'She did, Catrin said ruefully. 'She told me to beware of a man on a bay horse, but I took her to mean someone else.

Agatha sucked her gums. 'Folks can't always see woods for trees. Her eyes lit on the little girl. 'And this must be your daughter. By the Virgin, you've grown! She bent towards her. 'Last I saw you, you was a tiny babe at your mother's breast. Now you're almost a woman!

Rosamund gave her a severe look from her large, dark eyes. 'I'm six, she said.

'Then you're sixty years short o' me. Agatha smiled at

Catrin. 'She bids fair to break some hearts when she's older.

'Plenty of time for that later, Catrin said. 'The years are too precious to think them away.

'Aye, and that they are. Don't seem a moment since I was six years old myself. Mind you, I was never so pretty. Agatha looked wistfully at the slender black-haired child. 'Where's Lord Oliver?

Catrin sighed. 'Somewhere between Lancaster and York with Prince Henry. We've come to Bristol for «safekeeping». It's closer than Rouen. She glanced round at the limewashed stone and the banners fluttering from the square battlements. 'And it's home, she added with a smile and, reaching down, took Rosamund's hand. 'We're on our way to see Edon. Is she still here?

Agatha sucked her teeth again and the furrows seaming her brow deepened. 'Aye, she is that, Mistress Catrin, and mighty glad she will be to see you as well. Her large hands kneaded her apron.

'Is there something wrong?

'No, said Agatha slowly, without relinquishing her frown, 'not really. 'Tis just that she's with child again and not carrying it as well as she did the last one. The Earl's death struck Lady Mabile hard, and a household in mourning ain't done much for her spirits either. She forced a smile. 'They'll all be right glad to see you, especially if you've fresh news. A good cheering is what they need.

Unsure of what she was going to find, Catrin made her way into the hall and was escorted to the Countess's rooms by a young squire. The steps seemed interminable to her growing body, and she was gasping for breath by the time he led her along a walkway and banged on the heavy oak door.

It was opened by Beatrice, one of the older maids. Her eyes grew round as she stared at Catrin and Rosamund. The little girl quickly hid behind her mother lest another session of hearty embracing was in order but, after the woman had cried out in surprise, she made do with kissing Catrin on both cheeks before ushering her into the room.

Mabile's maids sat at their embroidery. One of them played a harp and another was reading aloud from a leather-bound book of French tales. The appearance of Catrin and Rosamund was a welcome diversion and the story book was immediately abandoned in favour of news from the outside world. Catrin was viewed by the women as a form of walking tale herself. They spent their lives enclosed within the bower walls, their most daring exploits confined to a day out with the hawks or a visit to the Michaelmas fair. Catrin's nomadic existence, with its tidal sweeps of danger, heartache and fortune, was seized upon and devoured in one hungry gulp.

Rosamund was petted and given sweetmeats from the Countess's own supply, which the little girl considered far more appetising than the basket of eels that her mother had left in the kitchens with one of the cooks. There were other children in the bower too — two boys slightly older than Rosamund and three fair-haired little girls in stepped heights of about a year's difference. All of them proved to be Edon's.

'And my belly's big again, Edon said later, when Catrin had emptied her budget of news and the excitement of her arrival had calmed down. The women returned to their embroidery and the harp music rippled softly through the room.

Catrin looked at Edon's swollen stomach which made a nothing of her own thickening waistline.

'It will be my seventh, Edon said. 'I lost one a year and a half ago in my third month. She gave a little grimace. 'Geoffrey and I try our best, but you can't go without all the time unless you're a monk or a nun. She looked sidelong. 'How do you and Oliver manage?

Catrin patted her belly. 'As it happens, I too am with child, although less further along than you, she confided. 'Oliver would have left me in Rouen if he had known, so it's going to be a surprise when he sees me. There was sudden apprehension in her voice.

'You mean a shock, Edon said shrewdly.

'Yes, that too. But as soon as he knows, he will start to fret. The longer I can keep it from him, the better for his well-being, no matter that he will be hurt that I did not tell him before.

'You know best, Edon said dubiously, as if she thought the opposite.

Catrin tightened her lips but did not argue because she had a sneaking suspicion Edon was right. 'How many months of carrying have you left?

'The child is due at Michaelmas, Edon said.

Catrin stared, unable to equate Edon's words with the evidence of her eyes. Edon was already enormous. Successive pregnancies had slackened her muscles and laid pads of fat upon what had once been the toned, slender body of a girl. Edon could be no more than eight-and-twenty now, but she looked ten years older. There were puffy shadows beneath her eyes and her fingers were so swollen that her rings were half-buried in flesh. Catrin had come across such signs before and knew that the labour often went hard for women who displayed them.

'I'm pleased you're here. Edon pressed Catrin's arm. 'You'll stay for my confinement, won't you? I will never forget how you and Ethel saved my first one's life.

Catrin gave a warm smile of response, although her heart dropped. 'If I can, I will, she said.

Rosamund had settled in a corner with the other three children to play a puzzle game with a loop of wool. Catrin looked at the bent heads, the absorbed faces, the dextrous little hands.

'You should drink plenty of raspberry leaf tea and rest with your feet above the level of your body to adjust the balance of your humours, she told Edon. 'The birth will go easier then.

'You are saying it will not be an easy birth?

'No, no, Catrin said quickly, knowing Edon's propensity for panic. 'What I mean is that whatever the church says about women bringing forth children in pain to pay for Eve's sin, the less pain involved the better. I suggest these remedies to all women once they have quickened. Indeed, I shall take my own advice. She was aware of how rapidly she was speaking, rushing with words to make her defence more plausible.

Edon gave her a level stare, then chose to believe her and relaxed with a little sigh. 'I shall tell you the easiest way of all, she said, 'and that is to be a man. You plant the seed and then go on your way.

Catrin nodded. 'But men have their own set of dangers too, she murmured, thinking of Oliver and wondering where he was.

Chapter 30

Oliver too was wondering where he was. Certainly not York, as had been the grand plan. That remained securely in King Stephen's hand. News of Henry's approach from Lancaster had flown ahead and the citizens of York had sent for aid. It had arrived far more rapidly than anyone had anticipated, in the form of Stephen himself at the head of a large band of mercenaries.

Faced with a pitched battle which he was not yet ready to fight, Henry had chosen discretion over valour and retreated. At sixteen years old he had all the time that the fifty-three-year-old Stephen did not. He dispersed his army. King David returned to Carlisle, Rannulf of Chester retreated into his marcher heartlands and Henry headed for the Angevin strongholds in the south-west; for Gloucester, Bristol and Devizes.

The journey was a game of catch-as-catch-can, for Stephen had sent out patrols to intercept Henry's troops. Although the ride was not desperate, it still gave Oliver uncomfortable memories of the retreat from Winchester eight years before. He had a recurring nightmare of being apprehended on the road by a smirking, dark-eyed faun of a man wearing the blood-crimson tunic of a noble. In his dream, instead of surrendering Oliver drew his sword and attacked Louis de Grosmont. But at the moment when he struck, the face became Catrin's, her expression bewildered and accusing, and he jerked out of the imagining with thudding heart and clammy palms.

They rode in the dark, kindling their way with pine pitch flares. When it rained, they rested until daylight within a wood, the rain dripping from the leaves of the great elms and rolling down their necks. Chain-mail shone, slick and silver, patterned with streaks of rust-red. Horse-hide gleamed with damp. The smell of the forest was heavy and green with a combined aroma of growth and rot.

Bearing down the marches, they took the lesser roads, some of them no more than sheep trails, although once they found a stretch of road which Henry said had been built by the Romans and which, even now, was more sound and solid than recently shod surfaces. They swam rivers rather than risk the bridges where Stephen's troops might be waiting, and until they were in the south-west did not attempt to spend the night at any destination more conspicuous than a hamlet or barn.

They took a day's respite at Hereford, which was loyal to the Prince, and then moved on towards Bristol. Henry still had to exercise caution for Stephen's heir, Eustace, had swept into Gloucestershire with an army of Middlesex men, intent on crushing Henry's challenge before it could begin.

Within a day's march of Bristol, Henry stopped to spend the night at Dursley Castle near Stroud. He was red-eyed from lack of sleep, but there was very little evidence that the setbacks had sapped his seemingly bottomless reserve of vitality. All Oliver wanted to do was curl up in a corner and sleep without dreaming for a year at least. His left arm was aching from constantly gripping a bridle, his collar-bone too from the weight of his shield strap.