The Wild Hunt

CHAPTER 11

Judith gasped and wriggled around in the bed, squinting through her lids as the brightness of daylight flooded the room.

Guyon wrenched the covers aside. 'On your feet, you lazy baggage, or are you going to sleep until noon?'

She sat up, glowering.

Guyon laughed. 'You'll miss a surprise if you do.'

Judith rubbed her eyes and regarded him blearily. He was wearing his hunting tunic of green plaid and leather hose. She had not heard him wake and dress, but then he could be as soft-footed as Melyn when he chose.

'What kind of surprise?'

'The kind that will not wait forever.' He hooked his thumbs in his belt and studied her. Her hair spilled down. A freckled white shoulder gleamed through the untidy tresses and a small , apple-sized breast. Flank and leg were lithe and long.

Flustered, she lowered her eyes, a pink flush staining her throat and face. Abruptly he turned away to her clothing pole and, selecting garments, tossed them on the bed.

'I'll send in your maid. Don't be too long, Cathfach.'

His tone was light and his face wore its customary good humour so that her momentary qualm dissolved into an impudent grimace as he reached the door.

Most of the household was still asleep and, as Judith indignantly discovered on entering the hall , it was not long after dawn. A yawning boy was arranging the side trestles for the serving of bread and curd cheese. Guyon was leaning on the edge of the dais, deep in conversation with the steward and the reeve, Cadi as usual glued to his side.

The two standing men bowed. Judith smiled a greeting to the steward. To the reeve she spoke.

He had not long been appointed to the position — a young man with small children, well able to cope with the task of mediating between the lord and his tenants, but still finding his feet.

Guyon listened to her enquiries after the health of the man's family with whose every name and circumstance she was familiar and was once more amazed at her scope.

'I didn't know his aunt Winifred suffered from gout,' he chuckled as he led her out of the forebuilding and into the early morning bustle of the bailey.

'She doesn't.' Judith regarded him with grave clarity. 'She just likes their attention. There's nothing wrong with the cantankerous hag. I could think of several effective if drastic remedies to cure her condition. Cutting out her tongue, for one.'

'Judith!' he spluttered.

'It is the truth and only you to hear it. Why should I lie?'

Guyon shook his head, unable to think of a response or reprimand because in essence she was right.

A lanky youth of about Judith's own age was forking soiled straw into the yard. Hens pecked and scratched near his feet. Ball s of yellow fluff twinkled hither and yon, imitating in miniature the actions of their parents, miraculously avoiding the lad's stout boots and the sweeps of the fork.

'Good morning, Hob,' Judith greeted him. He turned a dusky campion-pink and mumbled into his chest.

'What's the surprise, Guy?' She smiled up at him as she had smiled at Hob.

'You are, constantly,' he replied, then said in English to the boy, 'Where's your father?'

'Just coming, sire. He's walking her round to stop her getting cold.'

'Who?' asked Judith.

Guyon took her arm and turned to face his head groom who appeared around the edge of the building with a harnessed mare following behind in a well -mannered fashion.

'Guyon?' Judith twisted to look up at him and then back at the delicately stepping palfrey.

'I thought it was time you had a more mettlesome mount than that old bay nag you've adopted. Her name's Euraidd. She's five years old and from the stud herd down at Ashdyke.'

Judith stared at the vision filling her eyes and it swung its head to return the compliment with limpid black eyes. Euraidd - golden. A mare the colour of the sun. Darker dappled rings like gold coins shimmered on the silken haunches and contour of shoulder and belly. Her mane and tail were a flossy blonde, the former braided with tassels of scarlet silk. The harness, like the horse, was expensive.

'She's beautiful!' Judith gasped, more than a little awestruck. 'Are you sure you want me to have her?'

'How else do you expect to keep up with me when we go riding?' Guyon grinned. 'That bay bag of bones might as well have been standing still the other day.'

'He ran his heart out for me when we were fleeing Earl Robert,' she said, and stepped forward to stroke the soft tawny nose. The mare had a white star between her eyes and two small trails of stardust dribbled beneath. She lipped Judith's fingers, seeking a titbit, and the groom obligingly produced a wrinkled apple.

The under-groom emerged from the stables with Guyon's grey saddled up and ready.

'Care to try her paces?' Guyon cupped his hands.

'You should not make such an open display of your wealth,' she reproved, faintly troubled even in the midst of her joy.

'My father has one of the best stud herds in the land. Even impoverished as I am, I still have access to good horseflesh. Besides, you should know not to look a gift horse in the mouth.'

Judith made an agonised face at the literal pun and set her foot into the bowl of his linked fingers.

They rode far and wide over Ravenstow's demesne. The mare's gait was like silk, her muscles flowing like water beneath a cloth of golden satin. Her mouth was sensitive to Judith's slightest touch on the reins. She moved effortlessly from walk to pacing trot, to canter and back to a walk and Judith felt not so much as a jolt as she changed step.

Guyon considered Judith's seat in the saddle with a critical eye and discovered that, as with all skill s, she had mastered this one in a very short time.

'My mother used to hate riding horseback,' he said finally as they rode side by side for home.

'For my father's sake she bore it, but it was a sacrilegious waste of good horseflesh. The best in England and she appreciated it not one whit.'

Judith looked down at the mare. There was exhilaration in riding such smooth power, a tingling of triumph in the knowledge of mastery.

'He misses her, doesn't he?' she said thoughtfully.

'My mother was the light of his life,' Guyon said, his eyelids tightening with pain. 'They fought on occasion fit to bring down the keep around our ears, but I remember the love. She would have given him her lifeblood to drink if he had asked, and vice versa.'

Judith gnawed her lip, unable to contemplate such a depth of feeling and trust. Her own parents had spent their time damning each other's souls into the pit of hell . Slaps, blows, ill -treatment, degradation, cruelty. She knew only too well the nature of marriage ... or thought she knew. She looked through her lashes at her husband's arrogant features and tried to imagine cutting her own veins at his command. No, she thought. I would take up a knife and defend myself to the last bitter drop of blood.

Hard on that thought followed a wave of guilt.

He had been so good to her, tolerating her whims, handling her with patience and consideration, gifting her richly, not least with this beautiful horse. She liked him well enough, knew that she had been more fortunate than her mother as a heifer in the ring, but it was too great a trust to give her soul into another's squandering.

'You are quiet, Cath fach, ' he said.

Judith smiled and tossed her head. 'Foolish thoughts,' she laughed, her mouth twisting. 'Not worth a penny for their time. Does she gall op, is it safe to give her free rein?' Without waiting for his reply she used her hands and heels to command the mare into a sudden spectacular burst of speed. Guyon muttered a startled oath beneath his breath and spurred the grey in pursuit across the meadow.

Geese scattered honking from beneath the flying hooves. The swineherd, out with the keep's pigs, shaded his eyes against the slant of the sun and watched the horses hurtle past. Ground-nesting plovers broke cover and took hasty wing.

A blackbird chipped at them from a stump.

The golden mare flew lightly over the ground like a faery beast, her tail rippling like combed flax.

Inch by inch the grey gained on her, his stride that slight bit longer, but it was a slow process.

The weight he carried was greater and the mare was determined to keep her head in front. He reached her shoulders, his neck outstretched, his shoulders and hindquarters working like pistons and slowly his nose began to draw level with hers.

Judith glanced round, her braids whipping her face, her eyes blazing with exhilaration and met Guyon's laughter, white-edged with triumph.

'Oh no!' she cried, laughing back at him. 'Not this time, my lord!' And as they pounded on towards the edge of the meadow, she leaned as far forward as the saddle would permit, gripping like a monkey, the reins clutched hard on Euraidd's neck. From somewhere the mare found an extra thrust of speed and, aided by Judith's forward weight, once more pulled ahead of the stall ion to reach the marshy end of the meadow a length ahead.

Mud splattered up around the mare's forelegs and dappled her glowing coat with brown splotches and freckles as Judith breathlessly wound her down to a halt and hung over her braided mane, laughing with delight.

Guyon reined round beside her, drawing the stall ion's head hard into the wide grey chest.

'That was wonderful!' Judith gasped, her eyes shining like two coins, her face flushed and vibrant.

'And you are a madwoman!' he answered, half angry, half amused. 'What if you had fall en off?'

'I would have broken my neck, but I didn't and it was wonderful. And if you are going to scowl at me like that, I'd rather ride on my own anyway!'

'Minx,' he chuckled despite himself.

'Fusspot,' she retorted, poking out her tongue.

Guyon's eyebrows shot up. It was the first time anyone had called him that! Before he could think of a suitable retort, Judith clicked her tongue to the mare and shook the reins, urging her across the stream and towards home. At a safe distance, she looked over her shoulder to where he sat staring after her and grinned impishly.

Guyon steadied his grip on the reins. He was painfully tumescent and very tempted to ride after her and soothe the irritation where it would do him the most good ... and her the least. She is a child, he reiterated to himself. It had been too long an abstinence, that was all . After a moment, the impulse and its source subsided. He walked the stall ion meekly in her wake while he consolidated his hold on things rational.

At the keep they had visitors. Tethered in the bailey were a dozen sturdy pack ponies tended by an equally sturdy black-haired youth. He was loosening the pack of the foremost pony and speaking to a frowning, middle-aged man who was unloading what looked like bales of cloth.

The youth lifted his gaze and met Guyon's as the latter dismounted. Unlatching the last buckle, he spoke a quick word to the servant, and came across the ward to greet them. Judith looked curiously at the lad as he arrived and stood smiling before them. He was as solid and stocky as a young oak tree and darkly Welsh, his eyes onyx black and extravagantly fringed. His wide-planted stance exuded the confidence of a man, the flush in his cheeks the uncertainty of boyhood.

'I'm here with my grandfather,' he said in rapid Welsh. 'We've brought cloth to trade and we need new ponies, and grandfather has other business besides.'

The grooms took the two mud-smirched horses.

'How fares your mother?'

'She had a baby girl two days since,' Rhys said, gaze darting to Judith, obviously wondering how much Welsh she understood. 'She is well and so is the baby ... Eluned is jealous.'

Before Guyon could compose himself to reply, Madoc ap Rhys himself strode out of the forebuilding and clapped a brown, knotty hand on Rhys's shoulder.

'I thought you'd have finished unloading by now!' he declared, but his hazel eyes were laughing and his tone was indulgent. 'God's greeting, my lord. I see that you've had the good tidings. A fine, healthy babe and blessed with your grandsire's red hair and, to judge from the sound of her lungs, his temper too!' His manner was affable.

Rhosyn's liaison with Guyon FitzMiles and the resulting child were useful bonds to future profit as far as he was concerned.

Judith opened her mouth to speak, but changed her mind and compressed her lips instead, not trusting herself.

Guyon invited the merchant into the hall to drink to the infant's health and discuss the business he had brought with him upon the back of a dozen ponies. Belatedly, he remembered to introduce Madoc and Rhys to his wife.

Master Madoc made the proper responses in impeccable Norman French and concealed his curiosity and surprise behind deep-set lowered lids. The girl who tepidly smiled her duty was not the fey, frightened thing that Rhosyn had led him to expect. Her agate-coloured eyes were cool, her voice clear and firm. Slender, yes, with barely a curve to her name, but possessed of a certain gauche grace and also a certain coldness of manner and, from the quick look she had tossed at Guyon as they entered the forebuilding, it did not take much of his merchant's shrewdness to guess the cause.

At first he and Guyon discussed the merits of the new downland rams that had been introduced to Guyon's herds and the effect they would have on the quality of future wool clips.

'It will make your fleeces whiter and increase the length of the staple. The Flanders looms are crying out for good-quality wool. If God grants me my health, I should be crossing the sea after harvest to see for myself.'

'Rhosyn said you had been unwell .'

Madoc gave a dismissive shrug. 'I lack breath occasionally and my chest gripes, but the bouts are usually when I've done more than I should, or the weather grows too cold. A few more years and Rhys will be old enough to shoulder much of the burden.' He smiled at his grandson, who smiled in return as he plied his meat with a fine, ivory-hilted knife.

Madoc applied himself to his own meal for a while, then turned his shrewd gaze upon Guyon's young wife who had been silent throughout the previous conversation. 'My lady, if you permit, there is a matter I would like to discuss with you.'

Judith inclined her head. 'Master Madoc?'

'I believe you wrote to the widow of Huw ap Sior, offering to her the sables that had come by underhand means into your possession. She has asked me to act for her in this business and gratefully accepts your generosity.'

'It is naught of generosity, it is her rightful due,' Judith said with a grimace. She had put the sables away at the bottom of a chest, wrapped in fresh canvas, and had thrown the bloodstained coverings on the back of the fire. Even to think of them made her shudder.

Guyon looked at her with surprise and approval.

He had not asked her what she had done with the furs, merely assumed that their disappearance marked their disposal.

Madoc too studied her and wondered if she knew her own power. Probably not; she was still very young and her eyes were innocent of all guile. One day she would be formidable. A black leopard and his golden mate. He smiled at the whimsy.

'You will need an escort,' Guyon said. 'Sables these days are worth their weight in blood.'

'Is Rhys yours too?' Judith enquired a trifle acidly when they were alone in their bedchamber.

Madoc and his grandson were asleep on bracken pallets in the hall among the other casual guests and travellers seeking a night's hospitality.

Guyon scratched the sensitive spot just behind Melyn's ginger ears. The cat purred and kneaded his tunic with ecstatic paws. 'No,' he said, giving his attention to the cat.

'You look alike.'

'Colouring mainly. His father was black of hair and eye. You're not the first to assume my paternity. I wish it were true. He's a fine lad.'

'You have a daughter of his mother's blood,' she said, watching him through her lids.

Guyon's fingers stilled in the cat's thick cream and bronze fur. 'Not one who will know me as more than a shadow,' he said carefully.

'Why did you not tell me about the child before?'

'Where would have been the point? It is not as though she is going to be raised beneath my roof.

Rhosyn will give her a Welsh name and raise her to be Welsh.'

'And you have no say in the matter?' she demanded incredulously.

Melyn leaped from his knee and lay down to wash beside the hearth. 'What should I do?' he growled testily. 'Snatch her from her mother's arms and bring her to Ravenstow and salve my pain at the expense of Rhosyn's hatred and a blood feud with her people?' He rose and, going to the flagon, splashed wine into a cup. 'My say has been said. I once asked Rhosyn to stay with me and she refused. I could no more constrain her to live with me, or give up the child, than I could bear one of those caged birds in my bedchamber.'

'Will you go to her tomorrow?'

He looked at Judith over the rim of the cup. Her expression was guarded, her face milk-pale, the stubborn chin lifted in challenge.

'Probably.'

Judith's fingers were claws. She fought a completely new and unsettling emotion that left her wanting to shriek at him that she was not going to stand for him riding off into the arms of another woman, and longing to scratch out that woman's eyes and call her whore.

Frightened, she turned away and busied herself unlocking the chest that contained the sables.

True to his word, Guyon had not taken a maidservant or mistress into his bed, or if he had, it had been discreetly elsewhere without insult or humiliation to herself. Having lived beneath the cruelty of her father's code, she should have been grateful and was both confused and chagrined to find that instead she felt betrayed. Desperately she scrabbled in the chest.

'Why ask me if you do not want to know?' Guyon said and crouched beside her to put his arm lightly across her shoulders. 'I have known Rhosyn for many years and her father since I was your own age. You cannot expect me to sever those ties.'

The package of sables came into her hands.

She lifted them and turned. 'I do not, my lord.' She gave him one swift look before lowering her lids.

'It is just that you pat me on the head and give me presents and laugh when I amuse you, but I wonder if you ever see me as more than a troublesome child with whom you are saddled.'

She put the furs on top of the chest and stood up.

So did he, a frown between his eyes.

Her gaze was still lowered. After a moment, he tilted up her chin and kissed her gently. 'Come, Cath fach, look at me.'

Her lashes flickered up to reveal a shine of tears. She pushed herself away from him. 'Don't patronise me!'

Guyon let his hands fall to his sides and drew a slow breath. Then, carefully, he let it out. 'How should I treat you?' he asked with baffled exasperation. 'You are not a woman, you are not a child. You waver over the line between the two like a drunkard. You laugh and play knucklebones with my nieces and skip around the keep hoyden-wild. You tease me like an experienced coquette, but were I to take up the offer in your smile you'd bolt in terror. In God's name, Judith, make up your mind!' He swallowed down the wine and picked up the flagon.

Her gaze widened. 'Where are you going?' she Her gaze widened. 'Where are you going?' she said breathlessly.

'To think,' he said with a twisted smile. 'Don't wait up for me.'

The curtain dropped behind him. Melyn stretched in a leisurely fashion, eyed her mistress from golden agate slits and padded to sit expectantly at her feet. Judith scooped her up, buried her cheek in the thick, soft fur and refused to cry.

In the event, Guyon did very little thinking. He took his flagon to the guardroom, sat down, propped his feet on the trestle and with relief, was soon thoroughly absorbed in the convivial, vulgar gossip of his soldiers. It was a long time since he had spent an evening thus and, besides relishing the salty, masculine conversation, he was able to bring himself abreast of current marcher gossip. Walbert of Seisdon's wife was pregnant yet again. One of the mill s at Elford had a broken grindstone. The remains of a butchered deer had been found in the woods on Ravenstow's border with Wales. Robert de Belleme had brought a grey Flemish stall ion to run with his native mares.

Robert de Belleme had offered the widow of Ralph de Serigny in marriage to Walter de Lacey.

Guyon's face emerged abruptly from the depths of his cup. 'What?'

'It's true, sire. My sister's married to a Serigny retainer and is a seamstress up at the keep. Regular upset it has caused, I can tell you.'

Guyon wiped his mouth and removed his feet from the trestle. 'You are telling me that Walter de Lacey is to marry Mabell de Serigny?'

'Yes, sire. Not common knowledge yet, but it soon will be.'

'Imagine waking up wi' that in bed beside you.'

'De Lacey won't be too impressed himself!' quipped the joker in their ranks to a response of loud groans.

De Bec leaned over to refill Guyon's cup. 'De Serigny's estates are rich,' he said. 'Mabel's dowry was huge and Sir Ralph a regular miser.'

Guyon sent him a look that said far more than words, then he drank. 'Do you think he'll invite me to the wedding?' he asked.

'More likely the funeral,' grunted de Bec.

'Mabel's not likely to outlive her second husband, is she?'

Guyon pursed his lips. The Serigny lands and the keep at Thornford lay on Ravenstow's south-west border, separated from Wales by a deep, defensive ditch. There were other keeps in the honour too, forming part of the fortifications ringing Shrewsbury and, coupled with what de Lacey already possessed, it would make him a baron of some considerable standing along the middle marches and increase threefold the threat he posed to Guyon's interests.

One step forward and two steps back, Guyon thought, staring at a puddle of wine on the trestle.

'You'd better tighten up on the patrols,' he said to de Bec. 'I don't want him cutting his new-found teeth on my borders.'

'You reckon he would, sire?'

'Depends on how much backing he gets from de Belleme and how good a grievance he can find to start a war. Knowing our respective overlords, I do not suppose an excuse will be long in presenting itself.' Grimly, he held out his cup to be refilled. 'Do you think de Lacey will celebrate his nuptials with a boar hunt?' Prudently, de Bec forbore to answer.