Elizabeth Chadwick - The Leopard Unleashed

‘No, you didn’t,’ Elene said, exasperated by his habit of casually springing surprises on her and expecting her to react with aplomb.

‘Owain ap Siorl. He’s half-Welsh, half-Norman. His father’s dead, his mother’s set to remarry, and he and his future step-father don’t like each other. Being as their lands are in my gift, I promised Lady Rohese I’d take Owain under my wing to train up. She’ll be bringing him to Ravenstow around Easter time. Settle him in if you will.’

Elene’s exasperation evaporated into empathy with the boy. She knew how it felt to be cast adrift in a strange household, even one that was warmly welcoming. ‘Of course I will.’

‘Henry can start showing him the basics now that he’s on the mend. It’ll stop him from brooding and perhaps even speed his recovery.’ Sweeping on his cloak which had been used to cushion their bodies from the ground, he eased to his feet. ‘We’d better be on our way home,’ he added without any great enthusiasm, his mind upon the hauberk that was being scoured at Woolcut ready for his use on the morrow.

Elene rose too and stood beside him, her lips at his shoulder. He slipped his arm around her waist, then pulled her round against him. She smelt of crushed grass and leaves, fresh and soft in his embrace. ‘Oh Nell!’ he said on a heartfelt sigh, and buried his face in her wild, black hair.

Judith drew her cloak close about her body to ward off the chill, fully aware that more than half of it came from within — from the space where part of her soul was missing. The warm lining of the cloak was made of wolf skins from animals hunted by Guyon and their sons in times long gone. The wolves were all human now, two-legged and padding on the heels of death.

She crossed the ward to the plesaunce, her intention being to pluck some overwintering sage to brew a herbal tea and to escape from the loving but overpowering vigilance of the other members of the household. Despite the cold wind, the sun was out and bright, bathing the soil beds in spring warmth. Against the southern wall, the pear cordons were in scented bloom and beneath them, still flowering, were the tiny white galanthus flowers that Renard had brought her from Outremer.

She went to the sage bushes. Ladybirds waddled in aimless industry among the leaves. Beyond, in the bay tree, sparrows fought over the best nesting sites. Judith picked a handful of medium-sized leaves and brushed them absently beneath her nose. Her gaze drifted to the rose arbour and turf seat there, empty and overgrown. The gardener had yet to shear it after the dormant winter season. She tried to imagine Guyon sitting there. Her eyes ached and began to water with staring. Wandering over to the seat she sat down, brushing her hand across the damp, slightly prickly blades. It was sheltered and sun-warmed, and through a pang of desolation she was aware of feeling oddly comforted.

She sat for a long time, lost in silence, and only came to with a small, guilty start when she saw Elene picking her way towards her between the herb beds. Judith regarded her daughter-in-law warily. In the first days of her loss when she had been weak and ill with the coughing fever and overcome with grief, the girl had taken over all responsibility and coped remarkably well, too well perhaps. Elene had proved herself a thoroughly capable chatelaine, and, as the new lady, it was her right. Judith had lost that power when Guyon died. They all treated her now as though she was made of fragile glass. Her every move was watched. She was cosseted and coddled as if all of her soul had died and not just a part of it.

Elene sat down beside Judith on the turf seat. ‘I thought you might be here,’ she said. ‘The sun’s gone in now and it will soon be dusk. Will you come within?’

‘No, I won’t!’ Judith snapped, feeling like a defiant small child. The sun had indeed disappeared while she sat lost in reverie and she was aware of the dampness from the seat invading her bones.

Elene folded her hands in her lap and stared at them in silence.

Judith sighed heavily. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and then slapped her hand down on her knee. ‘I hate being treated like an invalid or a mad old woman. I know it is all kindly meant. Perhaps in the first days it was a welcome shield, but no longer. I swear I will become truly mad if I am not given leave to think for myself!’

The scent of bruised sage leaves hung in the air. ‘Have we really been that heedless?’ Elene asked in consternation.

Judith moved her shoulders. ‘No, not heedless,’ she said on a softer note. ‘Perhaps the change is in me. I need time alone now to grieve in peace. When I have need of company, be assured I will seek it out.’

Elene gave her a swift, sidelong long. ‘Do you want me to leave you here then?’

Judith’s lips twitched. ‘I have cut off my nose to spite my face,’ she said wryly. ‘I’m stiff and it’s growing cold, and that torchlight looks very welcoming.’ Carefully she eased herself to her feet.

‘I believe I am with child,’ Elene said abruptly as Judith shook out her skirts. ‘I missed my last flux and it is nigh that time of month again and there is no sign.’ She touched her breasts. ‘I am sore here and bigger than I was and I have begun to feel sick.’

‘Oh, that is welcome news indeed!’ Judith kissed her joyfully. ‘Does Renard know?’

Elene shook her head. ‘It was only the merest possibility before he left for the fens.’ She avoided Judith’s eyes, staring instead at a clump of couch grass near her feet.

Judith pursed her lips thoughtfully. Despite her grief and illness she had heard what had happened at the Christmas court, both the politics and the scandals. ‘Did you know about Olwen before Salisbury?’ she asked.

To a listening stranger it might have seemed a non sequitur, but Judith was shrewd, and to Elene, thinking along the same lines, the question was a perfectly obvious progression. ‘Yes, I knew,’ she said tightly. ‘I found out on my wedding night.’

Judith clicked her tongue sharply and raised her eyes heavenwards. ‘Guyon and I seem to have bred up idiots in place of sons!’

‘I made the first move,’ Elene defended. ‘I asked him.’ She raised her head and fixed Judith with a liquid hazel stare. ‘But it was like being slapped in the face. We quarrelled, or rather I was shrewish and he was so reasonable that I started to think it was all my fault. We mended our differences in Salisbury and despite that whore the seams have held, but …’ She splayed her hand over her stomach. ‘But sometimes I imagine him with her and I feel sick.’

Judith felt moisture filling and stinging in her own eyes. She knew the feelings if not the answer, for anger was a part of her own raw grief. ‘Guyon had a mistress before we were wed,’ she said, a quiver in her voice. ‘Heulwen’s mother. They had been lovers a long time. I cannot number the nights I tossed in torment — not because he continued to lie with her, but because sometimes I knew he was thinking of her and remembering.’ She laid her hand lightly on Elene’s shoulder. ‘You must see it as experience and use it to your advantage. A man always needs a place of safe harbour after the perils of a stormy sea.’

Each gave the other a wan, watery smile as they left the dusk-shrouded plesaunce and went inside to the great hall.

The boy stared down at his feet and shuffled them as if the concentration of eye alone was responsible for their motion. A shock of straw-coloured hair stopped just short of his thin, dark brows beneath which his downcast lashes were long and thick enough to be the envy of every woman within the keep.

‘Owain?’ said Elene gently. ‘Look at me.’

He raised his head and then his lids. His eyes were as wary and dark as a deer’s, his mouth set so firmly that it defied his will and trembled anyway. He had just watched his mother ride away from him in the company of his despised stepfather-to-be, stranding him here among strangers, ostensibly for his own good, but he felt nothing but betrayed.

‘How old are you?’

‘Eleven, madam.’

‘Almost a man then,’ she flattered him. ‘Past time you began your training. Lord Renard won’t be home for at least another month. You can use the time to grow accustomed to your new home. Is this your pony?’ She indicated the sturdy grey gelding that was lipping at a clump of twitch spiking from the base of the wall.

‘Yes, madam.’

‘What’s his name?’ She stroked the pony’s neck, noting that he was well groomed and cared for.

‘Grisel, madam.’

‘Well then, Owain, unlatch your saddle roll and come with me. We’ll find you somewhere to sleep.’ She beckoned to a groom. ‘Kenrick will take care of Grisel for now. Other times he will be your responsibility.’ She scratched the grey beneath his whiskery chin and fondled his plush muzzle.

The boy relaxed slightly and began to unfasten his small bundle of belongings from the pony’s crupper. He paused in mid-motion as more horses clopped into the yard, his expression becoming one of blazing hope before sinking once more into apathy as he saw that the newcomers were two men astride working coursers.

William jumped down easily from his saddle and stood close to the second horse, ready to help Henry if he failed. ‘Come on, you can do it!’ he encouraged him with exaggerated joviality.

‘Shut up, I’m not a babe!’ Henry snapped, nettled by his brother’s tone of voice, and completed his own move to the ground somewhat more clumsily. ‘I’ve still got two good legs!’ His face was white with strain as he fumbled the shield from his right arm. Retraining himself to fight left-handed, his damaged arm protected behind his adapted shield, was a process so difficult that in private he wept with the sheer frustration of his inability to co-ordinate.