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Aldyth's face wore an expression of total incredulity. "Oh, it is the
perfect solution, my lord!" she said, clapping her hands together.
"Thank you, Warin, thank you! I am so proud of you!"
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Ranulf held his hands out in defeat, conscious of a current of joy running
perversely through him even as he conceded defeat. Aldyth would be
accompanying him to Normandy.
"You are too well championed for me to refuse you, Aldyth, it seems. But
hear me well--you will dress during the entire journey as Edward and you will
obey me instantly in all things. Is that perfectly understood? It may well
mean your life. Nay, don't weep now--you will unman me."
"Aye, my lord," she said, smiling through tears that threatened to spill over
onto her cheeks.
"I will carry out your every command. Turold will be on this side of the
Channel and I will be on the other, not having to fear him.
I am so relieved! I'll make certain you are not sorry, my lord, that you
rescued me. "
So that was it. While he was imagining the intimacy of traveling with her,
she was merely grateful to be escaping a brutish husband. She had gotten
over her love for him. Ranuff called himself every kind of a conceited fool.
She not only was no longer in love with him but probably feared and detested
all men, after what Turold had shown her of his sex, God rot him!
He must show her she need fear no lustful attentions from him.
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"Eh bien, part of your obedience will entail giving my leman and me occasions
of privacy, eh, Lady Vivienne?" he said, leering at Vivienne.
Vivienne was paying him no attention, so lost was she in gazing adoringly at
his squire, who was grinning back at her.
He turned back to Aldyth.
Her face was a mask.
"I understand fully, my lord."
"Good. Then we need to discuss how we're going to spirit you out of the
castle under that pair of louts' watchful eyes and get you onto a cog without
being seen. You may have to be hidden until we set sail, you know. I
wouldn't put it above those two not to shadowus all the way to the coast.
Now here's how I think it should be done. "
"Such a heavy-laden wain, my lord," she heard Turold say to Ranulf two days
later. The voice was muffled, for Aldyth, curled into a tight ball, lay
concealed in one of the two large iron-bound chests stowed on the ox cart
behind four tuns of mead.
"Yes, the king is sending the mead as a Christmas gift to Duke Robert, and of
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course I could not think of skimping on my wardrobe for a visit to the Duke
of Normandy's court, even though my squire twits me about my notorious love
of fine garments in peacock hues..." Within the confines of the chest,
Aldyth rolled her Ranulf was really playing it to the hilt. She could almost
see the elaborate gestures, the eyes raised heavenward. "In troth my
feelings are a bit stronger than that, mind telling you," Urse said in
long-suffering tones, who gets to carry these chests full of robes and 1 lord
the peacock?
I do! And ifh/s clothing there's my lady's clothes. "
"Well, naturally! My leman need not play peacock. Lady Vivienne must appear
be ollir gloriously arrayed as I. " Twould not be chivalro the, n, there
are our jewels and gold chains. "
Naturally," Turold echoed, his voice he " You're a good man to understand so
wft with hearty gratitude.
"Perhaps you'd} service in my household--since it doesrg be getting married,
that is."
"with There was silence for a moment.
Turold's astonishment. After all, the art hat Lord Ranulf of harboring his
be' must was offering him a position. W' f your to him.
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Normandy.
"You are too well championed for me to refuse you, Aldyth, it seems. But
hear me well--you will dress during the entire journey as Edward and you will
obey me instantly in all things. Is that perfectly understood? It may well
mean your life. Nay, don't weep now--you will unman me."
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