle part, where he admitted he longed for her as much as she did for him but could not come to her. She should never have let him leave without her, she thought. It had already been six weeks since they had been together, and there was no sign of when their separation would end, let alone when they could be married.

Clutching the parchment his bands had touched to her breast, Aldyth lay in their curtain-hung bed, lonely and miserable.

If only he had given her his babe to nurture within her body, she told herself, then she could have rested content at Beauworth until he could return to her. She would have spent her tune serenely making tiny clothes for their child.

But she had reliable evidence that she was not with child, and so she was restless and cross in his absence, longing for him with a hunger that she had not known was possible. Alone in her chamber, staring into the flickering flame of the hour candle, she began to make plans.

"I tell you, Turold, if I had not been there and heard it with my own ears, I would not have believed it, either!"

G.o.dtic said as the two relaxed before the fire after a supper made by Turold's mother, Gundreda.

G.o.dtic had come to visit his friend at Swanlea, excited by the news he brought.

"But why should Rufus be asking for our help?" Turold asked, his tone skeptical.

"He's never needed the English before, except as a captive population to gouge for taxes."

"He's never been faced with open rebellion before, and from some of the oldest families of Normandy. These rebels took s'mable levies when they deserted to Duke Robert's cause. But even my lord of Kingsclere was surprised when the king offered the English tax relief and land in return to answering the call to arms. He's also promised to restore our forests and hunting rights and some of the laws abolished by the Conqueror. He's even hinted there'd be knighthoods for those who fight well." G.o.dric shook his friend's shoulder to emphasize his point.

"Think of the booty we could pick up along the way. Come with me, Turold.

We'd be fools not to take advantage of the offer."

"You would fight for a Norman?" Turold asked, amazed at what he was hearing.

"And what of Lord ltienne?

You're squire to him, so are you not his to command, to send as part of his levy? "

"He says I may join as one of the king's Englishmen if I would be happier that way, and I mean to take advantage of his offer," G.o.dric said.

Turold grunted, impressed. "" Tis right fair of him. And if I went. Fancy that, me a knight. "

"I don't want ye t'go, Turold," came a sulky voice from the shadows near the rough-hewn table, but it was not his dour, ever present mother who spoke.

Maud came out of the shadows, her pregnancy beginning to strain the waistline of her worn, grease-spotted kirtle.

Turold raised a clenched fist and waved it at her.

"What have ye to say about it, slattern? No woman tells me what to do," he growled.

"Not even the mother of yet babe? Don't ye want to see yet son born, Turold, my sweet ling

It was all very well to have Maud so available when he felt like slaking his l.u.s.t, but she annoyed him the rest of the time with her cloying affection and her incessant demands. Before Christmas, when he had returned from his fruitless search for the runaway Aldyth, she had informed him that she was pregnant. She demanded that he marry her, but when he explained he could not because he was still legally betrothed, she nagged until he agreed to wed her at least in the old Saxon way of hand fasting

He glared at her across the main room of the manor farmhouse.

"There's plenty o' time before the brat will :, woman, and anyway, ye don't need me here for that," he retorted.

"Ye were pleased enow to be there for his beginnin'," she muttered, but Turold had turned back to G.o.dric and they were again pondering the advantages of answering the Norman call to arms.

"But we'll have to see that the king lives up to his promises immediately after we've beaten his rebels for him,"