Free The Leopard Unleashed by Elizabeth Chadwick Page A

Ravenstow.’
    Renard eyed the man’s paunch. ‘If the Welsh are slippingthrough you had better tighten your vigilance. My own patrols will visit regularly.’
    Sir Thomas was not unaware of the pointed quality of Renard’s stare and drew himself up, inhaling to tighten his stomach.
    ‘Send to Ravenstow immediately at the first sign of trouble.’ Renard shook the reins.
    ‘It is a pleasure to have you home, my lord!’ The words ended in a gasp as d’Alberin was forced to breathe out and let his spare flesh wobble on to his belt again.
    Renard glanced sharply, but the man’s face, apart from being slightly pink with effort, was as plain and honest as pottage. Probably the soft fool meant it, and Renard did not know whether to thank him or laugh and disillusion him. In the end he did neither, just nodded briskly and clicked Gorvenal to a trot.
    Renard spent the rest of the morning garnering information about the extent of the Welsh raiding, inspected a couple of barns that had been plundered and set on fire, and rode thoughtfully up the border to eat and rest the horses for an hour at Adam’s main holding of Thornford before returning through the safer heart of the earldom to Ravenstow.
    The sun in the mid-afternoon was hot and perspiration began to trickle delicately down Renard’s spine. It was a different kind of heat to Antioch, he thought. Out there the sun parched a man to the consistency of boiled leather. Here it melted him in a puddle of his own sweat.
    In the fields gleaners were out among the stubble as they picked their way across the barbered golden strips. Beyond the fields the land rose slightly and ran into a small belt of oak and beech forest that was gradually being eateninwards by assarts as the population of Hawkfield expanded. A new area of ploughland was being cleared even as Renard and the men rode into the trees, a young peasant swinging his axe at one of the sturdy trunks. Seeing the horsemen, he paused to watch them approach and pushed the hair off his soaked brow. An older man, working beside him, groaned and pressed his hands into the aching small of his back before tugging his forelock to the soldiers.
    Renard dismounted to talk. The knights gave each other long-suffering looks, and fidgeted, gently stewing in their armour.
    The younger man tentatively offered Renard a stone cider jug and a grubby hunk of maslin loaf. Renard declined the latter, but drank thirstily from the jug. The cider was coarse, almost as rough on the throat as usquebaugh. Coughing, he passed a remark in English that caused the two peasants to grin broadly.
    He enquired about the assart. His English was accented, a little rusty from four years at the back of his mind, but he spoke it well enough to be understood and in turn to understand what the two men replied. One particular remark made by the older man caused Renard to lift his brows and stare thoughtfully into the autumn forest beyond, a half-smile on his lips.
    ‘My lord, is it wise to rub shoulders with the serfs?’ asked one of the men when once more they were riding through the trees. ‘Will they not get ideas above their position?’
    Renard shifted his shield as its pressure began to chafe a sore spot between his shoulder blades. ‘I know what I’m about. You cannot buy loyalty either with coin or with fear. It is like mastering a horse,’ he grinned, ‘or a woman –gentle but firm, and applying the pressure in the right place at the right time.’
    The knight laughed and shook his head.
    ‘Lord Renard!’ Ancelin’s voice was terse with sudden warning.
    It was not just his shield-bearer’s tone that caused the hairs to prickle erect on Renard’s spine. He shifted his shield again, rapidly bringing it down on to his left forearm, and started to draw his sword. Then he stopped with the weapon half out of its sheath. His mind flew while his body grew roots. He could feel the tension in his men, was aware of someone behind him, swallowing loudly.