Guyon laughed. 'Then I needs must practise,' he said and caught her down to him.

Judith awoke to the noise of a flock of sheep being driven down the road on their way into the city and the sharp whistle of the shepherd commanding his dogs. They were sounds with which she had grown up and it brought to her now the image of the marches greening lushly into summer and filled her with longing to be out of the city and home.

There was a warm weight across her body — Guyon's arm, the fingers in relaxed possession of the curve of her breast. He was still sleeping deeply, sprawled upon his stomach, and had not moved since their last pre-dawn bout of love-making. Her mouth twitched. It was her fault, she knew. She had told him that it was better than getting drunk. Well , indeed it was but, just like wine, it could become addictive.

So great had been her fear of the sexual act as a result of witnessing her mother's degradation at the hands of her violent, contemptuous father, that her own survival of the deed, indeed her enjoyment and satisfaction, had led her to prove to herself several times that it was no illusion. It was not. The last time, Guyon had asked her, groaning, if she was trying to kill him. Her gaze flickered over his lean, sleep-relaxed body.

Coaxed and cajoled, he had become aroused, but it had taken him a long, long time and it had been wonderful. There was a low, dull ache in the small of her back and her body was languorous with content. It was certainly a better aftermath than a drink megrim.

She heard Sir Walter speak to the shepherd and make a fuss of one of the dogs. Secure, and reluctant to break her mood of drowsy contentment, she snuggled back down into Guyon's embrace and closed her eyes.

When Guyon finally roused sufficiently to lift his lids, the morning was high and hot, first mass a memory and the hunters long gone on their quest.

Sunlight slanted dustily through a warped gap in the shutters and shot the red silk bed hangings to the colour of flame. The night candle was burned to a puddle of congealed wax. He empathised.

He flicked a wary glance at the sleeping innocence beside him ... Innocence! Good Christ, Rhosyn and even the inimitable Alais de Clare were mere novices compared to the supple, oblivious girl in his bed. Rape. She had feared rape. He stifled a chuckle at the irony.

Gently he touched a tendril of her hair and looked at her curled form, remembering when she had cowered from him, a half-grown starveling with terror-filled eyes. They had come a long way since then, not always along the same road, but converging here at a new crossroads. The Conqueror's granddaughter with the Viking blood of Duke Roll o and the common tanners of Falaise mingling in her veins.

In the light of what he had realised last night, he pondered her immediate parentage, wondering what had driven Alicia to mate with a boy of half her age and twice her experience. Probably he would never know and there were good reasons for keeping such knowledge private, not least the needs of this vulnerable wanton at his side.

As if aware of his musing regard, Judith stretched and opened her eyes, and yawned at him.

'Good morning, my wild cat,' he greeted her with a kiss.

'You missed the hunt,' she said with a sleepy smile.

'No I didn't,' he contradicted with a grin. 'I just had no inkling that I was the quarry.' Judith blushed. 'No matter, I can think of better ways to spend the day than aiming a bow at a driven deer or whatever. Besides, I'd rather not straddle a horse today.'

Her blush deepened and extended to include her throat and shoulders. 'Are you angry with me about last night, Guy?'

'Which part?' he teased. 'Where you froze Henry's manhood in the fingerbowl, or when you drained mine to a husk?'

Judith bit her lip. Against her scarlet chagrin, her eyes were brilliant, almost topaz. 'It was like drinking that yellow wine, I did not want to stop,' she excused herself, hanging her head.

'Drunk two nights in a row!' he chaffed her.

'What am I to do with you? No, don't tell me, I haven't the strength. Just don't ask me to show you anything ever again, even if you are desperate to know! God's life, it nearly killed me!'

Judith fisted him in the ribs and he yelped. 'But if you were content, it was worth it.' He sobered, looking at her rosy, flustered face. 'I have no objection to dying like that, unless it be four times a night!'

She slanted a quick glance through her lashes.

'At least there will be naught left of you for Alais de Clare,' she said with a return of her accustomed tartness and, sitting up, shook back her hair. The sunlight lit her eyes with sparkling glints of mica.

'I don't want Alais de Clare,' Guyon answered, stretching. 'Why settle for dross when you can have gold?'

Judith looked at him. 'I am dreaming,' she said pensively. 'One day I am going to wake up alone and cold and realise I have been the dupe of illusion.'

'What has happened to last night's blind faith?'

He tugged a strand of her hair. 'Isn't it enough now?'

'It's not that, Guy,' she answered, frowning. 'It is the opposite. I have too much. It isn't true.'

'Never satisfied, are you?' He put his arm around her. 'What do you want me to do? Cut my other wrist for you as well and swear an undying oath?'

Judith shook her head, refusing to be cozened.

'It is I who have bled this time,' she said softly, turning back the covers to look down on the dried blood smearing the insides of her thighs and the sheet.

'Trust me?' He kissed her shoulder. 'Trust me, Judith?'

She could feel his lips smiling there in remembrance. 'Did Rhosyn trust you?'

He had not been expecting it. She felt his lips pause and then leave her skin. He sat up and pushed his hands through his hair and muttered beneath his breath. 'You know where to kick, don't you?'

Judith pleated the coverlet beneath her fingers.

Guyon linked his hands around his upraised knees and studied her. 'Rhosyn was not prepared to trust me,' he said after a moment. 'We were never committed in that kind of way. It would have been too dangerous and she saw it, even if I did not.'

Judith regarded him sombrely. 'Guyon, I cannot give you my soul.'

'Nor would I want it,' he said. 'It is too private a thing to give into another's possession. Keep it whole, Cath fach. I understand more than you think.'

Judith impatiently scrubbed her forearm across her eyes. Outside she heard Elflin speak to Helgund and the sound of milk being poured into a container. By the door Cadi whined. Judith put her arms around Guyon and kissed him as if the kiss itself was a talisman. 'I do believe that you could wheedle your way through a thorn thicket,' she sniffed.

He returned the embrace and then drew away to search for some garments in the scattered creased heaps on the floor. 'What do you think I'm doing now?' he said with a wry smile. 'You are the thorniest thicket I've ever encountered.' He paused in his dressing to lean over the bed and kiss her warmly on her lips. 'And the sweetest rose.'

'And you cannot grasp one without risking the other,' she agreed gravely, trying to put all dark qualms behind her while her own words rang like a prophecy in her head.

Guyon stood up, finished buckling his belt and headed towards the door. 'I'll send in Helgund,' he said and paused in fondling Cadi's thrusting head to stoop and pick up her discarded shift with its knife-slashed lacing. 'You did this apurpose, didn't you?' He tossed the garment on to the bed.

Judith leaned back against the bolster and smiled exactly like her father.

CHAPTER 19

AUGUST 1100

Thunder rumbled in the distance where the sky hung in purple billows like mulched grapes. On the wall walk, Judith squinted into the distance.

Lightning zigzagged. The trees were brilliantly green and the stone of the merlon against which she leaned was a rich, warm gold. Most of Caermoel's defences were still timber, but the keep wall was almost completed, as was the gatehouse containing the portcullis and winding gear.

The messenger had ridden in an hour ago while the sun still shone, bearing the news that Guyon would be here before nightfall and she had set herself to make all ready in the way of food, warmth and comfort and had then hastened up here to look out for his return.

It had been five days since the young men in their hot blood had ventured across the border to steal cattle and corn from the English side. Five days since the alarm had been raised, and Guyon had gathered his immediate troops and ridden out in pursuit of a fine dairy herd, three Flemish mares with foals at foot belonging to him and the contents of one of Earl Hugh's grain barns.

She looked down as Melyn twined an erect tail around her skirts and mewed plaintively before clawing her way aloft on to her shoulder to settle there, oblivious to the storm that was blowing in from the south. A cry from the far side of the wall walk caused Judith to strain her eyes in that direction and then to smile and hasten towards the bailey steps.

The edge of the storm hit as the men dismounted. Lightning snarled across the sky.

Several cows bellowed and baulked as they were penned in a corner of the ward. A groom was taking custody of the three mares and their foals and a belligerent Welsh pony stall ion that was lashing out indiscriminately.

Guyon turned from speaking to his groom and saw Judith running towards him, her face alight with welcome. She moved unaffectedly, like a man, but her gown moulded itself to her slender curves, marking her all woman. The time-wrought changes of her mind and body never ceased to amaze him. A year ago she would have greeted him gravely and stood just out of his reach as if anticipating a blow. Six months ago they would have avoided each other with eyes downcast to conceal hunger and tense fear. Now, laughing, she flung herself into his arms and drew his head down and kissed him. Melyn, jolted from her perch, gave a feline growl of displeasure, leaped vertically from Judith's back and stalked off in the direction of the living quarters.