Catrin hung her head over her tiny daughter. 'I chose the wrong man, she whispered. 'God forgive me, I chose the wrong man.

' Now then, mistress, don't you worry. He'll come around in time, said the older midwife. Her face was pale with shock, but she had rallied bravely. 'Men need daughters to make good marriage alliances. He'll be right proud of her once she comes into her looks, you mark me.

'His pride is the problem, Catrin said, as her womb began to cramp and expel the afterbirth. 'He has boasted far and wide that he will soon have a son to follow him. He will blame me for failing him, not God for ordering. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and pushed down. The pains were not as bad, but they were still deeply uncomfortable.

'Things will seem better in the morning, the woman soothed. 'Now, we need a name for this little lass.

Catrin parted the linen towel and looked down into the baby's tiny, crumpled features. While she owed her a great debt, she could not saddle the infant with a name like

Etheldreda. 'Rosamund, she said, 'after my mother, her grandmother. She gave the slightest of bitter smiles. 'Our line always runs to girls.


Louis stared down at his small daughter in her cherry-wood cradle. She was sound asleep, her eyelids no larger than telin shells and seeming too delicate for their edging of dense black lashes. Her name suited her; she was as pink and soft as a rose. Over the past six weeks some of his initial disappointment had waned. As several people had pointed out in the process of commiseration, daughters were useful providing you did not have too many, and at least Catrin had proved that she could bear children with relative ease. Only a few days after the birth she had been chafing at her enforced confinement in the bower. The next one would be a boy for certain. Catrin had been churched that morning and thus was free to take up her wifely duties again, amongst them those of the bedchamber. Not that Louis had been on short rations during her confinement. Wulfhild, the kitchen maid, had been most accommodating in the stables, and there were a couple of women in the village too. If Catrin suspected, she had said nothing. Since the baby had been born, there appeared to be no room in her life for anything else, including him.

Usurped by a puling infant, and a girl at that. Louis's lip curled. She had even insisted on feeding the baby herself, like a peasant woman, instead of doing what was proper to her rank and obtaining a wet nurse. When he protested, she stood her ground so firmly that he had been forced to retreat and sulk in the stables for an hour with Wulfhild.

'I am a midwife; I know what is best for my daughter, she had said with quiet assertion, no blaze of temper on which he could feed his own. She was a bitch, a contrary, irritating bitch, but she was also comely and, despite his other amours, he still desired her, not least because of the way she ignored him.

She entered the room now, clothed in her undergown and chemise, her black hair curtaining her shoulders. It was not as long as it had been during her pregnancy. The child had apparently taken the strength from her hair, and she had shorn off a good six inches. Still, it did not detract from her looks. At least if Rosamund inherited them she would make an appetising marriage prospect.

Louis sat on their bed and began disrobing. Catrin went to the cradle and looked down at the swaddled baby. An expression of melting tenderness filled her face. It was a look that Louis recognised because once, back in the days at Chepstow, it had been bestowed on him.

'She's asleep, he said brusquely. 'Come to bed.

Catrin raised her head and looked at him, the softness lading. 'May I not check upon my own daughter?

'I've checked already. That cradle is like a shackle around your ankles. You're never more than a pace from it.

'That is not true. She left the baby and approached the bed. He could sense the reluctance in her step, and it was made all the more galling for the alacrity with which she had approached the cradle.

'If you had done as I said and employed a wet nurse, we could still have the bedchamber to ourselves, he complained.

'You need not sleep here if it troubles you so much. She gave him a cool stare and pulled off her undergown, then, more reluctantly, her chemise.

He snorted. 'I'll not be thrown out of my own chamber by a couple of women! Her body glimmered in the candlelight. Her breasts were full from suckling the baby. She had recovered her trim waist, if anything she was more slender than before. There were a few small, silvery stretch marks on her belly, and an area of raised pinkish-white flesh on her side from the sword wound she had sustained at Bristol. The scar itself never ceased to fascinate him, because it was the sort of wound seen frequently on men but never on a woman.

Taking her hand, he pulled her down beside him on the cold silk coverlet. She shivered and gazed past him at the rafters. Louis ran his thumb delicately along the scar and kissed her cold, goose-pimpled skin. 'Two months, Catty, he murmured against her throat. 'It's been a long, dry wait.

She shifted slightly beneath him and her hands clasped behind his neck. 'Don't tell lies, she murmured. 'I know you've been drinking at different fountains.

He thought about making a vehement denial, but decided that it would begin another quarrel and he had patience for neither argument nor placation. 'Only because I could not have the one I wanted, he muttered against her breasts. 'Open for me, Catty, let me in.

Obligingly she raised and spread her thighs. He felt their satin touch against his flanks and then the clinging, liquid heat of her inner body.

'This time it will be a boy, he panted as he worked himself deep inside her. Her body swayed with his movements, but she made no response of her own, except to wriggle a little and interrupt his rhythm now and again as if she was uncomfortable. When he looked into her face it was blank, apart from a slight frown between her eyes and the catching of her underlip in her teeth.

He ceased to move and rose on braced elbows. 'What is wrong with you tonight? You're as welcoming as a lump of venison on a slab.

'Does it matter, as long as you obtain the son you desire? She looked at him, her hazel eyes weary.

'Of course it matters, he said furiously. 'I'm your husband. In the past I've made you scream like a banshee at the gates of hell. You know how much it pleasures me.

She sighed. 'You want me to scream?

'God damn you, woman, I want you to want me! He felt himself begin to wilt inside her; something that had never, ever happened to him before with any woman. He lunged desperately, but the heat and strength had gone and he slipped from her body with a wet plop.

'Jesu, you witch, what have you done? He looked down at his softened organ in growing horror.

'Nothing, she said scornfully. 'It is your own mind that unmans you. You cannot always have what you want for the smiling, Louis. It is your right as my husband to command my body, but do not look for desire when all you desire is to slake your lust and beget yourself a son.

'Christ, that would be the desire of any man. You put something in my wine, didn't you? He seized a handful of her glossy, black hair. 'Didn't you!

'Don't be so stupid! she flared back. 'If I had put anything in your wine, it would have been wolfsbane and you wouldn't be worrying about a limp cock, you'd be dead!

He wound her hair around his fist and seriously thought about strangling her. Heat pulsed in his groin as he imagined the act; her struggle. He pushed her flat, his wrist across her throat, sought, fumbled, and plunged.

This time she did scream, after a fashion, and her body arched against him. Louis fixed his eyes on her face, watching the war between her fury and fear. He had never taken a woman in rape before and the experience was so novel, his pleasure so great that it was almost a pain.

Catrin continued to spit and struggle, but Louis was in no hurry to complete the act and took his time, holding back, toying with the delightful sensations. Begetting his son was going to be a pleasure after all.

In her cradle, Rosamund started to cry. Catrin's struggles became desperate.

'Lie still! Louis snarled, tightening his grip until she choked.

Above the sound of Catrin's fight for air, his grunts of pleasure and the baby's wails, came a vigorous pounding on the bedchamber door.

'Go away! Louis yelled.

My lord, come quickly, we are under siege! an agitated voice responded. 'There is an army outside our walls! 'What?

An army, my lord, with siege machinery! the voice repeated, and pounded the door again.

For the second time, Louis lost his erection. 'All right, all right, he bellowed. 'Keep the skin on your knuckles! Releasing Catrin, he levered himself off her and flung on his clothes. 'We'll finish this later, he snapped over his shoulder and, pushing his feet into his shoes, strode to the door and banged out of the room.

Coughing and choking, Catrin sat up, her black hair spilling wild. There was a raw throb between her thighs and her scalp was sore. She lurched to her feet and staggered to the cradle where Rosamund was now bawling for all she was worth. Stars

fluctuated before her eyes and she had to steady herself for a moment before she was able to stoop and lift the screaming infant from the cradle.

'Hush, she soothed, 'hush, not knowing if she was talking to the child or herself. Holding Rosamund to her breast, she rocked the baby back and forth, her hand cupping the tiny, fragile skull. Rosamund rooted against her flesh. Catrin cradled her and put her to suck.

Until recently she would not have thought Louis capable of the kind of violence he had shown just now. Too late, she was coming to understand that the changes he had promised her were not for the better. The child in him was too strong for the man to defeat, and a wilful child in a man's body was so dangerous it was terrifying.

She brushed her forefinger over Rosamund's downy, dark hair, and wondered with quiet desperation what she was going to do. She could live the lie and play his soul-destroying game, or she could fight him every step of the way as she had fought tonight and lose not her soul but her life. Or she could, as she had taunted, put wolfsbane in his cup.

Afraid of her own emotions, she wrapped her cloak around herself and the suckling baby and, going to the bower window overlooking the gate house, freed the catch.

A bitter, rain-laden wind beat into her face. The fields were brown, the winter trees dark and skeletal. Where smoke should have been rising in gentle twirls from the village houses, there were thick black gouts instead, interspersed with the red lick of fire. Closer to the keep, she could make out the forms of the soldiers, both mounted and on foot. They were spreading out to encircle the castle and they had brought siege machinery with them.

Frozen to the marrow as much by what she saw as by the weather, Catrin jerked the window shut and, nursing her daughter, turned to the small charcoal brazier burning in the middle of the room. Part of her fear was for herself, but most of her terror was for the baby lying in her arms. The sight of the smoke and the soldiers flooded her mind with the images of what had happened at Penfoss. Only it was not Aimery de Sens who sprawled across the gateway with a cut throat but Louis, and she was lying where Amice had lain. She had heard the tales of what Welsh and Flemish mercenaries did to the small babies whose mothers they had raped and butchered. It did not help her state of mind that while Louis was a good reconnaissance soldier, he had never been faced with this kind of challenge before.

'Jesu, be silent! she snapped at herself. Gently prising a sleepy Rosamund from her nipple, she returned the baby to the cradle and donned a chemise and warm gown. Worrying would only make the situation worse. If the maids saw her panic then they would panic too.

She bound her hair in a wimple, took Rosamund and carried her from the room and down the stairs. If the village was in flames, there were bound to be people seeking succour within the keep.


They were the soldiers of Aubrey de Vere, Earl of Oxford, Catrin was told by a weeping village woman, who had watched them take her cow and her pig and set fire to her cottage.

'One of 'em says to me, "tell your lord that the Earl of Oxford's come to call. " She stared round the great hall, her body rocking back and forth in a rhythm of grief. 'He said that they'd cut the right hand off every man in the village.