“Aye, I can sit a horse,” he said. And he thought it was not pride alone that made him say it; the pounding in his head was lessening. “Bring me my own, if by God’s grace you did not attack my beast as well. When I point myself to the rising sun, how long until I am out of Wales?”

“Better you answer why you were in Wales, on lands that belong to no Norman lord, and you all alone with no easy device to announce you.”

He allowed his mouth to curve at the barely suppressed note of suspicion. “Think you I come to do business for the King?”

Eyes narrowed and jaw hard, Madog hesitated before answering. Ranulf suppressed a laugh at the other man’s expression, waiting to see if hospitality would hold or if the Welshman would say it outright.

“Your brain is cracked from the fall you took, if you think we’ll let Edward’s butcher loose in our lands with sword and mount, injured or nay.”

Ranulf lifted his brows, the trace of humor draining from him. “You flatter me, Madog ap Rhys. But you needn’t worry.” He let a little silence settle, and leveled his eyes at the other man. “I kill only kinsmen,” he said, “and I have me no fathers left to die.”

He waited patiently, looking steady at Madog until a contempt crept across the Welshman’s face. It was so predictable that it made Ranulf yawn as he looked down again to pick at the flannel dressing on his chest. He trained his gaze on the bandages, pulling them carefully away from his sore flesh, watching the wound ooze lightly when the cloth came away. This cut, too, was only a deep scratch running from his shoulder across to his breastbone. But it had festered, like the gash on his arm. He pressed the cloth against it.

“You’ll ride with us,” Madog said. “By grace of God or the point of my sword, you’ll hold your seat and come to the keep, and others decide where you go from there.”

He would have liked to dispute that, but the notion of a nearby castle, rife with meat and drink and a soft bed held too much appeal. He didn’t even bother to ask whose keep it was. He knew nothing of the Welsh lords. One was the same as another. Let them think he came on Edward’s business. Better that than what had really brought him here, or the humiliation of having lost his way so completely.

No longer was he wandering unknown lands, nor lost in fever dreams of sin and death and damnation. He was Ranulf of Morency, the king’s loyal and lethal friend. He killed defenseless old men and valiant knights of the realm, and was never shamed by it. That was what men saw. That was the skin he must live in.