Renard considered, then nodded stiffly. ‘But if Ranulf of Chester comes anywhere near Caermoel, I will set the marches alight to stop him.’

‘I would expect that. All I am asking is that you do not provoke him.’

Renard snorted. ‘I provoke him just by breathing.’

‘Don’t breathe then,’ Meulan suggested.

Renard grimaced and threw a towel at him.

‘Or breathe when he’s not looking.’ Leicester’s gaze met Renard’s in frank understanding.

Welcoming her unexpected guest in from the cold, Elene tried her best not to look surprised or suspicious as she ushered Matille, Countess of Chester, towards the warmth of the hearth. Alys was sent scurrying to fetch hot spiced wine and Elene whisked her sewing basket and some mending from the chair beside her own and bade the Countess sit down.

Matille thanked her and did so, but declined to remove her cloak. ‘It is so cold. I think that soon we shall have some snow.’ Her gaze roved around the compact but pleasant room. ‘I suppose your new husband has gone hunting with the others?’

‘Yes, my lady.’ Matille was Renard’s cousin, the old King being her grandfather too. Her hair was an attractive beech-leaf red and her eyes were stormy grey like Renard’s. The set of her mouth and jaw also attested to their common heritage. ‘Did you want to see him?’ A silly question, Elene thought even as she asked it. If Matille had wanted to see Renard, she would have come at a different time.

‘Only to congratulate him on his wedding and tease him a little.’ The Countess smiled. ‘And I can probably escape from Ranulf long enough at court this evening to do that. At least I can congratulate you now.’ Half-rising, she leaned across and kissed Elene’s cheek.

Elene wondered if she knew that because of Earl Ranulf the marriage almost hadn’t taken place and Henry had been severely wounded. Chester might not have told her, but women had a network of other ways of collecting news. It was, however, a subject too delicate to broach on the strength of one meeting.

Alys returned with the hot wine as the Countess settled back in her chair and spread her skirts to the fire’s warmth.

‘It is probably all for the best that they’ve gone hunting,’ Matille added. ‘They can ride off some of the energy they’d otherwise spend in arguing and I certainly don’t want to be closeted with Ranulf all day. He behaves like a loose bull in a marketplace.’ She looked keenly at Elene. ‘Renard’s no better. He can be a devil incarnate when he’s bored. We used to play together as children and if he had no task to steady him he’d run wild until Judith despaired. Small wonder that he and Ranulf quarrel so much.’ She took a sip of the wine and made an appreciative sound.

‘It is more than a clash of characters,’ Elene said. ‘Renard has never set out to deliberately antagonise your husband. Why should he? By rights Ravenstow and Chester should be allies. It has always been so in the past.’

‘Indeed, I agree — apart from what you said about deliber — ately antagonising.’ She put her wine down on a small gaming table. ‘From Ranulf ’s viewpoint Renard has humiliated him several times in public.’

‘The first move has never been Renard’s

’ ‘I grant you that. My husband is frequently the aggressor, but Renard has by far the quicker tongue. He makes Ranulf look like a wallowing Martinmas hog, which he isn’t.’ Her eyes hardened, looking inwards. ‘He’s as cunning and dangerous as a wild boar and Renard’s going to get gored if he doesn’t take care.’ She refocused on Elene who was alert, her breathing shallow as if she was facing a wild boar herself — or a wild boar’s mate.

‘I’m very fond of Renard,’ Matille continued, and stretched out to clasp her hand over Elene’s. ‘I do not want you to think that I’m threatening either of you, but I hope a friendly warning will not go amiss. Whatever influence you have with Renard, use it, as I will use mine on Ranulf.’ Her mouth curved as she reached for her wine again. ‘The bedchamber is a good place to start, and it goes without saying that the announcement of a pregnancy works wonders on a husband’s generosity.’

Behind a blank expression Elene thought that Renard was the one adept at bedchamber persuasion, and that to bring an atmosphere of barter into what was a shared pleasure spoke of whoredom.

‘It does help, of course, if the child is male,’ added Matille with a sigh. Both the offspring she had borne Ranulf were girls, now aged four years old and one. In between, there had been an early miscarriage. Ranulf had not endured his disappointment with equanimity, indeed on the occasion of Lucy’s birth last Christmas had ranted and raved about annulment and divorce. It was all bluster, she knew. Her father was the Earl of Gloucester, his position far too prestigious for Ranulf to do anything as damaging as putting her aside. Not that it would worry her if he did. Matille enjoyed her wealth and titles, was even mildly fond of Ranulf in his better moments and tolerated him with resignation for the rest of the time, but there was no great passion between them.

‘I will talk to Renard,’ Elene said neutrally. She could see the sense in what Matille was saying, just knew that she would go about it in a different way.

‘Will you? Good! We women must help each other all we can. Certainly we never get any from our lords and masters!’ Relaxing, she unfastened her cloak. ‘This spiced wine really is excellent. You must give me the recipe …’

Under canvas in the grounds of the palace of Salisbury, Olwen considered her costume and the effect it would produce on the men of Stephen’s court when it came her turn to dance: the coin headdress and gold bezant earrings, a belt worked in thread-of-gold and set with lapis lazuli and crystals and, foaming from it, skirts in three shades of blue.

She had joined a troop of performers in Shrewsbury who were travelling down to Salisbury in the hope of being hired to entertain Stephen’s Christmas court. Having proved to their leader that she could dance beyond the wildest imaginings of any man alive, she had been accepted into the group. When one of the members had attempted the limit of his own wild imaginings on her she had demonstrated her equal skill with a dagger and made it clear that she only desired to join them because it was safer than making her way down to Salisbury as a woman alone. She also pointed out that with her exotic talents the troop stood a far higher chance of being employed to entertain the King. Alfred, their leader, a quiet, laconic man, saw sense in her reasoning for all that it was based on her own needs, and with an eye to profit had accepted her among them for the duration at least.

As once before in Antioch, Olwen applied the kohl to her eyes and the carmine to her lips with only the aid of a polished knife blade for a mirror. Aaliz and Jehanne, Alfred’s wife and daughter, were tuning up the harp and the crwth it was their particular skill to play and Jehanne hummed to herself, perfecting the notes of the song she was intending to sing. Outside Alfred and his two sons were limbering up with a series of jumps and tumbles, a small dog in pied jester’s costume leaping exuberantly with them.

‘What will you do after tonight?’ Aaliz asked Olwen curiously. Setting her harp aside, she began combing her glossy black hair. ‘Will you stay with us?’

‘That depends.’ Olwen’s reply was distorted by the motion of her lips as she carefully painted them. ‘I’m hoping to find myself a patron tonight.’

‘Oh yes?’ Aaliz laughed shortly. ‘Piece of advice for you. King Stephen loves his Queen and she for certain won’t brook a dancing girl making a play for her crown.’

‘I know,’ Olwen said in a cool, offhand voice. ‘It was not the King I had in mind.’

‘Who, then?’

Olwen gave her a ‘none of your business’ shrug and continued with her toilet.

Aaliz tightened her lips and turned away. A strange one and no mistake, she thought. Friendly overtures were either ignored or rebuffed. Occasionally Olwen would deign to be gracious, but only at her whim. Aaliz knew that, despite all the extra coin the troop had earned since the girl had joined them, she for one would not be sorry to see her leave.

Olwen flicked at her lashes with a small, black-laden brush. A queasy feeling not unrelated to triumph lurched in her stomach when she thought of dancing before the King and all his senior barons tonight; of having them at her mercy to pick and choose as the fancy took her. She doubted that even the most likely candidates — the Earls of Chester, Huntingdon and Leicester — would be better lovers than Renard, but the power they wielded would be aphrodisiac enough to compensate.

Sometimes in an unguarded moment she would think of him and feel her throat tighten, but if she wept it was only as others would weep at the passions of a minstrel’s tale, and then awake to face reality. He would be there tonight, unaware that she was not still at Hawkfield. Beneath the triumph, adding to the excitement, an edge of fear shivered deliciously down her spine at the thought of how he would react.

Raising her arms, Elene set the gold pins in her gossamer veil, to secure it in place on the silk under-cap. Behind her Renard was stretched at ease on the bed. He was already dressed for the court in the embroidered fox tunic and was absently examining a new hawking gauntlet he had bought. ‘Cousin Matille,’ he mused, responding to her mention of the visit. ‘People used to mistake us for brother and sister when we were children. I don’t think I’ve seen her since Herleve’s christening, and that was before I went to Antioch.’

‘She’s got another child now, Lucy, after Ranulf ’s mother.’

He twisted the glove this way and that. ‘Was it purely a social visit, or did she have other pots to simmer?’