The Leopard Unleashed

Chapter 18

On the day of Renard’s return to Ravenstow, Elene had spent a long afternoon in the town, buying at the market and talking to the merchants — the cloth sellers in particular — and to an ambitious young packman who had recently become a carrier and wanted to expand his business yet again. She offered him a contract transporting cloth between Woolcot and the main villages beholden to Ravenstow. He leaped at the proposal, but proved himself shrewd by haggling the terms a little more towards his advantage without losing Elene’s goodwill.

Satisfied with her own end of the bargain, a little amused at the young man’s sharp wit, Elene let Owain help her into the saddle, and turned Bramble for home. Sir Thomas d’Alberin, leader of her escort for the forty days of his feudal service, watched her with long-suffering eyes. It was raining, his gouty foot was throbbing against his stirrup iron and he had heartburn from eating too many spiced shrimp pasties at the pie seller’s booth while he waited for Elene to complete her business with the cocky young upstart who called himself a carrier on the strength of the two moth-eaten ponies he had purchased to replace his haversack.

Sir Thomas had considered Elene a sweet little thing when he encountered her at her wedding in November, but as with all the Ravenstow women, that first impression had been a sugar coating, disguising a concoction that he was only too pleased belonged in Lord Renard’s cup and not his own.

He glanced at her as she drew the hood of her cloak over her veil and cast a hazel grimace at the gathering rain clouds. Unlike Lady Judith, she did not snap or turn sarcastic when angered. Her tone remained level and calm, but her full mouth would tighten around the words and her eyes would narrow, as they were narrowing now, in response to the rain, leaving him in no doubt as to her displeasure.

Sir Thomas signalled the escort to increase the pace and thought with new longing of his own plain, plump wife. Guard duty at Ravenstow was always an adventure into a different, brighter world, but after a time the colours jarred his eyes and the struggle to meet expectations frazzled him. The situation this year was exacerbated by the fact of a new lord, his absence at war, and this dangerous quarrel with Ranulf of Chester. Not only that, but the son Thomas had brought with him, hoping that the lad would make a good impression, had done nothing but behave badly, particularly towards the new squire.

By the time they arrived at the castle, the rain was tipping out of the leaden clouds like water from a leaky bucket. The thick new coat of limewash applied to Ravenstow’s walls during the past few weeks was sluicing in white runnels into the tussocky rocks upon which the keep was built. Mingled with the thud of the rain, Elene heard the rush of the river, still high with the spring spate. Bramble’s hooves squelched on mud and thudded on the planks of the drawbridge. The mare pricked her ears at the familiar smell of home and, unbidden, increased her pace to a trot, nudging the wet, sleek rump of the horse in front.

The bailey was already busy, every available groom and lackey attending to destriers, palfreys, rounceys and baggage nags. Two supply wains were leaning against a wall and other servants were toing and froing between them, the armoury and the hall as they unloaded the contents. Eadric, the head groom, who was leading a black stallion with familiar star and long white hind stockings towards a clean stall, paused and touched his forehead to Elene. ‘We weren’t expecting ’em, my lady,’ he said, excusing himself for neglecting Bramble. ‘I’ll only be a moment with this ’un.’

Puffing, Sir Thomas helped her down from the mare. Rain dripped from the nasal of his helmet into the groove of his upper lip. He blew upwards, spraying droplets. ‘Lord Renard’s home,’ he announced unnecessarily, sounding relieved. Elene picked up her skirts and ran.

The great hall was crowded with armed men and stank of unwashed bodies and wet wool steaming rankly in the smoky fug. Firelight flashed off rust-speckled hauberks and sword hilts. Servants were busy with jugs of cider and baskets of bread.

Elene tapped a huge, broad-shouldered knight on the back. ‘Ancelin, where’s Renard?’

He swung round. His blond hair was greasy from crown to cheek hollow and the ends hung in wet strings upon his coif. There were tired pouches under his eyes but his smile was as broad and genuine as ever as he looked down on her from an advantage of a full twelve inches. ‘In the solar, my lady.’ He pointed with his cup, then, with a sudden bellow of joy, rose on tiptoe and extended one brawny arm, affording her a whiff of rank armpit as he snatched a chicken leg off a loaded tray a maid was trying to carry to a trestle.

‘Is he all right?’ Elene felt a pang of fear for she knew that Renard was not a lord to hold aloof from his men without good reason.

‘More or less,’ Ancelin said indistinctly through a massive mouthful of meat. ‘A trifle bad-tempered with the pain, but if you can bear with him, you’ll not find him too sorely wounded to greet you fittingly.’

‘Wounded!’

Ancelin chuckled and wiped his lips on the freckled back of his hand. ‘And not even in the thick of battle … excuse me.’ He broke away from her to dive after a wide wicker basket of hot bread.

Elene gathered her damp skirts and ran, inasmuch as that was possible, down the hall to the solar. She knew that Ancelin would not be guzzling with such joyous abandon if Renard was seriously hurt, but nevertheless it was with a heart full of apprehension that she drew aside the hanging across the solar archway and stepped inside the room.

Renard was sitting in a high-backed chair, one leg propped on a footstool, and Judith was bent over, carefully examining his exposed foot. ‘They’re not broken,’ she said doubtfully, as if not quite sure, and turned round as his gaze flickered to the curtain where Elene stood as white as a ghost.

‘It’s all right, he isn’t going to be crippled for life, just a few weeks,’ Judith said by way of reassurance. Leaving him, she went out, touching Elene lightly on the shoulder.

Renard raised the small cup of usquebaugh near his elbow and drained it in one fast gulp.

Elene advanced on him. Like Ancelin’s, his hair was long and unkempt, and through a grizzle of beard his face was harsh with pain and fatigue. She looked at his foot. The skin was broken here and there and across his toes the swelling was a magnificent conglomeration of shades of purple and blue. ‘What happened?’

He made an impatient sound. ‘A baggage wain stuck in the mud at a ford this morning. I dismounted to help push it free, and the carter’s accursed nag took fright at a pheasant flushed from cover by one of the dogs and shied sideways on to my foot!’

Elene bit her lip. It did no good. She covered her mouth with her hand. He glared at her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a choked voice. ‘It looks as though it hurts dreadfully.’

‘It does,’ he growled.

Contrite, she stooped over to kiss him. He relaxed slightly and curved his arms around her waist. The damp end of her braid tickled the back of his hand. He became aware that she was only a little less wet than he was himself. Her lips were cold and tasted of rain, but then everything did — rain or river or stagnant weed. Sighing, he released her.

‘Did Bishop Nigel get his comeuppance then?’ she asked.

He tipped back his head and closed his eyes. ‘After a fashion, I suppose. We built a bridge of boats and hurdles to cross to Ely where he was holed up at Aldreth. A local monk with a grudge against him guided us through the marshes. We took the good Bishop Nigel by surprise from behind his back.’ He lifted one hauberk-clad shoulder. ‘Unfortunately he escaped — to Bristol we think, but we captured some of his knights and most of his treasure. There’s a necklace in my baggage — that’s a personal present from the King to you. Apparently you made a good impression on the Queen at Christmas.’

‘Did I?’

‘She likes strong-minded women who rule their men,’ he said drily and raised his lids to flash her a look full of brooding amusement. ‘I was not altogether flattered, although I suppose it might be true. You’re just not as obvious as Mama, are you?’

Elene was slightly taken aback. It had never occurred to her that she might be able to rule Renard, or that the Queen might think her capable. ‘She had the advantage of your father’s devotion,’ she said, and began to pluck at the sodden leather laces of his coif.

‘Ah now, that is fishing with either a very subtle or a very foolish bait, Nell,’ he smiled, and wrapped his fingers around one of her braids to draw her down to him again, adding just before he kissed her, ‘I’ve missed you.’

Her palm was against his throat and she felt his pulse surge rapidly. He slipped his hand beneath her cloak to stroke her body, revelling in a luxury that had been six weeks absent from his life. The camp whores had proved no trial to celibacy. Most of them stank worse than the surrounding fetid marshes and he was still smarting too much from the wounds Olwen had inflicted on his pride to seek a whore for the mere easing of boredom.

He closed his eyes again, savouring. Elene’s lips were as soft and cool as damp silk. Her fingertips traced a delicate, fiery pattern over his throat and her body, pressing upon his, made him groan. ‘Oh Jesu, yes, I’ve missed you.’

Elene caught her breath. From the way he had taken fire at such preliminary stimulus, she surmised that he had not been with other women whilet on campaign, and that acted as a spur to her desire. ‘Me?’ she asked. ‘Or this?’ And boldly sought beneath his hauberk and gambeson. At which embarrassing juncture Judith returned. Elene snatched her hand away, her face poppy-scarlet.

Renard was sufficiently graceless to guffaw for all that he tried to stifle it behind his hand.

‘You will do that on the other side of your face!’ his mother warned. ‘I’ve had Elflin prepare you a tub in your chamber and to get there you’ll have to walk on that foot — unless of course you intend hopping across the hall like a mad heron.’ Ignoring his scowl, she turned to Elene. ‘Child, his father and I were often interrupted on occasions far more intimate than this one. If my mind had not been so full of housing and feeding that untimely rabble out there, I’d have given you due warning.’

Her words had been meant to comfort, but made Elene realise that in her haste to reassure herself of Renard’s safety, she had been remiss in her duties as chatelaine. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have left it all to you. I’ll …’ She started towards the doorway.

‘Don’t apologise.’ Judith waved her hand. ‘Your place is with your husband, undeserving wretch though he be, and it keeps me busy.’

‘Rabble?’ Renard protested as he levered himself carefully to his feet, assisted by the two women. He had seen Elene’s hesitation and the pain underlying his mother’s response, and knew when to steer the conversation into less turbulent channels. ‘They’ve been working their backsides off for the last six weeks and in conditions only a frog would enjoy. Don’t salt your tongue too liberally while you see to them, Mama.’

Judith’s lips twitched. ‘As if I would!’ she said.

By the time Renard sank into the steaming tub that had been prepared for him, he was grey with pain, all thoughts of chaffing anyone erased from his mind by the pain from his foot, muffled curses the limit of his ability. Through a throbbing haze he was aware of Elene and his mother consulting low-voiced about the best method of bandaging his damaged toes.

Judith departed. Silence fell, punctuated by the small sounds of Elene returning to his coffer the few items of clothing in his baggage that did not require laundering or discarding.

The pain eased and his knotted muscles relaxed in the hot, herb-infused water. Elene came to the tub and examined him with a critical eye but could see no other signs of injury on his body. There was a shallow scratch on his face between eye socket and beard, but it looked like a scrape from a tree branch that would heal quickly of its own accord. Unstoppering the jar of stavesacre lotion she was holding, she knelt beside the tub and handed him a cloth. ‘Cover your eyes.’

The smell of the lotion was pungent and familiar. He did as she bid and said in a muffled voice, ‘I hope you have plenty. We’re all alive with lice.’

‘Heulwen had a surplus. She sent some over last month knowing how likely that would be.’ She worked the lotion into his hair and left it while she barbered off his beard and its occupants.

‘I didn’t see Henry when I arrived,’ he remarked, and when she did not reply, lowered the cloth and looked at her piercingly. ‘Gave himself away, did he? I thought he might.’

Elene paused in her ministrations to lean back and return his stare. ‘You knew?’

‘I’ve known since our wedding day.’ And then, defensively, ‘Well, what was I supposed to do? Swell into a jealous rage and swathe you up in black cloth like an infidel would do to his wife? Throw Henry half-dead with wound fever out of the keep?’ The bath water churned. Somewhat grimly he set about the motions of a wash. ‘What happened?’

Elene said hoarsely, ‘He was struggling to undo his sword-belt. I went to help him and he … he told me how he felt.’ She shook her head. ‘He came to apologise later, and then he left.’ There was no point in telling Renard the full story.

Renard sighed heavily and shook his head.

‘What are you going to do?’

He squeezed his eyes shut against the sting of the stavesacre lotion. ‘Nothing. Certainly I’m not going to chase after him rubbing salt into a bleeding wound. Let him heal a little first.’

Elene took the cloth from him to wash his back, positioning herself so that without a violent contortion of his body he would not be able to see her face. ‘I never dreamed for one moment that Henry felt more than brotherly towards me,’ she said.

‘He always was shy with women,’ Renard replied, feeling his way towards understanding. ‘I suppose he has known you since childhood and therein lies the difference. He has long been familiar with you in a family atmosphere. My father should have betrothed him years ago before the mould became too firmly set.’

‘But he betrothed you instead — to me.’

Renard tried to swivel and look at her, unsure of her slightly breathless tone, but found that with his injured toes propped over the far edge of the tub, it was not physically possible. ‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘he did.’

‘That is not all I have to tell you,’ she said hesitantly when Renard was finally deloused, dry, and dressed for comfort in a loose robe, his injured foot smeared with salve and bandaged.

‘Ranulf of Chester hasn’t …?’

‘No,’ she reassured him quickly. ‘There has been some minor raiding, but more opportune than of any grand design. You’ll have all the reports as soon as you’re ready for them.’

‘Then what else?’

Elene looked down at her clasped hands. ‘I’m with child.’

He stared at her, his surprise reserved not for the fact of her pregnancy — sooner or later it was bound to happen — but because he read more apprehension than excitement in her expression and the tone of her voice. ‘That’s excellent news,’ he pronounced with guarded enthusiasm. ‘When?’

‘Mid-autumn, I think.’

Renard continued to study her. He remembered that her mother had died in childbirth when she was very small. Even women who longed for children and had a strong maternal instinct could be terrified by the prospect of giving birth, for it was also the prospect of death if anything went wrong. ‘Come here, Nell,’ he said gently.

Obediently she came, and sat down as he indicated, but when he put his arm around her, he could feel the violent vibration of her body. ‘What’s the matter? Are you afraid?’

She buried her head against his shoulder and breast. He felt her lips against his throat and the flutter of her eyelashes like small moth wings. ‘Only of losing you. A ram takes little interest in a ewe save to keep other rams away once she is in lamb.’

‘You think that of me?’ he asked, stricken.

‘I fear that of you. It is foolish and jealous I know, but I cannot stop myself.’

He tightened his embrace. ‘If you were ever a duty, Nell, you’re much more than that now. If I call you love, or sweetheart, it is because I mean it.’ He sought her lips and kissed her, tenderly at first, but with a growing tension that was interspersed with murmured endearments and then breathless entreaties. Elene yielded herself to the sweeping needs of her body and his, and thought with a pang that the difference was that while he called her sweetheart, she called him her soul.

‘Here.’ Renard presented Elene with a key and indicated the iron-bound donkey-skin chest that a puffing servant had just set down on the rushes.

‘What’s in it?’

‘Plunder.’ He grinned and gestured. ‘Some of Nigel of Ely’s ill-gotten gains. Mine now. Mostly it’s silver which I’ll use at Caermoel, but you can have the geegaws. Wear them or melt them down. The necklace for you from Stephen is in there too.’

Elene knelt by the chest. Clasp, hinges and keyhole were all rusty from the damp fenland spring and it took a strong effort from the cushion of her thumb before the lock gratingly yielded. Within, protected by a waxed cloth, lay bag upon bag of silver pennies, innocuous lumpy rows of coarse leather, and riding upon them, like gemstoned ships on a grey ocean, were two decorated cups, a flagon, odds and ends of jewellery, and a collar of ostentatious gold squares, each one the size of a small griddle cake and adorned by rough-cut red stones.

Renard’s grin became an outright guffaw at the look on her face as she raised the collar to the light. ‘I don’t know which is the more priceless!’ he japed. ‘That thing, or your expression!’

Elene wrinkled her nose at him. She turned the object this way and that and a thoughtful look entered her eyes. ‘It’s not so bad,’ she said. ‘I’m sure I can find a use for it.’

‘As long as it’s not embroidering it into one of my tunics, I don’t care what you do with it.’ He rubbed his jaw. ‘I have something else for you too, but it’s down in the bailey, a personal gift this time.’

‘In the bailey?’ Locking the chest, she clambered to her feet. Her stomach churned and for a moment she compressed her lips, waiting for the nausea to subside.

‘What’s the matter?’ He looked at her with sudden anxiety.

She managed a wan smile. ‘Just the sickness of the early days. I should not have risen so quickly. It will pass.’ The smile warmed. ‘I’ll race you if you like.’

Renard looked from her white complexion to his damaged foot and laughed.

The bailey was a morass of churned mud, dung and greenish puddles after the previous day’s downpour. Planks had been bridged across the filthiest parts. A flooded storeshed was being swept out by two chattering women, forearms bare, besoms working in rapid, long strokes.

Elene raised her skirts to her shins and splashed in her pattens beside Renard. He had borrowed a quarterstaff from one of the soldiers, and with its aid was managing to limp along at a commendable pace.

Rounding a corner near the swept-out mulch from the stables, he halted before the pen that usually held stray animals waiting to be reclaimed by their owners on payment of a quarter-penny fine. Today, instead of old Edward’s cow which was almost a permanent fixture due to her propensity for wandering and his reluctance to pay, the pen was occupied by a score of sheep. Ten ewes all with lambs at foot, and a handsome shell-horned young ram.

‘Longwools.’ Renard gestured at their full, curling fleeces, colloped with mud after yesterday’s rain. ‘I thought you might find a use for them on that low land at Woolcot where the Alyn floods every spring. They’re marsh-bred and not susceptible to hoof rot, or so I was informed.’

Elene looked at the animals and swallowed the lump that came to her throat. Any man could have offered his wife jewellery — the more decent probably did — but Renard seemed to have an intuition that ran much deeper, touching the quick. He brought his mother bulbs from Antioch that flowered bravely in the face of winter. He brought her sheep and craftsmen, making light of it, but to her it meant more to her than a hundred ostentatious gold collars.

‘They’re from the Bishop’s own personal herd. Some of Stephen’s less disciplined and hungrier troops had a prefer — ence to slaughter them, but I persuaded them otherwise.’

‘They’re in excellent condition.’ She looked beneath the caking of mud at the bright eyes, sturdy legs and solid bodies. The lambs were frisky and inquisitive.

‘Better than me and the men,’ he continued. ‘They seem to thrive in the wet with the joy of mushrooms!’

A ewe bleated at him as if in thorough agreement and Renard laughed. Elene turned into his arms and impulsively kissed him.

His balance wobbled. He grabbed her around the waist to steady himself and then kept hold of her, bending his head to seek her lips.

‘You crazy half-Welsh whoreson, let go of me!’ screamed a high-pitched, panicking voice. The sheep bunched ner — vously together. Renard jerked up his head and stared at the two boys wrestling in the mud, dung and straw on the edge of the stable midden.

A tawny head came uppermost, narrow arms flailing, an obscenity in Welsh snarling from curled-back lips. His adversary warded the blows with pudgy, raised forearms and threshed his feet with the frantic incompetence of a corpse on a gibbet.

Elene started towards the boys. Renard bellowed a command at them and was ignored, the antagonists being locked in their own private battle and deaf to all else.

‘Owain, Guy, stop it now!’ Elene cried, circling them in search of an opening to try to drag them apart.

Renard limped across the path of a kitchen maid yoked with two buckets of well water, unhooked one of them from the rope and, returning to the brawl, hurled an icy deluge into its midst.

The boys broke apart, spluttering and breathless with shock. Renard put himself between them and regarded both without favour. It was useless to ask what had happened or who had started it. Boys of their age had usually perfected the art of lying, or at least of seeing the truth from a totally different angle to that of the harassed adult.

‘You’re Guy d’Alberin, aren’t you?’

The pudgy boy twitched his soaking shoulders. ‘Yes, my lord,’ he said through chattering teeth. A fresh breeze swooped around the open spaces of the ward, punishing those who were not wearing cloaks.

‘And you are?’

‘Owain ap Siorl, sire.’ The other boy jutted his chin proudly at Renard. Blood was trickling from his nose, but he was pretending not to notice.

‘It was his fault, he started the fight!’ accused Guy d’Alberin. ‘He can’t take the tiniest joke without going wild!’

Which told Renard everything he wanted to know, particu larly when the Welsh lad tightened his lips, eyes dark with fury. ‘Suffice it that you both have the time and energy to indulge your tempers,’ he said coldly. ‘It will not happen again. I know that for a certainty because I am going to see to it myself. Guy, go and find your father and send him to me. After that, do the same with Sir Ancelin.’ He turned to fully peruse the slighter youth. ‘Owain ap Siorl, get yourself cleaned up and changed, then saddle up your own mount and the blue roan for me.’

The boys, frightened by the quality of Renard’s presence rather than the strength of anything he had said, sheepishly vanished on their separate errands.

Elene sighed and shook her head. ‘Guy d’Alberin’s a bully,’ she said. ‘The older boys just laugh at his airs and ignore him, so he takes his revenge on the newest member of the household. Owain’s so sensitive about his Welsh blood and his mother’s remarriage that he’s his own worst enemy. Also, I think that Guy’s jealous that Owain is to be your squire.’

‘Fancies himself in that role, does he?’ Renard thoughtfully stirred the end of the quarterstaff in the mud as if mixing porridge.

‘Unfortunately so.’

‘Might do him good.’

‘But not you.’ Elene pulled a face.

‘Oh, undoubtedly not in the beginning, but he’s the heir to Farnden. If he isn’t tempered before he inherits, he’s going to be about as much use to me as a sword made of raw dough! The other lad requires tempering too, but in a different way. Guy d’Alberin has to acquire a cutting edge; Owain already has one but needs the nicks of misuse honing out.’

‘And you see all that from one small encounter?’ Elene eyed him sceptically.

‘I see the probability.’ He went to lean across the top of the sheep pen and said in a voice so low that she hardly heard him, ‘Perhaps I too have been recently tempered.’