WHEN ROSAMUND DE CLIFFORD awoke on the second of November, she had no idea that the day would not proceed as any other.
At cockcrow, she rose as usual from her pallet in the small chamber she shared with her older unmarried sister, Anne. Shivering, Rosamund donned her worn linen chemise, white smock, blue wool kirtle, and threadbare mantle, then pulled on knee-length woolen stockings and slipped into cracked leather shoes. Still half-asleep, she attended prime in the small chapel attached to the manor house. The red-nosed priest from the village was even later than usual for the service, so that by the time he finally finished and the family broke their night’s fast in the hall, it was almost tierce. There was a small fire in the central hearth, but it did not reach the trestle table where Rosamund, her fingers raw with cold, sipped from a horn of foaming ale and nibbled at a chunk of freshly baked maslin bread made of coarse wheat and rye grains. Difficult to chew, but filling.
While the family ate in silence, the aging steward and a servant dragged out looms from behind dusty wall hangings so that Rosamund and her sister might begin their tapestry work when they had finished eating. The stillness was broken by the sound of horses’ hooves clattering to a halt in the courtyard.
“Who can that be?” Walter de Clifford, a wide-shouldered man with silver-gilt hair and ice-blue eyes, set down his pewter tankard of ale. “It is early in the day for visitors.”
“It may be that cloth merchant I saw at the fair in Hereford last sennight,” said Lady de Clifford, dark-eyed and heavy-browed, her mouth set like a gash in her lantern-jawed face. “I invited him to show us a bolt of burnet wool.”
“Where shall we find the money for such luxuries, wife?” An anxious expression crossed Sir Walter’s comely face.
“Luxuries? It is the very coarsest wool, Walter, the cheapest.” Rosamund’s mother’s voice was sharp with resentment. “By all that’s holy, Anne’s clothes are threadbare, while Rosamund is practically in rags. Look at her! Her bosom will burst through her kirtle if she does not get a new one. Disgraceful! My own cloak is so worn now it will not see me through another winter.”
Walter de Clifford did not look at Rosamund. “You know our circumstances. Perhaps after the harvest—”
Rosamund, her face crimson with mortification, wished she were a thousand leagues away.
Her father nodded to Rosamund’s elder brother. “Send the merchant away, son.”
“Just a moment, Walter, I have more to say—”
Rosamund closed her ears to her mother’s continued complaints, which she knew as well as her catechism. Every aspect of life at Bredelais revolved around money: its deplorable lack, where to find more, how to conceal their near-poverty. Lord and Lady de Clifford struggled constantly to keep up appearances. Rosamund had a strong feeling that this was the only bond between them. Beneath the surface of things resentment in the household bubbled like a boiling cauldron.
Three sudden horn blasts from outside startled Rosamund so that she spilled half her ale on the table.
“Holy Mary! Look what you’ve done, clumsy girl.” Lady Margaret put a hand to her heart. “That merchant is very insolent to blow his horn so loudly.”
“I will send him away, Mother,” said Rosamund’s older brother, Walter the Younger, who was on a rare visit to Bredelais from Gloucester castle where he was in training for knighthood.
“You will do no such thing, my son,” said Lady Margaret with a fond look. Of the five children she had borne, Walter was the only boy and the one person in the world Rosamund’s mother loved. “I will find a way to manage the wool merchant.” She shot her husband a withering glance. “Just as I found the dowries for our daughters.”
“Which beggared us. Now we owe the moneylenders—”
“Bring the merchant in.” Lady de Clifford gestured imperiously and the steward immediately left the hall.
Walter de Clifford compressed his lips but said nothing.
After a few moments the steward returned, stuttering in his excitement. “M-my lady, lord, the king is—is in the courtyard!”
Her father’s jaw dropped. “King Henry? Here?”
“Yes, my lord, accompanied by Earl William of Gloucester, and several others. Five guests in all.”
“I hope you are not summoned to fight the Welsh again, Walter.” Lady de Clifford clapped her hands to her white-wimpled head. “Five, you said? Holy Mother, how on earth am I to feed them all? Son, go and bid him—His Majesty, that is—welcome, before he takes offense that none of the family come out to greet him.” Her brother and the steward left.
“Rosamund, go to the stables and send the grooms to tend to the king’s horses,” said her father. “Do not return to the hall until I send for you.”
Rosamund’s eyes widened. “But I would dearly love to meet the king. Please let me stay.”
Lady de Clifford frowned. “Really, Walter, the whole family, including the children, should be here to greet King Henry. Where are your wits?”
“Where are my wits? Rosamund is hardly a child but fourteen and of marriageable age, as you never cease to remind me. In view of the king’s reputation for unbridled lechery with the wives and daughters of his lords—I have heard the rumors—the danger is obvious.”
Rosamund felt her blood freeze. Her father was staring at her with that look she knew so well, and her hands clenched into fists. His gaze lingered on the silver-gilt braids that hung on each side of her breasts, then moved up her neck and face to settle on her eyes, the same ice-blue as his own. Then he quickly turned away.
“But it is said that the king is devoted to Queen Eleanor.” Walter the Younger looked shocked. “I never heard such rumors.”
“I have heard that as well,” said Lady Margaret. “You must not listen to gossip and scandal, Walter.”
“A man’s devotion to his wife is no guarantee of his behavior with other women. How many times have you told me that all that stands between us and total penury is Rosamund’s beauty and virtue, which will buy her a wealthy husband? Rumor or no, I am not prepared to take the chance.”
“But madam,” Rosamund began timidly, “you know that I have no wish to marry. I had hoped to become a novice at the convent at Godstow—”
Her mother gazed at her with a look that held satisfaction and pride, but no love. So might she have looked upon a splendid filly that would fetch an impressive price at market, or attract an important stud, breed strong colts, and add honor to their stables.
“I did not send you to Godstow to become a nun! How many times must I tell you? You will outgrow such childish fancies when you are wed. Now do as your father bid you.”
“Should I also go to the stables, madam?” asked Anne.
“No. You are needed in the kitchens.”
Anne, the eldest of the four girls, glared at Rosamund, the youngest, with undisguised jealousy. Rosamund could not blame her. Plain as a pikestaff, Anne had inherited their mother’s lank brown hair, bony form, and lackluster eyes, which held a perpetual squint from her constant work with needle and shuttle. There were times, however, when Rosamund wished she looked more like Anne. Often she hated her unusual beauty, a frequent source of embarrassment to her, except during the years when she had been a student at the abbey of Godstow at Woodstock. Since her return to Bredelais four months earlier, her discomfit increased as men seemed awestruck by her unusual looks, while the wives of several neighboring lords and their less well-favored daughters made no secret of their resentment. Her old Welsh nurse, Gwennyth, dead these past two years, had told her such loveliness was God’s blessing on her, but Rosamund felt it was more of a curse.
Resigned, she left the table and walked to the far end of the hall, where a screened-off passage effectively cut the manor in two, then followed the passage through the buttery with its casks of wine and ale, and into the kitchen. She smiled at the ruby-faced cook and the scullery boy who were scaling a long carp and chopping eels on a wooden table. It was a fast day and there was not nearly enough fish to feed five more people. A straw basket of withered apples stood by the door and Rosamund took two before going outside.
As she hurried across the kitchen courtyard, a brisk wind arose, carrying with it the tang of approaching winter. In the far distance gray clouds were forming over the Black Mountains of Wales. Idly she wondered what sort of man this King Henry must be if every time he came to call, the daughters of his subjects had to be hidden. She knew her father thought highly of the king, both as brave warrior and strong ruler, so his reaction to his presence was surprising. Rosamund pictured him as a gross heavily jowled man with lecherous pig eyes and slobbery red lips, like a neighboring border lord who had tried to kiss her at the village fair only last month. Her father had taken a horsewhip to the man and beaten him so savagely that the lord had reported it to the undersheriff. Her father had been reprimanded, the neighbor became his lifelong enemy, and the whole incident had been a humiliating experience for everyone concerned. Tongues had wagged even more viciously than usual, and Rosamund felt she was to blame.
As she passed the herb garden, she stopped to pull out a few weeds, noting with fleeting satisfaction that the rosemary and chamomile she had planted the previous spring were doing nicely. Screeching hens scattered, mangy hounds wagged their tails and barked as Rosamund entered the stables.
“King Henry has come to pay us a call,” she told Gerald the stable boy, who was filling the mangers with hay. “Grooms may be needed in the courtyard to tend to his horses.”
“The king!” Gerald crossed himself. “By Saint David, that be a rare treat. I’ll fetch Rhys and Philip.” He wiped his palms on his greasy leather jerkin.
Gerald ran off and Rosamund immediately went into Ladybird’s stall, and threw her arms around the warm chestnut-colored neck. The palfrey whinnied softly. She pressed her cheek against the side of the velvety head and closed her eyes, finding a comfort there she rarely found elsewhere. After a moment she bent down and felt Ladybird’s right rear leg, which had been injured jumping over a wall. Rosamund had been treating the leg with a mixture of flax and goose grease and she was pleased to see that the swelling had gone down. After giving Ladybird one of the apples, she went into a neighboring stall, where a mare had recently foaled. Both filly and mare were thriving. She stroked the black foal, still wobbly on its long thin legs. There was a sound and she turned to see that her father had entered the stall. She immediately stiffened.
“The king and Earl William are in the hall. The king’s stallion has injured his foreleg.” Sir Walter reached out a tentative hand and Rosamund quickly moved so that the filly was between them.
“I will take a look at the horse in a moment.”
“Rosamund—”
“Yes?” She gave him a look of such contempt that he grew red as a rooster, turned on his heel, and left.
Rosamund leaned back against the wooden beams of the stall, her heart beating so fast she felt it would leap out of her breast. She closed her eyes. If only she had not been made to leave the abbey where she had been so happy, felt so safe.
Four months earlier, after five peaceful years at Godstow, Rosamund had been summoned to return to Bredelais. Her father, who had been off fighting the Welsh with King Henry, had returned home and agreed to a suitable match, which had been arranged for her with a very wealthy lord from Worcester. It was on a day in early July, Rosamund recalled, when she had been seated with the prioress in her chamber, tearfully begging her not to send her home.
“What do you dread exactly, my child?” Reverend Mother had asked, obviously perplexed. “I have not seen you so distraught since the day you came to us five years ago.” She paused. “Such a dreadful state you were in when your mother sent you here, unable to eat and hardly speaking.” She signed herself.
Rosamund had been told this tale before but had no memory of her arrival at Godstow, or why she should have been so upset.
“Well, no matter,” Reverend Mother continued. “The point is that you have always known that one day you would leave us to be wed.”
“That is true.” She felt helpless to explain.
Reverend Mother searched her face. “Is it because, oh my child, do you feel you have a vocation? Has Our Lord called you to His service?” She clasped her hands to her breast. “You would indeed be an asset to our little community. The infirmaress says you have an uncommon gift for healing and your knowledge of herbs is almost equal to her own.”
Rosamund avoided a direct answer. “I do feel more at home at Godstow. As if this is where I belong.”
She did not believe she had a vocation, but she enjoyed her duties with the infirmaress as well as the learning of scripture, music, and Latin. Also the nuns led such useful lives, going about their tasks with a sense of purpose and achievement, free to follow their own bent if it fell within the confines of the order and served the community of sisters and God. They appeared to be more content than the wives and mothers of the lords she knew, far happier than her own mother, who seemed overburdened by the demands of husband, children, and the running of Bredelais.
“You will need a dowry, my child, and to ensure this you must return home and explain your vocation to your parents. It is an important step, my child.”
Rosamund nodded. When she left the prioress’s quarters she tried to explain to herself her reluctance—no, more than reluctance, her pervasive sense of unease at the thought of returning to Bredelais. Was it only the thought of what awaited her? Certainly she did not want marriage to a wealthy suitor who might be thirty years her senior, beat her regularly, and get her with child every year. Once she was wed she would have no recourse; her husband would own her, like his horse or his falcon. But there was something else troubling her about returning to Bredelais, something she could never quite catch hold of. In truth, her recollections of her first nine years were often cloudy and disjointed, as if everything before Godstow were not quite real. The only one of four daughters to be sent to Godstow to be educated, Rosamund had no idea why she alone had been chosen.
Still, she knew her family would oppose any decision to join the priory. In the letters Rosamund received from Bredelais, Lady de Clifford made it very clear she was depending upon her daughter to salvage the sagging family fortunes. When Rosamund arrived home several days later, she found that much had changed. Her brother was gone, two of her three sisters were married, leaving only Anne still at home, and her old nurse Gwennyth—the only person she had missed during her five-year absence—was dead. To her great relief the affluent suitor chosen for her had died while hunting, only a sennight before her arrival.
“You have grown even more beautiful, Rosamund,” said her mother in an appraising voice. “Perhaps taller than is seemly—let us pray you grow no further.” She paused and signed herself. “It is a shame about your future husband, may he rest in peace, for he required no dowry and was willing to settle a great fortune on you, if you were as beautiful as everyone claimed.”
“How did his death come about?” Rosamund asked, more out of courtesy than interest.
There was a brief silence. “He . . . well, he was not a young man and apparently he fell off his horse and broke his neck,” Lady Margaret replied shortly. “But since his death, other offers for you have already been made. Although none worth accepting. Thus far.”
Rosamund’s heart sank. She had just escaped an obviously doddering old man, and now they were waiting for another. There was also that implacable note in her mother’s voice that made it impossible for her to mention Godstow. Perhaps, later, when the moment seemed propitious. . . .
Loud barking, followed by shouts and cries pulled her from her thoughts and she ran out of the stables just as a magnificent black stallion came tearing around the side of the manor, head tossing and nostrils distended, his eyes wild with fright, several hounds yapping at his heels. Gerald appeared on their heels but seemed uncertain what to do.
“Thor! Freya! Here!” Rosamund clapped her hands and the hounds came to her. “Quiet! Put them into the stables, Gerald. Leave the stallion to me.”
Gerald shooed the dogs into the stables while Rosamund whistled softly and put out her hand, which still held an apple. Distracted, the horse slowed his pace. Rosamund ran after him, still whistling, and finally caught hold of his bridle. Pulling gently and talking to him in a soft voice, she felt the stallion gradually come to a stop. Wary at first, he finally allowed her to stroke his neck, and after a moment took the apple into his mouth. While he was distracted, she knelt to examine his foreleg.
“By God’s splendor, that’s amazing, truly uncanny, Beaumont never allows anyone but myself and his groom to touch him,” said a stranger’s voice. Rosamund stood and ducked under the stallion’s neck, and came into full view.
She saw a strongly built man in a brown cloak and muddy boots walking toward the horse. He had cropped russet hair, piercing gray eyes, and blazed with vitality. It could only be King Henry. Suddenly he halted and stared at her. Rosamund, familiar with this first reaction to her person, waited for him to find his tongue. He continued to gaze at her, his jaw half open, looking as if he had been hit by a thunderbolt.
“This is my youngest daughter, Rosamund, Your Grace,” said Walter de Clifford, coming up behind the king. “She has a way with animals, especially horses.”
“She does indeed,” said King Henry, finding his voice at last. He walked up to the stallion and took the bridle from her hands. “And men as well, I doubt not.”
“The king was about to leave before the hounds frightened his stallion,” said her father in an anxious voice.
“I have changed my mind, Walter. I know I said I wasn’t hungry, but if it is not too much trouble, something to eat would be most welcome.”
Rosamund saw her father’s face stiffen. “Of course. Go help your mother in the kitchen, daughter.”
She turned and walked toward the kitchen courtyard, aware of the king’s gaze following her. Happily, he was nothing like her image of him. In truth, he seemed quite pleasant, much younger than she imagined, almost boyish, and she was pleased to have done him a service. Unaccountably, when she entered the kitchen a chill ran through her—a wolf walking over her grave, Gwennyth would have said, or perhaps a harbinger of destiny. But even the old Welshwoman, who had been possessed of the second sight, could not have told her whether it was for good or ill.