Judith’s heart began to thump but she gave a nonchalant shrug. ‘If this nag is, then yes,’ she responded and gathered the reins.
The serjeant who had first cried the warning circled away behind them to discover the identity of their pursuers. They quickened their pace. A distance of about nine furlongs separated them from the safety of the keep, but much of that route was uphill.
Judith’s gelding started to flag. She dug her heels into his sides and heard him wheeze.
‘It’s Robert de Belleme and Walter de Lacey!’ yelled the serjeant, his voice indistinct but explicit with panic.
‘Blood of Christ!’ Eric spurred his horse afresh and laid his whip across the rump of Judith’s gelding.
The drawbridge was down over the ditch. The wet winter and spring had raised the level of the water table and instead of the noisome sludge that usually offended the nose, there was a glistening moat of sky-blue water. The hooves drummed on the planks. Judith glimpsed the glittering ruffles. She flung a look over her shoulder but the wind whipped her braids across her face and all she could see between the tawny strands were the heaving horses behind her and the solid mailed protection of her escort.
Her mount stumbled as they rode beneath the portcullis and into the ward. She pulled him up, his ribs heaving like bellows, his legs trembling, spent. Without waiting for aid to dismount, she kicked her feet from the stirrups and slipped over his side to the ground.
The last man pounded across the bridge at a hard gallop. The guards on duty began winching the bridge the moment he clattered on to it. The black fangs of the portcullis came down and Ledworth snarled defiance at one of the most powerful men in England and Normandy.
Eric spat and crossed himself as they heard the drawbridge thud flush with the outer wall. ‘It is called burning your bridges,’ he said grimly. ‘Do you go inside, my lady, and join your mother.’
Judith frowned and laid her arm upon Eric’s mail-clad sleeve. ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘If we deny him entry we offer him unpardonable insult and he never allows a slight to remain swallowed for long.’
‘But mistress—’
‘I was prey to be snatched when I was outside the keep, but within he must preserve the civilities. I know why he is here. My lord husband has been expecting him all winter.’
Eric looked unhappily at the chequerboard spars of the portcullis and the security of the solid oak planks beyond. Faintly from without there came a hail. ‘My lady, I am reluctant to admit him. Lord Guyon would string me from the highest tree on the demesne if ill should come of this.’
‘Let me worry about Lord Guyon,’ she replied with more than a spark of bravado. ‘How many men does my uncle have with him … Thierry?’
The young serjeant cleared his throat. ‘About thirty at a rough guess, my lady,’ he replied and fiddled with the hilt of his sword, eyes shifting from her to the closed drawbridge.
‘Then admit my uncle and his five most senior companions,’ she said. ‘Eric, take custody of their weapons and put the guards on alert. Have a messenger ride out and find my husband – one of his Welshmen, by preference; they have the stealth to go unseen.’
Eric spread his hands. ‘What if the seigneur de Belleme refuses to disgorge his weapons and abandon his men outside?’
‘He won’t refuse,’ she said. ‘Delay them awhile until I am fittingly dressed to receive them.’
‘But my lady …’
She was gone, skirts gathered to reveal her ankles as she ran, her plaits dishevelled and snaking to the movement of her spine. Eric swallowed, muttered a prayer, and set about giving commands, although he was not at all sure he should be obeying Judith.
Alicia gaped in disbelief as her daughter seized a comb and began to mend her hair. She had discarded her riding dress in favour of a tunic of dark gold wool lavishly banded with embroidery in two shades of green.
‘You have done what?’ Alicia gasped. ‘Are you mad? You might as well open the chicken run and let the fox run amok inside!’
‘Mama, I am not mad. I would as lief not grant him entry, but on this occasion, at least, he means us no harm.’
‘It is not experience of years that has gained you such foresight!’ her mother said acidly.
‘I thought he and my father were fond kin and allies,’ Judith answered in a preoccupied manner, fingers working with nimble haste.
Alicia sighed and looked at Judith with a mingling of sacrifice and exasperation. ‘I suppose I will have to go down and face him now that you’ve been foolish enough to grant him entry.’
A spark of resentment flared in Judith’s breast. ‘It is my responsibility, Mama,’ she said. ‘Besides, he does not know me,and it will be easier than you greeting him with hatred when I can plead the ignorance of youth.’ She returned to her toilet, clipping the ends of her braids with bronze fillets and smoothing her fresh gown.
Alicia stared at her daughter. The change from child to woman had accelerated rapidly since her marriage to Guyon. There was command in her voice and the same authority that made men perform her father’s bidding, or else back off with frightened eyes. She had his way of looking, too. An open, fearless stare, locking will with will.
‘Be careful, daughter,’ she warned. ‘Snakes bite slyly.’
‘And cats have claws,’ Judith retorted tossing her head, then belied her self-assurance by turning to her mother and hugging her fiercely.
