“And why, when I ask you to come to me, do you go think to go to this abbey instead?”

“One of the brothers there is known to me of old.” This was clearly not enough, but he could not bring himself to say more. Edward’s silence began to raise a panic in his breast. As quickly as old King Henry had bestowed title, lands and status, so could Edward take them away. Give them in favor to some other worthy knight and lock me up in a tower for my trouble. Ranulf did not care to be on the receiving end of Edward’s famous temper.

The silence grew, demanding that he speak to his innocence or be forever suspect. He stepped close to Edward and spoke in a low voice that would not carry to the unseen listeners just outside the chapel. “It was to speak with him on a matter of the soul. I would trust my king with any secret, and have gladly put my life in your keeping, but God charges us to trust our very souls with none but his most holy and ordained servants.”

There was genuine surprise in Edward’s eyes, but not disbelief. So far was this from the expected that it could not be but the truth. “There is a brother there whom I thought to make my confessor and my conscience. I was sick in spirit, Edward. I could not come to you until I knew myself forgiven.”

It was easier than he had thought it might be, with only Edward as his audience to this sliver of the truth. He could only be glad they spoke alone here in this private chapel, where he would not have to bear the incredulous and laughing murmurs of courtiers who would sooner believe a sturgeon could sing than that Ranulf of Morency should care for his immortal soul.

“There are holy men enough in places less wild,” observed the king.

He allowed himself a brief laugh. “Oh aye, they are near as holy as I, and easily found, if I but follow the trail of bastards and whores they leave in their wake.”