Elizabeth Chadwick - The Leopard Unleashed

The maid returned with a cloak made of Welsh plaid. Olwen put it on, finished her meal, and looked around the hall.

‘Renard isn’t here,’ Guyon said as he saw her search. ‘He rode out with a patrol at dawn.’

Olwen clutched the edges of the cloak together and tightened her lips.

He took pity on her. ‘This might be a good opportunity to organise some warmer clothing for you. Come above to the sewing room and my lady wife will see what we have in our coffers.’ Commanding the maid to find Judith, he pushed himself to his feet.

The steward eyed him doubtfully. The lady had settled her lord by the warmth of the fire and was going to be vexed that he had moved. Probably she would blame the girl, although it was none of her fault.

Olwen followed Guyon from the hall and up the winding stairs. He paused for a moment beside a window slit to gain the breath to go on and pretended, despite the fact that he could hardly speak, that he was showing her the view.

She stared over the ploughlands towards the dark smudge of forest and the Welsh hills beyond. The smell of damp stone invaded her nostrils and lungs and she contrasted it with the memory of the sun-baked dustiness of Antioch.

‘Is it all yours?’ she asked, after a while, wanting to know if one day it would all be Renard’s.

The seams at Guyon’s eye-corners deepened with grim humour. ‘The hills are sometimes Welsh and sometimes Norman,’ he wheezed. ‘Just now they’re both, the Norman part belonging all except my keep of Caermoel to Earl Ranulf of Chester.’ He braced one forearm on the stone, pressed the other against his ribs. ‘He’d like the rest of what you see too. That’s why Renard is out on patrol.’

‘Earl Ranulf of Chester?’ she repeated. ‘He is your enemy?’

Guyon snorted. ‘Anyone who stands in his way is his enemy. We’re not on the best of terms with him, never have been, but we’ve got by in uneasy peace until now. This war between Stephen and Matilda is making him more powerful by the moment. Both sides want him so he holds them both to ransom. The more power he obtains, the more he wants and the more he flouts the law to get it.’

Olwen’s expression became deeply thoughtful. ‘Is he old in years to have gained so much power?’ she queried as they continued slowly up the stairs to the next level.

‘Unfortunately, no. There’s no chance of him withering off the tree yet. He has less than ten years’ advantage over Renard.’ He paused again for respite and coughed harshly before leading her along a gallery and into Judith’s sewing room.

Judith was there before them and her tight lips and rigid spine told their own story. ‘So help me God!’ she snapped at Guyon. ‘You spend all night coughing and then have no more sense than to leave the warmth of the fire and climb stairs! Have you run mad?’ She glared at him and then at Olwen.

‘And if I have, it is my entitlement,’ he said to her calmly before swallowing down another cough. ‘I’d rather be mad than caged any further than I am.’

Judith continued to frown but she did not argue beyond her first outburst, knowing that it would probably provoke him to worse folly.

‘Olwen needs warmer gowns than this.’ He gestured to the blue silk. ‘We have the fabric, do we not?’

Arching one brow, Judith looked Olwen up and down. ‘We may have,’ she said.

Another window looked out on to the bailey. Olwen went to it and gazed down at the bustling activity below. She heard Guyon speaking to his wife in placatory tones and her murmured but vehement responses, followed by the sound of a coffer lid being slammed back. When Olwen drew up the courage to look round again, Renard’s father had gone and Lady Judith was examining a length of fawn wool.

‘No sign of moths.’ She gave it a shake. ‘There should be enough here for two gowns and an under-dress if we use this blue as well.’ In almost the same breath she added, ‘It is no use watching and waiting at the window like that. Renard won’t be back until vespers at the earliest. And tomorrow will be the same, and the day after that, and the day after that.’ A ball of string and some shears in her hand, she advanced on Olwen to take her measurements.

Olwen stood tense but still and let the older woman work. Every now and then Judith would stop and put a knot in the string to mark the length from shoulder to wrist, or back of neck to hem, and then cut off the relevant strand.

‘If you think you are the core of Renard’s life you are wasting your time,’ Judith added in a hard voice when she finally stepped back, the measurements complete. ‘This is the core, this stone, this land, bred into him blood and bone and soul. All you are is a means to vent the heat and soon even for that need he will have a wife.’

Olwen tossed her head. ‘I realise that Renard has duties that do not involve me, but duty is not pleasure, and I know more about that than his bride ever will. If I so choose, she will be no match for me.’

‘If you so choose!’

‘Yes, my lady.’

Judith turned abruptly away to the pile of fabric on the coffer. ‘I think you have a great deal to learn,’ she said. ‘Not least about Elene, and about me. I will not stand by and watch you bring mayhem upon us. I have other duties more important to attend than this. If you would have clothes, then you had best set about making them.’ She stalked from the room.

For a while Olwen did not move, but when at last she did, it was to return to the window slit and lean against the wall, her eyes on the distant lands belonging to Ranulf of Chester.

Renard sighed, tossed the quill on to the heap of parchments beside him on the table, and rubbed his eyes. The hound dozing beside the brazier raised its head and thumped its tail on the floor. Renard snapped his fingers and held out his hand and Cabal padded over to nuzzle him with his moist, black nose. He thrust his fingers into the wiry grey coat and made a fuss of the dog. It was a brief comfort, a momentary diversion from the difficult task of sorting out which of their vassals owed what and when in terms of military service, and making up for the inevitable shortfall around harvest time, which was nigh on impossible. Some lords, taking a page out of William’s book, were not averse to sending the most shoddy goods they could get away with.

A dull ache of fatigue throbbed behind his eyes. It was the middle of the night, everyone asleep but himself and Cabal, and he had to be up at the crack of dawn to take out another patrol. Later it would not matter, he could delegate the task, but for the moment he needed to make himself known as a leader, had to impose his own codes and methods on men who either did not know him, or still thought of him as a feckless youngster. He ruffled Cabal’s coat, and reaching across the table to the flagon, refilled his cup with the indifferent Norman wine. Then, with another heavy sigh, he drew a fresh sheet of parchment towards him and began to set down the results of his rough calculations in a neater hand that FitzBrien the Constable would be able to understand and act upon. He knew that there were bound to be disagreements and he would have to prepare himself for some hard negotiating. At least, he thought, as he drank the wine and wrote, his forthcoming marriage to Elene would be a convenient meeting ground for all the vassals and tenants to air their opinions, form new ones and pay their dues.

The wedding day had been set for the first of November. It had been mooted in a letter taken up the march by Adam when he went to collect his wife from Woolcot, and his return had furnished Elene’s reply — brief this time and to the point, in full agreement on the date and welcoming him home.

Pressing the heel of his hand against his forehead, he leaned his elbow on the trestle and continued to write. The dog lifted its head and a soft growl rumbled up from the depths of its throat. ‘Quiet, Cabal,’ he commanded, frowning in concentration.

A shadow passed before the candlelight. Startled, he looked up.

‘May I?’ Without awaiting his reply, Olwen picked up his cup and took a swallow of the wine. Her hair, pillow-tousled, tumbled over her unfastened chemise. The silky skin of one shoulder gleamed, as did the smooth upper curve of her breast. Perching herself on the table’s edge, she put her free hand down to balance her weight and leaned sideways and slightly forwards to give him more than just a glimpse of her cleavage.

He put down the quill, carefully set the inkhorn out of reach, and folded his arms to regard her warily. ‘What do you want?’

‘Do you not know?’ She tossed her head. The wine glistened on her lips. She licked them slowly.

She said, ‘You have been avoiding me.’

‘I’ve been …’ He cleared his throat and started again. ‘I’ve been too busy seeing to the affairs of the estate. I cannot just walk into your chamber as you have walked in here now. It is a matter of common courtesy to my mother and father.’

Yawning, she slipped from the table, but only to come round and sit down next to him. ‘You’ve been trying to pretend you don’t want me, but I can see straight through you.’

Renard looked rueful. ‘You’re wrong. I haven’t been pretending at all. I do want you, Olwen … too much.’

‘Ah,’ she murmured, stalking him with claws unsheathed. ‘Proving to yourself that you can abstain if you have to.’

He shrugged, conceding her the point. She looked at the parchments and tally sticks strewn upon the table, and then through her lashes at Renard. ‘This man you all keep talking about — Ranulf de Gernons? Is he very powerful?’

‘Yes, on his own territory. He wants some of ours to add to it and there is a personal grudge between us going back ten years.’