The priest drew in a long breath. "My lord," he said softly, "let this anger and lust that is so consuming you go. The lady is another's wife."

"Priest, do not try my patience," Sir Udolf said grimly. "I will go to the king about this matter. I will have my justice!"

"My lord, what influence have you with this new king? Be reasonable," Father Peter advised. "You sheltered a fleeing king while another was crowned in his place. If that were to get out, you could lose all you have. And you seek to marry the goddaughter of that disposed king's queen. Think, my lord, think! Why would King Edward give you aid and comfort? He won't, and you may endanger yourself in the process. Alix Givet does not want you as a husband. She made that patently clear when she ran away. She has wed another man. Is having his child. Why do you persist in embarrassing yourself over this woman? I can find you a good wife, my lord. A woman of childbearing years. A widow who has already proved fecund. A virgin if you prefer. Do not shame yourself over what has happened."

"I will have my justice, and I will have my revenge," Sir Udolf answered the priest. "She is responsible for my son's death. If she had been a better wife to him he would have left the miller's daughter and cared not if she died in childbed. His heart would have not been broken when Maida died. He would not have died. I offered Alix Givet a home, a place of honor within my house, and my family. I sheltered her father in his last days and buried him honorably. And then she repays my kindness when I wish to make her my wife by whoring with another man, carrying his bastard!" The lord of Wulfborn Hall had begun to foam slightly at the mouth with his fury. "I will have my justice and my revenge, Priest!" he repeated. "I will!"

The priest sighed unhappily. The madness that had afflicted his master over the matter of Alix Givet was not abating. Only the return of the servant announcing that Sir Udolf's bath was ready caused him to cease his pleas. And he too needed to bathe himself, for he stank from their three-day captivity. "I will leave you, my lord, to refresh yourself," Father Peter said. And he bowed himself from Sir Udolf's presence to return to his own little cottage near his church. The fire was almost out, but the wood box was full. He soon had the flames in his hearth dancing merrily.

Heating some water, he stripped off his garments and scrubbed his scrawny frame free of odor. He did not allow himself the luxury of bathing too often, for it was a vanity he could ill afford, but the circumstances today warranted a thorough cleansing of his person. He hurried, however, through his ablutions for the air was icy. Then he redressed himself in a clean chemise and his only other robe. Clean and dry, he knelt down on the stone floor of his cottage and began to pray. Father Peter hoped his pride was not deceiving him, but he believed if he just had some more time he might convince Sir Udolf to let go of his anger and his disappointment so that he might find another to wed.

And it seemed as if God was answering Father Peter's prayers. Sir Udolf grew ill with an ague the following day, taking to his bed for the next several weeks. Some of the servants, although not all of them, had returned. While Sir Udolf lay abed he knew little about the state of his household except there was a woman who came to care for him during the day and a young man who sat by his bedside at night. He was spoon fed soup and a gruel of porridge and heated wine into which an egg and some spices were beaten. By the time he had recovered enough to get out of his bed the hard winter had set into Northumbria, and travel of any kind was next to impossible. But with the coming of winter the remaining servants had returned to Wulfborn Hall, slipping quietly back into the roles they had previously held.

Father Peter pursued his campaign to get Sir Udolf to consider other candidates for his hand. "Sir David Sheffield has a much younger half sister from his father's second marriage. She is no more than twenty, and has not yet had a husband," he said to Sir Udolf. "Her dower is small, 'tis true, but her reputation is excellent, my lord."

"I have seen her" came the answer. "She is a plain creature with mouse-brown hair and a long nose. And how could I be certain she was fertile?"

"Her mother had two sons as well as the daughter, my lord. And then her husband died. Who knows how many more children she would have born her lord had he not?"

"She is still plain," Sir Udolf complained. "She is nothing at all like Alix, who was so fair with her honey-colored curls and laughing hazel eyes."

"Is it said, my lord, that all cats are black in the dark," the priest murmured.

"Priest! You shock me," Sir Udolf said half-angrily.

"I was a man before I was a priest, my lord," Father Peter replied softly. "There is also Sir John Graham's widow. She is yet young."

"She bore him no children," Sir Udolf said.

"She was a third wife, and he an old man," the priest responded. "Her position is a difficult one as her stepson's wife resents her presence." Father Peter was surprised that Sir Udolf knew as much as he did about his neighbors, as he hadn't associated with many of them in years. But then the servants were great gossips and not averse to sharing what they heard. Of course, that went both ways, and he wondered if Sir Udolf's neighbors knew of his insane obsession for Alix Givet. And if they did, would they be willing to put one of their women into his charge? When it was possible to travel again, he would put out feelers, Father Peter decided.

Finally the spring came, and Sir Udolf Watteson announced his plans to travel south to seek out King Edward IV There was no reasoning with him, although Father Peter did his best to dissuade his master from this folly. "I will come with you," the priest finally said.

"Nay," Sir Udolf replied. "I will go alone. I will show the king my dispensation from York, and he will uphold my rights. By summer's end Alix Givet will be my wife."

"I will pray for you, my lord," the priest said, and he watched as Sir Udolf rode away on an April morning from Wulfborn Hall.

The Northumbrian baron rode south for several weeks until he finally found the new king briefly in residence at Windsor Castle. Finding the king, however, and getting an audience with him were two different things. Bribes were taken by servants with no real access to the king, but Sir Udolf did not know it. Finally he found a priest who knew the king's confessor. He poured out his tale to the priest, who was touched by what he had heard, and not just a little offended by the attitude of the Scots bishop of St. Andrew's. The priest went to the king's confessor, and finally Sir Udolf had his chance to speak with the king on the night before he was to move from Windsor and on to another castle. Clutching his papers, he was ushered into the king's presence.

Edward IV was a tall, handsome young man with inquisitive blue eyes and golden-red hair. He had been nineteen when crowned two years earlier. A skilled warrior, he was also a man who loved women and was never without one. To date he had not wed, although there was talk of a foreign princess. Unlike his predecessor, Henry VI, whose descent from Edward III, his great-great grandfather, was a direct one-through his father, Henry V, his grandfather, Henry IV, and his great-grandfather, John of Gaunt who had been the fourth son of Edward III's twelve children-Edward IV, while descended directly from Edward III's fifth son, Edmund of Langley, claimed the throne based on the convoluted connection he had with his great-great-grandfather's second son, Lionel of Antwerp, through his only child, Philippa. Given the state of Henry VI's fragile health and the strength of Edward of York's adherents, he was now England's king.

Sir Udolf was ushered into a small chamber with a fireplace and a single chair where the young king now sat. This would not be the public audience he had hoped for, but at least he had managed to gain the king's ear. He bowed.

The king's eyes caught him in a hard gaze. "You are from the north," he said. It was not a question, but a statement. "Were you at Towton?"

Sir Udolf hesitated, but then he answered, "Aye, I was." He somehow felt that this young man knew the answer to the question before he spoke, and to lie would not help his cause at all.

"You fought for my predecessor, Lancaster." Again a statement.

"Aye, my lord."

"When did you last see him?" the king wanted to know.

"I have not seen King Henry since he went into Scotland," Sir Udolf replied.

"Hmmm," the king said. Then, "What is it you want of me, Sir Udolf Watteson?"

"Justice, my lord," the baron said.

"What sort of justice?" King Edward asked.

"My son was wed to a young woman." He hesitated, but then decided he could not prevaricate too greatly. "She was Queen Margaret's goddaughter, the child of her personal physician. Her mother had been one of the queen's ladies, and come with her from Anjou. Queen Margaret could no longer afford to keep her physician or his daughter with her. I needed a wife for my only son. The bargain was struck. My son died some months later. His wife's father as well. Because I now needed another heir, I sent to Yorkminster for a dispensation to marry the lady. There had been no children of the marriage, and so we shared no blood bond."

The king nodded. "Go on, Sir Udolf." He was fascinated by this tale, and wondered where it would lead. He also wondered if the physician's daughter had been a pretty girl. Probably she was, that Sir Udolf coveted her.

"My bride-to-be was overwhelmed by all that was happening, had happened. In confusion she fled my home. When I found her, she was mistress to a Scots border lord. She would not leave him despite the fact I had the dispensation to wed her. I sent an armed party to take her one day as she rode out."