Judith had also given him his father’s hauberk since his own had been lost at Lincoln. It fitted him well, had needed only minor adjustments to compensate for his being slightly taller and a little less broad. It had been a wrench for his mother, he knew. Piece by piece the fabric of her young womanhood was being unravelled, leaving her threadbare to the world and there was nothing he could do about it. If cozened, she would bristle, reluctant to be openly affectionate except to her grandchildren. While giving him his father’s arms and accoutrements, her voice had been brisk and practical, warning him not to dare sentiment.

Elene had wept openly when he showed her the sword, and put her arms impulsively around him, for which he loved her. With Elene there was never any need to banter, fight or pretend.

The snow started to melt and recede. Elene fretted that she had missed lambing time at Woolcot. Renard closeted himself with de Lorys and the senior knights of the garrison to devise strategies for resisting siege. He sent patrols out and rode down to Ledworth and Ravenstow himself, returning via Woolcot with the reassurance to Elene that the lambing had gone well despite the late bad weather.

Adam visited them with the expected news that Renard had been stripped of his lands by the Empress and declared rebel, his lands promised to Ranulf of Chester. ‘Although she did not give them to him outright,’ Adam had qualified. ‘That awaits her coronation.’

‘Oh,’ Renard said sarcastically. ‘That’s all right then.’

Adam shrugged. ‘It won’t stop Ranulf from anticipating the promise, I grant you, but the way Matilda treats her supporters as if they were serfs, she’ll be queen of nothing. More than one man walked away from an audience with her harbouring second thoughts, myself included. I have known for a long time that she is mettlesome, but with so much iron in her pride, she is riding for a fall.’

‘At the hands of Stephen’s queen?’

‘Perhaps.’ Adam pursed his lips. ‘Certainly those who fled at Lincoln have returned to her in shame and are doing what they can to rally support behind her, but it is the Empress’s own high-handedness that will bring her down. As I said, she treats men of rank like serfs. Naturally they take offence, but how much higher is the insult to the burghers and freemen of the towns when they come suing for peace and she treats them like serfs.’

‘What do you mean?’

Adam spread his hands. ‘To us, a serf is a serf, too far removed from our own situation for a comparison to do more than astonish. To a burgher or freeman, a serf is a symbol of what he once perhaps was, or what he might become if his business fails or his crop is blighted. Too close for comfort, in other words. Matilda does not understand, and it may well be her undoing. Also she has quarrelled on several occasions with the Bishop of Winchester. She needs him more than he needs her, but she’s refusing to see it.’

Renard looked thoughtfully at his brother-by-marriage. Adam had frequently moved in Angevin circles in the past and knew the Empress. His reading of political situations was shrewd and seldom wrong. ‘So, if I can weather whatever Earl Ranulf throws at me and bide my time, I may yet come out of this crisis with little more than storm damage?’

‘It is possible.’ Adam looked doubtful, as if he wanted to add that all things were possible, given miracles. ‘But for safety’s sake, if you want, I’ll take Elene and the babe down to Thornford when I leave. Heulwen would love to see them.’

‘Thank you. I was going to ask that boon of you anyway.’ Renard looked relieved.

Elene, not consulted, just informed of the decision, was reluctant and angry, and refused to go. An evening’s persua — sion resulted in frayed tempers. Renard bellowed at her. She shrieked back at him as she had never shrieked at anyone before and threw a cup at his head. Astonished and diverted at this wild outburst, Renard forgot to argue and took her to bed instead, thereby losing the battle outright.

When morning came, he knew that they need not have bothered fighting, for soldiers were gathering at the foot of Caermoel crag in the growing light, and preparing to lay siege to the castle.

Renard and Adam ascended one of the new towers and gazed down the precipitous slope at the armed men below, small as animated wooden toys. Among them, conspicuous and well out of bow range, Ranulf of Chester sat upon a muscular grey stallion, and beside him was the mercenary who had tried to abduct Elene on her way to her marriage.

‘He’ll lose too many men if he tries a direct assault,’ Renard said. ‘This tower guards the most vulnerable part of the approach path. If they want to avoid arrows in their gizzards, they’ll have to climb the rock face, and by the time they’ve reached the top of that, they’ll be as easy to pick off as wasps from a conserve.’

‘Supposing they come up at night?’

‘The guards will either have their eyes skinned or be skinned themselves. It’s impossible to muffle the sound of a grapnel or climb that crag in silence. I tried it last week.’

‘What, up there?’ Adam looked at him sidelong.

Renard grinned and made a small movement of his shoulders. ‘The hand and footholds are easy enough to find, it’s just the way it goes up, hard and steep that makes it so difficult. By the time you get to the top, you’re gasping so hard that even a child could kick you back over the edge, particularly if you’re hampered by arms and weapons, which I wasn’t.’

Adam’s stare was open-mouthed and comical.

‘It was exhilarating,’ Renard added, a glint of remembered enjoyment in his grey eyes.

‘If you had fallen, you would have been killed!’

‘I knew what I was doing.’

Adam gave a derisory snort. Renard might have matured beyond the out and out wildness of first manhood, but a seam of it still remained to surface and terrify everyone bar the culprit. ‘And Heulwen calls me reckless!’ he said with heartfelt injury.

‘You should have heard what Elene said to me. You’d think she was as sweet as honey to look at her, wouldn’t you?’

Adam grunted. Renard did not appear much set down by his wife’s remonstration if the humour crinkling his eye-corners was any indication. ‘I am sorry. I was too late to get her and Hugh away,’ he said seriously.

‘It might have been a sop to my conscience,’ Renard admitted, sobering. ‘But it will cost Ranulf de Gernons more than he can afford to take this keep. It won’t be easy for us, but our difficulties will be as nothing compared to his.’

‘You sound confident.’

‘I am.’

Adam leaned on his swordbelt. ‘Look, the new tower guards the approach, I grant you that, but what’s to stop him undermining it using a cover of withy screens and green hides? It is what I would do — what every siege commander would do.’

‘For a start, he’d be mining through solid rock,’ Renard said and gently rubbed his thumb along his scarred cheekbone. ‘For another …’ He turned to the steps down. ‘Come with me. I want to show you something.’

At the foot of the tower there was a large, iron-studded trapdoor that gave access to an oubliette — a windowless chamber that could be used either as storage space, or more grimly as a place to put offenders to suffer. Out of sight and out of mind until the victim himself was sightless and mindless too. Adam peered down into the darkness and by the brand sputtering in the cresset saw a wooden ladder descending to a dirt floor and half a dozen dusty barrels. He eyebrowed a question at his brother-in-law.

‘Greek fire,’ Renard said. ‘Olwen was not the only volatile item in the baggage I brought home from Antioch. I took it in lieu of silver from Prince Raymond.’

Adam whistled softly. His glance flickered nervously to the torch to make sure that there was no likelihood of it sputtering near the barrels. Greek fire. Its effect was devastating and the secret of its composition jealously guarded by the Byzantine Greeks who were the only ones who knew how to make it, and thus it was a rare, much-coveted and feared weapon of war. Once it adhered to something it did not stop burning until there was nothing left. Damp and water only made it more combustible.

‘Withy screens and green hide are no protection against this,’ Renard said grimly. ‘It will burn his siege machines into the soil and roast his soldiers alive within their armour.’ Carefully he closed the trap and dusted his hands. He and Adam looked at each other sombrely, for a moment, their breath smoking in the cold air, and then went back up into the ward.

Hamo le Grande listened to the desultory talk of the soldiers seated around the nearest watchfire. Most of it was grumbling. It was a warm spring night, but their purses were empty and even had they been full of the money they were owed, there was nothing up here in the Welsh border wilds to spend it on. The supplies of ale were low and women non-existent.

Gambling was banned because last week a fight had broken out over a disputed dice throw, resulting in two deaths and a severe wounding. They were an army under siege themselves from boredom, dissatisfaction and loss of morale as all their efforts foundered against the solid stone confidence of Caermoel’s walls.

They could not even vent their frustration on raiding the surrounding area since it was deciduous woodland, inhabited by a few woodcutters, charcoal burners and foresters. The game was elusive, requiring trained men and dogs to catch it. Sport for the Earl of Chester, but hardly for his men. The parts that were not wooded were populated by sheep; a diet of mutton soon became monotonous and there was no thrill in the chase.