so the women say. How do the arm and shoulder feel?’
‘I’ve got some movement there, but it’s weak and it hurts like all the devils in hell to move it. I’ll have to toast you with my left hand.’
‘At least you’ll be at the feast. Last week we did not know if it would be held to mark your funeral instead of my marriage.’ Renard rose to leave.
‘Renard …’ Henry’s voice was husky. He did not yet have the strength to raise it. ‘You’re a lucky bastard. Don’t abuse it.’
Even enfeebled and distorted by physical pain, the emotion in Henry’s voice came through, and Renard stared at him in dawning astonishment.
‘Go away.’ Henry closed his eyes.
For a moment Renard remained where he was, just staring. He supposed that it was not so unlikely. Henry’s was the kind of nature to thrive on Elene’s gentle domesticity. All too easy for brotherly affection to deepen into something more dangerous.
‘Does Elene know?’
‘I’m not that stupid. Besides, it is you she has always loved.’ His eyelids tightened. ‘If I wasn’t so sick I wouldn’t be telling you this. Private … none of your concern. But if you forsake her for that dancing girl you brought home with you, I’ll kill you myself!’
‘How did you know about …’
‘I’ve got ears to hear. People talk over my head and think because I’m ill that I’m unaware … You didn’t come back last night until well after compline, did you?’
Renard was by now heartily fed up with people telling him to be kind to Elene. He could not, however, in the present circumstances, vent his irritation in a bad-tempered outburst on Henry. Composing himself he said, ‘I’ll do my best by Elene but I’m not going to give you reassurances about my “dancing girl” because I’d probably not honour them. I’ll explain later when you’re in a better condition.’ He looked round as Adam came into the room holding out a cloak.
‘Ready?’ he asked.
Renard nodded and swinging the garment around his shoulders stabbed in the round Welsh pin.
Adam looked from one to the other, sensing the tension. A frown was scoring two deep lines between Renard’s brows and Henry’s skin was beaded with feverish sweat. A maid came from the corner of the room with a bowl of lavender water and began gently to wipe him down.
‘What’s wrong?’ Adam demanded.
‘Nothing,’ Renard said lightly. ‘What could be wrong on a day of joy such as this?’ His brow cleared and he smiled, but his expression was as cosmetic as the fine wedding garments masking his hard, warrior’s body.
‘Wassail!’ The traditional cry echoed round the hall in the English tongue.
‘Drink, hail!’ came the response, and cups and goblets were raised and drained and not for the first time or the last.
Elene stared round Ravenstow’s great hall at the progression of her wedding feast. Flown with wine, Rhodri ap Tewdr, Welsh prince, wedding guest and family friend, was subjecting them all to an impromptu rendition of
Renard grimaced as the notes quavered towards the beams. ‘If I were a maid and he serenaded me thus, I’d run for my sanity,’ he leaned over to murmur in her ear.
‘It certainly doesn’t seem to have done him any harm by his wife,’ Elene contradicted. ‘How many children do they have now? Ten in as many years?’
‘It’s probably the only way she can get him to shut up,’ Renard said, then muttered an oath under his breath and started to get up as fighting broke out between one of Rhodri’s Welsh and a knight of Leicester’s household.
Rhodri was too far in his cups to do anything except stare reproachfully at the commotion interrupting his song. William plunged into the midst of the melee to separate the combatants before fists could become armed with knives and a full-scale war developed, and hauled the Welshman away by the scruff of his leather jerkin.
John quickly set about calming the knight to a muttering simmer. Renard subsided on to his chair. Brawls were a not uncommon hazard of wedding feasts when the wine was plentiful and people were brought together who would not always choose to be in each other’s company. Stephen’s Christmas court would likely be beset by similar or worse problems.
Elene watched Renard reach to his cup and swallow. The evening was well advanced and although mellowed by the wine he was by no means drunk, staying sober with an obvious purpose in mind. She picked up her own cup and drank to try and dispel her anxiety about their wedding night, and she continued to sneak glances at Renard. The tunic suited his darkness and she had been deeply satisfied by the responses of the guests when they first saw the bride and groom together, uncloaked at the wedding mass — two halves making one whole.
Renard turned his head and caught her looking at him. Her breath quickened and shuddered. Down the hall, shouts once more rose towards a crescendo, and with difficulty were subdued, the culprits dragged out into the sleety night to literally cool off.
Renard decided that it was time to set the next act in the charade into motion, one to which he was not averse. Elene looked very fetching. The crimson and green suited her well and the tight lacing of undergown and tunic accentuated her figure. The looks she had been giving him, full of tense curiosity, along with the warmth of the wine had stirred his blood. She might not have the skills that Olwen used to such exquisite effect, but her very innocence was stimulating.
Next time she glanced at him, he trapped her with his own stare and, leaning forward, kissed her. Elene’s eyes closed. So did Henry’s where he sat propped upon cushions in a high-backed chair and his good hand dug into the plaid of the blanket covering his knees. Renard’s own eyes were open and he saw his brother’s reaction. On a surge of pity, he withdrew from the kiss, for its signal had already been recognised by the more eager of the wedding guests. A raucous cheer went up. He felt Elene stiffen and draw away from him, her pupils so widely dilated that her eyes looked black. Giving her a reassuring smile, he rose to leave. The women converged upon her, led by Judith, and bride and groom were separated for the bedding ceremony.
Henry declined to be carried upstairs by some well-meaning but drink-fuddled guests to witness the ceremony. He said that he was tired. He said that he did not want to be jostled about. He said that he would rather wait downstairs in the company of a flagon.
Elene shivered as the women stood her on a sheepskin rug near the hearth of the main bedchamber and began disrobing her. First the tunic, then the undergown, followed by soft shoes of gilded leather and the fine woollen hose and garters, and finally her chemise so that she stood naked, bathed in the fireglow, her hair crackling around her hips.
Some of the women were eyeing her dubiously and discussing whether or not her hips were wide enough for successful childbearing, their voices over-loud with the wine they had drunk. Heulwen silenced them crossly while Judith draped a bedrobe around Elene’s goose-fleshed shoulders and drew her to the bed.
Memories of her own wedding night crowded Judith’s mind. She had been a couple of years younger than Elene and terrified of the coming ordeal, never having known anything but abuse from men. It had been this very chamber and a night like tonight with snow threatening in the wind and the women around her offering advice that was meant to be practical and kind but that had only increased her dread. One of them had given her a pot of dead-nettle salve, telling her that it would soothe her abused female passage. Another had told her not to worry; the bigger the man and the more it hurt, the more likely she was to conceive a boy. By the time the men had come into the room, Guyon naked among them, she had been almost insensible with terror.
Elene’s situation was different. The girl had known since childhood that she would marry Renard. Her father had been strict with her but not brutal, and when he died she had grown to maturity among her future family at Ravenstow. The fear was bound to be less, but even so, Judith knew that at this precise point in the proceedings, it was all too easy to become overwhelmed.
Elene grimaced and wriggled on the strewn, dried flowers. The scent of lavender rose from the bolster and pillows and there was a strong herbal smell from the crushed plants beneath her. She looked at Judith and smiled
