The Wild Hunt

everything that Maurice did not have the imagination to know.'

'Sweet Christ and his mother,' Miles swore, staring at her while he tried to assimilate what she had just told him.

She watched his face, waiting for the revulsion, but it did not come. It was a blank mask behind which any thought could have lurked. She covered her face and turned away.

After a moment, Miles mustered his wits. She was trembling so hard that he thought her flesh would shiver free of her bones. He laid a firm hand on her shoulder. 'It makes no difference to me,' he said finally. 'It is in the past and, knowing him, even at fourteen he was no innocent to be seduced unless he so wished.'

Alicia swallowed, remembering how it had been. She with a plan half formed, afraid to dare, and he with his mind already made up.

'So you will marry me?'

Alicia removed her hands tentatively from her face and looked at him. 'How can you say it makes no difference? I set out deliberately to cheat my husband. I bedded with a boy whose voice had barely broken, I--'

'You flay yourself with guilt,' he interrupted, capturing her hands in his. 'I do not doubt you.

The Welsh have a saying: Oer yw'r cariad addiffydd ar un chwa o wynt. Cold is the love that is put out by one gust of wind. I have taken women to my bed for the comfort and the pleasure they offer, never out of forced desperation. I account your sin the lesser.'

Alicia's mouth trembled with a smile. 'You are very persistent, my lord.'

'It's the mix of Welsh and Norman blood,' he agreed cheerfully.

She shook her head and sniffed. 'I cannot give you an answer. I am so confused that I do not know my head from my heels.'

He put out his hand as if to touch her, but let it drop again to his side, aware of how much was at stake. It was like stalking a deer. Softly, slowly and no sudden moves. 'Perhaps you should remove to your dower lands,' he said thoughtfully.

'It will give you time to think.'

Alicia stepped away from his disturbing proximity. It was obvious that his own mind was made up. She had shown him the black secret lurking at the bottom of her soul and he had dismissed it as of no consequence, still valuing her enough to offer her marriage. It was the first time she had felt her worth to be above that of a mere chattel. A pity it was thirty years too late.

'I hazard you do not often lose an argument,' she said.

'It depends on the subject.' He gestured. 'I could escort you home if you wish it. I have business with Hugh of Chester, but I could take you when I return, say in four days' time' return, say in four days' time'

'And if I say no?' Her tone was sharp, for she received the distinct impression that she was being manipulated in the direction he desired her to go.

'I'll have to think of something else, won't I?' he replied, still smiling.

CHAPTER 13

It was fortunate for Guyon that the journey into Wales proved uneventful, for he felt as though his brains had swollen to twice their size and were thumping the cage of his skull in a vigorous attempt to escape. It was a long, long time since he had fall en victim to an overindulgence of wine.

Since quitting the court, he had held to sobriety and his capacity to drink had thus diminished.

He knew he had not been considerate of Judith, but her sulky expression, her frown as he mounted up to ride out and his own malaise had not lent him the inclination to tug her braid or smile and bear with her. The guilt and the knowledge that he would have to make amends and somehow smooth their differences when he returned only made his headache worse, while his stomach churned like a dyer's vat.

By the time they reached the hafod it was full noon, the sun shimmering the men's mail to fish scales of light, dazzling the eye. Madoc, in his heavy wool en gown with coney trim was as red as clay, sweat dribbling down his face so that he looked as if he were melting.

Guyon tethered his grey to a post in the yard and then, his skull feeling as if it would split asunder, removed his helm and followed Madoc over the threshold.

Eluned ran to her grandfather and embraced him with enthusiasm. Tossing back her silky black hair, she saw Guyon and went to him. 'Mam's had the baby,' she announced. Her eyes, bright hazel like Rhosyn's, were anxious. 'It's a girl.' She clung tightly to his arm.

'I know, anwylyd.' He kissed the top of her head.

The midwife paused in ladling a cup of broth into a wooden bowl and looked at Guyon. 'Birth went easy enough,' she said to him with a curt nod. 'Babe's small , but she'll thrive.'

'May I see them?' he asked in Welsh, his tone deferential, for one did not trifle with the great respect in which these women were held. Other than the will of God, it was upon their skill that the life of a mother and child often depended.

'Take this in to her, lord,' she said, giving him the cup of broth. 'But do not be too long; she is tired.'

Eluned made to follow, but her grandfather caught her back and asked her to find him a drink.

Guyon pushed aside the curtain that screened Rhosyn's bed from the main room, and put down the bowl of broth on the coffer beside it. His movement stirred the air and Rhosyn raised her lids. For a moment she thought she was dreaming or that she had contracted the deadly childbed fever and was hallucinating. Then she rallied herself because Guyon was too travel worn and sweat-streaked to be an illusion. He was watching her with dark, pensive eyes as if he did not know how she would receive him. She sat up and softly spoke his name.

'Beloved.' He knelt beside her and took her hands in his.

He was wearing his mail shirt, the rivets glistening a sullen grey in the dim light. His business over the border this time was official.

'I am glad you have come,' she said and was annoyed by the betraying wobble in her voice.

'Did you doubt I would?'

'There was no obligation on you to do so.'

'No obligation?'

She watched his gaze turn to the wooden crib at the bedside and the swaddled scrap of life it contained and she bit her lip, afraid, knowing she did not have the strength to fight him if he chose to make of his daughter a battleground.

Oblivious, the baby slept, a fluff of red-gold hair peeping from beneath its swaddling cap.

'There will always be an obligation, cariad. '

'Guy ...'

'No,' he said softly, touching the baby's fledging fuzz before giving Rhosyn a look filled with pain. 'I am as leashed to your bidding as that hound out there ... Just don't kick me out of the door without giving me a chance. Does the little one have a name?'

Rhosyn shook her head.

'Permit me?'

'I ... I do not know.'

He took her hand. 'Why do I receive the impression that you do not trust me?'

'Because I don't. Naming is a kind of possession for life.'

'What else am I ever likely to have of her, Rhos?

A distant glimpse from a tower top. A snatched meeting here and there. From babe to child to woman in the blink of an eye. She is yours. I accept that, but at least grant me the grace of her naming.'

'Your way with words has always been your deadliest weapon,' Rhosyn accused him, shaking her head, her eyes brilliant with unshed tears.

'Very well , I grant you that grace. Do not abuse it.'

'Not Hegelina or Aiglentine then,' he agreed incorrigibly, but kissed her tenderly, almost but not quite with reverence, before he leaned over the cradle again to look at his sleeping daughter.