Immediately the words left his mouth, there was the smell of danger on the air. He could not tell if it was his insult against the lady or the lord of Ruardean that caused the greatest anger, but there was no mistaking the murderous looks aimed at him. All of them, he realized with a slight shock. Instead of inspiring discord in the party, he had unified them all in hatred of him.

From one breath to the next, he moved from amused and detached, from poking gently at them to see what might happen, to a black mood. They were so quick to hate him, as though they had only been waiting for him to speak discourteous words to give them the excuse to sneer at him. Always and everywhere, he was the villain. Because of Aymer, dead since before most of them had grown beards.

His hand itched for a weapon. His eyes moved back to Madog, thirsting for a fight with the man, seeing in him the best possibility of a long drawn-out battle. He kept his eyes from the other man’s sword, resisting the urge to see if his hand had landed where Ranulf so wanted it. It made his blood surge, the knowledge that he could have a fight if he but pushed them enough. Let him have a sword, and he would show them that there was more to him than his ancient sins, and stop their righteous sneering.

“Tell me, good men, does it suit your honor more to take the orders of a woman than those of your fore-maddened lord? Hides he in the Holy Land, I hear, and talks with saints long dead.” He stood from the boulder and looked around at them. “Is it Judas he calls himself now, or the Christ himself? I cannot remember the latest report from that quarter.”

“Stop your tongue, or by Christ I will stop it for you!” came the heated response from the bald one. Thomas was his name. He fought well, too, Ranulf remembered.

“Ruardean would be proud of her men,” he muttered, as this latest man entered the fray. Not a man there stood without dagger at the ready, eager to defend the honor of their lord, no matter if the blood in their veins was Norman or Welsh. It reminded him of the days in the Holy Land, where men followed without question or hesitation, a place of undying loyalty and unending barbarism. He felt a grudging respect uncurl in him for these men, and a stab of the old outrage that he could only prove himself worthy of their respect through some show of violence.