Though his clumsiness and ineptitude had long ago been replaced by speed and skill, he still remembered the jeers and jests from his peers.

The sounds of the rest of their party approaching—the jingle of harnesses, the dull clopping of hooves—drew Mal’s attention from his memories of the past.

“Why do you stop here, my lord, when we’re so near?” asked Sir Nevril, his master-at-arms, as he joined Mal. He had his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Is aught amiss?”

“Nay,” Mal replied, gathering up his reins reluctantly. The sight of the busy, close town below already had the effect of making him feel as itchy as if he’d just donned wet wool. Infested with lice.

“Naught is indeed amiss, other than Warwick’s great aversion to all pomp and circumstance and having to lay his pallet in a chamber with a dozen other unwashed men,” jested another voice.

Malcolm made a rude gesture to his friend, Dirick, the new Lord of Ludingdon. “I cannot deny my mislike of having every breath of my days and nights managed for me while in attendance to the king. Did you not nearly miss your own father’s funeral because of the king’s demands?”

Dirick had pulled his horse close enough to Mal’s so the two sets of equine ears were nearly aligned. “Aye. The sword of loyalty’s blade can swing both ways when one is favored by the king. But I cannot complain on my latest acquisition,” he added with a cheeky grin.

“Nay, I should say not,” Malcolm replied with a wry smile. For all his time and loyalty given to Henry, Dirick had recently been rewarded with not only a title and fief, but a beautiful, well-landed heiress.

Mal had met Lady Maris and had been astounded by the fact that the lovely woman was not only comely but intelligent as well—and had no qualms about speaking her mind. His Sarah had been sweet-tempered and pretty, but there’d never been an argument betwixt the two of them in which she’d raised her voice above a modulated tone. Mal had been witness to the fact that this was not so with Dirick of Ludingdon and his new bride when Lady Maris, who had been quite heavy with child, decided she meant to ride out some distance from the walls of the keep to tend to an ill farmer. Dirick had taken exception to her intent, and a loud row had ensued, leaving Mal gawking in shock at the lady’s stubbornness.

To his further astonishment, she’d gotten her way, with Dirick insisting on accompanying her to the ill farmer whilst she—an accomplished healer— rode in a small cart, leaving his guests to their own meal. Even now, Mal mentally raised his brows at the very memory.

Still, he’d never known Dirick to be happier, and Malcolm was well aware of the benefits of having a wife to warm his bed and manage his household. This was the only reason he’d forced himself to leave the lush green meadows and velvety rolling hillocks of Warwick and his other holdings in northern England to travel to the chaos of the king’s court.

The season was early summer, and Malcolm had every intention of being back in Warwick with a wedded, bedded and—God willing—breeding woman before the first snowfall.

“Who is that man?”

Judith winced at the unexpected jab in her side and turned to Lady Ursula. The younger woman’s pretty round face was alit with curiosity. “Which man?” she asked, looking around the room.

This was not as simple a task as it would seem, for they were gathering at supper in the great hall at Clarendon. The ceiling rose high above their heads, and the vast chamber was filled with people squeezing into their seats at row after row of trestle tables. Lords and ladies, maidens, knights, monks, men-at-arms, jongleurs, bards, and acrobats, serfs, pages, and stewards—and even a small pack of hunting dogs, a trio of kestrels, and a pride of fat mousers—filled the chamber. Not to mention the noise.

It was fair deafening.

The king and queen sat on the dais at the high table, accompanied by the most wealthy and powerful of their guests including Thomas à Becket, the Bishop of Canterbury. And then, row by row, with the richest and most loyal vassals sitting nearest the dais and the meanest serfs and servants in the crowded rear of the chamber, everyone else settled in their places by rank. The further from the archbishop and royal couple, the closer and narrower the tables, and the less plentiful and appetizing the food.

Judith and a group of the queen’s ladies sat only three rows from the dais. Further down their table and at the bench behind them were some of the unmarried vassals and higher-ranking knights favored by the king and queen. She knew everyone in the vicinity, for they dined, hunted, socialized, and worshipped together.

“Look you there—he’s the tall man bowing to her majesty, standing with Ludingdon. He’s even as tall as Ludingdon,” Ursula said. Judith resisted the urge to elbow her into keeping her voice low. It was so loud in here, surely no one would hear. “Do you know him? You must know him, Judith. You’ve been with the queen so long, you know everyone.”

She forbore to respond to a comment that, if delivered by any other woman would be considered a gentle insult—but which was meant only in the most innocent of ways coming from Ursula of Tenavaux. Sixteen, undeniably pretty and the daughter of one of the king’s French vassals, Ursula was six years younger than the twenty-two-year-old Judith and extremely marriageable. She still found the royal court mesmerizing and exciting, filled with colorful opportunity and gaiety and excitement.

Judith had long ago lost such ingenuousness. But she straightened in her seat on the rough wooden bench and peered toward the front to see if she did, indeed, know who the newcomer was.

“He’s sitting next to the king,” hissed Ursula unnecessarily. “He must be someone important!”

“That’s Lord Warwick,” said a low voice that nevertheless reached Judith’s ear from across the table and beneath the dull roar of conversation, laughter, shouts, and the metallic clang of utensil and tray. “I heard him announced earlier today. He arrived with Ludingdon.”

Judith glanced at Lady Alynne, one of Eleanor’s other favorite ladies, and then, turning back to look at the dais, replied, “Warwick?”

She could be forgiven if there was a note of disbelief in her voice, for she’d met both John de Monde, the Lord of Warwick, and his son and heir, Malcolm, when the latter fostered with her father at Kentworth nearly a decade past. The imposing, muscular man settling into his seat next to the king was much too young to be Lord John, and he didn’t at all resemble the awkward, earnest young man she’d known years ago.

As Lady Ursula had noted, the newcomer was tall, and Judith suspected he’d top the king by at least a full head. And, unlike Henry and most of the other men in court, he was clean-shaven. His hair, the rich brown color of well-tanned leather, was overly long, just covering his ears and nearly brushing his shoulders in the back. This gave him an unfashionable, almost wild appearance next to the other neatly trimmed and groomed attendants at the high table.

Trying not to appear too interested—for the sharp eyes and quick tongues of the court were always on the spy for gossip—Judith nevertheless continued to steal looks toward the dais throughout the meal. It was curiosity that got the best of her, for despite their differences in personality and appearance, Malcolm de Monde and Judith’s betrothed husband, Gregory of Lundhame, had been friends during their fostering.

It wasn’t until the man in question turned so she saw the clean shape of his profile that Judith was convinced of his identity. Although his shoulders had broadened greatly and the rest of his body had filled out and matured, the sharp, prominent jut of his nose and squared jaw hadn’t changed.

She mused silently at this revelation. So Malcolm was now Lord Warwick. Judith didn’t recall hearing of his father’s death, but it could have happened during the time she was away from court. Home at Kentworth, grieving over the death of Gregory.

As Judith drew her attention from the guest at the high table, her glance slid over the king. He was looking at her.

Startled, Judith smiled in acknowledgment and half-rose in her seat to make a brief curtsy. The king smiled back and, still looking at her—or at least in her direction—lifted his wine goblet and drank.

“Judith, did you see the new fabrics Tyrinia brought to the queen today?” asked Alynne, drawing her attention from the high table. “I vow, I’ve not ever seen such delicate material. ’Tis like cobwebs, but shot with emerald and sapphire threads.”

“Nay, and I’m sorry I didn’t. It sounds lovely, if not expensive. I didn’t know Tyrinia was visiting today,” Judith said with genuine disappointment. “I might have waited until the morrow for my hunt if I’d remembered.”

“That fabric costs more for a bolt than does a good warhorse,” Ursula said, a bit of wistfulness in her voice. “And though it glitters like the sea in sunlight, the cloth is so fragile and transparent it isn’t suitable for anything other than a veil or overtunic.”

“But it would need no embroidery—which is thankful, for it is too delicate to handle much stitching,” added Alynne.

“It sounds magnificent,” Judith said. For all the time she spent tramping through field and meadow with her hawks, she also enjoyed fashion and clothing just as much. “Verily ’tis as well I didn’t see the samples and be left to moon over them.” She sighed. “The nearest I shall come to wearing such a fabric is if her majesty has an overtunic made and a bit of it drags over my slipper.” They all laughed merrily.

“Bon soir, lovely ladies,” said a deep voice behind her. “Is there a place for a weary, bedraggled knight to sit at your table?”

Judith turned and looked up as Hugh de Rigonier, baron of Rigonier-Chatte, slid onto the bench between her and Ursula. “Good evening, Lord Hugh,” she said with a smile. “Thank you for joining us.”

In the realm of the gossipy, whispering, back-stabbing court, Hugh was one of the people whose company she truly enjoyed. “We were just bemoaning the lack of courtly presence at our table tonight, and here you’ve arrived in the nick of time to keep us from talking only of the latest weave of fabric from Milan and bejeweled hair fashions,” Judith jested, using a long red curl to gesture teasingly at him. The lock was enclosed in a slender metal cuff that glinted with tiny gems.