Guyon studied the a.s.sembly. Grantmesnil, de Belleme and Roger de Poitou had arrived looking like a trio of warlocks, their minions swarming behind. The lord of Shrewsbury was wearing a blood-red gown. His eyes were as pale as shards of gla.s.s and stabbed everyone they encountered.

When the look slashed over Guyon, the latter answered it impa.s.sively. He shielded himself from the malevolence by recalling their last encounter and the gratifying sight of de Belleme and de Lacey parcelled up in the road among a herd of bleating, stinking sheep. His mouth twitched and he quickly lowered his eyes before he laughed. When he dared to look up again, the Earl's gaze was stalking FitzHamon with vicious intent and Walter de Lacey was watching him instead.

Without qualm this time, Guyon smiled at him.

De Lacey stiffened and his right hand twitched towards his sword; except of course that he wasn't wearing one. No man came armed to a parley. He transferred his fist to his empty belt and clamped it there instead.

The annual sum to be forfeited by Henry was set at three thousand marks. Robert appeared delighted with the bargain. Henry's own smile was wry, but with a secretive under-current that Guyon well recognised. Judith looked like that when matters had not gone entirely her own way but she intended them to do so in the fullness of time.

Curthose might get his payment this year and next, but as soon as Henry's hold on his kingdom was less precarious, he would set about seeking a way to extricate himself from the agreement.

Twelve barons from each faction ratified the treaty with their seals. Henry and Robert clasped each other. Curthose's hug was ebullient and affectionate, Henry's a pale imitation. Affection in Henry was reserved for those who did not threaten his crown and even that these days was sparingly given. He was in love with the task of ruling and it left precious little room for softer emotions.

Guyon was in the act of accepting a cup of wine and a heel of bread from his father's captain while around him the men made shrift to load the packhorses, when Henry himself approached, picking his way carefully around the campfire and a.s.sorted heaps of baggage. FitzHamon was with him, the sun reflecting off his pink, freckled scalp.

Guyon bowed, his mouth full of bread. Miles appeared from the tent, breath drawn to speak and, startled, made his own obeisance.

Guyon swallowed hastily. 'Breakfast, sire?' he asked with a touch of humour. The bread was stale and the wine was warm and stuck to the palate. It was all they had left.

Henry made a gesture of refusal and came straight to the point. 'I have to put a curb bit on de Belleme, his brothers and their allies,' he said, 'and I need your help, Guy, and yours too, Miles.'

'If it be in my power, sire,' Miles answered gracefully, eyes full of suspicion.

Guyon glanced at FitzHamon whose face was unhelpfully blank. His heart sank. All he wanted to do was go home, bury his head beneath a pillow for six months, sleep and rediscover the pleasure of a bathtub and Judith fragrantly soft in his arms.

Judith, who was Henry's daughter. 'Sire?'

'I've had the exchequer gathering evidence against Surrey and Grantmesnil since the late autumn, but I need more information on de Belleme and his brothers. There is much groundwork to be done in the marches and until I am ready to cast the noose, I do not want my prey to know how tight I intend to draw it.'

'You want us to spy for you?' Miles demanded.

Henry pinched the end of his blunt nose. Miles, half Welsh by birth, had been one of his father's most valued scouts, a master in the arts of reconnaissance and stealth, one of the props of the Norman army during the notorious northern campaign of 'sixty-nine. 'Not personally,' he said with a tepid smile. 'I'd not lose either of you to one of Shrewsbury's little pastimes, but you must have contacts from the old days, Miles, men you can trust.'

'To have their entrails pierced in my stead?' Miles said with quiet contempt.

'Don't be so awkward, Miles,' said FitzHamon. 'Someone has to recruit the men and collate the information gleaned. Would you rather have de Belleme ravening about the borders like a mad wolf for the next thirty years?'

Miles snorted. 'A knife in the dark would work just as well ,' he said, 'and would probably be a lot simpler to accomplish.'

Henry shook his head. 'I had thought of that, but it wouldn't really serve. If Robert de Belleme dies, then the lands go to his son, or to one of his brothers. If, on the other hand, he is stripped of his fiefs for flouting the law of the land beyond all redemption, then the estates and revenues come directly to the crown.'

'But first he has to be found in official error of the law,' Guyon said, beginning to understand.

His mouth twisted. 'And then it will come to war.'

FitzHamon shrugged. 'You cannot make wine without treading grapes and one way or another it will still come to war in the end.'

'Blood and wine, they're both red, aren't they?' Miles said, his expression blank.

'I'm sure you would rather be a treader than a grape.' Henry said with a glimmer of amus.e.m.e.nt. 'Think about it. If you decide in favour, send to me, or get a message to Beaumais in Shrewsbury. You do know him, don't you?'

'Beaumais? but he's ...' said Miles.

Henry's smile was feline. 'Yes, he's a justiciar in de Belleme's household and he's been in my pay for the past year. You'll be working closely with him if you choose to take on this task.'

Miles stared at Henry, the hairs p.r.i.c.kling his scalp. Guyon, more accustomed to the devious workings of his sovereign's mind, quirked him a wry, 'should have known it' look. Henry conceded a genuine laugh and reached up to slap his shoulder. 'Think about it,' he repeated. 'I'll talk to you later.'

'Will you do as he asks?' FitzHamon said as he made to follow Henry across the camp.

'I do not think we have a choice,' Guyon replied. 'And there's no point in cutting off your nose to spite your face.'

'That doesn't stop him from being as much a b.a.s.t.a.r.d as his father was,' Miles grunted with considerably less charity. 'Only William's was a matter of birth. His is a matter of nature.'

'That's why he's King and Curthose isn't,' Guyon said.

CHAPTER 24.

SUMMER 1102.

Rhosyn drew rein and let the leather hang slack in her capable fingers so that old Gwennoll could graze the dusty roadside gra.s.s. Beyond them, pocked and rutted, the road cut through fields and forest and past formidable fortresses - the marcher eyries of Robert de Belleme - until it reached Shrewsbury, crouched within the protection of the Severn bend. Behind her on the drovers' road lay Wales and safety, as far as anything could be termed safe these days. Guyon had been right, Robert de Belleme and his va.s.sals had turned the marches into h.e.l.l for men who had to travel them for a living. The war in the south where King Henry sought to bring his most voracious Earl to heel sent disturbing rumours scudding north. If Arundell fell to the royal forces, then the storm would burgeon here in the heart of de Belleme's honours and blight the land she rode.

She considered now the left fork and felt a surge in her solar plexus. She always did when she thought of Guyon and not just because of what had been between them. He would be furious when he realised she had risked crossing the border with only a drover and his market-bound herd of sheep for protection.

Her father had been in Flanders when his heart had finally failed his driving will and he had died in a hostel on the Bruges road. Prys had sailed from Bristol to fetch his body home for burial. They would mourn him, and then, because time did not stand still , they would marry. Rhosyn bit her lip, beginning to regret the impulse that had driven her from the hafod towards the market at Ravenstow. There were items she needed, she told herself, items for her wedding. The item she most wanted, she could not have. Better to settle for the same thing in a serviceable day-to-day mould without the gilding, but knowing what was better and sensible did not ease the pain.

'Why have we stopped, Mam?'

Rhosyn looked round at her daughter and the fine lines fanning from her eye corners deepened into a deprecatory smile. 'I am beginning to wonder if we should have come at all .'

'Too late now,' declared Twm sourly, riding up from behind, the pack ponies jingling behind him.

'Won't Guyon be pleased to see us then?' Eluned looked anxiously at her mother and then at Heulwen cradled sleeping in Twm's broad embrace.

'Probably not,' Rhosyn admitted ruefully. 'He may not even be there, not with the war down in the south.'

'What about his wife, will she?' asked Rhys, thinking of the young woman he had met on several occasions during trading visits with his grandfather. Despite himself he liked her.

Beneath her wariness dwelt a sense of humour and a genuine interest in people whatever their station.

'Perhaps.' Rhosyn's fingers twitched on the reins and Gwennoll raised her head and backed restively. Guyon's wife. How would she react to their presence at Ravenstow and what in G.o.d's name was she going to say to her if they met?

Neither child nor virgin, Guyon had said, but as vulnerable as blown gla.s.s, and there had been an expression in his eyes that she had never seen before.

'I don't want to meet her,' Eluned said with a mutinous pout. 'She's probably a haughty Norman b.i.t.c.h.'

Rhosyn turned to her daughter. 'Whoever we meet and whatever happens, you will remember your manners and not disgrace my name or your grandfather's. Is that understood?'

'Yes, Mam,' Eluned said with a scowl.

The market at Ravenstow was in full cry, the booths hectic despite, or perhaps because of, the unrest and warfare swirling around the county.

Men had to make a living and even with their lord absent at the siege of Arundel, the Ravenstow lands were still safer than many.

There were stall s of pies, breads and sweetmeats to tempt the hungry. Spice vendors cried their wares. One of the Ravenstow guards was having a tooth drawn, the efforts of the sweating chirurgeon observed with grisly relish by a critical crowd. A performing bear lumbered in pawing, s.h.a.ggy circles to the music of an off-key set of bagpipes played by a man with a paunch that could have supported a cauldron.

There was a cacophony of livestock. Women sat with baskets full of surplus home produce to barter or sell - cherries and root vegetables, b.u.t.ter and cheese. The potter was there with his green-glaze wares, as was the salt chandler, the shoe-smith, the basket-weaver, and the other tradesmen of the town.

Judith did her duty by the senior merchants and towns-people, pausing to speak and smile and discuss, setting their fears at rest before making her purchases. At the bronze-smith's booth, she bought a new chappe for one of Guyon's belts and a collar for Cadi, the b.i.t.c.h having deposited the last one somewhere on a ten-mile stag hunt, and then she repaired to the haberdasher's stall to obtain needles and embroidery silks for the hanging she intended to warm the solar wall .

Another woman was already there, intently scrutinising a length of ribbon. A small child clutched her skirts and peeped up at Judith from a pair of round, kingfisher-blue eyes. An older, black-haired girl at the woman's other side shifted impatiently from foot to foot. Behind Judith, de Bec muttered a startled, stifled oath.

'What's wrong?' Judith asked, half turning. In that same moment, the boy Rhys stepped from the crowd and joined his mother and sisters at the stall . There was no mistaking the relationship.

They all had variations of the same blunt nose and their hair grew to a similar pattern.

' Heulwen, dewch yno,' said the mother absently as her redhaired youngest one moved from the safety of her skirts towards Judith.

Judith's stomach turned over as the child smiled at her. She put her hand to her mouth and bit on at her. She put her hand to her mouth and bit on the fleshy side of her palm. Guyon's mistress, Guyon's daughter, here in the heart of their lands.

Here, where she had thought she was inviolate.

What did one do? Fight? Back away like one cat sighting another? Brazen it out? Judith lowered her hand and drew herself up. She was no longer a child beset by unfocused emotions, bereft of weapons or defence. She had the knowledge now and the confidence to use it. All that this woman had were the ties of the past ... and the child. Involuntarily, Judith's hand went to her own flat belly before she crouched to the infant's level.

'Heulwen,' she said with uncertainty and smiled.

Rhys turned his head, dark eyes widening.

Rhosyn looked round, the ribbon twined in her neat, capable fingers, her expression first surprised, then anxious. It was a pleasant face with glossy arched brows and full -lidded autumnal eyes. Pretty, but not strikingly so and there were faint weather lines seaming her eye corners.

'I am Judith de Montgomery, Guyon's wife,'

Judith introduced herself with an impa.s.sivity that gave no inkling of the seething emotions beneath.

'If you have come to see him, I am afraid you will be disappointed. He's down at Arundell with the King.'

Heulwen smiled coyly at Judith before turning to her mother and pressing her face into her skirts.

Her heart thumping, Rhosyn stared at the woman who now rose to her feet and confronted her. Were it not for her cool statement of ident.i.ty, she would never have connected the imagination to the reality. Here was a striking young woman, as slender and straight as a stalk of corn in her golden wool gown and not an inch of vulnerability in her att.i.tude.

'I am pleased to meet you, my lady,' Rhoysn responded in excellent accented French marred by the crack in her voice. 'You are not as I thought.'

The gold-grey eyes fixed on her in cool appraisal. 'Neither are you.'

Rhosyn swallowed. 'I have not come to make of Guyon a battleground,' she said, trying to defend herself against Judith's gaze which owned the properties of winter sunlight - bright but killingly cold.

'But nevertheless you are here, and I do not think that it is because you intend buying trinkets or watching the bear dance.'

'No, there is more to it than that,' Rhosyn admitted. 'Some of it is a matter of trade. I have those spices you asked my father to obtain for you last time and I needed some tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs for a new gown ...' She drew a shaky breath. 'My father went to Flanders last month and died there. Prys has gone to bring him home. I was hoping to ask Guyon for an escort back into Wales - he did promise me one should I need it - and I thought he should know of my father's death ... and other things.' Her voice stalled into silence.

'Then you had best come up to the keep,' Judith said stiffly. 'There will be tallies to settle and you will need a place to sleep. I am sorry to hear about your father. We had become friends.' She wondered what she would do if Guyon came unexpectedly home now and lavished all his attention on Rhosyn and their small , engaging daughter. It was an area they had left well alone.

Judith had never enquired beyond the superficial and he had seldom volunteered insights, both of them avoiding what might cause them too much pain. She saw now, too late, that they had been wrong.

The tension between the two women remained palpable, although Judith relaxed her guard sufficiently to haggle prices with Rhosyn, who responded vigorously to the challenge as soon as she realised Judith's astuteness. Eluned was sulky and intractable and de Bec took her and Rhys off to the stables to show them Melyn's latest batch of kittens before the child's rudeness became inexcusable. The two women were left alone in each other's company, except for the infant.

'Eluned has lost her father and now her grandfather,' Rhosyn sighed, 'and this new babe has not made matters any easier.' She looked tenderly down at the child curled sleepily in her lap. 'I did not mean to conceive, you know - a slip-up with the nostrums that would have prevented such a thing. She is a tie with Guyon I could well do without.' Gently she touched the feathery whorls of red-blonde hair and smiled. 'She takes her colouring from Guyon's grand-sire, Renard de Rouen. He married a Welsh girl, old Lord Owain's daughter, Heulwen. My father was at their wedding, although of course he was no more than a child himself then.'

Judith was silent, not knowing what to say.

Spoken in a different tone, Rhosyn's words might have been a challenge, yet crooned softly like a lullaby to a drowsing infant, there was no threat but, Jesu, they stung all the same. A vision of Guyon's lithe, muscular body filled Judith's inner eye. She knew exactly how his skin would feel beneath her fingertips; the gliding, sensual promise of joy. So did Rhosyn, the child in her arms a visible, living reminder of the pleasure Guyon had taken on her body. And as yet she had no such reminder to comfort herself.

Glancing up from her sleepy daughter, Rhosyn glimpsed Judith's expression before it was masked to neutrality, and her stomach lurched.

Behind that controlled facade there stalked a wild beast.

'Perhaps it would be better if you gave me my escort now,' she suggested with dignity.

Judith parted her lips to snarl an agreement, caught her voice in time and, hands clenched in her lap, looked away towards the s.p.a.ce upon the solar wall where she intended to drape the hanging. The jealous anger she felt was corrosive and damaging. She had to face it and force her will through it. Turning back to the small , dark Welsh woman, she laid her hand on her sleeve.

'No, please stay. It is too late in the day to set out for Wales. You would not reach your home before dark. Besides, we have not concluded our business. Can you obtain some more of that rich cloth for me? The last gown was ruined in London.'

'I will try. We've been swamped by demands for it since last winter, but of course you and Guyon have priority. I'll speak to Prys.' She studied Judith warily. They were navigating a deep, narrow channel and where there were not jagged rocks to be avoided, there were currents and whirlpools.

Ignorant of adult strivings, Heulwen slept, a heavy warm weight in her mother's arms, and Rhosyn was only too glad to accept Judith's invitation to put her down in the upper chamber with Helgund and Elflin.

The room was well appointed and reasonably warm, for in addition to the braziers it boasted a hearth. The maids whispered delightedly over the sleeping child. Rhosyn laid her daughter in the huge bed which dwarfed the small form to the size of a doll and, after tenderly smoothing her curls, gazed around the room. The wall s were bright with hangings that stayed the draughts and combated the seeping coldness of the stone wall s. The narrow windows were covered by slats of wafer-thin ox horn so that at least some daylight was permitted into the room, but rush dips still illuminated the corners and unseen things seemed to lurk there. She shivered and hugged her arms.

'Is there something wrong?' Judith enquired.

Rhosyn shook her head and smiled wanly. 'I hate these places.' She shuddered. 'No light, no air save that it be musty and tainted with damp. The wall s hem me in. I never sleep well when I'm lodged in one of these keeps. I need to be free.

Guy could see it, but he never understood. He loves the stones. Perhaps they grow warm under his touch as they do not under mine. It is one of the reasons I would not stay with him. In time the nightmare would have swamped the dream.' She looked round at Judith and dropped her arms to her sides. 'You are like him; content to dwell here.

You do not feel the hostility. I could no more make my home in a keep than you could live rough in Wales.'

Judith took her coney-lined cloak from the clothing pole and handed Rhosyn hers across the s.p.a.ce separating them. 'Then you do not know me,' she responded with a glimmer of fierceness. 'Yes, I do enjoy the security of these wall s and caring for those within their bounds, but it is not all my life and, if it was, I would go mad.'

She led her out of the room and on up the twisting stairway to the battlements, her tread making nothing of the steep, winding steps.

Almost defiantly she added between breaths as they went, 'I know how to track and snare game. I can make a shelter from cloaks and branches. I speak a fair degree of Welsh and I can use a dagger as well as any man. When Guy goes on progress to his other holdings, I go with him and it is no hardship for me to sleep beneath a hedge or hayrick wrapped in my cloak. I need to feel the wind in my hair and the rain on my face. Sometimes I come up here for precisely that purpose.'

Rhosyn, her calves aching, put her hands on the stone and leaned between the merlons while she rested to gain her breath. A guard saluted the two women. Judith greeted the man by name and stood beside Rhosyn, her tawny hair wisping loose of its braids.