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 h
erd, 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.
'It is only five days!' Guyon chuckled, delighted at the warmth of the greeting. 'What will you do when it has to be forty?'
Judith relinquished her grip and blushed, aware of the amused glances of his men. 'I shall take a lover,' she riposted smartly. 'There's a tub prepared and food at the ready. How did you fare?'
Guyon followed her, ducking his head and increasing his pace as the rain began to cut down. 'We took back what was ours and also a little of what was theirs. You know the rules of border warfare. They won't come raiding again ... not for a while at least.'
'Unless they come en masse,' Judith pointed out as they entered the wooden building in the bailey that was their private living quarters whilst the castle was being built.
'Could we withstand a full Welsh assault, not just the prickings of their hot-blooded young men?'
'Probably, but it's not a notion I want to test just yet. Has all been quiet here?'
'Mostly. Madoc came two days ago with Rhys and a distant relative from Bristol who's helping him with the business. They brought that new ram you asked Madoc to get. He says that Heulwen's walking now and chattering like a magpie, and that she's already strewing the road with broken hearts. I think he wanted to remind you of the bond.'
'I hardly need reminding of that,' he said, half under his breath. 'Did he mention Rhosyn?'
'Only that she was well and sent you her duty. If there was more, he probably thought it unwise to confide it to me.'
'How could there be more?' Guyon teased, squeezing her waist. 'You leave me neither the energy nor the inclination to play games with other women. What's this?' He moved the polished agate weight and picked up the letter from the trestle.
'From my mother,' Judith said, going to pour hot wine. 'She asks when we are going to leave our eyrie and make her a visit.'
Guyon took the wine and kissed her hand. 'Somewhere between Michaelmas and Martinmas,' he replied, expression thoughtful as he drank. 'I want a word with her anyway.'
'What about, Guy?'
He tossed the parchment down and finished the wine. 'Nothing. A minor detail concerned with your inheritance.'
Judith's lips tightened in response to his casual tone and the blank innocence of his eyes. The reality was upon her, warm and secure as a duck down mantle, but now and again she pondered the difference between belief and blindfold.
Guyon was dissembling. She knew that look by now and also the method. A smattering of sugared truth and eyes warmly guileless to conceal what he wished to conceal.
Dutifully she unbuckled his swordbelt but her hands were jerky. Guyon looked at her mulishly set lips. His own mouth curved and then straightened. It was not really funny, for he had no defence save to tell her the truth and the shock of that would probably do far greater harm than the withholding. If he had not been so road- and battle-weary, he would never have permitted his tongue the mistake of speaking an absent thought aloud.
'What kind of minor detail?' Judith challenged, stepping away from him, the belt in her hands, sword and dagger still attached.
Guyon busied himself removing his garments.
He was not wearing the customary Norman war gear of mail hauberk and gambeson, but hunting clothes topped by a sleeveless sheepskin jerkin.
When in Wales it was wisest to do as the Welsh did. It was impossible to cross a swiftly flowing torrent and pursue winding, scant paths if weighed down by armour and slowed by supply trains which were vulnerable to attack.
'The kind that is your mother's private business.
If she wants to tell you, then well and good,' he answered more evenly than he felt, wondering how to extricate himself before the thing got out of hand.
'I am surprised that your brain does not burst with all the little matters you cannot confide to me for fear of breaking your oath!' she snapped.
'So am I.' Guyon gave her a wry look. 'Judith, I don't want to quarrel.'
'That is up to you.' She tossed her head and turned from him to lay his swordbelt aside. When she turned round again, she gasped aloud at sight of the clotted red diagonal line across his chest. 'Holy Mother!' she cried and ran to get her basket of medicines.
Guyon drew breath to say that it was only a scratch and the Welshman who had given it to him was in much worse case, but quickly thought the better of it. Closing his mouth, he contrived to look as wan and limp as rude health and a summer tan would permit. Unresisting, he let her lead him to the bed and push him down.
'How did you get this?'
He looked at her through his lashes and saw the terror in her eyes and felt a flicker of guilt for his deceit. Last time he had come to her wounded he had almost died and the memory had obviously left its taint of fear. 'The raid leader didn't want to relinquish his gains and he was faster than I thought. He's gone to Chester as a hostage - if he does not die of his own wounds on the way.'
'Why not bring him here?'
'I don't want to encourage Welsh hordes to come visiting, not even to parley, until the defences have grown a little, and I haven't the time to - ouch!'
'Lie still then. You are lucky it is so shallow. Some comfrey and marigold salve should suffice. Are you hurt anywhere else?'
'Yes.' He closed his eyes as though faint.
'Where?' Anxiously she leaned over him.
Fast as a closing trap, his hands circled her waist and pulled her down on top of him. 'Where only you can ease me,' he murmured, subduing her retort with his lips.
Judith struggled briefly in order to satisfy her conscience, but with no real enthusiasm; in a moment, with a soft sound of capitulation, she yielded herself up to the pleasure. Three months of intensive, inventive tuition had taught her the refinements of this new and delightful skill and how to use it to its best purpose. How to provoke and tease and taunt him to the brink and then hold him there suffering, until she herself could bear it no longer and took them both over the edge.
Of course, she reminded herself hazily, it was a double-edged weapon and Guyon was an adept, as demonstrated by the dextrous manner in which he had just divested her of clothing. Frequently he gave her the control, knowing that it heightened her pleasure, but if he chose to take the initiative, as now, he was quite capable of submerging her in a welter of pure, fierce sensation that made everything else insignificant until well after the event. The acrid smell of horse and sweat sharpened her hunger, as did the nibbling play of his stubble-surrounded mouth on hers and the feel of his hands seeking down over her belly.
Lightning zigzagged and dazzled and the rain beat down, thudding the ground like the footst
eps of an army running. In the bailey, Simon de Vere swung from the saddle of his trembling, near-spent horse. He had been in the saddle for such a long time that his legs at first refused to support him and the groom had to help him up from the mud as he fell .
'Lord Guyon is, er ... busy,' said de Bec to the young man as he was helped, limping, into the hall . 'Best sit down and recover yourself awhile first. We've not long ridden in ourselves.'
'He won't be too busy to hear these tidings,' Simon said, pushing his fingers through his rain-sleek hair and wiping a drip from the end of his nose. 'The King is dead, slain in the New Forest and Prince Henry's claimed the crown. I've half killed my horse getting here.'
De Bec's bushy brows shot into his silver fringe.
'God have mercy,' he said, crossing himself.
'Here, sit down by the fire. You, wench, bring food and drink for Sir Simon and tell mistress Helgund to fetch my lord and lady.'
Judith looked at her husband as the sweat dried on their bodies and their breathing slowed.
Outside the thunder rumbled and the lightning blinked against a gap in the shutters. For a time she had felt as if she was riding in the midst of the storm and she could still feel small flickers on the periphery. 'When Madoc came, he told me something else too,' she said after a moment.
'Apparently, Mabell de Serigny is with child.'
Guyon had been sleepily nuzzling her shoulder, but now he lifted his head and gazed at her with widening eyes. 'Impossible! She's ninety if she's a day, Judith!'
She laughed at the incredulity on his face. 'Not quite. She's only a few years older than Mama.
Eight and forty or some such. Oh, I know it's old to catch for a babe, but not impossible.'
'And I thought Walter de Lacey was a coward,' Guyon said facetiously, but a frown forked his brow. He wondered what would happen if the same God's grace was granted to Alicia. Even if she and his father did obtain a dispensation to marry, it would be the devil's own work to sort out the resulting blood ties.
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