The Leopard Unleashed tor-3

by Elizabeth Chadwick

  Renard had ridden less than a third of the way to Caermoel when Gorvenal started to limp. Cursing, he dismounted and ran his hands down the stallion’s foreleg. It was cool to the touch and felt sound, no sign of swelling at fetlock or cannon. He picked up the hoof to examine that and immediately the source of the problem became obvious. A stone had lodged in the tender frog. Gorvenal laid his ears back and tugged against the bridle that Owain was holding close in to his head. Another knight dismounted and helped the lad to hold the horse. Gorvenal’s hatred of having his feet picked up was notorious, and this time Renard had no dried dates to sweeten him.

  Unsheathing his meat dagger, Renard braced his body against the jarring shocks of the stallion’s attempts to plunge, and tried to gouge the stone from the hoof without sticking the point of the knife into the sensitive frog.

  He succeeded, but not without a deal of swearing, at the horse, the stone, his squire and the knight. By the time the stone finally did fly out on to the grass, tempers were boiling, limbs weak, and the stallion’s hide was creamed with sweat. Renard wiped his hands on his surcoat, his brow on the sleeve of his gambeson, and sat down on the tussock to regain his breath.

  ‘Do we ride on, my lord?’ a young knight said hesitantly.

  Renard restrained the urge to be sarcastic. ‘I think we’ll eat first,’ he said. ‘It’ll give the horse — and me — a chance to recover. It’s only a bruised frog, nothing that will hamper him. Owain, mount up and stand lookout on that hill up there.’

  The boy left. Renard rose and went to Gorvenal. He gentled the horse with soft words and fondling, unslung his wine costrel from the pommel and took a packet of food from his saddle roll. Leaning against the horse, he ate cold roast fowl and bread, washing it down with the slightly sour wine. A skylark bubbled. Renard squinted into the cloud-ridden blue and sought it out — a tiny, dark speck with a song ten times as loud and spectacular as its drab, brown plumage. He was reminded of Elene and smiled.

  Temper forgotten, Gorvenal swung his head to butt Renard and demand a chunk of his bread. The stallion’s full, black tail swished at the flies. His glossy hide shivered. Renard scratched the horse’s withers and enjoyed the peace of the moment, culled from the midst of uncertainty and war.

  Following the aborted siege of Caermoel, hostilities between himself and the Earl of Chester had ceased for a while, and then, like a cry cast into a well, the echoes had resounded, on and on for ever. Ranulf, having learned his lesson, did not attempt another siege or blockade. Instead he used Welsh tactics and struck out at the small and vulnerable targets. Timber and wattle manor houses, and villages. Wanton, indiscriminate destruction. Renard retaliated with equal savagery, but sometimes, looking at earth that was scorched instead of growing with young crops, or at slaughtered plough teams, he was sickened. Watching the skylark now, he wondered if Elene understood.

  The bird plummeted like a stone. Owain came down the hill at a gallop, shouting something that was snatched away by the wind. Renard dusted off his hands. Stoppering the costrel, he looped it quickly back around the saddle, and mounting up, cantered to meet the squire.

  ‘It’s Woolcot!’ the boy gasped out. ‘Woolcot’s burning!’

  Renard spurred Gorvenal to the crest of the hill to look for himself. A thick, grey coil smudged the horizon, too large to be a midden bonfire or anything legitimate concerned with Elene’s weavers and dyers. He wrenched the horse around and sent him flying back down to his men. Owain had already passed on the news and they had remounted, food abandoned, and were looking to him for confirmation.

  ‘The whoresons have hit Woolcot,’ he snarled, ‘but they’ve reckoned without us being so close. Gerard, when we get there, sweep round by the mill with half the men. I’ll take the other end. We can talk as we ride!’

  It was a little more than three miles back to Woolcot and Renard and his men covered the distance as though they were racing each other on the Smithfield coursing ground rather than bumpy sheep terrain. As they neared the stricken village they heard the tolling of the church bell and the smell of the smoke thickened and gouted on the wind. Added to it came the stink of charring meat. It caught in the lungs and cut off breath. It stung the eyes with more than just the irritation of smoke.

  Garden crops were burning, dwellings were on fire. Animals lay where they had been slaughtered. The main street was an avenue of fire, every building alight. The roar of the flames was like the breath of a ragged, mythical beast, stalking and destroying in the wake of the perpetrators. Of them there was not a sign except for one body trapped beneath the bulk of a dead ox.

  Gerard de Brionne split away from the main group and took a handful of men round by the fulling mill. That too was on fire, although not yet as wildly ablaze as the houses. Torches still held aloft, three men were backing away from the building, shouting gleefully to each other. Gerard and his companions rode them down, dousing both brands and men in the fast-flowing river beside the mill. Their armour pulled them under. Those who floated were encouraged to sink. Renard’s knights removed their cloaks, saturated them in the river and set about beating out the fire.

  Renard came round to the church by way of the village pond where incongruously, amid all the destruction and chaos, a pair of ducks still dabbled with a total lack of concern. The church itself, stone-built by Elene’s father, was untouched by fire, but the doors hung drunkenly wide, and clustered around them were a group of routiers in mail shirts and quilted tunics. From the belfrey, the excommunicat resonated, tolling amid the drifts of windblown smoke. The wind veered and the bells faltered and suddenly died. Within the church a child wailed.

  ‘Hah!’ Renard cried and spurred Gorvenal. The horse passed the pond at a canter. Renard leaned forward, left fist curved around the hand strap of his shield, right around his sword grip. The child’s wail became a full scream, and above the roar of the flames Renard heard a man’s voice thundering in Latin. John, he thought, recognising it even as it was cut short.

  He spurred Gorvenal again, frantically, and they galloped into the churchyard. Without stopping, Renard took the stallion straight up the path to the broken church doors. A routier stared. His mouth widened to yell a warning. Renard stood in the stirrups and clove him like a bacon pig. Gorvenal dealt with a second man, a lashing kick doubling him over, and Renard finished it. Then he was riding into the church, horseshoes clattering on the stone flags of the nave.

  Hamo le Grande turned and gaped as a vision from the hell the priest had just promised him bore down the nave. A horseman of the apocalypse, his sword edge dripping blood and his horse wild-eyed with crimson-lined nostrils. At Hamo’s feet, John used his good arm — the one that the mercenary had not slashed to the bone, to grasp Hamo’s ankle and pull hard. The mercenary threw out his arms to save himself, but was too late. The cry of surprise on his lips rose to a scream as he landed without cushioning on the hard flags. They all heard the crack of bone as his spine broke. And yet he was still alive to suffer the agony. Unable to move, he watched Renard slow the horse and pace him up the nave, finally drawing rein before him.

  Renard looked down implacably. ‘Take him out,’ he commanded to the men waiting behind. ‘And hang him … slowly.’

  Hamo’s screams as he was dragged outside the church faded to background insignificance. Renard dismounted. Owain appeared, to take charge of the horse and lead him outside. Renard knelt beside John who was ashen with pain. His habit sleeve was saturated in blood.

  ‘Not as bad as it looks,’ he tried to jest. ‘His blade was blunt.’

  ‘Let me see.’ Renard drew his knife and ripped the material. The wound was deep and sluggishly oozing, but not so deep that it would not mend or damage the arm’s function. ‘It’s nasty,’ he said, ‘but it won’t kill you. Elene will be able to stitch it and pack it with a mouldy bread poultice.’ While he spoke, he worked to temporarily bind the wound with strips from the linen shirt that Master Pieter had obligingly sacrificed.

  ‘Elene?’
John grimaced. ‘Elene rode back to Woolcot to fetch help from the garrison … She was here in the village showing me the wool sheds and seeing me on my way.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘She was gone before they struck.’

  Renard sprang to his feet just as the brawny youth came up the nave, Father Edwig’s body borne in his arms. ‘He’s dead,’ the young man said in a wondering voice. ‘Just suddenly dropped at the bell rope, but see, he’s never looked so happy!’

  People gathered to marvel or weep over the serenely smiling old priest. Renard left the church at a run, snatched Gorvenal’s bridle from Owain and vaulted into the saddle.

  ‘There are some men from the keep looking for you,’ the boy said. ‘Sir Oswel and Sir Randal.’ He pointed down the churchyard, his young face frightened.

  Renard rode over to the garrison force. A little beyond them several corpses swung on a gibbet. ‘Where is Lady Elene?’ he demanded brusquely.

  Sir Oswel looked troubled. He wiped his hand over his beard. ‘I do not know, my lord.’

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’

  ‘Her mare came into the bailey all sweated up and riderless about the same time that we heard the bells and saw the smoke. We rode here first, thinking perhaps to find her, but …’ he gestured bleakly at the burning village.

  Renard coughed as he inhaled a gust of smoke. He felt as if he had swallowed a lump of ice. ‘Oswel, stay here and organise the villagers into putting out the fires and cleaning up. Randal, take half a dozen men and search the area between village and keep.’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  Renard wheeled Gorvenal and rode in the direction of the castle. On all sides of him stretched the rough pasture. Grazing sheep raised their heads and stared at him with indifference, jaws circling busily. The wind veered and buffeted, bringing the stink of burning with it, hot and strong. It was difficult to remember a time when that smell had not pervaded his every waking moment and stalked him through his dreams.

  Across the moorland he and his men searched without finding a sign of Elene, and with each piece of ground unfruitfully covered Renard’s apprehension grew. What if she had been caught in the fire? What if the horse had bucked her off in the village and run home to her stable riderless all the way? Unknowing, he passed the place where she had first fallen from the mare, and then the place where a second time she had lost her seat in the saddle. Nothing. He halted Gorvenal and stared at the wind-whipped moorland until his eyes stung.

  ‘Hola!’

  Renard turned in the direction of the shout and saw a shepherd and dogs running towards him. The man was waving his arms, and a molten flicker of hope coursed through Renard as he rode to meet him.

  ‘My lord!’ the shepherd saluted him, then had to stop to gather his breath.

  ‘Is it about Lady Elene? Is she all right? Tell me, man!’

  ‘I … I think so, my lord … She was a bit shook up at first, but my wife’s looking after her.’ He gulped and gasped, pressing his hand to the stitch in his side. ‘At first we thought her ankle was broken, but I do believe it is only a nasty sprain.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘My hut … over yon.’ He pointed to a small dwelling a few hundred yards away. ‘I carried her like I would a wounded sheep. It weren’t far and my wife had just brought me food.’ He straightened slightly and creased his eyes at Renard. ‘Is it true the village is burned to the ground? I can smell smoke. Dogs are restless.’

  ‘Yes, it’s true.’ Renard left the shepherd and galloped to the hut, dismounting even as he drew rein. Tethering Gorvenal to a hook protruding from the dung and wattle wall, he ducked inside the hut. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the single, tiny room, but Elene’s glad cry brought his gaze immediately to the place where she lay, tended by the shepherd’s wife who was pressing a cold cloth on to her swollen ankle.

  ‘Praise God!’ Renard said. ‘We’ve been searching everywhere for you!’

  The woman stood up, dried her hands on her gown and, bobbing a curtsey, went outside.

  Elene struggled up from the shepherd’s narrow bed of bracken and sheepskins and as Renard knelt at her side, she flung her arms around him. ‘You smell of smoke,’ she tried to say lightly, but the words cracked and broke up, and she buried her face in his surcoat, sobs shuddering through her.

  Silently, tightly, he held her, as much for his own comfort as hers.

  ‘I suppose the village is in ruins?’ she asked at length, her voice choked.

  ‘More or less. Gerard saved the mill, I think, but everything else bar the church is gone.’

  ‘The people … I tried to get help, but Bramble took fright at the smoke and I could not control her.’

  ‘The people are safe,’ he reassured her, and told her everything that had happened, adding in a growl at the end, ‘If de Gernons thinks that an atrocity such as this will go unavenged, then he was never more mistaken.’

  Elene clung to him, her fingers clenched in his surcoat, her knuckles pressed against the unyielding rivets of his hauberk. ‘No, let it lie!’ she cried. ‘You have hanged the men responsible. If you raid on his lands you will only continue the circle. It needs to be broken, don’t you see!’

  ‘If I do nothing, he will think I have weakened.’

  ‘He will think nothing of the sort. His routiers are dead or scattered. Call it even!’

  ‘I do not think you have seen the extent of the damage,’ Renard said grimly. ‘Everything is gone — every last bale of your cloth, and that cannot be rebuilt as quickly as the houses.’

  ‘It can never be rebuilt if you keep raiding tit for tat. Renard, promise me you’ll hold your hand, I cannot bear it any more!’

  ‘I will promise nothing of the kind!’ he growled, and then swore as she began to weep again. His defences were not up to dealing with Elene’s grief, nor could he understand her insistence that he must not retaliate. Part of him wanted to stand up, walk away, pretend none of this was happening. He disliked being pushed into emotional corners. ‘The only promise I’ll make is to think about it,’ he temporised, running one hand down her braid. ‘Don’t push me further than that, Nell.’ He tipped up her chin and kissed her tear-streaked face. ‘Come, I’ll take you to the keep before I go back to the village and see what’s to be salvaged.’

  Elene put her arms around his neck as he lifted her up. She kissed him back and he felt the corner into which he was backed growing smaller and tighter. Ducking under the low door arch, he carried her out to Gorvenal.

  Chapter 29

  Chester, November 1141

  Ranulf de Gernons stood in his wife’s chamber, hands on his hips, and watched her fussing with their younger daughter’s tiny braids. They stuck out at right angles from her head, were shorter than his own moustaches, only half their thickness and of a light, mousy brown that no amount of adorning would enhance. Her sister, three years older, was sitting on her mother’s bed, playing a counting game with some carnelian beads.

  ‘Is there any news of my father?’ Matille looked at him anxiously.

  ‘Only that he’s being treated well and the Queen is refusing to bargain. They want Stephen in exchange for him or nothing.’ He scowled, revealing what he had thought of that particular idea. The smaller child climbed into her mother’s lap and hid her face against Matille’s gown. Ranulf ’s scowl deepened. Thus far Matille had borne him three children — two girls, alive and healthy, but the all-important boy miscarried. She was pregnant again. God willing this time she would give him what he desired. To that end he had been unduly gentle with her these past three months, particu — larly during the last one that had seen the Empress’s forces reduced to chaos at the siege of Winchester and the sub — sequent capture of her father, the Earl of Gloucester.

  Ranulf had quickly distanced himself from the Empress, had returned to his marches to wait out events like a spider lurking on the edge of its web. Lincoln had been the Empress’s pinnacle. Since then, everything ha
d begun to slip away. At Winchester, Bishop Henry had turned against her, and Stephen’s queen had appeared with her army beneath the city walls. Overwhelmed, deserted by many of her supporters, the Empress had been forced to flee towards Oxford. During the rout, Matille’s father had been captured and now Queen Malde wanted to exchange him for Stephen. Negotiations were in slow progress, but it was obvious to Ranulf that whatever came of them, the best course was to do nothing until he saw which way the wind blew for certain.

  ‘But he is well?’ Matille persisted.

  ‘Better than for a long time,’ Ranulf grunted. ‘He hasn’t got that sulky bitch bleating in his ear. Why won’t Lucy look at me?’

  ‘You frighten her, Papa,’ said Adela, his elder, looking up from her game. ‘She doesn’t like it when you shout.’

  ‘Hah!’ Ranulf said, dismissing the comment, although inside it hurt him. It always did. He had the power to make people do whatever he wished — except love him, and he was aware of that lack most strongly when he tried to be at ease with his wife and children.

  ‘Ranulf, I’ve been thinking about Lucy,’ Matille said hesitantly.

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘Have you any plans for a betrothal yet? I know you have for Herleve, but …’ She broke off and cuddled her whimpering daughter. Her stomach moved queasily. Some of the nausea was her new pregnancy. As usual she was not carrying well, but the rest was caused by her fear of Ranulf. These days he was as unpredictable as a wild bull, but if she could arrange a favourable marriage for her daughter and help Elene of Ravenstow into the bargain, then she was willing to brave his temper.

  ‘Whom did you have in mind?’

  Matille swallowed. ‘Ravenstow’s heir.’

  Ranulf ’s bellow almost blew the shutters off their hinges. ‘God’s balls, woman, you dare to suggest that to me!’ he roared.

  Lucy screamed in terror and the older girl stopped her game, her eyes becoming round with fear in case their father should use his fists.