this.'
Gytha shrugged and pushed the fur back into her scrip. 'How do you think I could stand so close to a wounded wild boar and come to no hurt?'
She turned back to the spring and calmly dipped her bucket back into it.
There was a moment's silence, then Hugh asked suspiciously, 'What are you asking for it? I warn you, don't try to cheat me; I know what these things are worth.'
Gytha placed a tight coil of cloth on her head and swung the full pail up, balancing it on the coil.
'Nothing. I ask nothing now. When you have the power you seek, perhaps you will remember me.'
Hugh gave a harsh laugh. 'So when I have my brother's estates, you think I will reward you handsomely, do you?'
Gytha thought no such thing. But she knew only too well that men are suspicious of anything which is freely given and anyone who gives it. She smiled, then set the pail down again.
'Show me your hand.'
Hugh hesitated, then peeled off the glove. Gytha ran her fingers over his palm, turning the hand this way and that to the bright sunlight, as if she was examining it carefully. She was not. She knew what lay there would tell her nothing. She had already decided what she would say to him.
'You are a king-maker, Hugh of Roxham. And kingmakers have more power than the sovereign himself.'
His eyes flew wide. You know this . . . you . . . you can see this?' He peered down at his own hand as if he had never noticed his arm ended in such an appendage before.
Gytha let his hand fall. Then she pulled out the strip of fur again, and held it up before his greedy eyes.
You must wear this as a girdle about your waist, next to your bare skin. It will guide you. Do whatever it leads you to do. Follow the desires it awakens in you, for as you satisfy them so your power will increase. You will feel the hunger, you will feel the strength grow in you, as soon as you put it on.'
Hugh was about to speak, but she held up a warning hand.
'Listen, your friends are coming this way.'
He turned his head towards the sound. She was right; the barking of hounds and crashing of the horses' hooves were growing louder, coming straight towards them. He turned to say something to her, but she had vanished. Puzzled, he looked down and started violently as he realized that he was holding the girdle of fur.
Hugh would wear the girdle of fur about his waist, Gytha was sure of that. He wouldn't be able to resist the temptation, not if he thought there was the slightest chance it would give him what he desired. And when he wore it, he would be forced to satiate the desires it would awaken in him. He would have to act. He would be driven to it. It was but one small step, but each step leads to another. You must raise the skeleton one bone at a time before you can set it dancing.
Darkness stretches time, as wetting stretches a woollen cloth. A man waiting alone under the stars feels each passing hour drawn out so far he can no longer trust even the hourglass to mark it faithfully, and Raffe had no hourglass in his hand.
He was squatting in the concealment of some trees, gazing out on the twisting black waters of the river, his ears straining for the splash of a paddle. His limbs were so stiff, he was beginning to think that if the boat came now, he would be unable to stir a muscle to meet it.
His mind felt more numb than his legs. Although he'd thought of little else all day, still he could not digest the news that Elena had murdered Raoul. It was impossible to think that such a fragile, innocent creature could have killed a man. Yet Talbot said she had as good as admitted it. If she had realized who Raoul was, if he'd threatened to take her back to Gastmere, she would have been terrified. If he'd hurt her, forced himself on her, she might have lashed out in panic, like a cornered animal, not meaning to kill him, an accident. But Talbot had said the corpse had been found at the inn and she'd been missing all night. That meant she must have followed him and . . . no, Raffe couldn't bring himself