The Leopard Unleashed (25 page)

Elene rose too and stood beside him, her lips at his shoulder. He slipped his arm around her waist, then pulled her round against him. She smelt of crushed grass and leaves, fresh and soft in his embrace. ‘Oh Nell!’ he
said on a heartfelt sigh, and buried his face in her wild, black hair.

Judith drew her cloak close about her body to ward off the chill, fully aware that more than half of it came from within – from the space where part of her soul was missing. The warm lining of the cloak was made of wolf skins from animals hunted by Guyon and their sons in times long gone. The wolves were all human now, two-legged and padding on the heels of death.

She crossed the ward to the plesaunce, her intention being to pluck some overwintering sage to brew a herbal tea and to escape from the loving but overpowering vigilance of the other members of the household. Despite the cold wind, the sun was out and bright, bathing the soil beds in spring warmth. Against the southern wall, the pear cordons were in scented bloom and beneath them, still flowering, were the tiny white galanthus flowers that Renard had brought her from Outremer.

She went to the sage bushes. Ladybirds waddled in aimless industry among the leaves. Beyond, in the bay tree, sparrows fought over the best nesting sites. Judith picked a handful of medium-sized leaves and brushed them absently beneath her nose. Her gaze drifted to the rose arbour and turf seat there, empty and overgrown. The gardener had yet to shear it after the dormant winter season. She tried to imagine Guyon sitting there. Her eyes ached and began to water with staring. Wandering over to the seat she sat down, brushing her hand across the damp, slightly prickly blades. It was sheltered and sun-warmed, and through a pang of desolation she was aware of feeling oddly comforted.

She sat for a long time, lost in silence, and only came to with a small, guilty start when she saw Elene picking her way towards her between the herb beds. Judith regarded her daughter-in-law warily. In the first days of her loss when she had been weak and ill with the coughing fever and overcome with grief, the girl had taken over all responsibility and coped remarkably well, too well perhaps. Elene had proved herself a thoroughly capable chatelaine, and, as the new lady, it was her right. Judith had lost that power when Guyon died. They all treated her now as though she was made of fragile glass. Her every move was watched. She was cosseted and coddled as if all of her soul had died and not just a part of it.

Elene sat down beside Judith on the turf seat. ‘I thought you might be here,’ she said. ‘The sun’s gone in now and it will soon be dusk. Will you come within?’

‘No, I won’t!’ Judith snapped, feeling like a defiant small child. The sun had indeed disappeared while she sat lost in reverie and she was aware of the dampness from the seat invading her bones.

Elene folded her hands in her lap and stared at them in silence.

Judith sighed heavily. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and then slapped her hand down on her knee. ‘I hate being treated like an invalid or a mad old woman. I know it is all kindly meant. Perhaps in the first days it was a welcome shield, but no longer. I swear I will become truly mad if I am not given leave to think for myself !’

The scent of bruised sage leaves hung in the air. ‘Have we really been that heedless?’ Elene asked in consternation.

Judith moved her shoulders. ‘No, not heedless,’ she said on a softer note. ‘Perhaps the change is in me. I need time
alone now to grieve in peace. When I have need of company, be assured I will seek it out.’

Elene gave her a swift, sidelong long. ‘Do you want me to leave you here then?’

Judith’s lips twitched. ‘I have cut off my nose to spite my face,’ she said wryly. ‘I’m stiff and it’s growing cold, and that torchlight looks very welcoming.’ Carefully she eased herself to her feet.

‘I believe I am with child,’ Elene said abruptly as Judith shook out her skirts. ‘I missed my last flux and it is nigh that time of month again and there is no sign.’ She touched her breasts. ‘I am sore here and bigger than I was and I have begun to feel sick.’

‘Oh, that is welcome news indeed!’ Judith kissed her joyfully. ‘Does Renard know?’

Elene shook her head. ‘It was only the merest possibility before he left for the fens.’ She avoided Judith’s eyes, staring instead at a clump of couch grass near her feet.

Judith pursed her lips thoughtfully. Despite her grief and illness she had heard what had happened at the Christmas court, both the politics and the scandals. ‘Did you know about Olwen before Salisbury?’ she asked.

To a listening stranger it might have seemed a non sequitur, but Judith was shrewd, and to Elene, thinking along the same lines, the question was a perfectly obvious progression. ‘Yes, I knew,’ she said tightly. ‘I found out on my wedding night.’

Judith clicked her tongue sharply and raised her eyes heavenwards. ‘Guyon and I seem to have bred up idiots in place of sons!’

‘I made the first move,’ Elene defended. ‘I asked him.’ She raised her head and fixed Judith with a liquid hazel
stare. ‘But it was like being slapped in the face. We quarrelled, or rather I was shrewish and he was so reasonable that I started to think it was all my fault. We mended our differences in Salisbury and despite that whore the seams have held, but …’ She splayed her hand over her stomach. ‘But sometimes I imagine him with her and I feel sick.’

Judith felt moisture filling and stinging in her own eyes. She knew the feelings if not the answer, for anger was a part of her own raw grief. ‘Guyon had a mistress before we were wed,’ she said, a quiver in her voice. ‘Heulwen’s mother. They had been lovers a long time. I cannot number the nights I tossed in torment – not because he continued to lie with her, but because sometimes I knew he was thinking of her and remembering.’ She laid her hand lightly on Elene’s shoulder. ‘You must see it as experience and use it to your advantage. A man always needs a place of safe harbour after the perils of a stormy sea.’

Each gave the other a wan, watery smile as they left the dusk-shrouded plesaunce and went inside to the great hall.

The boy stared down at his feet and shuffled them as if the concentration of eye alone was responsible for their motion. A shock of straw-coloured hair stopped just short of his thin, dark brows beneath which his downcast lashes were long and thick enough to be the envy of every woman within the keep.

‘Owain?’ said Elene gently. ‘Look at me.’

He raised his head and then his lids. His eyes were as wary and dark as a deer’s, his mouth set so firmly that it defied his will and trembled anyway. He had just watched his mother ride away from him in the company of his despised stepfather-to-be, stranding him here among strangers, ostensibly for his own good, but he felt nothing but betrayed.

‘How old are you?’

‘Eleven, madam.’

‘Almost a man then,’ she flattered him. ‘Past time you began your training. Lord Renard won’t be home for at least another month. You can use the time to grow accustomed
to your new home. Is this your pony?’ She indicated the sturdy grey gelding that was lipping at a clump of twitch spiking from the base of the wall.

‘Yes, madam.’

‘What’s his name?’ She stroked the pony’s neck, noting that he was well groomed and cared for.

‘Grisel, madam.’

‘Well then, Owain, unlatch your saddle roll and come with me. We’ll find you somewhere to sleep.’ She beckoned to a groom. ‘Kenrick will take care of Grisel for now. Other times he will be your responsibility.’ She scratched the grey beneath his whiskery chin and fondled his plush muzzle.

The boy relaxed slightly and began to unfasten his small bundle of belongings from the pony’s crupper. He paused in mid-motion as more horses clopped into the yard, his expression becoming one of blazing hope before sinking once more into apathy as he saw that the newcomers were two men astride working coursers.

William jumped down easily from his saddle and stood close to the second horse, ready to help Henry if he failed. ‘Come on, you can do it!’ he encouraged him with exaggerated joviality.

‘Shut up, I’m not a babe!’ Henry snapped, nettled by his brother’s tone of voice, and completed his own move to the ground somewhat more clumsily. ‘I’ve still got two good legs!’ His face was white with strain as he fumbled the shield from his right arm. Retraining himself to fight left-handed, his damaged arm protected behind his adapted shield, was a process so difficult that in private he wept with the sheer frustration of his inability to co-ordinate.

Hands on hips, William took his gaze from his grumpy brother and rested it on Elene and her charge.

‘Is this the new squire Renard was telling me about before he left?’

Elene nodded. ‘Owain ap Siorl.’ She put her hand on the boy’s shoulder.

William considered him gravely, remembering what Renard had told him of the boy’s recent past and the reasons for his placement here. He addressed him in Welsh. Owain looked doubtfully at Elene before replying in the same language, but his face visibly brightened, and once begun, an almost defiant torrent of words poured from his lips.

Elene exchanged a brief, meaningful glance with William over the top of the boy’s head.

‘Well, Owain ap Siorl,’ William said, reverting to French for his sister-in-law’s benefit. ‘Let us go within and show you the surroundings of at least one of your new homes. Your lord has three other keeps beside this one, and more manors and lodges than I can count.’ He replaced Elene’s hand on the boy’s shoulder with his own and gave her a conspiratorial wink as he drew the boy away in the direction of the hall, reverting to Welsh as he walked.

Elene smiled gratefully after him, then turned back to Henry. ‘Are you all right?’

He gave her a toothless smile, his complexion peaky. ‘Just gaining my breath. Was that the lad’s mother and her new beau we met riding out just now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Poor little beggar.’ He avoided her eyes to watch the groom unsaddling the grey pony.

‘He’s better than he would have been had he stayed at home. He’s defensive of his father’s memory; resents another man’s encroachments on his mother’s affections
when it’s not been a year since Siorl’s death. That is how Renard sees the situation anyway.’

Henry grunted and started to turn away, fumbling at his swordbelt and trying one-handed to unlatch it.

‘Here, let me do it.’ Elene came round to help him. The latch was fairly new and therefore stiff and she had to struggle to get it undone.

Henry’s good hand clenched into a fist at his side. ‘I can do it myself,’ he rasped. ‘I have to learn.’

‘It’s all right, it’s coming now. You might as well let me finish.’

Henry muttered something beneath his breath, and without warning Elene suddenly found herself swept round on his good arm and embraced. For the space of ten rapid heartbeats he kissed her, without finesse, just hard, desperate passion.

Elene tried to scream, but her voice was stifled in her throat. She managed to wriggle one arm free and struck the side of his head with all the force she could muster. Henry let her go, the last of his breath spending itself in a groan. ‘I’m sorry, Nell, I’m sorry,’ he said wretchedly. ‘God’s love, don’t look at me like that!’

‘How else should I look at you!’ she gasped, hand across her mouth. ‘No, don’t touch me – stay away!’ Ducking under his arm, she fled for the safety of the keep.

Henry stared wretchedly at the stable wall and wished that the arrow that had maimed him had killed him outright.

‘Can I come in?’

Elene glanced up at Henry, gestured reluctant assent, and continued setting pins into the gown she was making
for herself – one that would accommodate her increasing girth in the coming months.

Henry cleared his throat and tentatively stepped just inside the sewing room doorway. He shuffled his feet as awkwardly as the new squire had done that morning and stared at the thongs fastening his soft indoor shoes.

Elene eyed him warily and kept to her side of the trestle, the sewing shears close to hand.

He raised his stubby ginger eyelashes. ‘I came to apolo -gise for this morning. If I could wipe it from the slate I would.’

‘So would I,’ Elene said grimly.

‘I never meant to hurt or frighten you. It’s just that …’ He made a movement with his good arm. ‘I tire easily and then things happen that I don’t mean to happen. You were so close and …’ He stopped and tugged viciously at his moustache. ‘Christ’s death, I can’t even say I’m sorry without digging myself into a deeper hole!’

A wave of compassion stirred among the other emotions that were disturbing Elene. This morning she had been shocked and frightened by his sudden assault. Having always viewed him in an affectionate, fraternal light, she had been horrified to discover that his affections coursed through a different and potentially dangerous channel. Supposing Renard came to hear of it by rumour and misconstrued it? She had not yet told him about her pregnancy. Supposing he misconstrued that too? The implications were terrifying, both for Henry and for herself.

‘You have said enough,’ she answered him in as level a tone as she could muster. ‘I do not think an explanation will benefit either of us.’

‘Are you still angry?’

‘I wasn’t angry before, just very frightened. I still am.’

‘So am I,’ he said bleakly and leaned against the wall. His right arm, strained from the work he had forced upon it, was resting in a linen sling. He crossed his left arm beneath it. ‘God knows, it crept up on me unawares. I couldn’t even tell you when it changed. I only knew it was there when I saw you and Renard together; the way you looked at him …’ He made a choked sound and turned his head aside.