Elene started towards the boys. Renard bellowed a command at them and was ignored, the antagonists being locked in their own private battle and deaf to all else.
‘Owain, Guy, stop it now!’ Elene cried, circling them in search of an opening to try to drag them apart.
Renard limped across the path of a kitchen maid yoked with two buckets of well water, unhooked one of them from the rope and, returning to the brawl, hurled an icy deluge into its midst.
The boys broke apart, spluttering and breathless with shock. Renard put himself between them and regarded both without favour. It was useless to ask what had happened or who had started it. Boys of their age had usually perfected the art of lying, or at least of seeing the truth from a totally different angle to that of the harassed adult.
‘You’re Guy d’Alberin, aren’t you?’
The pudgy boy twitched his soaking shoulders. ‘Yes, my lord,’ he said through chattering teeth. A fresh breeze swooped around the open spaces of the ward, punishing those who were not wearing cloaks.
‘And you are?’
‘Owain ap Siorl, sire.’ The other boy jutted his chin proudly at Renard. Blood was trickling from his nose, but he was pretending not to notice.
‘It was his fault, he started the fight!’ accused Guy d’Alberin. ‘He can’t take the tiniest joke without going wild!’
Which told Renard everything he wanted to know, particu larly when the Welsh lad tightened his lips, eyes dark with fury. ‘Suffice it that you both have the time and energy to indulge your tempers,’ he said coldly. ‘It will not happen again. I know that for a certainty because I am going to see to it myself. Guy, go and find your father and send him to me. After that, do the same with Sir Ancelin.’ He turned to fully peruse the slighter youth. ‘Owain ap Siorl, get yourself cleaned up and changed, then saddle up your own mount and the blue roan for me.’
The boys, frightened by the quality of Renard’s presence rather than the strength of anything he had said, sheepishly vanished on their separate errands.
Elene sighed and shook her head. ‘Guy d’Alberin’s a bully,’ she said. ‘The older boys just laugh at his airs and ignore him, so he takes his revenge on the newest member of the household. Owain’s so sensitive about his Welsh blood and his mother’s remarriage that he’s his own worst enemy. Also, I think that Guy’s jealous that Owain is to be your squire.’
‘Fancies himself in that role, does he?’ Renard thoughtfully stirred the end of the quarterstaff in the mud as if mixing porridge.
‘Unfortunately so.’
‘Might do him good.’
‘But not you.’ Elene pulled a face.
‘Oh, undoubtedly not in the beginning, but he’s the heir to Farnden. If he isn’t tempered before he inherits, he’s going to be about as much use to me as a sword made of raw dough! The other lad requires tempering too, but in a different way. Guy d’Alberin has to acquire a cutting edge; Owain already has one but needs the nicks of misuse honing out.’
‘And you see all that from one small encounter?’ Elene eyed him sceptically.
‘I see the probability.’ He went to lean across the top of the sheep pen and said in a voice so low that she hardly heard him, ‘Perhaps I too have been recently tempered.’
Chapter 19
Westminster, Pentecost 1140
Matille watched Ranulf and his half-brother, William de Roumare, cradling their wine and their sour, power-hungry hatreds, and with an impatient click of her tongue retreated behind the leather curtain into the sleeping chamber.
She knew how it would go, round in a vicious circle, ever decreasing as the drink took effect. The earldom of Carlisle and how it should be theirs by right of birth instead of belonging to David of Huntingdon, son of Scotland’s king. Then various curses would be aimed in the latter’s direction, degenerating to all Scots in general and the Welsh too for good measure. Plots and plans to regain Carlisle and plant King David in the ground would follow.
Sighing, Matille bid her maid fetch her jewellery casket, and opening it up, sought a brooch to wear to the King’s feast at court. Ranulf would expect her to drip with jewels tonight, would expect her to outdo the Queen. In some ways Matille was not averse to that expectation; she disliked the Queen, but she preferred to be less blatant than her husband. And these days Ranulf was blatant in all things — his contempt for Stephen, his contempt for his fellow barons, and the flaunting of his blond, foreign whore who went by the improbable name of Olwen and whom he had set up handsomely in a house on the Southwark side for the duration of their stay in London.
Matille held up a round gold brooch set with garnets and sapphires. It had been a betrothal gift from Ranulf and was one of her favourite items. There were other, newer jewels in her casket, payments to keep her sweet and salve Ranulf ’s tardy conscience while he dallied with his dancing girl. Matille was slightly piqued at his fascination, but it went no deeper than that, indeed she was even grateful to the slut for taking the edge from his sexual appetite. Accommodating Ranulf had always been one of the less pleasant marital duties.
Apparently the girl was now pregnant and claiming that Ranulf was the father of her child. It was possible of course, but Matille was sceptical. Ranulf, for all his eagerness between the sheets, had never got any of his previous mistresses with child, and on her he had only fathered the two girls, and female children were a sign of the strength of the woman’s seed, not the man’s. If the whore from Outremer was pregnant, then for Ranulf it was swift work, and probably to be repented at leisure.
Matille had not approached him on that matter directly lest he see it as jealous carping, but nevertheless, with a word here and there in the right quarters, she had ensured that doubts were sown in his mind, growing as did his leman’s belly. While Matille was indifferent to raising Ranulf ’s bastard among their vast household, she drew the line at raising some ditch-begotten pedlar’s brat with no blood claim whatsoever. If the babe came early then Ranulf would doubt his paternity. Even if it didn’t, knowing him, he would still be suspicious, and that suited Matille perfectly.
She confirmed her selection of the brooch to the maid, and signalled her to remove the casket.
‘Very well,’ said William de Roumare to his half-brother and with one eye to the edge of the curtain that was blowing in a draught, lowered his voice. ‘We’ll deal with Henry of Huntingdon as you suggest and use him as a lever to wrest Carlisle from his father.’
Ranulf nodded and rolled the goblet between his palms. ‘We can arrange the details tomorrow. I know several useful men who love money as much as they hate the Scots.’
Roumare grunted and leaned back in the chair. It creaked against his solid weight. ‘Carlisle,’ he said, caressing the word.
Ranulf smiled. ‘Then Lincoln and Ravenstow,’ he added, as if listing the delicacies of an anticipated feast.
Olwen sat near the open shutters, listening to the night sounds of the Southwark streets. Behind the houses the afterlight was a luminous teal-green pinpricked by the first stars. She could smell the closeness of the river and the vinegary odour of cheap ale and wine from the bathhouse next door. Laughter emanated too, loud and high-pitched. The Southwark stews. The other side of the river where men kept their mistresses and appointments with the seamier side of life. Not hidden, but separate, and the chasm was far deeper than that carved by the muscular grey river flowing between the two.
She pressed her hand to the slight mound of her belly where the baby was kicking vigorously — far too vigorously for a child begotten at Christmastide. The superb tone of her dancer’s muscles made her look less pregnant than she actually was — four months instead of the six she knew to be fact.