The Leopard Unleashed

Chapter 23

Adjusting his braies and straightening his tunic, Ranulf looked with deep satisfaction at the woman on his bed. Her pale hair was tangled over her breasts and shoulders. Upon the smooth, honey skin, new bruises bloomed like dark flowers. Hatred and defiance glowed in her eyes. Even now she would not acknowledge him her master. In a way it quite amused him, as when one of the hound pups bared its milk teeth at him.

‘Get out.’ His manner was brusquely indifferent now that his lust was spent. ‘I’m expecting company.’

Olwen rolled on to her stomach, turning her face from his while she controlled her expression. What she most wanted to do was take her knife and cut off not only his long, braided moustaches, but that other thing dangling between his legs.

She pulled on her shift. The linen dragged over her bruises. She might be the mistress of one of the most powerful men in England, but just now she felt like a used trencher after a meal. For an instant her resentment flared so strongly that she almost set on him with her teeth and nails. The knowledge that he was as strong as a bull and would relish the opportunity to bruise her more held her back.

‘Am I not to be paid?’ she asked instead, in a low, honeyed voice. ‘I need linen to replace the shift you tore in your haste.’

‘You presume.’ There was a cold gleam in his eyes, but he slipped a silver bracelet from his arm and tossed it on the bed. ‘Here, buy yourself a dozen shifts.’

Olwen picked up the incised silver band and quickly put it on before she gave in to the temptation to throw it back in his face. Full lips pursed, she tugged on her overgown. Outside the room she heard the sound of laughter and bright Welsh voices.

‘Hurry up!’ Ranulf snapped. ‘I’ve some more Welsh whores to pay for their favours yet.’

By which he was referring to his own Welsh levies, she knew. She had seen their leader once from a distance. Cadwaladr ap Gruffydd, younger brother of Prince Owain Fawr of North Wales. ‘I doubt that anyone ever performs you a service for free,’ she retorted. He lunged at her, but she was prepared, and in one smooth dancer’s motion rolled off the bed, leaving him clawing at thin air. Not waiting to see him recover, she shot through the curtain on to the stairway and collided with Cadwaladr ap Gruffydd.

He caught her arm as she slipped. She cried out in pain as his fingers gripped on one of the bruises Ranulf had inflicted. She felt the wiry strength of him and saw the admiration flicker in his eyes, followed by the scorn.

‘Fleeing the devil?’ he asked in heavily accented French. She tossed her head and looked him in the eyes, a feat not difficult because she was tall for a woman and he a little less than average for a man.

‘The devil’s attention would be more welcome!’ she spat with a look over her shoulder, then let herself yield a little in his grip. She dropped her gaze and made her expression a demure contrast to the state of her garments and the manner of her exit. Virgin and whore embodied in one woman. The paradox never failed to excite. She could feel the heat of his gaze, and judging the moment precisely, broke from him.

‘Lord Ranulf is waiting for you,’ she said. ‘At least I presume it is you. He said that I was not the only Welsh whore he had to pay tonight for services rendered. Nos da fy arglwydd.’ And left him staring after her, not knowing whether to believe or ignore her.

As she emerged into the bailey and blinked into the sleety wind, a young man wearing the inconspicuous garb of a Welsh scout rose from his crouch beside a semi-sheltered fire and advanced on her with sauntering, but definite purpose. It was only after he had circled behind her and to one side like a dog herding a sheep, and taken hold of her arm, that she recognised Renard’s youngest brother from the time she had seen him at Hawkfield. She had thought him handsome even then, much more so than Renard. Another year of maturity had carved character upon the fine symmetry of his bones.

‘I need to talk to you,’ he said abruptly and drew her away into a store-shed that was being used as extra stabling for the overflow of the army’s horses, his own spotted stallion among them.

‘Why?’ she mocked. ‘Are you lonely?’

‘Not that lonely!’

‘Then what do you want?’

‘I want you to help Renard before it is too late — before we begin moving out for Gloucester.’

She stared at him incredulously. ‘And how, pray, should I do that?’ she demanded. ‘Beg Earl Ranulf on my knees so that my tears melt his iron heart with pity? Bed the guards into exhaustion and steal the prison keys? I fear you have been listening to a surfeit of minstrels’ tales! No, let go of me or I’ll scream Ranulf ’s guards down on us!’ She prepared to kick him.

William sucked a breath through his teeth and released her, although he still blocked her way. ‘You have access to his bedchamber,’ he said.

‘Oh, I see. I murder him in his sleep and Renard dis — appears in the confusion?’

He ignored her sarcasm, his cause too urgent for a bout of repartee. ‘You take his seal, the one which gives authority to his documents, and you bring it to me. I will have ready a parchment authorising Renard’s release. The seal will give it credence and I’ll have him out of that hell-hole and on the Fosse Road faster than Earl Ranulf can braid his moustaches!’

Olwen’s gaze remained hostile. ‘Why should I?’ she asked coldly. ‘What gain is there to me in such risk?’

William ran his hand lightly down her arm. She winced and stiffened. ‘More gain than remaining as his mistress.’ He touched the broad, silver bracelet. ‘How many bruises did you trade for this?’

Olwen snatched her hand away, but withdrew no further. Her underlip caught in her teeth, she thought about making Ranulf look an utter fool and doing him out of the joy of having Renard an impotent prisoner. Not only that, but she would be putting Renard forever in her debt. Like a cat that has just groomed its ruffled fur into sleek order, Olwen recovered her aplomb. ‘So,’ she said in a smoky voice, ‘I do it for a passion gone cold and to avenge my bruises on Earl Ranulf?’

‘I don’t give a damn why you do it, only that you do.’ William snapped. Behind him, Smotyn pawed the straw and nickered to him, demanding a titbit. Rummaging in the pocket of his sheepskin jerkin, he brought out a heel of bread saved from the breaking of fast and offered it to the horse on the palm of his hand. It gave him a focus other than the woman, and at least Smotyn was predictable.

‘You could occupy your brother’s place as lord of Ravenstow,’ she answered in a provocative voice that her former lover would have recognised all too well. ‘It is yours for the taking.’

William’s strained control broke in an explosive oath. ‘Christ forbid!’ he cried. ‘I would rather be a landless beggar than yoke myself to that particular plough! Renard’s welcome to it!’

Olwen arched her brow at his horror. A man who spoke of power with contempt. A chill ran down her spine. She wondered briefly how it would be to lie with him, and quickly dropped the thought as if it were a scalding ingot. Far too seductive and dangerous. Cadwaladr ap Gruffydd was a much safer prospect and liable to lead her to an introduction to his kinsman, Owain Gwynedd, Prince of North Wales.

‘Supposing I take this tale to Earl Ranulf?’ she asked. ‘What might it be worth to him? I know that his hatred is not just centred on Renard. He would hang you from the nearest tree if he found out.’

William shrugged. ‘I’m a scout and tracker. I could go to ground faster than a deer in the morning and not be seen again this side of the Welsh border. How else would I get Renard beyond the hue and cry?’ Returning her look with one of his own, he slapped Smotyn’s neck. ‘And you would never feel safe again.’ He rested his other hand lightly on his dagger hilt for emphasis.

Warned, but uncowed, Olwen considered him steadily before turning to stroke the horse. A spark kindled within her and a feeling akin to that which she felt when dancing for men, the awareness of the power she had over them, as she had the power now.

‘You do not need to threaten me,’ she said softly to William. ‘For a passion not as dead as I would wish it to be, and to avenge my hurts on Lord Ranulf, I will do as you ask.’

Renard measured the span of time by the changing colour of the spear of sky trapped in the narrow window high above his head. Some of that span he fitfully slept, but most of it was spent in a relentless awareness of cold, pain and impotence, the latter the most intense of the three. Watching a man die was never pleasant. Watching your own brother when there were added currents of guilt, pity and a sense of failure, was sheer hell.

The dull grey of morning had dimmed beyond an early dusk into the pitch darkness of night. The wind whined through the unshuttered slit of light, bringing with it the tantalising discomfort of the smell of rain and raw cold without. The guards had come to empty the bucket and bring the by now familiar bread and ale. This time too, as a grudging afterthought, some dirty horse blankets had been tossed in upon them.

Henry alternately burned and shivered beneath Renard’s blanket and his own. The lash stripes smothering his back had been bathed in ale for want of anything better, but it had been of no use. His wounds had suppurated beyond all healing and the fever had continued to mount relentlessly. Another knight had already died of the wound fever. His body, along with that of the dead squire, had been dragged out that evening.

‘Gloucester tomorrow,’ said Ingelram, whose leg wound, despite all the odds, was not festering. He would carry a limp to his grave, but, precluding execution, he was not yet worm fodder. ‘He won’t survive the journey, Renard. Looking at him, I doubt he’ll last the night.’

Renard swallowed. ‘He’s had the wound fever severely in the past and survived.’

‘With this kind of nursing?’ Ingelram said disparagingly. ‘The signs are on him. He hasn’t pissed since well before noon and I can feel the heat of him from here.’

Renard gave him a furious glare.

‘It’s the truth,’ Ingelram said stubbornly, ‘even if you don’t want to see it.’

At which juncture Richard FitzUrse, out of pity, pulled his insensitive companion away.

It was still dark, the blackest part of the night immediately before dawn and Henry still clinging by the fingertips to life when the draw-bar was shot back and a voice, impatient, autocratic and very angry, snapped at the guards.

‘Authority?’ it demanded incredulously and there came the sound of parchment being struck vigorously with the back of a hand. ‘Is this not authority? The Earl of Chester’s own seal! Look at it, clod! He wants the most important moved out by dawn, and it will go more than hard with you if I’m not on that road within the half-hour!’

There was a pause and then a weak stammer. ‘We’ve had no orders, my lord.’

‘What do you think these are — morning rations?’ And then with a further virulent spurt of sarcasm, ‘or perhaps you would rather interrupt Earl Ranulf ’s slumbers and ask him yourself?’

‘N … no, my lord.’ The door slowly creaked inwards. The prisoners put up their hands, squinting against the sudden intrusion of torchlight, or else groaned and turned over, huddling away like hedgepigs curling up against danger.

A knight attired in a full coat of the best rivet mail, burnished mirror-bright, stepped among them. His head was protected by a helmet hammered from a single piece of iron, and his boots as he trod the soiled straw were gilded up the sides with figures of bowmen and deer, and adorned with bright prick spurs.

‘Where is he?’ he demanded, his gaze roving the cell, one hand resting on his polished sword hilt, the other on his exquisite belt.

The guard nervously indicated Renard. ‘They say he fought like a leopard on the battlefield, my lord, but he’s too sorely wounded and fretting over t’other one to have given us any trouble.’

Renard turned to face the light and the moment was suddenly fraught with more than just danger as from the boots upwards he traced a path to the knight’s face, and recognised William. The Norman war gear sat on his brother most gracefully, considering he so seldom donned it. All kinds of thoughts flashed through Renard’s mind and were gone without cohesion. ‘William?’ The utterance was more breath than sound.

‘Holy Christ!’ William muttered. He had expected to find Renard battered about and bruised — a man seldom came unscathed from the heart of a battle — but he had not been prepared to see his brother still blood-caked and mired, bones gaunt beneath the swollen flesh of injury, and haunted eyes dull with exhaustion. Added to the nausea of excitement, William now felt the nausea of horror.

The senior guard at his shoulder hovered, looking between the two of them, and William emerged rapidly from his shock to realise that Renard had spoken his name and that if he were not to end up in this cell beside him or kicking on the gallows, he had to carry through a convincing pretence.

‘When last we met I warned you what would happen if you stayed with Stephen!’ he said harshly for the guard’s benefit, spat in the straw to clear the fluid from his mouth, the gesture looking contemptuous, and then nodded brusquely to the two serjeants standing in the doorway. They marched into the cell and hauled Renard to his feet. He staggered and then locked his knees, bracing himself against their rough grip.

‘I’ll not leave without Henry.’ He looked William in the eye and then deliberately away to the blanketed mound near his feet.

‘You have no choice!’ growled the senior guard. ‘This parchment is for you alone.’

William stared in dawning, appalled comprehension at the sick man in the straw. Crouching, he set one hand on the huddled shoulder and peered round into Henry’s face. Not just sick but dying. He had seen the wound fever often enough to realise that Henry was over the edge. ‘Mary, Mother of God,’ he muttered under his breath, and waited until he had control of his expression before he stood up and faced the guards.

‘This man needs a priest, not a cell,’ he said roughly.

‘There is one to attend the prisoners, my lord—’ began the senior serjeant, and was laughed down bitterly by Ingelram of Say.

‘Oh yes!’ he spat. ‘One exists no doubt, but if so, he’s not seen fit to soil his sandals on our souls for shriving or anything else. Two have died already without comfort of the church. He’s probably abed with his whore and a flagon of Anjou’s best!’

A guard moved to club him silent, but William stopped him with a sharp command. ‘If this is true, it is damning upon your own soul that you have not vouchsafed a priest for these men.’

‘Oh, it’s all true,’ Renard said hoarsely with a glare at the senior serjeant. ‘But then corpses have no need of adornment, do they? Stephen’s squire, for example. A pity to bury such a fine gilded belt with a corpse. What will you do with my brother’s ring? Cut it off him before he’s cold? Do I disappoint you because I’m bound out of here?’

‘It’s a lie!’ The serjeant thrust out his jaw. ‘I never took the belt and it ain’t my fault if the priest don’t come when he’s summoned.’

William realised that Renard, by accusing the serjeant of stealing from the dead, had thrown him an excellent reason to have Henry out of here too, orders from above or not.

‘Time is wasting!’ he snapped. ‘Time I don’t have. Since you cannot vouchsafe a priest for this man, and since he is Robert of Gloucester’s own nephew, I’m removing him from your custody. If you have any complaint, you can take it to the Earl of Chester come full light.’ And then to the two gawping soldiers, ‘See to it.’

‘My lord, I’m not sure that …’ The serjeant started to protest.

‘See to it!’ William interrupted, his gaze incandescent. ‘And while you’re about it, I’ll advise you that there’s no ransom for crows’ meat. This place stinks. Get it cleaned up and see that these men are treated decently. God’s teeth, why must it always be me who is sent to deal with the idiots!’ He glanced heavenwards, more than half of his expression relief at the serjeant’s capitulation.

Renard did not speak as he was led from the cell into the stark air of Lincoln castle’s bailey. The wind had changed direction and the moon its phase, bringing with it clearer, colder weather. Frost crackled around the edges of the bailey puddles and the air was almost painful to breathe and bore upon it the acrid smell of burned dwellings. The wind cut through Renard’s flimsy garments and probed the wound on his cheekbone. Dangling between the guards, Henry moaned and shuddered as he was drag-carried to the waiting wain and lifted into it. Then it was Renard’s turn. He was escorted by two of William’s soldiers — Ashdyke men whom he well recognised.

William mounted his horse, not Smotyn, for his colouring was too easily remembered, too conspicuous, and he had traded him with one of Cadwaladr’s men for a sturdy brown hack. For Renard, he had obtained a plain bay gelding which awaited the right moment among the remounts.

The whip cracked over the backs of the two horses drawing the wain, and after a brief hesitation, while they took the strain, the wheels started to rumble and turn. The torchlight transformed all breath to red vapour and reflected tints of fire upon horseflesh and mail. Dawn barely a glimmer in the eye of night, William led his precious load out of the castle and wound his way down through the devastated town to the ford. The Earl of Chester’s seal and the knowledge that the prisoners were due to be moved that day granted him an easy passage, if ripe with more casual curiosity than he would have liked. It was not the deepest of his worries. Turning in the saddle as they passed the churned mud of the recent battleground, he bid one of his men go aside and fetch a priest.

Ranulf of Chester slept late, the result of too much wine and an exhausting night of bed-sport. He had intended to pass the night with his wife, but his mistress had had other ideas and they had been so novel and exciting that he had succumbed, and succumbed again, and finally been defeated by the wine and the masculine limitations of his own body.

He awoke to find one of his squires bending anxiously over him, hand cupped around a candle to prevent it either from going out or dripping hot wax all over the disarrayed sheets. Of Olwen there was no sign, only the distinctive smell of her perfume. Ranulf rolled over and groaned into the pillow, his head feeling as though a warhorse had kicked him in the temples.

‘Piss off,’ he muttered through his teeth.

‘My lord, Earl Robert has already started moving the prisoners out of the city and wants your opinion on some matters.’ The youth did not add any of the pointed remarks made by the Earl of Gloucester concerning the disgusting morals and behaviour of his son-in-law.

Ranulf half turned to cock a bleary red eye. ‘What hour is it?’

‘Nigh to prime, my lord.’

‘Impossible!’ With as much alacrity as his thundering headache permitted, he sat up and stared around the room. The shutters were closed to keep out the weather and the time of day could not be judged by the state of any natural light.

‘I am sorry, my lord, but it is. I saved you some bread from the breaking of fast … and a jug of wine too if you want it.’

Ranulf compressed his lips at the thought of food. ‘Clothes,’ he said, and held out his hand.

His squire carefully put the candle down and gathered up from the floor various garments, including a woman’s red silk hose garter. Ranulf snatched his crumpled shirt from the youth and dragged it on. His head became tangled in the laces and he half strangled himself before he managed to right matters. ‘The prisoners?’ he queried. ‘Does that include the King?’

‘I think Earl Robert was waiting for you, my lord, before he consigned him to the road. Renard FitzGuyon went early, before the dawn as you commanded.’ The squire briskly dusted off his master’s fur-trimmed tunic as he spoke.

The silence from the bed was palpable.

‘My lord?’

‘I gave no such command,’ Ranulf said huskily.

The squire’s eyes widened. ‘My lord, a young knight brought a parchment to the prison serjeant. It bore your seal and ordered the release of Renard FitzGuyon into his custody for the journey to Gloucester.’

‘What!’

‘The serjeant told me himself.’ Prudently, the youth stepped away from the bed. Earl Ranulf was apt to be violent when beset by bad tidings, and if the colour of his face was any indication, these were not just bad, but catastrophic. ‘Apparently the knight was harsh with him and threatened to report him to you. He was scared witless and wanted to plead his own version of events first, so he attached himself to me like a leech when he saw me crossing the bailey.’

‘What was the knight’s name?’ Ranulf rumbled with all the menace of an imminent volcano.

‘I’m not sure, my lord.’ The squire screwed up his face. ‘The serjeant did tell me … William le … yes, William le Malin.’

An obscure nickname that meant nothing. ‘No title or place-name?’

‘No, my lord.’

‘Bring that serjeant to me immediately, and start a search through the camp for anyone who knows of a knight by the name of William le Malin.’

The squire made his grateful exit and escape, leaving the junior lad and Ranulf ’s chaplain to bear the brunt of the eruption.

The brunt arrived about a candle notch later in the presence of Robert of Gloucester. The cringing senior serjeant in command of the prisoners had been hauled from his post with knocking knees and flung down before his simmering liege lord.

‘But it had your seal on it!’ he pleaded in a cracked voice, eyes darting anxiously between the tight-lipped Earl of Gloucester and the scarlet-faced near-apopleptic de Gernons. ‘And Sir William was richly dressed and spoke with authority. I had no cause to doubt he was genuine!’

‘You’ll have cause to regret now!’ Ranulf growled.

‘How did your seal come to be upon that parchment in the first place?’ asked Gloucester with a puzzled frown. ‘Do you not keep it locked in your strongbox with your immediate silver? Whoever took it must have intimate access to your bedchamber.’

Ranulf ’s body servants all made heated protests and denials. No one had been in his chamber without their knowing, and they would all swear oaths on the holiest relics to prove their own innocence. Besides, the key to the strongbox was about the Earl’s person, and no one could remove it without his being aware.

Gloucester gave his son-in-law a weary look. ‘What about the woman?’

Ranulf looked blank. ‘What woman?’

‘The dancing girl you persist in bedding even under your wife’s long-suffering nose. Don’t you have brains above your belt, Ranulf?’

‘Why in Christ’s name should she want my seal?’ he scoffed, thinking of the previous night when she had been all over him.

‘I’ll tell you why,’ said William de Cahagnes, a hard-bitten baron who had been listening to the conversation with more than a glint of malice at Chester’s discomfort. ‘Because she used to be Ravenstow’s mistress. He brought her home with him from Antioch.’

The words dropped like red-hot stones into a trough of cold water.

‘What?’ roared Ranulf, jerking round as if scalded.

‘One of my men served at Ravenstow last year as a mercenary, and he recognised her the moment he saw her in your retinue. Apparently she only dances to her own tune. I think you will find that she is gone, and whatever joy you had of her last night was paid for by your seal.’

Near to choking on his rage, Ranulf was incoherent.

‘You had better check your strongbox,’ Gloucester suggested wearily. ‘If your seal has gone, then God knows what other documents might be forged with its aid.’

Swallowing, Ranulf fumbled in his pouch for the key. ‘FitzGuyon’s whore!’ He gagged, thinking of how much she must have been laughing at him.

A swift investigation confirmed the worst. The seal was missing from his chest and the guards sent to apprehend Olwen returned empty-handed, their only lead a rumour that she had ridden out before first light with a departing band of North Welsh. She had taken the baby with her. Either his son, or Ravenstow’s cuckoo. While this was being reported, another detail came back having failed to find any trace of a knight by the name of William le Malin — William the cunning.

That was when the volcano erupted and men scattered for cover. Flagons, cups, two roast pigeons and an expensive and heavy carved chair were hurled indiscriminately across the room.

Gloucester, while not approving, was accustomed to his son-in-law’s excesses of temper, and waiting until Ranulf had run out of immediate objects to throw, said into the panting respite, ‘For Christ’s sake, Ranulf, and mine, control your tantrum and put it to some use before you do more damage to this keep than Stephen did in six weeks of siege! Send out men after them and a messenger to your lands, telling your constables to beware of anyone bearing parchments with your seal and in the meantime have a new one cast. God’s blood, surely I do not need to lecture you as if you were one of my squires!’

Ranulf glared at him and clenched and unclenched his fists but even while his rage ran like molten lava, its core was cooling into a reasoning anger. He managed a curt nod at his father-in-law. ‘You do well to recall me to my duty,’ he said, and swung to the door.

As he reached it, Gloucester cautioned him. ‘Remember that Renard is my nephew, and Matilda’s. Keep that temper of yours in check.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind.’ There was more than a hint of ambiguity in Ranulf ’s reply.