Three weeks of purgative chaos had ensued as Alicia and Judith set the worst of the rot to rights so that at least the place was habitable. Alicia in particular had thrown herself into the exercise, chivvying the maids remorselessly, addressing them all as sluts and hussies, her tongue as abrasive as the brushes and lye with which she made them scour the dairy floor and slabs.

Judith was concerned, for the shrewish woman with whom she shared the bower was not her gentle mother. The bouts of feverish activity spoke of panic and a deeply troubled spirit. Once she had come across Alicia choking back tears in Ledworth's private chapel and begging whispered forgiveness. Forgiveness for what?

Her mother was more sinned against than sinning, her confessions to the priest usually of oversights and peccadilloes, nothing that would stain the soul with such guilt.

Judith guided her mount with her knees and frowned, trying to remember when she had first noticed the change in her mother's manner. A couple of days after the wedding, it would have been. Alicia had retired to her chamber with a vicious headache and stayed there for two days, refusing all ministrations save those of Agnes.

She had emerged on the third day a full hour too late to wish Guyon's father God-speed on his road home. Miles, as she recalled, had been perturbed at her absence and by Agnes's firm declaration that her mistress was still asleep and had left instructions not to be woken.

'Riders to the rear!' cried one of Judith's escort, interrupting her thoughts.

'My lord is expected soon,' Eric said with a frown, 'but it is not the direction from which I would expect him to come.' He rubbed the side of his nose, considering. 'Best play safe,' he decided. 'If it is my lord, he'll take no offence at our caution. If it's another, we owe them no excuses. Are you able to gall op, my lady?'

Judith's heart began to thump but she gave a nonchalant shrug. 'If this nag is, then yes,' she responded and gathered the reins.

The serjeant who had first cried the warning circled away behind them to discover the identity of their pursuers. They quickened their pace. A distance of about nine furlongs separated them from the safety of the keep, but much of that route was uphill .

Judith's gelding started to flag. She dug her heels into his sides and heard him wheeze.

'It's Robert de Belleme and Walter de Lacey!' yelled the serjeant, his voice indistinct but explicit with panic.

'Blood of Christ!' Eric spurred his horse afresh and laid his whip across the rump of Judith's gelding.

The drawbridge was down over the ditch. The wet winter and spring had raised the level of the water table and instead of the noisome sludge that usually offended the nose, there was a glistening moat of sky-blue water. The hooves drummed on the planks. Judith glimpsed the glittering ruffles. She flung a look over her shoulder but the wind whipped her braids across her face and all she could see between the tawny strands were the heaving horses behind her and the solid mailed protection of her escort.

Her mount stumbled as they rode beneath the portcullis and into the ward. She pulled him up, his ribs heaving like bellows, his legs trembling, spent. Without waiting for aid to dismount, she kicked her feet from the stirrups and slipped over his side to the ground.

The last man pounded across the bridge at a hard gall op. The guards on duty began winching the bridge the moment he clattered on to it. The black fangs of the portcullis came down and Ledworth snarled defiance at one of the most powerful men in England and Normandy.

Eric spat and crossed himself as they heard the drawbridge thud flush with the outer wall . 'It is called burning your bridges,' he said grimly. 'Do you go inside, my lady, and join your mother.'

Judith frowned and laid her arm upon Eric's mail-clad sleeve. 'Wait,' she said. 'If we deny him entry we offer him unpardonable insult and he never allows a slight to remain swallowed for long.'

'But mistress--'

'I was prey to be snatched when I was outside the keep, but within he must preserve the civilities. I know why he is here. My lord husband has been expecting him all winter.'

Eric looked unhappily at the chequerboard spars of the portcullis and the security of the solid oak planks beyond. Faintly from without there came a hail. 'My lady, I am reluctant to admit him.

Lord Guyon would string me from the highest tree on the demesne if ill should come of this.'

'Let me worry about Lord Guyon,' she replied with more than a spark of bravado. 'How many men does my uncle have with him ... Thierry?'

The young serjeant cleared his throat. 'About thirty at a rough guess, my lady,' he replied and fiddled with the hilt of his sword, eyes shifting from her to the closed drawbridge.

'Then admit my uncle and his five most senior companions,' she said. 'Eric, take custody of their weapons and put the guards on alert. Have a messenger ride out and find my husband - one of his Welshmen, by preference; they have the stealth to go unseen.'

Eric spread his hands. 'What if the seigneur de Belleme refuses to disgorge his weapons and abandon his men outside?'

'He won't refuse,' she said. 'Delay them awhile until I am fittingly dressed to receive them.'

'But my lady ...'

She was gone, skirts gathered to reveal her ankles as she ran, her plaits dishevelled and snaking to the movement of her spine. Eric swallowed, muttered a prayer, and set about giving commands, although he was not at all sure he should be obeying Judith.

Alicia gaped in disbelief as her daughter seized a comb and began to mend her hair. She had discarded her riding dress in favour of a tunic of dark gold wool lavishly banded with embroidery in two shades of green.

'You have done what?' Alicia gasped. 'Are you mad? You might as well open the chicken run and let the fox run amok inside!'

'Mama, I am not mad. I would as lief not grant him entry, but on this occasion, at least, he means us no harm.'

'It is not experience of years that has gained you such foresight!' her mother said acidly.

'I thought he and my father were fond kin and allies,' Judith answered in a preoccupied manner, fingers working with nimble haste.

Alicia sighed and looked at Judith with a mingling of sacrifice and exasperation. 'I suppose I will have to go down and face him now that you've been foolish enough to grant him entry.'

A spark of resentment flared in Judith's breast.

'It is my responsibility, Mama,' she said. 'Besides, he does not know me, and it will be easier than you greeting him with hatred when I can plead the ignorance of youth.' She returned to her toilet, clipping the ends of her braids with bronze fillets and smoothing her fresh gown.

Alicia stared at her daughter. The change from child to woman had accelerated rapidly since her marriage to Guyon. There was command in her voice and the same authority that made men perform her father's bidding, or else back off with frightened eyes. She had his way of looking, too.

An open, fearless stare, locking will with will .

'Be careful, daughter,' she warned. 'Snakes bite slyly.'

'And cats have claws,' Judith retorted tossing her head, then belied her self-assurance by turning to her mother and hugging her fiercely.

Alicia returned the embrace full measure and prayed that they would emerge unscathed from what was to come.

Robert de Belleme, Earl of Shrewsbury, ranged his gaze over the construction of Ledworth's great hall and considered how to go about the matter of besieging the keep. Not that it was anything personal - yet - merely a constructive and pleasant pastime while he awaited his hostess.

One never knew when such ruminations might be called upon to bear fruit.

His eyes were without expression and almost without colour. A beautiful light glass-grey set beneath straight-slashed black brows. He was thirty-eight years old yet looked little more than twenty-five. Some men in their ignorance said he had sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the earthly trinkets of youth and power. Others, more knowledgeable, said that he had no soul. Robert de Belleme cared not what anyone thought, contemptuous to the core of all his fellow men.

He tapped his whip against his leg and eyed with amusement the scuttling avoidance of the servants, their sidelong stares, and their limbs poised to leap if he should uncoil to strike. It was sweet to see their terror which was, of course, totally justified.

A girl crossed the length of the hall and came towards the fire where he and his companions stood warming themselves. Her pace was confident, her head carried high, her eyes making direct contact with his. It was such a contrast to the twittering fear he so usually encountered that his interest sharpened and he narrowed his eyes to appraise her.

'I am sorry we kept you waiting, my lord, but the times cause us to err on the side of caution,'

Judith said in a low, sweet voice as she curtsied.

He looked down on her bent head, and the long, fine-boned hands clutching the folds of her gown.

'Indeed, it is difficult to judge enemy from friend,'

he concurred and cupped her chin to raise her face to his scrutiny.

There was naught of his half-brother to be seen.

Her brow, cheekbones and softly curved lips belonged to Alicia, but the narrow nose, cleft chin and strange, grey-agate eyes were completely individual.

'It was a pity your marriage took place while I was occupied elsewhere. I would have liked to attend.' He raised her to her feet. She was as slender as a willow stripling, thin almost, with scarcely a figure to mention. If FitzMiles had got a child on her, it did not yet show. Probably as poor a breeder as her dam, which was a pity. If the lord of Ravenstow were suddenly to die, the widow's lands would revert to the crown. Not that he foresaw any particular problem in wheedling them out of Rufus's pocket and into his own, but should FitzMiles die with a babe in the cradle, the estates of both parents would devolve upon that child's head and the wardship of such wealth would be power indeed to whoever owned it. Still , there were more ways than one to milk a cow.