‘Fleeing the devil?’ he asked in heavily accented French. She tossed her head and looked him in the eyes, a feat not difficult because she was tall for a woman and he a little less than average for a man.
‘The devil’s attention would be more welcome!’ she spat with a look over her shoulder, then let herself yield a little in his grip. She dropped her gaze and made her expression a demure contrast to the state of her garments and the manner of her exit. Virgin and whore embodied in one woman. The paradox never failed to excite. She could feel the heat of his gaze, and judging the moment precisely, broke from him.
‘Lord Ranulf is waiting for you,’ she said. ‘At least I presume it is you. He said that I was not the only Welsh whore he had to pay tonight for services rendered.
As she emerged into the bailey and blinked into the sleety wind, a young man wearing the inconspicuous garb of a Welsh scout rose from his crouch beside a semi-sheltered fire and advanced on her with sauntering, but definite purpose. It was only after he had circled behind her and to one side like a dog herding a sheep, and taken hold of her arm, that she recognised Renard’s youngest brother from the time she had seen him at Hawkfield. She had thought him handsome even then, much more so than Renard. Another year of maturity had carved character upon the fine symmetry of his bones.
‘I need to talk to you,’ he said abruptly and drew her away into a store-shed that was being used as extra stabling for the overflow of the army’s horses, his own spotted stallion among them.
‘Why?’ she mocked. ‘Are you lonely?’
‘Not that lonely!’
‘Then what do you want?’
‘I want you to help Renard before it is too late — before we begin moving out for Gloucester.’
She stared at him incredulously. ‘And how, pray, should I do that?’ she demanded. ‘Beg Earl Ranulf on my knees so that my tears melt his iron heart with pity? Bed the guards into exhaustion and steal the prison keys? I fear you have been listening to a surfeit of minstrels’ tales! No, let go of me or I’ll scream Ranulf ’s guards down on us!’ She prepared to kick him.
William sucked a breath through his teeth and released her, although he still blocked her way. ‘You have access to his bedchamber,’ he said.
‘Oh, I see. I murder him in his sleep and Renard dis — appears in the confusion?’
He ignored her sarcasm, his cause too urgent for a bout of repartee. ‘You take his seal, the one which gives authority to his documents, and you bring it to me. I will have ready a parchment authorising Renard’s release. The seal will give it credence and I’ll have him out of that hell-hole and on the Fosse Road faster than Earl Ranulf can braid his moustaches!’
Olwen’s gaze remained hostile. ‘Why should I?’ she asked coldly. ‘What gain is there to me in such risk?’
William ran his hand lightly down her arm. She winced and stiffened. ‘More gain than remaining as his mistress.’ He touched the broad, silver bracelet. ‘How many bruises did you trade for this?’
Olwen snatched her hand away, but withdrew no further. Her underlip caught in her teeth, she thought about making Ranulf look an utter fool and doing him out of the joy of having Renard an impotent prisoner. Not only that, but she would be putting Renard forever in her debt. Like a cat that has just groomed its ruffled fur into sleek order, Olwen recovered her aplomb. ‘So,’ she said in a smoky voice, ‘I do it for a passion gone cold and to avenge my bruises on Earl Ranulf?’
‘I don’t give a damn why you do it, only that you do.’ William snapped. Behind him, Smotyn pawed the straw and nickered to him, demanding a titbit. Rummaging in the pocket of his sheepskin jerkin, he brought out a heel of bread saved from the breaking of fast and offered it to the horse on the palm of his hand. It gave him a focus other than the woman, and at least Smotyn was predictable.
‘You could occupy your brother’s place as lord of Ravenstow,’ she answered in a provocative voice that her former lover would have recognised all too well. ‘It is yours for the taking.’
William’s strained control broke in an explosive oath. ‘Christ forbid!’ he cried. ‘I would rather be a landless beggar than yoke myself to that particular plough! Renard’s welcome to it!’
Olwen arched her brow at his horror. A man who spoke of power with contempt. A chill ran down her spine. She wondered briefly how it would be to lie with him, and quickly dropped the thought as if it were a scalding ingot. Far too seductive and dangerous. Cadwaladr ap Gruffydd was a much safer prospect and liable to lead her to an introduction to his kinsman, Owain Gwynedd, Prince of North Wales.
‘Supposing I take this tale to Earl Ranulf?’ she asked. ‘What might it be worth to him? I know that his hatred is not just centred on Renard. He would hang you from the nearest tree if he found out.’
William shrugged. ‘I’m a scout and tracker. I could go to ground faster than a deer in the morning and not be seen again this side of the Welsh border. How else would I get Renard beyond the hue and cry?’ Returning her look with one of his own, he slapped Smotyn’s neck. ‘And you would never feel safe again.’ He rested his other hand lightly on his dagger hilt for emphasis.
Warned, but uncowed, Olwen considered him steadily before turning to stroke the horse. A spark kindled within her and a feeling akin to that which she felt when dancing for men, the awareness of the power she had over them, as she had the power now.
‘You do not need to threaten me,’ she said softly to William. ‘For a passion not as dead as I would wish it to be, and to avenge my hurts on Lord Ranulf, I will do as you ask.’
Renard measured the span of time by the changing colour of the spear of sky trapped in the narrow window high above his head. Some of that span he fitfully slept, but most of it was spent in a relentless awareness of cold, pain and impotence, the latter the most intense of the three. Watching a man die was never pleasant. Watching your own brother when there were added currents of guilt, pity and a sense of failure, was sheer hell.
The dull grey of morning had dimmed beyond an early dusk into the pitch darkness of night. The wind whined through the unshuttered slit of light, bringing with it the tantalising discomfort of the smell of rain and raw cold without. The guards had come to empty the bucket and bring the by now familiar bread and ale. This time too, as a grudging afterthought, some dirty horse blankets had been tossed in upon them.
Henry alternately burned and shivered beneath Renard’s blanket and his own. The lash stripes smothering his back had been bathed in ale for want of anything better, but it had been of no use. His wounds had suppurated beyond all healing and the fever had continued to mount relentlessly. Another knight had already died of the wound fever. His body, along with that of the dead squire, had been dragged out that evening.
‘Gloucester tomorrow,’ said Ingelram, whose leg wound, despite all the odds, was not festering. He would carry a limp to his grave, but, precluding execution, he was not yet worm fodder. ‘He won’t survive the journey, Renard. Looking at him, I doubt he’ll last the night.’
Renard swallowed. ‘He’s had the wound fever severely in the past and survived.’
‘With this kind of nursing?’ Ingelram said disparagingly. ‘The signs are on him. He hasn’t pissed since well before noon and I can feel the heat of him from here.’
Renard gave him a furious glare.
‘It’s the truth,’ Ingelram said stubbornly, ‘even if you don’t want to see it.’
At which juncture Richard FitzUrse, out of pity, pulled his insensitive companion away.
It was still dark, the blackest part of the night immediately before dawn and Henry still clinging by the fingertips to life when the draw-bar was shot back and a voice, impatient, autocratic and very angry, snapped at the guards.
‘Authority?’ it demanded incredulously and there came the sound of parchment being struck vigorously with the back of a hand. ‘Is this not authority? The Earl of Chester’s own seal! Look at it, clod! He wants the most important moved out by dawn, and it will go more than hard with you if I’m not on that road within the half- hour!’
There was a pause and then a weak stammer. ‘We’ve had no orders, my lord.’
‘What do you think these are — morning rations?’ And then with a further virulent spurt of sarcasm, ‘or perhaps you would rather interrupt Earl Ranulf ’s slumbers and ask him yourself?’
‘N … no, my lord.’ The door slowly creaked inwards. The prisoners put up their hands, squinting against the sudden intrusion of torchlight, or else groaned and turned over, huddling away like hedgepigs curling up against danger.
A knight attired in a full coat of the best rivet mail, burnished mirror-bright, stepped among them. His head
