The Leopard Unleashed

Chapter 30

Leicester, November 1141

The dais table was adorned with a solid gold aquamanile in the form of a horse. There were candlesticks of silver gilt, flagons set with rock crystal and amethyst and goblets that matched. The napery was of the finest pounded, bleached linen, except where someone had knocked over a cup of wine, leaving a blood-red stain. The only real blood in evidence was that oozing from a haunch of undercooked venison. It sat in front of Elene’s place, reminding her of how matters might have been had not Chester’s offer of peace been accepted by Renard — the price, their son in a marriage alliance.

Renard was wearing his wedding tunic for this event on the neutral ground of the Earl of Leicester’s main keep, always a sign that he felt in some way constrained. His eyes were as opaque as flints and narrowed as if in pain. At least, she thought, he had been brought to agree to burying the hostilities — not by her, but by Robert of Leicester and the more powerful persuasion of Welsh aggression along the marches as Prince Owain sought to extend his own borders.

Leicester, chief witness to the strained proceedings, was blusteringly jovial, decidedly on edge, but then a natural manner would have been very difficult to maintain, given the parties involved and the differences between them.

The children were elsewhere with their respective nurses. Lucy was a year older than Hugh, but that scarcely mattered. She was also sweet and shy and obviously terrified of her father. As tradition demanded, she would be given to Elene at about the age of nine to grow up in the household into which she would later marry, with only short visits home. Elene could not find it in her to be angry with Matille for manipulating her plea for an end to the hostilities.

Matille seemed unaffected by the atmosphere at the high table, but then she had every reason to celebrate. Her father, captured in the flight from Winchester, had been released in exchange for King Stephen and was none the worse for his ordeal. Ranulf was not as pleased, but that made him all the more eager to form the alliance with Ravenstow. Stephen was likely to have a sore head about Lincoln, so it behoved Ranulf to keep loyalist company for a while at least.

The haunch of venison was evocative to Renard too, reminding him of what continued war with the earldom of Chester would mean. Leicester had not had to persuade him very hard to see reason, and the Welsh threat had quickly done the rest. He was amenable to the suggestion of a truce, particularly as the agreement to a betrothal had an escape clause in the form of consanguinity between Hugh and little Lucy. What was galling him at the moment was having to sit at the same board as Ranulf de Gernons and endure the interminable courses of a celebration feast. Hypocrisy of the worst order. Both of them knew where they wanted to stick their eating knives, and it was not in that haunch of venison. Grimly he endured and counted down the candle notches until the moment he could decently retire. Soon, he thought, as the various march-pane subtleties were served and the barely touched deer haunch was removed to a sideboard.

The musicians who had played harp and crwth during the main meal now made way for the entertainers. Renard reached for his goblet, discovered that it was empty, but declined a refill from the squire serving the high table.

A group of traditional dancers replaced some jugglers. Robert of Leicester, well lubricated by the wine he had been drinking to carry him through this ordeal, grinned and nudged Renard. ‘Different to the last lot of dancing we all witnessed together, eh?’ he chortled. His voice was loud and carried to include Ranulf in the remark. Comically, Leicester then realised his mistake. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘That’s put my foot in the subtlety, hasn’t it?’

The words fell into an awkward silence.

‘She was naught but a faithless whore!’ Ranulf snarled, shattering it.

‘Who nevertheless kept faith to her own code,’ Renard defended.

‘Hah, you know she’s bedding Owain Gwynedd now?’ Ranulf ’s light eyes were dangerous.

‘Yes, I know, and I wish them well.’

Ranulf ’s look narrowed, became almost crafty. He wondered whether to tell Renard about the child. In the same moment as the thought was born he decided against it. She had never said the boy was Renard’s, although he well suspected it was so. Let him grow up among the Welsh and perhaps one day put a goose-fletched arrow through his own father’s heart in some wet border woodland. ‘I hope they both die of Syrian pox,’ he said, hunching his shoulders.

Renard could feel Elene quivering beside him, could see the strain on Leicester’s face. He swallowed down an in — excusable retort of his own and instead reached down to his belt.

Ranulf thought that he was going for his recently sheathed knife and whipped his own dagger from where it had been thrust upright in a loaf of bread. Leicester caught his arm to hold him back as retainers leaped up and the mood suddenly turned very nasty indeed.

Remaining calm, Renard held out a flat bronze disc on the palm of his hand. ‘I was in two minds whether to return this to you, but you might as well have it for the sake of the treaty between us.’

De Gernons subsided on to his chair. He was scarlet in the face as he took from Renard the seal he had lost at Lincoln.

‘Call it a gift of good faith,’ Renard added drily. ‘Let it be a token of the esteem in which we hold each other.’ Inclining his head, he drew Elene to her feet and left the dais and the speechless Earl of Chester.

‘Renard?’

‘Mmmm?’

‘I … I’ve got a confession to make.’ ‘Oh? And what sort of penance should I exact from you in payment?’

The bracken stuffing rustled and Elene felt his weight shift on the lumpy mattress. His hand came lightly down upon her body, smoothing over her belly and cupping her breast. He had been angry earlier, but his mood had since lightened, so that now, in the bedchamber they had been allotted for their stay at Leicester, she knew even in the darkness that he was smiling.

‘I do not know,’ she said apprehensively. ‘Either you will beat me black and blue or you will never speak to me again.’

‘A serious sin then,’ he murmured, nibbling her throat, his fingers busy.

‘It is … Renard, please!’

He propped his head on his hand. ‘Tell me then.’

Elene swallowed. ‘I … this meeting between you and Earl Ranulf. It was not his idea.’

‘I know, love.’

‘You do?’

‘Of course.’ His voice held a note of smug contempt. ‘It was his wife’s. You don’t think he would have done it of his own accord, do you? It shows too balanced a reasoning, and I know that Matille’s desperate to foster the girls somewhere that they’ll be loved for themselves even while they’re being pawns.’

‘It wasn’t Matille’s idea. She only improvised on what she was given … It was mine. I wrote to her and John carried the letter. He was carrying it on the day that Woolcot burned to the ground.’

‘Yours?’ he repeated blankly, and remembered her begging him in a shepherd’s hut not to seek revenge — because revenge would have spoiled her hopes for a truce. Even in the midst of losing everything for which she had worked, she had held herself to discipline.

‘Renard …?’ She touched his face, but was unable to tell what expression it held, not without the benefit of rushlight.

There was a long silence in which she waited, scarcely daring to breathe. Renard’s own breath emerged suddenly on a deep sigh and was followed by a snort of reluctant laughter. ‘Thus am I served justly for my conceit. What did I say about balanced reasoning?’

‘Are you angry with me?’

‘Angry?’ He considered the word. The mattress moved again. ‘I’m trying very hard,’ he admitted. ‘For the sake of my pride, I’m trying, but I cannot quibble with the outcome. Still,’ he added severely, ‘erring wives must know their place … which is firmly beneath their husbands.’

Elene dutifully accepted her punishment.

Some time later, Renard sat up in the bed. He was uncomfortable, he had no real desire for sleep, and besides, he was starving. Feeling around for tinder and flint, he lit the night candle and began pulling on his clothes.

Elene watched him and swallowed. ‘I won’t do it again, I promise.’

‘Was the punishment so terrible to bear then?’

‘No, I mean go making bargains behind your back. I’ve been so frightened these past few weeks in case you never trusted me again, but I had to do it, for Hugh’s sake.’ Her expression hardened.

‘And saddle him with one of Chester’s brood for a wife,’ he retorted as he pulled on his shoes, and then, on a gentler note, ‘You were right, Nell, and Ranulf and I were wrong. It is easier for a woman to back down than a man. Perhaps we’ve both learned lessons from this.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘To find something to eat. I might have made an alliance with Ranulf but sitting at the same board as him still curdles my appetite, and now I’m starving.’ He picked up her shift. ‘Do you want to raid the kitchens with me?’

Smiling, she took the garment from his hand. Their fingers touched. ‘Perhaps there’ll be some pottage on the fire,’ she teased.

‘Perhaps there will,’ he said with a grin, and kissed her.