The Wild Hunt

CHAPTER 4

Guyon drew rein and, while the herald rode forward to announce him formally, stared up at the limewashed keep, gleaming against the heavy grey clouds and wind-whipped tussocks on its slope.

'I must be mad,' he muttered as the drawbridge thumped down across the ditch and, beyond, the serjeants in the gate-house made shrift to raise the portcullis and open the door into hell .

Foreboding scuttled down Guyon's spine. One of the most impregnable keeps along the northern march Ravenstow might be, desirable in the extreme, but for two pins he would have ridden away and left it. But as there were more than two pins at stake, he heeled Arian's flanks and the stall ion stepped delicately on to the planks. Cadi bounded joyously forward with no such reservations, and Guyon whistled her sternly to heel.

'The Welsh won't take this in a hurry,' Miles said as they turned at a sharp angle to ride between the outer defences and the palisade of the inner bailey before turning again to enter the inner court through a second gateway.

Guyon grunted in reply and studied the formidable defences with a jaundiced eye, appreciating their strength even while he felt revulsion. If only Robert de Belleme was not so closely connected with the place, he would have been much easier of conscience and mind.

Upon dismounting, they were greeted by an officious little man in a scarlet silk robe that embraced his paunch and made him look as if he were heavily pregnant. Behind him stood a taller, iron-thewed greybeard in full armour and a welcoming party of what looked like the more prominent vassals and household knights.

'God's greeting my lords, and welcome,' said the paunch in red silk, hands clasped together like a supplicant. 'I am Richard FitzWarren, chamberlain to the lady Alicia, and this is her constable, Michell de Bec ...'

Guyon forced himself to listen and look polite as he was introduced one by one to all the members of the group. It was politic to remember names, since it was a valuable asset when it came to handling their owners, but it gave him cause to wonder what was amiss that the constable and his underling should emerge to greet them instead of the hostess herself and then freeze them here in the bailey, drivelling of matters that could wait.

Glancing briefly beyond the men while he made acknowledgement, he noticed a woman hurrying from the forebuilding towards them, her manner agitated. Her cloak was fur-lined and her rose-coloured gown shimmered beneath it as she moved. Exposed below her veil, her braids were a handspan thick and lustrous as jet.

'The lady Alicia,' Miles said in a tone of voice that caused Guyon to divert his gaze and eye his father sharply instead.

She approached the men with a fixed smile on her lips and a slightly desperate expression in her eyes. 'I am sorry, my lords, I should have been here to greet you. I apologise for my lack. The more I try, the more obstacles seem to be cast in my path. Forgive me, welcome now, and come within, I pray you.' She gestured with an open hand.

'What is wrong, my lady?' Miles asked. 'Can we be of service?

Alicia drew breath to deny, but then let it out on a heavy sigh. 'Nothing of great import, my lords.

The guests are squabbling; the cook has just tipped boiling lard all over the spit boy and the bread is burnt to cinders. The maids don't know their heads from their heels; my constable, when told to play for time, keeps you standing in the ward in the cold as I am doing now; and to season the stew, my daughter has taken fright and run off heaven knows where. Otherwise, everything is as normal as you would expect for a wedding so quickly arranged.'

Miles stifled a grin. Guyon started to ask a question, but the words were driven from his mind as Cadi gave a bark of antagonistic joy and sprang from his side to hurtle across the ward towards a girl who was trying to slink unnoticed around the side of the forebuilding, and would have succeeded were it not for the dog.

The cat that was curled around her shoulders became a hissing arch of erect orange fur. The bitch launched herself at the girl, who overbalanced and sat down hard on the muddy bailey floor. A feline paw flashed. Blood sprang to the accompaniment of an anguished yelp. The cat leaped over the dog, avoiding the belated snap of her teeth, whisked, through the legs of a startled guard and into the keep.

Hampered by her gown, Judith floundered to rise. A swift glance around made her wish that she had been knocked unconscious. The grooms, guards and kitchen maids on errands were gawping in horrified delight. Her mother's face as she bore down upon her was set like stone. Someone sniggered. She closed her eyes, decided that shutting out the situation was not going to make it go away and opened them again upon a neatly built greying man of middle years who had overtaken Alicia to set a hand beneath her elbow.

'I take this for an omen,' he chuckled. 'You and my son are bound to fight like cat and dog and scandalise the entire castle!'

Judith gaped at him too stunned to respond.

Her father would have shaken her for this until her teeth rattled.

'No more than you and mama ever did!' a younger man retorted amiably, appearing beside them, his fingers gripped around the white dog's collar as she strove, forepaws flailing, to pursue her quarry into the keep. 'It is my fault,' he owned with a smile. 'Cadi's still a pup and has yet to learn her manners.'

Judith looked down. He was beautiful and unreal. A courtier, a gilded image with a voice as smooth as dark mead. Her uncle Robert was handsome and smooth too, and rotten to the core beneath the gilding, and her fear increased.

Having delivered Judith to the bower to repair the ravages of the first encounter between bride and groom, Alicia summoned her courage and returned to the hall to attend to her guests.

Miles le Gallois smiled and waved his hand at her apology. 'It is already to be an irregular wedding,' he said. 'I am sure my son's memory of his first encounter with his bride will remain vivid for the rest of his life.'

Alicia cast a glance over her shoulder to where Guyon was giving the dog into the temporary care of one of his knights, then returned her attention to Miles. 'You are laughing at me, my lord.'

'I may be.'

Her mouth began to curve. She straightened it.

'Judith is anxious,' she said. 'Tonight she will be a wife, when this morning she was a child.'

Miles sobered. 'Guyon has a sister and nieces and is by no means green about women.'

'So we hear,' Alicia replied waspishly, and then shook her head. 'No surprise when you consider his looks and the ways of the court.'

'I am not at court now, my lady,' Guyon said, joining them.

Alicia jumped. He moved as softly as Judith's cat.

'You need not fear,' Guyon continued. 'I promise I will treat your daughter with every respect and courtesy.'

'Judith is young, but she is quick to learn and quite capable of managing a household,' Alicia replied, recovering herself. 'If she appeared in a bad light just now, it is because she has been unsettled by her father's death and this sudden change in her situation.'

In other words, Guyon thought wryly, she was a resentful, frightened little girl who would take a deal of delicate handling if anything was to be salvaged from the morass.

The wine arrived, and with it Hugh d'Avrenches, Earl of Chester, thus sparing Guyon the need to make Alicia a reply.

'It is bound to be difficult at first,' Miles said to Alicia as Guyon lent a relieved ear to what his neighbour had to say concerning the Welsh alliances of the region. 'Given different circumstances, there would have been the time we all need.'

'Given different circumstances,' Alicia said with a side-long look at Guyon, 'there would have been no arrangement at all , would there?'

Lost for a reply, Miles lifted his cup and drank.

Guyon looked at the girl to whom he had just bound himself in Ravenstow's freezing chapel, his vows committing him to her protection for the rest of his life, no matter how short that might now be.

Her own voice making the responses had been tremulous and more than once swallowed in tears.

He had felt the daggers in men's eyes as they witnessed his marriage. Arnulf of Pembroke had barely been civil in greeting and Walter de Lacey was sneeringly hostile. Judith's face was turned towards him, awaiting the sacrificial kiss of tradition. The high cheekbones gave a distinctly feline expression to her eyes, which were a peculiar mingling of brown upon grey like water in spate.

Dear Christ, what had he sold himself into?

Probably an early grave, he thought as he slipped his arm around her waist. She was rigid and trembling beneath the glowing green damask. It was a grown woman's gown cladding the thin frame of a child and he knew that he could no more bed with her tonight than he could with one of his nieces. He kissed her cheek as he would a vassal, the touch brief and impersonal. Her skin smelled faintly of rosewater, and her hair of the rosemary and camomile in which it had been washed for the wedding.

Judith shuddered at the contact and Guyon immediately released her. Together they turned to receive the congratulations of the guests and witnesses; few in number because of the hasty arrangements, to Judith they seemed a claustrophobic throng.

The entire occasion for her was a nightmare endured through a fog. Sporadically the mist would lift to reveal a sharply coloured tableau with herself bound victim at its centre. The awful moment when the dog had sent her flying, her arrival at the chapel, the faces turned towards her, their expressions stamped with speculation, with pity, with predatory greed. Now, clearly, she could see her hand resting upon her husband's dark sleeve, her wedding ring of Welsh gold proclaiming his ownership. She was as much his property now as his horse or that dog, to be used and abused as he chose.

The guests mingled in the great hall . Below the dais they danced in honour of the bride and groom. Guyon watched his new wife perform the steps with one of Ravenstow's neighbours. Ralph de Serigny was another of de Belleme's vassals, a thoroughly disagreeable, parsimonious old ferret who, according to Alicia, was only here in order to eat and drink at another's expense. As his borders marched with Ravenstow's on the Welsh boundary, it had been necessary to invite him lest he take offence. His wife, apparently, was dull -witted and had been left at home tended by her women. At least, Guyon thought half smiling, if Ralph de Serigny was only here to eat, drink and escape his wife, he was a deal more welcome than certain others claiming the right of hospitality at his wedding.

The dance progressed and Judith was passed on to the arm of her uncle, Arnulf de Montgomery.

He had a nose like a pitted stone and possessed a dour, unsmiling character. De Montgomery had none of Robert de Belleme's charisma or genius but was the owner of a low, dull cunning. Not having the inventiveness to scheme, he was sufficiently shrewd to attach himself to the plots of others if there was benefit to himself - a man to be watched from the eye corners, frank confrontation not being his style. But how did one look before and behind and to the side at one and the same time?

De Montgomery swept his niece into the clutch of Walter de Lacey who was waiting at the end of the line. The younger man pulled her against his lean body, caught her wrist and turned her around. Judith's face wore a fixed smile. His hand lingered at her waist and he murmured something against her ear.

'More oil than you'd find in an entire olive grove,' muttered the Earl of Chester from the corner of his mouth. Guyon glanced round and up. Hugh d'Avrenches, known as Hugh le Gros on account of his enormous height and girth, was the ugliest man Guyon had ever seen and even now, long acquaintance had not bred the indifference of familiarity.

He had small , hooded eyes of watery pale blue.

His cheeks were pendulous red-veined jowls and his mouth was small and soft with a sweet, surprisingly childlike smile, the similarity enhanced by the gap where his two upper front teeth were missing. He cultivated a jolly, bumbling personality to match his gross figure and the unwary stepped in, never thinking of the dangers lurking beneath the shallows. A good friend, an implacable enemy.

'Enough to slip his feet from under him, I would say,' Guyon agreed.

Hugh d'Avrenches folded his arms and regarded Guyon with a twinkling stare. 'Good soldier, though. He led a competent command on the Mon campaign.'

Guyon's lip curled. 'He also amused himself with torture and the rape of girls not old enough to be women.'

The Earl shrugged. 'We all have our own little foibles and sometimes tortured men can be made to sing a very pretty tune.'

Guyon's nostrils flared. 'Yes,' he said without inflection.

Chester laid a hand on Guyon's shoulder. 'Son, you're too finicky and you can't afford the luxury of principles in the present company.'

Guyon watched Walter de Lacey set his hands on Judith's hips and swing her round. The stiff smile on her face threatened to shatter. 'I realise that. De Lacey offered for the girl himself shortly before her father was killed; he had de Belleme's sanction to the suit.'

Chester pursed his soft, small lips. 'Did he so?'

He eyed the dancers with interest. 'He'll bear watching then, because it doesn't look as though he's willing to concede you the victory.'

Guyon turned and his gaze narrowed in anger.

The music had finished on a flourish and Walter de Lacey had pulled Judith hard to his chest and was kissing her passionately on the mouth, one hand roving and probing the curve of her buttocks. Guyon swore, thrust his wine into the Earl's hastily held out paw and stalked across the room to reclaim his bride.

'The privilege is mine, I believe,' he said icily as he forced himself between de Lacey and Judith. 'I do not want the wedding guests to confuse the identity of the bridegroom.'

De Lacey bestowed on Guyon a snarled smile.

'I doubt they are in any confusion, my lord. Be welcome to the wench while you have the wherewithal.'

'And guard yours if you wish to keep it intact, and mind with whom you drink.' He snapped his fingers at the musicians, who fumbled and then struck up a lively carole. Guyon held out his arm to Judith.

She pressed her lips together and shook her head. 'I cannot,' she muttered. 'My lord, I ... I think I am going to ...' She clapped her hand to her mouth.

Her face reflected the green of her gown.

Taking her arm, Guyon propelled her out of the hall , ignoring salacious remarks and concerned enquiries alike.

Outside it had begun to snow. Judith leaned miserably against the wall of the forebuilding and vomited until her stomach was empty and her muscles ached. The feel of de Lacey's tongue slithering slug-like around her mouth had filled her with shuddering revulsion. She could still taste him, feel his hand digging into her buttocks, forefinger slyly probing, and the hard thrust of his pelvis against her belly and loins. It had been horrible. Tonight she must endure that and worse in her marriage bed.

'Did he hurt you?'

She shook her head, unable to speak.

'There are always men like him,' her new husband said contemptuously. 'It was thrown down to me by way of a challenge. I am sorry that he chose to use you as his gage.'

Judith bit her lip and wished that he would go away. The snow floated down.

'You need not be afraid of me, child,' he said gently. 'I will do you no harm.'

'I am not a child!' she snarled at him, jerking away. Sleeving her eyes, she wondered if he would hit her.

He touched her shoulder. 'I know it is hard for you.'

Judith raised her chin. 'Do you, my lord?' she demanded flatly.

'You have been forced into a match made for the purposes of others and to a partner you had not set eyes upon before today. How should you not be afraid and resentful? I understand more than you think.'

She gave him a surprised look. Whatever else she had expected, it was not this rueful candour. It had not occurred to her that the resentment was mutual, that he might not want her rich lands and the burdens that accompanied them, not least herself.

He applied gentle pressure to her shoulder with his fingertips until she turned hesitantly to face him.

'I have said you need not fear me for any reason... The bedding ceremony, it worries you?'

Judith looked down, wondering where all this was leading. She did not desire a lesson in enlightenment, no matter how kindly meant.

Guyon took her downcast silence for modest assent. 'The first part is something that will have to be borne. The second we can abandon. Rape has never appealed to me.'

'I ... I know my duty, my lord,' she stammered.

'I have no doubt, but it would be rape all the same and I prefer the pleasure to be mutual. In your own time, fy Cath fach.' He lightly brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. She lifted her lids, eyes torn between relief and doubt.

'You truly mean that, my lord?' He had called her a small cat - a kitten.

'I would be a fool if I did not. There is enough on your trencher already without burdening your body so young.'

Judith wiped her eyes again and sniffed. 'I am not always such a wet fish my lord, truly,' she excused. 'It is just that I was so afraid. Before you came, I almost threw myself off the headland ...

And then, when I saw you ...' she looked at her toes. The snow whispered down. 'I was even more afraid.'

He looked nonplussed. 'I gave you no cause, surely!'

Judith screwed up her face. She could not say that she knew how a flower must feel when it turns towards the sun only to find its blaze too hot to be endured. 'I did not know what you would think of me, sprawled in the mud at your feet.'

'Unique,' he chuckled. 'No girl has ever tried to claim my attention like that before!'

With fortuitous timing, Melyn appeared from one of the storesheds and walked daintily over to Judith and Guyon, her ginger tail carried erect.

Before Judith could scoop her up from the settling snow, Melyn came to her own decision and sprang with practised ease on to Guyon's shoulder, hooking her claws firmly into tunic and shirt to retain her grip. Guyon winced.

Judith's eyes widened in dismay.

'You live dangerously, puss,' Guyon addressed the cat, but he made no move to dislodge her as he turned towards the steps. 'Your mistress values your life, but I am not necessarily of the same mind. You may keep your claws to yourself.'

He looked at Judith over his unoccupied shoulder and winked. 'Come,' he coaxed. 'Let us see what our guests think of my new fur collar.'

Alicia saw Guyon enter the hall with Judith at his side and breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief.

Whatever he had said or done outside had obviously been the right thing. The rigidity had left Judith's body and her eyes had lost their wild expression.

'What in God's name has Guy got on his shoulder?' Miles laughed.

Alicia gave a cluck of amused annoyance. 'That cat has no sense of propriety, although how she comes to be there I don't know. Usually she avoids men. They tend to kick her or bellow when she gets underfoot.'

'A good sign then,' Miles said.

'Not necessarily. I have heard that women are particularly susceptible to your son's brand of charm. Melyn is perhaps just another she-cat bedazzled by her instincts.'

Miles grinned, but shook his head. 'Guy's reputation far outmatches his deeds. I'm not saying he's an angel, far from it, but tales become exaggerated in the telling and part of it when at court is self-defence, the King being what he is.'

Alicia made a gesture of self-irritation. 'Only this morning, I rebuked Agnes for listening to gossip and here I am no better. I am a mother hen fussing over her chick.' She sighed and gave him a pensive look. She felt worn out, but knew she couldn't yield to her exhaustion.

'Guyon will treat Judith with all honour,' Miles said. Taking her arm, he led her to a bench set into the thickness of the wall .

'I am sure he will .' Alicia paused, looked at Miles and suddenly poured out her main concern.

'But she is so young and inexperienced. Even if more than half the tales told of your son are untrue, that still leaves a wealth of living in the other part and he is a full twelve years older ... a man. What do I do if she comes screaming to me on the morrow that she will have no more to do with him? It will break my heart. I remember leaning over the latrine hole, sick with revulsion and praying to die after my own wedding night — after what Maurice visited on me.'

'Then Guy's experience is to the good. He will not force her and, as you have seen, he is capable of charming the birds - or cats - down from the trees.' He frowned at her. 'Have you said anything to Judith to give her a distaste for coupling?'

Alicia drew herself up. 'I am not stupid. More harm than good would come of that, although I fear her attitude has been tainted by her father's behaviour. Slaps and curses and drunken rough handling have not led her to view the state of marriage in a very favourable light. She may find joy; I pray she does, but it is a fickle world.'

'You have little cause to like men, either of you.'

'I do not need your pity, my lord,' Alicia said curtly. Her eyes went to Judith where she stood at Guyon's side. The tawny hair had taken on a fiery glint from the glow of the candles and, with that half-smile on her face and the way her head was tilted, Alicia saw Judith's father for a fleeting instant most clearly. 'No,' she said, a hard smile on her lips. 'I have had my moment of glory and it pays for all that Maurice did to me. My concern is with Judith now. I can see she has a leopard by the tail and must either tame it or become its prey. I know her capable, her blood dictates it so, but she is young for the challenge, perhaps too young.'

Miles gave her a sidelong look and wished that Christen or Emma were here; they would have known instinctively what to say or do, but the former was beyond him for ever and the latter had been summoned to the court by her husband. 'I'll fetch wine,' he muttered, and went to accost a servant.

Alicia drew several deep breaths and controlled herself, aware that Miles was regarding her as he might a skittish horse. If she gained that kind of reputation, she would be shunned or sold off to another marriage and then locked up, conveniently labelled a lackwit like Ralph de Serigny's poor wife.

Miles returned with the wine. She took it from him and looked out over the assembled guests. 'I am not usually so overwrought,' she said ruefuly.

'I did not think that you were.'

'Nevertheless you panicked.'

Miles laughed and rubbed the back of his neck. 'A little,' he admitted.

Alicia tasted the wine and set it down. She needed a clear head, for as hostess she was required to mingle among the guests and there was still the bedding ceremony to organise. The humour left her face at the thought and her glance sought out the newly-weds. Melyn had draped herself comfortably around Guyon's neck and half closed her eyes. His hand sat lightly at Judith's waist. She was saying something to him and his head was cocked attentively, although his gaze was elsewhere, sifting and assessing, paring down, focusing on Walter de Lacey and Arnulf of Pembroke even as he answered Judith with a smile. Alicia shivered and offered up a silent prayer. A leopard by the tail indeed.

Judith stood obediently calm, raising and lowering her limbs as Agnes dictated until she stood naked in the bedchamber that had belonged to her parents. The bed had been aired and made up with crisp new linen sheets. Dried herbs to perfume the clothes and promote fertility had been liberally strewn over the bed and the priest had sprinkled holy water everywhere. The droplets on her body made her shiver. Agnes finished combing down Judith's hair and draped a bedrobe around her shoulders.

The female guests crooned and clucked around the bride, turning the room into a hen house.

Judith stared at the wall , feeling as numb as the coffer across which her clothes had been draped.

Someone giggled a piece of advice in her ear.

Someone else of a more practical mind thrust a pot of dead nettle salve into her hand, an ointment used to soothe the female passage after childbed and other rough treatment.

'I won't need this,' she said and looked round in surprise at the laughter. Fear returned to claim her, and uncertainty. She did not know if she could trust Guyon. What if he went back on his word? What if he used her as brutally as her father had been wont to use her mother? Men lied. She couldn't help the whimper that escaped from her throat.

As her mother tried to comfort her the curtain was flurried aside and the room was suddenly full of men, most of them less than sober, their jokes bawdy, crude and raucous. Judith withdrew into the mist again. She did not hear the jests. She did not feel them removing her bedrobe and tugging her to the bed, nor the cup of spiced hippocras that was pressed into her hand to replace the pot of salve. The pink silk of her mother's embrace was a haven but as she tried to cling to it, it was abruptly gone with a sound very much like a sob. Sounds faded to silence.

She stared at the wall . The cup of hippocras shook in her hand.

Leaning over, Guyon gently removed the cup.

Judith blinked and refocused. Like herself he was naked, his torso lean but powerfully muscled and marked with minor battle scars. Her gaze skimmed over and fled from the curling mat of dark hair at his groin and its nestling occupants.

He set the cup down beside the pot of salve, quirking a brow at the latter, then swung on his heel and padded to the curtain. She heard him speak a command in Welsh and then an endearment and her interest sharpened.

'Cadi might hate cats, but she makes an excellent guard dog,' he explained with a grin as he returned to the bed. 'Not that she'll bite anyone, but she'll greet them with such enthusiasm that we'll have warning enough of eavesdroppers.'

Judith smiled wanly. Her eyes flickered again to his crotch. Guyon sought out his indoor cloak, swept it around himself and handed Judith her chemise from an arm's length distance. She took it and struggled clumsily into the garment, feeling all fingers and thumbs.

Guyon paced over to the narrow window and pulled back the hide covering to look out on a slit of whirling white darkness. 'I meant what I said, Cath fach, ' he murmured without turning round.

'You need not fear me.'

The logs in the hearth crackled and settled. 'I am not afraid,' Judith lied, clutching the bedrobe across her breasts.

'No?' He glanced over his shoulder.

'Well , only a little. I know mama and the others meant well , but they besieged me with their good advice.'

'Such as pots of salve,' he said and, pinning back the hide, turned around. She was watching him anxiously, like a dog desiring desperately to please but afraid of being kicked. Her tawny hair tumbled over the coverlet taking on ruddy highlights from the fire, and was really quite attractive. Her eyes were mingled grey and brown like the muddy water churning beneath the battlements and equally full of turbulence. A veil of honey-gold freckles dappled her face and throat and, for an infinitesimal moment, she reminded Guyon of someone else. The impression, however, was too fleeting to be caught as she moved her head, changing the play of light on the angles of bone.

'My mother is skilled in herb lore,' she said. 'So it would seem,' he said drily. 'Do you have the same competence?'

'She has taught me what she knows.'

He poured himself some wine from the flagon left on the chest and, returning to the bed with it, seated himself on the end and considered her.

'So if I cut my arm with a blade, what would you do?'

'Self-inflicted? I would dose you with valerian to rectify your disordered wits!' she answered with spirit and then, at his silence, sobered and looked down, thinking that she had gone too far.

'No, inflicted by the blade of my wife's tongue!'

he chuckled, 'which I hazard is as keen as a sword once unsheathed!'

Judith eyed him warily, but saw nothing in his face to contradict the honesty of his amusement.

'If it was a deep wound,' she said, 'I would sprinkle it with powdered comfrey root to ease the bleeding, then stitch it and bind it with a piece of mouldy bread.'

'Mouldy bread!'

'It is a remedy handed down from Grandma FitzOsbern and it usually works. Deep wounds heal cleanly without going proud or filling with pus.

The main danger is from the stiffening sickness. If the wound was only a scratch, I would clean it with water in which pine needles had been steeped and then smear it with honey and bind as necessary.'

Guyon studied her as she spoke so earnestly and fought a battle to keep his amusement from showing on his face. In itself, the information was interesting and her obviously detailed knowledge showed that Alicia was justified in commending her daughter's skill . It was just so incongruous that this slender willow-twig of a girl with all her innocence and uncertainty should hold forth like a grey-haired matron of sedentary years.

The incongruity continued to deepen as he fur the r explored her knowledge of matters domestic. He learned the best way to salt pork and hang sausages, exactly how much madder was required to dye cloth a certain shade of red and which water to use, the correct ingredients to make a venison ragout, how to buy spices without being cheated. He almost choked on his wine when she began to explain to him the best way to go about honing a sword.

'Your mother taught you that too!'

'Of course not!' she retorted, tone indignant now that she had gained a spark of confidence. 'De Bec showed me last winter when we were snowed in. He showed me how to use a knife too... Are you all right my lord?'

Guyon wiped his streaming eyes, speechless between laughter and coughing. 'God's eyes!' he croaked at last. 'When I said that this marriage would kill me, I never thought that you would be the hazard!'

'My lord?'

He waved her away as she leaned towards him, her face full of concern. 'Do you number riding among your many talents too?' he asked after a moment, when he had contained his mirth.

Judith shook her head regretfully. 'Mama prefers to travel by litter and my father said it was a waste of time for a girl to master a saddle when she should be at her distaff. I know a little, but not enough to venture out on more than the most docile rouncy - but I am willing to learn.'

'Good. There are several estates in my honours that are not negotiable by litter.'

'You intend taking me, my lord?'

He lay full length on the bed, plumping up the bolster and pillows to support his back. Judith moved away, but with more wariness than fear.

'My parents always went together and the people have become used to the arrangement. Besides,'

he added with a smile, 'there is nothing like the imminent visit of a chatelaine to set a manor humming with industry.'

Judith stirred uneasily. 'My lord, I fear I will not be equal to the burden you lay on me.'

'If you can sharpen a sword and dagger-fight your way out of a corner, you are wholly capable of handling anything else I ask of you!'

She looked doubtful. True, she could manage Ravenstow efficiently. It had been drilled into her without surcease ever since she could remember, but to venture further, tackle people and situations she did not know, that was daunting. It was easy for him to speak. He was a marcher lord with access to the royal ear, his experience far beyond hers.

'Trust me,' he said and kissed her cheek lightly as he might have done to a child. The gesture magically bolstered her flagging resolve and she sat up straight.

Her chemise gaped open at the neck affording Guyon a glimpse of her breasts, scarcely raised from her narrow ribcage. Judith saw the direction of his gaze, and hastily fastened the ties, colour scorching her face.

There was an uncomfortable silence. Guyon bit his tongue to avoid being unkind. He would need to be desperate to take advantage, and he was far from that. Tonight was probably the least amorous he had ever felt when alone with an available young woman.

'Do you have a mistress, my lord?'

'What!' Once more he found himself utterly thrown off balance. 'What kind of question is that!'

'Do not be angry with me, my lord!' She held out a supplicating hand. The fingers were long and elegant and not at all the hands of a child. 'It is only that I do not want to make mistakes. Mama once threw out one of my father's women for insolence and my father beat both of them when he found out.'

Guyon looted disgusted. 'Your father was a fool and a tyrant. I am surprised that with all your knowledge of simples, one of you did not seek to spice his food with monkshood.'

'And have Uncle Robert assure our welfare?

How long do you think we would live?'

He grimaced and finished the wine. 'No, Cathfach, since you ask, I do not have a mistress. I did have but we parted last month. The borders are no longer safe for her to travel in her father's wool train and, being Welsh, she would not be constrained within one of my keeps.' He shrugged and looked down at his hands, remembering them lost in the black waterfall of Rhosyn's hair. 'A marcher lord and a girl from the Welsh hill s. Such matches are fleeting at the most.'

Judith swallowed, wishing that she had not asked the question.

'Even if Rhosyn had agreed to live a Norman life, there are still such things as courtesy and discretion,' he said after a moment. 'It is neither considerate nor far-sighted to have a mistress and a wife beneath the same roof. Grief is bound to come of it.'

Judith nodded sensibly. It never occurred to her that Guyon would be faithful. Her father had been lecherous and indiscriminate in his ruttings and the friends and vassals who dined at his board, the same. Discretion was not a word they knew.

Gratitude was an emotion Judith seldom felt.

'You are kind, my lord.'

He shrugged. 'Not necessarily, but I have had no choice but to learn the ways of women. My sister rules her roost and she has three daughters, all of them lively, and Rhosyn has a daughter too, Eluned. One learns to tread with care.'

He spoke with such obvious affection for his womenfolk that another shard of fear broke from the frozen lump at Judith's core and dissolved away. 'Will you tell me about your family, my lord?

The marriage was arranged so quickly that I know very little.'

Guyon obliged. It was safer ground than talk of mistresses, or so in his ignorance he thought.

Indeed, all went sweetly until he spoke of his half-sister Emma and her marriage to a royal official.

From there, the conversation drifted into the murkier waters surrounding life at court.

'De Bec says that the King is a ...' Judith caught herself just in time from committing another fauxpas. 'A mincing ferblet' was not a safe remark.

Guyon had not missed her sudden dismayed check. He could well guess the reason. Rufus's tendencies were common guardroom scandal and one did not learn how to sharpen a sword and fight with knife without ingesting gossip.

It was not really amusing, not when the King, who was short, portly and red complexioned, preferred his partners to be tall , honed and possessed of dark good looks. On several occasions the royal groin had stood in imminent danger of damage from Guyon's knee. That had been in the early days before he discovered the amicable company of the ambitious Prince Henry and that the occasional night spent carousing with him amid women of doubtful character, and wine of opposite excellence, was sufficient to dampen Rufus's ardour and send him in pursuit of more co-operative game.

'... De Bec says that the King spends more money on clothes in one week than mama would be all owed to spend in an entire year,' Judith amended, regarding him anxiously.

Guyon chuckled. 'Rufus likes to think that he spends more on his wardrobe than other men, but he is outwitted by his own vanity. Last time I was at court my brother-in-law, who was dressing him, fetched him a pair of gilded leather boots. Rufus asked how much they cost, so Richard told him.

Rufus was furious and demanded that he go away and find a pair that were worth a full mark of silver, claiming that those he had been offered were fit only for shovelling dung.' His laughter deepened. 'I do not tell a tale like Richard; he had the alehouse in uproar!'

'What happened?'

'Richard went away, found a hideous red pair with green fringing that cost less than the first pair and took them to Rufus, telling him they were the most expensive boots he could lay hands on.'

'And Rufus swallowed the bait?'

'Well , he paraded round all day in them, thinking himself a peacock and looking like a Southwark pimp and Richard pocketed the profit. God knows if the tale has got back to Rufus yet. I'd hate to be in Richard's boots when it does!'

Judith made a face at his weak pun and then laughed, the sound a delicious feminine tumble of notes, as surprising to Guyon as the fine strength of her hands.

'Tell me about de Bec,' he said when they had ceased laughing at the royal vanity. 'How long has he been here at Ravenstow?'

'He arrived soon after the main keep began to go up, the year before I was born, I think. My father was away fighting the Welsh and it was my mother who employed him.'

'And he has been her man ever since?'

'Whenever it has been possible. If he had defied my father's authority he would have been straight away dismissed and he is too old to travel the roads with his sword for hire.' She gave him a concerned look. 'You do not intend to turn him out, my lord? He is most loyal and he knows this keep better than any man alive ... saving my uncle Robert of course.'

'No, of course I do not intend turning him out — unless he proves unsatisfactory to my own assessment. Seventeen years of service are not dismissed lightly.' He made a face. 'I am not so sure about your constable however.'

Judith tossed her head. 'FitzWarren's all right.

Dry as dust and too full of his own importance by half, but he's loyal and very efficient. He can conjure a feast out of nothing - I've seen him do it, and his accounts are meticulous.'

'I am sure they are. It just troubles me as to where he obtains the wealth to clothe himself in scarlet sarcenet.'

'It was my father's, new last Candlemas. He and FitzWarren were much of a height. Mama gave it to him after the funeral. You can see the account roll s on the morrow if you want ... Oh, do you read and write?'

'Both. Do you?'

'A little, my lord.' Actually, it was considerably more than a little, gleaned from the household scribe on cold winter days and polished in private moments to an astute skill , but most men preferred their women to dwell in ignorance, or at least in more ignorance than themselves.

'After the hunt tomorrow you can show me - I don't want FitzWarren standing at my shoulder watching me even if he is honest.' He glanced towards the shutters. 'If there is a hunt, with all this snow blowing about.'

Judith stretched and yawned. The wine had made her eyes heavy and it was very late.

Guyon glanced at her. He was not averse to the prospect of sleep himself, for the day had been long and fraught and the morrow seemed set to continue the same. He leaned over and pinched out the night candle and in the darkness removed his cloak. Fabric slid silkily against skin as Judith shed her own garment and burrowed down beneath the covers.

' Nos da, Cath fach,' he said compassionately.

' Nos da, fy gwr,' she replied in passable Welsh.

Guyon mentally added the skill of language to her numerous talents and wondered how in God's name an oaf like Maurice FitzRoger had managed to beget a child like this. His last thought before sleep claimed him, and not to be remembered in the morning, was that perhaps Maurice had not begotten her at all .