‘Not in my reign she doesn’t,’ said the king, loudly. ‘And it’s time this matter was settled. I’m getting bored with it, and I’ve been ready to go hunting since we got back from the ceremony. I’ll have no more argument. Lord Gamal’s widow and her household can have the place at Toft Green and you’ll have the husband I’ve decided on. So there.’
Shaking her head in despair, Rhoese saw that to try to reason with this man would be pointless. He was unpredictable, and closed to any argument a woman could put forward. His sense of humour was grotesque in the extreme, and his insensitivity was too humiliating to be suffered by prolonging the discussion. Again, she turned to the knight behind her for one last glimmer of understanding from someone, anyone, but he was looking across to the other side of the hall where there was a jostling and a shoving accompanied by bawdy shouts and hoots of laughter. A man was emerging, summoned by the king’s beckoning hand.
‘Come on over, Ralph!’ he called, roughly. ‘It’s your bid I’ve accepted. She’s yours, and her estate. It’s quite a fair size. I don’t know what the rest of her is like; you’ll have to find that out for yourself. Eh?’ The laughter he generated by these coarse remarks brought hot waves of shame to her cheeks and a suffocating fear that rose into her throat like a sickness. Vaguely, she felt a firm grip around her upper arm, pulling her hard against a chain-mail chest, and when she looked for the source of her support, she found that the knight was still not looking at her but at the man who was being almost pushed forward to where they stood.
‘Come closer,’ said the king to Rhoese, ‘and meet your future husband. He’s a good fighter, is Ralph. None better. A loyal vassal. He deserves a reward. Here, Ralph de Lessay, put this in your bed to warm it, man. This should get you a few heirs, if you know how to go about it.’
There was a roar of laughter and applause so loud that none of Rhoese’s protests were heard, yet still the grip on her arm was maintained as if the knight had forgotten to release her. Nor had he laughed.
‘Let her go, Judhael de Brionne,’ the king commanded. ‘It’s your turn next. This one’s for de Lessay. Let go, man.’
The grip slowly relaxed, casting Rhoese adrift into a sea of grinning faces and clapping hands through which she could still make out her stepmother’s jubilant expression. Turning her back on it, she came face to face with a man of more than middle age, a deliberate move on the king’s part to get another lucrative offer for her when this husband died, making her an even richer prize than she was now. It was a favourite artifice.
Ralph de Lessay, it seemed, had as little grace as the king and as much excitability, for he grabbed Rhoese unceremoniously by the shoulders before she could stop him, pulling her hard into his sweating face for a mouth-stopping slobbering kiss that left a trail of spittle to drool down her chin. His soldier’s grip hurt her intensely.
She brought up her arms to push, to wipe her face with her sleeve, to keep him at arm’s length. Gasping for air, she sobbed to the king, ‘No, sire! No! This is unworthy. This is not the way the daughter of a king’s thegn should be treated. Please, let me go home, I beg you.’
The king’s face straightened into a sober block of recognition like a child who had suddenly become aware of a misdemeanour. ‘Yes,’ he said, tightening his mouth. ‘That’s enough. Take her home, de Brionne. It’s time we were away on that hunt.’ With a sudden about-face, he turned and strode through the hall, knowing that the crowd would part for him like the Red Sea, and soon the place was emptying except for the clerks, the archbishop and his assistants and those most involved with the whole disgraceful incident.
Thoroughly shaken, Rhoese was the first to find a voice, determined not to give Ketti any pleasure by an exchange of incivilities that she would win, hands down. From the archbishop, however, she hoped for something that might still lend a grain of dignity to the proceedings, something that might allow her to walk away from this nightmare with her head held high. A blessing, perhaps? A word of comfort that would remind her of some small benefit? ‘My lord?’ she whispered. ‘Am I…is he…? Oh, my lord, is this truly happening to me? Can he do this?’
He had seen it before and he knew that William Rufus could do exactly what he pleased with any remaining English property, especially a woman’s. ‘Yes,’ he said, scowling at the stupidly grinning face of the man who had won her, ‘he can. And may I suggest to you, de Lessay, that you get a grip on yourself and behave with some dignity towards this woman who is to be your wife. Go and bathe, man. You stink like a fishmonger.’
Taken aback at the unflattering comparison, Ralph de Lessay’s shoulders slumped as he turned obediently away, and Rhoese saw how the bald patch on his head was scabby and brown where the summer sun had blistered it. At the same time she had to resist the temptation to hug the archbishop for saying what she herself would like to have said.
To Judhael de Brionne, the archbishop said, ‘Take the Lady Rhoese home, Jude. There’s nothing to be gained from hanging about here. The marriage will be in York before our return to London, I’m sure. His Grace doesn’t like delays.’
Ralph de Lessay, euphoric after his success, seemed to have second thoughts about the mode of Rhoese’s return to her home. ‘Wait!’ he called, coming back to them. ‘I’ll take her myself. I’ve a mind to see…’
Swiftly, Judhael de Brionne caught him by his mail beneath the chin, almost lifting him off the ground with one hand and hurling him backwards into the king’s chair with such force that the man and chair went crashing over into the rushes. ‘You’ve seen enough, short-arse!’ Jude snarled. ‘Do as the archbishop says and take a bath. You stink!’ Without waiting to see the man recover, he placed a hand under Rhoese’s armpit and walked her at an urgent pace out of the hall and into the bright light of day, with Els almost running to keep up. Neither of them even glanced in Ketti’s direction, so missed her change of expression from satisfaction to admiration.
‘Let go!’ Rhoese said, swinging her arm up. ‘We can take ourselves home.’ Over their shoulders, men watched for the inevitable scene.
He caught her around the waist, ignoring her yelp of protest. ‘Yes, lady, I know you can. And the sooner we get away from this place the better. Come on!’ He swooped to gather her knees over his arm, then hoisted her high on to the stallion held by his squire, dumping her without ceremony behind the high saddle to which she was bound to cling to avoid falling off. From that height it was difficult for her not to look at him, and through her confusion and anger, she noted every detail as if to compare it with the scruffy and disgusting knight who had insulted her so publicly. Under English law, he would have been punished for that. Here before her was a tall confident knight whose hands had supported her, whose appearance was immaculate from gleaming helm to polished spurs, whose stern expression told her he was not one to cross, unless she was prepared to be hurt. Formidable was the word that sprang to her mind.
‘You’ll ride pillion with me,’ he said. His look took in the beauty of her full mouth and the perfect flushed bloom of her cheeks before returning to her eyes, settling into their anguished velvet brownness with a slow blink. He would know exactly what to do with her, his look said, unlike that boor he had knocked flat.
Her mind stopped working, and for once she found nothing to say to him. But as he leapt into the saddle as if vaulting over a gate, swinging one leg over the horse’s neck, she could not help the shiver of unwilling pride that, after that degrading scene of a few moments ago, she was riding high behind a man with some sense of how she must be feeling, even if his way of responding to it was less than gentle.
Over the knight’s broad shoulder she saw that Els was similarly seated behind the squire on a chestnut gelding and that her arms had already encircled the young man’s waist. As Rhoese felt the horse move away, she clung with one hand to the cantle until the knight’s hand came round to find it and take it to the belt at his waist. ‘Hold on to that,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘and stay close.’
‘Why would I want to stay close to you?’ she said under her breath.
‘Because it’s easier on the