The Leopard Unleashed tor-3

by Elizabeth Chadwick

  Each gave the other a wan, watery smile as they left the dusk-shrouded plesaunce and went inside to the great hall.

  Chapter 17

  The boy stared down at his feet and shuffled them as if the concentration of eye alone was responsible for their motion. A shock of straw-coloured hair stopped just short of his thin, dark brows beneath which his downcast lashes were long and thick enough to be the envy of every woman within the keep.

  ‘Owain?’ said Elene gently. ‘Look at me.’

  He raised his head and then his lids. His eyes were as wary and dark as a deer’s, his mouth set so firmly that it defied his will and trembled anyway. He had just watched his mother ride away from him in the company of his despised stepfather-to-be, stranding him here among strangers, ostensibly for his own good, but he felt nothing but betrayed.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Eleven, madam.’

  ‘Almost a man then,’ she flattered him. ‘Past time you began your training. Lord Renard won’t be home for at least another month. You can use the time to grow accustomed to your new home. Is this your pony?’ She indicated the sturdy grey gelding that was lipping at a clump of twitch spiking from the base of the wall.

  ‘Yes, madam.’

  ‘What’s his name?’ She stroked the pony’s neck, noting that he was well groomed and cared for.

  ‘Grisel, madam.’

  ‘Well then, Owain, unlatch your saddle roll and come with me. We’ll find you somewhere to sleep.’ She beckoned to a groom. ‘Kenrick will take care of Grisel for now. Other times he will be your responsibility.’ She scratched the grey beneath his whiskery chin and fondled his plush muzzle.

  The boy relaxed slightly and began to unfasten his small bundle of belongings from the pony’s crupper. He paused in mid-motion as more horses clopped into the yard, his expression becoming one of blazing hope before sinking once more into apathy as he saw that the newcomers were two men astride working coursers.

  William jumped down easily from his saddle and stood close to the second horse, ready to help Henry if he failed. ‘Come on, you can do it!’ he encouraged him with exaggerated joviality.

  ‘Shut up, I’m not a babe!’ Henry snapped, nettled by his brother’s tone of voice, and completed his own move to the ground somewhat more clumsily. ‘I’ve still got two good legs!’ His face was white with strain as he fumbled the shield from his right arm. Retraining himself to fight left-handed, his damaged arm protected behind his adapted shield, was a process so difficult that in private he wept with the sheer frustration of his inability to co-ordinate.

  Hands on hips, William took his gaze from his grumpy brother and rested it on Elene and her charge.

  ‘Is this the new squire Renard was telling me about before he left?’

  Elene nodded. ‘Owain ap Siorl.’ She put her hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  William considered him gravely, remembering what Renard had told him of the boy’s recent past and the reasons for his placement here. He addressed him in Welsh. Owain looked doubtfully at Elene before replying in the same language, but his face visibly brightened, and once begun, an almost defiant torrent of words poured from his lips.

  Elene exchanged a brief, meaningful glance with William over the top of the boy’s head.

  ‘Well, Owain ap Siorl,’ William said, reverting to French for his sister-in-law’s benefit. ‘Let us go within and show you the surroundings of at least one of your new homes. Your lord has three other keeps beside this one, and more manors and lodges than I can count.’ He replaced Elene’s hand on the boy’s shoulder with his own and gave her a conspiratorial wink as he drew the boy away in the direction of the hall, reverting to Welsh as he walked.

  Elene smiled gratefully after him, then turned back to Henry. ‘Are you all right?’

  He gave her a toothless smile, his complexion peaky. ‘Just gaining my breath. Was that the lad’s mother and her new beau we met riding out just now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Poor little beggar.’ He avoided her eyes to watch the groom unsaddling the grey pony.

  ‘He’s better than he would have been had he stayed at home. He’s defensive of his father’s memory; resents another man’s encroachments on his mother’s affections when it’s not been a year since Siorl’s death. That is how Renard sees the situation anyway.’

  Henry grunted and started to turn away, fumbling at his swordbelt and trying one-handed to unlatch it.

  ‘Here, let me do it.’ Elene came round to help him. The latch was fairly new and therefore stiff and she had to struggle to get it undone.

  Henry’s good hand clenched into a fist at his side. ‘I can do it myself,’ he rasped. ‘I have to learn.’

  ‘It’s all right, it’s coming now. You might as well let me finish.’

  Henry muttered something beneath his breath, and without warning Elene suddenly found herself swept round on his good arm and embraced. For the space of ten rapid heartbeats he kissed her, without finesse, just hard, desperate passion.

  Elene tried to scream, but her voice was stifled in her throat. She managed to wriggle one arm free and struck the side of his head with all the force she could muster. Henry let her go, the last of his breath spending itself in a groan. ‘I’m sorry, Nell, I’m sorry,’ he said wretchedly. ‘God’s love, don’t look at me like that!’

  ‘How else should I look at you!’ she gasped, hand across her mouth. ‘No, don’t touch me — stay away!’ Ducking under his arm, she fled for the safety of the keep.

  Henry stared wretchedly at the stable wall and wished that the arrow that had maimed him had killed him outright.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  Elene glanced up at Henry, gestured reluctant assent, and continued setting pins into the gown she was making for herself — one that would accommodate her increasing girth in the coming months.

  Henry cleared his throat and tentatively stepped just inside the sewing room doorway. He shuffled his feet as awkwardly as the new squire had done that morning and stared at the thongs fastening his soft indoor shoes.

  Elene eyed him warily and kept to her side of the trestle, the sewing shears close to hand.

  He raised his stubby ginger eyelashes. ‘I came to apolo — gise for this morning. If I could wipe it from the slate I would.’

  ‘So would I,’ Elene said grimly.

  ‘I never meant to hurt or frighten you. It’s just that …’ He made a movement with his good arm. ‘I tire easily and then things happen that I don’t mean to happen. You were so close and …’ He stopped and tugged viciously at his moustache. ‘Christ’s death, I can’t even say I’m sorry without digging myself into a deeper hole!’

  A wave of compassion stirred among the other emotions that were disturbing Elene. This morning she had been shocked and frightened by his sudden assault. Having always viewed him in an affectionate, fraternal light, she had been horrified to discover that his affections coursed through a different and potentially dangerous channel. Supposing Renard came to hear of it by rumour and misconstrued it? She had not yet told him about her pregnancy. Supposing he misconstrued that too? The implications were terrifying, both for Henry and for herself.

  ‘You have said enough,’ she answered him in as level a tone as she could muster. ‘I do not think an explanation will benefit either of us.’

  ‘Are you still angry?’

  ‘I wasn’t angry before, just very frightened. I still am.’

  ‘So am I,’ he said bleakly and leaned against the wall. His right arm, strained from the work he had forced upon it, was resting in a linen sling. He crossed his left arm beneath it. ‘God knows, it crept up on me unawares. I couldn’t even tell you when it changed. I only knew it was there when I saw you and Renard together; the way you looked at him …’ He made a choked sound and turned his head aside.

  ‘Henry, stop it!’ Elene quivered. She could not go to him and comfort him; neither could she pick up the shears and drive him from the room. ‘I told y
ou, you have said enough!’

  ‘No, as usual, I have said too much.’ His throat worked. When he spoke again, his voice was gruff but controlled. ‘Apart from apologising, I also came to tell you that I’m going home to Oxley tomorrow. I’m mended enough for that now, and it would be too difficult if I stayed.’

  Elene bit her lip and nodded. She pretended to busy herself with the length of cloth on the sewing trestle.

  Henry remained in the doorway staring at her the way a hungry but well-trained dog might stare at a meal it was not permitted to have. ‘I want to part as friends,’ he pleaded softly. ‘Will you forgive me?’

  A small, darker coloured blot began to spread on the pale green linen beneath Elene’s fingers, then another one. ‘I forgive you,’ she said, her throat constricted as she tried to speak and breathe without giving herself away. She dared not lift her gaze from the trestle, not for a long time, and when she finally did, Henry was gone and the first hint of dusk was beginning to deepen the shadows in the room. Free to cry, she found that she was no longer able.

  Chapter 18

  On the day of Renard’s return to Ravenstow, Elene had spent a long afternoon in the town, buying at the market and talking to the merchants — the cloth sellers in particular — and to an ambitious young packman who had recently become a carrier and wanted to expand his business yet again. She offered him a contract transporting cloth between Woolcot and the main villages beholden to Ravenstow. He leaped at the proposal, but proved himself shrewd by haggling the terms a little more towards his advantage without losing Elene’s goodwill.

  Satisfied with her own end of the bargain, a little amused at the young man’s sharp wit, Elene let Owain help her into the saddle, and turned Bramble for home. Sir Thomas d’Alberin, leader of her escort for the forty days of his feudal service, watched her with long-suffering eyes. It was raining, his gouty foot was throbbing against his stirrup iron and he had heartburn from eating too many spiced shrimp pasties at the pie seller’s booth while he waited for Elene to complete her business with the cocky young upstart who called himself a carrier on the strength of the two moth-eaten ponies he had purchased to replace his haversack.

  Sir Thomas had considered Elene a sweet little thing when he encountered her at her wedding in November, but as with all the Ravenstow women, that first impression had been a sugar coating, disguising a concoction that he was only too pleased belonged in Lord Renard’s cup and not his own.

  He glanced at her as she drew the hood of her cloak over her veil and cast a hazel grimace at the gathering rain clouds. Unlike Lady Judith, she did not snap or turn sarcastic when angered. Her tone remained level and calm, but her full mouth would tighten around the words and her eyes would narrow, as they were narrowing now, in response to the rain, leaving him in no doubt as to her displeasure.

  Sir Thomas signalled the escort to increase the pace and thought with new longing of his own plain, plump wife. Guard duty at Ravenstow was always an adventure into a different, brighter world, but after a time the colours jarred his eyes and the struggle to meet expectations frazzled him. The situation this year was exacerbated by the fact of a new lord, his absence at war, and this dangerous quarrel with Ranulf of Chester. Not only that, but the son Thomas had brought with him, hoping that the lad would make a good impression, had done nothing but behave badly, particularly towards the new squire.

  By the time they arrived at the castle, the rain was tipping out of the leaden clouds like water from a leaky bucket. The thick new coat of limewash applied to Ravenstow’s walls during the past few weeks was sluicing in white runnels into the tussocky rocks upon which the keep was built. Mingled with the thud of the rain, Elene heard the rush of the river, still high with the spring spate. Bramble’s hooves squelched on mud and thudded on the planks of the drawbridge. The mare pricked her ears at the familiar smell of home and, unbidden, increased her pace to a trot, nudging the wet, sleek rump of the horse in front.

  The bailey was already busy, every available groom and lackey attending to destriers, palfreys, rounceys and baggage nags. Two supply wains were leaning against a wall and other servants were toing and froing between them, the armoury and the hall as they unloaded the contents. Eadric, the head groom, who was leading a black stallion with familiar star and long white hind stockings towards a clean stall, paused and touched his forehead to Elene. ‘We weren’t expecting ’em, my lady,’ he said, excusing himself for neglecting Bramble. ‘I’ll only be a moment with this ’un.’

  Puffing, Sir Thomas helped her down from the mare. Rain dripped from the nasal of his helmet into the groove of his upper lip. He blew upwards, spraying droplets. ‘Lord Renard’s home,’ he announced unnecessarily, sounding relieved. Elene picked up her skirts and ran.

  The great hall was crowded with armed men and stank of unwashed bodies and wet wool steaming rankly in the smoky fug. Firelight flashed off rust-speckled hauberks and sword hilts. Servants were busy with jugs of cider and baskets of bread.

  Elene tapped a huge, broad-shouldered knight on the back. ‘Ancelin, where’s Renard?’

  He swung round. His blond hair was greasy from crown to cheek hollow and the ends hung in wet strings upon his coif. There were tired pouches under his eyes but his smile was as broad and genuine as ever as he looked down on her from an advantage of a full twelve inches. ‘In the solar, my lady.’ He pointed with his cup, then, with a sudden bellow of joy, rose on tiptoe and extended one brawny arm, affording her a whiff of rank armpit as he snatched a chicken leg off a loaded tray a maid was trying to carry to a trestle.

  ‘Is he all right?’ Elene felt a pang of fear for she knew that Renard was not a lord to hold aloof from his men without good reason.

  ‘More or less,’ Ancelin said indistinctly through a massive mouthful of meat. ‘A trifle bad-tempered with the pain, but if you can bear with him, you’ll not find him too sorely wounded to greet you fittingly.’

  ‘Wounded!’

  Ancelin chuckled and wiped his lips on the freckled back of his hand. ‘And not even in the thick of battle … excuse me.’ He broke away from her to dive after a wide wicker basket of hot bread.

  Elene gathered her damp skirts and ran, inasmuch as that was possible, down the hall to the solar. She knew that Ancelin would not be guzzling with such joyous abandon if Renard was seriously hurt, but nevertheless it was with a heart full of apprehension that she drew aside the hanging across the solar archway and stepped inside the room.

  Renard was sitting in a high-backed chair, one leg propped on a footstool, and Judith was bent over, carefully examining his exposed foot. ‘They’re not broken,’ she said doubtfully, as if not quite sure, and turned round as his gaze flickered to the curtain where Elene stood as white as a ghost.

  ‘It’s all right, he isn’t going to be crippled for life, just a few weeks,’ Judith said by way of reassurance. Leaving him, she went out, touching Elene lightly on the shoulder.

  Renard raised the small cup of usquebaugh near his elbow and drained it in one fast gulp.

  Elene advanced on him. Like Ancelin’s, his hair was long and unkempt, and through a grizzle of beard his face was harsh with pain and fatigue. She looked at his foot. The skin was broken here and there and across his toes the swelling was a magnificent conglomeration of shades of purple and blue. ‘What happened?’

  He made an impatient sound. ‘A baggage wain stuck in the mud at a ford this morning. I dismounted to help push it free, and the carter’s accursed nag took fright at a pheasant flushed from cover by one of the dogs and shied sideways on to my foot!’

  Elene bit her lip. It did no good. She covered her mouth with her hand. He glared at her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a choked voice. ‘It looks as though it hurts dreadfully.’

  ‘It does,’ he growled.

  Contrite, she stooped over to kiss him. He relaxed slightly and curved his arms around her waist. The damp end of her braid tickled the back of his hand. He became aware that she was only a little less
wet than he was himself. Her lips were cold and tasted of rain, but then everything did — rain or river or stagnant weed. Sighing, he released her.

  ‘Did Bishop Nigel get his comeuppance then?’ she asked.

  He tipped back his head and closed his eyes. ‘After a fashion, I suppose. We built a bridge of boats and hurdles to cross to Ely where he was holed up at Aldreth. A local monk with a grudge against him guided us through the marshes. We took the good Bishop Nigel by surprise from behind his back.’ He lifted one hauberk-clad shoulder. ‘Unfortunately he escaped — to Bristol we think, but we captured some of his knights and most of his treasure. There’s a necklace in my baggage — that’s a personal present from the King to you. Apparently you made a good impression on the Queen at Christmas.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘She likes strong-minded women who rule their men,’ he said drily and raised his lids to flash her a look full of brooding amusement. ‘I was not altogether flattered, although I suppose it might be true. You’re just not as obvious as Mama, are you?’

  Elene was slightly taken aback. It had never occurred to her that she might be able to rule Renard, or that the Queen might think her capable. ‘She had the advantage of your father’s devotion,’ she said, and began to pluck at the sodden leather laces of his coif.

  ‘Ah now, that is fishing with either a very subtle or a very foolish bait, Nell,’ he smiled, and wrapped his fingers around one of her braids to draw her down to him again, adding just before he kissed her, ‘I’ve missed you.’

  Her palm was against his throat and she felt his pulse surge rapidly. He slipped his hand beneath her cloak to stroke her body, revelling in a luxury that had been six weeks absent from his life. The camp whores had proved no trial to celibacy. Most of them stank worse than the surrounding fetid marshes and he was still smarting too much from the wounds Olwen had inflicted on his pride to seek a whore for the mere easing of boredom.