“I am bid give this to none other but the Lady Gwenllian, and to remain at her service.”

There was more he did not say, she knew. She could sense that Ranulf knew it as well, but he stayed silent as she took the letter from the messenger’s hand. It was from Madog, the seal unbroken. Everything in the messenger’s demeanor told her to open it away from her husband, but she could not imagine how to hide it from him.

“As your duty demanded she has received it of your hand,” said Ranulf, brusque, “and now will it please me to know who has sent you.”

The messenger said nothing, only stared at a point somewhere in the vicinity of her right shoulder and waited. She too waited, feeling Ranulf’s impatience rise, her fingers itching to open the letter she held. But she wanted to learn the measure of this man Madog had sent, and this would tell her more of the messenger than she might otherwise ever learn.

Ranulf narrowed his eyes at the continued silence, a menace suddenly in the air. “You’ll tell me the truth of this. You no more came through York than through Egypt.”

He took a step closer to the messenger, who at last looked at him directly. The color drained from his face, but his gaze did not falter even as Ranulf said, in soft threatening tones, “Think you that I shall tolerate such a lie?”

When the messenger kept silent for all the long, tense moments, and did not even glance in her direction, she lay her hand on Ranulf’s arm.

“What is your name?” she asked the messenger.

“Edric, my lady,” he said, relief in his voice as he at last looked to her. It was an English name, Anglo-Saxon.

“You have done well by Madog, Edric. He chose well when he trusted you to bring word to me, and yet he is wrong to warn against my husband.”

Edric nodded and spoke directly to Ranulf, as she broke the seal on the letter she held and read.

“In Hereford did I meet the man who gave me this message, as well as a fine horse in payment for its safe delivery. He laid upon me a charge of secrecy, to tell none but my lady that he had sent me. Nor am I to speak to any of our dealings, for love of the lady’s life, and my own.”

She barely heard him, her eyes scanning the letter, but the note in Ranulf’s voice drew her attention.

“And what love have you for my lady’s life, that you would carry this danger for her so far?”

The color had drained from Edric’s face again, and he had no ready answer.