Elizabeth Chadwick - The Leopard Unleashed

‘Earl Ranulf said to make us go without, but Gloucester overruled him.’

Renard let the bitter liquid trickle down his parched throat. ‘Earl Ranulf would,’ he said hoarsely. ‘What of the King? Is he dead or taken prisoner?’ He did not mention escape, for in the situation of the battlefield, it would have been impossible.

‘Knocked senseless like yourself in the midst of hand to hand combat with Earl Ranulf. One of the Earl’s men with an eye to the main chance threw a stone at the King and hit him straight between the eyes. A pity his aim was so good. Stephen had Earl Ranulf down on the ground about to spit him like a coney on a skewer when he was hit. I saw it all, helpless to do anything.’ Ingelram touched his leg again and winced.

Renard stared around the cell. His companions were mostly knights and minor barons, the nucleus of Stephen’s bodyguard. Being the Empress’s nephew, he was the highest ranked among them, and the one who would fetch the most ransom money.

‘As soon as they’ve finished making it all secure here, we’re to be brought to Gloucester to await the Empress’s pleasure.’

‘Gloucester?’

Ingelram grimaced. ‘Best prepare yourself to grovel.’

Renard caught his breath at the renewed jolt of pain. His helmet had saved him from certain death, absorbing most of that first blow, but the edge of the mace had cracked his cheekbone. He tried not to imagine the kind of reception that awaited him at his aunt’s hands. In a space of silence he thought about Adam and hoped he had been able to evacuate the camp in time and get the boys clear. Then he thought of Elene and his infant son, and bowed his head.

Ingelram noticed his violent shivering. ‘It’s cold indeed,’ he said. ‘I asked them for blankets when they brought us the bread and ale, but all they did was curse at me … whoresons.’

‘Blankets won’t warm my kind of cold,’ Renard said bleakly. ‘When I think …’ He stopped speaking and looked at the door as the heavy draw-bar grated back.

‘Perhaps I was wrong,’ said Ingelram. ‘Perhaps these are the blankets now.’

Torchlight flared on high, revealing half a dozen menat-arms, two with swords drawn and wearing full hauberks, the others in regular footsoldier’s armour. Supported between them, as floppy as a wrung chicken, was another prisoner. Ingelram’s optimistic remark about the blankets was proven premature. A question asked received a growled insult and a twitch of the foremost man’s sword arm. The new prisoner was thrown down in the straw among them and lay unmoving. The door closed and the torchlight receded, leaving them once more in their grey, chilled purgatory. Renard stared at the inert form on the straw and the empty cup slipped from his fingers. ‘Christ!’ he said hoarsely.

Richard FitzUrse stooped beside the newcomer and felt for the pulse at his throat. ‘Alive,’ he announced. ‘Just. And he’s as hot as the pit of hell. Wound fever. Look, he’s been whipped.’

‘My brother,’ Renard said. He swallowed. ‘He’s my brother. I thought he had drowned.’ He crawled over to the sprawled form and stared at the rents in his shirt and the crusted, suppurating weals they exposed. Henry’s hair was matted with blood, his breathing was harsh and his pulse thundering. He was not, however, unconscious beyond recall, for as Renard spoke his name in a shocked voice, his eyelids fluttered.

‘Henry, for God’s love, can you hear me?’

Henry groaned, and his fingers tightened upon the straw beneath them. ‘Renard?’ he mumbled thickly. ‘Why is it so dark? Are we at Ravenstow?’

‘We’re prisoners in Lincoln. Stephen lost the battle.’

‘Lincoln? Oh yes. Is it still snowing?’ Henry finally managed to lift his lids. His eyes wandered around the cell’s dank darkness before alighting on Renard.

‘I do not know. Who did this to you?’

‘Earl Ranulf lost his patience and his temper when I could not answer his questions. Your whore it was who saved me from being beaten to death.’

‘Olwen?’

‘I never knew her name, only that she deserted you for him. She has a son now. Red hair …’ Henry’s voice trailed off. He closed his eyes again, his face pale and sweatbeaded.

FitzUrse retrieved the cup that Renard had dropped and splashed it a third full of ale. Then he knelt at Henry’s other side. Between them, he and Renard managed to raise Henry’s head and tip some of the liquid down his throat. It was difficult because he was lying on his stomach and they dared not turn him over because of the wounds from the lash. Henry gulped convulsively, choking and spluttering, but at least some of the ale went down. He opened his eyes again. ‘Uncle Robert was passing,’ he said huskily to Renard. ‘The woman hailed him — not for my sake, I was of no more significance to her than an ill-treated dog, but she was riled at Earl Ranulf for threatening her.’

That rang true of Olwen. Many times over the last year Renard’s thoughts had returned to her like the tongue to an abscessed tooth. This time the pain was diminished, replaced by wry admiration. ‘But if Robert of Gloucester rescued you from de Gernons’s clutches, why have you been thrown in here?’

‘Uncle Robert’s got too much on his trencher just now to remember me unless pushed directly under his nose.’ Henry’s voice was weak as the fever sapped his strength. ‘When they moved his things from tent to castle, his chaplain “tidied” me away in the hopes I’d be forgotten … die somewhere else than at his lordship’s feet.’

‘Save your strength Henry, don’t talk.’ Renard laid a calming hand on his brother’s racing pulse.

‘What for, so that I can be taken out and whipped again? What will happen to us all if we live beyond the moment?’

‘We’re to be taken to Gloucester,’ said FitzUrse. ‘To await the Empress’s pleasure.’

‘Which means we’ll be killed, disinherited or banished and our families and lands sold to the highest bidder. I’d rather die now.’

‘Stop it!’ Renard snapped. ‘You’re wounded, that’s all, and not even as badly as last time!’

Henry grimaced. ‘Thought I was the one full of delusions,’ he muttered. His lids dropped and he turned his head away.

Renard stared at Henry’s matted sandy hair in frustration, knowing that he could not reach his brother, that there was nothing he could do for him. Until recently, Renard had never had occasion to feel helpless or inadequate, and this, for him, was the most difficult tempering of all. Kneeling in the straw of Lincoln’s castle dungeon beside his dying brother, Renard felt the molten hammer-beat of despair.

Adjusting his braies and straightening his tunic, Ranulf looked with deep satisfaction at the woman on his bed. Her pale hair was tangled over her breasts and shoulders. Upon the smooth, honey skin, new bruises bloomed like dark flowers. Hatred and defiance glowed in her eyes. Even now she would not acknowledge him her master. In a way it quite amused him, as when one of the hound pups bared its milk teeth at him.

‘Get out.’ His manner was brusquely indifferent now that his lust was spent. ‘I’m expecting company.’

Olwen rolled on to her stomach, turning her face from his while she controlled her expression. What she most wanted to do was take her knife and cut off not only his long, braided moustaches, but that other thing dangling between his legs.

She pulled on her shift. The linen dragged over her bruises. She might be the mistress of one of the most powerful men in England, but just now she felt like a used trencher after a meal. For an instant her resentment flared so strongly that she almost set on him with her teeth and nails. The knowledge that he was as strong as a bull and would relish the opportunity to bruise her more held her back.

‘Am I not to be paid?’ she asked instead, in a low, honeyed voice. ‘I need linen to replace the shift you tore in your haste.’

‘You presume.’ There was a cold gleam in his eyes, but he slipped a silver bracelet from his arm and tossed it on the bed. ‘Here, buy yourself a dozen shifts.’

Olwen picked up the incised silver band and quickly put it on before she gave in to the temptation to throw it back in his face. Full lips pursed, she tugged on her overgown. Outside the room she heard the sound of laughter and bright Welsh voices.

‘Hurry up!’ Ranulf snapped. ‘I’ve some more Welsh whores to pay for their favours yet.’

By which he was referring to his own Welsh levies, she knew. She had seen their leader once from a distance. Cadwaladr ap Gruffydd, younger brother of Prince Owain Fawr of North Wales. ‘I doubt that anyone ever performs you a service for free,’ she retorted. He lunged at her, but she was prepared, and in one smooth dancer’s motion rolled off the bed, leaving him clawing at thin air. Not waiting to see him recover, she shot through the curtain on to the stairway and collided with Cadwaladr ap Gruffydd.

He caught her arm as she slipped. She cried out in pain as his fingers gripped on one of the bruises Ranulf had inflicted. She felt the wiry strength of him and saw the admiration flicker in his eyes, followed by the scorn.

‘Fleeing the devil?’ he asked in heavily accented French. She tossed her head and looked him in the eyes, a feat not difficult because she was tall for a woman and he a little less than average for a man.

‘The devil’s attention would be more welcome!’ she spat with a look over her shoulder, then let herself yield a little in his grip. She dropped her gaze and made her expression a demure contrast to the state of her garments and the manner of her exit. Virgin and whore embodied in one woman. The paradox never failed to excite. She could feel the heat of his gaze, and judging the moment precisely, broke from him.