‘Not as bad as it looks,’ he tried to jest. ‘His blade was blunt.’

‘Let me see.’ Renard drew his knife and ripped the material. The wound was deep and sluggishly oozing, but not so deep that it would not mend or damage the arm’s function. ‘It’s nasty,’ he said, ‘but it won’t kill you. Elene will be able to stitch it and pack it with a mouldy bread poultice.’ While he spoke, he worked to temporarily bind the wound with strips from the linen shirt that Master Pieter had obligingly sacrificed.

‘Elene?’ John grimaced. ‘Elene rode back to Woolcot to fetch help from the garrison … She was here in the village showing me the wool sheds and seeing me on my way.’

‘What!’

‘She was gone before they struck.’

Renard sprang to his feet just as the brawny youth came up the nave, Father Edwig’s body borne in his arms. ‘He’s dead,’ the young man said in a wondering voice. ‘Just suddenly dropped at the bell rope, but see, he’s never looked so happy!’

People gathered to marvel or weep over the serenely smiling old priest. Renard left the church at a run, snatched Gorvenal’s bridle from Owain and vaulted into the saddle.

‘There are some men from the keep looking for you,’ the boy said. ‘Sir Oswel and Sir Randal.’ He pointed down the churchyard, his young face frightened.

Renard rode over to the garrison force. A little beyond them several corpses swung on a gibbet. ‘Where is Lady Elene?’ he demanded brusquely.

Sir Oswel looked troubled. He wiped his hand over his beard. ‘I do not know, my lord.’

‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’

‘Her mare came into the bailey all sweated up and riderless about the same time that we heard the bells and saw the smoke. We rode here first, thinking perhaps to find her, but …’ he gestured bleakly at the burning village.

Renard coughed as he inhaled a gust of smoke. He felt as if he had swallowed a lump of ice. ‘Oswel, stay here and organise the villagers into putting out the fires and cleaning up. Randal, take half a dozen men and search the area between village and keep.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

Renard wheeled Gorvenal and rode in the direction of the castle. On all sides of him stretched the rough pasture. Grazing sheep raised their heads and stared at him with indifference, jaws circling busily. The wind veered and buffeted, bringing the stink of burning with it, hot and strong. It was difficult to remember a time when that smell had not pervaded his every waking moment and stalked him through his dreams.

Across the moorland he and his men searched without finding a sign of Elene, and with each piece of ground unfruitfully covered Renard’s apprehension grew. What if she had been caught in the fire? What if the horse had bucked her off in the village and run home to her stable riderless all the way? Unknowing, he passed the place where she had first fallen from the mare, and then the place where a second time she had lost her seat in the saddle. Nothing. He halted Gorvenal and stared at the wind-whipped moorland until his eyes stung.

‘Hola!’

Renard turned in the direction of the shout and saw a shepherd and dogs running towards him. The man was waving his arms, and a molten flicker of hope coursed through Renard as he rode to meet him.

‘My lord!’ the shepherd saluted him, then had to stop to gather his breath.

‘Is it about Lady Elene? Is she all right? Tell me, man!’

‘I … I think so, my lord … She was a bit shook up at first, but my wife’s looking after her.’ He gulped and gasped, pressing his hand to the stitch in his side. ‘At first we thought her ankle was broken, but I do believe it is only a nasty sprain.’

‘Where is she?’

‘My hut … over yon.’ He pointed to a small dwelling a few hundred yards away. ‘I carried her like I would a wounded sheep. It weren’t far and my wife had just brought me food.’ He straightened slightly and creased his eyes at Renard. ‘Is it true the village is burned to the ground? I can smell smoke. Dogs are restless.’

‘Yes, it’s true.’ Renard left the shepherd and galloped to the hut, dismounting even as he drew rein. Tethering Gorvenal to a hook protruding from the dung and wattle wall, he ducked inside the hut. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the single, tiny room, but Elene’s glad cry brought his gaze immediately to the place where she lay, tended by the shepherd’s wife who was pressing a cold cloth on to her swollen ankle.

‘Praise God!’ Renard said. ‘We’ve been searching everywhere for you!’

The woman stood up, dried her hands on her gown and, bobbing a curtsey, went outside.

Elene struggled up from the shepherd’s narrow bed of bracken and sheepskins and as Renard knelt at her side, she flung her arms around him. ‘You smell of smoke,’ she tried to say lightly, but the words cracked and broke up, and she buried her face in his surcoat, sobs shuddering through her.

Silently, tightly, he held her, as much for his own comfort as hers.

‘I suppose the village is in ruins?’ she asked at length, her voice choked.

‘More or less. Gerard saved the mill, I think, but everything else bar the church is gone.’

‘The people … I tried to get help, but Bramble took fright at the smoke and I could not control her.’

‘The people are safe,’ he reassured her, and told her everything that had happened, adding in a growl at the end, ‘If de Gernons thinks that an atrocity such as this will go unavenged, then he was never more mistaken.’

Elene clung to him, her fingers clenched in his surcoat, her knuckles pressed against the unyielding rivets of his hauberk. ‘No, let it lie!’ she cried. ‘You have hanged the men responsible. If you raid on his lands you will only continue the circle. It needs to be broken, don’t you see!’

‘If I do nothing, he will think I have weakened.’

‘He will think nothing of the sort. His routiers are dead or scattered. Call it even!’

‘I do not think you have seen the extent of the damage,’ Renard said grimly. ‘Everything is gone — every last bale of your cloth, and that cannot be rebuilt as quickly as the houses.’

‘It can never be rebuilt if you keep raiding tit for tat. Renard, promise me you’ll hold your hand, I cannot bear it any more!’

‘I will promise nothing of the kind!’ he growled, and then swore as she began to weep again. His defences were not up to dealing with Elene’s grief, nor could he understand her insistence that he must not retaliate. Part of him wanted to stand up, walk away, pretend none of this was happening. He disliked being pushed into emotional corners. ‘The only promise I’ll make is to think about it,’ he temporised, running one hand down her braid. ‘Don’t push me further than that, Nell.’ He tipped up her chin and kissed her tear-streaked face. ‘Come, I’ll take you to the keep before I go back to the village and see what’s to be salvaged.’

Elene put her arms around his neck as he lifted her up. She kissed him back and he felt the corner into which he was backed growing smaller and tighter. Ducking under the low door arch, he carried her out to Gorvenal.

Chapter 29

Chester, November 1141


Ranulf de Gernons stood in his wife’s chamber, hands on his hips, and watched her fussing with their younger daughter’s tiny braids. They stuck out at right angles from her head, were shorter than his own moustaches, only half their thickness and of a light, mousy brown that no amount of adorning would enhance. Her sister, three years older, was sitting on her mother’s bed, playing a counting game with some carnelian beads.

‘Is there any news of my father?’ Matille looked at him anxiously.

‘Only that he’s being treated well and the Queen is refusing to bargain. They want Stephen in exchange for him or nothing.’ He scowled, revealing what he had thought of that particular idea. The smaller child climbed into her mother’s lap and hid her face against Matille’s gown. Ranulf ’s scowl deepened. Thus far Matille had borne him three children — two girls, alive and healthy, but the all-important boy miscarried. She was pregnant again. God willing this time she would give him what he desired. To that end he had been unduly gentle with her these past three months, particu — larly during the last one that had seen the Empress’s forces reduced to chaos at the siege of Winchester and the sub — sequent capture of her father, the Earl of Gloucester.

Ranulf had quickly distanced himself from the Empress, had returned to his marches to wait out events like a spider lurking on the edge of its web. Lincoln had been the Empress’s pinnacle. Since then, everything had begun to slip away. At Winchester, Bishop Henry had turned against her, and Stephen’s queen had appeared with her army beneath the city walls. Overwhelmed, deserted by many of her supporters, the Empress had been forced to flee towards Oxford. During the rout, Matille’s father had been captured and now Queen Malde wanted to exchange him for Stephen. Negotiations were in slow progress, but it was obvious to Ranulf that whatever came of them, the best course was to do nothing until he saw which way the wind blew for certain.

‘But he is well?’ Matille persisted.

‘Better than for a long time,’ Ranulf grunted. ‘He hasn’t got that sulky bitch bleating in his ear. Why won’t Lucy look at me?’

‘You frighten her, Papa,’ said Adela, his elder, looking up from her game. ‘She doesn’t like it when you shout.’

‘Hah!’ Ranulf said, dismissing the comment, although inside it hurt him. It always did. He had the power to make people do whatever he wished — except love him, and he was aware of that lack most strongly when he tried to be at ease with his wife and children.

‘Ranulf, I’ve been thinking about Lucy,’ Matille said hesitantly.

‘Indeed?’

‘Have you any plans for a betrothal yet? I know you have for Herleve, but …’ She broke off and cuddled her whimpering daughter. Her stomach moved queasily. Some of the nausea was her new pregnancy. As usual she was not carrying well, but the rest was caused by her fear of Ranulf. These days he was as unpredictable as a wild bull, but if she could arrange a favourable marriage for her daughter and help Elene of Ravenstow into the bargain, then she was willing to brave his temper.

‘Whom did you have in mind?’

Matille swallowed. ‘Ravenstow’s heir.’

Ranulf ’s bellow almost blew the shutters off their hinges. ‘God’s balls, woman, you dare to suggest that to me!’ he roared.

Lucy screamed in terror and the older girl stopped her game, her eyes becoming round with fear in case their father should use his fists.

‘I only thought that an alliance with Ravenstow might leave you free to deal with the Welsh and pay more attention to your other concerns,’ she said far more calmly than she felt. Her heart jumped and jumped and the sickness almost made her heave.

‘I’d rather have her wed to a gong farmer than joined to that kind of blood!’ Spittle flecked his moustaches.

‘Ranulf, please don’t shout, you’re making me ill.’

He cleared his throat. The red mottling faded slightly from his face and throat and he looked at her anxiously. ‘The answer is no,’ he growled.

‘Heir to Ravenstow means heir to Caermoel,’ she said, after a moment, a sly look in her eyes.

Ranulf turned away and stared out of the open shutters at the vista of autumnal colours. Golds and oranges and woodsmoke grey. The news of the burning of Woolcot had pleased him, but the cost had been high. He had lost almost a full mercenary troop. This was gradually being replaced although not yet up to full raiding strength. Thus far Renard had not retaliated, but his patrols had tightened up considerably, and he too had been hiring men.

The fighting was indeed tiresome. Ranulf had looked forward to rubbing Renard’s nose in the dirt, to humiliating him, but had discovered quickly that it was an ambition not to be realised. He was realistic enough to abandon the attempt to take Caermoel, but sufficiently vindictive to continue raiding.

A marriage alliance. He discarded his first, gut reaction and looked at it objectively. Yes, it would leave him free to deal with the Welsh, with Prince Owain, the presumptuous cocky bastard. It would stop him from having to constantly patrol the border with Ravenstow, and if, as Matille said, Ravenstow’s son was also Caermoel’s heir, his grandchildren would inherit the land, and there was scope for manipulation and appropriation there in plenty. The fact that Renard’s son and Lucy were second cousins would require a dispensation, but that was no real barrier, and an escape route should a more propitious marriage offer come his way.