A Lily on the Heath 4 Read online

  A Lily on the Heath © 2011 Colleen Gleason

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  PROLOGUE

  England

  April 1166

  “I shall have her murdered!” the queen raged. The long, pointed edges of her sleeves brushed the stone floor, flowing and sweeping as she stalked across the solar. “When I find that woman who tempts my husband from my side, ’twill be her bitter end!”

  Judith of Kentworth, Lady of Lilyfare, did not flinch at her mistress’s fury. It was not the first time she’d seen Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of England and wife of Henry the Plantagenet, boiling with anger. Nay, she did not flinch or skulk or hide from the queen’s wrath as the maids and even some of the more spineless ladies did. She listened sympathetically, as a confidante and friend would do, for there were few whom the queen could truly count as both.

  “I will have her banished,” seethed the queen. “Or married to a coarse Welshman and sent off to the mountains.”

  “But my lady, your highness, surely no man would be tempted from the side of a woman as beautiful and wealthy as yourself,” ventured Lady Amice from the silk cassock on which she perched, edging as far from the raging queen as possible.

  Judith barely kept from rolling her eyes. She would have turned on the boulder-headed Amice herself, but the queen, in as fine a fettle as Judith had ever seen her, was already shrieking at the hapless woman.

  “You fool! Do you not have eyes in your vacant head? The whole of his court knows of his wandering eye and his pinching fingers. Get you out of here!” Eleanor cried. Now, true tears, not those born of rage, threatened her blue eyes. “Get from my sight!”

  Judith pulled to her feet for ’twas past time to intervene. Glowering at Amice, the only other of Eleanor’s ladies to remain after she launched into her tirade, Judith snapped her fingers to send the foolish woman from the chamber.

  She and the queen were alone.

  “My lady…Eleanor. Do you sit. This raging cannot be good for the babe.” Judith gently took Eleanor’s slender arm, ready to release it if the queen wasn’t ready to succumb, and urged her toward a large chair piled with cushions. Any intervention with the queen must be done gently.

  “The babe of my faithless husband,” Eleanor muttered, smoothing her hands over the small, tight bulge under her gown. But she heeded Judith’s advice and sank onto the bean-filled cushions.

  “Some wine, my lady? Mayhap another apple?” The queen had shown a particular fondness for apples during this breeding time. This was a difficulty, as it was early spring and fresh apples were out of season. The dried, bruised ones kept in the cellars beneath the kitchens did not ease her longing, but the king had had several baskets shipped from the Holy Lands.

  “See you, the king loves you, my lady,” Judith reminded her truthfully as she selected one of the red-orange fruit to slice in two. “Else he would not make certain that every ship from Jerusalem carries your apples.”

  “Nay, ’tis his heir he loves,” Eleanor snapped. Her face, arguably the most beautiful in all of Christendom, shined with a streak of tear-tracks on each cheek. Rounder now, due to pregnancy, her countenance bore traces of harshness and anger. Her wide blue eyes narrowed, and a soft curl of honey-blonde hair had loosed uncharacteristically from her intricate coiffure. “He cannot keep his cock stuffed inside his breeches. ’Tis a wonder there are not thrice as many bastards as heirs in this court!”

  That was saying quite a lot, for the king and queen already had a surplus of living children: Henry, Matilda, Richard, Geoffrey, and Eleanor.

  Judith offered the queen a bejeweled salver, with the halved apple resting on it. “My lady, this truth I speak, and I know you will hear it from me…the king might have a wandering eye, but his hands and cock do not always follow. And indeed, ’tis always your bed to which he returns. And you on which his eyes settle. ’Tis you to whom he goes for advice. You have his head and his heart, your highness.”

  Eleanor pushed away the plate, and Judith replaced it on the table betwixt them. She nodded, yet her eyes were sad. “Aye, Judith, I wish to believe you. Despite my strong ways, he does bear me some love. And ’tis my great cross that I must love him so, so that it pains me thus when he seeks release elsewhere.”

  “But you are his queen, and ever will be,” Judith added gently. She lifted the errant wisp of blond hair and smoothed it into place, rearranging a jeweled pin to hold it as Eleanor sighed.

  The queen nodded, and Judith, who had only seen her so sad and lost once before, was relieved to see a spark of determination flare back in her eyes. “Aye. Though I grow large with child, and longer in tooth, I am still Hank’s queen, and I remain his partner. ’Tis true he comes to me for advice as oft as he does his Chancellor. ’Tis a cross I must come to accept, then. His wandering hands.”

  “Longer in tooth? My lady, you are hardly over two score. The king’s mother Matilda still lives, and she is nearly sixty years.”

  Eleanor smiled and reached to pat Judith’s arm. “Thank you, my dear. You have done your duty and pulled me from my sulks. You know that I count you as friend as much as attendant, Judith.”

  “I am most privileged, your highness,” she replied.

  But Judith could not help but compare the benefits with the drawbacks of such a position. Being close to the queen was a double-edged sword, and she must step lively to assure she did not meet the wrong side of it.

  “Should I live to be such a ripe age as Matilda, I’ll have skin trailed with wrinkles and breasts sagging to my belly, but now I am still young enough to turn the heads of the men both young and old. If Hank does not tend to his queen, mayhap she will find another lion of her own.”

  Being witness to such a threat was an example of the wrong side of the sword—the one that Judith did not want slicing into her flesh, literally or nay. Though the king might sow his oats wildly, he would not accept being cuckolded himself. “My lady, I know this has been a difficult breeding for you…mayhap once you have birthed this babe, you will feel differently.”

  Eleanor’s laugh held a raw edge. “Aye, after I have birthed this babe, Hank will no doubt eagerly find his way back to my bed.”

  “’Tis where he belongs, my lady. An’ he knows it too.”

  The queen sighed, smoothing her hand over her belly once more. “Aye. Thank you, Judith. I am relieved I can trust you to listen even when I rage.”

  “You ever have my loyalty, Eleanor,” she replied. “That I vow.”

  ONE

  Fourteen months later

  June, 1167

  “And thus it begins.”

  Malcolm de Monde, Lord of Warwick, drew on the reins and halted his horse. They were on a small rise overlooking the walled castle at Clarendon, where King Henry, Queen Eleanor and the royal court were currently in residence.

  From here, he could see countless tendrils of smoke rising into a clear blue sky from the walled cluster of buildings. The castle rose above them, and men at arms watched from the roof. Carts and wagons trundled in and out of the main gate, men-at-arms in groups clattered over the drawbridge, and peasants and tradesmen hurried about their business in the town below.

  “I detest court,” Malcolm added as he glanced over at his squire, who’d brought his horse up next to him. But Mal’s grumbling was unnecessary, for Gambert knew precisely how his master felt about the necessity of leaving Warwick in order to immerse himself in the false niceties, manipulations, and stifling closeness of the royal court.

  But he had no choice. Sarah had been dead these four summers, and it was past time for him to take another wife and beget an heir. Althoug
h he could certainly do the latter without royal permission—and he was considering a particular Lady Beatrice, the heiress of Delbring—a vassal of Mal’s stature couldn’t wed without the blessing of the king unless he wished to be taxed and fined up to his eyes for such an impudence. Henry had to fund his continuous warring here in England as well as in France—where he and his wife had massive land holdings. Thus the king took any opportunity to impose fines and taxes and liens upon his vassals.

  A shadow overhead caught Mal’s attention and he looked up in time to see a golden-brown merlin hawk shooting down from the sky. Entranced by its grace and speed, he watched as the bird skimmed over a small meadow to the north, grazing the tops of its grasses, and then with the slightest hitch in its long, low arc, jerked and then swooped back up. Now, a small creature—rabbit, most likely—dangled from its beak.

  Mal watched as the hawk darted toward the edge of the meadow, likely to settle in a treetop nest to tear its meal into edible pieces. Or mayhap it was a hunter bird, trained by a royal falconer, and would return to settle on a leather cuff worn to protect the falconer’s skin from the talons. Malcolm found himself rising in the stirrups to see where the bird went—out of curiosity as much as to delay the inevitable of riding onward.

  His procrastination was rewarded, for the slight addition to his height gave him a better view into the small meadow cupped by stands of pines, oaks, and other thick trees. At the edge was revealed two men, one in a slouching hood and the other bareheaded. As Mal watched, the handsome raptor landed on the ground near his master, catch still firmly in its talons. The hooded hunter knelt to retrieve the kill before the hawk finished it off. Moments later, he stood, and then, with a shimmer of wings, the raptor flew up and settled onto his outstretched hand. Even from here, Mal could see the merlin eating its reward—likely a chunk of rabbit or squirrel—from the fist of its master.

  The sight couldn’t help but remind him of a girl he’d known once, when he was a squire hardly older than Gambert. Quick-witted and vivacious, with a beacon of red-gold hair that was as bold as her personality, Judith of Kentworth had nevertheless been mild and patient with the hunting birds her father bred and trained. Mal had fostered along with Gregory of Lundhame, Judith’s betrothed, at Kentworth. He’d felt the quick edge of her tongue more often than he’d landed on his arse during sword practice—and that was saying a lot. Mal was shy, light of weight and much too gangly in those years, and he’d spent more time than he cared to admit on the wrong end of a practice sword. More often than not, it was one held by Gregory.

  Though his clumsiness and ineptitude had long ago been replaced by speed and skill, he still remembered the jeers and jests from his peers.

  The sounds of the rest of their party approaching—the jingle of harnesses, the dull clopping of hooves—drew Mal’s attention from his memories of the past.

  “Why do you stop here, my lord, when we’re so near?” asked Sir Nevril, his master-at-arms, as he joined Mal. He had his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Is aught amiss?”

  “Nay,” Mal replied, gathering up his reins reluctantly. The sight of the busy, close town below already had the effect of making him feel as itchy as if he’d just donned wet wool. Infested with lice.

  “Naught is indeed amiss, other than Warwick’s great aversion to all pomp and circumstance and having to lay his pallet in a chamber with a dozen other unwashed men,” jested another voice.

  Malcolm made a rude gesture to his friend, Dirick, the new Lord of Ludingdon. “I cannot deny my mislike of having every breath of my days and nights managed for me while in attendance to the king. Did you not nearly miss your own father’s funeral because of the king’s demands?”

  Dirick had pulled his horse close enough to Mal’s so the two sets of equine ears were nearly aligned. “Aye. The sword of loyalty’s blade can swing both ways when one is favored by the king. But I cannot complain on my latest acquisition,” he added with a cheeky grin.

  “Nay, I should say not,” Malcolm replied with a wry smile. For all his time and loyalty given to Henry, Dirick had recently been rewarded with not only a title and fief, but a beautiful, well-landed heiress.

  Mal had met Lady Maris and had been astounded by the fact that the lovely woman was not only comely but intelligent as well—and had no qualms about speaking her mind. His Sarah had been sweet-tempered and pretty, but there’d never been an argument betwixt the two of them in which she’d raised her voice above a modulated tone. Mal had been witness to the fact that this was not so with Dirick of Ludingdon and his new bride when Lady Maris, who had been quite heavy with child, decided she meant to ride out some distance from the walls of the keep to tend to an ill farmer. Dirick had taken exception to her intent, and a loud row had ensued, leaving Mal gawking in shock at the lady’s stubbornness.

  To his further astonishment, she’d gotten her way, with Dirick insisting on accompanying her to the ill farmer whilst she—an accomplished healer— rode in a small cart, leaving his guests to their own meal. Even now, Mal mentally raised his brows at the very memory.

  Still, he’d never known Dirick to be happier, and Malcolm was well aware of the benefits of having a wife to warm his bed and manage his household. This was the only reason he’d forced himself to leave the lush green meadows and velvety rolling hillocks of Warwick and his other holdings in northern England to travel to the chaos of the king’s court.

  The season was early summer, and Malcolm had every intention of being back in Warwick with a wedded, bedded and—God willing—breeding woman before the first snowfall.

  ~*~

  “Who is that man?”

  Judith winced at the unexpected jab in her side and turned to Lady Ursula. The younger woman’s pretty round face was alit with curiosity. “Which man?” she asked, looking around the room.

  This was not as simple a task as it would seem, for they were gathering at supper in the great hall at Clarendon. The ceiling rose high above their heads, and the vast chamber was filled with people squeezing into their seats at row after row of trestle tables. Lords and ladies, maidens, knights, monks, men-at-arms, jongleurs, bards, and acrobats, serfs, pages, and stewards—and even a small pack of hunting dogs, a trio of kestrels, and a pride of fat mousers—filled the chamber. Not to mention the noise.

  It was fair deafening.

  The king and queen sat on the dais at the high table, accompanied by the most wealthy and powerful of their guests including Thomas à Becket, the Bishop of Canterbury. And then, row by row, with the richest and most loyal vassals sitting nearest the dais and the meanest serfs and servants in the crowded rear of the chamber, everyone else settled in their places by rank. The further from the archbishop and royal couple, the closer and narrower the tables, and the less plentiful and appetizing the food.

  Judith and a group of the queen’s ladies sat only three rows from the dais. Further down their table and at the bench behind them were some of the unmarried vassals and higher-ranking knights favored by the king and queen. She knew everyone in the vicinity, for they dined, hunted, socialized, and worshipped together.

  “Look you there—he’s the tall man bowing to her majesty, standing with Ludingdon. He’s even as tall as Ludingdon,” Ursula said. Judith resisted the urge to elbow her into keeping her voice low. It was so loud in here, surely no one would hear. “Do you know him? You must know him, Judith. You’ve been with the queen so long, you know everyone.”

  She forbore to respond to a comment that, if delivered by any other woman would be considered a gentle insult—but which was meant only in the most innocent of ways coming from Ursula of Tenavaux. Sixteen, undeniably pretty and the daughter of one of the king’s French vassals, Ursula was six years younger than the twenty-two-year-old Judith and extremely marriageable. She still found the royal court mesmerizing and exciting, filled with colorful opportunity and gaiety and excitement.

  Judith had long ago lost such ingenuousness. But she straightened in her seat on the rough wooden
bench and peered toward the front to see if she did, indeed, know who the newcomer was.

  “He’s sitting next to the king,” hissed Ursula unnecessarily. “He must be someone important!”

  “That’s Lord Warwick,” said a low voice that nevertheless reached Judith’s ear from across the table and beneath the dull roar of conversation, laughter, shouts, and the metallic clang of utensil and tray. “I heard him announced earlier today. He arrived with Ludingdon.”

  Judith glanced at Lady Alynne, one of Eleanor’s other favorite ladies, and then, turning back to look at the dais, replied, “Warwick?”

  She could be forgiven if there was a note of disbelief in her voice, for she’d met both John de Monde, the Lord of Warwick, and his son and heir, Malcolm, when the latter fostered with her father at Kentworth nearly a decade past. The imposing, muscular man settling into his seat next to the king was much too young to be Lord John, and he didn’t at all resemble the awkward, earnest young man she’d known years ago.

  As Lady Ursula had noted, the newcomer was tall, and Judith suspected he’d top the king by at least a full head. And, unlike Henry and most of the other men in court, he was clean-shaven. His hair, the rich brown color of well-tanned leather, was overly long, just covering his ears and nearly brushing his shoulders in the back. This gave him an unfashionable, almost wild appearance next to the other neatly trimmed and groomed attendants at the high table.

  Trying not to appear too interested—for the sharp eyes and quick tongues of the court were always on the spy for gossip—Judith nevertheless continued to steal looks toward the dais throughout the meal. It was curiosity that got the best of her, for despite their differences in personality and appearance, Malcolm de Monde and Judith’s betrothed husband, Gregory of Lundhame, had been friends during their fostering.

  It wasn’t until the man in question turned so she saw the clean shape of his profile that Judith was convinced of his identity. Although his shoulders had broadened greatly and the rest of his body had filled out and matured, the sharp, prominent jut of his nose and squared jaw hadn’t changed.