Aldyth said then.

"You might as well continue acting the boy--your hair's still too short to convince anyone you're a girl," he retorted, but was sorry when he glanced at her and saw his flippancy had only made her grit her teeth with frustrated fury.

"I can hardly make it grow any faster! And anyway, I'd be wearing a veil most of the time so my hair wouldn't show anyway," Aldyth shot back. Then, as if striving to match his flippant tone, she added, "or if any saw it, you could tell them it was the latest style in England!" Then she grew rio us again.

"Now that Lady Vivienne's gone home, I don't see why I cannot pose as your mistre. I'm so tired of wearing boy's clothes and remembering to speak in a low voice and walk just so .... " He smiled inwardly, for he knew the masquerade was becoming trying to her feminine spirit, yet he secretly enjoyed being the only one to know that his gruff-speaking, rough- and-tumble page

"Edward" was really ve much a woman.

I could not have you acting as my mistress, dressing in seductive clothes and letting me caress you before others as a leman would, my foolish blind darling, for then I'd want you to be mine in truth, Ranulf thought, but he did not say so. If only Turold had not made you fear my s.e.x . Aloud, he said, "I've told you why. I've been saying it ever since we left Rouen, Aldyth--I don't trust Prince Henry--not around an innocent like you. He's a womanizer par excellence. If he thought you were my mistress, it would be only too like him to want you, too--and as he outranks a mere baron like me, I'm afraid I would be pressured to let him, uh, sample you. I don't want to be put in that position, Aldyth, and you don't want to be in it, either, do you?"

Aldyth shook her head, aghast at the thought.

"He sounds like a monster."

"He's not," Ranulf said, but an incident long ago had taught him to be wary.

He doubted Henry would still use his rank to take a va.s.sal's woman, but he would take no chances, not with Aldyth.

"He has many cellent qualities--a keen mind and a talent for strategy not the least of them--but he's been denied the thing he wants most, real power.

He had to buy his county, you know, with the silver that was his only legacy from his father, for the Conqueror had given all the land to Rufus and Robert. As a cons quence, Henry thinks he should have whatever else he wants, such as any woman who attracts his pa.s.sing fancy."

"Yet you were going to bring Lady Vivienne here,"

Aldyth pointed out.

"Yes..." Aldyth's mind was ever sharp for holes in his carefully constructed reasons.

"But Vivienne is not an innocent babe such as you are. She could have taken care of herself."

"And I cannot?" Aldyth cried, stung.

"Grande merci, my lord, for your faith in my abilities!"

She dug her heels into the cob and shot ahead of him down the coastal road to Henry's castle.

Chapter Fourteen

"Ranulf of Kingsclere, it's good to see you!" the prince cried, rushing into the bailey as Ranulf and Aldyth dismounted.

"I was hoping when you sent word you were going to Rouen you'd find a way to visit me here."

Ranulf bowed.

"My prince, I am happy to be here." Henry caught him into an embrace as he straightened.

"But you travel in little state, Ranulf--with just a page?" Henry exclaimed, indicating Aldyth.

"Where is your giant Breton?"

"Edward, stop stating and do as I taught you," Ranulf commanded.

A blushing Aldyth, who had been staring at the best looking of the Conqueror's three living sons, hast' fly went down on one knee and inclined her head.

"Prince Henry, I have the honor of presenting Edward of Pevensey, my page, whom I'm still training in courtesy, as you can see," Ranulf said dryly.

"Urse, my squire, had the temerity to fall in love with my leman and ask her to wed him. He has taken her home to celebrate the New Year with her babes, so I had only this young pup to bear me company up the road from Rouen." He ruffled Aldyth's hair playfully.

"A sore trial, that," he added, chuckling.

Under the cover of her tousled hair, Aldyth glared at him. She'd teach him to patronize her!

"And you did not mind your squire filching your ch.o.r.e amie? You do not seem brokenhearted. No, I see you, are not. No matter, there are other delights here to tempt your-- ahem!-palate. You have come to bring in the New Year with us. Excellent!"

"Your court is always most comfortable," responded Ranulf.

"And I would somewhat belatedly congratulate you on your new lands, my prince. May I ask how you like he- ing Count of the Cotenfin and Avranches?"

Obviously forgotten, Aldyth was free to study Henry once more. He was taller than his older brothers and his sire, Aldyth noted, but shorter and more stockily built than the Norman knight who stood before him. He was tawny-haired and lacked the fioridity and uncouthness of Rufus's face and the dissipation that marked Robert's.

"Ah, I'm quite fond of having any land, since before I had nothing to call my own, thanks to the inequities of Father's will--even if I had to buy my county myself. But I think you know this Norman peninsula is not the end of my ambitions, Ranulf." He grinned wolfishly and his gray eyes gleamed.

Ranulf darted an uneasy glance back at Aldyth.

"You come right to the point, as ever, my prince. Let me just send my page up to my chamber with my things to unpack" -- "Nonsense, my lackeys can take them. The boy wants to be a knight one day, don't you, Edward? And perhaps more?" the count said, patting Aldyth on the shoulder in a friendly fashion.

"Y-yes, my lord," Aldyth said, lowering her head in hopes that the keen gray eyes would not see too much.

"Of course you do, that's a good lad. And where better to learn statecraft than at our knees, eh, Ranulf? Let us just go into the hall, where we may be more comfortable, for it's a chill wind blowing in off the Channel, eh?"

He ushered them into the hall, where a great stone fireplace did an excellent job of keeping the December cold away. A trio of women sat st.i.tching by its light and looked up curiously as the count approached with Ranulf and his page. Henry shooed them away, saying,

"Ladies, please excuse us for now, for we must talk of tedious manly things, but later, I promise you, you shall meet my most trusted va.s.sal."

The three women gathered up their st.i.tchery, giggling and eyeing Ranulf appraisingly. Aldyth darted a surprised glance at him herself and met dark eyes that told her nothing. Henry's "most trusted va.s.sal" Wasn't he supposed to be Rufus's man? Whom did he serve?

"Tell me," Henry said, sitting down on one of the chairs the women had vacated and indicating that they were to take the other two, "how fares my brother?"

Ranulf took a deep breath.

"If I may be frank, my prince" -- "I have always trusted you to be so, Ranulf," Henry put in dryly.

"But perhaps I must carry frankness to extremes if I am to be honest at this time, Prince Henxy. I found the duke as devoted as ever to the pleasures of the flesh, practically to the exclusion of all els. It's wine, women and song all day in Rouen. But just before I left, all the barons of the duchy began pouring in for the Christmas court--including several who should have been in attendance upon your royal brother in England."

"Nay, Ranulf, you have mistaken me," said Henry with a wave of a regal hand.

"I see you thought I meant Robert.

Believe me, I know all about my brother the wine sot, for he tells me everything, the gullible feel. I know all about the rebellion he's brewing, for he's invited me to be a part of it. Does that surprise you? He also sent you to spy on me, did he not? "