The Leopard Unleashed (30 page)

‘Strong,’ he said, which was also an inevitable part of dutiful adult admiration.

Renard drew aside the covering from Henry’s christening gift and looked at the shield leaning there. A black leopard rampaged across a golden background in direct imitation of Renard’s own shield, but it was only half the size, suited to a child who one day, far too soon for his mother, would leave the safety of maternal skirts to learn the warfare skills, his life depending on how well he learned and how well he was taught.

Elene could see that Renard was both surprised and touched by the gift and the thought behind it. Men watched their sons’ development with more pride than fear. Indeed, it was the custom in every warrior household that a child’s first solid food should be taken from the tip of his father’s sword so that he developed a taste for the steel. She managed to smile, however, and thanked Henry warmly.

Henry’s mouth twisted. ‘My nieces and nephews are the nearest I’ll ever come to children of my own. I …’ He swallowed and looked very quickly at her and away again. ‘I have no wish to marry and I’m no great catch except to fat merchants’ daughters who are hoping to add a title to their wealth. No, one day this little fellow will inherit Oxley, or I hope he will.’ He cleared his throat.

Renard glanced up from admiring the craftmanship of
the small shield. ‘You mentioned news from Shrewsbury?’ he said.

‘The sheriff ’s mustering a force. Ranulf de Gernons has finally turned rebel and seized Lincoln castle from the King’s custody.’

‘What?’ Renard’s gaze sharpened. ‘When?’

‘First day of the Christmas feast. Ranulf and Roumare sent their wives into Lincoln castle to talk with the constable’s lady and to pass the time of day and courtesies. When the time drew nigh for the women to leave, Chester and his brother wandered into the keep with a small escort as if to fetch them away, but rounded on the garrison instead and held the castle until their reinforcements hastened from their hiding places. The whole of Lincoln’s in an uproar. The citizens have sent to the King for help, and the call to arms has gone out. Likely you’ll have it by official messenger very soon.’ There was a certain satisfaction in Henry’s tone because for once he had the advantage over his brother.

Renard gave Elene an eloquent look. ‘I said it was too peaceful, didn’t I?’

Elene nodded woodenly. Her throat was too tight to speak. Renard was going to war again. It had not been peaceful at all, just the calm before the violence of a storm.

‘I suppose,’ said Renard with a sigh, ‘that I’ve had a year’s grace for Caermoel. If it doesn’t withstand war now then I might as well break my sword over my knee.’

‘I’m sorry to be the bringer of bad tidings.’ Henry looked between his brother and Elene.

‘No.’ Renard moved to clasp him on his good shoulder. ‘I’m glad to see you, truly glad. How’s the arm?’

Henry raised the limb and flexed his fingers. The
movement was sluggish because he was still cold and numb from his ride, but at least he had feeling and a reasonable degree of control. ‘I manage,’ he said with a bleak smile. ‘As ever, not well, but I manage.’

Renard Fitzguyon to his dearest wife Elene, greetings
.

Does it ever do anything but rain on this side of the country? I think not. My hauberk should be fashioned of fish scales not iron rivets. Owain and Guy have worn their fingernails to the quick keeping it clean of rust
.

Our quarry is absent, chasing support in the south and has left his wife to defend Lincoln castle against us. It is not as foolish as it sounds. As you know, Matille is Gloucester’s daughter and he’s a fonder father than Ranulf is a husband. Whether it will force him through this sleet and wind to her aid I do not know, but she is conducting a spirited defence as if she well expects to be succoured
.

The King is using the cathedral as a base from which to conduct the siege and we are encamped between it and the castle, well above river level, thank Christ. In several places it has burst its banks and flooded folk out of their homes
.

I do not know how much longer we will be constrained to remain here in Lincoln. Two more weeks at the very least I suspect, by which time I will need more silver to pay the men
.
Send me two barrels from the strongbox at Ravenstow. I need not tell you to ensure that it is well escorted. Include too, if you will, a hogshead of Anjou. The stuff here tastes like river water and even getting too drunk to care about our current discomfort is an unwholesome task. Henry manages it very well, through recent long practice I suspect
.

I spoke to Adam yesterday. He is reluctant to be here, but resigned. Although his sympathies lie with the Empress, they most certainly do not lie with Ranulf of Chester. He gives you his greeting and asks that you ride over to Thornford and show Heulwen and the children this letter – you know the difficulty he has in setting quill to parchment
.

I pray that this siege is finished soon, for if it is not, I swear I shall go mad with naught to do but crouch in a draughty tent, watching everything grow mould or becoming rusty while I huddle in my cloak and try to keep warm. Well I remember other ways of keeping warm with you and I cannot say whether the remembrance is a pleasure or a pain
.

Written at Lincoln the first day of February
,

Renard finished writing, discarded the quill which had started to split, and sent Owain from his task of oiling a spear tip, out into the sleet to find a messenger. Across the tent, as he sanded the parchment and set about melting wax to seal it, Henry clinked pitcher to cup again and focused on him with the owlish scrutiny of the well drunk.

‘Did you ask Elene for more wine?’ he said.

Renard shot his brother a frosty look. ‘Yes.’

Henry took several loud gulps. ‘Good.’

Renard added pointedly, ‘Whether I actually get to drink any myself is another matter.’

The smell of hot wax mingled with the other musty,
pungent odours of the tent. Henry wiped his gambeson sleeve across his mouth. ‘You don’t begrudge me an odd measure, do you?’

‘The odd measure, not at all,’ Renard said in the same, cutting tone. Of late Henry had been resorting to entire flagons.

‘’S all right then,’ Henry said. ‘Wine numbs the pain from my wounds … all of them.’ He pointed at the letter. ‘Have you told her everything?’

Renard wrapped the letter in a square of waxed cloth and tied it up deftly, cutting the string with his dagger. ‘Such as?’ he said as he concentrated on the task in hand.

‘Such as that yellow-haired wench who came scratching round the tent last night?’

Renard looked surprised. ‘Why should I tell her about that? She knows full well that whores abound in an army’s tail and that they proposition every man in sight. If I made mention, she would think me guilty.’

‘And aren’t you? I saw what she was doing.’

Renard rested his palms on the table. ‘If you hadn’t fallen down drunk, you’d have seen me push her away. I wasn’t that desperate.’

Henry sneered. ‘You must think I’m an idiot!’

‘Jesu, Henry, just get out,’ Renard said wearily as if to a truculent child. ‘Take the flagon if you want. I doubt there’s more than dregs left in it anyway the way you’ve been swilling it down your throat!’

Henry lurched to his feet. Unbalanced by drink and his damaged right side, he almost fell, clutched at the table for support and knocked the pitcher sideways. Renard was right. Little more than dregs did remain to trickle away into the floor. ‘Perhaps I am an idiot!’ he snarled as he
regained his feet. ‘But I do not need to be made to feel like one!’

The tent was very quiet after he had gone. Renard swore and stared unseeingly at a clump of black mould sporing there. It was not about a yellow-haired whore at all. It was about everything that he possessed and Henry did not.

He swore again, and the messenger just entering the tent in Owain’s wake baulked, stared for an instant and quickly dropped his gaze to the sheepskin hat in his hand.

Renard pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘It wasn’t personally intended,’ he said and picked up the neatly sealed package. ‘I want you to take this to my lady wife, wherever she may be. Try Ledworth first.’

The man took the letter, and bowed from the tent. Owain came forward and unobtrusively began to clear the shards of broken jug from the tent floor. ‘Shall I bring you a fresh jug, my lord?’

Renard shook his head and drew another sheet of parchment towards him, indicating that he wanted to be left alone. The parchment was beaded with wine, the colour of rain-diluted blood. He shovelled his thoughts impatiently to one side like an overworked groom attacking a pile of soiled straw, and with brisk decision trimmed another quill.

Moments later Owain burst back into the tent, Guy d’Alberin hot on his heels and both boys quivering and wide-eyed as a pair of young deer. ‘Sire, come quickly! The scouts have sighted the rebel army drawing nigh the river!’ cried Owain. ‘Thousands of them!’ A rapid swallow garbled the last word.

Renard dropped the quill, left his stool and the doubtful warmth of the brazier, and went outside. Cold needles of sleet stung his face and the ground underfoot was as
treacherous as a butcher’s shambles. Men were leaving tents and watchfires to view the approaching army, their faces a mingling of expressions ranging from bored ‘seen it all before’ cynicism, through frank, fairground curiosity, to excitement and gut-wrenching dread.

Owain’s ‘thousands’ proved to be a vanguard of less than thirty mounted knights with perhaps twice that number of footsoldiers, and all of them spreading out along the far bank of the swollen Witham, searching for a suitable fording point. Renard narrowed his lids the better to see the shapes busying themselves below, industrious as aphids colonising an orchard leaf. Tents were being pitched and more men were riding to join them through the gathering afternoon murk.

‘How’s the fire in your belly, Renard, hot enough for a battle?’ asked Ingelram of Say, one of his fellow barons.

‘What fire?’ Renard hunched into the thick wolf-skin lining of his cloak. ‘To whom do that lot belong?’

‘Robert of Gloucester, so the rumour flies.’ Ingelram sleeved a drip from his narrow beaky nose and sniffed loudly. ‘Alan of Richmond’s sent a detail down to guard the ford. I hope he’s chosen doughty men or we’ll have that lot over our side of the river faster than a whore can lift her skirts for business.’ He jerked his head at the cath -edral. ‘Are you coming to the King’s Council of War? Give your pennyworth of advice to our beloved sovereign for how much notice he will take?’

Renard bestowed a tepid nod on the garrulous Ingelram. ‘In a moment.’

Ingelram shrugged at him and disappeared. Renard stared through the drizzle at the activity below and saw a figure on a raw-boned, spotted horse pacing along the river
bank. The soldier, helmeted and grey-clad, was indistinguishable from any other of his kind, but the horse was all too sickeningly familiar.

Overnight the sleet turned to snow, a white curtain hissing silently into the fast-flowing river, blanketing one side’s view from the other. In a freezing dawn, breath wreathing the air, feet stamping to preserve some vestige of circulation, Stephen’s barons gathered in the cathedral, first to celebrate a special mass commemorating the purification of the Virgin Mary, and then, that dealt with, to hold another Council of War and plan their next move now it was known for certain that a huge rebel army was gathered on the opposite bank of the Witham and seeking a way across.

The candles were as cold in the hands as stalagmites, the wax inferior and as flaky as scurfy skin. Stephen’s flame sputtered with blue flickers of impurity as he followed Bishop Alexander up the nave. Cloth-of-gold shimmered on ivory and crimson wool. Jewels and link mail alternately twinkled and extinguished as the procession moved. Supplicating breath chanted heavenwards, sweetened with incense that blocked the more earthly smells of last night’s wine and garlic-seasoned salt-fish stew.

Renard uttered the familiar responses through chattering teeth. The candle wobbled in his frozen fingers, the flame fluttering and ghosting. The vast, cold, vaulted glory struck no answering chord in his soul. Bishop Alexander of Lincoln was a man too bogged down by temporal concerns to enthuse a spiritual uplifting in others similarly bogged down, beset by chilblains and varying lacks of piety.

The incense tickled Renard’s nose. He stifled a sneeze
before it could disturb the chanting or blow out the precari -ous, coddled flame of his candle. The mass progressed, and responses learned by rote left his mind free to wander.

The besiegers besieged. Matille, behind her battered but still intact castle walls must be celebrating this mass with a heart as light as thistledown. Her husband, whatever his faults, was a good soldier and strategist when not over-reaching himself with ambition. What might have seemed like over-reaching this time was now shown as an audacious gamble about to pay its reward.

Renard slipped a surreptitious glance at some of his fellow barons. Alan of Richmond caught his look and gave him an uneasy smile and a half-shrug in return. William of Aumale, Earl of York stared stonily at the altar, the candle in his huge fist as steady as a rock. Renard knew without looking further round that Henry was not among the lesser barons thronging the nave. The duty of guarding the fording point had fallen to him, his men and a detail of Richmond’s knights.