Lords of the White Castle (81 page)

'Bastards,' said Richard, riding up beside him, his voice muffled as he held his cloak over his mouth. His eyes were red-rimmed and streaming. 'You think it is Llewelyn?'

'Not in person,' Fulke said, 'but certainly a raiding party and probably of men who are fighting for the pleasure of killing the English as much as for coin.' He grimaced, the taste of ashes in his mouth. 'I know Llewelyn well but old friendships count for little in the wider scheme of a prince's ambition. Besides, I am allied to Pembroke and Chester and my keeps are the weakest link in that chain.' He looked bleakly at the smoking remnants of what had been a thriving hamlet. 'I think that this is the warning of the blaze to come and we are standing directly in the path of the fire.'

There had been pleasure in torching the buildings, in seeing the people run and scream. In watching the smoke rise to make clouds in the clear blue sky, trampling the vegetable plots, slaughtering the animals. Gwyn FitzMorys had not smiled for a long time but he was smiling now. He had a war band, he had Llewelyn's sanction to raid along the border, and he had old scores to settle.

CHAPTER 42

Late November was the start of the season when men clung to their hearths, mending implements, telling tales, tending their animals which grazed close to home, the winter grass supplemented by the stores of meadow hay reaped in the summer. The women spun fleece into thread and wove thread into braid. They stitched garments from homespun cloth and stuffed their cowhide shoes and boots with the ram's wool that was too coarse to spin. The older children tended the fire and spun too; the little ones played games with coloured stones and hobbyhorses made from sticks and straw.

This year, along the Marches, however, it was also a time to hone spears and bind new rawhide around the rim of the shield that had been stored in the rafters, to string bows with waxed gut and make arrows from the feathers of indignant geese.

At Whittington and Alberbury, the village men went to be trained by the lord's Serjeants and sometimes by the lord himself. They learned how to thrust past a shield, how to protect each other, how to fight when the only weapons they possessed were the knives they used to butcher their pigs in winter.

'You do not seriously think that they will stand and fight the Welsh, do you?' Maude asked as Fulke returned from one such training session and cast his whalebone sword on a bench. Some of the village boys were still practising at the archery butts and their shouts floated up to the solar window.

'No, but at least they can defend themselves should they be cornered.' He paced the room like a caged wolf, pausing only to pour himself a cup of wine from the flagon and gulp it down. 'It aids me to feel less helpless,' he said. 'The King—or his advisors—still refuse to let me build in stone. Christ's wounds, am I so high in prowess that they think I can bring down the monarchy because of a single castle of stone, or hold off the Welsh without one?' He went to the window and looked out, fists clenched.

Maude sighed. She had no answer and knew that he did not expect one. Last week the King had again turned down Fulke's request to strengthen his keeps against the likelihood of Welsh attack, although he had been granted permission to move his livestock into the royal forest at Lyth. Maude wondered if the young King's excessive caution was a way of exacting retribution from Fulke. She would not put it past him and his advisors. God alone knew what John had told his son about the quarrel between the Crown and the FitzWarin family. Perhaps old scores had been passed on, or perhaps the formidable reputation of Fulke's youth was now doing him a disservice.

She joined him at the window, leaning her head against the steel-streaked sleeve of his gambeson. 'You can only do your best,' she murmured.

'Which is likely not good enough.' He set his arm around her waist. 'They raid my villages and retreat into Wales like wraiths. I cannot pursue them and they know it. Nor can I make peace with Llewelyn when he is bent on war with marcher barons who are my allies.'

It was the same ground, trampled so many times that in her mind's eye, Maude could see the grooves that it had worn: round and round, deeper and deeper until there was no way out. 'Perhaps you should just let Llewelyn come,' she said. 'Let him overrun Whittington. Then Henry will be forced to act.'

He snorted. 'What would that do for my honour?'

'Your honour would not be involved. You have told Henry that you cannot hold against the Welsh if they come in force.' She wrinkled her nose. 'Although certainly it would ruin your pride.'

'If I abandon Whittington to Llewelyn, then that leaves the settlements beyond this open to attack. It's like a creeping puddle of wine on a trestle.' He rumpled his free hand through his hair and sighed. 'I suppose I should arm up and take out the patrol.'

Maude kissed him. Below, on the sward, Clarice and Mabile were watching the practice at the butts. Young Fulke was back with Ranulf of Chester and Ivo was squiring in Salisbury's household. For the nonce, their sons at least were safe. For the nonce too, they were alone, and both in need of distraction. In a moment, as he said, he would don his mail and take out a patrol to scour his borders in search of Welsh raiders. There would be danger, and hours of anxious waiting.

'I suppose you should,' she agreed, twining her arms around his neck and nipping his earlobe. The fire between them was not as bright a blaze as it had been in the early days, but still burned hot at its core. 'Is there nothing I can do to persuade you to tarry a while?'

He smiled and turned to her. 'That remains to be seen,' he said.

It was a long time since they had made love during the day. There was the added spice of knowing they might be discovered, the novelty of daylight, and the spiralling excitement of sudden lust. They kissed and fondled their way to the bed in the next chamber, strewing clothes as they went. Her wimple, his sword belt; shoes, hose, gambeson, gown.

By the time they fell upon the coverlet, he wore only shirt and braies to her chemise. He kissed her nipples through the fine linen fabric, nipping them to taut erection until a cry broke in her throat. She reached beneath his shirt, running her fingers over his ribs and feeling the raised, misshapen bumps of damaged bones long healed. The flat stomach and light fuzz of hair down its centre. And the hard rod of his manhood straining at his braies. It was his turn to gasp as her hand found its way inside and stroked him gently. He pushed her chemise above her thighs and the cold air struck her skin, raising gooseflesh. But so did his touch, feather light, promising, withholding, promising in a rhythm that made her writhe and arch towards him. She increased her own assault and parted her thighs, thrusting against him in wanton demand, positioning him so that the first surge would be sure and deep. He held back for a moment, quivering. 'Stop it,' he panted hoarsely. 'Do you think I am made of stone?'

'It certainly feels like it,' she purred and rubbed her thigh along his flank. Then she manoeuvred and bore down.

An oath of pure lust hissed between his teeth and he thrust up into her. Maude gasped at the force, then stifled a cry against his shoulder as the pressure and pleasure brought the promise closer to the brink. She clung to him, nails digging, breath whining in her throat, felt him gather to withdraw, and pulled him in closer.

'No!' she panted. Her hands moved to his buttocks, her legs clasped around him, forcing him on to the exquisite point of no return, shattering her senses with the force of her climax. She heard him groan, felt the strong pulsation of his own release within her body.

There was a long silence. She was aware of him still taking his weight on his arms in consideration, of his mouth moving blindly against her throat. 'That was foolish,' he muttered.

'Mayhap, but I would not be displeased to hold another babe in my arms.' She stroked his hair. She did not add that because she feared for him, she wanted a part of him to keep within her. For the moment, she had his seed, if not his child.

He played with a loose tendril of her hair. 'Melusine,' he said softly. 'What you want is yours to command.'

She nipped the side of his hand. 'Within reason,' she said. 'If I asked you to stay in bed with me the rest of the day, I know what your answer would be.'

He smiled tenderly. 'Beloved, much as I love you and my flesh rises to attention at the sight of your fair body,, another bout like that one would kill me.' He withdrew and sat up.

'You would rather take your chance with the Welsh than with me?'

'Don't be awkward,' he said, tweaking her plait. Stretching luxuriously he left the bed and began dressing. Maude sighed and followed his example, pursuing the trail of her own clothing into the solar.

Still engulfed in the soft afterglow of pleasure, she rode out with him and his troop as far as the swine foraging trails in Babbin's Wood. The trees wore the black garb of winter, mossed with green on the northern sides of their trunks. The wind roared through the branches like an invisible, breathing monster, although the loudness was above them in the tops of the trees. On the forest floor, the main sound came from the creaking of old, strained wood, the jingle of harness and the thud of hoofbeats muffled by a damp brown carpet of leaves.

Maude rode with Fulke for a couple of miles, then bade him farewell and turned back with her escort. She was still within safe bounds, but she knew that when she had gone, Fulke would pick up the pace.

'God be with you,' she said, touching his hand.

'And you.'

She watched him ride off until the glint of mail and colour of shields ceased to flicker between the black trunks. Then she turned back to Whittington with her escort of four soldiers from the garrison.

They were on the edge of the forest, the road to the village in full view, when it happened. There was the sudden, loud groan of a tree in extremis. Maude looked up, screamed and wrenched her horse away, but was too late. The old beech, survivor of storms since the time of the Conquest, was finally defeated and tore from the soil to come crashing down across the small bay palfrey, snapping its neck. The mare buckled and went down, and Maude was partially trapped beneath her.

It happened swiftly; it happened slowly. Maude stared at the sky and at high black branches waving like the arms of a mob. She felt no pain for her legs were numb. 'I'm all right,' she said in a clear, lucid voice to the men stooping over her, their expressions filled with horror and consternation. She fixed her eyes on a large cloud of orange fungus growing out of the bark of the fallen tree. This wasn't happening. It was a dream, a vivid moment of imagination, the kind of hallucination induced by eating poisoned mushrooms. She was aware of thinking that it had happened to her and, because of it, Fulke would be safe. So it was all right.

The four soldiers levered the tree off the horse and dragged the horse off Maude. Once the weight and the warmth were gone, she began to shiver, her teeth chattering beyond control. From the waist down, she could feel nothing. There was no pain when they lifted her on to a horse and bore her the final half-mile to the castle.

'My lady, one of us should ride after your lord and tell him what has happened,' said Ralf Gras anxiously.