So he began his campaign. It wanted not more than two days of venom followed by two days of simple civility before their minds were at ease again. He had made himself kind and biddable, as though his spite had melted away overnight. They were inclined to kindness and hospitality, taking him as harmless by the time the sun set on a second day without waspish words. Words, Ranulf disdained, were hardly his weapon of choice. He cursed the Lady Eluned for reducing him to contemptuous bleatings. Inwardly, he cursed Madog ap Rhys, and Edward and Aymer and God in Heaven, and anyone else he could think to blame for his current fate. He cursed even the nameless lady who had spared him in that hut. By day’s end, he was mightily sick of useless cursing and more than ready for whatever his words would buy him.

The rain had ended for a time, at least – long enough to find dry wood for the fire. He hid his agitation and sat comfortably with men who seemed to regard him almost as a fellow, now his mocking and jabbing had stopped. They sat around the fire, those who were not on the watch, drinking a flagon of mead and making bawdy jokes as men were ever apt to do. The bald one named Thomas offered him the flask and asked Ranulf if the women in the Holy Land were as soft and plump as the women of England.

“You think it not strange to ask a man if he tasted of lewd women while fighting God’s war?” he responded with a broad grin.

“I think you are not a holy man, my lord,” he returned readily, with a smile of his own.

“As I have heard many men say, when the Lord gave me steel to fight for Him, he did not take my yard of flesh,” he said to their appreciative laughter. “The women of the Holy Land are much like any other, I warrant. I think me your Welsh women are more foreign than the heathen.”

“Ah, no, my lord,” came the reply. “The women of Wales are much the same as any other.”

“Save for the dragon fire in their veins,” countered another man. There seemed to be a general agreement with this. “Is true they are strong, and true as well that Welsh law honors them with rights no Norman will ever abide, I think.”

“The King is Norman, and an Englishman, so it is his law the Welsh will have to learn to abide, in time. But for now, your Lady Eluned controls Ruardean,” he observed mildly, “and I see how docile you obey that Welsh woman.”

He had not expected any reaction from them over so bland a statement. But the mood had shifted back to cautiousness, men carefully not looking at one another. There was something that they did not say, that much was plain. He did not let it lie.