The Wild Hunt

CHAPTER 10

The shadows of the June evening had begun to lengthen. The sunlight was as golden as cider, but the wind that cut across the marches and ruffled the slate feathers of the peregrine on its eyrie was edged with cold.

Guyon stood upon Ravenstow's wall walk and inhaled the clean, meadow-scented air with appreciation. Below, the hall was hazed with the smell of the smoked fish that had been the main dish of the evening meal, it being Friday. A lingering aftermath of the deception practised upon de Belleme - a punishment and a penance — was the delicacy of his stomach where such food was concerned.

Cadi thumped her tail, eyes cocked adoringly, alert to move if he should, but he remained staring out over the demesne. The water meadows gave way to the peasants' strips sown with oats and beans, green-blowing in the wind that chased a contrast of shadows and amber sunlight over the land. A harsh land, filled with the dangers of sudden Welsh raids and the slinking shadows of wolves.

As the summer advanced, the Welsh had grown bold in their raiding. A flock of sheep here, a bull there, a woman in one of Guyon's border hamlets.

He had, of course, retaliated. An eye for an eye.

Everyone knew the rules ... except Robert de Belleme who rampaged up and down his earldom like Grendell of the marsh, destroying and torturing. Doggedly the Welsh retreated into the hill s where he could not follow, taking everything with them and letting their flimsy hafods burn. Reconstruction took only a matter of days and de Belleme was too great a lord to occupy his entire summer chasing shadows through wet Welsh woods. He left that to his vassals, men such as Walter de Lacey and Ralph de Serigny.

The latter had died last month during one such foray into Wales. He and his men had been ambushed and, while fighting his way out, he had suffered a seizure and fall en dead from his horse.

Guyon and Judith had attended the funeral as a mark of respect but, circumstances and the other mourners being what they were, had not remained beyond the ceremony.

Guyon had dealt efficiently with the raids on his own lands and kept a jaundiced, watchful eye on de Lacey's efforts to do the same. He did the rounds of his vassals and castellans, holding manor courts, advising, solving, replacing and recruiting, granting, denying, his finger firmly on the pulse.

He began to move slowly along the wall walk.

Cadi leaped to her feet, shook herself and followed, nose grazing his heels. A young guard saluted him. Guyon paused a moment to speak, remembering from long training the man's name and family circumstances. It was a little effort that never failed to repay more than double its expenditure in willingness and loyalty.

The guard paused in mid-reply to Guyon's query and saluted again, this time flushing scarlet to the tips of his ears.

Guyon turned to find his wife, pink and breathless from her climb, strands of hair escaping her braids and blowing wild. The guard's blush he attributed to the fact that women seldom came aloft and certainly not as informally as this. It never occurred to him to think the young man might find Judith attractive.

'I've found her!' Judith panted, clutching Guyon's arm, her eyes as bright as two polished agates.

'She was in one of the bailey storesheds nestled among a heap of fleeces.'

He slipped his arm absently around her waist and kissed her cheek. 'I told you she would not have gone far,' he said with a superior air.

Judith stiffened. 'You groaned the words at me from the bed because you wanted to be left in peace to sleep,' she said tartly. 'You could not have cared less!'

'Well , not at the time,' he conceded with a grin.

'But I knew she was bound to turn up. I've never known a beast with a life so charmed.'

'She's taken a lover. The same one that sired her last lot of offspring. A great black mannerless leopard of a tom that lives wild on the slope!'

Guyon smiled and leaned upon the limewashed sandstone to watch the clouds chase past on the wind. 'Well , it is spring after all ,' he said with amusement.

Judith blushed. He had been very patient with her thus far, his embraces light and fraternal, teasingly affectionate and 'safe'. Her stomach no longer lurched sickeningly when they retired of a night. She knew she was not about to be raped.

Once, unconsciously he had reached an arm across her naked body and murmured a name into her hair, his lips nuzzling her nape and her blood had prickled, moved by something alien and unsettling that flushed her loins with moist heat. Afraid, she had tossed vigorously and coughed and, the pattern of his breathing had broken; he had removed his arm with a wry, half-waking apology and rolled over away from her.

The time would come, she knew, when she would have to know his flesh. He was his father's sole heir, the duty pressing upon him to beget more branches on the tree than Miles had done.

'If I was barren would you divorce me?' she asked curiously.

He left the merlon and walked onwards until they could overlook the river and its bustle of traffic at the toll as boats sought to moor before nightfall . 'Come now, Cath fach, where else would I find a wife capable of besting me at dagger play?'

'I do not suppose it would matter if she bore you half a dozen sons.'

'Kind of you to offer,' he grinned, deliberately misconstruing her words. 'I have the patience to wait on your ripening lust.' She pinched him. He recoiled with a protest, and then suddenly craned forward, narrowing his gaze the better to focus on the distance. 'Visitors,' he said.

Judith came to his side and stood on tiptoe.

Below them, a long barge had just nudged into its mooring and the crew were making her secure.

'Your father!' she exclaimed as Miles stepped on to the wharf.

'Cat among the pigeons,' Guyon said with a thoughtful smile.

'Who is that with him?' Judith bobbed against her husband and a stray tawny wisp of her hair cobwebbed his face.

'My half-sister, Emma. If you remember, she could not attend our nuptials because she was in London.'

'Those girls with her are your nieces?'

'Christen, Celie, and Marian,' he agreed, looking wryly amused.

Judith regarded the group for a moment. The older woman, even from this distance, was obviously lovely, and rich. The white fur lining of her cloak gleamed like silk on snow as it caught the sunlight and her braided hair was the precise colour of a sweet chestnut new-hulled from its case. The girls too were elegantly robed and pristine. Delicately bred, gentle young ladies.

Dismayed, Judith bit her lip, aware that she was wearing her oldest gown and that it was rough with Melyn's moulting fur. Her hair was unkempt and there was nothing prepared to make them a fitting welcome.

'What am I going to do?' she asked.

Guyon turned, looked her up and down from the bird's nest crown of her head to the scuffed toes of her leather slippers and grinned. 'And yet you can face down Robert de Belleme with never a qualm.' He tilted her chin on his forefinger and kissed her nose before whirling her about to face the stairs down. 'Em's all right, she won't eat you.'

'She might if there's naught else on her trencher,' Judith responded.

'My sister has a heart of gold. She'll fold you to her breast like a waif and stray and I'll be the one to receive the scolding. She still thinks of me as a brat of six filching griddle cakes from the bakehouse door and putting headless mice on her trencher.'

Momentarily diverted, Judith flashed him a glance compounded of horror and amusement.

'And things have changed?' she said saucily and ducked adroitly beneath his playful cuff.

'Headless cats now,' he retorted and hugged her.

They had reached the bottom of the stairs. 'I am very fortunate,' Judith said on a sudden, blushing impulse. 'And very grateful. My lord I--'

'Do not set your worth too cheaply,' he said and tugged her braid in an affectionate gesture with which she was now thoroughly familiar.

'Your wife is contrary to my expectations, Guy,' murmured Emma, reaching a well -tended hand to pick up her cup.

Guyon smiled and stretched out his legs to lounge more comfortably in his chair on the dais.

'What did you expect?' He followed her gaze to the fire and the four girls who crouched there, heads close, intent over a game of knucklebones. Christen possessed her mother's chestnut-red colouring. The two younger girls were plain brown like their absent father. Judith's hair sparkled bronze-blonde like the pelt of a young vixen. Christen said something. Judith capped it wittily and her laughter rang.

Emma sipped her wine. 'Well she's certainly not a Montgomery to look upon. I can see her mother's bones, but where on earth did she get those eyes and that hair?'

'From her grandam perhaps?' Guyon said with a shrug. 'Maurice was only a bastard son of the house. By all accounts his mother was a Danish widow out of York.'

'Yes, perhaps. I thought she would be slight and dark ... and less of a child. At her age I was extremely conscious of my appearance and how to use it on men to gain my own ends.'

'Oh, Judith has her ways and means,' he said easily. 'And if I ever had a yen for women who primped and preened, I lost it swiftly enough at court. The difference between those harpies and Judith is the difference between dross and pure gold. No insult to yourself intended, Em. You use your talents with subtlety.'

'Thank you,' she retorted archly. 'I'll treasure the compliment.'

'Christen does not appear to have inherited your discretion,' he added as Christen looked up from the game and slanted a long-lashed glance at one of the youngest knights in the hall .

Emma sighed. 'You have noticed it too? There is a devil in her, Guy and it will destroy her unless it can be exorcised.'

'She is scarcely yet fourteen,' he said, all humour flown.

'And older than Eve.'

'And I hazard part of the reason you were summoned to London and are here now instead of with Richard at court?'

She gave him a sidelong look. 'I had forgotten how sharp you are. It seemed a sound idea to send her to housekeep for her father while my duty kept me here in the marches after Mama died. The girls see so little of him that I thought it would be of benefit to them both.'

Guyon grunted. 'You see little enough of Richard yourself.'

Emma shrugged. 'It is not given that every match should scorch the soul. We are content, Guy.'

'Have you spoken to Richard about her?'

'He says the sooner we match her the better, but I do not know. Perhaps she is merely playing at what she sees the court concubines do and, because she is pretty and men respond, she does it the more, never knowing how close to the fire her fingers are.'

He was silent for a time, considering the circle of girls. A serving lad replenished his cup and moved on. Cadi stirred restlessly at his feet. 'You were right to bring her away,' he said at length.

'Christen has always been swayed by the actions of those around her. Do you remember when she was nine and wanted to become a nun because one of the maids took the veil?'

A pained smile curved Emma's lips. 'And last year the crusade. I caught her sewing a cross on her best cloak, her belongings packed in a travelling bundle and vowing to see Jerusalem or die.'

'So what she requires is a spell of gentle domestic harmony with myself and Judith for examples?'

Emma grimaced at him.

Eyes laughing, he said, 'I thought you had serious doubts concerning my state of grace?'

'That was just irritation at the weakness of all men,' she said impatiently. 'I know why you act the rutting stag at court and you and Rhosyn have long had a private understanding. You handle Christen better than any of us. She might listen to you ... and she might listen to your Judith. There is not so much difference in age and they appear to like each other.'

'It depends upon what you want her to learn in lieu of coquetry,' Guyon chuckled, thinking of Judith's repertoire of dubious skill s. He rose to his feet and, still smiling, left the table. Emma followed him.

His father and Eric were locked in mortal combat over a game of merels beside the hearth and neither paid any attention to Cadi's inquisitive nosings.

'Have you noticed any difference in our father these last few weeks, Em?' Guyon asked in a low voice.

She shook her head. 'Not really. Perhaps a little quieter, but you know how he broods. Before we set out, he spent a long time kneeling at Mama's tomb and then complained that his knees were stiff. Why do you ask?' Her voice sharpened. 'Is there something wrong?'

'No, nothing.' He set a reassuring hand on her arm. 'Just filial interest. 'What he needs is another wife ... or a mistress.'

Emma scowled at him. 'You don't seriously mean that, Guy.'

'Why not?'

'Would you welcome another woman in Mama's place - a stepmother?'

'You are deluding yourself if you think he has lived like a monk since her death.'

'I know he has taken casual women for comfort and pleasure,' Emma said with asperity. 'But they were in no wise partners for life.'

'That's what I mean. He needs something more.

Our mother was his anchor and he is in danger of going adrift without one.' Having gained the information he sought, he went to play knucklebones with his wife and nieces.

'Rannulf Flambard has officially been granted the bishopric of Durham as payment for his tireless endeavours,' said Miles, his face studiously blank.

The lantern swung gently on its hook and shadows lumbered upon the stable wall s. Guyon looked up from the delectable golden mare he had been examining. The horse was a gift for Judith, the furtiveness of this night visit to the stable because she was to be a surprise. He stared at his father with bright interest. 'God preserve the devil when he gets to hell .' His mouth twitched. 'What's he going to do, strip the church from within and give it all to Rufus?'

'Of a certainty, weasling little runt.'

The mare lipped Guyon's tunic. He scratched her beneath the chin. 'But shrewd and clever with it. At least if he's snatching food from the mouths of monks, he's not snatching it from us.'

Rannulf Flambard, a common cleric, had risen by his own diligent efforts from obscurity to the ranks of the most powerful men in the land. He had become indispensable to Rufus and a menace to every member of the barony; a tax collector with a Herculean grip on men's financial affairs and the ability to tighten that grip and squeeze his victims dry.

Guyon thoroughly disliked the man, for his attitude rather than from any squeamishness concerning his lowly birth or his task of crown revenue raiser. Indeed, with a numerical talent of his own, he had the good sense to respect Flambard's extraordinary skill s and step warily around them.

'Of course,' Miles added sarcastically, 'Flambard is not the only hazard to our coffers. The Welsh take their tithe of silver too.'

Guyon eyed his father nonchalantly across the mare's satin withers. 'I thought you might have heard about de Belleme's misfortune,' he said with a hint of regret in his voice.

'And yours too?'

Guyon said nothing. He could not dissemble with his sire who knew him too well and saw too clearly. Silence was by far the better line of defence.

'Have a care, son. Step very softly around the Earl of Shrewsbury. His rages are all the more deadly for being silent and the remains of his victims are not a pretty sight. He is stronger than ever now. Did you know that he has paid Rufus another relief to take Roger de Bully's lands?'

The flippancy vanished, replaced by startled attention. 'No, I didn't.'

'Blythe and Tickhill straight down the devil's throat. He's likely to be short of coin and temper.

Don't try any more clever tricks like that last one ...

You know what I mean.'

'So if he wants to eat the world, I just stand aside and let him?'

'You don't fling your gage in his teeth!'

'I haven't. A trip rope across his path perhaps, in revenge for a parcel of bloody sables.'

Miles scraped his fingers through his hair and reminded himself that Guyon was almost thirty years old and the mould was too firmly set to be broken or altered by an exasperated lecture.

'Just be careful, that's all .'

'Meek as a virgin,' Guyon answered lightly.

'Just don't get deflowered,' Miles said curtly. 'I'm going to bed.'

The lightness left Guyon's face. 'Chance would be a fine thing,' he said to the horse and followed his father.