He applied gentle pressure to her shoulder with his fingertips until she turned hesitantly to face him.

'I have said you need not fear me for any reason... The bedding ceremony, it worries you?'

Judith looked down, wondering where all this was leading. She did not desire a lesson in enlightenment, no matter how kindly meant.

Guyon took her downcast silence for modest assent. 'The first part is something that will have to be borne. The second we can abandon. Rape has never appealed to me.'

'I ... I know my duty, my lord,' she stammered.

'I have no doubt, but it would be rape all the same and I prefer the pleasure to be mutual. In your own time, fy Cath fach.' He lightly brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. She lifted her lids, eyes torn between relief and doubt.

'You truly mean that, my lord?' He had called her a small cat - a kitten.

'I would be a fool if I did not. There is enough on your trencher already without burdening your body so young.'

Judith wiped her eyes again and sniffed. 'I am not always such a wet fish my lord, truly,' she excused. 'It is just that I was so afraid. Before you came, I almost threw myself off the headland ...

And then, when I saw you ...' she looked at her toes. The snow whispered down. 'I was even more afraid.'

He looked nonplussed. 'I gave you no cause, surely!'

Judith screwed up her face. She could not say that she knew how a flower must feel when it turns towards the sun only to find its blaze too hot to be endured. 'I did not know what you would think of me, sprawled in the mud at your feet.'

'Unique,' he chuckled. 'No girl has ever tried to claim my attention like that before!'

With fortuitous timing, Melyn appeared from one of the storesheds and walked daintily over to Judith and Guyon, her ginger tail carried erect.

Before Judith could scoop her up from the settling snow, Melyn came to her own decision and sprang with practised ease on to Guyon's shoulder, hooking her claws firmly into tunic and shirt to retain her grip. Guyon winced.

Judith's eyes widened in dismay.

'You live dangerously, puss,' Guyon addressed the cat, but he made no move to dislodge her as he turned towards the steps. 'Your mistress values your life, but I am not necessarily of the same mind. You may keep your claws to yourself.'

He looked at Judith over his unoccupied shoulder and winked. 'Come,' he coaxed. 'Let us see what our guests think of my new fur collar.'

Alicia saw Guyon enter the hall with Judith at his side and breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief.

Whatever he had said or done outside had obviously been the right thing. The rigidity had left Judith's body and her eyes had lost their wild expression.

'What in God's name has Guy got on his shoulder?' Miles laughed.

Alicia gave a cluck of amused annoyance. 'That cat has no sense of propriety, although how she comes to be there I don't know. Usually she avoids men. They tend to kick her or bellow when she gets underfoot.'

'A good sign then,' Miles said.

'Not necessarily. I have heard that women are particularly susceptible to your son's brand of charm. Melyn is perhaps just another she-cat bedazzled by her instincts.'

Miles grinned, but shook his head. 'Guy's reputation far outmatches his deeds. I'm not saying he's an angel, far from it, but tales become exaggerated in the telling and part of it when at court is self-defence, the King being what he is.'

Alicia made a gesture of self-irritation. 'Only this morning, I rebuked Agnes for listening to gossip and here I am no better. I am a mother hen fussing over her chick.' She sighed and gave him a pensive look. She felt worn out, but knew she couldn't yield to her exhaustion.

'Guyon will treat Judith with all honour,' Miles said. Taking her arm, he led her to a bench set into the thickness of the wall .

'I am sure he will .' Alicia paused, looked at Miles and suddenly poured out her main concern.

'But she is so young and inexperienced. Even if more than half the tales told of your son are untrue, that still leaves a wealth of living in the other part and he is a full twelve years older ... a man. What do I do if she comes screaming to me on the morrow that she will have no more to do with him? It will break my heart. I remember leaning over the latrine hole, sick with revulsion and praying to die after my own wedding night — after what Maurice visited on me.'

'Then Guy's experience is to the good. He will not force her and, as you have seen, he is capable of charming the birds - or cats - down from the trees.' He frowned at her. 'Have you said anything to Judith to give her a distaste for coupling?'

Alicia drew herself up. 'I am not stupid. More harm than good would come of that, although I fear her attitude has been tainted by her father's behaviour. Slaps and curses and drunken rough handling have not led her to view the state of marriage in a very favourable light. She may find joy; I pray she does, but it is a fickle world.'

'You have little cause to like men, either of you.'

'I do not need your pity, my lord,' Alicia said curtly. Her eyes went to Judith where she stood at Guyon's side. The tawny hair had taken on a fiery glint from the glow of the candles and, with that half-smile on her face and the way her head was tilted, Alicia saw Judith's father for a fleeting instant most clearly. 'No,' she said, a hard smile on her lips. 'I have had my moment of glory and it pays for all that Maurice did to me. My concern is with Judith now. I can see she has a leopard by the tail and must either tame it or become its prey. I know her capable, her blood dictates it so, but she is young for the challenge, perhaps too young.'

Miles gave her a sidelong look and wished that Christen or Emma were here; they would have known instinctively what to say or do, but the former was beyond him for ever and the latter had been summoned to the court by her husband. 'I'll fetch wine,' he muttered, and went to accost a servant.

Alicia drew several deep breaths and controlled herself, aware that Miles was regarding her as he might a skittish horse. If she gained that kind of reputation, she would be shunned or sold off to another marriage and then locked up, conveniently labelled a lackwit like Ralph de Serigny's poor wife.

Miles returned with the wine. She took it from him and looked out over the assembled guests. 'I am not usually so overwrought,' she said ruefuly.

'I did not think that you were.'

'Nevertheless you panicked.'

Miles laughed and rubbed the back of his neck. 'A little,' he admitted.

Alicia tasted the wine and set it down. She needed a clear head, for as hostess she was required to mingle among the guests and there was still the bedding ceremony to organise. The humour left her face at the thought and her glance sought out the newly-weds. Melyn had draped herself comfortably around Guyon's neck and half closed her eyes. His hand sat lightly at Judith's waist. She was saying something to him and his head was cocked attentively, although his gaze was elsewhere, sifting and assessing, paring down, focusing on Walter de Lacey and Arnulf of Pembroke even as he answered Judith with a smile. Alicia shivered and offered up a silent prayer. A leopard by the tail indeed.

* * *

Judith stood obediently calm, raising and lowering her limbs as Agnes dictated until she stood naked in the bedchamber that had belonged to her parents. The bed had been aired and made up with crisp new linen sheets. Dried herbs to perfume the clothes and promote fertility had been liberally strewn over the bed and the priest had sprinkled holy water everywhere. The droplets on her body made her shiver. Agnes finished combing down Judith's hair and draped a bedrobe around her shoulders.

The female guests crooned and clucked around the bride, turning the room into a hen house.

Judith stared at the wall , feeling as numb as the coffer across which her clothes had been draped.

Someone giggled a piece of advice in her ear.

Someone else of a more practical mind thrust a pot of dead nettle salve into her hand, an ointment used to soothe the female passage after childbed and other rough treatment.

'I won't need this,' she said and looked round in surprise at the laughter. Fear returned to claim her, and uncertainty. She did not know if she could trust Guyon. What if he went back on his word? What if he used her as brutally as her father had been wont to use her mother? Men lied. She couldn't help the whimper that escaped from her throat.

As her mother tried to comfort her the curtain was flurried aside and the room was suddenly full of men, most of them less than sober, their jokes bawdy, crude and raucous. Judith withdrew into the mist again. She did not hear the jests. She did not feel them removing her bedrobe and tugging her to the bed, nor the cup of spiced hippocras that was pressed into her hand to replace the pot of salve. The pink silk of her mother's embrace was a haven but as she tried to cling to it, it was abruptly gone with a sound very much like a sob. Sounds faded to silence.

She stared at the wall . The cup of hippocras shook in her hand.

Leaning over, Guyon gently removed the cup.

Judith blinked and refocused. Like herself he was naked, his torso lean but powerfully muscled and marked with minor battle scars. Her gaze skimmed over and fled from the curling mat of dark hair at his groin and its nestling occupants.

He set the cup down beside the pot of salve, quirking a brow at the latter, then swung on his heel and padded to the curtain. She heard him speak a command in Welsh and then an endearment and her interest sharpened.