The Wild Hunt Part 31

'Mayhap you're right,' said Helgund, but she still looked dubious. 'I cannot help but think that wolves breed true.'

'He is only half wolf,' Judith said gently. 'And there is good blood on his mother's side. Come, help me lift her and then I want you to fetch the priest.'

'No hope then?'

Judith shook her head. 'There are others afflicted like this too. My guess is that the well water is to blame and that the weakest have succ.u.mbed. My lord has set the servants to cleaning out the shaft.'

'I wondered why you had left the shutters wide.'

'What do you mean?'

'To let her soul fly free, m'lady.'

Judith said nothing. Let Helgund believe that she adhered to that old custom if it would stop her from lecturing on the ill s of open shutters at night.

Mabell coughed and choked on the bitter nostrum and most of it dribbled down her chin.

The infant was dosed with more success than his mother and his soiled linens changed. Unlike Heulwen, he was slow to smile and exuded not one iota of her engaging charm. His stare was solemn, almost old ... but then, she thought, throat tightening, Heulwen had known only love and affection down the length of her short life and this child never had. Mabell had rejected him, so the maids said, and left him to the wet-nurse who had been a dim-witted slatternly girl from the village with more interest in her trencher and the attentions of one of the grooms than in the infant she was supposed to be suckling.

Judith blinked away the suspicion of tears and sat by the crib, smoothing the child's thick hair until his lids drooped and his breathing came slow and soft and then she rose and, leaving him with Helgund, went to administer similar comfort to her husband.

Guyon stepped into the tub, hissing softly through his teeth as the hot water found cuts and bruises he had forgotten he possessed until now. Slowly, he eased himself down into the herb-infused water until it lapped his shoulders and, tilting back his head, closed his eyes.

Clouded visions danced before his darkened lids. The imagined image of Eluned's death and the reality of the raw earth mound in the garth behind the churchyard. Rhosyn's mutilated body.

Heulwen asking in bewilderment for her mother.

Heulwen smiling at him through her lashes in the exact manner that had been Rhosyn's, her pudgy hand curled trustingly in his. He swore, opening his eyes, and jerked forward in the water. Judith cried out and backed away from him, almost dropping her basket of medicines.

'What's wrong?' She looked at him askance.

Guyon subsided with a shake of his head.

'Nothing,' he said, tight-lipped.

Judith set down the basket. 'Strange behaviour for a nothing,' she remonstrated. 'That's a nasty graze on your shoulder. You had better let me look at it before you dress.'

His mouth softened. 'Yes, madam.'

She bent to sort through his baggage and find him some presentable garments, clucking in irritation at the dismal state that three weeks without female attention had wrought on his clothes.

'What of Lady Mabell and the boy?' he asked far too casually as he busied himself with his wash.

Judith looked round, a pair of leg bindings dangling between her fingers. 'Lady Mabell will die,' she said bluntly, 'probably before dawn.

There is naught to be done. The child will likely survive.'

There was a long silence. Judith came over to the tub, drawn by the quality of his tone. He looked up at her, then bleakly away into the middle distance. 'Do you know, Judith, when they told me that Eluned was dead and that the boy and his mother were still here in the keep, in my power, I wanted to kill them both?' He swallowed hard. 'The little boy ... he looks so much like his father ...I actually found myself unsheathing my sword and standing over him ... and then where would be the difference between myself and Walter de Lacey?'

Judith had put her hand over her mouth. Quickly she took it away as his gaze s.h.i.+fted towards her.

She knelt beside the tub and gently touched his tense arm. 'You would have derived no pleasure from it, Guy, not like him.'

'You think not?'

'You did not do it, however much you desired,' she replied steadily, 'and that is the difference.'

His look was bleak. 'No,' he said. 'But I thought about it so hard that it might as well have been the deed. If Eric hadn't been in the room with me...' He broke off the sentence.

Judith was filled with burning anger - at Walter de Lacey, at Robert de Belleme, at this whole war and at how far Guyon had been pushed and pushed and pushed. Suddenly she understood his need of her and that she must not fail him.

'You were overset and there is no point in brooding upon it.' She shook his shoulder. It was his grazed one and his breath caught. 'Guy, look at me.'

He turned his head. 'You did not do it. You held back,' she said slowly and clearly.

'Yes,' he agreed in a toneless voice, gaze slipping wearily from hers and back to the middle distance.

'Oh, in the name of the Holy Virgin!' Exasperated and cross because she was frightened, Judith thrust herself to her feet. 'Go on then, wallow until you sink in your own guilt. Just do not expect me to follow you!' She flounced away towards the flagon and reached jerkily for a cup.

Guyon shut his eyes and, with a soft groan, leaned his head against the rim of the tub. 'Judith, let be. I can't argue with you, not now.'

'And that is half the problem,' she diagnosed tartly. 'You are so tired that your wits are not serving you as they should. You don't want to argue with me because you dare not. You need time to rest and recover.'

He gave a crooked smiled. 'There is need and need, Cath fach. Henry needs my report and then he needs me. My own needs can wait.'

'You will be worse than useless to him.'

'Stop p.r.i.c.king me, Judith. I'll manage.'

'And you have the gall to call me infuriating and stubborn!' she retorted. When he chose not to respond, she narrowed her eyes and, mouth set, reached for her vial of poppy syrup and laced his wine with it, adding a hefty splash of aqua vitae to disguise the taste. Her eyes brightened with tears at the memory of the last time she had poured him wine while he lounged in a tub and she contrasted it bitterly with the present. This time there was no br.i.m.m.i.n.g laughter, no electric charge of s.e.xual tension. This time there was only fear-tinged determination and exhaustion.

Returning to the tub, she handed him the spiked wine. 'Speaking of needs,' she said, changing the course of her attack, 'the men at least will have to be released for harvest very soon.'

'Such as are necessary,' he agreed. 'I suppose I will have to hire mercenaries to replace them. I'll send to Ravenstow for the strongbox.' He took a gulp of the wine and choked on the underlying bite of the aqua vitae.

'Drink it!' she commanded, eyes fierce, cheeks flushed, terrified that he would discover the taste of the opium.

His lids flickered wide at her peremptory tone and then he smiled slowly. 'Dare I? he asked.

'Last time you shoved a cup beneath my nose and commanded me like that, you were h.e.l.l -bent on torture.'

Judith felt her whole face scorch fiery red. 'I saved your life, didn't I?'

'Yes you did, Cath fach.' His look became quizzical. 'Why are you blus.h.i.+ng?'

Judith's heart began to gall op. 'I'm not,' she croaked. 'It is the summer heat.'

Guyon gaped at her over the goblet rim with undisguised astonishment. Hot without it might be, but the keep wall s were several feet thick, the gaps filled with rubble and, even in the summer months, it was comfortable to have braziers in the private chambers.

'I'll fetch food,' she muttered breathlessly, and detached herself from his scrutiny to dive for the doorway.

Guyon shook his head and then ducked it beneath the water to wet his hair and clear his thoughts, wondering how on earth Judith had the temerity to suggest that his mind was not serving him as it should when her own was quite obviously addled. He continued his wash and, frowning, took another swallow of the wine. That remark about the heat had been a fl.u.s.tered idiocy, her exit rapid before he could investigate further; or at least, he thought, until she had invented a more plausible excuse for her blush.

It was after she had given him the wine. Until then she had been simmering at him like a cauldron on a blaze. After a moment, a glimmer of enlightenment caused him to taste the wine again and roll it experimentally round his mouth.

Smooth, high-quality Anjou and rough border aqua vitae and ... ! He spat it out into the bath water and swore with soft vehemence, staring with furious eyes at the curtain through which she had vanished. Anger sparkled along his nerve endings, an invigorating anger, buoying him up, subduing fatigue. Lace his wine, would she?

Judith returned with a tray of cold roast pigeon and fresh white bread, a new flagon of wine and an excuse for her previous fl.u.s.tered behaviour ready and credible on her tongue, for it was in part the truth. She intended saying that she had been swept by desire at the sight of him in the bath along with the a.s.sociation of pouring him wine, and knowing how tired he was, had not wished to burden him further. It was therefore with a mingling of vexation and relief that she discovered he had fall en fast asleep in the rapidly cooling water.

Eyes raised heavenwards, she set the tray down on a clothing chest, gave Cadi a firm, low command that flopped the b.i.t.c.h down on her belly at the door, eyes still c.o.c.ked in distant hope on the food, and went to the tub to pick up the empty goblet from the floor.

'In Jesu's name, Guy, you might have gone to bed!' she complained with exasperation, then shrieked as Guyon surged from the water like a pike, seized her and dragged her down.

'And you might refrain from poisoning my wine!' he growled as she tried to thresh out of his hard grip.

'I wasn't, Guy, truly!'

'You deny there was poppy in that wine?'

'Only enough to give you a sound night's sleep. You need it.'

'You did it in deceit!'

'It was for your own good.'

'Ah yes, my own good,' he said silkily. 'Swaddle me up like a babe while you are at it.'

'Guyon please, you're hurting me!' Judith half sobbed, more afraid of the cadence of his voice than the grip on her arm.

'I ought to beat you witless!' he complained, but let her go. She floundered from the tub, the front of her gown drenched, the ends of her braids dark bronze and dripping. 'Don't ever try that trick on me again.'

Judith took her courage in both hands. 'I'll make sure that next time you don't know!' she retorted. 'My only fault was that in my haste I did not disguise the taste enough.'

Guyon jerked to his feet in a swish of angry water. 'Dare it at your peril.'

'Threat or promise?' she asked with a saucy confidence she was far from feeling, aware that she was playing with fire and that one step too far would ignite a totally different conflagration from the kind she was nurturing now. 'Will you unlace my gown? It's soaked and I'll catch a chill .'

'Your own fault. Call your maids.'

'I can't. Helgund's sitting with Mabell and the child and if you glare at Elflin like that, you will terrify her, not to mention what Brand will do to you if he thinks you have been making improper advances to his wife.'

'What?' Guyon spluttered. He knew by now that he was being led a merry dance, but was too interested in its destination to halt the devious steps of its progress.

'Well , if I sent for Elflin and she saw you in that condition, the Lord alone knows what she might misconstrue. You know how timid she is of all men, saving Brand.'

'What cond--' Guyon followed the direction of her amused gaze, then flicked his own back to her face. Laughter was tugging at the corners of her mouth. She raised her eyes to his. They were round and innocent and she kept them on him as she raised her arms to remove her circlet and veil.

'Shall I leave that uncomforted, too?' she enquired with spurious solicitude. 'Or would you let me close enough to rub it better?'

'Judith!' Guyon choked, laughing despite himself. Half an hour ago he had been so weary and soul-sick that he could have lain down and died. Now the energy was flowing through him like a vigorous stream in spate. 'What am I going to do with you?'

'Get me with child?' she suggested, slanting him a provocative glance. 'Women are supposed to dote and soften when they are breeding.'

Guyon snorted. 'Since when have you ever done what other women are supposed to do?'

'There is always a first time. You might be pleasantly surprised.'

'For a change,' he said with a grin.

She gave him a lazy, answering smile. 'Unlace me, Guy?' she requested again.

He reached to the side fastening of her gown and began to pluck it undone. 'You are naught but a hussy, do you know that? Summer heat indeed!'

She stepped out of the drenched garment and turned in his embrace to twine her arms about his neck and meet his lips with her own. He reached for the drawstring of her s.h.i.+ft. 'I have practised better deceptions,' she admitted impishly against his mouth. 'It's not knotted this time.'

'I did not think it would be,' he said wryly as the garment slid down from her shoulders and pooled at her feet and her body blended itself with his.

CHAPTER 29.

Guyon stirred in response to a dazzle of light across his eyelids and squinted them open. The chamber was dim; sunlight lanced across the bed from a gap in the warped shutter. He moved his head and idly watched the motes of dust glitter in its bright rainbow bars. It took him a moment to remember where he was and why. Then came the familiar feeling as of a cold stone in the pit of his stomach, immediately dissolved by the awareness of Judith's body curled at his side, sleeping with the innocent abandon of the kitten that was her nickname. Hard to believe in the scheming seductress of the night.

He stretched and relaxed, smiling at the incongruity. Flowers and thorns. Sharp claws sheathed in soft padding. He turned towards her and nuzzled his chin on the crown of her head.

She murmured and nestled closer. Her lips moved in a sleepy kiss at the base of his throat.

He glanced beyond the luxurious comfort of his bed and wife to the s.h.i.+fting strands of light and the smile still on his lips became rueful as he realised that it was the first time in three days that he had woken at dawn instead of noon. As usual she had been right, he acknowledged. He had not known the depth of his exhaustion until he had succ.u.mbed to it, and succ.u.mb he had with a vengeance. The last three days had pa.s.sed him by like distant scenes from an illuminated psalter and he an ill iterate turning the pages. He vaguely recalled rising to eat in the hall and speaking to people, although what he had eaten and what he had said were now a complete mystery. He also remembered going out to inspect the repair work on the curtain wall , but Judith had apprehended him with some specious excuse that had drawn him back within ... and inevitably to bed where, by unfair means, she had enticed him to stay.

Restlessly he s.h.i.+fted his position, aware of a need to be up and doing that was born of renewed energy, not dull -edged desperation. The grief, anger and guilt were still with him, but no longer intruding upon his every waking thought.

Raw, but bearable and probably a burden for life.

Lady Mabell had died on that first night. G.o.d rest her soul, since it had not had much rest on this earth. Judith had been tearful about that, although he suspected the tears were more a relieving of tension than any deeper grief for the dead woman. The child still lived. His fever was gone and he had stopped pa.s.sing blood, or so Judith told him. She kept the babe from his sight and he had no desire to go and see for himself -not yet; perhaps never.

He thought of the incident with the spiked wine.

He had always known she was mettlesome, but sometimes she was almost too quick for him to handle. Get me with child, she had said. He was not sure that he could imagine Judith soft and doting. It was not in her nature, or at least not yet.

Perhaps children would gentle her, but he doubted it. Kittens did nothing to make a cat less feral. In fact the reverse.

The sound of a horn interrupted his ruminations: a hunting horn, but the notes were not in the sequence that summoned the dogs or blew the mort and they cut through his sense of well -being.

He bolted upright in the bed and reached instinctively for his sword. In that same instant, Mich.e.l.l de Bec clashed aside the curtain without courtesy or preamble and strode into the room.