The Leopard Unleashed

Chapter 3

Hand steady, Olwen painstakingly applied a line of kohl beneath and within her lower eyelid, stepped back from the tiny sliver of polished steel to study the effect, and picking up a pot of red paste and a dainty camel-hair brush, started to paint her mouth. A sodden snore stopped her in mid-stroke. She looked round at the couch and scowled at her Uncle Gwylim. Her sister had taken pity on him last night and given him drinking money and sleeping space — more fool her, the stupid slut. Gwener was never going to be anything more than a common soldier’s whore; this tiny hovel in the wrong quarter of Antioch a reflection of her capabilities.

Olwen returned to her preparations. Her sister brushed through the curtain that separated the house into two squalid rooms. She was wearing a gold silk over-dress that Olwen recognised as her own, and new at that. Gwener had larger breasts and the seams were straining to contain her flesh. Yesterday Olwen might have made a cat-fight out of such blatant misappropriation. Tonight, the glimpse of another world in her eyes, she was merely filled with contempt. Bestowing on her sister a single, cold look, she returned to her toilet.

Gwener yawned and scratched her armpit. ‘Who is he?’ She picked up Renard’s knife that was lying on Olwen’s pallet and examined it.

‘That is my business.’

Gwener tossed her head. ‘He wasn’t there last night, was he?’ she said spitefully. ‘I’ve never seen you come home in such a temper before.’

‘And is it any wonder when I find you writhing on the floor with one of your foul clients and yonder drunken sot lying across the door in a pool of vomit!’ Olwen smacked down the pot of red paste so hard that it cracked in half. ‘He wasn’t there last night because he had company — some relative from England.’

‘Ah, he’s English then.’

Olwen tightened her lips and turned her back.

Gwener stretched like a cat. Her eyes were sleepy and feline, blue like Olwen’s, but lacking their size and clarity. ‘Nobility?’ She fondled the knife in a suggestive fashion. ‘What’s he like between the sheets?’

Olwen snatched the weapon from her sister, and seizing a fistful of her straggling hair, jerked back Gwener’s head and let the blade glide against her jaw. ‘Are you really so desperate to know?’

Gwener screeched and struggled. Gwylim’s snores ceased in a stertorous series of grunts and he sat up, blinking, disorientated like a day-wakened owl.

Gwener’s wild threshing caused the knife to slip. It was only a shallow cut, but there was enough blood to drip on to the gown, staining the silk. Gwener flapped like a half-wrung chicken. Gwylim staggered to his feet with some vague thought of separating the girls, tripped over the piss pot that no one had bothered to empty last night, and pitched headlong. A pungent, stink filled the room.

An elderly, inquisitive neighbour poked her head around the door to see what all the noise was about.

‘She tried to kill me!’ Gwener howled, pointing a dramatic finger at Olwen. ‘Look, she’s still got the knife! I’m bleeding! Oh, God’s love, someone help me!’

Olwen threw a rag at her sister. ‘Staunch it yourself, you stupid slut. I wish I’d cut your throat!’

Their neighbour started to jabber her own advice and condemnation. Other curious faces clustered the doorway as Gwylim struggled to sit up, his clothes stinking of stale urine.

Olwen stared round the squalor of the room where she had been born and raised, first in poor decency then in hand to mouth desperation. She detached herself from it in a single stroke, like a knife severing an umbilical cord, and stalked past Gwylim. He cowered away from the dagger. Ignoring him, she took her best silk gown and another of good linen from her clothing pole and also the black wool robe that she wore when she went out at night to dance.

Gwener howled and dabbed at the nick on her jaw. The neighbour snatched a half-loaf from the table and tucked it away inside her shawl. Olwen saw but made no comment. It was not her concern now, nor ever would be again. She had other battles to fight.

Without a backward glance or even a word of farewell, she went out of the door, and the onlookers made way for her like a crowd parting before a queen. She had that air about her as she took the first steps of a decision made two days ago in the bed of a man she had known for the space of a single night.

Stripped to the waist, Renard curried Gorvenal, a task he could have left to his groom, but the rhythmic motion of his arm working the comb over the glossy black hide and the rich, warm stallion smell were comforting.

Adam had gone to Jerusalem and he had begun to make his own preparations for leaving Antioch. An Italian galley was anchored at St Simeon, bound for Brindisi once she had been refitted for the voyage, and her master had been willing to take him, Adam and their retinues providing they could be ready within five weeks.

A chapter of his life was ending with the same scrambled haste in which it had begun. It was an interlude, already almost a dream. He put down the comb and wiped his brow on his forearm. Outside, the light was hot and somnolent. Gorvenal whickered and nudged him imperatively. Renard fondled the stallion’s plush muzzle and smiled, knowing full well that the horse was snuffling around him for the dates he adored.

‘It is a taste you will have to forget,’ he told the stallion with a hint of wistfulness as he threw the embroidered saddlecloth over the glossy back.

Ancelin arrived in search of a halter he had earlier been mending. ‘You’re not going out in this heat, surely?’ he asked in amazement.

Renard shrugged. ‘I’ve a sort of pilgrimage to make.’

‘Oh yes?’ Ancelin gave a knowing grin.

‘Not that kind!’

‘You’ll fry your brains.’ Shaking his head, the knight departed with the halter.

Renard finished saddling Gorvenal and picked his tunic off a pile of straw. It was made of the finest white cotton, stained now with the marks of the stable and sweat, but it was only an undergarment to the dark Arab robe that he donned on top of it to quench the sun’s rays. For further protection, he wound a turban round his head in true eastern fashion.

When he rode out into the city, he more resembled a native of the land than a Norman lord. Foreigners who stayed beyond the length of a pilgrimage were wise to adapt their ways to suit the climate. Those who did not, frequently died.

Following the line of the high city wall, Renard rode past St George’s Gate and the Tower of the Two Sisters until he reached the lower slopes of Mount Silipus, its summit crowned by Antioch’s vast citadel. His destination was the grotto of St Peter, a cave shrine frequented by pilgrims in droves, but quiet now and cool in the scorching midday heat. The priests there knew him and did not intrude as he dismounted, flipped a coin to one of the regular horse boys, and entered the dim, candlelit cave.

Genuflecting, Renard knelt to pray. He had come to worship in this tiny chapel on the evening of his first arrival in Antioch, the stars like spangled embroidery on a royal gown, the citadel a crown thrusting to meet them. The grotto had been silent then too, steeped in ancient tranquillity and aglow with the pinprick candles of a thousand hopes and prayers. He often came here in the quiet times, drawing on that tranquillity as if it was cold water from a well in the desert.

Renard was not of a particularly pious nature but he had always found himself genuinely moved by this little mountainside chapel where St Peter and his disciples had met and prayed in persecuted secret and where the word ‘Christian’ had been coined. It gave him a sense of continuity, breathed life into the dry words of sermons that usually sent him to sleep and brought him much closer to God than he was ever aware of feeling on other, more grandiose occasions.

He emerged from the grotto refreshed and filled with a sense of well-being and peace. The sun made him blink, but it was not as fierce as before and the light had mellowed from white to pale gold. He walked down the slope to where Gorvenal was tethered in the shade, spoke briefly to the lad and, without mounting, led the stallion by a goat track further up the mountainside.

Wild thyme, crushed by his boots, scented the air. A goatherd passed him, urging his small flock downwards, and their pungent ammoniac aroma added evocatively to the smell of the herb.

Renard found a small, rock-shaded overhang. A lizard darted away into a crevice as he released the bridle to let Gorvenal crop the scrubby grass. He unslung his water-skin from the saddle, took half a sun-warmed loaf and some grapes from his saddlebag, and sat down to eat, drink and contemplate the vast city spread out before him.

A warm wind gusted into his face, forcing him to half close his eyes. Behind him Gorvenal champed and snorted. Renard looked at the document he had pulled from his saddlebag along with the food. After a moment’s hesitation, he wiped his hands on his robe and reached for his knife to slit the seal. A curved Saracen dagger came to his grip instead. He swore on a smile. His body tingled, responding like an adolescent’s to the mere stimulus of thought. Olwen, as golden as a lioness, Olwen tumbling beneath him or riding triumphantly aloft. The biting, scratching, melting pleasure. Grinning, he shook his head, took several swallows from the waterskin, and cut open the package containing Elene’s letter.

Her handwriting was clear and precise and had developed a firm character of its own since the first childishly executed smudged offerings had arrived haphazardly to discomfort him during their four years apart. The content, however, was much the same. The usual domestic chatter. A travelling huckster had got one of the maids with child. One of the serfs had murdered his mother-in-law. The steward’s wife at Ravenstow had produced twins — a rambling description of the infants. Renard skimmed over that part impatiently and spat a grape pip into the dust.

There were regrets and a genuine concern for his father’s ill health. Elene, as he recalled, had a heart as soft as warm butter. He doubted from what he knew of her that a single calculating thought had ever entered her head, which, if this letter were any indication, appeared to be stuffed with feathers.

His youngest brother, William, had acquired a new horse, white with black spots like a currant pudding, speaking of which, Elene had discovered a wonderful recipe for preserving fruits. Renard flipped the parchment over and stared in growing dismay at the efficient flow of trivia. Groaning softly, he cast his eyes rapidly over it, then stopped at the last third of the page. There was a description of a social event she had attended and a list of the lords who had been present.

‘Ranulf de Gernons was there. I do not like him. He looks at me the way a wolf might look at a sheep it wants to devour. He spent much time with his brother William de Roumare. I do not care for him either. Rumour has it that they want to unite their lands in one line from east to west. Your father says it is probably true and that it bodes ill for Caermoel, Woolcot and Ravenstow, because they lie in the path of their ambition.

‘The wool clip was excellent this year. I have bought two new rams for the Woolcot herds …’

Renard lifted his head and sighing, pinched the bridge of his nose. Ranulf de Gernons, Earl of Chester and lord of the world, given half a chance. Elene’s lands lay on his borders as did the northernmost of his father’s keeps, Caermoel.

Renard spread his hand, brought it down over his face, and looked at the view stretching away before him without really seeing it. If de Gernons took Caermoel, he would easily swallow Henry’s small keep at Oxley, and advance on Woolcot, then Ravenstow, the caput of his father’s lands.

‘No,’ Renard said softly, his eyes narrowing. He abandoned Elene’s letter, apart from noting that she had signed herself in loving obedience his wife, and lay back on the slope, head pillowed on his clasped hands to think — and fell asleep.

A group of pilgrims toiling up to the grotto woke him some hours later; that and Gorvenal snorting gustily into his face. The sunlight was more diffuse now, turning the Orontes into a river of molten gold. His face was tight, a little sore from having lain so long exposed. It was a newcomer’s trick, inexcusable for one so long accustomed to the terrific heat of northern Syria.

He caught Gorvenal’s bridle and rode back down into the city, returning to his villa by way of the high-walled garden entrance. The sunlight filtered through the leaves of the citrus trees and the first stirrings of an evening breeze rustled the cypresses and drifted the scent of lavender from the plants growing along the top of the wall.

Gorvenal went immediately to the stone fountain, dipped his muzzle and drank. Renard dismounted and did likewise, splashing the water in relief over his hot face. The horse pricked his ears and turned. His face water-sluiced and blinded, Renard was unaware of the danger until he felt the blade against his ribs. Body and breath both froze. Murder by stealth was a common way to die out here in Outremer.

The tip indented his skin but did not puncture it. He breathed out again and slowly lowered his hands.

‘Fortunate for you that I am not one of the hashishin,’ Olwen said scornfully as she lowered the weapon. ‘You should guard yourself better. Here, this is yours.’

Renard took his dagger from her in silence.

Her lip curled. ‘You have been lying out in the sun too.’

‘I fell asleep.’ He fumbled at his sheath for the Turkish blade currently occupying it.

Olwen sat down on the edge of the fountain, trailed one hand in the water, and with the other accepted back her own knife, her eyes on him.

Recovering from the shock, he stared back at her and said coolly, ‘That is the excuse dealt with. Are you going to tell me why else you are here?’

‘Why do you think?’

He rested his hands on his belt. ‘Because a quarter of a mark is an irresistible sum? Because there is something you want of me?’

Olwen smiled and began slowly unhooking the neck fastening of her gown. ‘Or that you want of me, my lord?’

Renard opened his mouth to say that the thought had not occurred to him, that she was mistaken if she believed she could manipulate him, but the words went unspoken and his eyes drifted to the throat of her gown and travelled down the shadowed declivity between her breasts. She rose and came to him, twining her arms around his neck and half nipping, half kissing his jaw and throat, seeking his lips, her body rubbing.

Renard ceased thinking at all.

It was release and oblivion, an indulgence of the senses that temporarily obliterated the mind, and he did not realise how much he had needed it until he surfaced from the exquisite sensations to become aware of the breeze playing over his sweat-coated muscles.

He propped himself up. ‘How did you know before I knew myself?’

Olwen tilted him a smile. ‘It is my profession to know, and I learn very quickly.’

Renard rolled over and sat up, frowning. ‘A profession demands payment. What is your price this time?’

‘It wasn’t just for gain.’

Gorvenal lipped experimentally at a clump of rosemary and shook his mane irritably at the flies. Renard touched her face. ‘I know it wasn’t,’ he said sombrely. ‘But I am not sure that it is something to be continued. It is too hot, too wild to be safe, and it will break one of us, I am certain of it.’

‘But you are leaving soon, are you not?’ She sat up beside him and placed her lips against his throat. ‘Where is the harm in a few weeks? You do not have to pay me. I need somewhere to sleep.’

‘Surely you have money enough for a roof over your head.’ He gave her a disbelieving look.

Olwen made a face. ‘Until today, I lived with my sister and my uncle — that drunk who accosted me in the courtyard of the Scimitar. I’ve quarrelled badly with both of them and I’m not going back. Yes, I could afford to rent a room, but I would rather stay with you.’ Her lips travelled persuasively over his skin.

Renard moved away from her, and scraping his hands through his hair, tried to assemble his scattered wits. In little more than a month he would be on board a pilgrim ship bound for Brindisi. Surely there was no harm in playing with fire for so short a time. It would suit them both well.

Standing up, he extended his hand to her. ‘You can stay for tonight,’ he temporised. ‘After that, well, we’ll see.’ And knew that he was deceiving himself as Olwen gave him a melting smile.