The Leopard Unleashed

Chapter 15

The water dripped from the ladle over the hot stones. Steam hissed and surged around the seated, towel-draped men who were laughing at one of Robert of Leicester’s seemingly endless supply of bawdy jokes.

‘I don’t believe that position’s possible!’ guffawed Waleran of Meulan, Leicester’s twin brother, and returned to his bench, ladle in hand. ‘What do you say, Renard?’

Renard grinned and spread his hands. ‘Don’t look at me, I’m innocent.’

‘After four years in Outremer? You’re a bigger liar than he is!’ Waleran sat down heavily. He was beginning to run to fat and the hot, moist atmosphere was making him uncomfortable. Not that he would have admitted it for the world. This steam bath built by the disgraced and recently deceased Bishop of Salisbury was the height of luxury. A plunge in a quiet river pool or a quick dunk in the castle tub were the usual and infrequent ways that Waleran chose to clean himself. A steam bathhouse like this hinted strongly at indulgence, especially when a flagon of the best wine was being passed from hand to hand.

Renard was accustomed to this particular form of bathing. Antioch possessed several such institutions. They were places to gossip and relax at ease with your peers — places to plot and arrange as Stephen was plotting and arranging now.

Leaning against the wall, lids half closed, he watched the King take a swallow from the flagon and pass it in turn to Leicester. No cups, Renard thought. A subtle move, enhancing the camaraderie that had been nurtured during a fast-paced day’s hunting. Other barons had been with them too, but some had chosen to patronise one of the conventional bathhouses in the town where women were to hand. Others had preferred not to bathe at all, following the creed that sweat was best left to cool on the body, its smell worn as a badge of hard toil. Ranulf de Gernons had been one of the latter.

Stephen nudged Renard. ‘I had a look at your charter.’

The flagon came round to Renard. He drank, making more show than actual swallowing and studied Stephen’s pink, earnest face. ‘It’s valid. Your grandfather’s seal is upon it and that of the second King William,’ he said evenly as he passed the wine on to Leicester.

‘Oh yes, it’s valid,’ Stephen replied. ‘Malde and I had a long discussion about it.’

And Malde’s opinion would be the deciding factor, Renard thought.

‘She did wonder if Ranulf had rights in Caermoel because the castle was originally built by your father and Hugh d’Avranches as a joint venture.’

Hugh d’Avranches, Ranulf ’s great-uncle, had been the Earl of Chester forty years ago when the keep at Caermoel had first been built. He and Guyon had not only been allies, but also good friends.

‘My father borrowed silver from Earl Hugh, but repaid him in full not long after the Battle of Tinchebrai. Caermoel has been wholly ours since the year of my birth.’ Leaving the bench, he took his turn to drip water on the stones. The steam hissed up creating a grey veil between himself and Stephen. ‘If Ranulf claims otherwise then he’s lying.’

Stephen fiddled with the frayed end of his towel and looked perplexed. ‘You must understand the difficulty of my position. Ranulf ’s loyalty is so precarious that I cannot afford to tip the scales too far. I don’t want him or that brother of his galloping down to Bristol to offer their support to the Empress.’

‘On the other hand,’ Leicester rubbed his thumb beneath his nose, ‘neither can you afford to let Renard take his own grievances to Bristol. Besides, you don’t really want to see a change of garrison at Caermoel, do you?’

‘Neither of those,’ Stephen looked genuinely shocked. ‘Of course not! The charter is valid and must stand.’ Through the clearing steam he looked at Renard. ‘I am asking you to respect the reasons for not making a public announcement of your right to the land. You have witnesses here in Beaumont and Meulan, let that be enough.’

Renard considered, then nodded stiffly. ‘But if Ranulf of Chester comes anywhere near Caermoel, I will set the marches alight to stop him.’

‘I would expect that. All I am asking is that you do not provoke him.’

Renard snorted. ‘I provoke him just by breathing.’

‘Don’t breathe then,’ Meulan suggested.

Renard grimaced and threw a towel at him.

‘Or breathe when he’s not looking.’ Leicester’s gaze met Renard’s in frank understanding.

Welcoming her unexpected guest in from the cold, Elene tried her best not to look surprised or suspicious as she ushered Matille, Countess of Chester, towards the warmth of the hearth. Alys was sent scurrying to fetch hot spiced wine and Elene whisked her sewing basket and some mending from the chair beside her own and bade the Countess sit down.

Matille thanked her and did so, but declined to remove her cloak. ‘It is so cold. I think that soon we shall have some snow.’ Her gaze roved around the compact but pleasant room. ‘I suppose your new husband has gone hunting with the others?’

‘Yes, my lady.’ Matille was Renard’s cousin, the old King being her grandfather too. Her hair was an attractive beech-leaf red and her eyes were stormy grey like Renard’s. The set of her mouth and jaw also attested to their common heritage. ‘Did you want to see him?’ A silly question, Elene thought even as she asked it. If Matille had wanted to see Renard, she would have come at a different time.

‘Only to congratulate him on his wedding and tease him a little.’ The Countess smiled. ‘And I can probably escape from Ranulf long enough at court this evening to do that. At least I can congratulate you now.’ Half-rising, she leaned across and kissed Elene’s cheek.

Elene wondered if she knew that because of Earl Ranulf the marriage almost hadn’t taken place and Henry had been severely wounded. Chester might not have told her, but women had a network of other ways of collecting news. It was, however, a subject too delicate to broach on the strength of one meeting.

Alys returned with the hot wine as the Countess settled back in her chair and spread her skirts to the fire’s warmth.

‘It is probably all for the best that they’ve gone hunting,’ Matille added. ‘They can ride off some of the energy they’d otherwise spend in arguing and I certainly don’t want to be closeted with Ranulf all day. He behaves like a loose bull in a marketplace.’ She looked keenly at Elene. ‘Renard’s no better. He can be a devil incarnate when he’s bored. We used to play together as children and if he had no task to steady him he’d run wild until Judith despaired. Small wonder that he and Ranulf quarrel so much.’ She took a sip of the wine and made an appreciative sound.

‘It is more than a clash of characters,’ Elene said. ‘Renard has never set out to deliberately antagonise your husband. Why should he? By rights Ravenstow and Chester should be allies. It has always been so in the past.’

‘Indeed, I agree — apart from what you said about deliber — ately antagonising.’ She put her wine down on a small gaming table. ‘From Ranulf ’s viewpoint Renard has humiliated him several times in public.’

‘The first move has never been Renard’s

’ ‘I grant you that. My husband is frequently the aggressor, but Renard has by far the quicker tongue. He makes Ranulf look like a wallowing Martinmas hog, which he isn’t.’ Her eyes hardened, looking inwards. ‘He’s as cunning and dangerous as a wild boar and Renard’s going to get gored if he doesn’t take care.’ She refocused on Elene who was alert, her breathing shallow as if she was facing a wild boar herself — or a wild boar’s mate.

‘I’m very fond of Renard,’ Matille continued, and stretched out to clasp her hand over Elene’s. ‘I do not want you to think that I’m threatening either of you, but I hope a friendly warning will not go amiss. Whatever influence you have with Renard, use it, as I will use mine on Ranulf.’ Her mouth curved as she reached for her wine again. ‘The bedchamber is a good place to start, and it goes without saying that the announcement of a pregnancy works wonders on a husband’s generosity.’

Behind a blank expression Elene thought that Renard was the one adept at bedchamber persuasion, and that to bring an atmosphere of barter into what was a shared pleasure spoke of whoredom.

‘It does help, of course, if the child is male,’ added Matille with a sigh. Both the offspring she had borne Ranulf were girls, now aged four years old and one. In between, there had been an early miscarriage. Ranulf had not endured his disappointment with equanimity, indeed on the occasion of Lucy’s birth last Christmas had ranted and raved about annulment and divorce. It was all bluster, she knew. Her father was the Earl of Gloucester, his position far too prestigious for Ranulf to do anything as damaging as putting her aside. Not that it would worry her if he did. Matille enjoyed her wealth and titles, was even mildly fond of Ranulf in his better moments and tolerated him with resignation for the rest of the time, but there was no great passion between them.

‘I will talk to Renard,’ Elene said neutrally. She could see the sense in what Matille was saying, just knew that she would go about it in a different way.

‘Will you? Good! We women must help each other all we can. Certainly we never get any from our lords and masters!’ Relaxing, she unfastened her cloak. ‘This spiced wine really is excellent. You must give me the recipe …’

Under canvas in the grounds of the palace of Salisbury, Olwen considered her costume and the effect it would produce on the men of Stephen’s court when it came her turn to dance: the coin headdress and gold bezant earrings, a belt worked in thread-of-gold and set with lapis lazuli and crystals and, foaming from it, skirts in three shades of blue.

She had joined a troop of performers in Shrewsbury who were travelling down to Salisbury in the hope of being hired to entertain Stephen’s Christmas court. Having proved to their leader that she could dance beyond the wildest imaginings of any man alive, she had been accepted into the group. When one of the members had attempted the limit of his own wild imaginings on her she had demonstrated her equal skill with a dagger and made it clear that she only desired to join them because it was safer than making her way down to Salisbury as a woman alone. She also pointed out that with her exotic talents the troop stood a far higher chance of being employed to entertain the King. Alfred, their leader, a quiet, laconic man, saw sense in her reasoning for all that it was based on her own needs, and with an eye to profit had accepted her among them for the duration at least.

As once before in Antioch, Olwen applied the kohl to her eyes and the carmine to her lips with only the aid of a polished knife blade for a mirror. Aaliz and Jehanne, Alfred’s wife and daughter, were tuning up the harp and the crwth it was their particular skill to play and Jehanne hummed to herself, perfecting the notes of the song she was intending to sing. Outside Alfred and his two sons were limbering up with a series of jumps and tumbles, a small dog in pied jester’s costume leaping exuberantly with them.

‘What will you do after tonight?’ Aaliz asked Olwen curiously. Setting her harp aside, she began combing her glossy black hair. ‘Will you stay with us?’

‘That depends.’ Olwen’s reply was distorted by the motion of her lips as she carefully painted them. ‘I’m hoping to find myself a patron tonight.’

‘Oh yes?’ Aaliz laughed shortly. ‘Piece of advice for you. King Stephen loves his Queen and she for certain won’t brook a dancing girl making a play for her crown.’

‘I know,’ Olwen said in a cool, offhand voice. ‘It was not the King I had in mind.’

‘Who, then?’

Olwen gave her a ‘none of your business’ shrug and continued with her toilet.

Aaliz tightened her lips and turned away. A strange one and no mistake, she thought. Friendly overtures were either ignored or rebuffed. Occasionally Olwen would deign to be gracious, but only at her whim. Aaliz knew that, despite all the extra coin the troop had earned since the girl had joined them, she for one would not be sorry to see her leave.

Olwen flicked at her lashes with a small, black-laden brush. A queasy feeling not unrelated to triumph lurched in her stomach when she thought of dancing before the King and all his senior barons tonight; of having them at her mercy to pick and choose as the fancy took her. She doubted that even the most likely candidates — the Earls of Chester, Huntingdon and Leicester — would be better lovers than Renard, but the power they wielded would be aphrodisiac enough to compensate.

Sometimes in an unguarded moment she would think of him and feel her throat tighten, but if she wept it was only as others would weep at the passions of a minstrel’s tale, and then awake to face reality. He would be there tonight, unaware that she was not still at Hawkfield. Beneath the triumph, adding to the excitement, an edge of fear shivered deliciously down her spine at the thought of how he would react.

Raising her arms, Elene set the gold pins in her gossamer veil, to secure it in place on the silk under-cap. Behind her Renard was stretched at ease on the bed. He was already dressed for the court in the embroidered fox tunic and was absently examining a new hawking gauntlet he had bought. ‘Cousin Matille,’ he mused, responding to her mention of the visit. ‘People used to mistake us for brother and sister when we were children. I don’t think I’ve seen her since Herleve’s christening, and that was before I went to Antioch.’

‘She’s got another child now, Lucy, after Ranulf ’s mother.’

He twisted the glove this way and that. ‘Was it purely a social visit, or did she have other pots to simmer?’

Securing the final pin, Elene looked round at her husband. ‘How did you know?’

He smiled sourly. ‘Matille’s pleasant enough, but she’s too wrapped up in her own life to enquire about the lives of others unless it suits her purpose.’

‘I think she was trying to make excuses for Chester’s behaviour and to warn you against baiting him. She said this dispute between you was not all his fault.’

Renard snorted and threw down the gauntlet. ‘Oh no,’ he scoffed. ‘It is like the tale of the bear-ward who said when his bear was accused of biting a child that the child should not have put its arm in the beast’s mouth!’

Elene advanced to the bed to pick up her fur-lined cloak. ‘I am only repeating what she said. She wanted me to persuade you to be more conciliatory towards Chester. As you say, she is probably wrapped up in her own life, but at the moment, from what I gathered, her husband’s temper is making it very difficult.’

Renard took up his own cloak and secured the pin. ‘Conciliatory?’ He gave a taut smile. ‘Yes, I think that for tonight at least I can be pleasant to Ranulf.’ Drawing her against him, he kissed her mouth and then her throat. ‘Stephen has confirmed the Caermoel charter. Ranulf can go whistle for it all he likes.’ His arms tightened as he hugged her.

Elene returned his embrace, but amid the delight there was also fear. ‘Does Ranulf know?’

‘Not yet.’ Releasing her, he led her to the door. ‘And by the time he does, that keep will be so strong that if he tries to bite, he will only break his teeth.’

The Christmas feast was well into its latter stages. The boar’s head had been served, as had the stuffed and reassembled swans and peacocks and a whole porpoise swimming on an enormous platter of glistening raw fish roe garnished with oysters.

Now people were desultorily picking at the sweetmeats — fruit and nuts, small tarts, honey cakes and comfits. Servants and squires moved unobtrusively around the throng, clearing away used trenchers and dirty platters, refilling cups, and bringing round finger bowls and towels.

During the business of serious eating, the entertainment had mostly been of the musical variety — instrumentals of harp, crwth and bagpipes. A mother and daughter had sung some pretty, twee French love songs. The man with the bagpipes had performed a couple of table-thumping soldier’s ballads and a much-appreciated bawdy epic from the Scots borders.

Elene had watched the tumblers, jugglers and acrobats while Renard immersed himself in a discussion with Robert of Leicester and his brother, Waleran of Meulan. Leicester’s wife, Amicia, had engaged her in fitful conversation. She was plump and lazy, even the effort of speech seeming to weary her, but her eyes, behind drooping lids, were shockingly alert. Several times Elene caught Matille of Leicester looking at her with a conspiratorial smile on her face which she rather tepidly returned, and the Queen’s gaze was hawk-sharp on everyone, seeking out any nuances of false behaviour that might speak of impending treason. Elene stoutly concentrated on the entertainment.

The acrobats were both clever and amusing with a delightful little black and white dog dressed up to look like a court fool, and she was sorry when they finally made their exit, the dog frantically wagging his stumpy tail and yapping excitedly. Two different members of the troop took their place and bowed before the royal table to the King and Queen. One was a young, slender man with a drum hung around his neck. The other, a woman, wore a full, black robe that looked as if it might have been misappropriated from a Benedictine monk. She had loose, corn-blond hair kinked from tight plaiting and bound back from her brow by a headdress of gold coins. Her sultry mouth was painted a rich, blood red.

‘An eastern dancer,’ confided Amicia of Leicester in Elene’s ear. ‘From the court of Prince Raymond in Antioch, although if you believe that, you’ll believe anything. She’s probably never been further than the Billingsgate fish wharf in her entire life.’ She yawned with cynical boredom.

Elene felt as if she had swallowed a lump of cold stone. An eastern dancing girl, one from Antioch was already for her the source of too much pain. She flashed a look at Renard but he was deep in conversation with his fellow earls, slender fingers weaving as he emphasised a point. She tried to catch his eye, seeking reassurance, but Leicester leaned forward to interrupt him and his great solid back blocked any hope of eye contact. Before the dais, the dancer had cast off the black robe and revealed a costume of a full-skirted gown and an an embroidered tightly fitted top with a low neckline. Around her hips was tied a scarf that sparkled with metallic threads. Fixing some small silver cymbals to her fingers, she waited for the youth with the drum to seat himself cross-legged on the floor to one side of the dais.

Attention started to wander from sweetmeats and conversation. Men gaped at the costume and the loose golden hair, unable to believe their eyes or their good fortune. Women stared too in censorious amazement. The girl smiled scornfully at all and sundry, with the exception of Ranulf of Chester whom she favoured with a look he could not mistake. Then she whirled in a circle, twirling the skirts up and around her long, graceful legs, and began to perform.

Biting down on her lower lip, Elene watched the girl move and realised that the words ‘eastern dancer’ were a totally inadequate way of describing her art — the hip-rolling mimicry of copulation with its overtones of promise and undertones of contemptuous denial. The sensuous undulation. And yet there was grace and beauty in the performance too; in the way the fabric of her skirts lilted and flowed with her movements, in the artistic description of her arms and the precise positioning of her feet.

‘… And anyway,’ Leicester said to Renard. ‘When you think about it in those terms it’s obvious that … Good God!’ His mouth dropped open in perfect imitation of the earlier-served porpoise.

Renard had already seen, raising his head and losing all thread of the conversation as the first, familiar pat-pat of a tabor resonated around the trestles. In utter disbelief he watched Olwen strike lightly from one hip to the other, and rotate her way slowly in his direction.

‘Hell’s gates, but I wouldn’t mind futtering that!’ said Meulan, his voice thick with lust.

‘You and every man present, eh Renard?’ Leicester laughed and elbowed his ashen companion in the ribs. ‘Mind you, I forgot. You’re used to that kind of thing, aren’t you?’

If his life had depended on it, Renard could not have answered. His gorge rose as she continued to advance on him. Never before in his life had he felt so furious or so humiliated. He grasped his eating knife and thought about killing her.

She paused before the three of them, circling her hips, taunting. Her eyes mocked Renard, as she silently reminded him of Antioch. Her hands moved slowly down over her body, paused, teased, moved away. Leicester choked. Laughing, she danced her way along in front of the tables until she came to the place where Ranulf of Chester was sitting, his eyes out on stalks. She did not taunt him. She blatantly invited.

Renard jerked to his feet, aware of nothing but his rage. His goblet crashed over and he upset a dish of pears in mead. Sticky, pale gold fruit glistened on the board. The thick syrup dripped into the rushes. He set one hand on the table and vaulted across, dagger brandished.

Elene blocked his way. Her face was chalk white and she was shaking with fury of her own. ‘In God’s name, if you are going to make me a widow, let it not be here and over a whore!’ she hissed, and put her hand upon his taut wrist.

He raised that wrist to swipe her aside, caught sight of the dagger he was brandishing and the world suddenly came back into focus. His breath shuddered out and with it went the blind rage. He sheathed the knife. Elene’s knees buckled with relief and she swayed, forcing him to grab hold of her and brace her up.

Behind him the drums reached crescendo and the shouts of encouragement were the ripples preceding climax. He did not look round, but all the same he was horribly aware. Elene had steadied, but she was still pale and shivering. For both their sakes, he took her outside into the courtyard.

Frost bejewelled the walls, sparkling like powdered amber and topaz in the smoky light from the torches, and the air cut like jagged crystal as it was inhaled. The sound of laughter drifted like vapour and a couple of squires hurried past on an errand. Renard looked down at his hands. His right palm was still imprinted with the grip of the dagger.

‘It was her, wasn’t it?’ Elene croaked. ‘There cannot be two such.’

There was a bitter taste in Renard’s mouth. He turned aside and spat, ‘Oh yes.’ In the aftermath of white-hot rage he felt drained and weary. ‘It was Olwen. We quarrelled before the wedding. I thought she was baiting me into a temper for her amusement, to heat her blood. I never thought for one minute that she would … Christ’s wounds!’ He broke off and struck the wall with a renewed surge of emotion, not so much anger now as shock and humiliation; the knowledge that every move of hers had been calculated since that first night in Antioch.

Elene’s teeth were chattering with cold and reaction, and her eyes were glassy with tears. ‘I want to go back to the house,’ she said, her voice quavering.

The laughter grew louder, intruding on them. One laugh detached itself from the background, rich and triumphant in response to a suggestive remark made in a throaty, feminine voice.

Ranulf of Chester emerged from the hall, his cloak across his shoulders and shielding the blond-haired woman clinging to his side. They disappeared in the direction of the stables, and obviously were not going riding unless it was of the beast with two backs.

Renard swallowed and swallowed again. There was a cold hollow where his stomach should have been.

‘Please,’ Elene said huskily, her hand gripping his sleeve.

He looked down. Olwen’s laughter rippled the air. ‘You are right,’ he said through tight lips. ‘Let us go.’

Elene lay in bed and listened to the silence. Despite the weight of the covers and the fact that she was still fully dressed she was chilled to the bone, no warmth in the bed beside her from which she could draw comfort. She stared into the darkness which was relieved by the tiniest glimmer of light from the guttering night candle. Her eyes ached and then started to burn fiercely, the only part of her that was hot. Rolling over, she pressed her face into the bolster and sobbed, hands clenching the fur coverlet.

Her mind was filled with images of that evening, images she wanted to block out but could not. The expression on Renard’s face; the expression on Olwen’s as she took her pleasure; the knowledge of how that pleasure had been taken before in private and was now exhibited in public. At last the storm abated. The bolster was wet and un — comfortable and her throat was sore. Gulping and sniffing, Elene sat up and pressed the heels of her hands into her hot eyes. It was very late. Renard was downstairs, had not yet seen fit to come up. He had said he would not be long but that had been several hours ago. They had each needed time alone, she understood that, but her own need for solitude had come and gone a long time ago.

Still sniffing, she left the bed. One of them upstairs, one of them down and no words spoken, only a deepening chasm of silence. She looked down at her wedding dress and was tempted to take her shears to the convoluted embroidery and the lies it portrayed; tempted but unable to bring herself to do so.

The brazier had gone out. The night candle sputtered. Elene rubbed her arms and paced the room. Another piece of sewing caught her eye, the silver thread on the hem reflecting the candle’s dying flickers. It was the tunic she was currently making for Renard. Turning, she stared at it and gradually it occurred to her that a needle was capable of weaving more than one tale and of creating more than one garment — that a needle could repair and refurbish.

Fetching a kerchief from her baggage chest, she wiped her eyes, blew her nose and, setting her jaw, went down to the hall.

Renard was sitting by the fire where Matille of Chester had sat that afternoon — a lifetime ago. He was staring down at a chess piece taken from the gaming table beside him and was turning it over and over in his hand.

‘It is very late,’ she said tentatively. ‘I have been waiting for you a long time. Will you not come to bed?’

He raised his head to look at her, and after a moment sighed and put the chess piece carefully back down on the board. ‘It’s not love,’ he said with a swift gesture. ‘I never felt that for her. I wasn’t even at ease in her company unless we were in bed, and even there it was a battle.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m choking on pride, Nell, on the fact that she should have chosen to leave me for Ranulf de Gernons.’

Elene faced the warmth of the banked hearth and rubbed her icy palms together. ‘Do you think you are the only one with wounds? I watched her dance, taking her pleasure from us all, feeding on our responses. I do not believe that I will ever feel the same way about love-making again.’

Her curly hair was loose around her, screening her face from him as she fought to steady her voice.

‘There’s a world of difference between making love and siege warfare,’ he said, and rising from the chair put his hands lightly on her shoulders. ‘With you I don’t feel as if I have to guard my back in the act, nor do you turn to ice when it is over as if you hate me or have begrudged the responding. You fit well into the hollow of my shoulder, Nell.’

She stared into the fire. She did not want to fit into the hollow of his shoulder. She wanted him to look at her the way he had looked at Olwen and forget all about control, as he had forgotten at the palace tonight.

‘Nell?’

She turned to face him, new tear tracks glistening on her cheeks. Muttering an oath, he took her in his arms. She clung to him. Against her damp face the gold thread on his court tunic was abrasive.

‘Perhaps I needed this to happen,’ he muttered into her hair. ‘Perhaps I had to learn that all you get for playing with fire is badly burned.’ Bending his head and angling hers up, he kissed her. Elene hesitated and then with a small gasp responded, her lips parting beneath his and her body yielding from its rigidity as desire melted her bones.

Renard broke the kiss and raised his head. ‘Listen.’ Releasing her he went to the window that looked out on to the street and unhooked the oxhide shutter. Elene heard the scrape of hooves on cobbles, the champing of a horse and the jingle of harness.

‘Who is it?’

‘It’s Edmund.’ The harshness of his voice said everything that the single word did not. He repinned the shutter with precise care and went to the door.

‘Sweet Jesu.’ Elene brought her hand to her mouth. Edmund was the youngest son of Ravenstow’s constable, his trade that of messenger when haste was required, and there could only be one message that would bring him to Salisbury’s gates in the dead of night.

‘When?’ she heard Renard ask the young man. The chill darkness blowing through the open door was frightening.

‘Two nights ago, my lord,’ Edmund’s voice rasped and he knelt at Renard’s feet, half in obeisance, half in exhaustion, his eyes dark-ringed in a face tight and pale with strain. ‘I’ve ridden three horses into the ground reaching you.’

Renard stooped, pulled him to his feet and, bringing him into the hall, pointed to the chair by the hearth. Alys, her face puffy with sleep was poking the fire to life. ‘How did it happen? My father was in reasonable health when we left for this feast.’

Gratefully Edmund accepted the drink that Elene poured for him. ‘On the same day that you rode out, my lord, a merchant bound for Shrewsbury sought hospitality with us overnight. He brought some kind of contagious ague with him. It starts with a sore throat and shivering fever, then a tight chest and a cough capable of cracking the ribs. For those already weakened …’ He broke off and spread his hands in a helpless gesture. ‘Roslind lost her new baby and old Gamel the hafter died on the same night as your father. Half the garrison’s down with it too.’

‘What about Lady Judith?’ Elene asked, her thoughts on Judith and the state she was likely to be in already without being struck down with this sickness, whatever it was.

‘She was all right when she sent me with the tidings,’ Edmund said. ‘Shocked, yes, and as pale as a ghost, but within her senses.’

‘My mother is not lady of Ravenstow any more,’ Renard said to Elene in a dull voice. ‘You are.’ He signalled down the hall and sent the responding servant to go and rouse the rest of the household.

‘You mean to set out for Ravenstow now? In the middle of the night?’ Elene clutched his sleeve, less to detain him than in shock at his words. She was not ready for this, but had no choice.

‘As soon as the baggage wain can be packed. I doubt there’s any bread, but tell the cook to boil up something hot for the men before we set off.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Ranulf de Gernons had the advantage over me tonight. Now it’s my turn to take advantage of him. He won’t be stirring this side of prime and by the time he does we’ll be long gone from any designs on ambush and murder that might be lurking in his mind. You’d better fetch me parchment and quill before you pack them for travelling. I’ll need to write to Stephen and explain our haste. Edmund can sleep here and take it to the palace in the morning.’

Elene nodded. She would have been disturbed by the impartial briskness of his speech and manner had she not known the emotions they masked. Instead of leaving, she put her arms back around him and hugged him hard.

Renard stroked her hair, tightened his fingers in the curly strands, then made an effort and released her. ‘Go on,’ he said gruffly. ‘There is much to be done.’ He turned away, beckoning to Ancelin who had just staggered sleepily into the hall, but not before Elene had seen the glitter of tears in his eyes.