Curthose had been only too willing to listen to Henry's sweet-talk, which was, of course, Henry's deadliest weapon. Curthose's intention to war with Henry had considerably cooled since its first indignant eruption and, besides, he was now embarrassed for funds. All he wanted was some money to cover his expenses and to go back to Normandy and let the dust settle. Henry was most amenable. All that remained to be discussed was the sum Curthose would be paid annually in return for his acknowledgement of Henry's right to the crown.
Guyon studied the assembly. 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 glass and stabbed everyone they encountered.
When the look slashed over Guyon, the latter answered it impassively. 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 assorted 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 amusement. '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 prickling 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 bastard 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 grass. 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 vassals had turned the marches into hell 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 God's name was she going to say to her if they met?
Neither child nor virgin, Guyon had said, but as vulnerable as blown glass, 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 bitch.'
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, shaggy 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, butter 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 bitch 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 impassivity 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 identity, 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 attitude.