The Wild Hunt Part 28

'You have it in you to keep him,' Rhosyn said, seeing now the promise. Not just a strikingly attractive young woman, high-bred and Norman with all the domestic and social skill s that a man of Guyon's status required, but one who beneath the cultured exterior was still only half tame, a thing of the woods, wild for to hold. Guyon was not about to grow bored with such a complex, complementary blending of traits.

A few late swallows swooped the sky, their cries poignantly sharp, like needles darting through blue cloth. Judith looked down at her hands. 'If we are granted a life together,' she said with a hint of bitterness and stared at a blemish on one of her nails until her eyes began to sting.

'Since last Martinmas, I have scarcely seen him. Either he is with the King, or about the King's business and the times he is home, he just eats and sleeps and his temper is foul ... but then I suppose it has reason to be. There is no guarantee that Henry will win this war. If he fails it won't matter whether I have the ability to hold him or not ... in this life at least. De Belleme knows whose work was behind half the charges he was summoned to answer.'

Rhosyn leaned with her and watched the swooping birds. A trickle of foreboding s.h.i.+vered down her spine. 'Is he in serious danger?'

'I have never known my lord when he has not been in serious danger,' Judith said with a reluctant smile. 'From his own contrary nature, if nothing else. He sets out to court trouble sometimes and I have the devil's own job to persuade him that he should be courting me instead!'

It was spoken with humour, but it was in no wise amusing, as Rhosyn well knew. Leopards did not make good hearth animals. They were liable to tear out your heart.

The watch changed, spears sc.r.a.ping on stone, jocularities bantered. Some sheep were driven into the bailey from the surrounding fields for slaughter the next day. Below them, the market was packing up as folk began wending their way home. Leaning over the battlements, Judith saw the guard who had been having his tooth pulled weaving this way and that over the drawbridge, clearly the worse for drink. She made a mental note to check with de Bec that he was not on duty that night.

'I was foolish to come,' said Rhosyn in a soft voice that Judith had to strain to hear. 'Only I wanted ... I wanted to see you for myself. If I am honest, that at least was the half of it.'

Taken aback, Judith stared at her. 'I would call it a very dangerous indulgence,' she said.

Rhosyn made a face. 'Do you think I have not said the same thing to myself a hundred times over?' She smiled sadly. 'But it has been like a sore tooth, nagging me and nagging me until it had to be drawn. I had to know. Well , now I do and I am glad it is over, but that is not the sole reason I am here.' She drew a deep breath, her eyes on the horizon towards which the sun was now angling. 'My second cousin Prys, who lives in Bristol and with whom we have strong business ties, has asked me to marry him and I have agreed.'

'Congratulations,' Judith said courteously. 'When is the wedding to be?'

'We don't know yet. Before Christmastide, I suppose. We have my father to mourn first and the business to sort out.' She frowned and pressed the heel of her hand into the gritty stone.

'I've known Prys since we were children and Rhys and Eluned are fond of him ... but it is Heulwen, you see. After all , she is Guyon's daughter and for the sake of what was between us, he should know my decision. Prys has no heirs. Perhaps in the fullness of time I shall bear him children, but he is willing to take Rhys, Eluned and Heulwen for his own.'

'I do not think Guyon will stand in your way,'

Judith said slowly after a pause for consideration.

'Neither do I.' Rhosyn blinked. 'It has run its course, for him at least. We never had enough in common to make of it more than a dry gra.s.s fire. I wish ...' Rhosyn shook her head and turned away, her chin wobbling.

Judith had imagined Guyon's mistress to be dark and mysterious and beautiful with all the wiles at her fingertips. Only the first was true. The reality was a straightforward practical woman with a generous, gentle spirit. She could see why Guyon had held on to the bond for more than four years and also why it must now be severed. And Rhosyn saw too, or else she would not be crying here beside her on the battlements.

Rhosyn sniffed and, wiping her eyes on her sleeve, gave Judith a watery smile. 'I am sorry, I was being foolish. Will you and Guyon come to the wedding?'

Judith looked doubtful. 'Will it not cause trouble?'

Rhosyn shook her head. 'Prys knows my past. You will be most welcome.'

Judith inclined her head. 'Then gladly we will come, circ.u.mstances permitting.' She watched the drawbridge being drawn up for the night. One of the men on watch shouted a cheerful insult across to the guards at the winch and was answered in kind.

'I hope Guyon will still see her on occasion,'

Rhosyn added. 'She is his daughter.

'She will always be his firstborn,' Judith agreed with a judicious nod. 'It would be wrong to try and prevent him. That far I will permit you to tread on my territory because I cannot change it, but seek further at your peril.'

From the inner bailey, the dinner horn sounded and someone cheered with irony.

Rhosyn stared at Judith. The challenge was there in Judith's strange, stone-coloured eyes, but leavened by a twinkle of humour. 'I do not think you will see me at Ravenstow again,' she replied.

Rhosyn rode out the next morning on to a sun-polished road with an escort of eight serjeants and her manservant, Twm. The pony hooves echoed on the dusty drawbridge planks. She looked beyond the rise and fall of their loaded backs to where Judith stood between the bridge and portcullis, one arm shading her eyes, the other raised in farewell . Rhosyn returned the salute briefly and turned in the saddle so that, like her mount, she faced Wales.

At noon they stopped to water the horses and eat a cold repast of bread, cheese and roasted fowl. Heulwen, as usual, ate the cheese, spat out the bread and made a thorough mess. Eluned in contrast, nibbling as daintily as a deer, considered her mother, swallowed and said, 'He was forced to marry her, wasn't he, Mam?'

Rhosyn looked at her daughter in concern.

Eluned had been very quiet since yestereve's rudeness, a brooding kind of quiet that would not yield to cozening. 'At the outset, yes,' she answered cautiously.

'He does not love her.' Eluned fingered her amber necklace.

Rhosyn bit her lip. The child's eyes were her own - hazel green-gold and full of pain. You grew up and learned to hide it, that was the only difference. 'You cannot say that, Eluned,' she said. 'It is what you would like to be true, not truth itself. You should wish them joy in each other, not strife.'

'She's ugly!' Eluned thrust out her lower lip.

'Eluned!'

Heulwen choked and Rhosyn unthinkingly rescued the half-chewed piece of chicken wing from the back of the infant's throat, her attention all focused on her elder daughter.

'I hate her, she's a Norman s.l.u.t. Guyon belongs to us, not her!'

Rhosyn's hand shot out and cracked across Eluned's cheek. Eluned gasped. The men of the escort looked round from their oatcakes and ale.

Eluned put her hand to her face, stared at her mother with aghast, br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes as the mark of the slap began to redden. Whirling round, she fled beyond the startled men into the thickness of the brambles and trees.

'No, Mam, let her go.' Rhys caught Rhosyn's arm as she made to pursue. 'She's leaving a trail a blind man could follow. I don't think she'll go very far.'

Rhosyn subsided with a sigh. 'It is my fault. I did not realise it ran so deeply. She used to say that she was going to marry Guyon. I thought it was a child's game.'

'So did she,' Rhys said with a wisdom beyond his years.

Rhosyn reseated herself upon the spread skins to finish her meal, but her eyes kept flickering towards the trees.

Rhys considered her for a moment and then gave an adolescent sigh, heavy with impatience, and hitched his belt.

'All right, Mam, I'll go and find her.' Rhosyn gave him a grateful smile. She wondered how to go about dealing with Eluned when she returned. Diplomatic silence as if it had never happened? Detailed, careful explanations? A scolding? Sympathetic affection?

Heulwen was rubbing her eyes and whining.

Rhosyn bent her mind away from the problem of her elder daughter to persuade her younger one to take a nap beneath one of the skins.

Two greenfinches dated across the clearing, their song a chitter of alarm. A horse snorted and, throwing up its head, nickered towards the trees, ears p.r.i.c.ked. One of the men put down his drink and went to the restless beast.

Sounds of something cras.h.i.+ng blindly through the under-growth came clearly to their ears, and then a cry. Rhosyn sprang to her feet, her heart thudding against her ribs. She stooped and covered Heulwen, by now asleep, with another of the skins, concealing her as best she could.

Her escort drew their swords. s.h.i.+elds were reached for and slipped on to men's arms. One of the escort turned to give Rhosyn a command but she ignored him, transfixed by horror as she watched her son stagger towards them, hugging the trees for support, his tunic saturated with blood.

'Rhys!' she screamed. Lifting her skirts, she started to run towards him. A young serjeant, Eric's brother, caught her back.

The boy looked in the direction of her voice, but his eyes were blind, his mouth working, pouring blood. 'Mam!' he gasped frothily and then, choking, 'The Cwmni Annwn!'

'Rhys!' she screamed again and tore free of her captor to run stumbling to where he had fall en face down in the turning crisp leaves. He was dead. She could see the rents in his clothing where a blade had been plunged and his blood was hot and dark on her hands.

Bent over her son, she did not hear the horrified warning yelled by her escort, nor see the riders of the wild hunt advancing through the trees, the wild hunt advancing through the trees, following the trail of lifeblood to their victim.

CHAPTER 25.

Soon after Rhosyn had left, Judith fetched her cloak and departed Ravenstow with her own escort, her destination one of Ravenstow's fiefs.

The lord of the small , beholden keep at Farnden had recently died and she had promised his son, the inheritor of the holding and its military obligations, that she would attend a ma.s.s in the church there for the soul of his father before he rode out to rejoin Guyon. Also, there were the customs and rights of the new tenancy to be confirmed and the oath of fealty to be sworn.

Thomas of Farnden was a pleasant, not particularly bright young man, but he knew his feudal duties and was capable of performing them stoically and well . He lacked imagination and ambition but that was no reason to neglect him. A horseshoe nail was just as important as the horse and Judith gave him her sincere attention for the duration of the visit.

The ma.s.s was performed in the tiny Saxon church and attended by all members of the keep and the villagers of most senior authority. Alms were distributed, and bread. Dinner was eaten outside in the orchard, the trestles spread beneath the lush summer green of the trees. It was so pleasant and a poignant far cry from the war in the south that it brought tears to Judith's eyes, and she had to set about rea.s.suring a worried Sir Thomas that she was really all right.

Shortly before mid-afternoon, her business completed, she made her farewell s to Sir Thomas and set out for home.

With his eye on the dwindling height of the sun, de Bec took the short cut across the drovers'

road and through the forest to reach the main track.

The day had been hot and the green forest air was humid, catching earthily in the throat and nostrils as it was breathed. Judith's chemise clung to her body. Beneath her veil her head itched as if it harboured a thicket of fleas. Now and then a rivulet of sweat trickled down between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s or tickled her spine, and her thighs were chafed by the constant rubbing of the saddle. She thought with longing of a refres.h.i.+ng, tepid tub, of a clean light robe and a goblet of wine, chill from the keep well .

Such thoughts set her to bitter-sweet rememberings of a raw November night, of drinking wine in a bathtub, of Guyon's eyes luminous with laughter and desire. Her longing abruptly changed direction. Heat moistened her loins. She s.h.i.+fted in the saddle and tears returned to p.r.i.c.kle her eyes. It had been so long since there had been the time or opportunity for that kind of dalliance. The inclination had been swamped - or so she thought - by a combination of worry and sheer physical exhaustion. There had been odd occasions together, but s.n.a.t.c.hed and unsatisfactory because there was no real enjoyment in a.s.suaging a need that intruded inconveniently upon other needs and was tainted with fear.

Two pigeons clapped past them and a blackbird scolded. When a spotted woodp.e.c.k.e.r followed, crying alarm, de Bec ceased lounging at ease to reach for his s.h.i.+eld. These were not birds immediately startled by their approach, but already alarmed and winging from some earlier disturbance. This band of woodland was within Guyon's jurisdiction but at the north-western edge lay a boggy ditch marking the Welsh border and the standing stones on the south-western side were the boundary between Ravenstow and Thornford. It was for the latter reason in particular that de Bec muttered soft imprecations as he drew his sword and ordered his men to surround Judith.

A horse flashed through the trees in front of them. Both Judith and de Bec recognised the striking red sorrel immediately, for it was one of Guyon's own crossbreeds, belonging to Eric's younger brother G.o.dric who had been in command of Rhosyn's escort. A cold hand squeezed Judith's heart, for although G.o.dric was in the saddle, he was hunched over, clutching the pommel and did not answer their hail. The horse, however, threw up its white-blazed head and, nickering at sight of its own kind, picked its way towards them.

De Bec leaned across to grasp the reins. 'G.o.dric, Christ man, what's happened?' His voice was hoa.r.s.e with shock.

The young man raised his eyes but remained hunched over. 'De Lacey,' he croaked. 'Hit us out of nowhere ... Too many of them. We never stood a chance ... I managed to save the little la.s.s.' He swayed, his face grey. Against his body, tied within his cloak for security, Heulwen began to cry and push against her confines, her little face as flushed as her tangled fiery crown of curls.

A knight unfastened the child and lifted her out of G.o.dric's cloak, then uttered an oath of consternation for she was smeared in blood from head to toe.

'Not hers, mine,' said G.o.dric huskily and tumbled out of the saddle to sprawl unconscious at their feet. Judith dismounted in a flurry of skirts and bent down beside the young soldier to examine his injuries. He had taken a nasty slash to the midriff. Fortunately, as far as she could see, it had not pierced the gut, but it was still deep and it had bled a great deal. She unfastened one of his leg bindings to use as a temporary bandage until they could reach the safety of the keep and she could tend him properly. Two of her escort set about constructing a crude stretcher out of branches and horse blankets.

Heulwen sobbed and screamed for her mother in broken Welsh. Fortunately the serjeant who held her had five children of his own and was used to dealing with infant tantrums. A borderman, he also spoke fluent Welsh and soothed Heulwen in that language until she calmed into hiccupped sobs and then poked her thumb into her mouth.

G.o.dric's eyelids fluttered. Judith put her hand on his brow. 'Rest easy now,' she soothed, 'help is here.'

'Mistress, we could do nothing,' he fretted. She held a wine costrell to his lips and he took a convulsive swallow. 'De Lacey outnumbered us at least four to one. The child was asleep beneath some skins. They missed her and they left me for dead ... Dancer bolted in the fray but he came back when I called him.' He clenched his teeth and groaned.

De Bec's eyebrows drew together in a worried scowl. 'How far back, son?'

'No more than a mile ... just off the road. We had stopped to eat and they came out of the trees at us.' He closed his eyes and swallowed. 'I lay for dead and they thought me so. I heard de Lacey say that there was less gain than he had hoped and they had best be on their way ... Thornford they were headed for ... Myself and the child are the only survivors ... The other little maid ... Oh Christ, they took her with them!' He gasped and strove not to retch. Judith fought her own gorge and set a steadying hand to his brow.

'Lie quiet, G.o.dric,' she said gently and raised her head to meet de Bec's granite stare. There was no way their own troop could pursue, and the attack was more than three hours old. De Lacey would be safe within his keep by now.

'The bodies will need to be brought back to Ravenstow,' she said. The coldness of shock and fear, the knowledge of what had yet to be done, made her feel queasy and tearful, but she controlled herself. 'We had best bring them away with us now before the wolves and foxes have their chance at them.'

De Bec shook his head. 'My lady, it will not be a sight to be viewed save by necessity, and G.o.dric and the child should be got to Ravenstow as soon as possible.'

Judith considered for a moment, then nodded curtly. There was nothing to be gained by going to the scene of the slaughter herself. De Bec could note the details for Guyon and the sheriff. There would be enough trauma in was.h.i.+ng the corpses and laying them out decently ... and in sending this news to Guyon. What was she going to say?

How was she to face and tell him when he returned? It did not bear thinking about and yet, like the laying out, it had to be done and it was her responsibility.

The reality proved far worse than Judith had imagined. She st.i.tched G.o.dric's wound, poulticed it with mouldy bread, dosed him with poppy syrup and left him to sleep. Heulwen kept crying for her mother, but, apart from being fractious and bewildered, seemed none the worse for her ordeal.

Judith's own ordeal began when de Bec rode in, his face waxen and his expression so stiff that he might have been one of the ten corpses bundled in cloaks and roped like game across the backs of some pack ponies borrowed from Thomas of Farnden. The men who rode with de Bec all wore variations of that same look on their faces and, when the bodies were brought to the chapel, Judith understood why. The abomination beneath Rhosyn's cloak bore no resemblance to the woman she had encountered yesterday. The spirit had flown and the mortal body was so mutilated that it was difficult to know if it had once been human at all .

Her belly heaved. She clapped her hand to her mouth and staggered to the waste shaft where she was sick to the pit of her soul. It was not just murder, it was obscene desecration.

De Bec gently touched her elbow, handed her a small horn cup of aqua vitae and waited until, choking and spluttering on its unaccustomed strength, she had swallowed it.

Shaking, Judith leaned for a brief moment against his iron-clad solidity. 'He is not a man, he is a devil!' she said and shuddered.

De Bec folded a mail-clad arm around her quivering shoulders, feeling a wave of paternal protectiveness. 'Have you sent a messenger to Lord Guyon yet?' he rumbled. 'He needs to be here.'

Judith shook her head. 'I don't know what to write,' she gulped. 'And I don't know if he is still at Arundel.'

'Tell him naught, only that he is needed swiftly. A messenger will find him sooner or later. I'll get FitzWalter to do it for you.'

Judith stiffened her spine and pulled away from him. 'No,' she said firmly. 'I'll do it myself.' A wan smile strained her lips. 'You feel like a rock because you are one.'

De Bec's eyes began to sting and he had to blink. In all but name, he had regarded Judith as his daughter from the day of her birth and to see her struggle with her fears and doubts and force them down beneath her will filled him with a fierce burst of tenderness and pride. He could have crushed her between his two hands - it did not seem possible that she could house such strength.

He watched her return to the horror in the chapel and murmur to the priest, her face so pale that every freckle stood out as a deep, golden mottle, her manner composed, and knew that if he was a rock, then she was surely as resilient and strong as the best sword steel.

CHAPTER 26.

Guyon s.h.i.+fted in the high saddle and loosened the reins to let Arian pick his way between the trees. The afternoon light was as golden-green as the best French wine. Coins of sunlight and leaf shadows scattered and sparkled among the troop of men who rode with steady haste towards Ravenstow and preparation for war in the marches.

Now that Arundell was theirs and de Belleme effectively cut off from his support abroad, the King intended to move upon de Belleme's chain of grim Shrops.h.i.+re strongholds with the purpose of clearing them out one by one and Guyon was returning to Ravenstow to support him in that endeavour.