The Leopard Unleashed

Chapter 7

It was not quite dawn when Judith discovered Renard seated at the huge chopping trestle in the keep kitchens. There was a beaker of milk at his right hand and he was eating a slab of rye bread topped by a thick slice of cold salt beef.

‘I see time has not moderated your appetite,’ she observed as she fetched a cup and sat down beside him. ‘You ought to be as fat as a bacon pig!’

Renard stretched his legs and leaned back, raising his shirt to show her his flat, muscle-banded stomach. He smacked his palm on it. ‘I challenge you to find an ounce of spare flesh!’ he said indignantly. ‘We’ve been on pilgrim rations for four months and travelling so hard that we’ve hardly had time to eat them!’ Lowering the garment, he returned with gusto to demolishing his bread and meat.

Judith poured milk from the pitcher. ‘Your companion weathered the journey well, considering she miscarried your child on the way.’ Her tone was barbed with the dis approval that had been evident ever since the rudiments of Olwen’s story had been relayed at table the previous evening.

Renard’s mouth was too full to make answering mannerly and it gave him time to raise his defences and prepare to do battle. He had known this was coming since last night, but some things could be said in public and others were best left to the firelit darkness of an early kitchen where the only ears to overhear were English and would not follow the rapid Norman French.

‘Do you love her?’

Renard sighed. ‘I do not know,’ he said when his mouth was empty. ‘It is like being in the heart of a thunderstorm. We strike sparks off each other all the time.’

An aroma of fresh bread filled the kitchen as one of the cook’s apprentices paddled a batch of loaves out of an oven. Over at the stone sink a scullion clattered utensils together and whistled loudly. Judith watched the work go forward, noting its alacrity, doubtless the result of her presence. ‘Tell me about her,’ she said.

Renard swished crumbs off the table with the side of his hand. ‘She’s a tavern dancer from the hovels of Antioch. Her father was Welsh, her mother native. She uses a dagger as well as any mercenary.’

‘Her body too, it seems,’ Judith snapped.

‘Mama, I’m not a monk, nor of a monk’s temperament,’ he said. ‘Done is done, and a lecture is not going to unwind any of this coil, or cause me to change my nature.’

A dairymaid arrived with another pail of milk and was followed by an older woman swinging two necked chickens by their feet.

Judith sighed and pressed her hands to her forehead. ‘My temper is short these days. Your father was coughing badly in the night and I have barely slept.’

‘Neither have I,’ Renard said, contrite now. ‘My mind has been turning like a butter churn.’ He made a wry gesture. ‘That’s more than half the reason I need Olwen. It’s impossible to think of anything else when I’m …’ He made an eloquent shrug serve for the rest.

‘You must decide what you are going to do with her.’ Judith warned. ‘You have seen how it is with your father. I know we haven’t had the opportunity for a full discussion yet, but you must know from Adam what de Gernons is saying and doing. Your marriage has to come soon before true winter sets in.’

Before there is no time for weddings or celebrations … The knowledge hung between them like a heavy black cloak.

‘Yes I know. Don’t worry. I won’t bring Olwen to my wedding.’

‘But neither will you put her aside?’

Renard contemplated his cup, picked it up and drained the milk. Then he looked at his mother. ‘I think not,’ he said with finality. ‘If you had seen Elene’s last letter to me you would understand why. I dare say she will make a superb chatelaine and mother, everything that I know Olwen will not, but I doubt she will ever be capable of firing my blood to scalding point, and sometimes I need that kind of release.’ He pushed himself to his feet. ‘I’d better arm up if I’m taking out the patrol.’

Judith stared up at him: young and lithe, in the half light, the beard shaved off, he suddenly looked so much like Guyon as she had first known him that it almost broke her heart. ‘Renard, have a care.’

‘On the patrol, or in my dealings with women?’ he asked lightly, but she could sense the checked irritation.

‘Both,’ she rallied on a snap. ‘And you can count me among the women.’

The light in the west brightened to a rosy gold as Renard took the household knights and serjeants out of the keep and on a wide-sweeping patrol of the demesne. The breeze was cold, but not unpleasant, and cleared the last vestiges of sleep from his brain. He began to enjoy the feel of the powerful horse beneath him, the slide of leather through his fingers, the musical sounds of armour and harness, and the rough jesting of the men in the early air.

He moved up the border to visit two fortified manors, beholden to Ravenstow. Thomas d’Alberin at Farnden complained that the Welsh had been raiding.

‘No, not Rhodri ap Tewdr,’ he responded to Renard’s sharp query. ‘We haven’t had any trouble that way for ten years now.’ He folded his hands upon his belt-supported paunch.

‘Welsh levies from further north then?’ Renard finished the wine he had been served by d’Alberin’s wife, and having returned the cup to her with a preoccupied smile, he gathered up the reins. Their son, christened Guyon in honour of their overlord, was a doughy boy of nine or ten who did no justice to his namesake as he leaned against a wain in the yard, his mouth full of honey tart.

Renard considered Sir Thomas. ‘When do your forty days’ service fall due? Remind me.’

‘Between Candlemas and Easter, my lord. I usually do garrison duty at Ravenstow.’

Renard eyed the man’s paunch. ‘If the Welsh are slipping through you had better tighten your vigilance. My own patrols will visit regularly.’

Sir Thomas was not unaware of the pointed quality of Renard’s stare and drew himself up, inhaling to tighten his stomach.

‘Send to Ravenstow immediately at the first sign of trouble.’ Renard shook the reins.

‘It is a pleasure to have you home, my lord!’ The words ended in a gasp as d’Alberin was forced to breathe out and let his spare flesh wobble on to his belt again.

Renard glanced sharply, but the man’s face, apart from being slightly pink with effort, was as plain and honest as pottage. Probably the soft fool meant it, and Renard did not know whether to thank him or laugh and disillusion him. In the end he did neither, just nodded briskly and clicked Gorvenal to a trot.

Renard spent the rest of the morning garnering information about the extent of the Welsh raiding, inspected a couple of barns that had been plundered and set on fire, and rode thoughtfully up the border to eat and rest the horses for an hour at Adam’s main holding of Thornford before returning through the safer heart of the earldom to Ravenstow.

The sun in the mid-afternoon was hot and perspiration began to trickle delicately down Renard’s spine. It was a different kind of heat to Antioch, he thought. Out there the sun parched a man to the consistency of boiled leather. Here it melted him in a puddle of his own sweat.

In the fields gleaners were out among the stubble as they picked their way across the barbered golden strips. Beyond the fields the land rose slightly and ran into a small belt of oak and beech forest that was gradually being eaten inwards by assarts as the population of Hawkfield expanded. A new area of ploughland was being cleared even as Renard and the men rode into the trees, a young peasant swinging his axe at one of the sturdy trunks. Seeing the horsemen, he paused to watch them approach and pushed the hair off his soaked brow. An older man, working beside him, groaned and pressed his hands into the aching small of his back before tugging his forelock to the soldiers.

Renard dismounted to talk. The knights gave each other long-suffering looks, and fidgeted, gently stewing in their armour.

The younger man tentatively offered Renard a stone cider jug and a grubby hunk of maslin loaf. Renard declined the latter, but drank thirstily from the jug. The cider was coarse, almost as rough on the throat as usquebaugh. Coughing, he passed a remark in English that caused the two peasants to grin broadly.

He enquired about the assart. His English was accented, a little rusty from four years at the back of his mind, but he spoke it well enough to be understood and in turn to understand what the two men replied. One particular remark made by the older man caused Renard to lift his brows and stare thoughtfully into the autumn forest beyond, a half-smile on his lips.

‘My lord, is it wise to rub shoulders with the serfs?’ asked one of the men when once more they were riding through the trees. ‘Will they not get ideas above their position?’

Renard shifted his shield as its pressure began to chafe a sore spot between his shoulder blades. ‘I know what I’m about. You cannot buy loyalty either with coin or with fear. It is like mastering a horse,’ he grinned, ‘or a woman — gentle but firm, and applying the pressure in the right place at the right time.’

The knight laughed and shook his head.

‘Lord Renard!’ Ancelin’s voice was terse with sudden warning.

It was not just his shield-bearer’s tone that caused the hairs to prickle erect on Renard’s spine. He shifted his shield again, rapidly bringing it down on to his left forearm, and started to draw his sword. Then he stopped with the weapon half out of its sheath. His mind flew while his body grew roots. He could feel the tension in his men, was aware of someone behind him, swallowing loudly. Amid the tumbling, turning leaves the light angled off arrow and spear tips half concealed by foliage.

Renard’s breathing, which had been as light and shallow as an untimely grave, deepened. His chest expanded. He slammed the sword back into its sheath, and setting his hands to his helm, struggled to pull it off.

‘William!’ he roared. ‘Come out now, or I swear to God I’ll thrash you to within an inch of your miserable life!’

There was a long pause. A horse shook its head and harness jingled. From behind the cover of a smooth-trunked silver birch, a young man stepped out. He was a little above average height and as rangy as a cat. His clothes were coloured the buffs and golds of the autumn woods, and an elm bow dangled from his fingers.

‘Croeso,’ he said on a flourish and a bow. When he stood erect again his blue-green eyes were bright with laughter. ‘You rode straight into our trap.’

Four other grinning young men emerged from the trees and lounged, their bodies brimming with arrogance, but their expressions uncertain as they glanced between their leader and Renard.

Renard’s mouth tightened, but his irritation was mostly self-directed. Leaping down from Gorvenal, he closed the ten strides between himself and his youngest brother and embraced him heartily.

‘Scare me like that again and I’ll break that bow of yours over my knee and collar you with it!’ he promised, shaking the youth.

‘I couldn’t resist it!’ his brother laughed, punching himself out of Renard’s grip. ‘Pwyll saw you sitting with those two cottars while he was getting a stone out of his horse’s hoof and came to warn the rest of us!’ He looked curious. ‘How did you know it was me?’

It was Renard’s turn to grin. ‘The old man mentioned he had seen you pass through earlier and if there had been anyone more dangerous waiting to ambush us in these woods the alarm would have been sounded long before we fell prey. It’s too small a wedge of forest for any raiders to enter it without being seen on a day like this with all the gleaners out and folk clearing the woodland.’

William gave a quick tilt of his head in rueful acceptance. ‘It still put a look of dread on your face though,’ he said, smugly.

Renard grabbed a fistful of his brother’s profuse black curls and tugged them in a not altogether fraternal way. ‘I will put a look of dread on yours in a minute, you wretch!’

William wriggled like a fish and almost twisted free. Renard recognised his strategy and used a fast counter-move, taught to him in Tripoli by a Turcopol mercenary. William’s shoulder blades struck the ground with bruising force and the air whistled from his lungs. He stared up at Renard, his eyes immense with surprise.

‘How did you do that?’ he gasped when he had breath enough to speak. ‘Show me!’

‘Not now, Fonkin.’ Grinning, Renard addressed William by the pet name of his childhood. It meant little fool but was a term of endearment rather than an insult. ‘Wait until we’re back at Ravenstow.’ Stooping, he grasped a handful of William’s jerkin, pulled him up and dusted him down, then ruffled his palm over the springy black curls to rectify the damage of his earlier grip. ‘I thought you’d grown beyond all reason but half of it’s your hair, isn’t it? You’re as wild as a Welshman!’

‘Better than being an Arab, or half of each, if what I hear about your mistress is true!’ He gestured to one of his companions who smiled and sauntered off to fetch their horses.

‘How do you know about that?’ Renard demanded.

William smirked. ‘Not now,’ he parodied. ‘Wait until we reach Ravenstow.’

‘William, so help me God …!’

The youth turned to take his mount’s bridle. ‘It’s easy enough,’ he shrugged. ‘You paid off one of your men at Shrewsbury. He met up with the carrier who services Ashdyke and I had the news while you were still snoring in your bedstraw yesterday morning. I was coming up to Ravenstow to greet you.’ He paused then added, ‘Is it really true that you’ve brought a Saracen tavern dancer home to comfort your nights, or is it just embroidery for the sake of an audience?’ He settled himself in the saddle, a leggy boy of almost nineteen with feline grace and an impish smile.

Renard swung into his own saddle and heeled Gorvenal forward alongside William’s mount. ‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘It’s true, or at least more than is usual of such tales.’ And found himself telling William everything, for despite their earlier needling and the ten years separating them, their minds worked to a similar pattern. Renard would not have dreamed of speaking thus to Henry. ‘And don’t ask me what I’m going to do with her or I’ll throttle you!’ he concluded.

‘You don’t need any advice on that score, not unless four years have altered you!’ William retorted with a grin, but then he looked thoughtful. ‘You can’t keep her at Ravenstow.’

‘I know.’ Renard busied himself adjusting his stirrup leather.

‘A nice cosy hunting lodge somewhere then, or a private house in the town.’ He cocked his head when Renard did not respond. ‘I’d like to see her dance. Is it also true that …?’

‘Oh, it’s all true!’ Renard interrupted with a grim laugh. ‘Just be thankful that you haven’t been corrupted. Are you still living half in Wales?’

William darted Renard a curious look. It was almost as if he was unsure of himself, running on quicksand, and that, for Renard, was a very rare occurrence. Perhaps Outremer really had altered him. ‘Some of the time,’ he said cagily. ‘I’m mostly at Ashdyke. It’s the stronger of my two holdings and a fraction nearer to Wales should I need to run for my life or make myself scarce.’

‘What do you do about your forty days’ service?’ Renard asked. ‘King Stephen won’t brook you running over the border every time you’re summoned.’

‘Oh, that part’s easy,’ William said airily. ‘I send the King what he’s owed — two knights, fully accoutred, to serve for the whole period and apologies that I’m too busy dealing with the Welsh to attend in person. The men I do send are usually the oldest, laziest or most bad-tempered in the garrison and the same goes for their horses.’

Renard gave an amused grunt.

‘Papa’s done it too, but he has to be more careful. Two suspect knights astride broken-winded nags from a small tenant like me doesn’t really matter, but twelve from Papa’s holdings and four times that number of footsoldiers and archers is a somewhat more serious offence.’ Thoughts of Stephen led him on to another grumble. ‘I’ve had to graze my stud herd on the Welsh side of the border with Rhodri ap Owain’s permission to stop Stephen commandeering half of it for remounts. He sent twenty mares to Papa’s stud herd for covering. Papa was furious. He said that Beaucent had enough work to do already with the Ravenstow mares without servicing a score of Stephen’s jades too!’

Renard bit his lip.

‘You can stop laughing!’ William warned. ‘That black you’re riding is ideal for the King’s intentions. If Stephen can’t have you in his army, he’ll have a damned good try for your stallion!’

Renard sucked in his cheeks. ‘He can have his services for a price,’ he murmured, and slapped the sleek raven hide.

‘What sort of price? The head of Ranulf de Gernons on a platter?’

‘Something like that, although unfortunately Stephen’s not susceptible to dancing girls, is he?’ Renard kicked Gorvenal into a canter.

Wrapped in a fur robe and sitting close to the fire, Guyon looked up from conversation with his steward to see the blond-haired beauty his son had brought home standing uncertainly in the arched entrance that led from the sleeping quarters. It was well into the morning, all the trestles had been cleared away and the uneaten food either returned to the kitchens or given to the needy at the castle gates.

‘And if you think it wise, my lord …’ The steward halted in response to Guyon’s half-raised hand and followed the direction of his stare. ‘Oh,’ he said.

Guyon told a loitering servant to bring Olwen over and to go and bring food from the kitchens. Olwen advanced on the two men with her fluid dancer’s walk and sat on the stool that Guyon indicated to her.

Despite her superficial air of calm, Guyon noticed the rapid pulse beating in her throat and the way that her hands shook before she hid them in her lap. She was wearing the blue silk gown that she had worn at table last night. It suited her well, but silk was a fabric for high summer and hotter climates and she was trying hard not to shiver.

‘Bring your stool closer to the fire, child,’ he said, making room for her, and when the maid returned with bread, honey and wine, he sent her to fetch a spare cloak.

‘The climate will seem different to you,’ he said, making conversation as Olwen ate.

‘I will grow accustomed to it, my lord.’

Guyon rubbed his jaw, unsure what to make of her. He knew that Judith was worried about the hold the girl had on Renard and whether to let it run its course or actively interfere. Difficult, when faced with this beautiful enigma and a son who in four years had changed from boy to man.

‘Although while she’s here,’ Judith had said to him grimly as they had lain in bed last night, ‘she may sleep in the bower with the other unattached women and Renard will preserve the decencies even if I have to tie him up and knock him senseless!’

The maid returned with a cloak made of Welsh plaid. Olwen put it on, finished her meal, and looked around the hall.

‘Renard isn’t here,’ Guyon said as he saw her search. ‘He rode out with a patrol at dawn.’

Olwen clutched the edges of the cloak together and tightened her lips.

He took pity on her. ‘This might be a good opportunity to organise some warmer clothing for you. Come above to the sewing room and my lady wife will see what we have in our coffers.’ Commanding the maid to find Judith, he pushed himself to his feet.

The steward eyed him doubtfully. The lady had settled her lord by the warmth of the fire and was going to be vexed that he had moved. Probably she would blame the girl, although it was none of her fault.

Olwen followed Guyon from the hall and up the winding stairs. He paused for a moment beside a window slit to gain the breath to go on and pretended, despite the fact that he could hardly speak, that he was showing her the view.

She stared over the ploughlands towards the dark smudge of forest and the Welsh hills beyond. The smell of damp stone invaded her nostrils and lungs and she contrasted it with the memory of the sun-baked dustiness of Antioch.

‘Is it all yours?’ she asked, after a while, wanting to know if one day it would all be Renard’s.

The seams at Guyon’s eye-corners deepened with grim humour. ‘The hills are sometimes Welsh and sometimes Norman,’ he wheezed. ‘Just now they’re both, the Norman part belonging all except my keep of Caermoel to Earl Ranulf of Chester.’ He braced one forearm on the stone, pressed the other against his ribs. ‘He’d like the rest of what you see too. That’s why Renard is out on patrol.’

‘Earl Ranulf of Chester?’ she repeated. ‘He is your enemy?’

Guyon snorted. ‘Anyone who stands in his way is his enemy. We’re not on the best of terms with him, never have been, but we’ve got by in uneasy peace until now. This war between Stephen and Matilda is making him more powerful by the moment. Both sides want him so he holds them both to ransom. The more power he obtains, the more he wants and the more he flouts the law to get it.’

Olwen’s expression became deeply thoughtful. ‘Is he old in years to have gained so much power?’ she queried as they continued slowly up the stairs to the next level.

‘Unfortunately, no. There’s no chance of him withering off the tree yet. He has less than ten years’ advantage over Renard.’ He paused again for respite and coughed harshly before leading her along a gallery and into Judith’s sewing room.

Judith was there before them and her tight lips and rigid spine told their own story. ‘So help me God!’ she snapped at Guyon. ‘You spend all night coughing and then have no more sense than to leave the warmth of the fire and climb stairs! Have you run mad?’ She glared at him and then at Olwen.

‘And if I have, it is my entitlement,’ he said to her calmly before swallowing down another cough. ‘I’d rather be mad than caged any further than I am.’

Judith continued to frown but she did not argue beyond her first outburst, knowing that it would probably provoke him to worse folly.

‘Olwen needs warmer gowns than this.’ He gestured to the blue silk. ‘We have the fabric, do we not?’

Arching one brow, Judith looked Olwen up and down. ‘We may have,’ she said.

Another window looked out on to the bailey. Olwen went to it and gazed down at the bustling activity below. She heard Guyon speaking to his wife in placatory tones and her murmured but vehement responses, followed by the sound of a coffer lid being slammed back. When Olwen drew up the courage to look round again, Renard’s father had gone and Lady Judith was examining a length of fawn wool.

‘No sign of moths.’ She gave it a shake. ‘There should be enough here for two gowns and an under-dress if we use this blue as well.’ In almost the same breath she added, ‘It is no use watching and waiting at the window like that. Renard won’t be back until vespers at the earliest. And tomorrow will be the same, and the day after that, and the day after that.’ A ball of string and some shears in her hand, she advanced on Olwen to take her measurements.

Olwen stood tense but still and let the older woman work. Every now and then Judith would stop and put a knot in the string to mark the length from shoulder to wrist, or back of neck to hem, and then cut off the relevant strand.

‘If you think you are the core of Renard’s life you are wasting your time,’ Judith added in a hard voice when she finally stepped back, the measurements complete. ‘This is the core, this stone, this land, bred into him blood and bone and soul. All you are is a means to vent the heat and soon even for that need he will have a wife.’

Olwen tossed her head. ‘I realise that Renard has duties that do not involve me, but duty is not pleasure, and I know more about that than his bride ever will. If I so choose, she will be no match for me.’

‘If you so choose!’

‘Yes, my lady.’

Judith turned abruptly away to the pile of fabric on the coffer. ‘I think you have a great deal to learn,’ she said. ‘Not least about Elene, and about me. I will not stand by and watch you bring mayhem upon us. I have other duties more important to attend than this. If you would have clothes, then you had best set about making them.’ She stalked from the room.

For a while Olwen did not move, but when at last she did, it was to return to the window slit and lean against the wall, her eyes on the distant lands belonging to Ranulf of Chester.