Elizabeth Chadwick - The Wild Hunt

Compressing his lips Guyon sat down on the bench near the hearth.

'Rhosyn is in the hall ,' Emma announced as she dismissed the woman and poured the wine herself. 'You will have to tell her.'

Guyon eyed his sister warily as he took the cup and drank. 'What of it? She made it plain at Michaelmas she would not dwell as my mistress. She has no cause to complain.'

'She might not have had a cause at Michaelmas, Guy, but she certainly has one now.'

Guyon's wariness sharpened. 'Meaning?'

'Meaning she is not so skilled a herb wife as she thought and the rounding of her belly proves it. Midsummer I would say, to look at her.'

Guyon glanced from his sister's disapproval to his father's blank surprise. He took another swallow of wine to hide his consternation and feigned nonchalance. 'I'll speak to her tomorrow, but I do not see that this marriage will change anything. Willingly I will acknowledge and provide for a child if that is what she wants, but Rhosyn is a wild law unto herself.'

'I am not thinking of wild law, but Welsh law,' Emma said, as he reached for a piece of bread. 'A man's firstborn son, even begotten out of wedlock to a mistress, has equal rights with the other legitimate heirs of his body.'

Guyon discarded the notion with a shake of his head. 'I am Norman born, Em, and Welsh rights do not pertain this side of the border. I could cede a couple of holdings to a chance-gotten child without too much hue and cry, but no more than that. Besides, the child is yet unborn and might well be a daughter, in which case I will find her a good marriage when the time comes.'

Emma's full mouth pursed. 'It needn't have happened at all .'

'Don't be so finicky, sister,' he growled. 'The sin of fornication is a peccadillo compared with the ones I could have perpetrated at court.'

Colour flooded his sister's face. Her husband, as a minor chamberlain, knew most of what transpired in the immediate circle surrounding the King: the scandals, the petty power struggles, the prevalent vices, and Guyon, with his striking looks, disregard for propriety and hint of Welsh barbarity was a magnet to which all three were drawn whether he wished it or no. 'I expect you and Prince Henry keep tallies to compare your ruttings,' she snapped.

'Indeed we do,' Guyon said with a sarcastic flourish. 'How did you guess?'

Miles eased tactfully to his feet and stretched like a cat uncoiling. 'Time enough for discussion tomorrow,' he said. 'I'm for my bed and I'm sure Guyon is too.' He gave his daughter an eloquent stare. Guyon had his trencher piled high enough already without her heavy-handed seasoning of moral chastisement and righteous advice.

'A conspiracy of men,' Emma declared with a sniff, and then gave a tight smile. 'I know when I am beaten.' Going to her brother, she stooped and kissed his stubble-blurred cheek.

He tugged the copper-coloured braid peeping from beneath her veil. 'That does not mean you will give in!'

'Does it not?' She arched her brow at him. 'Let me tell you, I will gladly relinquish the battle to your wife and hope she has better fortune in taming your ways!'

'Know when you are beaten, do you?' he needled as she went towards the curtain. 'Is that why you always have to have the last word?'

In the great hall , Rhosyn rolled over on her lumpy makeshift pallet and sat up, irritated to discover that yet again her bladder was full . Beside her, oblivious, her father snored. He was a prosperous wool merchant these days, with a paunch to prove it. Complacent. They had fared well since their business dealings with Miles le Gallois. There was much profit to be had in wool and the cloth woven from the fleeces. Lord Miles bred it raw on the hoof. Her father sold the clip in Flanders and speculated a little on the wider trade markets - spices and leather, silks and glass - and they prospered.

Beside their grandfather, the children of her first, now widowed marriage slept in a puppy huddle. Rhys was ten, a sturdy, dark-eyed replica of his father. Eluned, seven, resembled herself — slender and fey with raven hair, autumnal eyes and a luminous complexion. This coming child, as yet scarcely realised; well , if a boy, she could only hope by God's charity that he inherited Guyon's beauty married to a less difficult nature.

Stupid, she thought, irritated at herself as she quietly left her children and her father to seek out the garderobe. Stupid to have been so easily caught, she who knew all her herbs and simples, or thought she knew because they had always worked before. Too late now, too dangerous, and not the season for the plants that would have cured her condition.

She had been in two minds whether to make this trip to Hereford with her father, but had reasoned that it would be her last opportunity before the weather grew too difficult for travel.

She needed to purchase linen for swaddling bands that she could stitch during the dark, hall -bound months of winter; and winter's threat was already upon them. The knife-bitter wind and the scudding snow squall s had caused them to curtail their journey early in the day and seek shelter under Lord Miles's roof.

Guyon's arrival at dusk had been a surprise, and she was not sure if it was a welcome one.

The news of his impending marriage had caused her no grief. She had always known the day would come, indeed, had held herself a little aloof with that knowledge in mind. He had a duty to take a wife of his own status and beget heirs, a wife who would have more in common with him than she ever would.

Rhosyn's practical nature told her there was no point in building upon their tenuous relationship.

For all his fluency in the Welsh tongue and his ability to adapt to Welsh ways, he was only one quarter of the Cymru and he was raised to be a marcher lord who would ride into Wales on the back of a warhorse to ravage the land if his King so commanded. He regarded the towering Norman border keeps as home and refuge, not as grey, enclosing prisons that hemmed in the soul.

The latrine was cold and stank of its main function, and she did not linger. Instead of returning to the hall , however, Rhosyn made her way to the small wall chamber where Guyon usually lodged when he stayed here. His gazehound, Cadi, lay outside the entrance, her nose tucked into her tail, but rose with a joyous whine of greeting. Rhosyn paused to stroke the dog and make a fuss of her, before lifting the heavy curtain.

Guyon had been sound asleep, but came immediately to his senses at the first soft clink of the curtain rings and the muffled whine of the dog.

This was the keep where he had been born and raised, his welcome here guaranteed, but these days he was so conditioned to react to danger, and complete security was so seldom his, that he was out of bed and across the room in the space of a heartbeat. He lunged at the figure outlined in the glow from the corridor flare. The crown of his captive's head butted his chin, jarring his teeth together. He bit his tongue and tasted blood. A supple body writhed against his and he felt the swell of a woman's breast beneath his fingers.

'It's me, Rhosyn!' she gasped indignantly, her French bearing the lilting accent of Wales. 'Have you lost your wits?'

'More likely you have lost yours!' he retorted, but with amusement now that he was fully awake and enjoying the feel of her body against his own. 'It is a foolish thing to creep up on a man in the middle of the night, cariad . Oft-times I sleep with a naked sword at my side. I might have cut off your head!'

'I have seen your naked sword frequently enough for it not to concern me,' Rhosyn replied with spurious innocence and pressed against him in the darkness. She tangled her fingers in his hair and stood on tiptoe to bite his ear and then whisper into it: 'But perhaps it would be safer to sheathe it, my lord.'