‘What else am I ever likely to have of her, Rhos? A distant glimpse from a tower top. A snatched meeting here and there. From babe to child to woman in the blink of an eye. She is yours. I accept that, but at least grant me the grace of her naming.’
‘Your way with words has always been your deadliest weapon,’ Rhosyn accused him, shaking her head, her eyes brilliant with unshed tears. ‘Very well, I grant you that grace. Do not abuse it.’
‘Not Hegelina or Aiglentine then,’ he agreed incorrigibly, but kissed her tenderly, almost but not quite with reverence, before he leaned over the cradle again to look at his sleeping daughter.
‘Have you told your wife?’ Rhosyn wiped her eyes on her shift.
‘Judith knows,’ he said without inflection.
‘And is not best pleased?’
He rubbed his aching forehead. ‘She’s developing a sense of possession,’ he said ruefully, ‘and sometimes it is uncomfortable.’
‘I read her letter to Huw’s wife. They were not the words of a child. Children grow up, especially at that age. It may be that suddenly you have a woman on your hands.’
His mouth twisted. ‘It would still be rape,’ he said laconically. ‘Not that much of a woman.’
‘Even so, bear it in mind, Guy,’ she said and then was silent, drinking her broth before it went cold.
‘Heulwen,’ he said after a time. ‘What do you think?’
She put down the cup, looking surprised. ‘Heulwen?’
‘I promised no Norman monstrosities.’
‘I thought you would choose Christen, for your mother.’
‘I already have a flighty niece to bear that name. No, let her be called for my Welsh grandmother, Heulwen uerch Owain. Besides, she has the colouring to suit the name.’
Rhosyn cocked her head, considered, and then slowly smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said softly, ‘I approve, Guy. I approve very much.’
The midwife appeared to shoo him out of the room and Madoc was waiting to usher him to the table, still short of wind but a better colour and full of self-satisfied bonhomie. Eluned clamoured for his attention and he gave it with half a mind and smiled at Madoc with another portion, locking away what was left until it could be reviewed without tearing the fabric of his soul. Heulwen. Sunshine. Clouds across his vision.
Travelling home, he would have been at Ravenstow’s gates by compline had not Arian cast a shoe and begun to limp. The fine weather had broken up, the innocent, fluffy clouds of early morning displaced by a seething mass of charcoal grey, laden with rain.
‘Best rest up for the night, my lord,’ said Eric. ‘There’s a village not far and there’s bound to be a farrier.’
Guyon blinked through the downpour. The ground beneath his feet was a brown tapestry of mud and puddles and his boots and chausses had long since become saturated. Despite it being summer, he felt chilled to the bone. Beyond the lush June-green of the trees and against the lowering sky, a church tower reared through the rain. Further away, dominating its knoll, crouched the timber keep formerly belonging to Ralph of Serigny, but now the property by marriage of Walter de Lacey.
‘You reckon it safe?’ Guyon said wryly to his captain and slid the wet reins through his fingers, eyes half closed against the rain.
‘No, we’ll bide at the alehouse if they have one while the farrier sees to Arian, then we’ll be on our way. I’d rather ride whole into Ravenstow than carved into joints and stuffed into my saddlebags.’
Eric grimaced. The Chester road at night in this deluge was not a heartening prospect, but his lord was right. They were too close to the Serigny keep at Thornford for comfort and Walter de Lacey, if he discovered their proximity, would not baulk at murder.
The village proved substantial enough to own not only a smithy, but a good-sized alehouse and while Arian was shod, Guyon and his men repaired to the latter to fortify themselves for the damp miles remaining.
The floor of the main room was covered in a thick layer of rushes upon which were set two well-scrubbed long trestles.Rush dips gave light of a kind and a fire burned cleanly in the hearth. The ale-wife was a florid, handsome woman of middle years whose voice bore a strong Gwynedd lilt. Her husband, bluffly English by contrast, sent their son outside to tend the horses.
The only other customers were a young couple seated unobtrusively in the darkest corner of the room, quietly attending their meal. The girl raised her head at their entrance and stared at the armed men with wide, frightened eyes. She had fragile bones and delicate gauzy colouring. Her husband was a plain, wide-shouldered young man, somewhere between twenty and Guyon’s own age. He looked warily at the newcomers and put his left hand protectively on top of the girl’s. His right stayed loose, within easy reach of the long knife at his belt.
Guyon, after one startled glance at the girl’s luminous beauty, ignored the couple and sat down. Water dripped from his garments and soaked into the rushes. Eric gingerly eased himself down beside his lord and rubbed his aching knees.
The woman brought them bowls of mutton stew, fairly fresh wheaten loaves and pitchers of cider and ale, her manner deferential but briskly efficient. ‘Foul night to be travelling, sire,’ she addressed Guyon. ‘You can bed down here if you’ve a mind to stay.’
He thanked her and shook his head. ‘You’ve a new lord over at Thornford and I’d as lief not encounter him.’
‘Worse for business than the plague!’ complained the landlord, adding a bowl of honey cakes to the table. ‘Started already it has and Sir Ralph barely in his grave. He could be a bastard, but he was so mean that it was good for business. Folks would come here rather than claim a night of hospitality up at the keep, what with him and mad Mabel for hosts.’
