Norman castles were well-built, but they had been stormed before. To leave Ewyas Harold a smoking ruin would be to send a signal the length of the whole border: Wales was rampant once more.
It had started as a search for his stolen bride, but the contest had taken on larger proportions now. Goronwy would not settle for the safe return of Angharad. And he would certainly not pay any ransom for her. Her abduction was a profound insult to him and to the house of Powys. It could only be answered in one way.
His captain came scrambling up to the vantage point and lay beside him in the bushes. Ewyas Harold castle was a bleak citadel under a lowering sky. The captain appraised it.
“How many men will it take?”
“A hundred.”
“Five times that number are on their way.”
“The messenger has arrived?” asked Goronwy.
“Your uncle has responded to your request.”
“He is sending five hundred men?”
“No, my lord,” said the man. “He is bringing them.”
Golde rode back towards Hereford with Canon Hubert and Brother Simon, but her presence still hovered in Archenfield. Ralph Delchard was deeply moved. In the space of a few minutes, he and Golde had made solemn decisions that called for days of serious meditation.
Time had not been needed. Simply to see her again had lifted him out of his anxieties and preoccupations. Warnod’s will would be a mighty weapon in the forthcoming duels with Richard Orbec and Ilbert Malvoisin. Both men had assumed that it had been destroyed in the blaze at the house. Its appearance as a piece of evidence in the shire hall would astound them.
Even more pleasing than the will itself was the fact that Golde had brought it. It could just as easily have been sent by messenger, if not retained in Hereford until the commissioners were ready to resume their work there. Golde had taken precious time away from her business to deliver the message in person, even hiring an escort to ride with her. That action brushed away any doubts that Ralph might have had about her feelings towards him.
He chuckled to himself as he recalled what Idwal had said to him.
The archdeacon had finally got something right.
“Where do we meet them, my lord?” asked his captain.
“At the next village,” said Ralph.
“How long will they be?”
“My message urged all speed.”
“Will the sheriff respond?”
“As fast as he may,” said Ralph. “Unless I am very much mistaken, Ilbert Malvoisin looks to be Earl of Hereford one day. He will not gain the title by skulking in the city when there is trouble on the border.
He will respond.”
They were riding northwest in the direction of Richard Orbec’s holdings for a rendezvous with the sheriff and his men. The reinforced party could then ride on with confidence to widen the search for Gervase Bret and to hunt for the killers of Warnod and Redwald the reeve. Ralph would be doing what he liked best-taking his men into action with a sword in his hand-but he did not feel the usual thrill of anticipation. Golde kept intruding gently into his mind. He had never met a woman who had so easily and so painlessly taken up lodging in his heart.
It was baffling. Golde was everything that would normally have rebuffed his interest. She was a woman of Saxon birth, the widow of an unloved husband, and the brewer of a liquid that Ralph regarded as a species of poison. Yet he wanted her. There was a sense of independence about her that drew him ineluctably to her side. His main goal was still to track down his dearest friend. If Gervase were to be found alive, however, Ralph would celebrate the joyous event by racing off to be with Golde.
“He is still trailing us, my lord,” said the captain.
“What?”
“The archdeacon.”
“Can we never shake him off?” moaned Ralph.
“He is like a burr-he sticks.”
Ralph turned in his saddle and saw the diminutive figure a quarter of a mile behind them. Forbidden to ride in their company, Idwal was following in their wake. His whole life was a verbal confrontation between Wales and England. If a real battle was to take place, he did not wish to miss the opportunity to be involved in some dramatic way.
“Shall I frighten him off?” offered the captain.
“It would be a waste of time.”
“What does he want, my lord?”
“Listeners.”
They reached the meeting point, but had a long wait before the sheriff finally arrived with fifty men at his back. He thanked Ralph for sending the warning and gave him an account of the precautionary measures he had taken in Hereford itself. The two men rode together at the head of their troops. Ilbert wanted more detail about events on the Orbec demense and Ralph obliged him. The latter then took the opportunity to broach another matter.
“You know Golde, I see.”
“She is a presence in the community.”
“She would be a presence wherever she went,” said Ralph. “But you seemed to have a closer acquaintance with her.”
“That is all past,” said the sheriff huffily.
“Then there was something?”
“A private matter of no account.”
“It must have some weight if it still troubles you.”
“I have put it behind me, my lord. Ask no more.”
“But I do,” pressed Ralph. “The lady interests me. If you have anything to say against her, take care. You will find me ready to defend her name against all slander.”
“Then I will hold my tongue.”
“Why?”
“The truth might cause offence.”
“What truth, my lord sheriff?”
“As I have said, it is all done. We are reconciled.”
“You cannot leave me in the air like this,” complained Ralph. “There is a charge against the lady’s character, I can tell. When I saw the two of you together, I sensed a tension between you. What was its cause?”
“Golde is a thief,” said the sheriff bluntly.
“Never!”
“I speak but as I know, my lord.”
“Then speak no more falsehood of her or I will not be answerable for my temper. The lady is abused here. I know it.”
Ilbert let Ralph sulk in silence for a while then raised the topic that had been exercising his mind. Ralph and he were riding shoulder to shoulder as comrades. The sheriff attempted to build on that relationship.
“Your help is much appreciated, my lord.”
“I harry the Welsh in order to regain a friend.”
“Whatever your motives, it is comforting to have such an experienced soldier at my side. Neither of the men we ride towards would support me as they should. Richard Orbec is too bound up in his own concerns and Maurice Damville is too ambitious to take orders from any man.”
“Ask the favour,” said Ralph.
“What?”
“I know when I am being licked into a giving vein.”
“That is not the case at all.”
“Ask the favour and let’s have done with it.”
“It is not a favour, my lord. Merely a request.”
“Put it to me.”
“I simply wish to say that I hope we can come to some amicable agreement with regard to your work here.”
“Of course,” said Ralph. “We’ll dispossess you and fine you as amicably as we can.”
“Is there not another course we could pursue?”
“Do I detect the odour of bribery?”
“No,” asserted Ilbert, colouring under his helm. “All I ask for is a balance between justice and practicality. If something works well, why change it?”
“If a man beats his wife well, why stop him?”
“I have to go on living in Hereford, you do not.”
“In view of what we have uncovered, I am very grateful.” Ralph clapped him on the shoulder. “Save your breath, my lord sheriff. This is one battle. The shire hall will be another.”
“I am sure that we can come to an understanding.”
“We already have.”
“All it takes is a little effort on both sides.”
Ralph chuckled as he thought of the document that was safely tucked away in the satchel that Brother Simon had borne off to Hereford.