‘You don’t want to get it wet,’ he said, a sudden glint in his eyes.
‘Wet?’ Elene looked at him blankly, then her stare went to the tub and widened. The first heat of passion had been vented in mere moments and the tub still steamed. It was of the upright cask variety. Room for two perhaps, but a very close fit — very close indeed.
The glint spread from his eyes to become a mischievous smile. His gaze dropped to her full, brown-tipped breasts, then lower still. ‘No sense of adventure?’ he teased, and tilting her chin on his forefinger, kissed her. ‘Pleasure me,’ he said softly. ‘God knows, if I could have had control of my dreams these past few weeks, they would have been of this.’
His expression became bleak, almost desolate. All doubts and hesitations left Elene. Willingly she went with him to the tub.
Pulling her ivory comb down through the wet tangles of her hair, Elene listened in appalled silence to Renard’s brief summary of the Lincoln campaign and its disastrous results, of the price paid so far and the price yet to be exacted.
‘Mama says that she is going to endow a convent at Ravenstow on that piece of meadow just outside the town,’ Renard said in that same, careful voice he had used throughout the narrative. ‘She wants to dedicate it to my father, and Henry, and Miles. You never knew my oldest brother, did you? He drowned on the White Ship. Stone, Mama says, will be there long after she’s gone … long after we’ve all gone.’
Elene put the comb down on her coffer. ‘Poor Henry.’ Her voice wobbled and her eyes filled with tears.
‘That is what we have all said about him throughout his life. I suppose he’ll have more dignity when the stone carver has finished with his effigy. Mama intends Nottingham alabaster. She has it all planned.’ He laced his shirt and pulled on a tunic of wine-coloured wool. ‘Probably we’ll all need effigies if Matilda gains the throne. Either that or hasten into exile. I suppose I could hire my sword to Prince Raymond again.’ Picking up his indoor shoes of soft kidskin, Renard stared at them as if he did not know what they were and said wearily, ‘Christ’s blood, I’m sick of it, Nell.’
She blinked away her tears and looked at the tub, the water now merely tepid and much of it splashed on the floor. Her body still ached and tingled. ‘Will Earl Ranulf come against us?’
‘Of a certainty. I’m a rebel now.’
‘Can you hold him off?’
‘I do not know. It depends upon so many things — how he is received at Gloucester, how Matilda’s fortunes progress, and how quiet the Welsh remain.’
‘How long do we have?’
Renard finished dressing and came to lay his hand on her shoulder. ‘Again, I do not know. As long as this snow lasts we are secure. Beyond that …’ He heaved a deep sigh. ‘Nell, I don’t want to talk or even think about it — not for today, at least. I have told you all that you need to know, and that was grief enough to recount.’ He kissed her mouth and his hand lightly strayed between her breasts, then rested on her waist.
‘Now, before I yield to temptation again, let me see my son, and is there anything to eat?’ His tone was plaintive as he used the mundane as a safe path through the quagmire. ‘I broke fast at Woolcot but that seems ages ago and it was no more than rye bread and weak ale.’
‘There is only pottage.’ She raised to him a smile both tremulous and teasing.
‘Do you remember that night at Salisbury?’ He gave a small shake of his head. ‘That seems ages ago too. I wish that time had stood still.’
Chapter 26
The snow fell heavily for the next two days, and inter — mittently for the three after that. Hushed beneath a sparkling quilt the world held its breath. Animals had to be dug out of drifts. Some were not found until the snow had melted, and among the victims was an old packman who had been caught out in the first blizzard.
Whether their dwelling was in castle, cottage or hovel, people stayed close to their hearths — mending tools, telling tales, sewing, weaving, drinking, quarrelling, fighting and making love.
Renard spent the first blizzard days either in bed or very close to it, and most of that time he slept, restoring his drained reserves. In his waking periods, he took the opportunity to play with his infant son and enjoy the soothing balm of Elene’s company. The knowledge that this interlude was only a respite, that there might never be such an opportunity again, made the time spent even more precious, each moment to be savoured to the full.
Gradually, however, a degree of restlessness returned to his spirit, a need to go beyond passive pleasures. Elene discovered suddenly that she could no longer beat him at tables and she had to exert every ounce of wit and concentration to hold him at nine men’s morris. They had a wild snowball fight in the bailey that was adjourned, minus snowballs and amid much giggling, snatched kisses and horseplay, to the bedchamber.
That same night upon the wall walk, gazing out on the black and white emptiness of moon, sky, forest and snow, their hackles were raised by the howling of wolves. ‘Human or four-legged,’ Renard murmured to Elene who was wrapped inside the warmth of his cloak, body pressed close to his. ‘They may cry at our gates all they wish, but if they bite, they will find it is more than they can chew.’
The next day he had a grindstone fetched from the armoury and set up in the hall. While Elene plied her needle through soft fur slippers for Hugh, he occupied himself in sharpening his meat dagger and hunting knife, and oiling the razor-keen edges of his sword. He had lost his own at Lincoln, it having become a spoil of war. His mother, eyes liquid, chin firm, had given him the one that had belonged to his father. The hilt was set with Lothian garnets and the grip of slightly worn, shrunken leather still bore the pressure marks of his father’s hand. It had originally belonged to Renard’s great-grandfather, Renard le Rouquin, after whom he had been named, and the Lombardy steel was still as bright as the day on which it had been forged more than a hundred years ago. One day, if it too did not become a spoil of war, it would belong to Hugh.
Judith had also given him his father’s hauberk since his own had been lost at Lincoln. It fitted him well, had needed only minor adjustments to compensate for his being slightly taller and a little less broad. It had been a wrench for his mother, he knew. Piece by piece the fabric of her young womanhood was being unravelled, leaving her threadbare to the world and there was nothing he could do about it. If cozened, she would bristle, reluctant to be openly affectionate except to her grandchildren. While giving him his father’s arms and accoutrements, her voice had been brisk and practical, warning him not to dare sentiment.
Elene had wept openly when he showed her the sword, and put her arms impulsively around him, for which he loved her. With Elene there was never any need to banter, fight or pretend.
The snow started to melt and recede. Elene fretted that she had missed lambing time at Woolcot. Renard closeted himself with de Lorys and the senior knights of the garrison to devise strategies for resisting siege. He sent patrols out and rode down to Ledworth and Ravenstow himself, returning via Woolcot with the reassurance to Elene that the lambing had gone well despite the late bad weather.
Adam visited them with the expected news that Renard had been stripped of his lands by the Empress and declared rebel, his lands promised to Ranulf of Chester. ‘Although she did not give them to him outright,’ Adam had qualified. ‘That awaits her coronation.’
‘Oh,’ Renard said sarcastically. ‘That’s all right then.’
Adam shrugged. ‘It won’t stop Ranulf from anticipating the promise, I grant you, but the way Matilda treats her supporters as if they were serfs, she’ll be queen of nothing. More than one man walked away from an audience with her harbouring second thoughts, myself included. I have known for a long time that she is mettlesome, but with so much iron in her pride, she is riding for a fall.’