Elizabeth Chadwick - The Leopard Unleashed

Renard swallowed and swallowed again. There was a cold hollow where his stomach should have been.

‘Please,’ Elene said huskily, her hand gripping his sleeve.

He looked down. Olwen’s laughter rippled the air. ‘You are right,’ he said through tight lips. ‘Let us go.’

Elene lay in bed and listened to the silence. Despite the weight of the covers and the fact that she was still fully dressed she was chilled to the bone, no warmth in the bed beside her from which she could draw comfort. She stared into the darkness which was relieved by the tiniest glimmer of light from the guttering night candle. Her eyes ached and then started to burn fiercely, the only part of her that was hot. Rolling over, she pressed her face into the bolster and sobbed, hands clenching the fur coverlet.

Her mind was filled with images of that evening, images she wanted to block out but could not. The expression on Renard’s face; the expression on Olwen’s as she took her pleasure; the knowledge of how that pleasure had been taken before in private and was now exhibited in public. At last the storm abated. The bolster was wet and un — comfortable and her throat was sore. Gulping and sniffing, Elene sat up and pressed the heels of her hands into her hot eyes. It was very late. Renard was downstairs, had not yet seen fit to come up. He had said he would not be long but that had been several hours ago. They had each needed time alone, she understood that, but her own need for solitude had come and gone a long time ago.

Still sniffing, she left the bed. One of them upstairs, one of them down and no words spoken, only a deepening chasm of silence. She looked down at her wedding dress and was tempted to take her shears to the convoluted embroidery and the lies it portrayed; tempted but unable to bring herself to do so.

The brazier had gone out. The night candle sputtered. Elene rubbed her arms and paced the room. Another piece of sewing caught her eye, the silver thread on the hem reflecting the candle’s dying flickers. It was the tunic she was currently making for Renard. Turning, she stared at it and gradually it occurred to her that a needle was capable of weaving more than one tale and of creating more than one garment — that a needle could repair and refurbish.

Fetching a kerchief from her baggage chest, she wiped her eyes, blew her nose and, setting her jaw, went down to the hall.

Renard was sitting by the fire where Matille of Chester had sat that afternoon — a lifetime ago. He was staring down at a chess piece taken from the gaming table beside him and was turning it over and over in his hand.

‘It is very late,’ she said tentatively. ‘I have been waiting for you a long time. Will you not come to bed?’

He raised his head to look at her, and after a moment sighed and put the chess piece carefully back down on the board. ‘It’s not love,’ he said with a swift gesture. ‘I never felt that for her. I wasn’t even at ease in her company unless we were in bed, and even there it was a battle.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m choking on pride, Nell, on the fact that she should have chosen to leave me for Ranulf de Gernons.’

Elene faced the warmth of the banked hearth and rubbed her icy palms together. ‘Do you think you are the only one with wounds? I watched her dance, taking her pleasure from us all, feeding on our responses. I do not believe that I will ever feel the same way about love-making again.’

Her curly hair was loose around her, screening her face from him as she fought to steady her voice.

‘There’s a world of difference between making love and siege warfare,’ he said, and rising from the chair put his hands lightly on her shoulders. ‘With you I don’t feel as if I have to guard my back in the act, nor do you turn to ice when it is over as if you hate me or have begrudged the responding. You fit well into the hollow of my shoulder, Nell.’

She stared into the fire. She did not want to fit into the hollow of his shoulder. She wanted him to look at her the way he had looked at Olwen and forget all about control, as he had forgotten at the palace tonight.

‘Nell?’

She turned to face him, new tear tracks glistening on her cheeks. Muttering an oath, he took her in his arms. She clung to him. Against her damp face the gold thread on his court tunic was abrasive.

‘Perhaps I needed this to happen,’ he muttered into her hair. ‘Perhaps I had to learn that all you get for playing with fire is badly burned.’ Bending his head and angling hers up, he kissed her. Elene hesitated and then with a small gasp responded, her lips parting beneath his and her body yielding from its rigidity as desire melted her bones.

Renard broke the kiss and raised his head. ‘Listen.’ Releasing her he went to the window that looked out on to the street and unhooked the oxhide shutter. Elene heard the scrape of hooves on cobbles, the champing of a horse and the jingle of harness.

‘Who is it?’

‘It’s Edmund.’ The harshness of his voice said everything that the single word did not. He repinned the shutter with precise care and went to the door.

‘Sweet Jesu.’ Elene brought her hand to her mouth. Edmund was the youngest son of Ravenstow’s constable, his trade that of messenger when haste was required, and there could only be one message that would bring him to Salisbury’s gates in the dead of night.

‘When?’ she heard Renard ask the young man. The chill darkness blowing through the open door was frightening.

‘Two nights ago, my lord,’ Edmund’s voice rasped and he knelt at Renard’s feet, half in obeisance, half in exhaustion, his eyes dark-ringed in a face tight and pale with strain. ‘I’ve ridden three horses into the ground reaching you.’

Renard stooped, pulled him to his feet and, bringing him into the hall, pointed to the chair by the hearth. Alys, her face puffy with sleep was poking the fire to life. ‘How did it happen? My father was in reasonable health when we left for this feast.’

Gratefully Edmund accepted the drink that Elene poured for him. ‘On the same day that you rode out, my lord, a merchant bound for Shrewsbury sought hospitality with us overnight. He brought some kind of contagious ague with him. It starts with a sore throat and shivering fever, then a tight chest and a cough capable of cracking the ribs. For those already weakened …’ He broke off and spread his hands in a helpless gesture. ‘Roslind lost her new baby and old Gamel the hafter died on the same night as your father. Half the garrison’s down with it too.’

‘What about Lady Judith?’ Elene asked, her thoughts on Judith and the state she was likely to be in already without being struck down with this sickness, whatever it was.

‘She was all right when she sent me with the tidings,’ Edmund said. ‘Shocked, yes, and as pale as a ghost, but within her senses.’

‘My mother is not lady of Ravenstow any more,’ Renard said to Elene in a dull voice. ‘You are.’ He signalled down the hall and sent the responding servant to go and rouse the rest of the household.

‘You mean to set out for Ravenstow now? In the middle of the night?’ Elene clutched his sleeve, less to detain him than in shock at his words. She was not ready for this, but had no choice.

‘As soon as the baggage wain can be packed. I doubt there’s any bread, but tell the cook to boil up something hot for the men before we set off.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Ranulf de Gernons had the advantage over me tonight. Now it’s my turn to take advantage of him. He won’t be stirring this side of prime and by the time he does we’ll be long gone from any designs on ambush and murder that might be lurking in his mind. You’d better fetch me parchment and quill before you pack them for travelling. I’ll need to write to Stephen and explain our haste. Edmund can sleep here and take it to the palace in the morning.’

Elene nodded. She would have been disturbed by the impartial briskness of his speech and manner had she not known the emotions they masked. Instead of leaving, she put her arms back around him and hugged him hard.

Renard stroked her hair, tightened his fingers in the curly strands, then made an effort and released her. ‘Go on,’ he said gruffly. ‘There is much to be done.’ He turned away, beckoning to Ancelin who had just staggered sleepily into the hall, but not before Elene had seen the glitter of tears in his eyes.

The Welsh Marches, February 1140

The stink of burning horn filled the farrier’s small corner of Woolcot’s crowded bailey as he pressed a red-hot horseshoe on to Gorvenal’s near hind hoof. Although unable to feel the fierce heat of the glowing iron, the stallion hated having shoes fitted and tried to snap and kick. His endeavours were thwarted by the confining English frame in which the farrier had sensibly secured him.

‘Hold him, lad!’ the sweating man grunted over his shoulder to the youth standing at Gorvenal’s headstall. ‘Earl Renard’s got a long journey come the morrow.’ Hissing gouts of steam vapoured the air as he plunged the shoe into a kilderkin of cold water.

‘Where then?’ The apprentice fished into pouch on his belt and brought out a sticky brown object which he offered to the horse.

‘Down to Ravenstow with the the Lady Elene first, so one o’ the knights was telling me, then across to the Fenlands in payment of his feudal service to the King, and there’s trouble brewing over there, mark me.’ The older man’s voice was constricted because he was doubled over, tacking on the horseshoe. ‘Some bishop’s turned rebel and the King’s set to deal with him.’

‘Can’t my lord Renard get himself excused? He’s got enough to deal with here.’ The youth gave another of the brown, sticky lumps to the horse.