her concentration to understand it. ‘Lord Gamal’s daughter,’ he barked, erupting from the chair like an unleashed hound and coming to stand before her. He was stocky and belligerent, bull-necked and florid.
‘Yes, your Grace,’ she said. His eyes were odd, one flecked with brown, the other bluish-green. Quickly, she looked away.
‘Well, I’ve called in your father’s estate, so that’s that. If I cannot rely on my tenants to provide men when I need them, I’ll give my property to men who can.’ He looked around him, well content with his summing up. ‘He didn’t even send out three merchant ships last year at his own expense, so I’m told, and that’s another failure,’ he said, looking this time directly at Ketti.
Against all protocol, Rhoese interrupted him before being invited. ‘But your Grace…my father died…lost overboard. Surely these are extenuating circumstances?’
‘Eh?’ the king bellowed, visibly reddening. ‘Extenuating what?’
The hall fell ominously silent.
‘Circumstances, sire,’ she said.
There was a sound and a slight movement from one side, and the archbishop moved forward into a pool of light where a fitful ray of sunshine caught the gold panel on his chasuble. ‘Too late to go down that road, my lady,’ he said quietly into her ear. ‘The Lady Ketti has already explained that to his Grace. You are here to help her at this difficult time. She’s going to need a home, you see. Isn’t she?’ He held out his ring for her to kiss.
Archbishop Thomas had known her father well. The York merchant had brought back rarities, furs, falcons, walrus-ivory and wine for the Norman churchman’s pleasure, and they had trusted each other. No doubt the archbishop believed he was returning the favour by helping Gamal’s widow after the confiscation of her livelihood. Yes, she was going to need a home. Rhoese’s.
She looked across at her stepmother dressed modestly in grey with not a jewel in sight, her mean little face the very picture of pathetic humility, her hands clasped tightly around a rosary of jet and bone which Rhoese knew not to be her best. Cleverly, the woman had got to the archbishop first to remind him of the wealth of her ward Rhoese, and how her stepdaughter had recently refused her friendship when she, Ketti, needed it most. Their eyes met, and Rhoese read the blazing malice and jealousy behind the mask of pity. ‘My stepmother has a large family of her own, my lord,’ said Rhoese, hearing the heartlessness of her reply fall upon the silent hall.
‘They’re in Denmark, woman,’ barked the king. ‘And what’s more, it’s high time you were married.’
Rhoese frowned, unsure of the exact nature of his pronouncement. She felt the strong clasp of Els’s hand, then she turned to look behind her for the knight to see whether he had left her to her own devices and was unaccountably relieved to see that he was at her back, less than a pace away. Her eyes travelled upwards over the steel links to his eyes and found that they were fixed on her with an expression she could not interpret. Still baffled, she turned next to the archbishop whose kindly face was, for a Norman, usually easy to read. ‘What?’ she whispered.
‘His Grace is telling you that he wishes you to be married, my lady.’
‘But I don’t want…I haven’t…no! This is your doing!’ she said to Ketti, furiously. ‘How could you? You know full well that I have no intention of marrying. Your Grace, marriage is not for me, I thank you.’
To her utter humiliation, the king appeared to be enjoying the dispute as if it were an entertainment for his delight, and his bellow of laughter was so unexpectedly loud that Rhoese stepped back, causing her to trip over the Norman knight’s foot. Instantly, her elbow was supported by his large hand, her back by his body, holding her upright until she could find both feet again.
The king squeaked as he replied to her, ‘I hadn’t thought…ugh…hadn’t thought of marrying you myself, woman,’ he laughed. ‘Did you think…oh, my God…that I was offering you…?’
‘No, your Grace, I didn’t.’
‘Well, thank God for that,’ he blasphemed, impervious to the disapproval on the archbishop’s face. ‘I was trying to tell you that you won’t need your house in York when you’ll have one with a Norman. I’ve had a good—’
‘A Norman?’ Rhoese snarled, glaring at the king.
His laughter stopped as abruptly as it had begun and his face reddened again to a tone deeper than his pale red hair. ‘Yes,’ he snapped with a sudden anger. ‘A Norman. What have you against that idea? Is a Norman not good enough for you? Or is not any man good enough to fill the role of husband? Eh? Is that why you’re still unmarried? What age are you?’
‘Almost twenty-three, sire, I think.’
‘God! You should have had a brace of bairns by now, woman.’
He could not have known it, but that was probably the most hurtful remark he could have made, but to make it in public before a hostile crowd, and before her vindictive stepmother who had stolen the man she was to have married, made it doubly harrowing. Rhoese paled, swaying with the pain, and once more the hand came to steady her beneath one elbow.
The king noticed nothing. ‘Well, as I said, I’ve had some good offers for you from my loyal vassals, lady, and you have your stepmother to thank for releasing you from her wardship. She was quite reluctant to let you go, were you not, lady?’ He looked across at Ketti, who bowed her covered head demurely, hiding the triumph in her eyes. ‘Yes, so she was. And anyway, no women in my reign will hold land in their own right. I’ll not have it. It’s against God’s laws, isn’t it, my lord Thomas?’
The archbishop bowed. ‘Indeed so, sire,’ he said. ‘I’m sure Lady Rhoese will see your reasoning, once she gets used to the idea. English women, I believe, are not used to having their husbands chosen for them. Is that not so, m’lady?’
She had nothing to lose now except her life, and it was only the thought of Eric, her brother, that made her worth anything to anyone as a person rather than as a commodity. ‘English women are used to having their husbands chosen for them,’ she replied stoutly, looking directly at Ketti, ‘but they are invariably given some say in the matter. A woman has the right to say no, if she doesn’t approve.’
‘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
