Crown of Passion Read online

  Crown of Passion

  Jocelyn Carew

  © Jocelyn Carew, 1980

  Jocelyn Carew has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1980 by First Avon Printing.

  This edition published in 2017 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Book One

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  Book Two

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  Book Three

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  Book Four

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  Book Five

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  Book One

  1098

  1

  Gwynllion Ramsey, alarmed by the sharp crackling of breaking brush near at hand, jerked upright and listened, scarcely breathing.

  She could see no farther than the ring of trees that surrounded her, encircling a spring in the midst of the New Forest, just west of Winchester, but her hearing was unusually acute, and now she could detect, at the very horizon of sound, another, heavier thrumming.

  All the forest seemed to pause, to listen. The gently welling spring whispered softly within its border of pale green grass. Even the wood pigeons fell silent, and the song thrush warbling from the oak branch beyond the spring quieted, making only curious chirping sounds.

  A sound of horses, perhaps.

  She recognized now the unmistakable drumbeat of horses’ hooves, not on a dirt track, but softer, muffled, on grassy sod.

  Not many, she decided after a moment. Not, then, a troop of armed men, riding their great war horses — a host of that size would send a rumble like thunder along the earth.

  A small hunting party, probably, and their quarry in headlong flight. Stag or boar, wolf, or even gentle doe — all could be dangerous when defending their lives.

  The horses were yet far away, but the snapping of twigs had been no more than a bowshot from her.

  She waited, listening for the sounds of the huntsmen’s prey to come again. She had thought the crackling came from beyond the spring, opposite the path by which she had entered the clearing. How foolish she had been to come alone! But she had truly listened overlong to the silly prattle of her maids, and even to the appealing innocence of Jeanne de Guilbert, a six-year-old royal ward also in the king’s keeping, who shared the lodge with her. So Gwyn had slipped away from the others, eluding Countess Maud’s watchful eyes.

  Gwyn dropped the bluebells she had gathered and clutched her smoke-colored cloak around her, holding it fast at the throat.

  She had nearly left her mantle behind at the lodge, thinking its lining of soft gray squirrel too warm for the sunny April day. But now she was grateful for its misty color, which veiled her light green bliaut and violet-red pelisson.

  Her ears strained until she detected the huntsmen’s quarry gasping for painful breath, so near to her she imagined she felt the hot, fetid exhalations on her exposed hand.

  Her heart thrummed in her ears. She dared not move. Her voluminous cloak shrouded her like a pale cocoon against the light trunk of the beech tree at her back. She prayed that the hunt would pass through the clearing in full cry, both hunters and hunted intent upon life or death, oblivious of her presence.

  The quarry was near, but the horses and riders seemed still at some distance. The game must be fleet of foot — a hart, doubtless. The hounds barked, keen on the scent, but not yet with the telltale belling that meant they had sighted their prey.

  She wondered how far she had roamed, idly, listening to the high sweetness of the song of the golden-crested wren, watching the perky red squirrels, and following the alluring blue trail of wild flowers. She was unfamiliar with the New Forest, the hunting preserve set aside by the late King William the First and added to by his son, since her own home had been in the north.

  She had only time to wish she had not been so impulsive — Countess Maud du Pré would have called it “foolhardy” — as to stray alone into the forest, before the prey of the hunters broke out of the brush. So terrified, so blind with animal panic, as to appear as first like a fallow doe, burst a young Saxon maid.

  She stumbled into the clearing, gasping for breath, and stopped short, swaying dangerously. A part of Gwyn’s mind noticed that the girl was very young.

  The Saxon was beyond doubt in the last stages of exhaustion. She must have run a long way. Her eyes were unfocused, glazed, staring wildly. Her abundant breasts heaved, straining free of her rough-spun nut-colored gunna, ripped open to the waist.

  Her long wheat-gold hair hung loosely over her shoulders, and her cheeks were tinted to the color of honey by wind and sun. Below the line marking the top of her gunna, her skin was fair as milk, save where her breasts bled, scratched by branch and vine, or by the men who now thundered after her.

  It was clear to Gwyn that the girl had, by foul chance, caught the eye of a handful of Normans. Perhaps they had caught her, probably with utter ruthlessness bared her body to delight their eyes and hands. Gwyn guessed that the girl had, with the cunning of a cornered rabbit, twisted out of their grasp and fled into the forest to escape her tormentors.

  Now the girl’s flaxen hair streamed unconfined down her back. Her woad-stained kirtle dangled in blue rags below her hips. She was, for the moment, no longer human. Merely prey for the Norman hunters, tracked down by dogs, like an animal. Used for sport — and used most savagely she would be, when they brought her to earth.

  Gwyn understood, though she could not feel, the girl’s panic. Half Norman and half Welsh, Gwyn had always been safe and privileged in her father’s castle. But the Norman conquerors were ruthless and hasty, and — in full cry — not overly particular. Gwyn could remain where she stood, nearly invisible in her gray cloak against the tree bole, and let the hunt go by. The girl had not seen her, and with luck neither would the dogs or men.

  It was not wise to interfere with the pleasures of King William the Second, or his minions — not wise at all. Even her father, when he was alive, had stayed away from court, lest the king’s unchancy temper find in the Baron Ramsey too sharp a critic.

  Besides, what could she — one girl, of slight build and small stature — do against a horde of mounted men, their always unruly passions whetted to a fine edge by the hunt, full of wolfish lust?

  Her doubts occupied her for only a few seconds. She darted from her shelter. “Here!” she called in the Saxon tongue, and added in a low but carrying voice, “Come here to me!”

  She had not rightly gauged the effect her words might have on the girl. She could not see herself through the eyes of the other. Already affrighted out of her reason, the Saxon girl saw a slender, elfin creature in a garment the color of mist, emerging from a tree trunk. A creature with compelling green eyes atilt in a vivid, heart-shaped face.

  To Gwyn’s surprise, the terrified girl shrank away from her. The Saxon’s light blue eyes stared in horror at Gwyn. Clearly the near menace was worse than the one approaching but yet out of sight.

  The flush in her cheeks, born from frantic flight, faded abruptly. The color drained down into the expanse of white swelling flesh, bared by her torn
gunna, and faded.

  “Stay away!” cried the girl in a high, queer tone. “Mother Nerthus, help me! The wicca’s eyes — Dear Freya, take away the Power — the Power!”

  Her voice rose still higher, until it sounded to Gwyn, tensely listening with one part of her to the nearing hoof-beats, like the whistle of a hurled lance.

  Gwyn stamped her foot with impatience. “Come on, you foolish thing! I’m not a witch! I don’t have the Power! If I did, do you think I’d stand here?”

  The girl was past reasoning with, Gwyn saw, but she was also, too clearly, at the point of dropping with exhaustion. Gwyn had to make her know she was not alone, like a stag marked for the deadly arrow.

  Gwyn outstretched her hand. “I’m not a witch!” she cried again, full of desperation. “I’m only a girl like you!”

  She could have explained who she was, but there was no time. This girl would, before the sun had traveled beyond the tip of the great copper beech toward the west, be torn to pieces by the dogs, after she had been cruelly ravaged by the hunters. However many there were, one or a dozen, each would have his turn, again and again, even on the pitiful, bleeding body.

  Gwyn closed her eyes to shut out the terrible vision. She would not allow it to happen!

  The girl, forsaking the Saxon gods of her ancestors, frantically sketched the sign of the cross. “Don’t come near me!” she babbled in Saxon. “Better them —”

  With the abrupt recollection of her enemies behind her, the terrified girl fell to her knees. “I can’t go farther! I can’t — run a step more! Not to save my soul! Oh, dear Mother of God, save me —” Her voice trailed into sobs.

  “You can’t stay there,” said Gwyn bracingly. “You’ve got to get up and out of sight. I’ll try to stave them off as best I can.” She looked over her shoulder at the far side of the clearing. Still there was no sign of the dogs. Most Norman hunting hounds tracked in silence, and only when they found the scent hot did they lift their heads and —

  Not far away the lead hound bayed, his powerful lungs sending a blood-curdling cry of triumph into the still forest air.

  The hound’s Saxon quarry lifted her head and turned to listen. It was a curiously animal-like movement, hopelessly expecting destruction, and Gwyn’s pity caught in her throat.

  There was no time to be wasted trying to convince the terrified girl that she only wished to help. And truly, Gwyn knew she could not guarantee the girl’s safety, even if she used her high rank to the limit.

  The devilish imp that often provoked Gwyn to action, frequently with unexpected results, prodded her sharply. If the girl thought, because of her astonishing appearance, that Gwyn was a witch of the old religion, very well! She would not disappoint her.

  The words that sprang to Gwyn’s lips came unbidden — an odd medley of church Latin and Cymric, her mother’s tongue. The gibberish served. With an unearthly scream, the girl leaped to her feet and vanished, crashing noisily through the brush on the far side of the clearing, possessed of new fear-driven strength that would take her far.

  The dogs bayed again, much closer. Gwyn, alone now, could concentrate on the oncoming foe. She distinguished three different voices in the hounds — a small pack, therefore.

  She had time enough, she judged, to escape from the clearing herself, but that, she decided instantly, would not serve to let the hard-pressed Saxon serf escape.

  Gwyn’s sharp eyes caught sight, in the thick grass, of the girl’s thonged sandal, left behind in mute evidence of her terror-sped flight.

  She darted to it and, quickly searching, found the other. Near the spring she stooped and replaced her own gold-embroidered slippers with the sandals.

  The serf’s foot gear was far too large for Gwyn’s small foot, but the thongs would hold them in place, at least for as long as she needed them.

  She straightened, and examined the edge of the glade. There, she decided, almost opposite her was the broken brush where the Saxon girl had burst through. Gwyn plotted her path in her mind. The track for the hounds would lead directly to the spring, and the wet earth would surely betray the girl. There was no way the hounds could miss the scent, unless they had another trail to follow!

  In the seconds she had left Gwyn set about the business of bewildering the experienced hounds. She lifted her gray skirts to avoid the wet grass and trod the Saxon footprints underfoot. Over and over again, half a dozen times, she overstepped them, and then, making no attempt at concealment, she scuffed across the grass at an angle away from the direction the fleeing girl had taken.

  The great beech tree, standing guard over the glade, stretched its coppery crown toward the skies. Below, rising out of the earth, the trunk was broad and, at her back, gave her the illusion of safety.

  Here, for lack of a better place, she would take her stand.

  She faced the direction where the hounds had last cried. They would be upon her in a moment, and she had only the jewel-hilted dagger in her girdle to serve as weapon against an unknown number of armed men and at least three great hounds.

  Her vivid imagination laid hold of her with fiery grasp, and her courage faltered. But only for a moment. Ramseys, she thought, men or women, did not retreat. No matter what the next hour might hold …

  She had only a handful of heartbeats to wait.

  The dogs crashed through the screen of underbrush where the girl had come through. They were hot upon the scent, tracking only with their noses.

  Their feeble sight did not reveal Gwyn to them. Keeping their noses to the ground, they whined as they tracked the leather sandals back and forth across the grass. Which track would they follow?

  Too late she realized her great folly in not throwing the sandals, after she had laid the false trail, as far into the underbrush as she could. The fateful scent now led straight to the leather on her own feet. She was now the quarry!

  The hunters were at hand, although unseen even yet. A voice rose, speaking in Norman, sharp and triumphant, and cried out, “The wench is tiring now. See where the branch is broken? I claim she fell here.”

  “Then where is she?” The second voice was calm, deliberate, even cruel.

  A higher voice broke in, with a laugh that sent a chill through Gwyn. “The tireder the better. I’ve had my fill of these peasants who fight back.”

  The second speaker, who seemed to be the leader, said with amused contempt, “That scar on your face heals slowly, I’ve noticed. But you’ve not had your fill of the hunt yet, Falsworth?”

  Falsworth retorted, “No more than you. I believe, Rainault, you don’t care even if the wench is dead, do you?” His voice held a note of superstitious awe.

  “It’s not the wench,” said Rainault, almost casually, “it’s my own easing that matters. And I should like that, right soon.”

  A horse whickered. The unseen steeds were doubtless halted while their riders puzzled out the track. Gwyn longed to flee in her turn and leave the sandals behind, but the dogs were too close. If she moved, they would catch sight of her. Her only chance was to stay where she was, without moving, without breathing.

  The hounds lost the scent.

  They followed unerringly the track of the Saxon maid as she had, moments ago, edged around the clearing, her eyes fearfully upon Gwyn Ramsey. Gwyn could well-nigh see the girl yet, so strong was the impression the dogs gave of following a presence they alone could detect. Gwyn almost expected to see the fleeing girl take shape, against the pale green of the shadbushes — with her long yellow hair and her thorn-rent, abundantly revealing, garments.

  The hounds followed their unseen vision to the point where the girl had lost her sandals. They could not track her farther.

  One magnificent hound, the leader of the three, lifted his massive head and gazed suspiciously upon her, but she held her breath — devoutly trusting that this peer among hounds, like his fellows, was notoriously short of sight.

  Even if he were, his master wasn’t. The hunter entered the glade. A tall figure, sinewy and l
ithe in his half armor, he stood stock-still, letting his eyes roam the clearing.

  Intent upon the hunt, he cocked his head and listened. But his eyes glittered and his tongue moved over his thin lips. At that moment Gwyn would rather have faced a slavering wild boar than this bestial hunter.

  The second man, close on his heels, cried, “Rainault, you’ve lost the wager! Your great Wolf, that you have vaunted so many times in your cups, lost the trail!”

  The third man, he of the high-pitched voice and chilling laugh, jostled the others, stumbling after them. “Wolf has lost the scent? One would think the Saxon bitch would smell strong enough! Valdemar, we must think of a splendid forfeit high enough — Rainault’s boasting has grated on my ear long enough!”

  Rainault spared only a glance for the working dogs. His eyes passed over Gwyn lightly. She was not even sure that he saw her, but she was to learn that Rainault never missed the slightest detail, if it could turn to his own advantage. “No blame to my Wolf, Valdemar!” he retorted. “The maid has fooled us all! Look yonder!”

  Obediently, his two companions followed his pointing finger. “But — that’s not the girl!” gasped the third man, Falsworth.

  Valdemar agreed. “I thought the wench had yellow hair? Like a will-o’-the-wisp in the forest, always just ahead of us. A fleet quarry, almost swift as the fallow deer. But much better prey, when she is finally brought to earth!” He gestured obscenely with both hands. “But great Wolf has been fooled, right enough. This is not the girl, Rainault!”

  “No more she is,” said Rainault, “but nonetheless she falls into our hands like a gift. And who are we to doubt the beneficence of the saints?”

  “Don’t blaspheme!” said Falsworth sharply. “I don’t like this, Rainault. Where did the slave girl go, then?”

  The three men looked expectantly at Gwyn. She could pretend not to understand Norman French, as would befit a Saxon girl. But she dared not deny her identity — only her name, her blood, and the king’s law could save her now.