The Wild Hunt

her hand.

' Cath fach, ' he said weakly and found a smile from somewhere; this time his tone was not patronising. 'How bad is it?'

She could see his pulse racing in his throat and the sweat sheening its hollow. 'Bad enough.

You've lost so much blood that there's scarcely a drop left in your body and you're quite likely to develop wound fever. There were flakes of rust in the cut. I've packed it with mouldy bread, but it's hard to bind. I can't move you for fear that you'll open it again. You are going to be uncomfortable for no small time ... if you live ... and no, I am not japing with you. You had best prepare your soul.'

'What kind of comfort is that?' he said, tried to laugh and desisted, eyes squeezing closed.

Judith used the moment to scrub her face with her sleeve, refusing to be seen in tears. 'The only kind you'll get from me!' she snapped. 'And don't go to sleep. You've to drink this first.'

He lifted his lids, then with an effort widened them at the sight of the stone pitcher full to the brim and the cup she was filling from its bounty.

'All of it,' she said with a certain satisfaction.

'God's death, you evil wench. Robert de Belleme does not have sole monopoly on torture after all . What is it?'

'Boiled water, a sprinkling of salt and three spoonfuls of honey. It is to make up for the blood you've lost.'

'I'll be sick,' he said faintly.

Judith propped him up on the bolster and pillows fetched by the maid and rammed the cup under his nose. 'Drink it!' she commanded in a voice of steel that gave no indication that her knees had turned to jelly.

Something like surprise flickered across his pall or as he looked at her. 'I'm not worth it, Cathfach,' he said huskily.

'You are when I think of the alternative,' she answered, and lowered her lids over betraying tears.

As Judith had predicted, the wound fever struck and sent Guyon's temperature soaring out of bounds and with it his grip on reality. Steadfastly she did what she could to bring the fever down, Alicia giving her aid and relief between times.

During one of his lucid periods they moved him to the bed and Judith forced him to drink ox-blood broth in an effort to give his body the strength to fight back. He was promptly sick and she went away and wept in a corner, then returned and gave him more of the salt and honey water.

Once, his eyes glittering like black glass, he looked through her and spoke in Welsh as if holding a conversation. 'It would still be rape. Not that much of a woman.' And another time, 'She's developing a sense of possession and it's becoming uncomfortable.'

Bouts of raving showed her facets of his life that he had previously hidden from her. His relationship with Rhosyn, twisting like the current of the Wye, bitter-sweet as gall and honey. Once he laughed and called her Alais and made a suggestion that both flustered her and filled her with curiosity. She had not known that such a position was possible. During an occasional lucid spell , he would recognise her for her own self.

Cath fach, he would say and smile ruefully at his own febrile weakness. If she had ever desired revenge for his treating her like a child, she had it now and the taste of it was sour as vinegar.

After the second night, his condition worsened.

Miles rode in at dawn to find his eldest granddaughter gulping tears and clinging to her mother for comfort and the priest bending over Guyon's fever-ravaged body, administering the last rites. Judith, her face waxen, stood opposite Father Jerome, her hands clenched upon the cloth with which she had been wiping Guyon down in a vain attempt to lower the raging of his blood.

Miles came to the bed and gazed down upon his son's fight for life as he had gazed down on his wife's. Guyon's hair was lank with sweat, his cheekbones like blades with blue hollows beneath.

Miles looked at Judith. She returned his gaze evenly with eyes that were full of fear. It had gone beyond what she could do for him. In God's hands his life now lay and the odds against his recovery were not favourable. Beyond the moment she dared not think. Life went on; she knew it all too well .

Miles stood a moment longer and then, unable to bear the room, turned and strode out. Judith hastened after him and found him leaning against the rope-patterned pill ar of the cross-wall 's arch, his fist clenched upon the stonework, staring blankly at nothing. She set her hand on his arm.

Miles closed his eyes, opened them again and faced her. 'How did it happen?'

She told him. 'Eric won't be using his arm for some little time. I have scarcely spoken to the girl or her husband, but he told me they owed Guyon their lives and their gratitude. I need not tell you that at the moment it is no consolation.'

'No,' Miles agreed bleakly.

Judith bowed her head and returned to her vigil.

Two hours later, de Bec came grim-faced to tell her that Walter de Lacey was waiting in the outer ward.

She put down the mortar in which she had been grinding herbs. 'And what could he possibly want?' she said sarcastically as she made sure that Guyon was as comfortable as his condition all owed, and bade her maid Helgund stay close by him.

De Bec lifted his craggy brows at her. 'Mistress, when he saw our new huntsman, he didn't know whether to leap for glee or fall into apoplexy.'

'What a pity he couldn't decide,' Judith said viciously.

De Bec cleared his throat. In this kind of mood his young mistress was lethal and the man to best deal with her was in a raving fever at the gates of death. He took a deep breath. 'From what I have heard, you had best bring the lass up here out of sight until Sir Walter's gone.'

Judith considered, nodded and sharply bade one of the maids fetch Elflin of Thornford to her chamber.

The girl arrived from her duties in the kitchens.

There was a smut of flour on her cheek and her hyssop-blue eyes were filled with terror.

'Oh my lady, please don't send me back to him, for the love of God, I beg you. I'll kill myself, I swear I will !'

Judith looked at the bent flaxen head, the clenched small hands that were as delicate as a child's. 'Get up,' she said neutrally. 'Do you think that I would give you up to that scum when my lord has perhaps sacrificed his life that you should go free?'

The girl stood up and wobbled a curtsy.

'You say you would kill yourself?' Judith said coldly. 'You would do better to take a knife to the tryst and put it through his black heart.' Her voice seethed on the last words. She eyed the girl with contempt. 'Elflin, is it not?'

'Yes, my lady.' Her voice quavered, thin and reedy with fear.

'Well then, Elflin, stiffen your spine and stop snivelling. There is no room for a wet fish in my household. He won't have you, I promise. Now, do you take up that distaff over there and that basket of carded wool and work awhile. Ask Helgund if there is anything you need to know.'

Elflin squeaked assent and bobbed another curtsy.

Milk and water, thought Judith impatiently, then checked herself, recalling her own fear of the unknown in the early days of her marriage to Guyon and remembering too, with a guilty pang, his patience and good humour during that time. If she was not afraid now, it was because of him.

In the hall , Walter de Lacey was standing before the hearth. The chamberlain had furnished him with a cup of wine and she saw with a sinking heart that he was deep in conversation with Father Jerome, who had about as much guile as a newborn lamb. From the smirk on de Lacey's face as he watched her come forward, it was obvious that he knew and delighted in the news of Guyon's grave illness.

Stifling the urge to be rude until given grounds, Judith made a stilted, traditional speech of welcome.

De Lacey's smile was supercilious. He looked at his nails. 'I am sorry to hear that your husband is so grievously wounded, but the fault is his own.

He should not have meddled in my affairs on my lands.'

Father Jerome frowned at him. 'My lord, as I understand matters, he came to the aid of innocent travellers being wrongly molested.'