'Well ,
He knew she was not indifferent and that the times when her guard was down, he would have sold his soul to keep her that way. The times when her guard was up, she was impossible to reach.
Never once of her own accord had she offered him a sign of affection or endearment. Jealousy, yes, but that was an emotion born of insecurity and mistrust. The moves were all his, and they were straining the bounds of her acceptance.
Today he had stepped beyond the limit. Tonight she was blind drunk. So what else was left? He shied from the thought.
'
CHAPTER 18
On the crest of the hill , Guyon reined his courser to a halt and shielded his eyes to watch the goshawk assault the air on dark, swift pinions, gaining height against the hot blue sky before stooping like a wind-ruffled stone upon the desperate flight of a round-bodied partridge.
Prince Henry, triumphant owner, fisted the morning air as the partridge tumbled over in a puff of feathers and was borne to earth beneath the goshawk's talons. The falconer and a huntsman ran towards the two birds, one to be retrieved in proud prowess to Henry's wrist, the other to be added to the mound of soft bodies already culled that morning. The King's Norway hawk was a skilled killer too.
Henry stroked the breast of his own bird where she perched, dark wings folded, and deftly replaced the leather hood over the fierce golden eyes. Then he looked at Guyon.
'I hear your wife made quite an impression last night,' he remarked with a laconic grin.
'She is not accustomed to quite so much wine, my lord,' Guyon excused and eased himself in the saddle. He had backache as a result of sleeping on a lumpy, makeshift pall et within range of a sly draught.
Henry's grin deepened. 'I didn't mean that business with Alais, although I wish I had been there. I meant her resemblance to my grandmother, Arlette. Old Hubert couldn't believe his eyes, thought he'd seen a ghost and Rufus remarked on it this morning at mass ... and he told me an appalling joke.'
Guyon lifted his stiff shoulders. 'As far as I know, the only blood she shares with your family is that of her maternal grandsire, and, even then, the Countess of Conteville is not of that line.'
'Maurice FitzRoger's girl, isn't she?' Henry looked thoughtful. 'How old is she now, Guy?'
'She was born in the November of 'eighty-three, my lord.' Guyon squinted against the sun at the Prince whose look had suddenly grown secretive, the way it sometimes did after he had been closeted with Gilbert and Roger de Clare. Still waters ran deeper than anyone could fathom.
'Any girl of seventeen who looks like my grandmother deserves closer examination,' Henry said, still stroking his hawk, his gaze intent upon the action of his fingers.
'Angling for an invitation sire?' Guyon jested with the familiarity of long acquaintance and the occasional deeper friendship.
'How did you guess? Anyway, I used to rent the house. You cannot refuse. Is tonight all right? After the hunt?'
Guyon's gaze flickered and sharpened, for Henry's interest was perhaps a little too keen for comfort.
'I did wonder,' Henry said softly to the bird, 'but she never sent word. Perhaps it was just as well .'
'Sire?'
Guyon's tone must have given him away, for Henry uttered a forced laugh. 'God's blood, Guy, stop thinking wild thoughts! With a face like yours, is it likely that I'd be able to seduce your wife before your eyes, or even behind your back! I want to meet her, no more than that. Look, Rufus has started a hare!' He turned to the falconer, gave him care of the goshawk and clapped spurs to his courser's sides.
Guyon followed more slowly, aware of a niggling doubt at the back of his mind. Henry could lie the hindleg off an ass if expediency demanded. Guyon did not believe that he was lying now, but he was sure the Prince was concealing something. The problem with such a devious man was knowing what.
Judith would need to know that they had guests.
He had looked in on her this dawn before departing to hunt and found her huddled beneath the pelts in a heavy sleep. He knew the symptoms and how dreadful she would feel on awakening.
Renewed nausea, a tight, swollen drum where her head should be and a raging thirst. Hardly the best equipment with which to organise food and entertainment for a prince of the realm who was coming to visit her because she resembled his grandmother. In her present state Judith would doubtless give a commendable imitation of the said lady risen untimely from her crypt.
He muttered an oath beneath his breath, bent a scowl upon Henry's fast-disappearing back and, calling Eric to him, sent him off with a message.
Judith woke late in the morning with all the vile after-effects Guyon had predicted and more besides. Half an hour voiding in the latrine made her swear a miserable oath that she would never again drink the seemingly innocuous wines of Anjou, whose potency was so wickedly concealed. She had meant to drink enough to dull the edge of her fear and instead she had swallowed her way into hell . Of the night before she remembered little except being ill .
Green-faced, she directed Helgund to mix a valerian posset to ease her rolling gut and skull . It tasted disgusting and, fighting the urge to retch because by now her stomach was so sore, she retired again to bed to let the herb do its work.
She had been there perhaps an hour when Eric rode in with his message, half a dozen limp partridges over his saddlebow.
Panic ensued. Judith, her headacheaggravated to a megrim of titanic proportions, presided over a household that resembled a disorganised corner of hell . However, gradually, he r tenacious common sense reasserted itself.
This had once been Prince Henry's house. Well and good, let the Prince's machinery do what had to be done. Mustering her wits and drinking another cup of the valerian brew, she tidied her hair, put on a clean overgown and went below to visit Sir Walter and explain her predicament.
By noontide, the kitchen shed was bustling, the cook in receipt of the recipes for Henry's favourite dishes and two servants sent off to the markets to fetch whatever was not available on the premises.
A minstrel had been engaged, Helgund and Elflin were busy with brooms and beeswax polish and Judith had retired to the sinful luxury of a hot bathtub, the water scented with attar of roses, in order to compose herself for the coming ordeal.
Her gaze on the bed as she soaked, ignoring Helgund's dire warning that all the goodness would come out of her body, she wondered how she had been brought home last night and where Guyon had elected to sleep, for there had been no imprint in the bed beside her. Probably below with Sir Walter. A memory came to her, hazy and thick as wine dregs. Alais de Clare had been whispering in Guyon's ear and pressing herself against him. Perhaps he had shared a feather mattress last night, and not for the purposes of sleep.
Alais de Clare would give Guyon what he wanted without baulking or complaint, as would many other of the women who frequented the court. She had seen the way they looked at him ...
and at her, the amused patronising hostility, their thoughts naked in their eyes as they wondered how long she would hold him faithful.
She looked down at her body and then at the sinewy freckled forearm and wrist resting on the edge of the tub. She did not have Alais's natural advantages of a lovely face and ripe, lascivious curves, nor her amoral aptitude for coupling, but she probably had at least as much imagination if shown the right direction and she had always been quick to learn. The only problem was overcoming the fear of pain and subjugation, of being held down and used as no more than an object on which to breed sons. She knew Guyon would not treat her thus, but knowing did not prevent the thought from occurring. It was no light thing to step off the edge of a precipice with only a tenuous, recent trust for support.
