Helgund returned his scrutiny beneath the deference of half-lowered lids. 'She is like a vixen confronting food in a trap, sire. She wants the meat, but dare not attempt to s.n.a.t.c.h it for fear of paying the price.'

His brows twitched together. 'Am I the meat or the price?' he enquired.

'Both, sire. She fears lest she become reduced to the status of b.i.t.c.h or brood mare, or cast-off wife. It is rumoured at court that you prefer the chase to the kill .'

Guyon's frown deepened. Helgund swallowed, but continued doggedly. 'It is not her fault, sire. If you had seen what Lord Maurice did to her lady mother in front of us all , and mistress Judith no more than a mite of three years old. Said he would fill her belly with enough seed to plant a dozen children and dragged her to the bed there and then before us all and used her like a wh.o.r.e... Happened more than once too and sometimes he was in too much of a hurry to draw the hangings. We protected the child as best we could but ...' Helgund drew a shaken breath and fell silent beneath the onslaught of his stare.

'Thank you, Helgund.' His voice was frighteningly quiet, belying the anger she saw in his eyes. 'Thank you for telling me. I can see the kind of obstacles across my path now. Before, I just kept treading on them. Go back to your bed now. I'll seek mine in a moment.'

Relieved, Helgund curtsied and made herself absent.

Guyon drew a deep breath and controlled his ire. Maurice de Montgomery was already dead; the Welsh had got there first.

'Well , Cath fach,' he said softly, brushing a stray wisp of tawny hair away from her eyelids and the thick, downswept bronze lashes, 'how do I avoid these obstacles of yours?'

He knew she was not indifferent and that the times when her guard was down, he would have sold his soul to keep her that way. The times when her guard was up, she was impossible to reach.

Never once of her own accord had she offered him a sign of affection or endearment. Jealousy, yes, but that was an emotion born of insecurity and mistrust. The moves were all his, and they were straining the bounds of her acceptance.

Today he had stepped beyond the limit. Tonight she was blind drunk. So what else was left? He shied from the thought.

' Nos da, Cath fach, ' he murmured softly, tugged her braid and quietly left the room.

CHAPTER 18.

On the crest of the hill , Guyon reined his courser to a halt and shielded his eyes to watch the goshawk a.s.sault the air on dark, swift pinions, gaining height against the hot blue sky before stooping like a wind-ruffled stone upon the desperate flight of a round-bodied partridge.

Prince Henry, triumphant owner, fisted the morning air as the partridge tumbled over in a puff of feathers and was borne to earth beneath the goshawk's talons. The falconer and a huntsman ran towards the two birds, one to be retrieved in proud prowess to Henry's wrist, the other to be added to the mound of soft bodies already culled that morning. The King's Norway hawk was a skilled killer too.

Henry stroked the breast of his own bird where she perched, dark wings folded, and deftly replaced the leather hood over the fierce golden eyes. Then he looked at Guyon.

'I hear your wife made quite an impression last night,' he remarked with a laconic grin.

'She is not accustomed to quite so much wine, my lord,' Guyon excused and eased himself in the saddle. He had backache as a result of sleeping on a lumpy, makeshift pall et within range of a sly draught.

Henry's grin deepened. 'I didn't mean that business with Alais, although I wish I had been there. I meant her resemblance to my grandmother, Arlette. Old Hubert couldn't believe his eyes, thought he'd seen a ghost and Rufus remarked on it this morning at ma.s.s ... and he told me an appalling joke.'

Guyon lifted his stiff shoulders. 'As far as I know, the only blood she shares with your family is that of her maternal grandsire, and, even then, the Countess of Conteville is not of that line.'

'Maurice FitzRoger's girl, isn't she?' Henry looked thoughtful. 'How old is she now, Guy?'

'She was born in the November of 'eighty-three, my lord.' Guyon squinted against the sun at the Prince whose look had suddenly grown secretive, the way it sometimes did after he had been closeted with Gilbert and Roger de Clare. Still waters ran deeper than anyone could fathom.

'Any girl of seventeen who looks like my grandmother deserves closer examination,' Henry said, still stroking his hawk, his gaze intent upon the action of his fingers.

'Angling for an invitation sire?' Guyon jested with the familiarity of long acquaintance and the occasional deeper friendship.

'How did you guess? Anyway, I used to rent the house. You cannot refuse. Is tonight all right? After the hunt?'

Guyon's gaze flickered and sharpened, for Henry's interest was perhaps a little too keen for comfort.

'I did wonder,' Henry said softly to the bird, 'but she never sent word. Perhaps it was just as well .'

'Sire?'

Guyon's tone must have given him away, for Henry uttered a forced laugh. 'G.o.d's blood, Guy, stop thinking wild thoughts! With a face like yours, is it likely that I'd be able to seduce your wife before your eyes, or even behind your back! I want to meet her, no more than that. Look, Rufus has started a hare!' He turned to the falconer, gave him care of the goshawk and clapped spurs to his courser's sides.

Guyon followed more slowly, aware of a niggling doubt at the back of his mind. Henry could lie the hindleg off an a.s.s if expediency demanded. Guyon did not believe that he was lying now, but he was sure the Prince was concealing something. The problem with such a devious man was knowing what.

Judith would need to know that they had guests.

He had looked in on her this dawn before departing to hunt and found her huddled beneath the pelts in a heavy sleep. He knew the symptoms and how dreadful she would feel on awakening.

Renewed nausea, a tight, swollen drum where her head should be and a raging thirst. Hardly the best equipment with which to organise food and entertainment for a prince of the realm who was coming to visit her because she resembled his grandmother. In her present state Judith would doubtless give a commendable imitation of the said lady risen untimely from her crypt.

He muttered an oath beneath his breath, bent a scowl upon Henry's fast-disappearing back and, calling Eric to him, sent him off with a message.

Judith woke late in the morning with all the vile after-effects Guyon had predicted and more besides. Half an hour voiding in the latrine made her swear a miserable oath that she would never again drink the seemingly innocuous wines of Anjou, whose potency was so wickedly concealed. She had meant to drink enough to dull the edge of her fear and instead she had swallowed her way into h.e.l.l . Of the night before she remembered little except being ill .

Green-faced, she directed Helgund to mix a valerian posset to ease her rolling gut and skull . It tasted disgusting and, fighting the urge to retch because by now her stomach was so sore, she retired again to bed to let the herb do its work.

She had been there perhaps an hour when Eric rode in with his message, half a dozen limp partridges over his saddlebow.

Panic ensued. Judith, her headacheaggravated to a megrim of t.i.tanic proportions, presided over a household that resembled a disorganised corner of h.e.l.l . However, gradually, he r tenacious common sense rea.s.serted itself.

This had once been Prince Henry's house. Well and good, let the Prince's machinery do what had to be done. Mustering her wits and drinking another cup of the valerian brew, she tidied her hair, put on a clean overgown and went below to visit Sir Walter and explain her predicament.

By noontide, the kitchen shed was bustling, the cook in receipt of the recipes for Henry's favourite dishes and two servants sent off to the markets to fetch whatever was not available on the premises.

A minstrel had been engaged, Helgund and Elflin were busy with brooms and beeswax polish and Judith had retired to the sinful luxury of a hot bathtub, the water scented with attar of roses, in order to compose herself for the coming ordeal.

Her gaze on the bed as she soaked, ignoring Helgund's dire warning that all the goodness would come out of her body, she wondered how she had been brought home last night and where Guyon had elected to sleep, for there had been no imprint in the bed beside her. Probably below with Sir Walter. A memory came to her, hazy and thick as wine dregs. Alais de Clare had been whispering in Guyon's ear and pressing herself against him. Perhaps he had shared a feather mattress last night, and not for the purposes of sleep.

Alais de Clare would give Guyon what he wanted without baulking or complaint, as would many other of the women who frequented the court. She had seen the way they looked at him ...

and at her, the amused patronising hostility, their thoughts naked in their eyes as they wondered how long she would hold him faithful.

She looked down at her body and then at the sinewy freckled forearm and wrist resting on the edge of the tub. She did not have Alais's natural advantages of a lovely face and ripe, lascivious curves, nor her amoral apt.i.tude for coupling, but she probably had at least as much imagination if shown the right direction and she had always been quick to learn. The only problem was overcoming the fear of pain and subjugation, of being held down and used as no more than an object on which to breed sons. She knew Guyon would not treat her thus, but knowing did not prevent the thought from occurring. It was no light thing to step off the edge of a precipice with only a tenuous, recent trust for support.

Her mind plodded a fruitless circle. She cursed with soft vehemence and called for Helgund to bring her a towel.

Henry sniffed appreciatively as they pa.s.sed the bakehouse door. Rich, savoury scents wafted to his nostrils. The sound of the cook paddling the spit boy's behind for failing to turn the spit at the crucial moment made him smile.

Simon's grandfather hobbled out to greet the hunting party, wrinkled face bright with pleasure.

Henry stopped to speak with him. Guyon cast a suspicious look over his shoulder at the industry within the bakehouse, then back at Sir Walter, who winked at him.

'Resourceful la.s.s you've got there,' he chuckled as Guyon followed Henry up the stairs.

Helgund and Elflin stood to one side, their working gowns covered by fresh, snowy ap.r.o.ns, their hair tidied beneath pristine wimples. Henry turned from their anxious obeisance before their bobbing up and down made him seasick and was welcomed within by Judith.

She was very slender; he could have spanned her waist with his mount's noseband. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were high and small , her flanks long and lithe and her voice clear and low. The years fell away and for a moment it was a different woman who welcomed him into a different room, a woman with raven-black braids and twilight-coloured eyes. Judith of Ravenstow had the same eye shape, but more variety of hues, and her hair was a warm sandy-bronze, bordering on red.

'I hope I have not put you to any trouble, Lady Judith,' he said with a smile as he raised her to her feet. It was a meaningless civility. Henry had long ceased to care about putting people out in order to have his own way.

Judith made a sincere-sounding disclaimer and, taking his cloak, gave it to Helgund. Guyon handed his own directly to the maid while looking his wife up and down. 'I'm glad to see you are better,' he said. She was wearing a plain cream undertunic and a long-sleeved gown of copper-coloured silk. A girdle of gold links and shaved, amber oblongs hugged her waist. Her expression was calm, bearing no trace of the previous evening's excesses.

'Patched up and surviving on valerian.' She sent him a rueful smile. 'I've still got a raging headache for my sins, but thank you for the warning. At least I have had the time to prepare.'

'More than time,' he murmured, tugging one of her braids and glancing round at the white linen cloth upon the trestle, the fine cups and flagon, the wax candles surrounded by fresh flowers and greenery.

Judith gave him a secretive smile and Guyon's fingers left her braid as though one of her gold fillets had scorched him. His gaze flickered between herself and Henry.

'Dear G.o.d,' he said softly.

'What's the matter?'

Guyon shook his head and mutely went past her into the room. Henry paid Judith a compliment concerning her domestic abilities. Guyon snapped his fingers at one of Sir Walter's servants, drafted in for the evening. The man hastened to pour wine. Guyon watched him without noticing his actions, absorbing the shock of what he had just seen and deciding that it was patently impossible. Henry was only thirty-two now.

He thought of himself at fourteen. s.e.xual congress had been an undiscovered mystery then. Fumblings in dark corners, s.n.a.t.c.hed kisses and giggles, pleading persuasion, his mother's sharp eye upon the younger maids. The dry throat, the antic.i.p.ation, the blinding flash finished too quickly to be savoured until familiarity lent refinement and control. And Henry at fourteen?

Henry at fourteen had already possessed the a.s.surance and technique that came of long acquaintance with the act.

'Penny for your thoughts, Guy?' Hugh of Chester nudged him.

'You'd need more than that,' he said with smile that was not a smile and, taking his wine, went to join Henry.

Hugh d'Avrenches frowned, but after a moment shrugged and followed him.

The evening progressed and so did Guyon's doubts. The similarities were infinitesimal, mainly in the smile and the tilt of the head, and fleetingly seen, but the Prince's att.i.tude gave them credence. He was acting on two levels.

Superficially, he was the charming, genial guest, fluent of phrase and gesture; underneath, though, he was studying Judith, drawing her out, examining her piece by little piece, using both his eyes and his expert sleight of mouth. Warmed by his subtle attention, Judith responded as all women responded to Henry, opening like a rose to the warmth of the sun.

Towards the end of the evening when the men were relaxed with food and wine, the conversation was pleasantly upon the merits of Irish hounds for coursing deer and the minstrel was softly plucking out the notes of Stella Maris on his harp, one of Henry's messengers arrived and was shown upstairs.

Henry, drawn from indolent comfort, listened to the kneeling man, his features impa.s.sive, but the wine in his hand rippled and a flush darkened the stubble edging his jaw.

His older brother Robert, sauntering glory-clad home from his crusade, had paused in Sicily to take to his bosom a wealthy young bride, one Sybill of Conversano, daughter of an Apulian count with strong Norman ties. The name did not really matter, nor the rank, but the girl's considerable wealth would enable him to buy back his p.a.w.ned duchy from Rufus and the marriage itself made the prospect of Robert's heir an imminent possibility. Henry's proximity to the crown was suddenly seen distantly across a smoky hall instead of glittering above his cupped hands.

Silence descended in the wake of the messenger's news. No one looked at anyone else. And then Gilbert de Clare muttered something at his boots and Henry flicked him a sharp glance and warningly shook his head. 'A toast,' he said in a brittle voice and raised his cup. 'To my brother and his bride, may they find safe harbour.'

Cups clinked. The toast was mumblingly repeated.

'What will you do now?' Earl Hugh folded his hands comfortably over his paunch, body slack, eyes as sharp as shards of blue gla.s.s.

Henry pursed his lips. A look flashed between himself and Gilbert de Clare. 'Rufus won't make me his heir,' he said softly, 'and Robert's got the anvils and hammers to beget his own brood now.

I suppose I needs must follow the example of my father.'

Chester waved a gnat away from his face. 'If it's civil war you're suggesting, count me out,' he said, tone still comfortable. 'Got enough problems with the Welsh warring over who inherits what without looking down this end for trouble.'

'Civil war?' Henry's eyes widened innocently.

'No, who would back me?'

'You have friends, sire,' said Roger de Clare, voice low but full of fierce meaning.

'It's not friends I need, but opportunity and the right kind of backing ... Would you give it to me, Guy?' There was bitter mischief in his eyes.

'A feudal oath is sacred unto death, my lord,' Guyon said quietly after a moment. 'It might cause me pain, but I'd shut my keeps to you.'

'Precisely.' Henry twisted a smile. 'Excellent building material were it but mine. Can I offer you no inducements?'

Their eyes met and held. 'Not even if you were related, my lord,' Guyon said deliberately.

Henry stretched like a cat and his smile deepened. 'I thought not. But supposing it came to a choice between myself and Robert? What then?'

'Then I hope I would make the right choice,'

Guyon said, refusing to be drawn.

'Where does your father fit into all this?' enquired Earl Hugh politely.

'No one handed him his meat on a platter, so he went out and shot his own deer.'

Judith decided that this conversation had sailed quite far enough into murky waters and deliberately let her cup slip from her fingers.

Exclaiming in distress, she set about collecting the fragments and accidentally caught the fingerbowl with the trailing end of her sleeve, tipping it into Henry's lap.

The Prince dragged a shocked breath over his larynx. Earl Hugh gave a great bellow of laughter, slapped his hand down on the table and drove a dagger of gla.s.s straight into his palm. Blood spurted. The bellow became a howl of pain.

Judith grabbed a napkin from the table and sought to staunch the wound but, in her fl.u.s.tered haste, knocked over a candlestick and set fire to Gilbert de Clare's sleeve.

Guyon, his eyes filled with hilarity, s.n.a.t.c.hed the flagon and doused their guest with a great deal of enthusiasm and a very poor aim for a man who was so skilled a warrior. Gilbert's hound snarled and tried to bite Guyon's ankle and was kicked across the room to fetch up yelping against the wall . Pandemonium reigned. Stella Maris faltered, tw.a.n.ged and stopped. The minstrel sidled out of the room, de Clare's abused dog snarling at his heels. Judith flapped around like a headless chicken, creating more chaos than she was clearing up, but at last, Chester's wound was thoroughly, if clumsily, staunched with the napkin, she looked around at the wreckage with br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes, then covered her face with her hands, m.u.f.fling little sounds into them, her shoulders shaking.

Guyon flicked a look at his wife, spluttered and quickly bent to retrieve a dish from the floor while he mustered his control. 'I suggest, madam, that you go and find some fresh garments for my lord Prince,' he said in a choked voice.

Judith squeaked and fled. Gilbert de Clare saw an embarra.s.sed husband struggling manfully to control his rage at the shortcomings of his foolish wife. Hugh of Chester in contrast saw a man striving to contain his mirth and banishing its giggling catalyst from his presence until he should be capable of controlling himself. He also saw why it had been done and, looking down at the wad of embroidered linen screwed ineptly round his cut and, knowing how her competent medical skill had saved Guyon's life, concluded that Judith of Ravenstow would take some holding if she ever decided to take the bit between her teeth.

Judith re-emerged, biting her lower lip, her shoulders still displaying a disturbing tendency to tremble as she handed Henry tunic and chausses. Henry quirked his brows, not quite as befooled as his bland expression suggested.

'Do not fret yourself, Lady Judith,' he said magnanimously. 'Accidents will happen.'