The Leopard Unleashed (17 page)

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 ruefully but said nothing. Her throat was too tight and she felt a little sick.

‘It will be all right, I promise you,’ Judith said as she prepared the traditional cup of spiced hippocras – another aid to potency and fertility. She shook her head at the loudest of the other women. ‘Take no notice of them unless it’s to feel sorry. They’d take your place if they could.’

‘I’m not worried,’ Elene croaked. ‘I only wish that …’ She stopped speaking and clutched at the coverlet as noise sounded in the antechamber, approached the inner room, until suddenly a cluster of less than sober men, burst upon the women Renard jostled among them.

Robert of Leicester was laughing so hard that he could scarcely finish the joke he was in the midst of telling. ‘… And the squire says to the whore, “The priest told me that if I ever sinned with a woman I’d be turned to stone, and look, it’s started happening!”’

Loud guffaws and drunken bonhomie. Someone slapped Renard so hard between the shoulder blades that he winced and staggered.

‘Steady on!’ cried another man. ‘It’ll be your blood that flows, not the bride’s if you render him incapable!’

More laughter. ‘It’s a blessing that bitch yesterday didn’t bite him any higher up!’ chortled de Lorys, and then howled as Adam dug an elbow viciously into his ribs to silence him.

Naked among the throng, Renard shrugged himself free of their grasping hands. ‘The only blessing I want now,’ he said, ‘is that of a priest on this bed. Where’s John?’

‘Eager to get to business, are we?’ grinned Ancelin.

Renard looked round, both amused and irritated. ‘Not “we”, Ancelin … At least I don’t understand from the vows I took that you’re to be involved in this.’

The remark was greeted with ribald shouts of laughter and Ancelin became the recipient of the shoulder slaps.

‘Send him to Hawkfield in your stead!’ slurred de Lorys at the top of his voice. Adam dragged him out of the throng and elbowed him again, this time in the diaphragm.

John thrust his way to the forefront, complete with silver vessel of holy water and a sprinkler. Although not drunk, he was very merry and his brown eyes were aglow with mischief.

‘What’s the remedy, Father, if Renard should find himself turning to stone?’ asked Leicester, nudging his chaplain.

John rubbed his jaw and pretended to consider. ‘Well now,’ he deliberated. ‘A dipper of cold well water blessed by a priest and poured over the offending member works wonders, but the best remedy by far is to put it in a warm, dark place and leave it there all night … if you know where to find one.’

De Lorys was too busy being sick in the antechamber to mention Hawkfield a third time. Leicester screwed up his face as if pondering the problem, then looked at Elene in mock, exaggerated understanding, his act greeted by
loud guffaws. Elene blushed a fiery red and refused to raise her lids beyond the hands that tightly gripped the coverlet.

Judith caught Renard’s eye and made a small gesture at the doorway. He saw that she was desperately hoping he was not as wine-flown as the rest of the men. Merry he certainly was, but nowhere near intoxication, and his mother’s concern and Elene’s strained expression recalled him to responsibility. The trick was to know how far to go without stepping off the edge, although sometimes other people pushed you over it. He thought of the bite mark on his thigh, Olwen’s deliberate branding. The wavering candlelight concealed the worst of it, thank Christ, but he would have bruising for days to come, and not just of the flesh. Olwen knew how to set her claws into a man’s soul and tear it to shreds. He shut her from his mind and abruptly stepped forward, hands held palm outwards to the chuckling crowd. ‘Enough!’ he cried. ‘I have to leave it in all night so the good father says and it’s halfway to cockcrow already.’

There was more laughter at the innuendo placed on the word ‘cockcrow’ and jests about rising at dawn, and then rowdy cheers and barracking advice as Renard climbed into bed beside his flustered new wife and John solemnly blessed and thoroughly sprinkle-soaked them with holy water.

Guyon’s voice was hoarse tonight, and he was unable to raise it and clear from the room the reluctant revellers who wanted to squeeze the last drop of enjoyment from the situation. William’s light baritone was useless and John had developed a severe attack of hiccups. Robert of Leicester, however, had a bellow on him like a rutting stag and muscle-thickened arms that gathered up, swiped into line, and ushered most effectively.

‘I trust you’ll remember this favour,’ he twinkled ambiguously at Renard as he stood on the threshold.

‘I’ll ask you to stand godfather to any child that comes of this night,’ Renard said drily.

Leicester chuckled. ‘I’ll hold you to that, with all these ladies here as witnesses.’

‘Was that wise?’ Judith murmured as the women kissed Elene and filed out.

Renard jerked his shoulders. ‘He’s Chester’s counter -balance, equally powerful. If I don’t cultivate him then I’ve got to cultivate the other. Besides, I like him.’

‘But he is firmly committed as Stephen’s man.’

He looked at her keenly then veiled his eyes. ‘Yes, Mama, I know.’

‘But …’ Her lips tightened.

‘It is my wedding night,’ he reminded her.

Judith looked away. Renard had taken his father’s black leopard as a blazon for his own shield, but adapted it from the couchant to the snarling rampant. If she had ever had her hand on its leash, the beast had long since torn free and now confronted her, narrow-eyed and dangerous. ‘Yes, so it is,’ she agreed softly and leaned to embrace Elene and then more tentatively her son. She wished them well, and left, her step slightly unsteady, although Elene could not remember having seen her drink more than two cups of wine all night.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked Renard as the curtain dropped behind Judith, and they were suddenly and silently alone.

‘Oh nothing.’ He eased the pillow against his spine. ‘She doesn’t like to see my hand hovering over a chessboard knowing that she cannot influence my next move. We’ve
always argued. She can’t wrap me around her little finger the way she can my father and it worries her.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Still, it’s thicker than water. If we fight, it’s not through hatred, rather the opposite.’

The silence settled, as heavy as the curtain and the door that separated them from the rest of the keep. Renard picked up the cup of spiced hippocras and grimaced. ‘Do you want some?’

She took it from him. ‘Don’t you like it?’

‘Loathe it,’ he replied. ‘I don’t know how my father can drink the stuff.’

‘It’s supposed to warm your blood.’ She took a quick sip. It was sweet, spicy with cinnamon and nutmeg and not unpleasant to her own palate. She took another swallow and stopped. My lips will taste of it, she thought, and he said he loathes it.

‘My blood doesn’t need warming,’ Renard said softly, watching the candlelight play over her skin and smiling at the way she kept the bedclothes modestly tucked around her breasts. She was shivering and as he touched her arm and took the cup from her, he felt the slightly rough texture of gooseflesh along her arm. ‘But yours does.’ Setting the cup down on the coffer, he turned and gently pressed her down on the mattress.

‘Oh,’ said Elene, wide-eyed, and swallowed.

He drew the coverings over and around them, swathing them in linen and thick, stitched-together furs, and putting his arm across her cold body, drew her close to share his warmth.

She made another small sound as she felt his heat, and then a movement between their bodies, a sleepy stirring against her abdomen and thighs. She tensed, trying to flinch
away from its growing hot intrusion but constrained to stay where she was by the weight of Renard’s forearm on her hip bone.

‘Lie still, Nell,’ he murmured. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’

‘I know … It’s just that …’

‘Hush.’ He kissed her gently and stroked the sensitive valley of her spine and the curve of her buttocks. ‘There is no cause for haste. You have to learn to walk before you can run.’

The coldness started to melt from her limbs. Renard’s hands and voice were soothing. She relaxed against him, and then a little more as she realised she was not about to be pounced upon and devoured. The wine swam in her blood and drowsiness began to steal upon her as he stroked her spine. She closed her eyes and her breathing slowed and deepened as she lazed in the pleasure of his fingertips.

Renard brushed his lips over her throat and the silky curve of her shoulder. He encountered a thick strand of her herb-scented hair, and raising his head to look into her face saw that he had soothed her too far. She was hovering on the verge of sleep if not already over its first threshold. He imagined the response of the wedding guests could they but witness this scene and laughed to himself at the irony. All the jesting, the knowing looks. No hope of a warm, dark place now. His mother would be pleased. No child for Robert of Leicester.

‘Oh Elene,’ he said helplessly to her unconscious form, and, shaking with silent laughter, put his head down beside her, his arm still across her body. His half-curious erection subsided. He was not in any need; Olwen had seen to that.
At the time he had thought it was better so. In hindsight, perhaps not. Too late. He closed his eyes and matched the rhythm of his breathing to Elene’s, and within five minutes was himself asleep.