The Wild Hunt (12 page)

Cursing, his men attempted to control them and their own mounts and draw their weapons at the same time.

Walter de Lacey swung his sword at a sheep, but stopped in mid-motion, his wrist arrested in response to the nocked arrow aimed at his breast. A range of ten yards made death a certainty.

There were men among the sheep, rising to their feet, their tunics wrong side out affording them a sheepskin camouflage, unseen until it was too late. Welshmen, dark and slender, with short swords at their hips and the deadly longbows in their hands.

'
Yr cledd
,' said the nearest Welshman gruffly, jerking his nocked bow at de Lacey's sword. The Baron's mouth tightened. For a moment the blade gleamed in his hand as he turned it, contemplating folly and then, as the Welshman adjusted his line of sight, he spat and threw it down among the sheep.

'You'll die for this,' he said thickly.

Without reply, the Welshman gestured him and his over-lord down from their horses.

Robert de Belleme was not afraid. It was an emotion he seldom experienced even in the teeth of death, but his fury at being trapped and helpless to extract himself, surrounded as he was by bumping, bleating sheep, raged so hot that he was incandescent. His hands were lashed behind was incandescent. His hands were lashed behind his back. A black hood was forced down over his head and tied there, clogging his sight. Barbarian Welsh jostled his muffled ears. De Lacey's invective was cut off by the sound of a dull blow and then retching. Someone laughed. Rage stuck in de Belleme's gull et and almost choked him.

Small coarse hairs from the cloth hood clung to his lips and tongue. He writhed and struggled and felt the bonds saw into his wrists.

Guyon lowered the bow, his eyes sparkling with laughter. His throat quivered as he controlled the impulse to shout his triumph aloud. Commands flickered in Welsh. Fresh pack ponies were brought and the loads transferred. Sheep, destriers and the now unladen ponies began their escorted journey deep into the wilds of Powys where, except by Welshmen, they would not soon be found.

Guyon murmured something to one of his companions, his voice warm with triumph as he studied the two men, bound like caterpillars in a web. In a single swift motion, he straddled the mount that Eric had brought him.

The words were lost upon his victims, but not the rich delight with which they were spoken and, had de Belleme not seen with his own eyes Guyon FitzMiles sliding beneath the trestle, overcome with drink and had not his assailant been so obviously Welsh, he would have known immediately at whose feet to lay the blame.

As it was, he lay in the road, struggling within his cocoon, hearing the curses of men similarly encapsulated fighting to win free. Horses circled and plunged around him. The Welsh tossed banter cheerfully hither and yon in dips and swoops of singsong language, haranguing each other and their victims alike and then, like autumn swallows, they were gone. A hoof caught de Belleme's side as the last horse departed and involuntarily he arched at the sudden buffet of pain.

Silence descended and it began to rain.

CHAPTER 9

Rhosyn listened to the rain as an eddy of wind drove it against the hafod shutters. One of several spring squall s. In between, the stars would peek through the scudding clouds in pinprick points of diamond light.

The fire, banked for the night, gave off a low, comforting glow, glints of red jewel warmth winking beneath the aromatic logs of the diseased pear tree that Twm had cut down last year.

Rhys and Eluned were newly abed. She could hear their conspiratorial whispers behind the curtains. Her son had turned eleven last week and thought himself very grown up. At fourteen, in Wales, he could claim his manhood. She would be thirty then, Eluned ten and this new babe, if it survived the early months, would be rising from helpless infancy into sturdy childhood.

She picked up her sewing, took a few half-

hearted stitches and, with an irritated cluck, put it down again. The rush-light was too poor for this kind of delicate work and her mind was restless tonight, fluttering purposelessly like a moth at a candle flame. The baby turned in her womb, busily flexing new, delicate limbs. She felt the thrust and flicker with a protective hand. With almost four months of carrying left before the birth, she had not yet burgeoned into ungainly discomfort. Her ripening body was still a pleasure and she was lost in the wonder of it.

The old dog sitting with its moist nose at her knee suddenly growled deep in its chest and stiffened. Rhosyn stood up to face the cottage door, one hand reaching for the rake that Twm had earlier been using on the floor rushes.

It was Twm's voice she heard outside now, gruff and questioning. A horse snorted. A man replied with amusement, the tone deeper than her servant's and edged with a foreign inflection to the Welsh she would have known anywhere. She bade the dog lie and, dropping the rake, flew to the door and unbarred it to the night.

'Guyon!' she cried and flung herself into his arms. Twm arched a knowing resigned brow and, completely ignored, dismissed himself to his bed.

Rhosyn withdrew from the hard clasp of Guyon's arms and tugged him inside the hafod. Gelert whined and thumped his brindle tail on the rushes. She reset the bar and came once more into the circle of his arms.

'You smell of sheep,' she said against his mouth.

He nuzzled her cheek with a stubbly jaw. 'What kind of greeting is that for a man who has ridden hard for your sake?'

'Not for your own?' Rhosyn queried pertly, her eyes laughing, as green and gold as moss agates. 'You are overblown with vanity indeed.'

Her dark hair spilled down over his hands in a fine, cool cloak. Her breasts were ripe and warm against his chest. Within her belly the child kicked.

'How goes it with you?' he asked, his face suddenly all tenderness and concern.

Rhosyn gave a little shrug. 'I'm not sick any more, indeed, I've an appetite like a bacon pig.

When I start to waddle like one, I will curse you and a certain hot, harvest night ... Have you come alo--' She stopped. Guyon lifted his head from contemplation of her glowing skin and brilliant eyes just in time to be almost bowled over by the two children.

They were like puppies, gambolling and clamouring; Rhys's new-found manhood had flown out of the window to leave only the excited child. Guyon bore with it very well , riding out the first storm with wry, rueful humour, curbed behind a half-turned head as their mother calmed them with dire threats and a voice suddenly grown as sharp as the flick of a lash.

Subdued, but not defeated, Eluned went to fetch Guyon something to drink and Rhys sat down before the banked fire, hugging his knees, a dark scowl on his face.

'How long will you stay?' he demanded, slanting Guyon a hard glance.

'Rhys!' his mother reprimanded more sharply than she had intended. It was a question she herself wanted to ask but dared not.

Guyon waved aside her anger with a grin. 'I am accustomed to it by now. If he was not so obviously a boy, I would think it was my wife sitting at my feet. She has that way with her too.'

There was a strained silence. Rhys's question was just the crust of the loaf, one of a thousand questions Rhosyn longed to ask him, but would not do so in the presence of the children and for the sake of her own pride.

'A few hours only, Rhys,' Guyon answered the boy. 'I have dared to pull the devil's tail and I must be in my own bed before dawn lest he scorch me with his pitchfork.' He smiled at Eluned and took the mead she offered him. It was strong and sweet and as honey-golden as the fragrant harvest evening on which the unborn child had been conceived.

Rhys looked blank for a moment and then his quick mind took in the implications of the rough Welsh garb and coupled it with his knowledge that Guyon had skill s most Normans did not.

Something clandestine had been afoot and Lord Guyon did not intend the blame to lie lying at his door. Eluned, younger and impressionable when it came to tales, took his words at face value and regarded him wide-eyed.

'And precisely where is your own bed?' Rhosyn asked, setting a platter of bread and cheese before him and thinking with a hint of bitterness that they were like courtiers, feting him with adulation.

Guyon gave her one of his quicksilver glances.

'Ledworth,' he answered and did not elaborate.

Instead, he tossed something to Rhys.

The boy caught the item deftly and transferred it to his lap. It was a leather sheath, lined with raw wool to hold in place the knife it contained and keep it naturally oiled. The knife itself was almost a weapon. Eight inches long with a blade gleaming as bright as fish scales against the blue herringbone pattern that fanned from its centre.

The hilt was carved from a narwhall tooth.

'I know it is a month after Candlemas, but I had not forgotten your year day,' Guyon said as Rhys examined the knife with speechless delight.

Rhosyn eyed the gift with mixed feelings.

Childhood was almost behind the boy and the knife was a symbol of the man too soon to emerge. 'You should not,' she said to Guyon with a frown.

'Grant us both the indulgence,' he answered, his voice light, but his gaze eloquent as he drew Eluned into the circle of his arms. 'And I had not forgotten that it is your own year day come Easter and, since I am unlikely to be here, I have brought your gift early. Guess which hand.'

Delighted, Eluned played the game with him and he teased her, knuckles clenched, his sleight of hand eluding her. At length she pounced on him, giggling and he conceded defeat, begging abjectly for mercy and presenting her with a small cloth pouch containing a string of amber beads.

Eluned flung her arms around Guyon's neck and delivered him a smacking kiss. 'The surest way to a woman's heart,' he chuckled as he fastened the beads around Eluned's slender throat.

'You buy us all ,' Rhosyn agreed and, blinking, turned away to mend the fire. Guyon watched her over the child's tumbled black hair.

'That is not true,
cariad
,' he said softly. 'I have never had the price of you and I doubt I ever will .'

Rhosyn savagely poked the logs. 'You have always had the pretty words to cozen what you cannot buy!' she snapped. 'Rhys, Eluned, it is long past time you were asleep. Go on, get to your beds now!'

'But Mam ... !'

Her eyes kindled with wrath. 'Do as you are told!'

Guyon lifted his brow at her tone, shot her a speculative look and squeezed his warm, rebellious armful. 'Obey your mother,
anwylyd
,' he said gently. 'It is time she and I had a private word. Go now.'

Eluned pouted, unconvinced. Rhys stood up, the knife in his hand, his expression a mingling of childhood and maturity as selfishness warred with duty. After a hesitation, the latter dominated. He thanked Guyon most properly for the knife, kissed his mother on the cheek and crossed the hall to withdraw behind the bed curtain.

'It's not fair!' Eluned complained.

'Life never is, my love,' said Rhosyn bending to hug her daughter. 'You'll discover it time and again as you grow older. Now say good-night and be off with you.'

The child sighed heavily but did as she was bid.

Her grip around Guyon's neck almost throttled him. 'I wish you could stay,' she said, her lips warm on his cheek.

'So do I,
anwylyd
,' Guyon replied and meant it.

When they were alone, Rhosyn again mended the fire even though it was unnecessary. The silence stretched out and the old dog whined.

When she could bear it no longer, she threw down the poker and spun round to face him, her words almost a cry. 'Why have you come?'

'I thought you would be pleased to see me
.
'

Rhosyn drew breath to snap that he thought wrong, but changed her mind before the words were spoken. 'I am too pleased. You disrupt our lives. You come with your gifts and your ensorcelments, you beguile us into adoration and then you leave. I cannot bear it!'

'You have it in your power to change that,' he answered gently. 'You are welcome to make your home at one of my manors.'

'A pretty caged bird to sing at your pleasure!'

she flung, turning back to the fire.

'I did not come here to quarrel,
cariad
. Nor do I intend to leave upon one. We know each other better than that. If I have rubbed salt into a wound then I am sorry. You never gave me cause to believe that it ran any deeper than a mutual pleasuring.'

Rhosyn bit her lip and dug her nails into her palms, striving for the control to smile lightly and say that yes, he was right, it had not run any deeper. She felt his hand lightly on her shoulder turning her to face him. 'I needed to know how you fared.'

'Well , now you do,' Rhosyn would have drawn away except that he held her fast and kissed her averted temple, the corner of her eye, her cheek and her mouth, refusing to release her and, indeed, her struggles were only half-hearted and soon ceased.

'I am foolish, Guy,' she murmured, setting her arms around his neck. 'I see the moon in a pool and I am disappointed when my hand despoils the illusion instead of grasping the reality. Be welcome for whatever time you choose to stay.'

Their embrace deepened, warm, sweet and poignant, desire sweeping but hard-held by the presence of the children a thin curtain away and, in Guyon, by a reluctance to cause Rhosyn a deeper wound than she had already suffered. He broke away first, his breathing ragged, and prowled to sit at the fire. His body protested. It had been a long time since he had lain with a woman and his hunger was keen. Keen, but not desperate. Whatever his detractors said, sexual liaisons were not to Guyon an immediate necessity of life. Given the leisure, the right circumstances and a willing partner, he enjoyed indulging his senses. But as now he possessed only the latter, he drew several deep, slow breaths and made his mind busy with other thoughts.

'Where is your father?'

Rhosyn sat down beside him, just out of touching distance and picked up her distaff. Her fingers were trembling. She concentrated on the raw wool until the hot weakness left her limbs.