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confidence, de Tournay.”
    â€œI will rescue her. Count out the rest of my coin, my lord, for I shall surely return to claim it.”
    Roland prepared to whip Cantor about, when the earl called after him, “De Tournay. If the girl is not a virgin, I don’t wish to have her back. You can kill her if you wish to. It matters not to me.”
    Slowly Roland stilled his destrier and dismounted to stand facing the earl. He was sickened but not over-surprised. “I don’t understand you. What matter if the girl is ravished? Her dowry remains the same size, does it not? Her dowry doesn’t constrict even if her maidenhead is gone.”
    â€œAll changes if she is not chaste.”
    â€œFor that matter, how do I know if she’s been ravished? How would you know?”
    â€œI would examine her myself.” The earl paused, then said, fury lacing his voice, “That damned fool Colchester says he won’t have her for his son if she isn’t pure. His foul mother gave his father the pox and killed him because of the men she took to her bed. He’s terrified that if Daria is ravished, she’ll kill his precious son with disease as well.”
    Roland was seeing the earl thrusting his fingers into the girl’s body to feel if her maidenhead were still intact. To humiliate another thus was incomprehensible to him, particularly a girl who had no recourse but to accept the shame of it.
    â€œColchester isn’t the only unwedded man in the kingdom,” Roland said mildly. “Wed her to another. She’s an heiress, I gather. Most men aren’t so absolute in their requirements for a wife, I doubt.”
    â€œShe is to wed Colchester, none other. It is the only match I will accept.”
    And then, finally, Roland understood. The Earl of Reymerstone had made an agreement with the Earl of Colchester, and what he would gain in the marriage mattered more to him than the dowry. Roland wondered what the bargain was that the two men had struck.
    â€œIf she’s a virgin when I rescue her, she will be a virgin when she arrives here.”
    â€œExcellent. If she isn’t, then I will kill her and you as well, de Tournay, and I will keep her dowry for myself, since there is nothing else for me.”
    Roland believed he would most certainly try. He nodded curtly and remounted Cantor. He was on his way to London now, to see the king; then he would ride to Cornwall. He needed to see Graelam de Moreton; then he wanted to visit Thispen-Ladock, just to look at the stone walls and the green hills, just to stroll through the inner bailey and speak to all the people, and know that what he was doing would make this possible for him. He had the time, and in the next two weeks he would make all his plans. He would travel northward from Cornwall to the southeast corner of Wales to Tyberton Castle, domain of the Clares since Duke William’s conquest of England. He knew now how he would present himself to Edmond of Clare. He smiled, seeing himself in this new role. He also admitted, his smile widening, that he had a bit of studying to do before he arrived at Tyberton Castle.
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    Tyberton Castle, on the River Wye
May 1275
    Ena lightly slapped the folds of Daria’s silk gown into a more pleasing shape. “There, it’s lovely ye are now. But the man will find ye lovely as well, the good Lord above knows that. Ye’ll take care, won’t ye, little mistress?”
    â€œAye,” Daria said. Ena’s warnings, admonitions, and portents were daily fare and their impact had dimmed with repetition. Edmond of Clare was surely bent on ravishment, and today would be the day. But he didn’t ravish her, and the days went by. Slowly, so very slowly. She wished to heaven that Ena wouldn’t call her “little mistress.” It was what he called her, and she hated it. She’d been here since the twelfth of March, nearly two months now, and she wanted to scream with