The Wild Hunt tor-1 Page 3

  Judith began to tremble. The wall s seemed to be closing in on her, caging her in a space so small that there was no room to breathe. She felt hot and sick, but her hands were icy. 'Agnes, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have struck you,' she said in a choked voice.

  'That's all right, my love,' Agnes said comfortingly. 'Bound to be a bit strung up today, aren't you?' She held out her hand. 'Child, what's wrong?'

  Judith knew she would die if she did not escape. Gathering her skirts in one hand, the other clapped across her mouth, she bolted from the room. The chamberlain's lad leaped out of the way, dropping his candles. Alicia and Agnes called out to her, but Judith was gone, fleeing heedless of the dangerous spiralling stairs, fleeing with the wild instinct of a hunted animal to escape. While she was running, she did not have to think. While she was running, she was not fettered.

  'Shall I go after her, my lady?'

  Alicia gnawed her lip and gazed at the still swaying curtain. 'No, Agnes,' she said after a moment. 'We have hemmed her about too much.

  Let her be alone awhile. It will be her last chance.'

  'She is not ready for this yet,' Agnes said grimly.

  'They say he's used to the women of the court - that he plays fast with other men's wives.'

  'Gossip!' Alicia snapped. 'And you know better than to listen, Agnes. Do not give me that pitying look. I do not doubt he has owned casual mistresses, but tales are always embroidered to give them colour and I trust to his breeding more than I do to third-hand tittle-tattle. Besides, whatever marriage to him holds for Judith, it can be no worse than a fate at the hands of her uncle Robert, or Walter de Lacey.' Her lips tightened.

  'She has to be ready.'

  When Judith returned to her senses, there was a tight stitch in her side and she was leaning against a jagged lump of stone. Her breathing rasped in her throat, her recently combed hair was dishevelled and a dark stain was spreading upwards from the hem of her gown where she had splashed heedlessly through the bailey puddles. Her gilded shoes were soaked and her toes clung cold together inside them.

  Sleet spattered fitfully in the wind which was as raw as an open wound. Judith's teeth chattered.

  Her new cloak with its warm fur lining was hanging upon her clothing pole in the chamber she had fled, and not for anything would she return to fetch it.

  'I cannot do it,' she whispered miserably, knowing that her words were empty. If she did not agree to this marriage, she exposed them all to the threat of her uncle Robert. Sooner or later she would have been contracted to wed anyway, probably to Walter de Lacey, and nothing could be worse than that, she told herself as she stared at the grey choppy water of the river below.

  Guyon FitzMiles, lord of Ledworth. She tested the name on her tongue and tried to envisage the man, but nothing came except sick fear. What if his teeth were rotten or he stank? What if he was gross and balding like Hugh, Earl of Chester?

  What if he beat her just because his mood was sour? For a wild moment she contemplated flinging herself from the promontory to break like spume upon the rocks below, but she dared not, because such an act would earn eternal damnation for her soul. Gasping, the wind blinding her face with her hair, Judith drew back from the treacherous edge.

  A plaintive mew drew her gaze down to the golden tabby cat that was twining sinuously around her skirts, back arched, round head butting and rubbing.

  'Melyn!' Momentarily diverted from her unhappy dilemma, Judith bent to scoop the cat into her arms. 'In the name of the saints, where have you been?'

  The cat, missing for three days, purred and kneaded Judith's sleeve with her paws, her yellow eyes filled with smugness and disdain.

  Melyn was unusual in being a house pet.

  Usually cats roamed the undercrofts and barns, tolerated to keep vermin at bay, essentially wild, sometimes caught and skinned for their fur. Judith had discovered Melyn last year out on this headland, as a mangy kitten with an infected paw.

  Alicia had been teaching Judith her herbs and simples at the time and had let Judith develop her knowledge on the kitten, Lord Maurice not being at home to see the little creature destroyed. By the time he returned, Melyn was fully recovered, had become accustomed to life in the bower and had learned manners to suit. Her feline sense of self-preservation sent her either out of the room or into hiding whenever Maurice appeared.

  Following his death, the cat had stalked the keep like a queen surveying her domain, imperious and aloof. Her disappearance three days ago had been an ill omen. It was as if Melyn knew a new tyrant was coming to Ravenstow and wanted no part of it ... except that now, when his arrival was imminent, she was back.

  Melyn suddenly and painfully dug her hind legs into the crook of Judith's arm and clawed herself on to her favourite perch across her mistress's shoulder. Judith yelped in protest, but bore with the discomfort because she was so relieved by her pet's return. She tugged her hair to one side out of the way. Melyn uttered a strange noise, halfway between whine and growl. Her claws needled Judith's neck as another cat emerged from the tangled dank grass and padded without haste across their path towards the keep. He was sleek, rangy, and as black as jet.

  'Sweet Mary!' Judith exclaimed in exasperation, not knowing whether to be annoyed or amused, and most definitely concerned. God alone knew how her future husband would react to a bower full of kittens. God alone knew how her future husband would react to anything.

  CHAPTER 4

  Guyon drew rein and, while the herald rode forward to announce him formally, stared up at the limewashed keep, gleaming against the heavy grey clouds and wind-whipped tussocks on its slope.

  'I must be mad,' he muttered as the drawbridge thumped down across the ditch and, beyond, the serjeants in the gate-house made shrift to raise the portcullis and open the door into hell .

  Foreboding scuttled down Guyon's spine. One of the most impregnable keeps along the northern march Ravenstow might be, desirable in the extreme, but for two pins he would have ridden away and left it. But as there were more than two pins at stake, he heeled Arian's flanks and the stall ion stepped delicately on to the planks. Cadi bounded joyously forward with no such reservations, and Guyon whistled her sternly to heel.

  'The Welsh won't take this in a hurry,' Miles said as they turned at a sharp angle to ride between the outer defences and the palisade of the inner bailey before turning again to enter the inner court through a second gateway.

  Guyon grunted in reply and studied the formidable defences with a jaundiced eye, appreciating their strength even while he felt revulsion. If only Robert de Belleme was not so closely connected with the place, he would have been much easier of conscience and mind.

  Upon dismounting, they were greeted by an officious little man in a scarlet silk robe that embraced his paunch and made him look as if he were heavily pregnant. Behind him stood a taller, iron-thewed greybeard in full armour and a welcoming party of what looked like the more prominent vassals and household knights.

  'God's greeting my lords, and welcome,' said the paunch in red silk, hands clasped together like a supplicant. 'I am Richard FitzWarren, chamberlain to the lady Alicia, and this is her constable, Michell de Bec ...'

  Guyon forced himself to listen and look polite as he was introduced one by one to all the members of the group. It was politic to remember names, since it was a valuable asset when it came to handling their owners, but it gave him cause to wonder what was amiss that the constable and his underling should emerge to greet them instead of the hostess herself and then freeze them here in the bailey, drivelling of matters that could wait.

  Glancing briefly beyond the men while he made acknowledgement, he noticed a woman hurrying from the forebuilding towards them, her manner agitated. Her cloak was fur-lined and her rose-coloured gown shimmered beneath it as she moved. Exposed below her veil, her braids were a handspan thick and lustrous as jet.

  'The lady Alicia,' Miles said in a tone of voice that caused Guyon to divert his gaze and eye his father sharply instead.<
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  She approached the men with a fixed smile on her lips and a slightly desperate expression in her eyes. 'I am sorry, my lords, I should have been here to greet you. I apologise for my lack. The more I try, the more obstacles seem to be cast in my path. Forgive me, welcome now, and come within, I pray you.' She gestured with an open hand.

  'What is wrong, my lady?' Miles asked. 'Can we be of service?

  Alicia drew breath to deny, but then let it out on a heavy sigh. 'Nothing of great import, my lords.

  The guests are squabbling; the cook has just tipped boiling lard all over the spit boy and the bread is burnt to cinders. The maids don't know their heads from their heels; my constable, when told to play for time, keeps you standing in the ward in the cold as I am doing now; and to season the stew, my daughter has taken fright and run off heaven knows where. Otherwise, everything is as normal as you would expect for a wedding so quickly arranged.'

  Miles stifled a grin. Guyon started to ask a question, but the words were driven from his mind as Cadi gave a bark of antagonistic joy and sprang from his side to hurtle across the ward towards a girl who was trying to slink unnoticed around the side of the forebuilding, and would have succeeded were it not for the dog.

  The cat that was curled around her shoulders became a hissing arch of erect orange fur. The bitch launched herself at the girl, who overbalanced and sat down hard on the muddy bailey floor. A feline paw flashed. Blood sprang to the accompaniment of an anguished yelp. The cat leaped over the dog, avoiding the belated snap of her teeth, whisked, through the legs of a startled guard and into the keep.

  Hampered by her gown, Judith floundered to rise. A swift glance around made her wish that she had been knocked unconscious. The grooms, guards and kitchen maids on errands were gawping in horrified delight. Her mother's face as she bore down upon her was set like stone. Someone sniggered. She closed her eyes, decided that shutting out the situation was not going to make it go away and opened them again upon a neatly built greying man of middle years who had overtaken Alicia to set a hand beneath her elbow.

  'I take this for an omen,' he chuckled. 'You and my son are bound to fight like cat and dog and scandalise the entire castle!'

  Judith gaped at him too stunned to respond.

  Her father would have shaken her for this until her teeth rattled.

  'No more than you and mama ever did!' a younger man retorted amiably, appearing beside them, his fingers gripped around the white dog's collar as she strove, forepaws flailing, to pursue her quarry into the keep. 'It is my fault,' he owned with a smile. 'Cadi's still a pup and has yet to learn her manners.'

  Judith looked down. He was beautiful and unreal. A courtier, a gilded image with a voice as smooth as dark mead. Her uncle Robert was handsome and smooth too, and rotten to the core beneath the gilding, and her fear increased.

  Having delivered Judith to the bower to repair the ravages of the first encounter between bride and groom, Alicia summoned her courage and returned to the hall to attend to her guests.

  Miles le Gallois smiled and waved his hand at her apology. 'It is already to be an irregular wedding,' he said. 'I am sure my son's memory of his first encounter with his bride will remain vivid for the rest of his life.'

  Alicia cast a glance over her shoulder to where Guyon was giving the dog into the temporary care of one of his knights, then returned her attention to Miles. 'You are laughing at me, my lord.'

  'I may be.'

  Her mouth began to curve. She straightened it.

  'Judith is anxious,' she said. 'Tonight she will be a wife, when this morning she was a child.'

  Miles sobered. 'Guyon has a sister and nieces and is by no means green about women.'

  'So we hear,' Alicia replied waspishly, and then shook her head. 'No surprise when you consider his looks and the ways of the court.'

  'I am not at court now, my lady,' Guyon said, joining them.

  Alicia jumped. He moved as softly as Judith's cat.

  'You need not fear,' Guyon continued. 'I promise I will treat your daughter with every respect and courtesy.'

  'Judith is young, but she is quick to learn and quite capable of managing a household,' Alicia replied, recovering herself. 'If she appeared in a bad light just now, it is because she has been unsettled by her father's death and this sudden change in her situation.'

  In other words, Guyon thought wryly, she was a resentful, frightened little girl who would take a deal of delicate handling if anything was to be salvaged from the morass.

  The wine arrived, and with it Hugh d'Avrenches, Earl of Chester, thus sparing Guyon the need to make Alicia a reply.

  'It is bound to be difficult at first,' Miles said to Alicia as Guyon lent a relieved ear to what his neighbour had to say concerning the Welsh alliances of the region. 'Given different circumstances, there would have been the time we all need.'

  'Given different circumstances,' Alicia said with a side-long look at Guyon, 'there would have been no arrangement at all , would there?'

  Lost for a reply, Miles lifted his cup and drank.

  Guyon looked at the girl to whom he had just bound himself in Ravenstow's freezing chapel, his vows committing him to her protection for the rest of his life, no matter how short that might now be.

  Her own voice making the responses had been tremulous and more than once swallowed in tears.

  He had felt the daggers in men's eyes as they witnessed his marriage. Arnulf of Pembroke had barely been civil in greeting and Walter de Lacey was sneeringly hostile. Judith's face was turned towards him, awaiting the sacrificial kiss of tradition. The high cheekbones gave a distinctly feline expression to her eyes, which were a peculiar mingling of brown upon grey like water in spate.

  Dear Christ, what had he sold himself into?

  Probably an early grave, he thought as he slipped his arm around her waist. She was rigid and trembling beneath the glowing green damask. It was a grown woman's gown cladding the thin frame of a child and he knew that he could no more bed with her tonight than he could with one of his nieces. He kissed her cheek as he would a vassal, the touch brief and impersonal. Her skin smelled faintly of rosewater, and her hair of the rosemary and camomile in which it had been washed for the wedding.

  Judith shuddered at the contact and Guyon immediately released her. Together they turned to receive the congratulations of the guests and witnesses; few in number because of the hasty arrangements, to Judith they seemed a claustrophobic throng.

  The entire occasion for her was a nightmare endured through a fog. Sporadically the mist would lift to reveal a sharply coloured tableau with herself bound victim at its centre. The awful moment when the dog had sent her flying, her arrival at the chapel, the faces turned towards her, their expressions stamped with speculation, with pity, with predatory greed. Now, clearly, she could see her hand resting upon her husband's dark sleeve, her wedding ring of Welsh gold proclaiming his ownership. She was as much his property now as his horse or that dog, to be used and abused as he chose.

  The guests mingled in the great hall . Below the dais they danced in honour of the bride and groom. Guyon watched his new wife perform the steps with one of Ravenstow's neighbours. Ralph de Serigny was another of de Belleme's vassals, a thoroughly disagreeable, parsimonious old ferret who, according to Alicia, was only here in order to eat and drink at another's expense. As his borders marched with Ravenstow's on the Welsh boundary, it had been necessary to invite him lest he take offence. His wife, apparently, was dull -witted and had been left at home tended by her women. At least, Guyon thought half smiling, if Ralph de Serigny was only here to eat, drink and escape his wife, he was a deal more welcome than certain others claiming the right of hospitality at his wedding.

  The dance progressed and Judith was passed on to the arm of her uncle, Arnulf de Montgomery.

  He had a nose like a pitted stone and possessed a dour, unsmiling character. De Montgomery had none of Robert de Belleme's charisma or genius but was the owner of a low, dull c
unning. Not having the inventiveness to scheme, he was sufficiently shrewd to attach himself to the plots of others if there was benefit to himself - a man to be watched from the eye corners, frank confrontation not being his style. But how did one look before and behind and to the side at one and the same time?

  De Montgomery swept his niece into the clutch of Walter de Lacey who was waiting at the end of the line. The younger man pulled her against his lean body, caught her wrist and turned her around. Judith's face wore a fixed smile. His hand lingered at her waist and he murmured something against her ear.

  'More oil than you'd find in an entire olive grove,' muttered the Earl of Chester from the corner of his mouth. Guyon glanced round and up. Hugh d'Avrenches, known as Hugh le Gros on account of his enormous height and girth, was the ugliest man Guyon had ever seen and even now, long acquaintance had not bred the indifference of familiarity.

  He had small , hooded eyes of watery pale blue.

  His cheeks were pendulous red-veined jowls and his mouth was small and soft with a sweet, surprisingly childlike smile, the similarity enhanced by the gap where his two upper front teeth were missing. He cultivated a jolly, bumbling personality to match his gross figure and the unwary stepped in, never thinking of the dangers lurking beneath the shallows. A good friend, an implacable enemy.

  'Enough to slip his feet from under him, I would say,' Guyon agreed.

  Hugh d'Avrenches folded his arms and regarded Guyon with a twinkling stare. 'Good soldier, though. He led a competent command on the Mon campaign.'

  Guyon's lip curled. 'He also amused himself with torture and the rape of girls not old enough to be women.'

  The Earl shrugged. 'We all have our own little foibles and sometimes tortured men can be made to sing a very pretty tune.'

  Guyon's nostrils flared. 'Yes,' he said without inflection.

  Chester laid a hand on Guyon's shoulder. 'Son, you're too finicky and you can't afford the luxury of principles in the present company.'

  Guyon watched Walter de Lacey set his hands on Judith's hips and swing her round. The stiff smile on her face threatened to shatter. 'I realise that. De Lacey offered for the girl himself shortly before her father was killed; he had de Belleme's sanction to the suit.'