The Leopard Unleashed

Chapter 16

The Welsh Marches, February 1140

The stink of burning horn filled the farrier’s small corner of Woolcot’s crowded bailey as he pressed a red-hot horseshoe on to Gorvenal’s near hind hoof. Although unable to feel the fierce heat of the glowing iron, the stallion hated having shoes fitted and tried to snap and kick. His endeavours were thwarted by the confining English frame in which the farrier had sensibly secured him.

‘Hold him, lad!’ the sweating man grunted over his shoulder to the youth standing at Gorvenal’s headstall. ‘Earl Renard’s got a long journey come the morrow.’ Hissing gouts of steam vapoured the air as he plunged the shoe into a kilderkin of cold water.

‘Where then?’ The apprentice fished into pouch on his belt and brought out a sticky brown object which he offered to the horse.

‘Down to Ravenstow with the the Lady Elene first, so one o’ the knights was telling me, then across to the Fenlands in payment of his feudal service to the King, and there’s trouble brewing over there, mark me.’ The older man’s voice was constricted because he was doubled over, tacking on the horseshoe. ‘Some bishop’s turned rebel and the King’s set to deal with him.’

‘Can’t my lord Renard get himself excused? He’s got enough to deal with here.’ The youth gave another of the brown, sticky lumps to the horse.

‘Best to show willing in the early days.’ The farrier straightened up to pick another fistful of nails from his bench. ‘What’re you giving him there?’

The youth grinned. ‘Dried dates. My Lord filched them from the locked cupboard in the kitchens last night especially for this. He said it would sweeten him if he started acting up.’ He groped in his scrip and tossed one over.

The farrier examined it dubiously. ‘Looks like a piece of sheep-shit,’ he pronounced, but put it in his mouth anyway, before resuming his task.

‘Tastes all right though.’ The boy bit the date in two and offered half to the horse.

‘Anything would taste all right to a glutton like you,’ the farrier growled. ‘Here, make yourself useful and throw me that rasp.’

Cup of wine in one hand, platter of bread and cheese in the other, Elene looked down at her sleeping husband and wondered if she should wake him. It was long past dawn, but he had not ridden in from Caermoel until well after compline, and had not stopped to rest until he literally fell into bed somewhere around midnight.

She tiptoed round to the coffer and carefully put down cup and platter. The soft clunk of wood on wood caused him to stir and turn over. His hair needed cutting and he was bearded again, the growth a rich, beech-red that gave a markedly strange aspect to his appearance. He more resembled one of her shepherds than a marcher lord, but then, she thought, glancing ruefully down at her own homespuns, she looked nothing like a great lady, nor at this moment did she particularly want to be one. The last two months had been the most difficult of her life and there was every indication that the rest of the year was set to continue in the same vein.

January had been spent of a necessity at Ravenstow. With so many people sick and the trauma of the Earl’s death, it had resembled not so much a home as a staging post on the road to hell. Judith contracted the coughing fever and became seriously ill, her reserves sapped and her will to live a precarious spindle of flame that was kept alight only by the knowledge of duty. On her worst day, the one after Guyon’s funeral, she had become delirious with fever and Elene had fetched John and pushed him urgently into his mother’s chamber — not because he was a priest, but because he was the one who most physically resembled his father. Judith had recovered, but was a grey husk of her former self.

Renard had contracted the coughing sickness but thrown it off within a week, as had William. Henry was still barking like a seal when she left for Woolcot to supervise the lambing but was otherwise making a good recovery. The wound in his shoulder was much better too, although he still wore that arm strapped in a sling and would never have much use in it again.

Elene herself had not been struck by the contagion, which was fortunate since with Judith so ill the responsibility for the domestic side of running the keep had devolved upon her shoulders. Heulwen had helped, of course, but the main burden had been hers.

Stephen had sent a message of condolence and half a dozen mares for Gorvenal. Ranulf of Chester had sent mercenaries to raid the Ravenstow lands, but Renard and William had tracked them down and destroyed them. It was a bitter but welcome outlet for grief.

Sighing softly, she put her palm on his exposed shoulder and leaned over him to kiss his throat below the prickly forest of beard. He raised his lids, looked sleepily bewildered for a moment, then focused and cupped her face to touch his lips to hers.

Elene wriggled away. ‘It’s like being kissed through a thicket!’ she complained. ‘And besides, it tickles.’

Grinning, he pulled her down on top of him. ‘Does this tickle too?’ he murmured after a moment.

She ran her palms over his naked chest and around the back of his neck, locking her fingers in his hair. Desire flickered through her, but more playful than urgent. It was high morning and the day was wasting. He stroked the small of her back, moved his hands to cup her buttocks, and pressed down.

She nipped his earlobe. ‘The farrier says he’s finished shoeing Gorvenal. I’ve had the grooms saddle him up, and Bramble.’

Renard groaned softly. ‘You’re a hard task-mistress,’ he complained. ‘Aren’t I entitled to any leisure?’

‘Why, yes.’ Elene struggled out of his arms. ‘We’ll escape from the keep and have the whole afternoon to ourselves. I want to show you the site for the new fulling mill and we can look at the herds. There’s a sheltered place I know where we can stop to eat and …’ She let the remainder tail off suggestively.

Renard arched one brow. ‘The promise of a sugared comfit to keep me in line?’ he said, mouth tilting. ‘What happens if I’d rather claim it now?’

‘You’ll have to catch me first!’ she retorted, and before he could lunge at such provocation, she had whisked from the room and sent in the barber to detain him. Renard narrowed his eyes at the curtain, then with a snort of laughter and a shake of his head picked up the wine and bread she had left for him.

The intended site for the fulling mill was close to the village, at its eastern end. The water to power it came from a broad stream that further down flowed into the River Alyn. The foundations for the mill were already being dug, and Renard dismounted to speak to the workforce.

Elene listened to him talking to the foreman in fluent, if accented English, watched him frown as he struggled to grasp a point of construction, then nod in understanding, his smile flashing brief and white. Her heart and loins contracted and she lowered her lids lest he see her thoughts for she knew that they made him feel awkward.

From the mill they rode to inspect the flocks, heavily populated by proud mothers and their frisky offspring. A shepherd obligingly captured one of the new rams in part responsible for the wealth of lambs, and Elene set about explaining to Renard the kind of fleece she was hoping to produce in the years to come.

Gravely examining top and undercoat and the general condition of the beast, Renard agreed with everything she said. She saw his eyes begin to wander, a slightly glazed expression in them. He stifled a yawn. Elene thanked the shepherd and turned to her mount.

‘I’m boring you.’

Renard boosted her into the saddle. His eye-corners crinkled. ‘I would rather eat and wear sheep than look at them,’ he admitted as he remounted. ‘And I have a deal else on my mind. My sugared comfit, for one.’ His mouth smiled, matching his eyes, but it was a superficial amusement. Touching his heels to Gorvenal’s flanks, he rode on towards a low slope half a mile away that was crowned by a coppice of hazel and hornbeam. Elene caught up her bridle and followed him.

‘Have you ever been to the fenlands before?’ Elene sat up in the tree-sheltered grassy hollow and started to fuss the knots out of her hair with her fingers.

Renard pillowed his head on his bent arms and watched her through half-closed lids. ‘Once,’ he said. ‘With the court, before I was twenty. Nigel of Ely was one of us and he had a proud stomach even in those days. All this trouble now is because he was caught in rebellion last year with the other members of his delightful family and sent away with a flea in his ear.’ He snorted. ‘He’s a greedy, vindic — tive bastard and it will serve him right if Stephen sits hard on him, bishop though he be.’

Elene digested this in silence while she finished with her hair. She disliked the thought of him being so far away from her in dangerous, marshy terrain, but had more knowledge of him now than to cling and ask anxious questions.

She started to fasten up her disarrayed tunic. The seams were tight beneath her arms and when she closed the hooks and eyes, her breasts swelled together, her cleavage full. Gnawing her lip, she glanced at Renard, lying relaxed and contented in the aftermath of their love-making. No, she thought, she could not address him with that either. It was too early yet to be fully certain; too soon to burden him more, and she had a secret fear that once she did announce her pregnancy to him, he would cease to be as eager to lie with her.

The ghost of Olwen still haunted them both. Renard’s pride, her sense of security. At the Christmas court it had been a minor scandal that blazed as hot and bright as a dry grass fire before burning itself out — Ranulf of Chester dragging off a dancing girl in the middle of a royal feast and throwing her on her back in the nearest stable. He had emerged from the encounter scratched, bitten and bloodily triumphant to confront the outrage with a boyish grin and a shrug that evoked tolerant grins and shrugs in return. No one blamed him, indeed there was much envy. He had placated his wife with a new necklace and the promise of a Flemish tapestry to hang on the wall of her private solar. Olwen he placated with a pouch of silver and employment in his household so that she could dance for him or bed with him at his whim.

Renard had said very little on the matter, but sometimes Elene would see him staring into space and know where his thoughts were dwelling. On those occasions she would either interrupt him, or go away and absorb herself in some task until the panic and the anger had subsided. He had not revoked the Hawkfield charter, perhaps out of honour, perhaps hoping that it would serve the place of a lamp in the window. She had not investigated too closely.

Reaching abruptly for the wine flask amid the remains of their meal, she poured herself another half-cup. ‘What about Caermoel? Is it safe to leave?’

Renard stretched. ‘It’s strong enough to withstand immedi ate assault. I’ve left William de Lorys in command. He’s competent enough. Indeed, if he likes the post, I might make him constable.’ Sitting up, he drew her cup hand to his lips and stole a mouthful of wine. ‘More stone is arriving this week from the quarry at Ledworth. It won’t be long before the new sections of wall are finished.’ Gently he plucked away a piece of twig that she had missed. ‘By the way, did I mention that I’m taking a squire into my retinue once I’ve done my service in the fens?’

‘No, you didn’t,’ Elene said, exasperated by his habit of casually springing surprises on her and expecting her to react with aplomb.

‘Owain ap Siorl. He’s half-Welsh, half-Norman. His father’s dead, his mother’s set to remarry, and he and his future step-father don’t like each other. Being as their lands are in my gift, I promised Lady Rohese I’d take Owain under my wing to train up. She’ll be bringing him to Ravenstow around Easter time. Settle him in if you will.’

Elene’s exasperation evaporated into empathy with the boy. She knew how it felt to be cast adrift in a strange household, even one that was warmly welcoming. ‘Of course I will.’

‘Henry can start showing him the basics now that he’s on the mend. It’ll stop him from brooding and perhaps even speed his recovery.’ Sweeping on his cloak which had been used to cushion their bodies from the ground, he eased to his feet. ‘We’d better be on our way home,’ he added without any great enthusiasm, his mind upon the hauberk that was being scoured at Woolcut ready for his use on the morrow.

Elene rose too and stood beside him, her lips at his shoulder. He slipped his arm around her waist, then pulled her round against him. She smelt of crushed grass and leaves, fresh and soft in his embrace. ‘Oh Nell!’ he said on a heartfelt sigh, and buried his face in her wild, black hair.

Judith drew her cloak close about her body to ward off the chill, fully aware that more than half of it came from within — from the space where part of her soul was missing. The warm lining of the cloak was made of wolf skins from animals hunted by Guyon and their sons in times long gone. The wolves were all human now, two-legged and padding on the heels of death.

She crossed the ward to the plesaunce, her intention being to pluck some overwintering sage to brew a herbal tea and to escape from the loving but overpowering vigilance of the other members of the household. Despite the cold wind, the sun was out and bright, bathing the soil beds in spring warmth. Against the southern wall, the pear cordons were in scented bloom and beneath them, still flowering, were the tiny white galanthus flowers that Renard had brought her from Outremer.

She went to the sage bushes. Ladybirds waddled in aimless industry among the leaves. Beyond, in the bay tree, sparrows fought over the best nesting sites. Judith picked a handful of medium-sized leaves and brushed them absently beneath her nose. Her gaze drifted to the rose arbour and turf seat there, empty and overgrown. The gardener had yet to shear it after the dormant winter season. She tried to imagine Guyon sitting there. Her eyes ached and began to water with staring. Wandering over to the seat she sat down, brushing her hand across the damp, slightly prickly blades. It was sheltered and sun-warmed, and through a pang of desolation she was aware of feeling oddly comforted.

She sat for a long time, lost in silence, and only came to with a small, guilty start when she saw Elene picking her way towards her between the herb beds. Judith regarded her daughter-in-law warily. In the first days of her loss when she had been weak and ill with the coughing fever and overcome with grief, the girl had taken over all responsibility and coped remarkably well, too well perhaps. Elene had proved herself a thoroughly capable chatelaine, and, as the new lady, it was her right. Judith had lost that power when Guyon died. They all treated her now as though she was made of fragile glass. Her every move was watched. She was cosseted and coddled as if all of her soul had died and not just a part of it.

Elene sat down beside Judith on the turf seat. ‘I thought you might be here,’ she said. ‘The sun’s gone in now and it will soon be dusk. Will you come within?’

‘No, I won’t!’ Judith snapped, feeling like a defiant small child. The sun had indeed disappeared while she sat lost in reverie and she was aware of the dampness from the seat invading her bones.

Elene folded her hands in her lap and stared at them in silence.

Judith sighed heavily. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and then slapped her hand down on her knee. ‘I hate being treated like an invalid or a mad old woman. I know it is all kindly meant. Perhaps in the first days it was a welcome shield, but no longer. I swear I will become truly mad if I am not given leave to think for myself!’

The scent of bruised sage leaves hung in the air. ‘Have we really been that heedless?’ Elene asked in consternation.

Judith moved her shoulders. ‘No, not heedless,’ she said on a softer note. ‘Perhaps the change is in me. I need time alone now to grieve in peace. When I have need of company, be assured I will seek it out.’

Elene gave her a swift, sidelong long. ‘Do you want me to leave you here then?’

Judith’s lips twitched. ‘I have cut off my nose to spite my face,’ she said wryly. ‘I’m stiff and it’s growing cold, and that torchlight looks very welcoming.’ Carefully she eased herself to her feet.

‘I believe I am with child,’ Elene said abruptly as Judith shook out her skirts. ‘I missed my last flux and it is nigh that time of month again and there is no sign.’ She touched her breasts. ‘I am sore here and bigger than I was and I have begun to feel sick.’

‘Oh, that is welcome news indeed!’ Judith kissed her joyfully. ‘Does Renard know?’

Elene shook her head. ‘It was only the merest possibility before he left for the fens.’ She avoided Judith’s eyes, staring instead at a clump of couch grass near her feet.

Judith pursed her lips thoughtfully. Despite her grief and illness she had heard what had happened at the Christmas court, both the politics and the scandals. ‘Did you know about Olwen before Salisbury?’ she asked.

To a listening stranger it might have seemed a non sequitur, but Judith was shrewd, and to Elene, thinking along the same lines, the question was a perfectly obvious progression. ‘Yes, I knew,’ she said tightly. ‘I found out on my wedding night.’

Judith clicked her tongue sharply and raised her eyes heavenwards. ‘Guyon and I seem to have bred up idiots in place of sons!’

‘I made the first move,’ Elene defended. ‘I asked him.’ She raised her head and fixed Judith with a liquid hazel stare. ‘But it was like being slapped in the face. We quarrelled, or rather I was shrewish and he was so reasonable that I started to think it was all my fault. We mended our differences in Salisbury and despite that whore the seams have held, but …’ She splayed her hand over her stomach. ‘But sometimes I imagine him with her and I feel sick.’

Judith felt moisture filling and stinging in her own eyes. She knew the feelings if not the answer, for anger was a part of her own raw grief. ‘Guyon had a mistress before we were wed,’ she said, a quiver in her voice. ‘Heulwen’s mother. They had been lovers a long time. I cannot number the nights I tossed in torment — not because he continued to lie with her, but because sometimes I knew he was thinking of her and remembering.’ She laid her hand lightly on Elene’s shoulder. ‘You must see it as experience and use it to your advantage. A man always needs a place of safe harbour after the perils of a stormy sea.’

Each gave the other a wan, watery smile as they left the dusk-shrouded plesaunce and went inside to the great hall.