LordoftheHunt (5 page)

Cobwebs, another indication that no one had discovered the
passage in the many years of his absence, draped the ceiling. As children he
and his brother, Robert, had delighted in their secret knowledge of this place.

A series of arches decorated in colored tiles marked other
corridors and empty chambers off the main path. They, too, remained unchanged.
Robert and he had hidden their boyhood treasures down here and practiced
combat, playing at Roman gladiators, shouting and racing about, sure no one
could hear them and order them back to their lessons.

Finally, Adam reached his destination. He passed through an
arch and entered a round, domed chamber. He lifted his candle and surveyed the
space, turning in a circle.

The chamber was as it always had been.

It was covered in a delicate mosaic tile. The dome was blue
as if ‘twere the sky. The walls depicted the forest rendered in a fine detail.
The floor was likewise tiled, but with flowers and butterflies on a field of
green broken by a path in mottled brown. The design led the person who entered
the room to walk to the opposite wall.

Adam followed the path and set his candle on a marble slab
that might have served as an altar in ancient days. Idly, he drew his
fingertips through the thick dust collected there and looked up. The altar
served an ancient goddess.

Diana the Huntress
.

She was a beauty, standing with her bow in one hand, the
other on the head of a stag who bowed his great antlered head in homage.
Diana’s hair tumbled about her shoulders and breasts. She was naked. The
artist, who’d rendered her in tiny tiles of multicolored stone, had been a man
of great talent.

She looked as if she might step down from the wall and put
out her hand to him. Adam remembered offering a prayer that such a thing might
happen when he and his brother were boys. As a child, he’d place a hand on the
smooth, cold tile of her breast and wish to know the soft flesh of the real
woman. He stood back this time and simply looked. He was no longer a boy to
make such a wish.

The flickering light of the candle flames ran over the
mosaic. Suddenly, his Diana looked like the woman Hugh styled the huntress.
Joan
.

A bolt of lust ran through Adam’s body as if shot from
Diana’s bow. It coursed through him from his groin to the soles of his feet. He
put a hand out toward the wall, then drew it sharply back. He waited for the
sensation to recede.

Instead, as he looked up at the goddess, the desire
intensified. He wanted to see the real huntress as this Diana was, with her
hair in a tumble about her bare shoulders, the tips of her breasts showing
swollen and ripe between the strands of gold and brown.

He knew in that moment he wanted the huntress in his bed. He
wanted to watch her dark eyes as she found her pleasure.

“Enough,” he chastised himself. “I do not need the
distraction of one woman whilst I’m courting another.”

He swept up the candle and left the chamber for the short
length of corridor that opened to the right. The tiles and arches gave way to
rough stone again, and he ducked the intrusion of tree roots where the vaulting
had fallen away through the centuries. Corridors gave way to simple caves,
caves within caves, a confusing labyrinth, yet he wandered them as if ‘twere yesterday
when Robert had scratched the small telltale marks to guide their path through
what they called the Roman Way.

At last, Adam saw a glimmer of moonlight. He pushed aside a
tangle of matted roots that masked the back of a damp cave and slid behind a slab
of rock dropped by some ancient god’s hand. He emerged to stand on a tumble of
boulders high over the river that passed by Ravenswood Castle.

Adam looked out over the countryside. Ravenswood’s towers
were concealed by a wreath of mist in the moonlight.

All this should have been his.

He’d walked at least a mile in the Roman caverns. He
imagined the advantage to Marshal’s traitor should he learn of the Roman Way.
As of yet, no man had disturbed what he always considered his private place—and
Diana his private goddess.

He knew his mind should be on traitors and fine ladies in
search of worthy husbands, but as he looked across the river, his thoughts
returned to the huntress.

In his mind’s eye he saw her as she had been in the forest,
head bowed, the boar dead, her dogs waiting as if carved in marble. A sound,
the baying of a hound, echoed across the cultivated fields to mock him.

“I am mad. Marble indeed,” he said to the distant moon.

He climbed down the steep bank to the river’s edge. It wound
like a silver ribbon through the manor lands. He stripped off his clothing and
plunged into the icy water to exorcise the huntress from his mind.

Just as he rose from the water, a heavy body dropped on him,
plunging him beneath the surface. He flailed about, seeking some hold on the
sleek skin of the hound who licked his face and pawed his chest.

He wrestled the beast to arm’s length and stood up in the
shallows. “Come, boy, you’ll drown me.”

The dog broke from his embrace. The hound swam to the bank
and scrambled up to shake himself off at his mistress’ side.

Adam rose, water swirling about his thighs, arrested by the
sight of the huntress on the riverbank. She was molten copper and ivory in the
moonlight, but her face was hidden in deep shadow. He could not breathe.

Then she turned and disappeared between the trees.

Had he imagined her? Conjured her out of desire?

He put a hand to a trio of scratches along his shoulder.
He’d not dreamed the hound.

Adam walked his stolid hunting stallion, a horse not likely
to dump him on his ass, through the milling party of men and women who gathered
for the day’s hunt outside the castle walls.

Today’s fare was tame park hunting. It allowed the ladies to
participate and others to watch from the castle walls. There would soon be
little point in the hunt as morning waned. Lady Mathilda had yet to appear. She
was more than an hour late.

She had not attended the breakfast at which the hunt
strategy was outlined and the stag droppings displayed among the bread and
cheese to be examined for age and size by the hunters. He smiled at the
unlikely image of the dainty Mathilda poring over the excreta of a stag. No
wonder the lady lingered in bed.

Joan Swan had not been present either.

Few huntsmen or hounds remained near this sweep of castle
green. Most had gone out in relays to confine the stag in a convenient area.
From his years at Ravenswood, Adam knew the hunting area would be the defile,
for it could be seen from the castle ramparts. The defile was formed of two
hills separated by a rushing stream. He knew the area as well as he knew the
lines on his hand.

The relays of huntsmen along the defile ensured the joy of
hunting without the loss of the quarry. They would drive the stag toward the
hunting party.

A few feet away from Adam, Ravenswood’s Master of the Hunt,
Nat Swan, marshaled the remaining men and dogs who would ride along with the
hunting party. It was no easy task as Roger Artois, along with several other
suitors, had brought his own hounds to add to the confusion.

Amidst it all, Joan Swan moved about with a regal grace.
Adam admired her tall, fine figure. She was garbed in deep green as were the
other huntsmen.

Her hair was not loose to glitter in the morning sun as it
had been on the previous day, but was hidden beneath a head covering.

She smiled and rubbed the ears of two coupled hounds. He
enjoyed the way her breasts moved against her gown.

Roger Artois’ hunt master, a gangly redhead, chastised
Joan’s father for getting in his way, though Adam thought ‘twas more the other
way around.

A blast from a huntsman’s horn turned his attention. Lady
Mathilda and Bishop Gravant rode from the castle gates.

She was garbed in white from her veil edged in gold to her
leather boots. Her horse was snow-white with a braided mane.

Beside her, Bishop Gravant looked like night to her day. His
rich black surcoat and mantle had the look of ecclesiastic robes though they
were not. His concession to religion lay on his chest, a gold cross heavy with
rubies. The ruby in one of his rings was the size of a plover’s egg. The
bishop’s long face had the jowls and flush of a man who dined well. His head
was fringed with black wiry hair now beginning to gray.

Gravant made the sign of the cross over the hunting party,
and they moved down the greensward toward the defile.

“Look at Randy Roger pushing his way to Mathilda’s side,”
Hugh said. “That should be you.”

Adam smiled. “You’re as bad as a mother trying to make a
match for an ugly daughter. Leave off. I’ve little fear Roger will have the
lady. He’s as appealing as a starved fox.”

“Did you not notice the way Gravant fawned on him? And
look,” Hugh nudged Adam’s knee with his, “Roger’s hunt master is filling the
bishop’s ear with some nonsense about his dogs.”

Adam looked for the redhead. Indeed, the man was flailing
his arms and pointing about. “Aye, but he’s doing more harm than good; he has
agitated the lady’s mount.”

There was little time to think of a retort as the hunt
began. Adam had to lie back and hide his knowledge of the ground and forest.
The hounds who hunted by scent raced ahead, encouraged by the music of the horn
and the sharp cries of the huntsmen.

As the stag passed the relays, the huntsmen uncoupled their
hounds, and their voices were added to the mix.

Adam knew the stag could not win. He and Hugh kicked their
horses to a quicker pace as the beast was driven down the defile, chased by the
running hounds.

Adam enjoyed the wind in his face, the skill of the hounds,
the horse moving beneath him. He also enjoyed maneuvering his horse so Joan remained
in view.

Mathilda rode badly, swerving in front of Hugh’s horse on
several occasions so he barely missed riding up her mount’s hocks. The speed of
the hunt deteriorated to accommodate Mathilda’s pace. In the end, the stag was
brought down by a pair of Lord Roger’s alaunts.

Adam worked his way to Mathilda’s side at the curée, the
unmaking of the stag, the time when the best of the beast was set aside for the
bishop’s table, the dogs rewarded with their own portion, and the rest sent
back to the castle kitchen.

The bishop performed the unmaking with great skill, not
wearing a drop of blood, nor even rolling back his sleeves.

The party formed a procession, led by the bishop and a
servant bearing the stag’s head mounted on a staff. The suitors maneuvered for
a position by Mathilda, and Adam swallowed a grin when a boy suitor, not more
than five and ten, named Francis de Coucy, outplayed them all, nudging his
horse close to the lady.

They wended their way back down the valley to the greensward
in view of the castle walls. There they found a pavilion with pastries,
pyramids of fruit, and pitchers of ale. Adam drew his horse alongside Hugh’s.
They watched Roger Artois elbow Francis de Coucy aside and help Mathilda
dismount.

Adam shook his head over the duo. “Do you think the lady has
a black gown for a black horse?”

But it was Brian de Harcourt who answered him, not Hugh. “Or
a blue horse for a blue gown?”

Adam smiled and acknowledged the jest with a bow. “Do you
think she feels hunted like the deer?”

“Mathilda? Nay. She’s used to such adoration.”

“You’ve known the lady for years, have you not?” Adam
dismounted, stifling a groan at the protest from his spine for several hours in
the saddle.

“I was fostered with Lady Mathilda’s brother, Richard, and
spent my summers here until about two years ago.” Brian dismounted. Along with
Hugh, they led their mounts to a patch of shade as had others who rested from
the hunt.

“Then you have an advantage over Lady Mathilda’s other
suitors,” Hugh said, beckoning a servant strolling about with tankards of ale.

Brian shook his head. “I must confess I was much occupied
with Richard and paid her little notice.”

“You must have been blind,” Adam said, draining his cup. A
servant rushed forward with a pitcher to refill it.

Brian colored. “Richard was an avid hunter and often at odds
with his father. He rebuilt an old verderer’s hut into a fine hunting lodge,
and we spent most of our time there.” He grinned. “Drinking ourselves senseless
and swiving the serving maids.”

“What became of Richard?” Adam asked, though he knew.

“He died of a fever. Lord Guy was a broken man after that.
Richard would have made a fine lord here.”

Nay, Adam thought, the De Poitiers family were interlopers.
Usurpers of his father’s rights and honors.

Hugh pointed to where Joan Swan stood in the field, her
hounds in a circle about her feet. “She’s quite lovely, in her own way, is she
not?”

“Plain Joan? Aye,” Brian said. “In truth, I found her much
more to my taste than Mathilda.”

Adam swung his attention to Brian, but found the man’s face
unreadable.

Hugh crossed his arms on his chest. “Plain Joan,” he mused.
“There’s nothing plain about her lush ass. I’d like to get on all fours behind
her.”

There was no mistaking the quick shift of Brian’s shoulders.
Adam thought it likely Brian knew the huntress quite well. It explained their
manner to one another in the forest the previous day. Jealousy, an unreasonable
emotion, surged through Adam like a fierce alaunt after a stag.

To exorcise the vision Hugh had conjured, Adam turned toward
Mathilda’s ivory perfection.

But Joan walked in their direction, and he found he could
not concentrate on Mathilda—nor call this other woman plain. The huntress
looked at everyone but him. That, and her high color, told him she had seen him
quite well swimming the night before.

“My lords.” She curtsied, including him in her address.
“Lady Mathilda wishes to return to the castle and bids me inquire if you are
finished for the day.”

Brian said to Adam, “We might as well retire with the quarry
gone from the field.”

Adam gave Brian a mock salute.

Plain Joan was but a few paces off, and when Brian turned to
speak to Hugh, Adam hurried to catch up with her. He walked at her side toward
the dogs being coupled and put into carts.

“I pray you will forgive Matthew’s lapse last evening, sir.”
Her voice was low, meant only for his ears. “Matthew is spirited and loyal, but
ofttimes lacking in manners.”

Adam rubbed his shoulder. “I can hardly fault the hound but
a few hours after I’ve had my life saved by his fellows.”

She took a deep breath, and said, “You are good to be so
generous.”

“I would still like to offer you some recompense for—”

“Nay, please, say nothing more.” She looked not at him, nor
at the men who followed a pace or two behind, but at her father. “I should not
have had the dogs out. I would rather—”

“I understand.” He searched for an opening to further
conversation. She looked ready to run, the high color back in her cheeks.

“I much admire the way you handle the hounds,” he said.

She smiled. “Nat taught me all I know. He’s a true master
with the hunting hounds.”

Adam could not help smiling back. Her brown eyes were
flecked with gold. Freckles were scattered across her nose and cheeks like sand
over a silken cloth. He imagined Lady Mathilda would weep an hour for each one
if ‘twere her face so marked.

“Has your father been master long?” Adam remembered Nat but
not because of his hounds. Nat had meted out discipline to his kennel lads—and
the lord’s sons—in equal measure.

“For over three decades.” Her voice was filled with pride.

Adam wondered why he did not remember Joan as a child here
at Ravenswood. Surely, she should have made an impression on him, although she
was probably five or six years younger than he. The females of the keep had
always flocked around him, no matter their age—much like men flocked about
Mathilda, he thought, ruefully.

Hugh and Brian gained on them. Adam found himself outflanked
by Hugh, who shouldered his way next to Joan.

“Has your father any pups to sell, mistress?” Hugh asked
her. “I’d like to have one as canny as that spotted hound.”

“I’m sorry, my lord, not now, but we would be most honored
to give you the pick of the next litter.”

Brian and Hugh engaged her in a long discussion on the
spotted bitch’s lineage while Adam listened.

Why did he not remember this forest sylph? He’d have surely
called her Dog Wench or some other derisive name. It was what boys did to
female servants, especially young ones.

Nat Swan kept glancing over at them, and Adam turned away
with a sudden apprehension the hunt master might recognize his former lord’s
son.

“I must go, my lords, sir.” She curtsied, then turned to
Hugh. “I’ll tell my father you would like one of the pups.”

She walked away with a sleek grace that matched that of her
hounds. As Adam watched, she fisted her hands. Two dogs rose from where they
lay in the grass and flanked her. The way the dogs moved with her smacked of
some magical communication. He smiled. Maybe she was a forest deity after all.

“Plain Joan little resembles her father,” Hugh said. “Her
mother must have been a beauty.”

“Actually,” Brian said, “Nat is not her father.”

Adam swung his attention from Joan to Nat Swan, who called
out orders to his huntsmen, setting the carts of dogs in motion. “How so?”

“If I have the story right, Nat was sent by the former lord,
Durand de Marle, to purchase hounds in Chichester. Upon Nat’s return he came
upon Joan’s family. They’d been traveling to Winchester Cathedral. She could
not have been much more than ten at the time. I believe her father was a
scholar of some note and wanted to consult the books there.”

“A scholar? How curious,” Hugh said.

“Go on,” Adam said, impatient with Hugh’s interruption.
“What happened?”

“As I said, Nat came upon her family. Joan’s mother was
being raped by three men. Her father and brother had been butchered by the trio
and lay there beside the mother in a pool of blood, or so the story goes. Nat
set his dogs on the men, but he was too late to save the mother.”

“And Joan?” Adam watched her touch Nat’s sleeve and smile up
at him. He now saw how dissimilar they were. Joan’s features were fine and
elegant. Nat’s revealed peasant ancestry, and Adam remembered that the man had
risen to his rank as Master of the Hunt, not through noble birth, but from the
ranks of the huntsmen.

“Nat found Joan hiding in some brush. Or rather the dogs
found her. He might have left her at the Convent of St. Agnes, it was nearby, I
understand, but instead, he brought her to Ravenswood. He just…added her to his
pack, so to speak. And she’s been at his side ever since. I believe Lord Guy
formalized the adoption in some writ or other.”

Adam took his reins from a groom who led their horses
forward. So, that was why he didn’t remember her. She must have come shortly
before his family had been banished, during his fostering with de Warre.

“Was it ever discovered why Joan’s family was murdered? Was
it thievery?” Adam asked.

Brian shrugged. “I cannot remember. Mathilda can give you
more details should you wish them.”

Nat Swan handed Joan up onto her mount. She swept her long
skirts aside and took up her reins, then guided her horse aside so Lady
Mathilda might pass. Roger worked his way between the lady and Bishop Gravant.