The Wild Hunt Part 16

It had never occurred to her to think of a man's body being attractive. A source of pain and brutalisation, so her previous experience said.

Now, almost in wonder, she traced with light fingers a thin white line scoring one muscular pectoral and one higher up, just grazing his jawbone.

Guyon groaned and opened his eyes. Judith sucked a sharp breath between her teeth and quickly withdrew her hand.

' Cath fach, ' he said weakly and found a smile from somewhere; this time his tone was not patronising. 'How bad is it?'

She could see his pulse racing in his throat and the sweat sheening its hollow. 'Bad enough.

You've lost so much blood that there's scarcely a drop left in your body and you're quite likely to develop wound fever. There were flakes of rust in the cut. I've packed it with mouldy bread, but it's hard to bind. I can't move you for fear that you'll open it again. You are going to be uncomfortable for no small time ... if you live ... and no, I am not j.a.ping with you. You had best prepare your soul.'

'What kind of comfort is that?' he said, tried to laugh and desisted, eyes squeezing closed.

Judith used the moment to scrub her face with her sleeve, refusing to be seen in tears. 'The only kind you'll get from me!' she snapped. 'And don't go to sleep. You've to drink this first.'

He lifted his lids, then with an effort widened them at the sight of the stone pitcher full to the brim and the cup she was filling from its bounty.

'All of it,' she said with a certain satisfaction.

'G.o.d's death, you evil wench. Robert de Belleme does not have sole monopoly on torture after all . What is it?'

'Boiled water, a sprinkling of salt and three spoonfuls of honey. It is to make up for the blood you've lost.'

'I'll be sick,' he said faintly.

Judith propped him up on the bolster and pillows fetched by the maid and rammed the cup under his nose. 'Drink it!' she commanded in a voice of steel that gave no indication that her knees had turned to jelly.

Something like surprise flickered across his pall or as he looked at her. 'I'm not worth it, Cathfach,' he said huskily.

'You are when I think of the alternative,' she answered, and lowered her lids over betraying tears.

As Judith had predicted, the wound fever struck and sent Guyon's temperature soaring out of bounds and with it his grip on reality. Steadfastly she did what she could to bring the fever down, Alicia giving her aid and relief between times.

During one of his lucid periods they moved him to the bed and Judith forced him to drink ox-blood broth in an effort to give his body the strength to fight back. He was promptly sick and she went away and wept in a corner, then returned and gave him more of the salt and honey water.

Once, his eyes glittering like black gla.s.s, he looked through her and spoke in Welsh as if holding a conversation. 'It would still be rape. Not that much of a woman.' And another time, 'She's developing a sense of possession and it's becoming uncomfortable.'

Bouts of raving showed her facets of his life that he had previously hidden from her. His relations.h.i.+p with Rhosyn, twisting like the current of the Wye, bitter-sweet as gall and honey. Once he laughed and called her Alais and made a suggestion that both fl.u.s.tered her and filled her with curiosity. She had not known that such a position was possible. During an occasional lucid spell , he would recognise her for her own self.

Cath fach, he would say and smile ruefully at his own febrile weakness. If she had ever desired revenge for his treating her like a child, she had it now and the taste of it was sour as vinegar.

After the second night, his condition worsened.

Miles rode in at dawn to find his eldest granddaughter gulping tears and clinging to her mother for comfort and the priest bending over Guyon's fever-ravaged body, administering the last rites. Judith, her face waxen, stood opposite Father Jerome, her hands clenched upon the cloth with which she had been wiping Guyon down in a vain attempt to lower the raging of his blood.

Miles came to the bed and gazed down upon his son's fight for life as he had gazed down on his wife's. Guyon's hair was lank with sweat, his cheekbones like blades with blue hollows beneath.

Miles looked at Judith. She returned his gaze evenly with eyes that were full of fear. It had gone beyond what she could do for him. In G.o.d's hands his life now lay and the odds against his recovery were not favourable. Beyond the moment she dared not think. Life went on; she knew it all too well .

Miles stood a moment longer and then, unable to bear the room, turned and strode out. Judith hastened after him and found him leaning against the rope-patterned pill ar of the cross-wall 's arch, his fist clenched upon the stonework, staring blankly at nothing. She set her hand on his arm.

Miles closed his eyes, opened them again and faced her. 'How did it happen?'

She told him. 'Eric won't be using his arm for some little time. I have scarcely spoken to the girl or her husband, but he told me they owed Guyon their lives and their grat.i.tude. I need not tell you that at the moment it is no consolation.'

'No,' Miles agreed bleakly.

Judith bowed her head and returned to her vigil.

Two hours later, de Bec came grim-faced to tell her that Walter de Lacey was waiting in the outer ward.

She put down the mortar in which she had been grinding herbs. 'And what could he possibly want?' she said sarcastically as she made sure that Guyon was as comfortable as his condition all owed, and bade her maid Helgund stay close by him.

De Bec lifted his craggy brows at her. 'Mistress, when he saw our new huntsman, he didn't know whether to leap for glee or fall into apoplexy.'

'What a pity he couldn't decide,' Judith said viciously.

De Bec cleared his throat. In this kind of mood his young mistress was lethal and the man to best deal with her was in a raving fever at the gates of death. He took a deep breath. 'From what I have heard, you had best bring the la.s.s up here out of sight until Sir Walter's gone.'

Judith considered, nodded and sharply bade one of the maids fetch Elflin of Thornford to her chamber.

The girl arrived from her duties in the kitchens.

There was a s.m.u.t of flour on her cheek and her hyssop-blue eyes were filled with terror.

'Oh my lady, please don't send me back to him, for the love of G.o.d, I beg you. I'll kill myself, I swear I will !'

Judith looked at the bent flaxen head, the clenched small hands that were as delicate as a child's. 'Get up,' she said neutrally. 'Do you think that I would give you up to that sc.u.m when my lord has perhaps sacrificed his life that you should go free?'

The girl stood up and wobbled a curtsy.

'You say you would kill yourself?' Judith said coldly. 'You would do better to take a knife to the tryst and put it through his black heart.' Her voice seethed on the last words. She eyed the girl with contempt. 'Elflin, is it not?'

'Yes, my lady.' Her voice quavered, thin and reedy with fear.

'Well then, Elflin, stiffen your spine and stop snivelling. There is no room for a wet fish in my household. He won't have you, I promise. Now, do you take up that distaff over there and that basket of carded wool and work awhile. Ask Helgund if there is anything you need to know.'

Elflin squeaked a.s.sent and bobbed another curtsy.

Milk and water, thought Judith impatiently, then checked herself, recalling her own fear of the unknown in the early days of her marriage to Guyon and remembering too, with a guilty pang, his patience and good humour during that time. If she was not afraid now, it was because of him.

In the hall , Walter de Lacey was standing before the hearth. The chamberlain had furnished him with a cup of wine and she saw with a sinking heart that he was deep in conversation with Father Jerome, who had about as much guile as a newborn lamb. From the smirk on de Lacey's face as he watched her come forward, it was obvious that he knew and delighted in the news of Guyon's grave illness.

Stifling the urge to be rude until given grounds, Judith made a stilted, traditional speech of welcome.

De Lacey's smile was supercilious. He looked at his nails. 'I am sorry to hear that your husband is so grievously wounded, but the fault is his own.

He should not have meddled in my affairs on my lands.'

Father Jerome frowned at him. 'My lord, as I understand matters, he came to the aid of innocent travellers being wrongly molested.'

'A jumped-up gamekeeper and my groom's wayward daughter?' De Lacey's laugh was caustic. 'Guyon FitzMiles prevented my men from carrying out their lawful duty. Indeed, I am sorely tempted to seek compensation from him for the death of my captain.'

'Your former gamekeeper is a free man to sell his services where he desires and his wife is a free woman,' Judith said, looking at him with repugnance. 'You have no right.'

'So you refuse to turn them over to me?'

'It gives me the greatest satisfaction to deny you both them and your compensation,' she said, her chin high. 'Drink your wine and go. There is nothing for you here.'

His lids narrowed. 'I do not think that with your husband on his deathbed you can afford to annoy me. After all , who knows where these lands will be bestowed next and my wife is growing old and not in the best of health. I expect soon to be bereaved.'

'Rot in h.e.l.l !' Judith hissed.

He smiled at her. 'There'll be more pleasure in taming you than that bag of bones I've got at the moment. My compensation is already a.s.sured.'

Father Jerome made a shocked exclamation.

'If you want to be a gelding, that's your own choice,' Judith retorted, her fingers itching to draw her eating knife from her belt and do the deed there and then. 'I think we have nothing to trade but threats and insults. Excuse me if I do not see you on your road. My husband needs me.'

He raised his cup to her in a mocking salute and looked her insolently up and down as if she was already a piece of his property.

In the bedchamber, Judith collapsed beside the hearth, her teeth chattering and her hands icy.

Helgund fetched a sheepskin from the foot of the bed, wrapped it around her mistress's shaking shoulders and hunted out the flask of aqua vitae.

Judith choked on the strong liquor. 'I'm all right,'

she rea.s.sured the maid, finding a wan smile from somewhere. 'Lord Miles will need to know. Have you seen him?'

'Not recently, my lady. He did not come here while you were gone.'

'My lady, he was talking to your mother in the hall before Lord Walter came,' Elflin offered timidly from her corner where she sat deftly spinning the wool, her manual dexterity far in advance of her mental. 'But they had gone when you summoned me to your chamber.'

'I'll try his chamber in a moment,' Judith said and, finis.h.i.+ng the aqua vitae, cast off the sheepskin and went to look at Guyon.

He was sleeping deeply and his temperature, although still raised was, she fancied, not as high as it had been, or perhaps it was just wishful thinking. She turned round and saw the dainty English girl watching her with a wide-eyed mingling of expectancy and fear.

'Our visitor has gone,' Judith said. 'I think it will be safe for you to seek your husband now.'

'Thank you, my lady!' Elflin dropped her work and, blus.h.i.+ng, bobbed a deep curtsy before departing the room at a near run.

'What it is to be young and eager,' smiled Helgund, addressing Judith as if she were a staid matron beyond love's first sweet violence.

'Yes,' Judith agreed flatly and smoothed the coverlet. 'What it is.' Her chin quivered. She mastered the urge to weep and straightened up. 'I must find Lord Miles and tell him what has happened. Let me know if there is any change.'

'Yes, my lady.'

Judith left the room almost as swiftly as Elflin had done, got halfway down the stairs, stifled the familiar panicky instinct to run and continued at a more sedate pace across the great hall and up the stairs to the small chamber that was her father-in-law's when he visited.

She could hear the murmur of voices as she approached, one deep and hesitant, the other her mother's and breathless. Then the voices ceased.

At the curtain, Judith paused, warned by some sixth sense that to clear her throat and just walk into the room would not be wise.

Cautiously she drew aside the merest fold of material and peered within to a.s.sess whether she should go or stay. Set into the thickness of the wall , the room was tiny with s.p.a.ce only for a bed, a small clothing pole and a brazier for use against the cold. Before the brazier, blocking it from view, her mother stood locked in Miles's embrace, her blue gown melding into the dark green of his tunic and chausses, his hands lean and brown against the snowiness of her wimple. Her mother's arms were locked around his neck and they were kissing as, only yesterday in the hall , she had seen Elflin and her husband kissing.

Judith dropped the curtain, stepped away and wondered why she had not realised it long ago.

There had been enough beads to make a necklace if one had the eyesight to pick them up.

The swings of her mother's moods, the looks and counter-looks cast across the hall , met and avoided. What had her mother said? Understand when the time comes and do not judge me too harshly. No more harshly than Alicia had judged herself, she thought and wondered if Guyon, less naive than herself, had known.

At the foot of the stairs, she encountered the lady Emma about to ascend and quickly blocked her way.

Emma's gaze sharpened.

'I should not bother him until later,' Judith said, her voice slightly constricted. 'He is otherwise occupied.'

Emma searched Judith's face for meaning.

'With a woman, you mean?' Judith hesitated and Emma grimaced. 'That always was his source of oblivion.' She sighed, turning with Judith to go back down to the hall . 'He's not much use at getting drunk and he's too slightly built to go out and pick a fight. I've known him ride a horse half to death, but a woman by preference is his usual form of solace. At first after my stepmother died there was scarcely a night when he slept alone ...

G.o.d knows some of the s.l.u.ts Guy and I had to tolerate in the early days!'

Judith coloured. 'He is with my mother,' she said quietly, 'and they still have all their clothes on.'

Emma's eyes rounded. She stopped and turned. 'Your mother?' The thought seemed to have blocked her brain.

Judith stared her out. Emma drew a long breath between her teeth and let it out again slowly. 'Well then, I am sorry if my words gave offence but in the past it has been true.'

'The past is not now,' Judith said, not quite keeping the coldness from her tone. For all that Emma was Guyon's sister and he maintained that she had a heart of gold, Judith was hard pressed to find it beneath the layers of iron and ice.

Emma bit her lip. She and Judith were never going to be more than tepidly cordial. Their natures had too many similarities, subtle shades apart and, within this keep, like two stones in close proximity on a riverbed, they had begun to grate against each other. Emma began to think with new longing of her dower estates and how, when Guyon's crisis was resolved one way or the other, she would go there with her daughters.

Christen seemed to be cured of her affliction to flirt. No more was 'Alais says' the bane of their lives. In part she knew it was due to the seriousness of Guyon's condition. That, in itself, was sufficient to put meaningless frivolity in its true perspective, but part was also due to Judith's steadying influence. Guyon's wife might laugh and play childish games with her nieces, might have a puckish sense of humour and an impudent tongue, but attracting men appeared scarcely to interest her. Nor did she wish to gossip about them to the detriment of all else and her domestic skill s were more than competent, as was her knowledge of healing and sickbed nursing.

Christen, receiving an indifferent or bored response to most of her tattle, had steadied her own giddy att.i.tude and begun to think a little for herself. What profit there was in that had yet to be seen. 'No,' she agreed, 'you are right. The past is not now.'

CHAPTER 15.

A week came and went. So did the priest. Twice.

Guyon wavered on the narrow brink between life and death, teetered and stepped back from the edge. Another week pa.s.sed. There was a terrific thunderstorm. Three sheep in the bailey were struck by lightning and one of the store sheds caught fire. Guyon's temperature descended to normal. He recognised those who stood at his bedside and spoke to them, but he was as weak and dependent as a newborn kitten and even the effort of speech left him exhausted.