Several cows bellowed and baulked as they were penned in a corner of the ward. A groom was taking custody of the three mares and their foals and a belligerent Welsh pony stall ion that was lashing out indiscriminately.
Guyon turned from speaking to his groom and saw Judith running towards him, her face alight with welcome. She moved unaffectedly, like a man, but her gown moulded itself to her slender curves, marking her all woman. The time-wrought changes of her mind and body never ceased to amaze him. A year ago she would have greeted him gravely and stood just out of his reach as if anticipating a blow. Six months ago they would have avoided each other with eyes downcast to conceal hunger and tense fear. Now, laughing, she flung herself into his arms and drew his head down and kissed him. Melyn, jolted from her perch, gave a feline growl of displeasure, leaped vertically from Judith's back and stalked off in the direction of the living quarters.
'It is only five days!' Guyon chuckled, delighted at the warmth of the greeting. 'What will you do when it has to be forty?'
Judith relinquished her grip and blushed, aware of the amused glances of his men. 'I shall take a lover,' she riposted smartly. 'There's a tub prepared and food at the ready. How did you fare?'
Guyon followed her, ducking his head and increasing his pace as the rain began to cut down. 'We took back what was ours and also a little of what was theirs. You know the rules of border warfare. They won't come raiding again ... not for a while at least.'
'Unless they come
en masse
,' Judith pointed out as they entered the wooden building in the bailey that was their private living quarters whilst the castle was being built.
'Could we withstand a full Welsh assault, not just the prickings of their hot-blooded young men?'
'Probably, but it's not a notion I want to test just yet. Has all been quiet here?'
'Mostly. Madoc came two days ago with Rhys and a distant relative from Bristol who's helping him with the business. They brought that new ram you asked Madoc to get. He says that Heulwen's walking now and chattering like a magpie, and that she's already strewing the road with broken hearts. I think he wanted to remind you of the bond.'
'I hardly need reminding of that,' he said, half under his breath. 'Did he mention Rhosyn?'
'Only that she was well and sent you her duty. If there was more, he probably thought it unwise to confide it to me.'
'How could there be more?' Guyon teased, squeezing her waist. 'You leave me neither the energy nor the inclination to play games with other women. What's this?' He moved the polished agate weight and picked up the letter from the trestle.
'From my mother,' Judith said, going to pour hot wine. 'She asks when we are going to leave our eyrie and make her a visit.'
Guyon took the wine and kissed her hand. 'Somewhere between Michaelmas and Martinmas,' he replied, expression thoughtful as he drank. 'I want a word with her anyway.'
'What about, Guy?'
He tossed the parchment down and finished the wine. 'Nothing. A minor detail concerned with your inheritance.'
Judith's lips tightened in response to his casual tone and the blank innocence of his eyes. The reality was upon her, warm and secure as a duck down mantle, but now and again she pondered the difference between belief and blindfold.
Guyon was dissembling. She knew that look by now and also the method. A smattering of sugared truth and eyes warmly guileless to conceal what he wished to conceal.
Dutifully she unbuckled his swordbelt but her hands were jerky. Guyon looked at her mulishly set lips. His own mouth curved and then straightened. It was not really funny, for he had no defence save to tell her the truth and the shock of that would probably do far greater harm than the withholding. If he had not been so road- and battle-weary, he would never have permitted his tongue the mistake of speaking an absent thought aloud.
'What kind of minor detail?' Judith challenged, stepping away from him, the belt in her hands, sword and dagger still attached.
Guyon busied himself removing his garments.
He was not wearing the customary Norman war gear of mail hauberk and gambeson, but hunting clothes topped by a sleeveless sheepskin jerkin.
When in Wales it was wisest to do as the Welsh did. It was impossible to cross a swiftly flowing torrent and pursue winding, scant paths if weighed down by armour and slowed by supply trains which were vulnerable to attack.
'The kind that is your mother's private business.
If she wants to tell you, then well and good,' he answered more evenly than he felt, wondering how to extricate himself before the thing got out of hand.
'I am surprised that your brain does not burst with all the little matters you cannot confide to me for fear of breaking your oath!' she snapped.
'So am I.' Guyon gave her a wry look. 'Judith, I don't want to quarrel.'
'That is up to you.' She tossed her head and turned from him to lay his swordbelt aside. When she turned round again, she gasped aloud at sight of the clotted red diagonal line across his chest. 'Holy Mother!' she cried and ran to get her basket of medicines.
Guyon drew breath to say that it was only a scratch and the Welshman who had given it to him was in much worse case, but quickly thought the better of it. Closing his mouth, he contrived to look as wan and limp as rude health and a summer tan would permit. Unresisting, he let her lead him to the bed and push him down.
'How did you get this?'
He looked at her through his lashes and saw the terror in her eyes and felt a flicker of guilt for his deceit. Last time he had come to her wounded he had almost died and the memory had obviously left its taint of fear. 'The raid leader didn't want to relinquish his gains and he was faster than I thought. He's gone to Chester as a hostage - if he does not die of his own wounds on the way.'
'Why not bring him here?'
'I don't want to encourage Welsh hordes to come visiting, not even to parley, until the defences have grown a little, and I haven't the time to - ouch!'
'Lie still then. You are lucky it is so shallow. Some comfrey and marigold salve should suffice. Are you hurt anywhere else?'
'Yes.' He closed his eyes as though faint.
'Where?' Anxiously she leaned over him.
Fast as a closing trap, his hands circled her waist and pulled her down on top of him. 'Where only you can ease me,' he murmured, subduing her retort with his lips.
Judith struggled briefly in order to satisfy her conscience, but with no real enthusiasm; in a moment, with a soft sound of capitulation, she yielded herself up to the pleasure. Three months of intensive, inventive tuition had taught her the refinements of this new and delightful skill and how to use it to its best purpose. How to provoke and tease and taunt him to the brink and then hold him there suffering, until she herself could bear it no longer and took them both over the edge.
Of course, she reminded herself hazily, it was a double-edged weapon and Guyon was an adept, as demonstrated by the dextrous manner in which he had just divested her of clothing. Frequently he gave her the control, knowing that it heightened her pleasure, but if he chose to take the initiative, as now, he was quite capable of submerging her in a welter of pure, fierce sensation that made everything else insignificant until well after the event. The acrid smell of horse and sweat sharpened her hunger, as did the nibbling play of his stubble-surrounded mouth on hers and the feel of his hands seeking down over her belly.
Lightning zigzagged and dazzled and the rain beat down, thudding the ground like the footsteps of an army running. In the bailey, Simon de Vere swung from the saddle of his trembling, near-spent horse. He had been in the saddle for such a long time that his legs at first refused to support him and the groom had to help him up from the mud as he fell .
'Lord Guyon is, er ... busy,' said de Bec to the young man as he was helped, limping, into the hall . 'Best sit down and recover yourself awhile first. We've not long ridden in ourselves.'
'He won't be too busy to hear these tidings,'
Simon said, pushing his fingers through his rain-sleek hair and wiping a drip from the end of his nose. 'The King is dead, slain in the New Forest and Prince Henry's claimed the crown. I've half killed my horse getting here.'
De Bec's bushy brows shot into his silver fringe.
'God have mercy,' he said, crossing himself.
'Here, sit down by the fire. You, wench, bring food and drink for Sir Simon and tell mistress Helgund to fetch my lord and lady.'
Judith looked at her husband as the sweat dried on their bodies and their breathing slowed.
Outside the thunder rumbled and the lightning blinked against a gap in the shutters. For a time she had felt as if she was riding in the midst of the storm and she could still feel small flickers on the periphery. 'When Madoc came, he told me something else too,' she said after a moment.
'Apparently, Mabell de Serigny is with child.'
Guyon had been sleepily nuzzling her shoulder, but now he lifted his head and gazed at her with widening eyes. 'Impossible! She's ninety if she's a day, Judith!'
She laughed at the incredulity on his face. 'Not quite. She's only a few years older than Mama.
Eight and forty or some such. Oh, I know it's old to catch for a babe, but not impossible.'
'And I thought Walter de Lacey was a coward,'
Guyon said facetiously, but a frown forked his brow. He wondered what would happen if the same God's grace was granted to Alicia. Even if she and his father did obtain a dispensation to marry, it would be the devil's own work to sort out the resulting blood ties.
'I suppose it is all in his favour,' Judith added, stretching sinuously, and rolled on to her stomach.
'If she carries the babe successfully then he gets an heir out of her; if she dies, then he's free to look elsewhere and because he is rich, he will be able to pick and choose. He cannot lose.'
There was a soft knock on the door and Helgund's voice came impassively from without.
'My lord, my lady, you are sought in the hall . There is important news from Winchester.'
Guyon groaned. Judith scrambled from the bed and hastily donned her bedrobe. 'Can't it wait? she snapped, feeling like a serving wench caught coupling in the straw.
'It is Simon de Vere, my lady. He says that the King is dead.'
'What?' Judith stared over her shoulder at Guyon. He swore and reached for his discarded clothes.
'Messire de Bec sent me to fetch you both, my lady. I do not know any more.'
'All right, Helgund. Thank you.'
Judith abandoned both bath and bedrobe to find her shift. 'If Rufus is dead, who is King in his place?'
'Who do you think?' Guyon snapped because it was such an obvious question. 'I'd better have one of the lads scour my hauberk because I'm going to need it.' He stood still long enough for her to smear his wound with salve, then dragged on his shirt and tunic, tugged one of her combs through his hair and strode muttering from the room. Judith glared after him, then subdued her anger. She knew he had been tired when he rode in, and wounded, and the energy expended just now between the sheets would further have drained his resources. Small wonder if his mood was sour when instead of sleep and recuperation, he received a summons of this ilk. Heaving a sigh, she called for Helgund to help her dress.
'An accident,' said Simon, whom Richard had sent from Winchester on the morning of the funeral. 'A hunting accident last Thursday evening.
Walter Tirell shot at a deer and missed and hit the King in the chest. He died instantly. Prince Henry was with the hunting party, but not near the scene of the death. He rode straight to Winchester and secured the treasury. He claims the right of being born the son of a king over his brother.' Simon knuckled his bloodshot eyes. 'He expects your feudal oath as soon as you may.'
Guyon pressed his own eyes with the heels of his hands. It was too late to set out tonight, but arrangements would have to be made for the following dawn and riders sent on ahead to organise their nightly stops. From here to London was a good six to seven days' ride; more if the weather continued dire.
'Myself and Richard must have been the last to see him alive, except for the hunting party,' Simon added into the silence, compelled to speak by renewed ripples of shock. 'I still cannot believe it.
If only he had stayed abed and not taken up de Clare's suggestion to hunt, he might yet be alive.'
'Gilbert of Tunbridge?' asked Judith.
'Yes, and his brother too. The King had been plagued by a queasy gut, the reason he didn't want to hunt in the morning, but he was fully recovered by noon. After the dinner hour, de Clare said he would not mind clearing his head by riding out to see what he could bring down and it seems to me that he was not talking of deer and that his head had never been clearer in his life.'
Simon attacked his trencher. Rufus had had his failings, but he had never found him a hard taskmaster and Richard had been moved openly to tears at the news of his untimely death.
'Are you saying he was murdered?' de Bec demanded.
'I'm not saying anything.' Simon avoided looking at his companions. 'Tirell has fled the country squawking his innocence like a dust trail. He says he was nowhere near the King, that it was not his arrow.'
'And the de Clares are his brothers-by-marriage.' Judith's voice was as colourless as her face.
'I suppose the inquest will decide the truth of the matter,' de Bec said, stretching out his legs until his heels pressed Cadi's white rump.
'What inquest?' Simon demanded sourly. 'Henry's not holding one.'
Guyon paused eating to stare at Simon, then continued to chew, but slowly, as if ruminating. 'Who else went out to hunt, Si?'
'Rannulf des Aix en Louvent, your lady's uncle William Breteuil, Gilbert de Laigle and William de Monfichet.' Simon shook his head. 'Rufus must have been mad. He might as well have ridden out with a pack of wolves. They didn't even stop to bring his body back to the lodge in decency, but rode straight for the treasury at Winchester. It was left to me and Richard to take charge of the body from the back of a charcoal burner's cart and compose it decently for the return to Winchester.