Guyon's arms tightened around her. 'I love you too, cariad,' he muttered, and silently cursed the whole Montgomery clan into the deepest pit of hell .

CHAPTER 3

Judith hissed through her clenched teeth as Agnes, her mother's maid, discovered a hitherto overlooked snarl in the mass of tawny-bronze hair she was combing.

'Stand still , sweeting and it won't hurt so much,' Agnes said, a hint of exasperation in her voice, perspiration streaking her double chin. 'It's nearly done now.'

'I'm not a babe to be cozened!' snapped Judith, shifting from foot to foot.

Agnes's mouth puckered to become another fold in her fleshy face and she turned away to pick up a rope of polished agate beads. Judith sniffed, set her jaw and refused to cry. Tears availed her nothing - a lesson hard-learned in early childhood.

Her father had dismissed them as a silly female weakness. Her mother had wept too many herself in grief over lost causes to encourage her daughter in like indulgences.

Judith looked down at her wedding garments. A pale green linen undergown, close-fitting to her slender, almost thin body was topped by a dress of dark green silk damask, gorgeously embroidered with thread of gold at throat and hem and trailing sleeve. Her narrow waist was accentuated by a girdle of jewel-embroidered braid. She felt like the centrepiece at a feast, dressed to be devoured.

In a few hours she was to make her marriage vows in the castle chapel to a man she had never before set eyes upon.

She was to leave her home, go with him, his property to deal with as he pleased; to be bedded by him tonight and perhaps bear his child nine months from now. She was a week short of her sixteenth birthday and terrified. She knew how much her mother had suffered at the hands of her father before his death in September. The growls, the curses, the frequent slaps, the drunken beatings, the disdain that tore at the foundations of confidence. Her mother had borne the brunt, shielded her daughter from the worst of it, but Judith had known, had observed the hell , and could not bear that it might be her own fate.

'Hold still , my sweeting,' said Agnes. 'Let me pin these in your hair, there's a good girl.'

The maid's fingers tweaked and tugged, trailing pain in their wake. Resentment flared in Judith's breast, not just at Agnes, but at everything. She uncoiled her clenched fists and slapped Agnes's hand aside. 'You should have been a butcher's wife, not a lady's maid!' she spat.

Affronted, Agnes clucked like a hen.

The curtain rings rattled, announcing the arrival of Alicia de Montgomery. Taking in the scene before her eyes and sensing the atmosphere, the faint vertical marks between her brows became more defined.

'Thank you, Agnes, you have wrought wonders. Our cygnet is a swan. Willyou go and ask the chamberlain's lad to bring fresh candles ready for tonight?'

Head carried high, the maid swept out.

'Agnes is an old besom at times,' Alicia said when they were alone, 'but that is no excuse to strike out. Is it what I have taught you? You will become no better than your father.'

Judith bit her lip and held her chin rigid to stop it from quivering. 'I am sorry, mama,' she said unsteadily, 'but she hurt me. I feel like a filly being groomed for a horse-coper's approval!'

Alicia shook her head and, uttering a sigh, folded her daughter in a rose-scented embrace. 'I know you do not think it now, but you are most fortunate in this match.'

Judith's response was a stifled sob and her hands gripped suddenly tight on her mother's sleeves.

'Hush now, you'll undo all Agnes's good work.'

Alicia stroked Judith's hair. 'This match was made for men's political purposes, but it is a blessing for you could you but understand it. The man whose son you will wed ... I was almost his bride myself. Would to God that I had been so fortunate.'

Judith wiped her face on her sleeve and stared at her mother.

'Your grandfather FitzOsbern offered me to him, but he chose to wed an English heiress instead because it better suited his plans and besides, he was smitten. Christen had been widowed on Hastings field and she was a grown woman. I was your age and unknowing of the world. Your grandfather was not displeased when the offer was rejected because in the meantime he had received an offer from Maurice de Montgomery.'

Who had beaten her for the slightest transgression and behaved with all the finesse of a rutting boar. Occasional baronial gatherings had afforded her glimpses of Miles le Gallois as he grew into middle age. The cat-like grace of his twenties had set, becoming less supple and rangy, but in essence remaining. Maurice had grown ever more to resemble a boar as his waistline overspread the bounds of his belt.

'I know very little of Guyon, but with Miles and Christen for examples I do believe your marriage will be easier than mine.' Alicia gave a regretful shrug. 'If circumstances had been different, you would have had time to know each other before the wedding, but as it is I would rather you had a strong protector when your uncle Robert comes to claim his earldom. Already the vultures are gathering.'

Judith eyed at her mother whose expression revealed nothing - too much of nothing. Judith well knew the rumours surrounding Robert de Belleme. The maids delighted in terrifying each other of a night with tales of his brutality and Judith understood more English and Welsh than was seemly for a girl of her station. They said that he tortured for sport and robbed and murdered without conscience. The more fanciful of them even said that he possessed a forked tail and cloven hooves, but Judith gave no credence to their imagination. What need when the truth was already so lurid?

He had designed Ravenstow himself and loaned her father the money to build it. They were still in his debt to the tune of several hundred marks. She knew her mother was afraid he would come immediately to claim it, being himself in debt to the King. It was the reason that this marriage had been arranged so quickly - before he had a chance to reach out and seize and strangle.

Judith shuddered. The wedding was supposed to be a quiet affair with a select number of guests and vassals - supposed to be, but de Belleme's brother Arnulf of Pembroke had ridden in yestereve and with him had been Walter de Lacey who was a powerful vassal of de Belleme's, a hunting crony of her father's and former suitor for her hand. Her mother had been hard put to find them either house-room or cordiality, for it was obvious they were not present for the sake of wishing joy on the marriage; however, such eminent men could not be turned away and thus guested in the hall with those of official invitation such as Hugh d'Avrenches, Earl of Chester and FitzHamon, Lord of Gloucester.

The curtain swished and Agnes reappeared followed by a youth bearing a basket of fresh candles. 'They're sighted, my lady. Be here within the hour, so de Bec says,' Agnes announced.

Judith began to tremble. The wall s seemed to be closing in on her, caging her in a space so small that there was no room to breathe. She felt hot and sick, but her hands were icy. 'Agnes, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have struck you,' she said in a choked voice.

'That's all right, my love,' Agnes said comfortingly. 'Bound to be a bit strung up today, aren't you?' She held out her hand. 'Child, what's wrong?'

Judith knew she would die if she did not escape. Gathering her skirts in one hand, the other clapped across her mouth, she bolted from the room. The chamberlain's lad leaped out of the way, dropping his candles. Alicia and Agnes called out to her, but Judith was gone, fleeing heedless of the dangerous spiralling stairs, fleeing with the wild instinct of a hunted animal to escape. While she was running, she did not have to think. While she was running, she was not fettered.

'Shall I go after her, my lady?'

Alicia gnawed her lip and gazed at the still swaying curtain. 'No, Agnes,' she said after a moment. 'We have hemmed her about too much.

Let her be alone awhile. It will be her last chance.'

'She is not ready for this yet,' Agnes said grimly.

'They say he's used to the women of the court - that he plays fast with other men's wives.'

'Gossip!' Alicia snapped. 'And you know better than to listen, Agnes. Do not give me that pitying look. I do not doubt he has owned casual mistresses, but tales are always embroidered to give them colour and I trust to his breeding more than I do to third-hand tittle-tattle. Besides, whatever marriage to him holds for Judith, it can be no worse than a fate at the hands of her uncle Robert, or Walter de Lacey.' Her lips tightened.

'She has to be ready.'

When Judith returned to her senses, there was a tight stitch in her side and she was leaning against a jagged lump of stone. Her breathing rasped in her throat, her recently combed hair was dishevelled and a dark stain was spreading upwards from the hem of her gown where she had splashed heedlessly through the bailey puddles. Her gilded shoes were soaked and her toes clung cold together inside them.

Sleet spattered fitfully in the wind which was as raw as an open wound. Judith's teeth chattered.

Her new cloak with its warm fur lining was hanging upon her clothing pole in the chamber she had fled, and not for anything would she return to fetch it.

'I cannot do it,' she whispered miserably, knowing that her words were empty. If she did not agree to this marriage, she exposed them all to the threat of her uncle Robert. Sooner or later she would have been contracted to wed anyway, probably to Walter de Lacey, and nothing could be worse than that, she told herself as she stared at the grey choppy water of the river below.