'Have you told your wife?' Rhosyn wiped her eyes on her shift.
'Judith knows,' he said without inflection.
'And is not best pleased?'
He rubbed his aching forehead. 'She's developing a sense of possession,' he said ruefully, 'and sometimes it is uncomfortable.'
'I read her letter to Huw's wife. They were not the words of a child. Children grow up, especially at that age. It may be that suddenly you have a woman on your hands.'
His mouth twisted. 'It would still be rape,' he said laconically. 'Not that much of a woman.'
'Even so, bear it in mind, Guy,' she said and then was silent, drinking her broth before it went cold.
'Heulwen,' he said after a time. 'What do you think?'
She put down the cup, looking surprised.
'Heulwen?'
'I promised no Norman monstrosities.'
'I thought you would choose Christen, for your mother.'
'I already have a flighty niece to bear that name.
No, let her be called for my Welsh grandmother, Heulwen uerch Owain. Besides, she has the colouring to suit the name.'
Rhosyn cocked her head, considered, and then slowly smiled. 'Yes,' she said softly, 'I approve, Guy. I approve very much.'
The midwife appeared to shoo him out of the room and Madoc was waiting to usher him to the table, still short of wind but a better colour and full of self-satisfied bonhomie. Eluned clamoured for his attention and he gave it with half a mind and smiled at Madoc with another portion, locking away what was left until it could be reviewed without tearing the fabric of his soul. Heulwen.
Sunshine. Clouds across his vision.
Travelling home, he would have been at Ravenstow's gates by compline had not Arian cast a shoe and begun to limp. The fine weather had broken up, the innocent, fluffy clouds of early morning displaced by a seething mass of charcoal grey, laden with rain.
'Best rest up for the night, my lord,' said Eric.
'There's a village not far and there's bound to be a farrier.'
Guyon blinked through the downpour. The ground beneath his feet was a brown tapestry of mud and puddles and his boots and chausses had long since become saturated. Despite it being summer, he felt chilled to the bone. Beyond the lush June-green of the trees and against the lowering sky, a church tower reared through the rain. Further away, dominating its knoll , crouched the timber keep formerly belonging to Ralph of Serigny, but now the property by marriage of Walter de Lacey.
'You reckon it safe?' Guyon said wryly to his captain and slid the wet reins through his fingers, eyes half closed against the rain.
'No, we'll bide at the alehouse if they have one while the farrier sees to Arian, then we'll be on our way. I'd rather ride whole into Ravenstow than carved into joints and stuffed into my saddlebags.'
Eric grimaced. The Chester road at night in this deluge was not a heartening prospect, but his lord was right. They were too close to the Serigny keep at Thornford for comfort and Walter de Lacey, if he discovered their proximity, would not baulk at murder.
The village proved substantial enough to own not only a smithy, but a good-sized alehouse and while Arian was shod, Guyon and his men repaired to the latter to fortify themselves for the damp miles remaining.
The floor of the main room was covered in a thick layer of rushes upon which were set two well -scrubbed long trestles. Rush dips gave light of a kind and a fire burned cleanly in the hearth.
The ale-wife was a florid, handsome woman of middle years whose voice bore a strong Gwynedd lilt. Her husband, bluffly English by contrast, sent their son outside to tend the horses.
The only other customers were a young couple seated unobtrusively in the darkest corner of the room, quietly attending their meal. The girl raised her head at their entrance and stared at the armed men with wide, frightened eyes. She had fragile bones and delicate gauzy colouring. Her husband was a plain, wide-shouldered young man, somewhere between twenty and Guyon's own age. He looked warily at the newcomers and put his left hand protectively on top of the girl's.
His right stayed loose, within easy reach of the long knife at his belt.
Guyon, after one startled glance at the girl's luminous beauty, ignored the couple and sat down. Water dripped from his garments and soaked into the rushes. Eric gingerly eased himself down beside his lord and rubbed his aching knees.
The woman brought them bowls of mutton stew, fairly fresh wheaten loaves and pitchers of cider and ale, her manner deferential but briskly efficient. 'Foul night to be travelling, sire,' she addressed Guyon. 'You can bed down here if you've a mind to stay.'
He thanked her and shook his head. 'You've a new lord over at Thornford and I'd as lief not encounter him.'
'Worse for business than the plague!' complained the landlord, adding a bowl of honey cakes to the table. 'Started already it has and Sir Ralph barely in his grave. He could be a bastard, but he was so mean that it was good for business. Folks would come here rather than claim a night of hospitality up at the keep, what with him and mad Mabell for hosts.'
'Now folk don't come at all ,' his wife sniffed. 'Or if they do, they're like yourselves, here and gone for fear of Lord Walter and his routiers.' She hitched her bosom and stalked away.
Guyon and Eric exchanged glances. The couple in the corner finished eating and went out into the deluge, the man's arm curved around the girl's narrow shoulders.
One of Guyon's men gave an appreciative whistle. 'Pretty lass,' he said.
'Her father's one of the grooms at the keep,' the landlord volunteered, helping himself to a mug of cider, one eye cocked for the reappearance of his wife. 'The lad's a huntsman there, or he was.
Had an argument with the new lord and didn't see fit to stay beyond packing his belongings. He's a proud 'un, young Brand, and his wife's a rare beauty as you all saw. Sir Ralph was never one for the women. Too old and not enough steel in his sword to bother getting it out of the scabbard, but Lord Walter ...' He paused for effect and a gulp of cider and wiped his hand across his mouth. 'Nothing in skirts is safe from his pursuit.
Best game-keeper he'd got, that young man. New lord's an idiot if you ask me to throw away talent like that for lust. Mind you, I can see why he was tempted. I'd ...' He stopped, hastily put down his mug beside Eric's arm and stepped away from the trestle, pretending bustle as his wife returned, her mouth puckered, although not for a kiss.
Eric chuckled into his moustache. Guyon pushed his bowl aside and finished his ale, hiding his own smile behind his mug. 'I'm away to the smithy,' he announced, biting his lip to keep a straight face as their host grimaced like a goblin behind his wife's back. 'The farrier should have finished with Arian by now.'
'I'll come with you,' said Eric. 'There's safety in numbers in this neck of the woods.'
Guyon threw him an amused look, saw that his shield-bearer was grimly serious, and stopped smiling.
'We're in need of a huntsman at Ravenstow,' Guyon said thoughtfully as they crossed the street, which was deserted in the rainy evening. 'I haven't properly replaced Rannulf yet. Perhaps I should go after the lad and offer him employment.'
He flicked a mischievous glance at Eric and was not disappointed.
'You are courting danger if you do, my lord,' Eric warned. 'You heard what the landlord said. Sir Walter won't let them go, you know that. Don't you think you've chanced enough just lately?'
'And not so much as a boar in sight,' Guyon teased as they reached the smithy.
Eric inhaled to remonstrate, but stopped before t h e damage was done. Having been Guyon's marshal for fifteen years, he was all too aware that his lord could be a devil incarnate when the mood was upon him: witness that escapade with the sheep and the silver. Arguing with him only made him the more determined to follow his course. Hold to silence, and sense might just prevail.
Guyon glanced along his shoulder at Eric, almost laughing to see the poor man choking on words he was longing to utter. 'Surely I am not so unamenable to reason,' he jested and picked up Arian's forehoof to examine the new shoe.
