The Wild Hunt tor-1 Page 16

  Cath fach, he would say and smile ruefully at his own febrile weakness. If she had ever desired revenge for his treating her like a child, she had it now and the taste of it was sour as vinegar.

  After the second night, his condition worsened.

  Miles rode in at dawn to find his eldest granddaughter gulping tears and clinging to her mother for comfort and the priest bending over Guyon's fever-ravaged body, administering the last rites. Judith, her face waxen, stood opposite Father Jerome, her hands clenched upon the cloth with which she had been wiping Guyon down in a vain attempt to lower the raging of his blood.

  Miles came to the bed and gazed down upon his son's fight for life as he had gazed down on his wife's. Guyon's hair was lank with sweat, his cheekbones like blades with blue hollows beneath.

  Miles looked at Judith. She returned his gaze evenly with eyes that were full of fear. It had gone beyond what she could do for him. In God's hands his life now lay and the odds against his recovery were not favourable. Beyond the moment she dared not think. Life went on; she knew it all too well .

  Miles stood a moment longer and then, unable to bear the room, turned and strode out. Judith hastened after him and found him leaning against the rope-patterned pill ar of the cross-wall 's arch, his fist clenched upon the stonework, staring blankly at nothing. She set her hand on his arm.

  Miles closed his eyes, opened them again and faced her. 'How did it happen?'

  She told him. 'Eric won't be using his arm for some little time. I have scarcely spoken to the girl or her husband, but he told me they owed Guyon their lives and their gratitude. I need not tell you that at the moment it is no consolation.'

  'No,' Miles agreed bleakly.

  Judith bowed her head and returned to her vigil.

  Two hours later, de Bec came grim-faced to tell her that Walter de Lacey was waiting in the outer ward.

  She put down the mortar in which she had been grinding herbs. 'And what could he possibly want?' she said sarcastically as she made sure that Guyon was as comfortable as his condition all owed, and bade her maid Helgund stay close by him.

  De Bec lifted his craggy brows at her. 'Mistress, when he saw our new huntsman, he didn't know whether to leap for glee or fall into apoplexy.'

  'What a pity he couldn't decide,' Judith said viciously.

  De Bec cleared his throat. In this kind of mood his young mistress was lethal and the man to best deal with her was in a raving fever at the gates of death. He took a deep breath. 'From what I have heard, you had best bring the lass up here out of sight until Sir Walter's gone.'

  Judith considered, nodded and sharply bade one of the maids fetch Elflin of Thornford to her chamber.

  The girl arrived from her duties in the kitchens.

  There was a smut of flour on her cheek and her hyssop-blue eyes were filled with terror.

  'Oh my lady, please don't send me back to him, for the love of God, I beg you. I'll kill myself, I swear I will !'

  Judith looked at the bent flaxen head, the clenched small hands that were as delicate as a child's. 'Get up,' she said neutrally. 'Do you think that I would give you up to that scum when my lord has perhaps sacrificed his life that you should go free?'

  The girl stood up and wobbled a curtsy.

  'You say you would kill yourself?' Judith said coldly. 'You would do better to take a knife to the tryst and put it through his black heart.' Her voice seethed on the last words. She eyed the girl with contempt. 'Elflin, is it not?'

  'Yes, my lady.' Her voice quavered, thin and reedy with fear.

  'Well then, Elflin, stiffen your spine and stop snivelling. There is no room for a wet fish in my household. He won't have you, I promise. Now, do you take up that distaff over there and that basket of carded wool and work awhile. Ask Helgund if there is anything you need to know.'

  Elflin squeaked assent and bobbed another curtsy.

  Milk and water, thought Judith impatiently, then checked herself, recalling her own fear of the unknown in the early days of her marriage to Guyon and remembering too, with a guilty pang, his patience and good humour during that time. If she was not afraid now, it was because of him.

  In the hall , Walter de Lacey was standing before the hearth. The chamberlain had furnished him with a cup of wine and she saw with a sinking heart that he was deep in conversation with Father Jerome, who had about as much guile as a newborn lamb. From the smirk on de Lacey's face as he watched her come forward, it was obvious that he knew and delighted in the news of Guyon's grave illness.

  Stifling the urge to be rude until given grounds, Judith made a stilted, traditional speech of welcome.

  De Lacey's smile was supercilious. He looked at his nails. 'I am sorry to hear that your husband is so grievously wounded, but the fault is his own.

  He should not have meddled in my affairs on my lands.'

  Father Jerome frowned at him. 'My lord, as I understand matters, he came to the aid of innocent travellers being wrongly molested.'

  'A jumped-up gamekeeper and my groom's wayward daughter?' De Lacey's laugh was caustic. 'Guyon FitzMiles prevented my men from carrying out their lawful duty. Indeed, I am sorely tempted to seek compensation from him for the death of my captain.'

  'Your former gamekeeper is a free man to sell his services where he desires and his wife is a free woman,' Judith said, looking at him with repugnance. 'You have no right.'

  'So you refuse to turn them over to me?'

  'It gives me the greatest satisfaction to deny you both them and your compensation,' she said, her chin high. 'Drink your wine and go. There is nothing for you here.'

  His lids narrowed. 'I do not think that with your husband on his deathbed you can afford to annoy me. After all , who knows where these lands will be bestowed next and my wife is growing old and not in the best of health. I expect soon to be bereaved.'

  'Rot in hell !' Judith hissed.

  He smiled at her. 'There'll be more pleasure in taming you than that bag of bones I've got at the moment. My compensation is already assured.'

  Father Jerome made a shocked exclamation.

  'If you want to be a gelding, that's your own choice,' Judith retorted, her fingers itching to draw her eating knife from her belt and do the deed there and then. 'I think we have nothing to trade but threats and insults. Excuse me if I do not see you on your road. My husband needs me.'

  He raised his cup to her in a mocking salute and looked her insolently up and down as if she was already a piece of his property.

  In the bedchamber, Judith collapsed beside the hearth, her teeth chattering and her hands icy.

  Helgund fetched a sheepskin from the foot of the bed, wrapped it around her mistress's shaking shoulders and hunted out the flask of aqua vitae.

  Judith choked on the strong liquor. 'I'm all right,' she reassured the maid, finding a wan smile from somewhere. 'Lord Miles will need to know. Have you seen him?'

  'Not recently, my lady. He did not come here while you were gone.'

  'My lady, he was talking to your mother in the hall before Lord Walter came,' Elflin offered timidly from her corner where she sat deftly spinning the wool, her manual dexterity far in advance of her mental. 'But they had gone when you summoned me to your chamber.'

  'I'll try his chamber in a moment,' Judith said and, finishing the aqua vitae, cast off the sheepskin and went to look at Guyon.

  He was sleeping deeply and his temperature, although still raised was, she fancied, not as high as it had been, or perhaps it was just wishful thinking. She turned round and saw the dainty English girl watching her with a wide-eyed mingling of expectancy and fear.

  'Our visitor has gone,' Judith said. 'I think it will be safe for you to seek your husband now.'

  'Thank you, my lady!' Elflin dropped her work and, blushing, bobbed a deep curtsy before departing the room at a near run.

  'What it is to be young and eager,' smiled Helgund, addressing Judith as if she were a staid matron beyond love's first sweet violence.


  'Yes,' Judith agreed flatly and smoothed the coverlet. 'What it is.' Her chin quivered. She mastered the urge to weep and straightened up. 'I must find Lord Miles and tell him what has happened. Let me know if there is any change.'

  'Yes, my lady.'

  Judith left the room almost as swiftly as Elflin had done, got halfway down the stairs, stifled the familiar panicky instinct to run and continued at a more sedate pace across the great hall and up the stairs to the small chamber that was her father-in-law's when he visited.

  She could hear the murmur of voices as she approached, one deep and hesitant, the other her mother's and breathless. Then the voices ceased.

  At the curtain, Judith paused, warned by some sixth sense that to clear her throat and just walk into the room would not be wise.

  Cautiously she drew aside the merest fold of material and peered within to assess whether she should go or stay. Set into the thickness of the wall , the room was tiny with space only for a bed, a small clothing pole and a brazier for use against the cold. Before the brazier, blocking it from view, her mother stood locked in Miles's embrace, her blue gown melding into the dark green of his tunic and chausses, his hands lean and brown against the snowiness of her wimple. Her mother's arms were locked around his neck and they were kissing as, only yesterday in the hall , she had seen Elflin and her husband kissing.

  Judith dropped the curtain, stepped away and wondered why she had not realised it long ago.

  There had been enough beads to make a necklace if one had the eyesight to pick them up.

  The swings of her mother's moods, the looks and counter-looks cast across the hall , met and avoided. What had her mother said? Understand when the time comes and do not judge me too harshly. No more harshly than Alicia had judged herself, she thought and wondered if Guyon, less naive than herself, had known.

  At the foot of the stairs, she encountered the lady Emma about to ascend and quickly blocked her way.

  Emma's gaze sharpened.

  'I should not bother him until later,' Judith said, her voice slightly constricted. 'He is otherwise occupied.'

  Emma searched Judith's face for meaning.

  'With a woman, you mean?' Judith hesitated and Emma grimaced. 'That always was his source of oblivion.' She sighed, turning with Judith to go back down to the hall . 'He's not much use at getting drunk and he's too slightly built to go out and pick a fight. I've known him ride a horse half to death, but a woman by preference is his usual form of solace. At first after my stepmother died there was scarcely a night when he slept alone ...

  God knows some of the sluts Guy and I had to tolerate in the early days!'

  Judith coloured. 'He is with my mother,' she said quietly, 'and they still have all their clothes on.'

  Emma's eyes rounded. She stopped and turned. 'Your mother?' The thought seemed to have blocked her brain.

  Judith stared her out. Emma drew a long breath between her teeth and let it out again slowly. 'Well then, I am sorry if my words gave offence but in the past it has been true.'

  'The past is not now,' Judith said, not quite keeping the coldness from her tone. For all that Emma was Guyon's sister and he maintained that she had a heart of gold, Judith was hard pressed to find it beneath the layers of iron and ice.

  Emma bit her lip. She and Judith were never going to be more than tepidly cordial. Their natures had too many similarities, subtle shades apart and, within this keep, like two stones in close proximity on a riverbed, they had begun to grate against each other. Emma began to think with new longing of her dower estates and how, when Guyon's crisis was resolved one way or the other, she would go there with her daughters.

  Christen seemed to be cured of her affliction to flirt. No more was 'Alais says' the bane of their lives. In part she knew it was due to the seriousness of Guyon's condition. That, in itself, was sufficient to put meaningless frivolity in its true perspective, but part was also due to Judith's steadying influence. Guyon's wife might laugh and play childish games with her nieces, might have a puckish sense of humour and an impudent tongue, but attracting men appeared scarcely to interest her. Nor did she wish to gossip about them to the detriment of all else and her domestic skill s were more than competent, as was her knowledge of healing and sickbed nursing.

  Christen, receiving an indifferent or bored response to most of her tattle, had steadied her own giddy attitude and begun to think a little for herself. What profit there was in that had yet to be seen. 'No,' she agreed, 'you are right. The past is not now.'

  CHAPTER 15

  A week came and went. So did the priest. Twice.

  Guyon wavered on the narrow brink between life and death, teetered and stepped back from the edge. Another week passed. There was a terrific thunderstorm. Three sheep in the bailey were struck by lightning and one of the store sheds caught fire. Guyon's temperature descended to normal. He recognised those who stood at his bedside and spoke to them, but he was as weak and dependent as a newborn kitten and even the effort of speech left him exhausted.

  In August they received the news that Jerusalem had fall en to the crusaders. The people of the town held a great bonfire and rejoiced for two days. Guyon got out of bed for the first time, walked three paces and collapsed.

  Judith made him swallow iron filings in wine and more of the disgusting ox-blood broth and gave him a stick to help him walk.

  Emma and her daughters left to go first to Emma's dower lands and then return. At the end of the month too, Alicia departed for her own dower lands with Miles for escort, her leave-taking of Judith somewhat tearful, but there was a new peace behind the emotion and Judith did not begrudge the cause of it, only hoped it would last.

  By late September the wound in Guyon's thigh had healed to a livid pink scar that he would bear for the rest of his life, but, precluding the success of any schemes that her Montgomery uncles and Walter de Lacey might have in store, his life was not now measured in terms of hours and minutes.

  Currently, Robert de Belleme was in Normandy conducting a private war against a neighbour who had offended him and was not expected back in England this side of spring. Walter de Lacey had been occupied in a localised but savage war against the Welsh, persuading them to stay on their own side of the border and leave his herds alone. The patrols went out from Ravenstow, but their own borders, due to the vigilance of Eric and de Bec, remained secure.

  Outside, the wind was gusting a carnival of brown and yellow dead leaves against the keep wall s. Pigs rooted in the woods for acorns, or snuffled among the windfall apples in the garths and orchards attached to the cottages. In the fields, men ploughed over the stubble and prepared the land for its winter lying while women and children were out gathering the blown-down dead twigs and branches for kindling in the long dark months ahead.

  In the main bedchamber, Guyon closed his eyes and buried his head on his forearms, lulled by the soothing motion of Judith's strong fingers on his back, massaging stiff muscles with aromatic oil of bay. It had been his first time on a horse since his illness. He had discovered that although his recently healed tissue protested, he was not overly uncomfortable and had thus spent longer in the saddle than he should. 'Learning to ride before you can walk,' Judith had said with exasperation.

  Peevish with exhaustion, he had snapped at her that he knew his own limits.

  'Then why overstep them?' she had smartly retorted with a toss of her head and left him to struggle upstairs on his own.

  She had been right of course - as usual. He stirred beneath her touch as she found a strain and thought that he owed her his life. Without her knowledge of simples and her care in the early days, he would have died. In between, she had faced down and seen off Walter de Lacey and, with the aid of his father and the keep's official machinery, had run the demesne with commendable efficiency.

  One of the maids murmured something and Judith replied softly. A slight shift of his head and a lazily lifted lid showed him the huntsman's wife Elflin for whose sake he had almost got hims
elf killed. She was striking in a strange, ethereal way, her bones bearing the fragile delicacy of frost on glass. Brand, her husband, had been holding Guyon's courser's bridle this morning, a smile of welcome on his taciturn features. They had decided to remain awhile, he said. Judith had confirmed that Brand was indeed a skilled huntsman, quick, willing and conscientious. Judith had brought the girl upstairs to train. Kitchen work was too heavy for her and her beauty was the kind to cause trouble among the general melee of servants who visited the kitchens, or had recently been finding cause to do so. Here, within Judith's immediate governance, she was safe.

  Guyon's thoughts drifted drowsily. Judith's hands worked lower over the small of his back.

  She paused for a moment, and then there was the cold touch of the herbal oil and the slow, undulating motion of her fingers.

  Long abstinence, the slow pressure of her hands above and the mattress below, made his reaction inevitable. Heat flooded his loins and burgeoned.

  Judith felt the change in him. Quite suddenly, beneath her kneading palms, the fluid muscles were rigid with tension.

  'Are you all right, my lord? Did I hurt you?'

  Anxiously she leaned over him. The ends of her braids tickled his back. Her movement released a waft of gillyflower from her garments, spicy and warm.

  'No,' Guyon muttered, voice choked. 'No, you did not hurt me, but I think it would be best if you made an end.'

  'I was nearly finished anyway,' she said with a shrug, thinking that he wished to be left to sleep.

  'Do you turn over and I will anoint your leg.'

  There was a strained silence. Judith began to worry. 'Guy, what's wrong?'

  He closed his eyes and willed the offending member to subside. It did nothing so charitable.

  The feel of her breasts, warm and round against his back as she leaned over him, was only making matters worse.