“King’s orders, I suppose,” she said viciously. It was a phrase she was already sick of, and she knew she’d hear it a great deal more.

“ ’S right.” It wasn’t that the man was unkind, but his lord king had insisted on speed, a requirement that literally overrode all others.

On reaching the Severn they’d transferred to a boat and disembarked at Cardiff Castle on the Welsh coast, their destination, only to discover that Henry had moved on with his troops.

“Been another rebellion,” Bolt told them after making inquiries. “Young Geoffrey’s holding out at Caerleon ’gainst another Welsh attack. The king’s gone to relieve him.”

“We’ll have to wait here, then,” Adelia had said, relieved by the thought of a rest.

“No, mistress. We’d better get on.”

“Into a battle? You can’t take us into danger.”

Bolt was astonished by her lack of faith in Henry Plantagenet. “There won’t be no battle by the time we gets there. The king’ll have mopped up that load of bloody Taffies quicker’n sixpence.”

And so he had, if the heads on the battlements and the quiet, darkened countryside all around were anything to go by.

Having quelled the revolt, Henry was establishing the peace-not that there was any sign of it in barbican or bailey, both in a commotion as soldiers tried to pack up weaponry against a counterflow of clerks unpacking chests of documents, all this among braying mules, frightened, scattering hens and pigs, and a cracked voice from a high window shouting orders to those below. “Where are those bloody maps? I need more ink up here. For the love of God, will you bastards hurry.”

The place stank of urine and manure, nor did the smell improve as Adelia and the others were rushed up staircases and past arrow slits where archers had stood day and night repelling an encircling enemy.

The king was striding up and down a slightly less noisome though just as turbulent chamber, dictating the terms of two different treaties with two different and defeated rebel Welsh lords to two different scribes, occasionally shouting instructions out the window, while a fusty little man ran alongside him, trying to apply leeches to a bare and inflamed-looking royal arm. In a corner, a young man whom Adelia recognized as the king’s illegitimate son and general-in-chief, Geoffrey, was talking to several tired-looking insigniaed men in heavy fur mantles, presumably Welsh chieftains. Pages were laying out food on a table, kicking away sniffing hounds as they did it. A line of hawks on perches were screeching and flapping their wings. Incongruously, a limp-looking man in another corner was playing a small harp and singing to it, though what it was was impossible to hear.

Captain Bolt announced the newcomers in a shout that only just penetrated the noise: “The lord Mansur, Mistress Adelia, and…” He looked despairingly at Gyltha, who was holding Allie. “And company.”

Henry glanced up. “You took your damn time. Sit down somewhere until I’ve finished…”

“No,” Adelia said clearly.

Everybody stopped what they were doing, except the harpist, who went on quietly singing to himself.

Past caring, itching with fleas and fury, Adelia told him, “The Lord Mansur and company require a bath and a rest. And they need them now.”

All eyes looked in her direction and then, in one slow movement, were turned on the king. Henry’s temper when he was flouted was renowned-Thomas à Becket had died from it.

He blew out a breath. “Geoffrey.”

“Yes, my lord?”

“Is there a bath in the castle?”

“I don’t know, my lord.” The young man’s mouth twitched. “A bath wasn’t, er, part of our armory.”

“Better find one. And some beds.”

“And clean clothes,” Adelia said. “Women’s.”

The king sighed again. “Samite? Lace? Any particular size?”

Adelia ignored the sarcasm. “Clean will do,” she said.

At the door she turned and addressed the little doctor: “And if you’re supposed to be treating that wound, get those leeches off it and put on some bog moss-there’s plenty of the bloody stuff in the valleys; we’ve been squelching through it for two days.”

THE BATH TURNED OUT to be a washtub of enormous proportions, and the soldiers who hauled it up to the two rooms allocated to their guests at the top of a tower, along with great ewers of hot water, were out of breath and resentful when they got it there.

An inexorable Adelia sent them back down for soap and towels.

The beds, when they arrived, were rickety, but the straw and blankets that came with them were clean.

After a long night’s sleep, Adelia woke up feeling better, if chastened by the memory of her behavior toward a king whose empire stretched from the borders of Scotland to the Pyrenees. Apparently, though, it was even yet having its effect, for a polite knock on the door heralded the entrance of the emperor’s bastard son, Geoffrey, still amused.

He was carrying an armful of women’s clothing. “We, er, liberated these from one of the Welsh chieftain’s wives,” he said. “Don’t worry, she has others, though I’m afraid the lady favors rather more avoirdupois than you do, but it was that or a mail shirt.”

Adelia clutched her blanket more closely about her-last night she’d thrown everything she’d been wearing out the window. Luckily, Allie’s extra clothes had been included in Gyltha’s pack, along with Mansur’s, and were fit for them to wear. “I’m grateful, my lord.”

“Was the breakfast to your satisfaction? The cook’s Welsh as well.”

“Congratulate him for me,” she said. Skewered lamb, the tastiest she’d ever eaten, along with buttermilk and a form of cake called bara brith so rich that even Mansur hadn’t been able to finish all of it.

“Then when you’re dressed, my lord king would be happy to receive you and my lord Mansur. Only when you are ready, of course.” The young man went to the door and then turned back. “Oh, and one of our lads carved this for the little one.” He knelt to put his face on a level with Allie’s and handed her a wooden doll.

Allie curtsied nicely. “I’ll call him Poppy, like the ones on the roof.”

“Poppies?”

“She’s referring to the flowers decorating the battlements,” Adelia said, getting angry again. “The ones separated from their stalks.”

“Ah, yes.” The young man’s eyes were on Allie, but he spoke to Adelia. “You see, little one, they were already picked. The king doesn’t take the heads off poppies unless they’re dead.” As he turned to leave, and Allie began playing with her doll, he added, “Hangs a few, of course, to encourage the others, but on the whole he’s magnanimous to his flowers.”

“Nice lad that,” Gyltha said, when Geoffrey had gone. She began unfolding the clothes he’d brought. “Gawd help us.”

With Mansur behind her, Adelia waded down the stairs in a skirt and bodice that had been pinned up and belted to enable her to keep them on. Since, at her age, it wasn’t respectable to go bareheaded, she also wore the Welshwoman’s headdress, an elaborate affair with something like curtaining on either side, which rested heavily on her ears.

Casually, to the page who was leading the way, she asked, “Is the bishop of Saint Albans in the castle?”

“He was, mistress, but he’s gone to Saint David’s to treat with the Welsh bishop.”

The king’s chamber had been cleared of chieftains and servants but retained the king, a scribe writing at the table, dogs, hawks, and the softly singing harpist. The page ushered them in, announced them, and then stood at attention with his back to the door.

Still dictating, Henry Plantagenet stumped up and down on legs that were becoming bandy from days of traveling his empire on horseback. As usual, he was dressed hardly better than one of his grooms, but, again as usual, he generated a power that sent out an almost palpable energy.

Mansur salaamed, and Henry nodded at him, then walked round Adelia, studying her swamping attire. “Can you hear me in there?”