The Wild Hunt

CHAPTER 9

Rhosyn listened to the rain as an eddy of wind drove it against the hafod shutters. One of several spring squall s. In between, the stars would peek through the scudding clouds in pinprick points of diamond light.

The fire, banked for the night, gave off a low, comforting glow, glints of red jewel warmth winking beneath the aromatic logs of the diseased pear tree that Twm had cut down last year.

Rhys and Eluned were newly abed. She could hear their conspiratorial whispers behind the curtains. Her son had turned eleven last week and thought himself very grown up. At fourteen, in Wales, he could claim his manhood. She would be thirty then, Eluned ten and this new babe, if it survived the early months, would be rising from helpless infancy into sturdy childhood.

She picked up her sewing, took a few half-hearted stitches and, with an irritated cluck, put it down again. The rush-light was too poor for this kind of delicate work and her mind was restless tonight, fluttering purposelessly like a moth at a candle flame. The baby turned in her womb, busily flexing new, delicate limbs. She felt the thrust and flicker with a protective hand. With almost four months of carrying left before the birth, she had not yet burgeoned into ungainly discomfort. Her ripening body was still a pleasure and she was lost in the wonder of it.

The old dog sitting with its moist nose at her knee suddenly growled deep in its chest and stiffened. Rhosyn stood up to face the cottage door, one hand reaching for the rake that Twm had earlier been using on the floor rushes.

It was Twm's voice she heard outside now, gruff and questioning. A horse snorted. A man replied with amusement, the tone deeper than her servant's and edged with a foreign inflection to the Welsh she would have known anywhere. She bade the dog lie and, dropping the rake, flew to the door and unbarred it to the night.

'Guyon!' she cried and flung herself into his arms. Twm arched a knowing resigned brow and, completely ignored, dismissed himself to his bed.

Rhosyn withdrew from the hard clasp of Guyon's arms and tugged him inside the hafod. Gelert whined and thumped his brindle tail on the rushes. She reset the bar and came once more into the circle of his arms.

'You smell of sheep,' she said against his mouth.

He nuzzled her cheek with a stubbly jaw. 'What kind of greeting is that for a man who has ridden hard for your sake?'

'Not for your own?' Rhosyn queried pertly, her eyes laughing, as green and gold as moss agates. 'You are overblown with vanity indeed.'

Her dark hair spilled down over his hands in a fine, cool cloak. Her breasts were ripe and warm against his chest. Within her belly the child kicked.

'How goes it with you?' he asked, his face suddenly all tenderness and concern.

Rhosyn gave a little shrug. 'I'm not sick any more, indeed, I've an appetite like a bacon pig.

When I start to waddle like one, I will curse you and a certain hot, harvest night ... Have you come alo--' She stopped. Guyon lifted his head from contemplation of her glowing skin and brilliant eyes just in time to be almost bowled over by the two children.

They were like puppies, gambolling and clamouring; Rhys's new-found manhood had flown out of the window to leave only the excited child. Guyon bore with it very well , riding out the first storm with wry, rueful humour, curbed behind a half-turned head as their mother calmed them with dire threats and a voice suddenly grown as sharp as the flick of a lash.

Subdued, but not defeated, Eluned went to fetch Guyon something to drink and Rhys sat down before the banked fire, hugging his knees, a dark scowl on his face.

'How long will you stay?' he demanded, slanting Guyon a hard glance.

'Rhys!' his mother reprimanded more sharply than she had intended. It was a question she herself wanted to ask but dared not.

Guyon waved aside her anger with a grin. 'I am accustomed to it by now. If he was not so obviously a boy, I would think it was my wife sitting at my feet. She has that way with her too.'

There was a strained silence. Rhys's question was just the crust of the loaf, one of a thousand questions Rhosyn longed to ask him, but would not do so in the presence of the children and for the sake of her own pride.

'A few hours only, Rhys,' Guyon answered the boy. 'I have dared to pull the devil's tail and I must be in my own bed before dawn lest he scorch me with his pitchfork.' He smiled at Eluned and took the mead she offered him. It was strong and sweet and as honey-golden as the fragrant harvest evening on which the unborn child had been conceived.

Rhys looked blank for a moment and then his quick mind took in the implications of the rough Welsh garb and coupled it with his knowledge that Guyon had skill s most Normans did not.

Something clandestine had been afoot and Lord Guyon did not intend the blame to lie lying at his door. Eluned, younger and impressionable when it came to tales, took his words at face value and regarded him wide-eyed.

'And precisely where is your own bed?' Rhosyn asked, setting a platter of bread and cheese before him and thinking with a hint of bitterness that they were like courtiers, feting him with adulation.

Guyon gave her one of his quicksilver glances.

'Ledworth,' he answered and did not elaborate.

Instead, he tossed something to Rhys.

The boy caught the item deftly and transferred it to his lap. It was a leather sheath, lined with raw wool to hold in place the knife it contained and keep it naturally oiled. The knife itself was almost a weapon. Eight inches long with a blade gleaming as bright as fish scales against the blue herringbone pattern that fanned from its centre.

The hilt was carved from a narwhall tooth.

'I know it is a month after Candlemas, but I had not forgotten your year day,' Guyon said as Rhys examined the knife with speechless delight.

Rhosyn eyed the gift with mixed feelings.

Childhood was almost behind the boy and the knife was a symbol of the man too soon to emerge. 'You should not,' she said to Guyon with a frown.

'Grant us both the indulgence,' he answered, his voice light, but his gaze eloquent as he drew Eluned into the circle of his arms. 'And I had not forgotten that it is your own year day come Easter and, since I am unlikely to be here, I have brought your gift early. Guess which hand.'

Delighted, Eluned played the game with him and he teased her, knuckles clenched, his sleight of hand eluding her. At length she pounced on him, giggling and he conceded defeat, begging abjectly for mercy and presenting her with a small cloth pouch containing a string of amber beads.

Eluned flung her arms around Guyon's neck and delivered him a smacking kiss. 'The surest way to a woman's heart,' he chuckled as he fastened the beads around Eluned's slender throat.

'You buy us all ,' Rhosyn agreed and, blinking, turned away to mend the fire. Guyon watched her over the child's tumbled black hair.

'That is not true, cariad,' he said softly. 'I have never had the price of you and I doubt I ever will .'

Rhosyn savagely poked the logs. 'You have always had the pretty words to cozen what you cannot buy!' she snapped. 'Rhys, Eluned, it is long past time you were asleep. Go on, get to your beds now!'

'But Mam ... !'

Her eyes kindled with wrath. 'Do as you are told!'

Guyon lifted his brow at her tone, shot her a speculative look and squeezed his warm, rebellious armful. 'Obey your mother, anwylyd,' he said gently. 'It is time she and I had a private word. Go now.'

Eluned pouted, unconvinced. Rhys stood up, the knife in his hand, his expression a mingling of childhood and maturity as selfishness warred with duty. After a hesitation, the latter dominated. He thanked Guyon most properly for the knife, kissed his mother on the cheek and crossed the hall to withdraw behind the bed curtain.

'It's not fair!' Eluned complained.

'Life never is, my love,' said Rhosyn bending to hug her daughter. 'You'll discover it time and again as you grow older. Now say good-night and be off with you.'

The child sighed heavily but did as she was bid.

Her grip around Guyon's neck almost throttled him. 'I wish you could stay,' she said, her lips warm on his cheek.

'So do I, anwylyd,' Guyon replied and meant it.

When they were alone, Rhosyn again mended the fire even though it was unnecessary. The silence stretched out and the old dog whined.

When she could bear it no longer, she threw down the poker and spun round to face him, her words almost a cry. 'Why have you come?'

'I thought you would be pleased to see me . '

Rhosyn drew breath to snap that he thought wrong, but changed her mind before the words were spoken. 'I am too pleased. You disrupt our lives. You come with your gifts and your ensorcelments, you beguile us into adoration and then you leave. I cannot bear it!'

'You have it in your power to change that,' he answered gently. 'You are welcome to make your home at one of my manors.'

'A pretty caged bird to sing at your pleasure!' she flung, turning back to the fire.

'I did not come here to quarrel, cariad. Nor do I intend to leave upon one. We know each other better than that. If I have rubbed salt into a wound then I am sorry. You never gave me cause to believe that it ran any deeper than a mutual pleasuring.'

Rhosyn bit her lip and dug her nails into her palms, striving for the control to smile lightly and say that yes, he was right, it had not run any deeper. She felt his hand lightly on her shoulder turning her to face him. 'I needed to know how you fared.'

'Well , now you do,' Rhosyn would have drawn away except that he held her fast and kissed her averted temple, the corner of her eye, her cheek and her mouth, refusing to release her and, indeed, her struggles were only half-hearted and soon ceased.

'I am foolish, Guy,' she murmured, setting her arms around his neck. 'I see the moon in a pool and I am disappointed when my hand despoils the illusion instead of grasping the reality. Be welcome for whatever time you choose to stay.'

Their embrace deepened, warm, sweet and poignant, desire sweeping but hard-held by the presence of the children a thin curtain away and, in Guyon, by a reluctance to cause Rhosyn a deeper wound than she had already suffered. He broke away first, his breathing ragged, and prowled to sit at the fire. His body protested. It had been a long time since he had lain with a woman and his hunger was keen. Keen, but not desperate. Whatever his detractors said, sexual liaisons were not to Guyon an immediate necessity of life. Given the leisure, the right circumstances and a willing partner, he enjoyed indulging his senses. But as now he possessed only the latter, he drew several deep, slow breaths and made his mind busy with other thoughts.

'Where is your father?'

Rhosyn sat down beside him, just out of touching distance and picked up her distaff. Her fingers were trembling. She concentrated on the raw wool until the hot weakness left her limbs.

'Gone to Bristol. We expect him home tomorrow or the day after. I worry about him, Guy. He is not well . He gets pains in his chest and Rhys is too young to take more than an apprentice's responsibility.'

Guyon turned his head, eyes sharpening. 'The pack routes are no place for a woman,' he warned.

She did not answer, but the line of her mouth grew mulish and she gave all her attention diligently to the distaff.

'Rhosyn, so help me, if I hear you have stirred from your hearth to go tramping about the borders in a drover's cart, I will carry you off to Oxley myself and lock you up like a caged bird, in truth!'

'You have not the right!'

'I have every right. You carry my child. I will not see you dead in a ditch like Huw ap Sior!'

'I won't ... What did you say?' Her fingers ceased their nimble twirling. Her eyes opened upon him, wide with shock. 'Huw, dead?'

'At the hand of Robert de Belleme and his gutter sweepings. Huw's pack-load of sables was brought to myself and Judith as a blood-smirched wedding gift.' Sparing her nothing, he gave her the details.

'He was my father's best friend,' she whispered jerkily when he had done. 'They were boys together ... Oh sweet Virgin!'

Their bodies closed again of necessity as Guyon grabbed hold of her, afraid that she was going to faint. She leaned her cheek against his jerkin, shivering, sick to the soul with grief and fear and shock.

'Promise me, cariad, ' he murmured, stroking her hair.

She made a little movement against his chest.

Her fingers gripped his arms.

'Promise me.'

'What good is an oath given under duress?'

Rhosyn replied shakily. 'I could give you my word and it would be worthless.' She uttered a desolate laugh. 'Welsh oaths always are.'

'Rhosyn ...'

She pushed gently away from him and, having wiped her eyes, poured herself a cup of mead. 'I might be fickle, Guy, but I am not about to step deliberately within de Belleme's ring of fire. I will swear you this much honestly: that I will not stir from here until after the child is born and only then by necessity. And I will send to you for an escort.'

Guyon studied her through half-closed eyes but did not seek to persuade her further. He had her concessions in his grasp and was not going to jeopardise them with bitterness and anger.

'Very well , cariad,' he said quietly. 'I do not suppose I would care so much were you not so cursedly independent.' He sat down beside the fire and picked up the mead that Eluned had poured for him earlier.

Rhosyn stared at him in the firelight. With his Welsh clothing and dark complexion he might have been of her own race and class - no barrier but the fire's glow between them. It was a bittersweet illusion. Merchant's daughter and marcher lord, already married for the sake of convenience and dynasty. He looked tired, she thought. The shadows beneath his eyes were not all the result of the dull light.

'Does your wife know your whereabouts, Guy?'

He took a swallow of mead, swirled its golden surface and looked at her with rueful amusement.

'She may have a suspicion,' he admitted. 'For sure, if I am not over the drawbridge come dawn, I'll have to deal with a hell cat ... and not for the reason I can see on your face.' The amusement became a wry chuckle. He drank the remainder of the mead and did not offer to elucidate.

Rhosyn swallowed the temptation to ask. If Guyon was on this side of the border after dark, dressed in native garments and murmuring about scorching the devil's tail, then it was best to know nothing. 'What is she like?'

'I think she would surprise you.' He put down the cup to fondle the cold thrust of Gelert's nose at his thigh. 'God knows, she certainly surprised me ... and continues to do so.'

'Is she pretty?'

A curious, casually spoken woman's question with tension lurking beneath the surface.

'Not as you are pretty, cariad, but striking in her way, I suppose, or she will be when she grows into her bones. She's a child Rhos, man-shy and half wild.'

Rhosyn knelt at the hearth and felt the heat glow on her face. She had thought about him at the time of his marriage, imagined him abed with his unwanted young Norman bride and wondered if the skill s of the bedchamber and sweet grass meadow had stood him in good stead then.

'I have not bedded her,' he said into the small silence of her thoughts. 'She has the frightened eyes of a lass half her age. She knows nothing of men except what her father was and her uncle is.'

Rhosyn turned her head in surprise.

'Even if she opened to me for the sake of duty, it would be little less than rape. She is as flat as a kipper before and behind and the crown of her head scarce reaches to my armpit.'

'Jesu, Guy!'

'Wishing you had not asked?' He gave a mocking smile, then shook his head. 'The match is not entirely a disaster. Judith has abilities beyond most young women of her station.'

Rhosyn lifted her brows. Guyon laughed, this time with genuine mirth. 'It is not given to every wench to be able to handle a dagger, or hone it to perfection on a whetstone. She has a wicked sense of humour, too. I would not put it past her to grease a slope for the joy of seeing someone slide down it - probably me. I do not believe I shall grow bored - if I live. Walter de Lacey would dearly love to dance on my grave and rule in my stead and Robert de Belleme merely bides his time. Fool that I am, it offends my sensibilities to murder the pair of them in stealth as they would do to me without a qualm of conscience.'

Rhosyn considered him. He had spoken lightly, but his eyes were hard and the fine mouth was set in a straight grim line. She realised how trivial her own complaints must seem when set against his various burdens. Crossing the space between them, she laid her hand on his shoulder and her cheek to his in a wordless embrace, her black hair spilling down over his rough jerkin and hood.

His own hand reached to grip hers, long-fingered and graceful. She wished suddenly that the child she carried should inherit those hands.

They sat like that while the silence of the night settled around them. Rain thudded against the hafod wall s, rhythmic and heavy. Guyon closed his eyes, meaning only to rest them for a moment and instead fell asleep.

Rhosyn gently, stealthily, disengaged her hand from his and stared at him. Vulnerable and slack-limbed, his jaw was fuzzed with dark stubble, his eye sockets smudged with weariness.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she remembered the time she had first seen him. She had been a bride of fifteen with her proud new husband indulgently buying her trinkets in Hereford. Guy had been nineteen then, awkward with his limbs, still filling them out but even then, coltish and immature as he was, his beauty had been striking. He had not noticed her then, nor yet in the times that she visited his father's keeps with her husband and her father. Not until four years ago when, widowed, she had personally bargained with him over the price of the wool clip.

His wide brown eyes, so melting and innocent, had almost been her downfall . She had believed that innocence until realising belatedly that she was being ruthlessly manoeuvred into a corner from which the only extrication was agreement to his price. Yr llewpart du, they called him - the black leopard - and, like a cat, there were claws beneath the soft pads and the tuned instincts of a hunter.

She had not let him catch her; not then, nor when she went to his bed, and especially not now.

She rubbed her sleeve over her damp eyes and gave a small , self-deprecatory smile as her practical merchant's mind surfaced from the maelstrom of emotion in which it had been bogged down. She took his cloak and spread it across a stool to dry and prepared a small costrell of mead, her movements brisk but silent. In an hour, she would wake him and he would go, and their meshed worlds would slide apart like two sword blades gliding off each other in a spangle of sparks.

She sat down again when all was done and took up her distaff, and listened with pleasure to the slow, even rhythm of his breathing while she wondered idly what had brought him over the border in so clandestine a fashion.

Twenty miles away and some hours later, wondering was also the preoccupation of another who waited, vacillating between terror and rage at Guyon's continued absence. Judith's emotions were raw. The very touch of a thought agitated them to agony.

It was almost dawn. A glimpse through the arrowslit repeated several times this last hour had revealed the sinking stars and a milky glimmer to the east. The words she hissed as she peered out on the imminent morning were hot with fury and filled with guilt lest she was cursing a dead man to hell for his tardiness. The thought of him staring sightless into the dawn, his body sword-cloven caused her to whirl from the arrowslit with a gasp.

Eric and the others had ridden in through the postern shortly before midnight. She would not have known of it had not Melyn yowled to be let out, thus disturbing her from a restless sleep. The arrowslit which looked out on the postern had revealed the stealthy entry of the men and ponies.

She had expected Guyon then, but he had not come. The ponies had disappeared promptly like beasts of the Wild Hunt into the hollow hill s and when she had let Melyn out and gone down to Eric, he had been taciturn and evasive. Lord Guyon had business in Wales. He would be back soon enough. He advised that she retire.

Judith knew that when she recovered her equilibrium she would be thoroughly chagrined at losing her temper, but for the nonce, like a drunkard, she did not care. Eric had recoiled from the lash of her tongue, eyes wide in shock. When Guyon returned, she intended to do more than just make him recoil. He told her nothing, left her to worry, treated her like a child who did not have the skill to understand.

'Nor shall I if he does not give me the chance!' she said through clenched teeth as she flounced away from the arrowslit and began to dress.

She had just pulled on her stockings and shift and was scrabbling about on all fours searching for a wayward shoe, when Guyon entered the room as silently as a cat.

'Good morning, wife,' he said, grinning at the sight of her upturned posterior.

For a long moment she was still and then she rose to her feet and faced him, her complexion flushed with anger.

'Strange moonlight,' she said sarcastically. 'I have been sick with worry! Eric rode in before midnight matins. Where have you been?'

'I went to see Rhosyn and I fell asleep,' he replied matter-of-factly and came further into the room to sit on a stool and begin unlacing his boots.

'You went to see Rhosyn?' she repeated and swallowed the urge to hurl her newly found shoe at him. 'Have you changed your mind?'

'About what? Fetch me a drink, there's a good lass.'

Judith dropped the shoe and turned away, her back as rigid as a lance, her voice choked with the effort of controlling her rage. 'You said you had no mistress.'

Guyon flashed her a glance. 'I don't. Huw ap Sior was a close friend of her family. I took her the news of his death and a warning to be on guard. I am sorry if you are vexed, but expect apology for naught else.'

'Vexed is not the word!' Judith sloshed wine into a cup with a shaking hand. 'I could kill you myself!'

'No doubt ... Pass me those clothes over there.'

'Those?' She swung to him, lids widening. 'But they stink!'

'I know.' He grimaced, took the wine she offered, drank a mouthful and then set it down.

'Spike it, will you?' he said. 'With white poppy.'

'What for?'

'To make me sufficiently difficult to rouse when Robert de Belleme hails at our drawbridge.'

'And why should he do that?' Judith had a strong inkling as to the reply, having had plenty of time to think during the long watches of the night while her absent husband enjoyed another woman's company without thought for his terrified wife. However, she wanted to hear the words from his own lips, not be treated like an imbecile who would give the game away if possessed of knowledge.

'He might think I was involved in a Welsh raid upon him and his men that took place on the Shrewsbury road yestereve,' he answered. 'I did not tell you before in case we failed. At least you could truthfully have claimed your innocence.'

'What good would that do?' Judith was not impressed. 'You know what my uncle does to "innocents".' Her mouth tightened, but it was because he had been ensconced at another woman's hearth, perhaps even in her arms, while she paced the floor at Ledworth in a cold sweat of terror for his life.

'Look,' he said wearily, 'I do not expect you to go into the kitchen details of how you make a particular dish, but I will praise it or otherwise when it comes to table, and it is the same with certain of my doings. I told you what was needful.'

'What you thought was needful.'

Guyon swallowed and cast around for a fresh reserve of patience. A day of pretence and fencing with men he loathed, a night of clandestine work, an hour's sleep in a hard chair and some chancy riding over rough terrain in the pitch dark made it difficult to find. 'Judith, don't push me,' he said softly.

A trickle of fear ran down her spine. The gentle tone was far more frightening than a bellow to mind her business, or a raised fist. She turned abruptly away to begin preparing a draught of the poppy syrup.

Guyon continued to strip. 'What about the rest of the keep?' he asked after a moment. 'What do they think?'

She looked round at him, her expression impassive. 'Some of them believe that it is good for you to release your tension in a surfeit of drink, all young men do it. Others say they always knew you were wild and incontinent. Mama is desperate for my safety. My father used to beat us both when he was in his cups ... He split my lip once ... Mama cannot act to save her life. I dare not tell her the truth.'

He snorted with brusque amusement. 'You accuse me and then do the same to your mother!'

Judith drew breath to retort that it was not the same at all , but clenched her teeth on the words.

Do not push me, he had said, and she had no way of knowing how close to the edge he actually was.

'I am sorry your mother should be deceived in me, but there is no help for it. So much depends on de Belleme believing my innocence, or at least being unable to refute it.' Guyon came to take the cup from her, tilted her chin, and kissed her gently. 'Trust me, Cath fach.'

His lips were as subtle as silk, his beard stubble prickly on her tender skin. Warmth flowed through Judith's veins as if her blood had turned to wine. Disturbed, she drew quickly away from him. 'Will you tell me how you retrieved the silver?'

Guyon eyed her closely, but could read very little in her expression, so carefully was she guarding it. His own fault, he knew, for warning her off, but one contrary woman a night was enough on any man's trencher. He looked down into the wine and swirled it thoughtfully around. 'It was worth every drop of this foul brew,' he said after a moment and took a gulp so that the heavy sweetness would not cloy his palate. And then, beginning to laugh, he told her precisely what they had done.

Foul-tempered, all insouciance flown, Robert de Belleme demanded hoarsely to see the lord of Ledworth.

'He's still abed, m'lord,' Eric answered staunchly. 'It'll be the devil of a job to rouse him.'

'Do it!' snarled de Belleme, 'or I'll flay your hide and use it for a saddlecloth!'

From another man, the speech would merely have been picturesque. But as it was the Earl of Shrewsbury who spoke, Eric knew the threat was not idle.

'If you will wait a moment, my lord--'

'Make haste, peasant!' growled Walter de Lacey from his place at the Earl's left shoulder and wiped his hand across his bruised mouth.

Eric bowed low, mouth tightening under cover of his full brown moustache, and left the two men at the fire, a wine flagon close to hand.

It was late morning, the servants bustling. The smell of new bread wafted past the men's dust-caked nostrils as a maid laid out the dais table.

'Returning for hospitality so soon, my lords?'

De Belleme whirled to regard the icy glance of his former sister-in-law, Alicia de Montgomery. A bitch in blue silk with a milky collar of pearls at her still surprisingly young throat.

'Recovered entirely from yesterday's malady, I see,' he answered with mock pleasantry, continuing to look her up and down. 'You are remarkably well dressed for a drudge.'

'You should take a gazing-glass to yourself,' Alicia retorted, the pearls jumping hard on her collarbone. 'What can we offer you to be on your way this time?'

His right hand flashed out to grip her wrist and tighten over the knobs of bone. It was so sudden and so painful that involuntarily she cried out. A servant with a pitcher in his hand hesitated. De Belleme flashed him a red-rimmed glare that sent the man scuttling for cover.

'You always were a clapper-tongued bitch too clever for your own good!' he hissed at her. 'My brother was a fool not to silence your jabber with the blade of his knife!'

'It runs in your family,' she retorted, struggling in his grip, feeling as if her bones were about to snap beneath the grinding pressure.

'Where was Guyon FitzMiles last night?' he demanded, his face so close that she could see the small open pores pinpricking his nose and feel the flecks of spittle on her face as he spoke.

'Blind drunk in his bed!' she gasped. 'My lord, you are breaking my arm!'

'And so I will if you do not tell me the truth, you whore!'

It was no idle threat and Alicia knew it. The pain was making her feel sick. One more slight twist and her bones would snap like dry twigs. 'It is the truth. You saw him carried away yourself!'

De Lacey muttered a warning from the side of his mouth and the Earl flung her several paces away from him with a routier's oath.

Gasping, tears of pain and fury in her eyes, Alicia glared loathing at him.

De Belleme returned the look in equal measure and turned away to view the man staggering across the hall , supported on one side by the captain of the guard and on the other by his anxious wife.

De Lacey swore in dismayed surprise. The Earl stared blankly at Guyon who was stained and rumpled, ungroomed, still stinking of wine and completely without co-ordination.

'Whatever you want,' Guyon enunciated slowly, his tongue stumbling round the words, his eyes owlishly squinting and unfocused. 'I pray you be quick before I am sick all over your boots.' He swayed alarmingly. Eric propped him up. Judith bit her lip and, looking tearfully concerned, clung to her husband's wine-soiled sleeve.

De Belleme gazed round the circle of hostile faces. 'We were attacked on the road, pill aged, tied up and left for the wolves,' he snapped. 'I thought you might know something.'

Silence. Guyon's sluggish lids half lifted. 'Lost your silver too?' he said with a slow smile. It almost became a laugh but the movement of his shoulders brought on a sudden bout of nausea and he folded retching against his wife and his bodyguard.

Judith looked across at the enraged men. 'I am sorry to hear of your misfortune,' she said sweetly.

'Is there anything we can do? Horses? Food? Are there wounded among you?'

Impotent, beaten, Robert de Belleme stared into her hazel eyes with all their innocence and Eve-like deception and then flicked his gaze to the huddled man at her feet, the feline grace gone, the lank black hair grazing the rushes.

'Pray,' he snarled. 'Pray very hard that you are innocent.' He swung on his heel. De Lacey followed him, sneering over his shoulder. Alicia flinched and crossed herself.

'Oh God,' Guyon groaned, half raising his head.

'You wretched girl, I ought to kill you before you kill me.'

'Perhaps I put too large a measure of the potion in your wine, but at least your display was convincing,' Judith answered judiciously. 'Do you feel sick, or are you able to stand?'

Alicia, about to set her foot where angels feared to tread, once more found herself a baffled outsider to the understanding that existed between Judith and the green-faced man now gingerly rising to his feet.

'You'll be all right by this evening,' Judith consoled him and gestured one of the household knights to help him back to bed.

'Witch,' he muttered, but managed a wan smile over his shoulder.

'I do not suppose you are going to explain any of this to me?' Alicia asked, a line of exasperation between her brows.

'No, Mama,' Judith agreed, her smile the secretive one that was all her father's legacy.