The Wild Hunt Part 14

She watched his face, waiting for the revulsion, but it did not come. It was a blank mask behind which any thought could have lurked. She covered her face and turned away.

After a moment, Miles mustered his wits. She was trembling so hard that he thought her flesh would s.h.i.+ver free of her bones. He laid a firm hand on her shoulder. 'It makes no difference to me,' he said finally. 'It is in the past and, knowing him, even at fourteen he was no innocent to be seduced unless he so wished.'

Alicia swallowed, remembering how it had been. She with a plan half formed, afraid to dare, and he with his mind already made up.

'So you will marry me?'

Alicia removed her hands tentatively from her face and looked at him. 'How can you say it makes no difference? I set out deliberately to cheat my husband. I bedded with a boy whose voice had barely broken, I--'

'You flay yourself with guilt,' he interrupted, capturing her hands in his. 'I do not doubt you.

The Welsh have a saying: Oer yw'r cariad addiffydd ar un chwa o wynt. Cold is the love that is put out by one gust of wind. I have taken women to my bed for the comfort and the pleasure they offer, never out of forced desperation. I account your sin the lesser.'

Alicia's mouth trembled with a smile. 'You are very persistent, my lord.'

'It's the mix of Welsh and Norman blood,' he agreed cheerfully.

She shook her head and sniffed. 'I cannot give you an answer. I am so confused that I do not know my head from my heels.'

He put out his hand as if to touch her, but let it drop again to his side, aware of how much was at stake. It was like stalking a deer. Softly, slowly and no sudden moves. 'Perhaps you should remove to your dower lands,' he said thoughtfully.

'It will give you time to think.'

Alicia stepped away from his disturbing proximity. It was obvious that his own mind was made up. She had shown him the black secret lurking at the bottom of her soul and he had dismissed it as of no consequence, still valuing her enough to offer her marriage. It was the first time she had felt her worth to be above that of a mere chattel. A pity it was thirty years too late.

'I hazard you do not often lose an argument,'

she said.

'It depends on the subject.' He gestured. 'I could escort you home if you wish it. I have business with Hugh of Chester, but I could take you when I return, say in four days' time' return, say in four days' time'

'And if I say no?' Her tone was sharp, for she received the distinct impression that she was being manipulated in the direction he desired her to go.

'I'll have to think of something else, won't I?' he replied, still smiling.

CHAPTER 13.

It was fortunate for Guyon that the journey into Wales proved uneventful, for he felt as though his brains had swollen to twice their size and were thumping the cage of his skull in a vigorous attempt to escape. It was a long, long time since he had fall en victim to an overindulgence of wine.

Since quitting the court, he had held to sobriety and his capacity to drink had thus diminished.

He knew he had not been considerate of Judith, but her sulky expression, her frown as he mounted up to ride out and his own malaise had not lent him the inclination to tug her braid or smile and bear with her. The guilt and the knowledge that he would have to make amends and somehow smooth their differences when he returned only made his headache worse, while his stomach churned like a dyer's vat.

By the time they reached the hafod it was full noon, the sun s.h.i.+mmering the men's mail to fish scales of light, dazzling the eye. Madoc, in his heavy wool en gown with coney trim was as red as clay, sweat dribbling down his face so that he looked as if he were melting.

Guyon tethered his grey to a post in the yard and then, his skull feeling as if it would split asunder, removed his helm and followed Madoc over the threshold.

Eluned ran to her grandfather and embraced him with enthusiasm. Tossing back her silky black hair, she saw Guyon and went to him. 'Mam's had the baby,' she announced. Her eyes, bright hazel like Rhosyn's, were anxious. 'It's a girl.' She clung tightly to his arm.

'I know, anwylyd.' He kissed the top of her head.

The midwife paused in ladling a cup of broth into a wooden bowl and looked at Guyon. 'Birth went easy enough,' she said to him with a curt nod. 'Babe's small , but she'll thrive.'

'May I see them?' he asked in Welsh, his tone deferential, for one did not trifle with the great respect in which these women were held. Other than the will of G.o.d, it was upon their skill that the life of a mother and child often depended.

'Take this in to her, lord,' she said, giving him the cup of broth. 'But do not be too long; she is tired.'

Eluned made to follow, but her grandfather caught her back and asked her to find him a drink.

Guyon pushed aside the curtain that screened Rhosyn's bed from the main room, and put down the bowl of broth on the coffer beside it. His movement stirred the air and Rhosyn raised her lids. For a moment she thought she was dreaming or that she had contracted the deadly childbed fever and was hallucinating. Then she rallied herself because Guyon was too travel worn and sweat-streaked to be an illusion. He was watching her with dark, pensive eyes as if he did not know how she would receive him. She sat up and softly spoke his name.

'Beloved.' He knelt beside her and took her hands in his.

He was wearing his mail s.h.i.+rt, the rivets glistening a sullen grey in the dim light. His business over the border this time was official.

'I am glad you have come,' she said and was annoyed by the betraying wobble in her voice.

'Did you doubt I would?'

'There was no obligation on you to do so.'

'No obligation?'

She watched his gaze turn to the wooden crib at the bedside and the swaddled sc.r.a.p of life it contained and she bit her lip, afraid, knowing she did not have the strength to fight him if he chose to make of his daughter a battleground.

Oblivious, the baby slept, a fluff of red-gold hair peeping from beneath its swaddling cap.

'There will always be an obligation, cariad. '

'Guy ...'

'No,' he said softly, touching the baby's fledging fuzz before giving Rhosyn a look filled with pain. 'I am as leashed to your bidding as that hound out there ... Just don't kick me out of the door without giving me a chance. Does the little one have a name?'

Rhosyn shook her head.

'Permit me?'

'I ... I do not know.'

He took her hand. 'Why do I receive the impression that you do not trust me?'

'Because I don't. Naming is a kind of possession for life.'

'What else am I ever likely to have of her, Rhos?

A distant glimpse from a tower top. A s.n.a.t.c.hed meeting here and there. From babe to child to woman in the blink of an eye. She is yours. I accept that, but at least grant me the grace of her naming.'

'Your way with words has always been your deadliest weapon,' Rhosyn accused him, shaking her head, her eyes brilliant with unshed tears.

'Very well , I grant you that grace. Do not abuse it.'

'Not Hegelina or Aiglentine then,' he agreed incorrigibly, but kissed her tenderly, almost but not quite with reverence, before he leaned over the cradle again to look at his sleeping daughter.

'Have you told your wife?' Rhosyn wiped her eyes on her s.h.i.+ft.

'Judith knows,' he said without inflection.

'And is not best pleased?'

He rubbed his aching forehead. 'She's developing a sense of possession,' he said ruefully, 'and sometimes it is uncomfortable.'

'I read her letter to Huw's wife. They were not the words of a child. Children grow up, especially at that age. It may be that suddenly you have a woman on your hands.'

His mouth twisted. 'It would still be rape,' he said laconically. 'Not that much of a woman.'

'Even so, bear it in mind, Guy,' she said and then was silent, drinking her broth before it went cold.

'Heulwen,' he said after a time. 'What do you think?'

She put down the cup, looking surprised.

'Heulwen?'

'I promised no Norman monstrosities.'

'I thought you would choose Christen, for your mother.'

'I already have a flighty niece to bear that name.

No, let her be called for my Welsh grandmother, Heulwen uerch Owain. Besides, she has the colouring to suit the name.'

Rhosyn c.o.c.ked her head, considered, and then slowly smiled. 'Yes,' she said softly, 'I approve, Guy. I approve very much.'

The midwife appeared to shoo him out of the room and Madoc was waiting to usher him to the table, still short of wind but a better colour and full of self-satisfied bonhomie. Eluned clamoured for his attention and he gave it with half a mind and smiled at Madoc with another portion, locking away what was left until it could be reviewed without tearing the fabric of his soul. Heulwen.

Suns.h.i.+ne. Clouds across his vision.

Travelling home, he would have been at Ravenstow's gates by compline had not Arian cast a shoe and begun to limp. The fine weather had broken up, the innocent, fluffy clouds of early morning displaced by a seething ma.s.s of charcoal grey, laden with rain.

'Best rest up for the night, my lord,' said Eric.

'There's a village not far and there's bound to be a farrier.'

Guyon blinked through the downpour. The ground beneath his feet was a brown tapestry of mud and puddles and his boots and chausses had long since become saturated. Despite it being summer, he felt chilled to the bone. Beyond the lush June-green of the trees and against the lowering sky, a church tower reared through the rain. Further away, dominating its knoll , crouched the timber keep formerly belonging to Ralph of Serigny, but now the property by marriage of Walter de Lacey.

'You reckon it safe?' Guyon said wryly to his captain and slid the wet reins through his fingers, eyes half closed against the rain.

'No, we'll bide at the alehouse if they have one while the farrier sees to Arian, then we'll be on our way. I'd rather ride whole into Ravenstow than carved into joints and stuffed into my saddlebags.'

Eric grimaced. The Chester road at night in this deluge was not a heartening prospect, but his lord was right. They were too close to the Serigny keep at Thornford for comfort and Walter de Lacey, if he discovered their proximity, would not baulk at murder.

The village proved substantial enough to own not only a smithy, but a good-sized alehouse and while Arian was shod, Guyon and his men repaired to the latter to fortify themselves for the damp miles remaining.

The floor of the main room was covered in a thick layer of rushes upon which were set two well -scrubbed long trestles. Rush dips gave light of a kind and a fire burned cleanly in the hearth.

The ale-wife was a florid, handsome woman of middle years whose voice bore a strong Gwynedd lilt. Her husband, bluffly English by contrast, sent their son outside to tend the horses.

The only other customers were a young couple seated un.o.btrusively in the darkest corner of the room, quietly attending their meal. The girl raised her head at their entrance and stared at the armed men with wide, frightened eyes. She had fragile bones and delicate gauzy colouring. Her husband was a plain, wide-shouldered young man, somewhere between twenty and Guyon's own age. He looked warily at the newcomers and put his left hand protectively on top of the girl's.

His right stayed loose, within easy reach of the long knife at his belt.

Guyon, after one startled glance at the girl's luminous beauty, ignored the couple and sat down. Water dripped from his garments and soaked into the rushes. Eric gingerly eased himself down beside his lord and rubbed his aching knees.

The woman brought them bowls of mutton stew, fairly fresh wheaten loaves and pitchers of cider and ale, her manner deferential but briskly efficient. 'Foul night to be travelling, sire,' she addressed Guyon. 'You can bed down here if you've a mind to stay.'

He thanked her and shook his head. 'You've a new lord over at Thornford and I'd as lief not encounter him.'

'Worse for business than the plague!' complained the landlord, adding a bowl of honey cakes to the table. 'Started already it has and Sir Ralph barely in his grave. He could be a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, but he was so mean that it was good for business. Folks would come here rather than claim a night of hospitality up at the keep, what with him and mad Mabell for hosts.'

'Now folk don't come at all ,' his wife sniffed. 'Or if they do, they're like yourselves, here and gone for fear of Lord Walter and his routiers.' She hitched her bosom and stalked away.

Guyon and Eric exchanged glances. The couple in the corner finished eating and went out into the deluge, the man's arm curved around the girl's narrow shoulders.

One of Guyon's men gave an appreciative whistle. 'Pretty la.s.s,' he said.

'Her father's one of the grooms at the keep,' the landlord volunteered, helping himself to a mug of cider, one eye c.o.c.ked for the reappearance of his wife. 'The lad's a huntsman there, or he was.

Had an argument with the new lord and didn't see fit to stay beyond packing his belongings. He's a proud 'un, young Brand, and his wife's a rare beauty as you all saw. Sir Ralph was never one for the women. Too old and not enough steel in his sword to bother getting it out of the scabbard, but Lord Walter ...' He paused for effect and a gulp of cider and wiped his hand across his mouth. 'Nothing in skirts is safe from his pursuit.

Best game-keeper he'd got, that young man. New lord's an idiot if you ask me to throw away talent like that for l.u.s.t. Mind you, I can see why he was tempted. I'd ...' He stopped, hastily put down his mug beside Eric's arm and stepped away from the trestle, pretending bustle as his wife returned, her mouth puckered, although not for a kiss.

Eric chuckled into his moustache. Guyon pushed his bowl aside and finished his ale, hiding his own smile behind his mug. 'I'm away to the smithy,' he announced, biting his lip to keep a straight face as their host grimaced like a goblin behind his wife's back. 'The farrier should have finished with Arian by now.'

'I'll come with you,' said Eric. 'There's safety in numbers in this neck of the woods.'

Guyon threw him an amused look, saw that his s.h.i.+eld-bearer was grimly serious, and stopped smiling.

'We're in need of a huntsman at Ravenstow,'

Guyon said thoughtfully as they crossed the street, which was deserted in the rainy evening. 'I haven't properly replaced Rannulf yet. Perhaps I should go after the lad and offer him employment.'

He flicked a mischievous glance at Eric and was not disappointed.