He shrugged. 'Not necessarily, but I have had no choice but to learn the ways of women. My sister rules her roost and she has three daughters, all of them lively, and Rhosyn has a daughter too, Eluned. One learns to tread with care.'

He spoke with such obvious affection for his womenfolk that another shard of fear broke from the frozen lump at Judith's core and dissolved away. 'Will you tell me about your family, my lord?

The marriage was arranged so quickly that I know very little.'

Guyon obliged. It was safer ground than talk of mistresses, or so in his ignorance he thought.

Indeed, all went sweetly until he spoke of his half-sister Emma and her marriage to a royal official.

From there, the conversation drifted into the murkier waters surrounding life at court.

'De Bec says that the King is a ...' Judith caught herself just in time from committing another fauxpas. 'A mincing ferblet' was not a safe remark.

Guyon had not missed her sudden dismayed check. He could well guess the reason. Rufus's tendencies were common guardroom scandal and one did not learn how to sharpen a sword and fight with knife without ingesting gossip.

It was not really amusing, not when the King, who was short, portly and red complexioned, preferred his partners to be tall , honed and possessed of dark good looks. On several occasions the royal groin had stood in imminent danger of damage from Guyon's knee. That had been in the early days before he discovered the amicable company of the ambitious Prince Henry and that the occasional night spent carousing with him amid women of doubtful character, and wine of opposite excellence, was sufficient to dampen Rufus's ardour and send him in pursuit of more co-operative game.

'... De Bec says that the King spends more money on clothes in one week than mama would be all owed to spend in an entire year,' Judith amended, regarding him anxiously.

Guyon chuckled. 'Rufus likes to think that he spends more on his wardrobe than other men, but he is outwitted by his own vanity. Last time I was at court my brother-in-law, who was dressing him, fetched him a pair of gilded leather boots. Rufus asked how much they cost, so Richard told him.

Rufus was furious and demanded that he go away and find a pair that were worth a full mark of silver, claiming that those he had been offered were fit only for shovelling dung.' His laughter deepened. 'I do not tell a tale like Richard; he had the alehouse in uproar!'

'What happened?'

'Richard went away, found a hideous red pair with green fringing that cost less than the first pair and took them to Rufus, telling him they were the most expensive boots he could lay hands on.'

'And Rufus swallowed the bait?'

'Well , he paraded round all day in them, thinking himself a peac.o.c.k and looking like a Southwark pimp and Richard pocketed the profit. G.o.d knows if the tale has got back to Rufus yet. I'd hate to be in Richard's boots when it does!'

Judith made a face at his weak pun and then laughed, the sound a delicious feminine tumble of notes, as surprising to Guyon as the fine strength of her hands.

'Tell me about de Bec,' he said when they had ceased laughing at the royal vanity. 'How long has he been here at Ravenstow?'

'He arrived soon after the main keep began to go up, the year before I was born, I think. My father was away fighting the Welsh and it was my mother who employed him.'

'And he has been her man ever since?'

'Whenever it has been possible. If he had defied my father's authority he would have been straight away dismissed and he is too old to travel the roads with his sword for hire.' She gave him a concerned look. 'You do not intend to turn him out, my lord? He is most loyal and he knows this keep better than any man alive ... saving my uncle Robert of course.'

'No, of course I do not intend turning him out - unless he proves unsatisfactory to my own a.s.sessment. Seventeen years of service are not dismissed lightly.' He made a face. 'I am not so sure about your constable however.'

Judith tossed her head. 'FitzWarren's all right.

Dry as dust and too full of his own importance by half, but he's loyal and very efficient. He can conjure a feast out of nothing - I've seen him do it, and his accounts are meticulous.'

'I am sure they are. It just troubles me as to where he obtains the wealth to clothe himself in scarlet sarcenet.'

'It was my father's, new last Candlemas. He and FitzWarren were much of a height. Mama gave it to him after the funeral. You can see the account roll s on the morrow if you want ... Oh, do you read and write?'

'Both. Do you?'

'A little, my lord.' Actually, it was considerably more than a little, gleaned from the household scribe on cold winter days and polished in private moments to an astute skill , but most men preferred their women to dwell in ignorance, or at least in more ignorance than themselves.

'After the hunt tomorrow you can show me - I don't want FitzWarren standing at my shoulder watching me even if he is honest.' He glanced towards the shutters. 'If there is a hunt, with all this snow blowing about.'

Judith stretched and yawned. The wine had made her eyes heavy and it was very late.

Guyon glanced at her. He was not averse to the prospect of sleep himself, for the day had been long and fraught and the morrow seemed set to continue the same. He leaned over and pinched out the night candle and in the darkness removed his cloak. Fabric slid silkily against skin as Judith shed her own garment and burrowed down beneath the covers.

' Nos da, Cath fach,' he said compa.s.sionately.

' Nos da, fy gwr,' she replied in pa.s.sable Welsh.

Guyon mentally added the skill of language to her numerous talents and wondered how in G.o.d's name an oaf like Maurice FitzRoger had managed to beget a child like this. His last thought before sleep claimed him, and not to be remembered in the morning, was that perhaps Maurice had not begotten her at all .

CHAPTER 5.

Judith blearily opened her eyes in response to the persistent thrust of a small , cold nose pressing against her cheek and a thunderous vibration in her ear. Melyn uttered a purr of greeting, striped orange tail waving jauntily. Judith groaned and buried her face in the pillow. There was an ache behind her eyes that spoke of an excess of wine and an insufficiency of sleep. The room was lit by weak grey light penetrating the membrane screen across the arrowslit. Given the time of year, it must be well beyond the hour of first ma.s.s which meant that there was no time left to turn over and go back to sleep.

Judith pushed Melyn aside, gathered her hair and sat up. The cat stalked across the pillow to the turned back of the other occupant, sniffed the rumpled black hair and patted a playful sheathed paw on the man's face.

'Rhosyn,' Guyon murmured, opened his eyes and received a cold, wet kiss that dispelled all dreaming illusions. 'G.o.d's blood!' He jerked upright, seeking his non-existent sword - a man did not come thus armed to his marriage bed.

The cat, having achieved her purpose, leaped nimbly to the floor and commenced an inquisitive investigation of Guyon's baggage. Glowering at Melyn's graceful form, he dug his fingers through his hair. Judith decided he was suffering from her own malaise and best left in peace to gather his wits ... except that this morning there was no time.

She sought her bedrobe and put it on. Guyon pressed his face into his hands. Tactfully, Judith left the bed, scooped up Melyn and went to the arrowslit. 'It is not snowing now, my lord,' she remarked. 'And the clouds are high. The hunt can be held. It will provide fresh meat and it will prevent quarrels from developing. There was a terrible fight last Christmas when Mama's niece got married. The groom's cousin lost three fingers and an ear and the hall was completely wrecked.'

'G.o.d forbid,' he said.

'You should watch Walter de Lacey today,' she warned. 'I suppose you know that he offered for me before Papa died and he is one of Uncle Robert's friends.'

'I did not think your uncle Robert had any friends.'

Glancing round, she saw that he had begun to a.s.semble his clothing. His eyes, although bleary were fully open now.

'Do not worry, I know well he is one of the Cwmni Annwn. I will be on my guard.'

'The what?'

'Hounds of h.e.l.l ,' he translated, tugging on his shirt. 'The Wild Hunt. d.a.m.ned souls who hunt in perpetuity and never come to rest. Appropriate, would you not say?'

His flippant tone was a barrier. His father would have recognised it immediately and cut straight beneath it. Judith stood blocked, unsure what to do. She watched him dress, setting aside his wedding finery for a warm, fur-trimmed tunic of green plaid wool, thick hose and tough, calf-hide boots.

Abandoning Judith, Melyn leaped on to the bed and began to wash. Judith's eyes followed the cat and then settled on the linen undersheet. White as the snow that had fall en in the night. Pristine.

Unstained. She gave a gasp of panic. Any moment now they were likely to be disturbed by their guests and the first task of the morning would be to display that sheet to all , stained with the sanguine proof of her virginity ... or lack of it.

Startled, Guyon left off buckling his belt. 'What's the matter?'

'The bed ... the sheet. They will think that I am impure, or else that you were unable.'

He gaped at her.

'There is no blood!' she almost shrieked at him.

Enlightenment tardily dawned and with it a glint of amus.e.m.e.nt. 'Ah.' He rubbed the back of his neck. 'I don't make a habit of deflowering virgins.'

He shot her a sour grin. 'I wonder which choice they would settle upon.' Pushing Melyn gently to one side, he drew his short eating knife from the sheath at his belt and, forcing up his left sleeve, made a shallow cut upon the inside of his forearm. As the blood welled in a thin, bright line, he smeared it over the centre of the sheet.

'Self-inflicted,' he remarked with wry humour as he stanched the bleeding on his shirt sleeve. 'I beg a cup of valerian to mend my disordered wits, and a pot of honey to smear this slit in my hide.'

Judith handed him the jar of nettle salve. 'This will serve just as well for the nonce.'

His tone was self-mocking. 'And have all the women condemn me for a clumsy oaf and risk your mother's censure? I have a reputation to keep up, you know.'

Judith blushed, for she had not thought of how others would misconstrue the finger marks in the ointment.

'It's a scratch, don't concern yourself.' He rolled down his sleeve and grinned at her. 'I dare say it is not the last wound I'll take defending a lady's honour.'

Before Judith could decide how to reply, Cadi began to bark outside the entrance curtain and a woman cried out in anxiety. On the bed Melyn became a stiff horseshoe of growling orange fur.

Guyon tugged a strand of Judith's hair, gave her an encouraging wink and went to draw aside the curtain and wish good morning to his mother-by-marriage, the small entourage of female wedding guests in her wake and the plump maid bearing a ewer of warm, scented water and a towel.

Cadi greeted her master boisterously. He commanded her down, but although she obeyed him, her forepaws danced on the floor and her whole body quivered with precariously subdued enthusiasm. Alicia returned Guyon's courtesy with a tepid nod and entered the room. At her side an older woman, a second cousin or some such as he remembered, fastidiously brushed white dog hairs from her dark blue gown.

Alicia's gaze went from the bloodied sheet to Judith who was clutching the salve pot in her hand. Judith flashed a dismayed glance at Guyon, caught her under-lip in her teeth and quickly put the salve down, but the damage was already done. Alicia's mouth tightened.

Frightened by the crowd and the dog, Melyn leaped off the bed to make her escape and was immediately spotted by Cadi. Barking excitedly, the hound took a flying lunge at the cat. As Cadi flung past Agnes, the ewer flew out of the maid's hands and a warm deluge christened the two women immediately in front of her. Screams and squawks rent the air, intermingled with a cat's snarls and the hysterical barking of the dog.

Melyn streaked for the door and with Cadi hot on her heels, scorched up the thick curtain to cling yowling at the top, claws fiercely dug in.

Guyon seized Cadi's collar, drew breath to speak, saw from the basilisk glares turned his way that it would be a waste of time and beat a hasty retreat with the b.i.t.c.h to the haven of male company breaking their fast in the hall .

Judith, tears of laughter br.i.m.m.i.n.g in her eyes, went to coax Melyn down from her precarious refuge.

The breaking of fast was an uncomfortable affair, fortunately not prolonged because the men were eager to be out on the trail of the boar that Ravenstow's chief huntsman a.s.sured them lurked in the forests on the western edge.

The bride put in a tardy appearance as the men were preparing to leave, her manner much subdued, the glances she cast at her husband swift and furtive. When the bloodied bridal sheet was displayed by the women, she almost lost control. Her narrow shoulders heaved and she covered her face briefly with her veil while she mastered herself. Alicia's arm went protectively around her daughter's shoulders and she threw Guyon a look boiling with murder.

'Why was Judith weeping, were you clumsy with her?' Miles demanded of his son as they slowed their mounts to enter a patch of bramble-tangled woodland. Ahead of them the dogs could be heard barking as they trailed the rank scent of boar.

Guyon drew himself up. 'Credit me with a little more experience than that. The blasted wench was laughing. I ought to drown that cat of hers!'

Miles raised his brows, justifiably baffled and more than a little worried, remembering Alicia's fear of the previous evening, his own rea.s.surances and then the look on her face this morning. If looks could kill , his son would have been a dead man and himself frozen to stone.

Guyon regaled him with the details of the morning's disaster and Miles's eyebrows disappeared into his hair.

'So there we were,' Guyon said ruefully, 'Judith with the pot of salve in her hand, not daring to look at me lest she laugh, and the sheet all b.l.o.o.d.y and my mother-in-law itching to geld me ...' He paused on a breath and turned in the saddle as the constable de Bec rode up to join them on his st.u.r.dy dun.

His manner was tangibly cool, his mouth tight within its neat grey bracket of beard. He too had witnessed Judith's struggle for composure in the hall and had been filled with a protective anger, at first so hot that he had almost enquired of Lady Alicia whether she desired to be rid of her new son-by-marriage. Almost, but not quite, for as he had been gulping down his bread and wine and preparing to leave, he could have sworn Judith had smiled at him, a sparkle of mischief in her eyes. Girls distraught to the point of tears did not do such things. Besides, he had reasoned, if Guyon died, the King would only select another man to fill the position, probably of far worse moral fibre and, when he thought about it rationally, the new lord had only had his right and seemed in public gently disposed towards the child.

'Judith tell s me that you have been teaching her to hone a blade and use it,' Guyon remarked pleasantly to the constable.

De Bec rubbed his fist over his beard. 'She asked me so I showed her, my lord. Nothing wrong in knowing a bit about weapons, especially here in the marches.'

'No,' Guyon agreed, hiding a smile at de Bec's stony expression and his father's sudden wide stare. 'Did her parents share your opinion?'

'Lord Maurice never knew. Lady Alicia wasn't keen, but she knew when to give a little and when to rein in.'

'So you have been a nursemaid as well as constable,' Guyon needled gently. 'Devotion to duty indeed.'

De Bec glinted him a look. 'Mistress Judith is the daughter I never had the opportunity to settle down and sire. Don't be deceived by what you saw yesterday. She is one of a kind.' He cleared his throat. 'Have a care, my lord, or you may wake up one morning to find yourself gelded.'

'She is maiden still ,' Guyon replied. 'I have no taste for rape. The blood on the sheets is my own and freely given.'

De Bec cleared his throat. 'It is your right,' he muttered gruffly into his chest.

'Indeed so,' Guyon answered, 'but one I exercise at my peril. I hazard that if I harmed so much as one hair of her head, I'd not wake up at all the next morning.'

Their eyes locked and held for a moment before the older man dropped his gaze to the smooth muscle of his mount's shoulder, knowing he had gone as far as he dared with a man he did not know. Guyon turned his head. Distantly the hounds gave tongue in a new key, a sustained tocsin, belling deep.

'Boar's up and running,' Miles said, jerking his courser around.

Guyon swung his own horse.

De Bec spoke abruptly. 'Keep your eyes open, my lord. You have as many enemies among your guests as you have allies and when I see men huddling in corners and glimpse the exchange of silver in the darkness, I know that no good will come of it.'

Guyon smiled thinly. By disclosing his suspicions when he could have held silent, de Bec had accepted his new master, even if the man had yet to realise the fact. 'I was not blind myself last night, but I thank you for the warning.

The sooner this mockery of a celebration is over, the better.' He set his heels to his courser's flanks and urged him in pursuit of the dogs. De Bec wrenched the dun around and followed.

Guyon bent low over his mount's neck to avoid the tangled branches that whipped at him.

Shallow snow flurried beneath the chestnut's hooves. The frozen air burned Guyon's lungs as he breathed. His eyes filled and he blinked hard to clear them, and braced himself as the horse leaped a fall en tree in their path. Ahead he could hear the loud halloos and whistlings urging the dogs on and the excited belling of the dogs themselves.

The hunters pressed further into the depths of the forest. Thorns snagged their cloaks.

Hoofbeats thudded eerily in the echo chambers created by the vaulted span of huge beeches, the daylight showing luminous grey through the fretwork of empty black branches. They galloped across a clearing, the snow fetlock deep, splashed through a swift-flowing stream, picked their way delicately round a tumble of boulders and plunged back into the tangled darkness of the winter woods. A branch snapped off and snarled in Guyon's bridle. He plucked it loose, eased the chestnut for an instant, then guided him hard right down a narrow avenue of trunks pied silver and black, following the frenzied yelping of the dogs and the excited shouts of men.

The boar at bay was a sow, a matron of prime years, weighing almost two hundredweight. She had met and tussled with man before. A Welsh poacher had lost his life to her tushes when he came hunting piglets for his pot. The huntsmen had found his bleaching bones last spring when they came to mark the game. The sow bore her own scar from the encounter in a thick ridge of hide along her left flank where the boar spear had scored sideways and turned along the bone.