The Leopard Unleashed

Chapter 4

The Welsh Borders, Summer 1139

The fields of the demesne were like an expanse of green-coloured sky clumped with creamy bleating clouds — the sheep that were, as the name of the village suggested, Woolcot’s main source of wealth. Gold upon the cloven hoof.

On top of the knoll, Elene drew rein and gazed out over both land and flocks with a proprietorial eye. ‘It will be a good clip this year,’ she informed her female riding companion. ‘There were a lot of twin lambs born too. I’m glad I bought that new ram.’

‘You know almost as much as your bailiffs and shepherds, don’t you?’ laughed Heulwen de Lacey, her future sister-in-law.

Elene returned the laughter. ‘I suppose I do. Papa was always telling me how much the sheep were worth and now he’s gone it’s a sacred trust, an honour to his memory.’ The curve of her lips became wry. ‘Besides, they are the better part of my dowry, the main reason the arrangement was made. A castle to defend the land between Ravenstow and Caermoel, and the sheep to pay for its upkeep.’ She plucked at a burr in Bramble’s mane. ‘I sometimes have the ridiculous daydream that Renard will want me for myself. Stupid, isn’t it?’

Heulwen considered Elene’s fine, almost sharp features. Beneath silky black brows, her eyes were the green-flecked gold of turning leaves and quite beautiful in a face that was otherwise ordinary. ‘Renard is fond of you,’ she said awkwardly.

‘Oh yes, I know that.’ Elene turned her gaze from contemplation of her wealth and rested it on Heulwen. ‘Before he left with Prince Raymond, he gave me a bridle hung with bells for my new pony, and ruffled my hair. He’s fond of me the way he would be fond of a pet animal. Do you know what I gave him?’

Heulwen shook her head.

‘A bracelet of my plaited hair woven with gold thread.’ She smiled bitterly. ‘You should have seen his face!’

‘Elene …’ Heulwen laid her hand on the girl’s sleeve, unsure whether to comfort or reason.

‘Oh, it’s all right.’ Elene shook her head. ‘I was still a child then. I didn’t understand.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I could not think of anything to say to him when Adam set out. I just wrote down the first things that came into my head. He probably thinks he is going to get a sheep for a wife, as well as in payment of my marriage portion!’

‘He will discover differently when he sees you,’ Heulwen soothed. Her eyes clouded. ‘The situation being what it is, I expect you’ll be wed as soon as he sets foot in England. I only hope my father will be well enough to see you married.’

Elene shook the reins and started the mare down the slope. ‘He has been very ill, hasn’t he? Even with the coming of the warmer weather his cough has little improved.’ She was fond of Lord Guyon, and had come to regard him as a father in the years since her own father’s death.

‘He doesn’t have the time or opportunity to rest it. No sooner does Mama get him settled by the fire than someone wants him, or a problem arises, and even if he cannot ride out with the patrols he has to brief them and listen to their reports. It eats at him that he’s so confined when before he lived such a vigorous life.’

‘He is not the best of patients,’ Elene agreed wryly, having assisted at his sickbed during the crisis time immediately after his near drowning.

Side by side they rode towards the flocks and did not speak again, each burdened by heavy thoughts.

Elene was questioning a shepherd about an outbreak of sheep fly among the herd and absently fondling his good-natured dog when Heulwen exclaimed and pointed. Riders were splashing across the shallow ford of the river beyond the flocks and advancing purposefully towards them. Elene quickly gestured her groom to boost her back into the saddle, for she knew it was not one of her own Woolcot patrols.

Heulwen stared hard for a moment, then slackened her grip on the reins as she recognised the red chevrons adorning the leading rider’s shield. ‘Rest easy,’ she said. ‘It’s Henry.’

Elene’s shoulders relaxed. Kicking Bramble’s flanks, she cantered through the herds to meet the approaching men.

Henry, one of Renard’s brothers and four years the younger, slowed his destrier and brought him round. The shield by which Heulwen had recognised him was dinted and Elene saw that his horse was cut about the chest and fore quarters.

‘My lady!’ he saluted her in a light voice, quite at odds with his stolid, powerful appearance. ‘May we beg a night’s hospitality at Woolcot?’

‘You do not need to ask, you know you are welcome whenever you choose to visit!’ Elene responded. ‘But what in the name of all the saints have you been doing to yourself?’

He followed the direction of her worried gaze and screwed up his face. ‘We skirmished with a band of Earl Ranulf ’s mercenaries. They were helping themselves to some cattle from the Caermoel herds.’

‘What!’

‘Oh, it’s nothing new.’ He removed his helm and used the cuff of his gambeson to wipe sweat from his eyes. They were a round, tawny-grey, quite unlike Renard’s. His hair was straight and ginger-brown, as was his sparse moustache. ‘It saves de Gernons feeding them if they can steal their food from someone against whom he has a grudge.’ He nodded a greeting to his half-sister as she rode up to join them, and gave her a preoccupied smile.

She had heard the tail end of the conversation and asked, ‘Did Chester’s men escape then?’

He shrugged. ‘The bastards doubled back on us. I’m no good on a trail. They had to leave the cows, though. I thought I’d ride down this way and make sure your flocks weren’t being molested.’

Elene shook her head. ‘All’s been peaceful here.’

Henry rested one square, strong hand on his thigh, guiding his stallion with the other. ‘Renard has always been much better at this sort of thing than I am,’ he said glancing wistfully at Elene. ‘If he and I were dogs, I’d be short and pot-bellied, tripping over my ears while I followed a stale scent, and Renard would be hot and graceful on the trail like a lean gazehound.’

‘Henry, you shouldn’t—’

‘It’s true!’ he said.

‘At least you come when whistled for,’ Heulwen patted her brother’s shoulder. ‘No, that’s not really fair,’ she temporised. ‘Renard was going to return home two years ago and Papa stopped him because he didn’t want him used as a lever on his loyalty.’

‘But now there is no choice,’ Elene said as they turned towards the comforting solidity of Woolcot’s walls, her young face tight with resolution.

Feeling Henry watching her, she looked round at him, but he immediately dropped his gaze and made himself busy with his stirrup leather. ‘No,’ he said. ‘There isn’t.’