Chapter One

"Ranulf, what are you doing, talking to that wheezing old crust? The games of love are about to begin!"

Ranulf had his back to the speaker, but he recognized the ringing voice. "Such trifles can wait, Giles," he replied, without turning round in the narrow tent. "I wear no token save my late wife's, you know that. I must speak with my steward now." Seeking the next name, he bent his head lower to the parchment spread out on the small table.

"But the ladies will be there at the castle!"

"Not my lady." Ranulf pointed to the next name on the list. "How fares Alfstand village?" he asked his steward Offa, who had once been Olwen's man. "Have they men enough for the hay harvest or do you need coin to hire more?"

Offa, a steady, sturdy man, had sense enough to ignore Giles's huffing behind them and answered promptly, "More men will be needed, sir. The hamlet is most piteously afflicted by the general pestilence. I would say we need seven or eight."

"Make the ones who are left work double," said Giles, sounding to Ranulf as if he was stifling a yawn. "Leave that, Ran, and come out into the sun, or you will soon be as sallow and puny as a clerk. No way to win a new lady!"

Ranulf thought of Olwen, of her pale beauty and secret smiles, and he longed to knock Giles's smugly handsome face against the tent post. Why had God granted him and Olwen so little time together? Why had their time been so marred? He was a widower at six and twenty, with no wife or sons and a host of bad memories. Was he a fool for st