great-grandfather who had borne the colouring and cunning of a fox.
They had corresponded briefly over the matter of the wedding. His letter had been terse and impersonal, bearing no imprint of the young man she remembered. No humour,not even a glimpse of the carelessly affectionate hand that would pat a dog’s head in passing. It was more than just anxiety that tensed her stomach; it was fear.
Adam made excuses for Renard, saying he was very busy with matters of estate, but as he spoke, he had avoided her eyes. There was more that he was not saying, but Adam was adept at keeping secrets. Elene had decided of her own intuition, which was seldom wrong (at least as far as sheep were concerned), that to Renard this marriage was a necessary, but far from welcome, intrusion into the pattern of his life: a duty to be consummated and dispensed with as quickly as possible.
Hamo le Grande was the leader of a troop of mercenaries in the pay of Ranulf, Earl of Chester. He was a hard-bitten soldier who had been fighting for money since his early adolescence. His career now spanned almost thirty years of battles, skirmishes and chevauchée. It was a rough, uncertain way to make a living and only the strongest and most fortunate survived to the years that Hamo now wore like a lead cope around his shoulders, dragging him down. Time was against him. He knew that the next ten years would see him either settled in a more permanent occupation or dead in battle.
He rubbed the fingers of his right hand over his thick grey beard, found a crumb, and absently teased it out. Below the ridge on which he had paused to rest his stallion, his paymaster’s lands blended with those of the enemy – Ravenstow. A few miles to the north on a finger of land pointing into Chester’s earldom lay the keep of Caermoel with its ownership bitterly disputed. Earl Ranulf wanted it, but was not yet ready to make his move. Other, moreimportant pots were simmering on his hearth, such as forging contacts with the rebels in Bristol and poking his nose into affairs at Lincoln, but he had given his patrols and the Welsh levies of Cadwaladr ap Gruffydd rein to raid and forage where they would.
Hamo gazed at the lands, imagining himself the lord of one of these border fiefs. He had been indirectly promised a holding of his own if he proved worth his salt, or failing that, a castellan’s position in one of the Earl’s many keeps. It was a dream that goaded him as he fought to pitch a tent in the streaming rain of a dark field, while snug within the keep the lord he served sat practically on top of a roaring fire, gorging himself on venison, drinking wine and fondling the maidservants.
‘Do we go in?’ asked his second in command, a small tough Welshman who spoke appalling French.
Hamo gave him a withering look. ‘Don’t be stupid, boyo!’ he mimicked. ‘Of course we go in. Who’s to stop us? There’s a village a few miles down. Anyone fancy roast pork?’
The village consisted of no more than a dozen daub and wattle huts clustered around an even smaller ramshackle wooden church. There was very little to raid, but the villagers had not yet begun the autumn slaughter and there was pork to be had, the young pigs plump and succulent. The sound of their squeals was deafening and drowned out the screams of the human occupants as they either fled or died.
Hamo allowed his men to quench their thirst on the villagers’ cider, but not to the point of intoxication. A pack-horse was laden with spoils and provisions. What they could not carry they killed or burned and then they rode on,their passing marked by the crackle of flame and a pall of smoke darker than the sky.
An hour later Hamo was contemplating turning for home via a quick slaughter run through a flock of sheep he could see dotting the horizon when he caught sight of the riders joining the main road below from the rutted drover’s track that led to Woolcot. Hamo narrowed his gaze and counted eight knights
They had corresponded briefly over the matter of the wedding. His letter had been terse and impersonal, bearing no imprint of the young man she remembered. No humour,not even a glimpse of the carelessly affectionate hand that would pat a dog’s head in passing. It was more than just anxiety that tensed her stomach; it was fear.
Adam made excuses for Renard, saying he was very busy with matters of estate, but as he spoke, he had avoided her eyes. There was more that he was not saying, but Adam was adept at keeping secrets. Elene had decided of her own intuition, which was seldom wrong (at least as far as sheep were concerned), that to Renard this marriage was a necessary, but far from welcome, intrusion into the pattern of his life: a duty to be consummated and dispensed with as quickly as possible.
Hamo le Grande was the leader of a troop of mercenaries in the pay of Ranulf, Earl of Chester. He was a hard-bitten soldier who had been fighting for money since his early adolescence. His career now spanned almost thirty years of battles, skirmishes and chevauchée. It was a rough, uncertain way to make a living and only the strongest and most fortunate survived to the years that Hamo now wore like a lead cope around his shoulders, dragging him down. Time was against him. He knew that the next ten years would see him either settled in a more permanent occupation or dead in battle.
He rubbed the fingers of his right hand over his thick grey beard, found a crumb, and absently teased it out. Below the ridge on which he had paused to rest his stallion, his paymaster’s lands blended with those of the enemy – Ravenstow. A few miles to the north on a finger of land pointing into Chester’s earldom lay the keep of Caermoel with its ownership bitterly disputed. Earl Ranulf wanted it, but was not yet ready to make his move. Other, moreimportant pots were simmering on his hearth, such as forging contacts with the rebels in Bristol and poking his nose into affairs at Lincoln, but he had given his patrols and the Welsh levies of Cadwaladr ap Gruffydd rein to raid and forage where they would.
Hamo gazed at the lands, imagining himself the lord of one of these border fiefs. He had been indirectly promised a holding of his own if he proved worth his salt, or failing that, a castellan’s position in one of the Earl’s many keeps. It was a dream that goaded him as he fought to pitch a tent in the streaming rain of a dark field, while snug within the keep the lord he served sat practically on top of a roaring fire, gorging himself on venison, drinking wine and fondling the maidservants.
‘Do we go in?’ asked his second in command, a small tough Welshman who spoke appalling French.
Hamo gave him a withering look. ‘Don’t be stupid, boyo!’ he mimicked. ‘Of course we go in. Who’s to stop us? There’s a village a few miles down. Anyone fancy roast pork?’
The village consisted of no more than a dozen daub and wattle huts clustered around an even smaller ramshackle wooden church. There was very little to raid, but the villagers had not yet begun the autumn slaughter and there was pork to be had, the young pigs plump and succulent. The sound of their squeals was deafening and drowned out the screams of the human occupants as they either fled or died.
Hamo allowed his men to quench their thirst on the villagers’ cider, but not to the point of intoxication. A pack-horse was laden with spoils and provisions. What they could not carry they killed or burned and then they rode on,their passing marked by the crackle of flame and a pall of smoke darker than the sky.
An hour later Hamo was contemplating turning for home via a quick slaughter run through a flock of sheep he could see dotting the horizon when he caught sight of the riders joining the main road below from the rutted drover’s track that led to Woolcot. Hamo narrowed his gaze and counted eight knights
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