Elizabeth Chadwick - The Wild Hunt

And then she was facing him and his admiration fell away as he saw the look in her eyes and the set of her mouth.

'Rhosyn's dead,' she said without preamble. 'I have been wondering how to tell you, but there is no way to make it any easier.' He looked at her blankly. The sun was warm on the back of his neck but suddenly he felt frozen from crown to toe. 'They were attacked on our land, on the Llangoll en drovers' road yestereve. I gave her the escort she requested but they were all cut down. Father Jerome is in the chapel attending to what needs to be done ...' Her words stumbled to a halt.

He stared at her while everything slowed down and ground to a halt. 'Dead?' he repeated in a blank voice.

She grasped hold of his sleeve like a sighted person taking hold of someone blind. 'Guyon, come within and I will try to tell you what I know. Heulwen is safe. Eric's brother Godric saved her. They were the only two to survive ...'

He all owed her to lead him. Most of her words washed over him like an incoming tide, leaving only a residue of scouring grit and the words 'Rhosyn's dead' indelibly printed on his mind.

Judith gave him wine, lacing it liberally with aqua vitae. He sat down mechanically, looked at the cup, set it aside and raised disbelieving eyes to her.

'Tell me again,' he commanded. 'I don't know what you said.'

She repeated her words. His face never changed but, as she finished, he covered it with his hands. 'I am sorry, Guy,' Judith whispered. 'Truly I am.' He did not respond. 'At least you have Heulwen.'

He looked up at that. 'Yes,' he agreed tonelessly, 'at least I have Heulwen.' And then he laughed and shook his head and buried his face again.

Judith knelt beside him, her arm across his mail-clad shoulder. 'I wish I knew what to say, or how to ease the pain, but I don't ...'

'Then don't say anything,' he muttered and, after a moment, withdrawing from her grasp, he stood up and moved towards the door.

'Where are you going?'

'To the chapel, where else?'

'No, Guy!' She sprang after him. 'Wait at least until you have rested. I'll have a tub prepared and see to your comfort.'

'Do you think I care about that?'

'No, but I do.' She took hold of his sleeve.

'Let me go.' Shrugging her off, he continued on his way.

'Guyon, no ... It's not ... I mean ...' She drew a shuddering breath and momentarily closed her eyes. 'She did not die cleanly.'

'Stop treating me like a nursling!' he snarled and lengthened his stride.

Judith caught up her cloak and went after him. He might not be a nursling but he was inadequately prepared for what would greet him in the chapel.

Guyon looked at the row of shrouded pallets laid out before the altar, ten in all , white mounds of recent humanity.

Father Jerome fussed anxiously in the background. 'A terrible business,' he ventured, 'but they are at peace now.'

Guyon drew back one of the sheets to look upon the face of Herluin FitzSimon, a promising young man who had served with him during the Welsh campaign and who would one day, in his middle years, have captained a keep garrison. All wasted now on the edge of a sword. The linen shift in which he had been clothed did not cover the gaping wound in his throat or the sword slash that had laid his face open to the bone.

'At peace, are they?' Guyon enquired icily, replacing the sheet.

Father Jerome blenched. 'You must not doubt it, my son,' he said, putting out his hand to comfort.

Guyon stepped aside. 'I would rather you left me alone.'

The priest hesitated. Judith lightly touched his arm. 'Go to,' she said. 'It may be that he will need you later. I will stand surety for now.'

Relieved, the priest pressed her arm and quietly left her alone with Guyon. Judith squared her shoulders and went to her husband. He was staring down at Rhys.

'If Godric had not survived, the bodies would not have been discovered for some time. I was not expecting the escort back for at least three days and no search party would have been sent out before five.'

'You are telling me that this is fortunate?' he said huskily, as he drew the sheet back over Rhys's face.

'It could have been much worse. At least they were saved being despoiled by foxes and crows. Heulwen owes her life to Godric.'

'Sensible Judith,' he snarled. 'Guyon, stop it!'

'Do you interfere for pleasure or because you cannot help yourself?' he demanded savagely. 'In Christ's name, Judith, leave me alone!'

'In Christ's name, no!' she retorted with equal vehemence. 'I'll not be your scapegoat!' Going to the last pall et, she drew back the cover herself.

'Look and have done and come away!' she said brutally.

He flinched and his complexion turned the colour of ashes. Despite the work of Judith and the priest, Rhosyn's body was still not a sight for the squeamish. She had fought hard for her life and her beauty was marred by the livid bruises and distortions of strangulation. Her body beneath the shift was mauled and mutilated and her braids hacked off. Judith covered her up again.

Guyon swallowed jerkily. 'Where's Eluned?' he asked, fighting his gorge.

'De Lacey took her with him.' Judith compressed her lips. Guyon whitened further at the implications.

'My lord ...' said Father Jerome and was barged aside before he could say more by a wild-eyed, travel-stained young man.

'Where is she?' the newcomer asked hoarsely, his French so thickly accented with Welsh and filled with raw emotion that at first Judith stared at him without comprehension. His gaze flickered over the row of bodies and the vigilance candles.

'My Rhosyn, where is she?'

' Your Rhosyn?' Judith's expression sharpened. 'Then you must be Prys--'

'I went to fetch her father for burial and now I am told that I must bury her too, and the lad ...' The wild eyes fixed on Guyon with bleak loathing.

'Couldn't you leave her alone? If not for you, she'd still be alive and my wife!'

Guyon flinched. 'I did not know that she was coming to Ravenstow,' he defended himself. 'If I had, I would have stopped her. Christ knows, I tried to warn her.'

'You should have tried harder!'

'How much harder?' Guyon spat. 'How much would you have tolerated? Short of locking her up, there was nothing I could ever have done to hold her.'

'Then what in Christ's name was she doing here at Ravenstow?'

'She came to invite us to your wedding,' Judith said, trying to calm the sparks between the men that were threatening to flare into violence and violate God's altar and the dead who sought sanctuary there, 'and to talk of Heulwen's future.' It was not the whole truth, but she felt no remorse at withholding what could not safely be said.

'Neither matter was so pressing as to warrant this!' Prys gestured towards the row of corpses, and it came to Guyon that the young Welshman was as filled with guilt as himself, for he too had not been there to prevent this dreadful crime and rage was a bolt hole to be dived into rather than face the unfaceable.

Prys pushed past him and Judith. 'Which one?' he demanded. Judith opened her mouth to say that he should not look, but Guyon forestalled her by pointing to the nearest shroud.

'Walter de Lacey was the man responsible,'

Guyon said softly. 'I'm going to tear Thornford down stone by stone and make of that keep a burial mound.'

The young man drew back the sheet and fell to his knees at the side of the bier. 'Ah Rhosyn, cariad, no!'

Father Jerome set a comforting arm around Prys's shoulders, although there was nothing that could comfort the sight laid out before their eyes.

Guyon gently drew the cover over Rhosyn again. Prys shuddered and crossed himself.

Trembling, he rose to his feet and stared at Guyon.

'I'm a merchant,' he said, voice unsteady with unshed grief, and savage. 'I wear a sword for my protection, but I'm clumsy using it ...'