Part 5 (1/2)

She stood her ground now, backed against an overgrown jut of rock, raking clods of beech mast from the forest floor. Her huge head tossed left and right, the vicious tushes threatening to disembowel any dog or human foolish enough to come within their reach.

Guyon drew rein and dismounted. The senior huntsman tossed him a boar spear which he caught in mid-air. It was a stout weapon, broad of blade, with a crossbar set beneath to prevent the boar from running up the shaft and tearing the hunter to pieces. A dog ran in to snap at the sow's powerful black shoulder, was not swift enough to disengage and was flung howling across the path of the other dogs, a red slash opening in its side. Cadi barked and darted. She was a gazehound, bred to course hare, not boar, but her narrow-loined lightness made her too swift to be caught.

The men began cautiously to close upon the sow, their spears braced, knives loose in their belts, every muscle taut to leap, for until the moment she charged no man knew if he was her intended victim. It was exhilarating, the tension unbearable. She raked the leaves with her trotters, rolled her small black eyes and tushed the ground, smearing her b.l.o.o.d.y incisors with soil.

'Come on girl, get on with it,' muttered Hugh of Chester licking his lips. Another man whistled loudly, trying to attract her attention and waved his spear over his head. Ralph de Serigny wiped his mouth, a pulse beating hard in his neck. Walter de Lacey remained immobile, his only movement a darting glance of challenge at Guyon. Guyon returned the look with glittering eyes and crouched, the spear braced.

The sow paused, quivering; the ma.s.sive head went down; the damp leaves churned. A squealing snort erupted through her nostrils and she made a sudden powerful lunge from her hams, straight at Guyon. Driven by her charging weight, the levelled spear reamed her chest.

Guyon braced the b.u.t.t against the forest soil, the muscles locking in his forearms and shoulders as he strove to hold her. The barbed tip lodged in bone and the shaft shuddered. Guyon heard the wood creak, felt it begin to give as the sow pressed forward, and knew that there was nothing he could do. The spear snapped. Razored tushes slashed open his chausses and drew a b.l.o.o.d.y line down his thigh. The sow, red foam frothing her jaws and screaming mad with pain, plunged and spun to gore him, the broken stump of the spear protruding from her breast. Guyon rammed the other half of the boar spear down her throat. A fierce pain burned his arm. Miles's hunting knife found the sow's jugular at the same time that de Bec's spear found her heart.

Silence fell , broken only by the eager yelping of the dogs and the whimpers of the injured one.

Blood soaked the trampled soil and snow. The chief huntsman whipped the hounds from the dead pig, his face grey. He darted a look once at de Lacey and Pembroke behind, and then away.

They ignored him.

'Are you all right?' Anxiously Hugh of Chester laid hold of Guyon's ripped sleeve to examine the pulsing gash.

Guyon nodded and smiled for the benefit of those who would have been only too pleased to see him seriously injured or killed and wadded his cloak against the wound to stanch the blood.

De Bec crouched beside the broken spear shaft and examined it. Then he rose and stalked to the senior huntsman and thrust the stump beneath his nose. The man shook his head, his complexion pasty. De Bec began to shout. Arnulf of Pembroke moved between the two men.

Guyon shouldered him aside.

'Let it go,' he commanded. 'There was a weakness in the wood. It could have happened to any one of us.'

'A weakness in the w--?' de Bec began indignantly, but caught the look in Guyon's eye and realised that the young lord was totally aware of the situation. 'Faugh!' de Bec spat, threw down the shaft and stalked to his horse, muttering under his breath.

'My lord, I did not know, I swear I did not!'

stuttered the huntsman, his throat jerking as if a noose was already tightening there.

'Oh stop gibbering, man, and see to the pig!'

Guyon snapped and turned away. There was time enough later to grill him for details, and the wilds of these border woods was no place to hold an impromptu court with tempers running high and blood l.u.s.t rife.

Miles picked up the shaft, saw how it had broken, and narrowed his eyes.

Guyon whistled Cadi to heel, stepped over a rivulet of pig blood and went to mount up.

Judith sat in the solar, distaff in hand, longing to set about her companions with it. They had offered her all manner of advice, both well meaning and malicious and had asked her some very intimate questions that made her realise how innocent she really was. All she could do was blush, her embarra.s.sment scarcely feigned. The women's curiosity was bottomless and avid and at least one of them with connections at court knew things about the groom that were better left unsaid. It did not prevent her from relating the information with grisly relish. Alicia parried frostily. Judith retreated behind downcast lids and wished the gaggle of them out of the keep.

Steps scuffed the stairs outside the chamber and the curtain was thrust aside. The women rose, fl.u.s.tered and twittering at the sight of the bridegroom whose reputation they had just been so salaciously maligning. Guyon regarded them without favour. 'Ladies,' he acknowledged, and looked beyond them to Judith. She hastened to his side. There were thorns and burrs in his cloak and a narrow graze down one cheek. There was also, she noticed, a tear in his chausses.

'My lord?'

He reached his right hand to take hers, an odd move since his left was the nearer. 'I need you to look at a scratch for me.'

'Your leg?' Her eyes dropped to his chausses.

'My arm. I fear you may need your mouldy bread.' He spoke softly, his words not carrying beyond the air that breathed them. All the women saw was his hand possessively on hers, the movement of his lips close to her ear and the sudden dismayed widening of her eyes.

'Go to the bedchamber,' said Judith. 'I will bring whatever is necessary. I take it that you do not want them to know.'

'No.'

Her lips twitched. 'You are begetting a foul reputation, my lord.'

'Not half as foul as their minds.' He cast a jaundiced glance at the women.

'Is there a difficulty, my lord?' Alicia enquired, coming forward, prepared to do battle. She was furious. It was bad enough that he should have used Judith roughly last night as attested by the bridal sheet and her daughter's trembling fight with tears, but that he should stride in here, dishevelled from the hunt and demand her body again, using her like a wh.o.r.e to ease his blood l.u.s.t, was disgusting.

'I should be grateful for a word if you can free yourself from your duties.'

Alicia stared at him. 'Now, my lord?'

'Come above with Judith, I will explain.'

Her eyes flickered with bewilderment as the ground of expectation was swept from beneath her feet. Guyon bowed formally to her, saluted the others with mockery and left the room, drawing Judith after him. Alicia collected her reeling wits, made her excuses and left them to think what they would.

Judith snipped away the blood-soaked sleeve from his left arm. Guyon clenched his fist on his thigh and winced.

'Boar?' Judith peered at the jagged tear. It was not deep to the bone, but neither was it superficial enough to just bandage and leave. 'It will have to be st.i.tched.'

He gave a resigned shrug. 'At least I am testing your abilities to the full .' He managed a weak grin as she soaked a linen pad in a strong-smelling liquid decocted from pine needles.

'Just pray that they do not fail. It's a nasty wound. What happened?'

Guyon almost hit the rafters as she pressed the pad to his arm and began to clean away the dirt slashed into the wound by the boar's tush.

Alicia walked into the room to hear her daughter breathlessly apologising, a quiver in her voice.

'Get on with it!' Guyon gasped through clenched teeth. 'If you stop every time I flinch, we'll be here all day, and that really will set the fat into the fire!'

Judith bit her lip. Alicia looked down at the raw, still seeping wound. 'You will need the mouldy bread,' she said neutrally.

'I have it, mama.'

Alicia eyed Guyon thoughtfully. 'I have just heard from one of the beaters. He says the boar spear snapped and that you were lucky to escape with your life, let alone a few small scratches.'

'This is more than a small scratch, Mama!'

Judith protested, staring round.

'I can see that. I am only repeating what the beater said, and he had it from your uncle's squire.'

'They were both right,' said Guyon.

The women stared at him. After her first startled declaration, Judith's wits quickened. Plainly Guyon was not disclaiming this tear as a mere scratch just to be manly. He wanted the wound kept a secret, or at least reduced to nothing.