It was a chamber like the others, frigid cold, rich in hangings and carved cupboards and carpets. For the mistress there was a bright oriel bay overlooking the court, with its own hearth and three large windows that sent shafts of light through the dust. Melanthe lifted her hand, dismissing her curious retinue. "Only the Williams," she said, and the rest had sense enough to find urgent business elsewhere.

She walked slowly across to the bay, glancing at the ceiling, where painted vines bloomed with golden flowers against a ground of stars and sky. With the hem of her mantle she brushed off a chair by the window. An embroidery rack had been left with the work still upon it. She turned and sat, fixing a straight gaze upon the two Williams, ignoring the cold.

"Now, my men," she said in French, "we will have some honest talking."

William Bassinger bowed, and Foolet knelt on one knee. "Your Highness," he said with flawless humility.

"Rise, and look at me."

She waited until they obeyed, and waited still longer, a sustained and steady observation. Bassinger's brows slowly rose and his lashes lifted, his face growing more and more roundly innocent above the white beard, until a babe could not have appeared as blameless. William the little Fool only stood without expression, a light color in his cheeks the single flaw in his calm.

"Tell me what has happened here," she said.

Bassinger bowed. "Your Highness, as God maintains me, may I bend my poor talent to the task you set?"

"With all dispatch!"

"Your Highness, I beseech the Saviour of the world to fill me with such ardor and excellence as to give you great delight and pleasure in my tale—"

"Not a tale, but a history," she said impatiently. "Not one word but true."

He gave her a hurt look, then lifted his chin and filled his chest with air. "Then I begin forthwith, to tell Your Highness of the glorious and stirring history of my Lord Ruadrik, the grandsire of the father of the father of our present lord."

Melanthe lifted a forefinger from the arm of the chair. "Nay, let us drop a father or two. Begin with your lord."

"Ah, but Your Highness, his father the Lord Ruadrik was a great man, very great of heart and body, so I have heard tell."

Melanthe saw that it was useless to press him faster than he would go. "Very well, but say me nothing false."

Bassinger puffed up in mild indignation. "My knowledge is exact, Your Highness, from sources of faultless authority, being my lord your husband and Sir Harold."

"And who is Sir Harold?"

The Foolet spoke. "A knight of the old lord's. Our present lord's tutor in arms. Lives he in the postern tower. He waxes a little—mad, sometimes. Your Highness will have a care of him, I pray."

Melanthe raised her brows. "A most interesting household. Recommence, William Bassinger."

"Your Highness, I tell you of how our lord's father Ruadrik of Wolfscar was in his youth among the companions of our noble King Edward of England, may God protect him. It was in the king's minority, when his unwise mother the queen and that vile traitor Mortimer held sway in the land, such that any man of honor and understanding deplored the state of affairs, even to fearing for the life of our young king himself. For all know that the traitor murdered most foully the former king his father."

He paused, to see that she was attentive. Melanthe nodded at old history and urged him on with her fingers.

"But by the grace of God," Bassinger intoned, "our king had good friends and true, and Ruadrik of Wolfscar was one. Under the advice of Lord Montagu and others, the king laid a trap for—"

"Yea, at Nottingham, they went in by a secret passage and took Mortimer by surprise," she said, to cut short what was like to be a long adventure. "Wolfscar was one of the king's party?"

Bassinger appeared to have a good deal of trouble swallowing her rude interruption, but after a moment of offended silence, he agreed. "Your Highness, Ruadrik of Wolfscar led the way."

"Well, I think I would have heard of him, had he led the way, but I can believe that he was in the company. And for this service, I presume he was rewarded?"

"He was made a knight of the Bath, and his lands extended from here to the abbey in the south, and the lakes in the east, and the coast on the west, and two miles north."

"Knowest thee who held these lands before him?"

"Your Highness, I be no lawyer," Bassinger pronounced solemnly.

"They were escheated of a part of Lancaster that had no heir, my lady, and held by the abbey," the younger William said, "but the king suspended the escheat and gave them to Wolfscar for reward."

"And the license to fortify? These lands appear not rich enough for such a castle."

William Bassinger would have spun out another tale, of Scots and battle heroics, but William Foolet cut him short. "There be a mine for iron in the hills, Your Highness. The king gave my lord's father the income without encumbrance for the building of the castle, for there was no northern defense."

"Iron?" Melanthe looked about her at the silk and cushions with skepticism. "A full rich iron mine must it be," she said.

The fool's unfoolish eyes regarded her. She waited. "Gold there be in it, too, my lady, and silver," he said at last, reluctantly.

Melanthe steepled her fingers and rested her chin on the tips. For a long while she watched the slow fall of dust motes through a shaft of light.

"Why," she demanded softly of Foolet, "did the abbot not ward him as Lord Ruadrik told me should have been?"

"It were evil days, my lady. I think many monks died. None came here."

"He should have gone to them!" She looked to Bassinger, for Foolet could have been no more than a child. "After the death passed. Thou shouldst have taken him!"

"My lady, you may be assured that had I known of the arrangement, I would have moved both Heaven and Earth to see my lord Ruadrik into the hands of those who would guard and care for him, for I loved him as my own son. I was not made mindful of this warding. I think he did not apperceive the will of his father, whom God absolve, for some time."

"What time?"

"I found his father's testament, my lady," Foolet said, "among the manor rolls. My lord Ruadrik had ten and five years then, and we went to the abbey, my lady."

"And?"

Bassinger made an apologetic gesture. "The clerks had no record of the king's grant of the land to my lord's father. There was a fire, it seems. They were short with us, my lady. We left them."

"Left them! Without seeing the abbot?"

"My lady, with such a rude welcome, I advised my lord to withdraw, ere he let news abroad that might be harmful to him. It is a very covetous abbey, my lady."

"Thou half-wits, there would be record among the king's rolls, if the abbey's was lost!"

"I am no lawyer, my lady," Bassinger murmured. "We carried out his honored father's will."

"My lady," Foolet said anxiously, "we did try. But we were afraid then; we realized that he could not prove himself—"

"None knew him from the font? No retainer? No villein?"

"Only Sir Harold," William Foolet said in a hollow tone.

"One is enough, if he is a man of good standing."

"I think not, my lady. His mind is—uncertain."

"The priest, then."

"My lady, our chaplain came into the valley after the pestilence. There were a few such who came from outside, in the first years, and we made a place and welcome."

She frowned at him. "Come, they did not all perish, those who knew him. What of these you've named to me as in this valley at their birth?"

"Yea, my lady. But you saw them; they are younger than my lord. It is their parents who could have said, and they have died since." He shrugged helplessly.

"I am no lawyer, my lady," Bassinger repeated, "but I think that to make a claim stick against that abbot, a hundred peasants who could name my lord Ruadrik would not suffice. And so I counseled my lord." He drew air into his chest expansively. "He saw the wisdom of my words, and being a young man of great heart and spirit, he betook him to prove himself worthy of his lands by his own exertion. He eschewed these ink-stained clerks and lawyers and went out into the world in search of adventures and glory—as is proper to one of his knightly lineage, my lady, I'm sure you will agree. I have recorded his ordeals and victories in a poem, and will be pleased to delight my lady's grace with the singing of it. It is not finished yet, for we still await the great deed by which he will prove himself, and take his due reward, but God willing comes it soon."

Melanthe gazed at him. At first she thought that he was making a mirth. But he looked back at her with a pleased expression.

"By hap my lady would care to hear the prologue?" he asked.

"God confound you!" she breathed. "Have you made him go ragged and nameless about the world, as if he is of no account but what he wins by his strength of arms?"

"My lord does no thing but what he chooses of his own self." Foolet's voice was stout, but his gaze wavered almost imperceptibly.

She leaned forward. "The abbey should have warded him! Or better yet the king!"

The two stood silent before her vehemence.

"But if they had," she said fiercely, "they would have made short work of thy troop of minstrels sojourning here!" She swept her hand wide. "Lord Ruadrik would have held the land of his own right long since—but instead you have made him surrender his real claim, and try to win it back by foolish errantry, for fear his wards would cast you out!"