The midday meal had been more elaborate than their customary bread, cheese and watered wine, the fl.u.s.tered cook having organised additions of roasted pigeons, mutton in pastry coffins, herrings seethed in milk and sprinkled with almonds and small honey cakes, crusty with chopped nuts and dried fruit.

Judith did not know if it was fare fit for an earl, but it was the best she could provide at such short notice. Certainly her uncle had not complained.

Indeed, he had settled to the meal with a hearty appet.i.te which was more than could be said for her husband, who had attacked the wine as voraciously as others attacked the food, seeming set to drink himself beneath the table in as short a time as possible. Barely a morsel of food had pa.s.sed his lips and every time his cup neared the dregs he would signal the lad serving to replenish it to the brim. He had begun to slur his words and his voice had grown over-loud.

Robert de Belleme had watched Guyon's disintegration with a contemptuous eye and a scornful smile. No more than a cupful of wine had flowed over his own tongue, which remained mellifluous and precise.

Judith's tentative plea to her husband had met with a snarl to mind her distaff, and a half-raised fist. At this juncture she had begged leave to retire, having no desire to bear the humiliation of a public beating. She could remember only too well how it had gone with her father in the past.

He would drink. Someone would make a remark that he misliked and the blows would fall , cutting if he happened to be wearing rings.

Steeped in misery, she sat waiting now for she knew not what and wondered what had happened to drive Guyon over the brink like this. Her uncle was owed a large sum of money. Guyon had been thoughtful about that for some time, deeply thoughtful and busy, but certainly not depressed.

She knew he enjoyed the taste of good wine, but in three months of marriage she had yet to see him merry, let alone drunk. It was beyond her to fathom the reason for such deviation and her fear was all the more potent for her lack of understanding.

There was a sound outside the door. Melyn, coiled in a warm ball upon the bed, popped her head erect and uttered a soft greeting miaow.

Judith dropped the sables and hastened to the door, unbarring it to admit Eric and one of the serjeants bearing Guyon's upright weight between them. Stinking of hippocras, he swayed on the threshold.

'Traitors!' he bellowed for all and sundry to hear, taking a wild swipe at Eric and almost overbalancing as he staggered into the room. 'I'm sober 'nough to see my guests on the road ...

Lemme go!'

He continued to utter loud protests as they manhandled him to the bed. Judith watched him, her fingers at her throat, her whole body tensed to avoid him if need be.

Eric glanced at her and gave her of all things a wink and a smile. 'Don't you worry, mistress, he'll sober up quicker than you think,' he said comfortingly and, his grinning companion in tow, left her alone with her dread.

Melyn leaped on to Guyon's wine-drenched chest and kneaded the spoiled cloth with splayed claws. Guyon scooped her up and, depositing her on the coverlet, sat up.

'G.o.d help me,' he grimaced, pulling the garment over his head. 'I stink like the morning after in a Rouen brothel!' He slung the richly embroidered wool across the room and followed it with his shirt.

Still standing near the door, Judith's eyes were round with astonishment. 'You're not drunk!' she said.

'Sober as a stone, Cath fach.' Going purposefully to his clothing chest he rummaged among the contents. Sunlight rayed obliquely through the shutters and gilded his skin. It picked out the scar from the boar hunt on his arm and the marks of st.i.tches neatly made.

'But why?' she enquired in bewilderment. 'Why did you want us all to believe that you were sodden drunk?'

'You did not have to pretend your responses and they were more convincing than you could have feigned. Your uncle as well as most of the keep thinks that I have drowned in hippocras my despair at losing so much silver into his wanton care.'

'But I saw how much you swallowed. Your back teeth must be awash!'

Guyon flashed her a grin. 'A gut full of red-dyed water, and just enough hippocras to reek my clothes and skin. It was Eric's lad serving at table, did you notice?' He took a shirt and an overtunic of coa.r.s.e, patchily dyed linen, devoid of embellishment, and threw them on the bed.

'But in G.o.d's name why? Why would you want my uncle to believe that you are a swiller?' Judith moved away from the door and picked up the wine-soaked tunic and shirt to put them on the chest beside the sables.

He glanced at her from beneath his brows. 'He has my silver. I am a distraught weak reed and, as far as anyone knows, saving a precious few, I shall wallow abed in a drunken stupor for the next full day at least.'

'What are you planning?' Judith began to feel frightened again. 'And why are you dressing yourself in those disgusting rags?'

'An exercise in stealth, Cath fach. The less you know, the better.'

Her eyes flashed. 'I am not stupid!'

'No,' he agreed. 'You are too clever by half. And do not scowl at me like that. I mean it as a compliment. It is very hard to deceive you on any matter for long.'

'Such as your Welsh paramour and other s.l.u.ts and wh.o.r.es!' she snapped and then pressed her hands to her mouth, wondering in shock what on earth had made her quote de Lacey at him like an accusation.

His gaze held hers steadily. 'If I have been over the border of late, it is for reasons other than the pursuit of pleasure.'

Judith dropped her lids and felt heat scorch her face. She would not apologise. She picked up one of the sables to rub the cool pelt against her hot cheek. 'Why were you so angry when you first arrived?' she asked after a moment, as a.s.sociation brought sudden remembrance.

Guyon latched the buckle of his belt and for a moment frowned as though he was not going to answer. But then he shrugged and spoke. 'I pa.s.sed a pack train two days ago, heading for Shrewsbury. The merchant, Huw ap Sior, was a likeable man. I've traded with him before now, my father too. If he had a fault, it was that he could talk the hind leg off a donkey and he was heedless of danger where he thought there might be gain ... They found his body in a ditch this morning, choked by the binding of his own chausses and his limbs carved off, and of course not a sign of his goods. I believe the sheriff is blaming Huw's servant for the deed because the lad has vanished into thin air and, being in de Belleme's pay, he's not going to look further than the easiest scapegoat.' He drew a hard breath to steady his rising revulsion and anger.

'Huw knew that there were men of high import in Shrewsbury at the moment. He was taking his pack of silks and Norwegian sables there to sell ... only the poor idiot never arrived ... Look at the canvas in which your bride-gift is wrapped. Do you think those brown stains are merely blotches of mud from the road?'

Judith swallowed and flicked her gaze to the pack and its tell -tale pied markings, 'No,' she whispered hoa.r.s.ely. 'It is not true.'

He turned from her to pull on a rough sheepskin jerkin and brown wool en hood. 'Then look the other way,' he said. 'Tell yourself that your husband has an over-active imagination.'

Shuddering, Judith dropped the sable back among its companions and pressed the back of her wrist to her mouth, feeling sick. Tight-lipped, Guyon continued to make his preparations. After a moment, he straightened, alerted by a faint sound from behind. Her breath was shaking from her throat in small , effortful gasps as she fought to stifle her sobs. It was on his lips to snarl at her that grief came cheaply, but he remembered in time, reminded by her white, pinched face, that for all her cleverness she was still a child.

He swore beneath his breath and went to take her in his arms. She gripped his jerkin, struggling for control. 'My mother was right,' she gulped with loathing. 'Snakes do bite slyly.'

'Unless you pin them behind the neck and draw their fangs.'

Her head jerked up and she looked at him through her wet lashes. 'My lord, I do not know what is in your mind save that it be more than dangerous. In G.o.d's name, have a care to yourself!'

'You worry too much.' He kissed her cheek. She moved her head. For an instant their lips met, hers soft and unpractised; his gentle without possession or demand, and he was the first to disengage from the embrace. 'As far as everyone else in this keep is concerned, I am confined here in a drunken stupor. I trust you to keep up the pretence for a day at least.'

'When will you be back, my lord?'

'By moonlight I hope.' He drew up his hood. His face disappeared into brown shadow. 'G.o.d be with you, Cath fach.' He tugged her braid and slipped silently from the room. She stared at the door he had just closed, then went to drop the bar. Sitting down beside the bundle of sables, she set her mind upon what to do with this gift culled from murder.

To keep the sables was impossible. She could scarcely bear to look at them. The sight of the bloodstains upon the bindings curdled her stomach. Burn them? That was waste upon waste. Throw them back in her uncle's face? No.

Guyon would have done that had it been feasible.

Give them away? She steepled her fingers under her chin, deep in thought.

CHAPTER 8.

The Earl of Shrewsbury lounged in his saddle, his legs loosely straight, heels crowned by gilded p.r.i.c.k spurs, supple boots reaching to mid-calf and laced by ta.s.selled green thongs. His sword rode lightly in its scabbard, his left hand relaxed upon the curved pommel.

Behind him, sweet on the ear, the pony bell s jingled, the st.u.r.dy bays laden with the Earl's travelling accoutrements. Flanked by two guards, another pony bore a load of scarred brown leather sacks. Three hundred marks in sweet silver pennies. Guyon FitzMiles had been sufficiently wise to pay up. The only element that had surprised de Belleme was the bridegroom's ability to pay in full , although he suspected the effort had nigh on beggared the young man.

Magnanimous in victory, he had offered to take two hundred marks now and leave the balance until the Michaelmas rents had been paid, and for his pains had been told on a swallowed snarl where to put his largesse. A solicitous suggestion that FitzMiles could sell his mother-in-law to cut his losses had for a moment held them on the edge of an exciting precipice. He had felt his sword arm tingling with antic.i.p.ation and de Lacey had begun to reach for his dagger, but FitzMiles, holding to the control he was later to lose in wine, had stalked from the room, crashing his fist into the door as he went.

De Belleme gave a superior smile, remembering the young man swilling his wine like a street drunkard, the loose-limbed grace growing clumsy, the cultured accent slurring, the eyes becoming slack-lidded and glazed. He had half expected it to happen. On more than one occasion at court, FitzMiles had roistered away the night with Prince Henry, drinking himself beneath the table, a woman on each arm. The lack of moral fibre was of no consequence to the Earl; it was the lack of self-discipline that gave him cause for scorn.

The bleating of sheep roused him from contemplation of a ripe future to the more immediate contemplation of the road before his eyes which was blocked by an enormous cloud of baaing, smelly sheep.

His horse lashed out as de Lacey's mount, brought up short, collided with its rump. De Lacey swore and wrenched on his bridle.

'G.o.d's eyes!' snarled de Belleme. 'Get these stinking, tick-ridden beasts out of my way!'

His words were smothered in a chorus of mournful bleating as the sheep advanced and closed around the troop. His destrier began to plunge in earnest. The pack ponies kicked.

Cursing, his men attempted to control them and their own mounts and draw their weapons at the same time.

Walter de Lacey swung his sword at a sheep, but stopped in mid-motion, his wrist arrested in response to the nocked arrow aimed at his breast. A range of ten yards made death a certainty.

There were men among the sheep, rising to their feet, their tunics wrong side out affording them a sheepskin camouflage, unseen until it was too late. Welshmen, dark and slender, with short swords at their hips and the deadly longbows in their hands.

' Yr cledd,' said the nearest Welshman gruffly, jerking his nocked bow at de Lacey's sword. The Baron's mouth tightened. For a moment the blade gleamed in his hand as he turned it, contemplating folly and then, as the Welshman adjusted his line of sight, he spat and threw it down among the sheep.

'You'll die for this,' he said thickly.

Without reply, the Welshman gestured him and his over-lord down from their horses.

Robert de Belleme was not afraid. It was an emotion he seldom experienced even in the teeth of death, but his fury at being trapped and helpless to extract himself, surrounded as he was by b.u.mping, bleating sheep, raged so hot that he was incandescent. His hands were lashed behind was incandescent. His hands were lashed behind his back. A black hood was forced down over his head and tied there, clogging his sight. Barbarian Welsh jostled his m.u.f.fled ears. De Lacey's invective was cut off by the sound of a dull blow and then retching. Someone laughed. Rage stuck in de Belleme's gull et and almost choked him.

Small coa.r.s.e hairs from the cloth hood clung to his lips and tongue. He writhed and struggled and felt the bonds saw into his wrists.

Guyon lowered the bow, his eyes sparkling with laughter. His throat quivered as he controlled the impulse to shout his triumph aloud. Commands flickered in Welsh. Fresh pack ponies were brought and the loads transferred. Sheep, destriers and the now unladen ponies began their escorted journey deep into the wilds of Powys where, except by Welshmen, they would not soon be found.

Guyon murmured something to one of his companions, his voice warm with triumph as he studied the two men, bound like caterpillars in a web. In a single swift motion, he straddled the mount that Eric had brought him.

The words were lost upon his victims, but not the rich delight with which they were spoken and, had de Belleme not seen with his own eyes Guyon FitzMiles sliding beneath the trestle, overcome with drink and had not his a.s.sailant been so obviously Welsh, he would have known immediately at whose feet to lay the blame.

As it was, he lay in the road, struggling within his coc.o.o.n, hearing the curses of men similarly encapsulated fighting to win free. Horses circled and plunged around him. The Welsh tossed banter cheerfully hither and yon in dips and swoops of singsong language, haranguing each other and their victims alike and then, like autumn swallows, they were gone. A hoof caught de Belleme's side as the last horse departed and involuntarily he arched at the sudden buffet of pain.

Silence descended and it began to rain.

CHAPTER 9.

Rhosyn listened to the rain as an eddy of wind drove it against the hafod shutters. One of several spring squall s. In between, the stars would peek through the scudding clouds in pinp.r.i.c.k points of diamond light.

The fire, banked for the night, gave off a low, comforting glow, glints of red jewel warmth winking beneath the aromatic logs of the diseased pear tree that Twm had cut down last year.

Rhys and Eluned were newly abed. She could hear their conspiratorial whispers behind the curtains. Her son had turned eleven last week and thought himself very grown up. At fourteen, in Wales, he could claim his manhood. She would be thirty then, Eluned ten and this new babe, if it survived the early months, would be rising from helpless infancy into st.u.r.dy childhood.

She picked up her sewing, took a few half- hearted st.i.tches and, with an irritated cluck, put it down again. The rush-light was too poor for this kind of delicate work and her mind was restless tonight, fluttering purposelessly like a moth at a candle flame. The baby turned in her womb, busily flexing new, delicate limbs. She felt the thrust and flicker with a protective hand. With almost four months of carrying left before the birth, she had not yet burgeoned into ungainly discomfort. Her ripening body was still a pleasure and she was lost in the wonder of it.

The old dog sitting with its moist nose at her knee suddenly growled deep in its chest and stiffened. Rhosyn stood up to face the cottage door, one hand reaching for the rake that Twm had earlier been using on the floor rushes.

It was Twm's voice she heard outside now, gruff and questioning. A horse snorted. A man replied with amus.e.m.e.nt, the tone deeper than her servant's and edged with a foreign inflection to the Welsh she would have known anywhere. She bade the dog lie and, dropping the rake, flew to the door and unbarred it to the night.

'Guyon!' she cried and flung herself into his arms. Twm arched a knowing resigned brow and, completely ignored, dismissed himself to his bed.

Rhosyn withdrew from the hard clasp of Guyon's arms and tugged him inside the hafod. Gelert whined and thumped his brindle tail on the rushes. She reset the bar and came once more into the circle of his arms.

'You smell of sheep,' she said against his mouth.

He nuzzled her cheek with a stubbly jaw. 'What kind of greeting is that for a man who has ridden hard for your sake?'

'Not for your own?' Rhosyn queried pertly, her eyes laughing, as green and gold as moss agates. 'You are overblown with vanity indeed.'

Her dark hair spilled down over his hands in a fine, cool cloak. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were ripe and warm against his chest. Within her belly the child kicked.

'How goes it with you?' he asked, his face suddenly all tenderness and concern.

Rhosyn gave a little shrug. 'I'm not sick any more, indeed, I've an appet.i.te like a bacon pig.

When I start to waddle like one, I will curse you and a certain hot, harvest night ... Have you come alo--' She stopped. Guyon lifted his head from contemplation of her glowing skin and brilliant eyes just in time to be almost bowled over by the two children.

They were like puppies, gambolling and clamouring; Rhys's new-found manhood had flown out of the window to leave only the excited child. Guyon bore with it very well , riding out the first storm with wry, rueful humour, curbed behind a half-turned head as their mother calmed them with dire threats and a voice suddenly grown as sharp as the flick of a lash.

Subdued, but not defeated, Eluned went to fetch Guyon something to drink and Rhys sat down before the banked fire, hugging his knees, a dark scowl on his face.

'How long will you stay?' he demanded, slanting Guyon a hard glance.

'Rhys!' his mother reprimanded more sharply than she had intended. It was a question she herself wanted to ask but dared not.

Guyon waved aside her anger with a grin. 'I am accustomed to it by now. If he was not so obviously a boy, I would think it was my wife sitting at my feet. She has that way with her too.'

There was a strained silence. Rhys's question was just the crust of the loaf, one of a thousand questions Rhosyn longed to ask him, but would not do so in the presence of the children and for the sake of her own pride.

'A few hours only, Rhys,' Guyon answered the boy. 'I have dared to pull the devil's tail and I must be in my own bed before dawn lest he scorch me with his pitchfork.' He smiled at Eluned and took the mead she offered him. It was strong and sweet and as honey-golden as the fragrant harvest evening on which the unborn child had been conceived.

Rhys looked blank for a moment and then his quick mind took in the implications of the rough Welsh garb and coupled it with his knowledge that Guyon had skill s most Normans did not.

Something clandestine had been afoot and Lord Guyon did not intend the blame to lie lying at his door. Eluned, younger and impressionable when it came to tales, took his words at face value and regarded him wide-eyed.

'And precisely where is your own bed?' Rhosyn asked, setting a platter of bread and cheese before him and thinking with a hint of bitterness that they were like courtiers, feting him with adulation.

Guyon gave her one of his quicksilver glances.