'She is maiden still ,' Guyon replied. 'I have no taste for rape. The blood on the sheets is my own and freely given.'
De Bec cleared his throat. 'It is your right,' he muttered gruffly into his chest.
'Indeed so,' Guyon answered, 'but one I exercise at my peril. I hazard that if I harmed so much as one hair of her head, I'd not wake up at all the next morning.'
Their eyes locked and held for a moment before the older man dropped his gaze to the smooth muscle of his mount's shoulder, knowing he had gone as far as he dared with a man he did not know. Guyon turned his head. Distantly the hounds gave tongue in a new key, a sustained tocsin, belling deep.
'Boar's up and running,' Miles said, jerking his courser around.
Guyon swung his own horse.
De Bec spoke abruptly. 'Keep your eyes open, my lord. You have as many enemies among your guests as you have allies and when I see men huddling in corners and glimpse the exchange of silver in the darkness, I know that no good will come of it.'
Guyon smiled thinly. By disclosing his suspicions when he could have held silent, de Bec had accepted his new master, even if the man had yet to realise the fact. 'I was not blind myself last night, but I thank you for the warning.
The sooner this mockery of a celebration is over, the better.' He set his heels to his courser's flanks and urged him in pursuit of the dogs. De Bec wrenched the dun around and followed.
Guyon bent low over his mount's neck to avoid the tangled branches that whipped at him.
Shallow snow flurried beneath the chestnut's hooves. The frozen air burned Guyon's lungs as he breathed. His eyes filled and he blinked hard to clear them, and braced himself as the horse leaped a fall en tree in their path. Ahead he could hear the loud halloos and whistlings urging the dogs on and the excited belling of the dogs themselves.
The hunters pressed further into the depths of the forest. Thorns snagged their cloaks.
Hoofbeats thudded eerily in the echo chambers created by the vaulted span of huge beeches, the daylight showing luminous grey through the fretwork of empty black branches. They galloped across a clearing, the snow fetlock deep, splashed through a swift-flowing stream, picked their way delicately round a tumble of boulders and plunged back into the tangled darkness of the winter woods. A branch snapped off and snarled in Guyon's bridle. He plucked it loose, eased the chestnut for an instant, then guided him hard right down a narrow avenue of trunks pied silver and black, following the frenzied yelping of the dogs and the excited shouts of men.
The boar at bay was a sow, a matron of prime years, weighing almost two hundredweight. She had met and tussled with man before. A Welsh poacher had lost his life to her tushes when he came hunting piglets for his pot. The huntsmen had found his bleaching bones last spring when they came to mark the game. The sow bore her own scar from the encounter in a thick ridge of hide along her left flank where the boar spear had scored sideways and turned along the bone.
She stood her ground now, backed against an overgrown jut of rock, raking clods of beech mast from the forest floor. Her huge head tossed left and right, the vicious tushes threatening to disembowel any dog or human foolish enough to come within their reach.
Guyon drew rein and dismounted. The senior huntsman tossed him a boar spear which he caught in mid-air. It was a stout weapon, broad of blade, with a crossbar set beneath to prevent the boar from running up the shaft and tearing the hunter to pieces. A dog ran in to snap at the sow's powerful black shoulder, was not swift enough to disengage and was flung howling across the path of the other dogs, a red slash opening in its side. Cadi barked and darted. She was a gazehound, bred to course hare, not boar, but her narrow-loined lightness made her too swift to be caught.
The men began cautiously to close upon the sow, their spears braced, knives loose in their belts, every muscle taut to leap, for until the moment she charged no man knew if he was her intended victim. It was exhilarating, the tension unbearable. She raked the leaves with her trotters, rolled her small black eyes and tushed the ground, smearing her bloody incisors with soil.
'Come on girl, get on with it,' muttered Hugh of Chester licking his lips. Another man whistled loudly, trying to attract her attention and waved his spear over his head. Ralph de Serigny wiped his mouth, a pulse beating hard in his neck. Walter de Lacey remained immobile, his only movement a darting glance of challenge at Guyon. Guyon returned the look with glittering eyes and crouched, the spear braced.
The sow paused, quivering; the massive head went down; the damp leaves churned. A squealing snort erupted through her nostrils and she made a sudden powerful lunge from her hams, straight at Guyon. Driven by her charging weight, the levelled spear reamed her chest.
Guyon braced the butt against the forest soil, the muscles locking in his forearms and shoulders as he strove to hold her. The barbed tip lodged in bone and the shaft shuddered. Guyon heard the wood creak, felt it begin to give as the sow pressed forward, and knew that there was nothing he could do. The spear snapped. Razored tushes slashed open his chausses and drew a bloody line down his thigh. The sow, red foam frothing her jaws and screaming mad with pain, plunged and spun to gore him, the broken stump of the spear protruding from her breast. Guyon rammed the other half of the boar spear down her throat. A fierce pain burned his arm. Miles's hunting knife found the sow's jugular at the same time that de Bec's spear found her heart.
Silence fell , broken only by the eager yelping of the dogs and the whimpers of the injured one.
Blood soaked the trampled soil and snow. The chief huntsman whipped the hounds from the dead pig, his face grey. He darted a look once at de Lacey and Pembroke behind, and then away.
They ignored him.
'Are you all right?' Anxiously Hugh of Chester laid hold of Guyon's ripped sleeve to examine the pulsing gash.
Guyon nodded and smiled for the benefit of those who would have been only too pleased to see him seriously injured or killed and wadded his cloak against the wound to stanch the blood.
De Bec crouched beside the broken spear shaft and examined it. Then he rose and stalked to the senior huntsman and thrust the stump beneath his nose. The man shook his head, his complexion pasty. De Bec began to shout. Arnulf of Pembroke moved between the two men.
Guyon shouldered him aside.
'Let it go,' he commanded. 'There was a weakness in the wood. It could have happened to any one of us.'
'A weakness in the w--?' de Bec began indignantly, but caught the look in Guyon's eye and realised that the young lord was totally aware of the situation. 'Faugh!' de Bec spat, threw down the shaft and stalked to his horse, muttering under his breath.
'My lord, I did not know, I swear I did not!'
stuttered the huntsman, his throat jerking as if a noose was already tightening there.
'Oh stop gibbering, man, and see to the pig!'
Guyon snapped and turned away. There was time enough later to grill him for details, and the wilds of these border woods was no place to hold an impromptu court with tempers running high and blood lust rife.
Miles picked up the shaft, saw how it had broken, and narrowed his eyes.
Guyon whistled Cadi to heel, stepped over a rivulet of pig blood and went to mount up.
Judith sat in the solar, distaff in hand, longing to set about her companions with it. They had offered her all manner of advice, both well meaning and malicious and had asked her some very intimate questions that made her realise how innocent she really was. All she could do was blush, her embarrassment scarcely feigned. The women's curiosity was bottomless and avid and at least one of them with connections at court knew things about the groom that were better left unsaid. It did not prevent her from relating the information with grisly relish. Alicia parried frostily. Judith retreated behind downcast lids and wished the gaggle of them out of the keep.
Steps scuffed the stairs outside the chamber and the curtain was thrust aside. The women rose, flustered and twittering at the sight of the bridegroom whose rep
utation they had just been so salaciously maligning. Guyon regarded them without favour. 'Ladies,' he acknowledged, and looked beyond them to Judith. She hastened to his side. There were thorns and burrs in his cloak and a narrow graze down one cheek. There was also, she noticed, a tear in his chausses.
'My lord?'
He reached his right hand to take hers, an odd move since his left was the nearer. 'I need you to look at a scratch for me.'
'Your leg?' Her eyes dropped to his chausses.
'My arm. I fear you may need your mouldy bread.' He spoke softly, his words not carrying beyond the air that breathed them. All the women saw was his hand possessively on hers, the movement of his lips close to her ear and the sudden dismayed widening of her eyes.
'Go to the bedchamber,' said Judith. 'I will bring whatever is necessary. I take it that you do not want them to know.'
'No.'
Her lips twitched. 'You are begetting a foul reputation, my lord.'
'Not half as foul as their minds.' He cast a jaundiced glance at the women.
'Is there a difficulty, my lord?' Alicia enquired, coming forward, prepared to do battle. She was furious. It was bad enough that he should have used Judith roughly last night as attested by the bridal sheet and her daughter's trembling fight with tears, but that he should stride in here, dishevelled from the hunt and demand her body again, using her like a whore to ease his blood lust, was disgusting.
'I should be grateful for a word if you can free yourself from your duties.'
Alicia stared at him. 'Now, my lord?'
'Come above with Judith, I will explain.'
Her eyes flickered with bewilderment as the ground of expectation was swept from beneath her feet. Guyon bowed formally to her, saluted the others with mockery and left the room, drawing Judith after him. Alicia collected her reeling wits, made her excuses and left them to think what they would.
Judith snipped away the blood-soaked sleeve from his left arm. Guyon clenched his fist on his thigh and winced.
'Boar?' Judith peered at the jagged tear. It was not deep to the bone, but neither was it superficial enough to just bandage and leave. 'It will have to be stitched.'
He gave a resigned shrug. 'At least I am testing your abilities to the full .' He managed a weak grin as she soaked a linen pad in a strong-smelling liquid decocted from pine needles.
'Just pray that they do not fail. It's a nasty wound. What happened?'
Guyon almost hit the rafters as she pressed the pad to his arm and began to clean away the dirt slashed into the wound by the boar's tush.
Alicia walked into the room to hear her daughter breathlessly apologising, a quiver in her voice.
'Get on with it!' Guyon gasped through clenched teeth. 'If you stop every time I flinch, we'll be here all day, and that really will set the fat into the fire!'
Judith bit her lip. Alicia looked down at the raw, still seeping wound. 'You will need the mouldy bread,' she said neutrally.
'I have it, mama.'
Alicia eyed Guyon thoughtfully. 'I have just heard from one of the beaters. He says the boar spear snapped and that you were lucky to escape with your life, let alone a few small scratches.'
'This is more than a small scratch, Mama!'
Judith protested, staring round.
'I can see that. I am only repeating what the beater said, and he had it from your uncle's squire.'
'They were both right,' said Guyon.
The women stared at him. After her first startled declaration, Judith's wits quickened. Plainly Guyon was not disclaiming this tear as a mere scratch just to be manly. He wanted the wound kept a secret, or at least reduced to nothing.
'Boar spears do not just snap,' she said. 'My father was always very strict about the state of the hunting equipment, particularly when it came to boar. He had the spears checked regularly.'
'By your senior huntsman?'
Alicia reached for a roll of bandage while Judith threaded a needle. 'Maurice never made any complaints against Rannulf's efficiency,' she said carefully. 'I cannot say that I know him well myself.
He came to us from Belleme on Robert's recommendation.'
'Would he be willing to commit murder for the right amount of silver?'
'Truly I do not know, my lord. Anything is possible if my brother-in-law has his hand in the pie.'
'Has someone then offered Rannulf silver to give you a weakened spear?' Judith asked to the point.
'Probably. De Lacey was talking to him most earnestly in the hall last night and he's not the kind to mingle with servants unless it be for a specific purpose. I will know more when I have had an opportunity to question Rannulf and ... ouch!'
'Hold still , my lord, and it will not hurt as much.'
'I think you are enjoying this,' he grumbled.
Judith wrinkled her nose at him. 'Tush, my lord.
So much complaint for such a "little scratch".'
'Insolent wench,' he growled, eyes laughing.
Baffled, Alicia watched the two of them as she prepared the poultice of mouldy bread. Here was no frightened child flickering nervous glances at the world through a haze of tears and, despite Guyon's obvious pain and preoccupation, he was handling Judith with the ease of a man accustomed to women, not one who would deflower her savagely in a fit of unbridled lust.
Guyon clenched his teeth and endured in stoical silence until Judith and Alicia had finished with him. Judith wiped her hands and brought him a cup. He sniffed the contents suspiciously.
'Valerian, yarrow and poppy in wine,' she told him. Guyon tasted, grimaced, put down the cup and began to ease his sleeve over the bandage.
'It will relieve the pain.'
'And dull my wits,' he retorted.
Judith sighed and went to find him a fresh pair of chausses and some salve for his grazed cheek and thigh.
'It seems that I have misjudged you,' Alicia said to him softly.
Guyon finished arranging his sleeve. 'I hope I have enough common sense to realise that rape is not the best way to begin a marriage. I haven't touched her and I won't until she's ready ...' He stopped and looked round as his father swept aside the curtain and strode into the room.
'Your huntsman's bolted,' he announced starkly.
'Snatched de Lacey's courser from a groom and was out over the drawbridge before anyone could stop him.'
Guyon's eyes darkened. 'God's teeth!'
'That is not the worst of it. De Lacey's gone after him and with every right to kill . Pembroke's with him and de Serigny. Chester's taken de Bec and some of the garrison and ridden after them.'
Guyon swore again and reached for his swordbelt.
'I'll meet you in the bailey,' Miles said.
Guyon struggled to tighten the belt with his injured left arm. Judith hastened to help him.
'Have a care, my lord,' she said anxiously. 'I fear that Rannulf may not be the only quarry.'
He looked down at her upturned face and with a humourless smile, tugged her braid. 'Forewarned is forearmed, so they say,' he replied. 'I promise you I'll do my best to stay alive.'
Riding hard they caught up with de Bec and Chester a little beyond the village and de Lacey upon the track that led eventually across the border into Wales.
'I thought I had him!' de Lacey growled, 'but the bastard's doubled back on me. Bones of Christ, when I catch him I'll string him up by the ball s. Do you know how much that stall ion is worth?'
'Nevertheless, I will have him alive,' Guyon said curtly.
'God knows why,' Arnulf de Montgomery snorted. 'First that "weak spear" and now Walter's best courser. The man's guilty, no doubt about it.'
'Yes,' Guyon said, 'and I want to talk to him about why.'
Pembroke flushed. Ralph de Serigny looked puzzled. De Lacey drew his sword and turned his horse, momentarily blocking the road.
Guyon and his father exchanged glances. Without a word Miles dismounted and disappeared into the woods bordering the road.
He had sp
ent his boyhood among the Welsh hill s and, saving the supernatural, could track anything that trod the earth, including a rat that smelled so bad the stench of it was all pervading.
'Put up your sword,' Guyon said to de Lacey, 'Rannulf will meet his end in justice, not hot blood, when the time comes.'
De Lacey returned his stare for a long moment before breaking the contact. The sword flashed again as he shrugged and began sheathing it.
'This is justice,' he said.
Unease prickled down Guyon's spine. He began reining the chestnut about. Simultaneously there was a warning shout and the whirr of an arrow's flight. He flung himself flat on the courser's neck and the arrow sang over his spine and lodged in a beech sapling on the other side of the road.
De Lacey drew his sword again and spurred his stall ion into the forest. De Bec bellowed and kicked the dun after him while Hugh of Chester rammed his own mount into Montgomery's horse, preventing him from pursuit. Among the trees, someone screamed. Guyon hauled on his rein and urged the chestnut in pursuit of de Lacey and de Bec.
He was too late. The huntsman Rannulf sprawled in sightless regard of the bare winter branches. Walter de Lacey, his tunic splashed with blood, stood over him, his eyes blazing and his whole body trembling with the aftermath of violently expended effort and continuing rage.
Miles was leaning against a tree, face screwed up with pain and arms clutching his torso.
Ignoring his injured arm, Guyon flung himself down from the courser and hastened to him.
'I'm all right,' Miles said huskily. 'Just winded. I'm not as fast as I was ... more's the pity.' He flashed a dark look at de Lacey and pushed himself upright.
Guyon glanced him over and, reassured, swung to the other man. 'I said I wanted him alive!' he snapped.
De Lacey bared his teeth. 'Should I have let him knife your father and escape?'
'If you were close enough to kill him, you were close enough to stop him by other means, but then dead men don't talk, do they?'
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