The Running Vixen (17 page)

‘Austin, stop looking at me as though I were already corpsed in my coffin and go and fetch my sword,’ he snapped.

The youth rubbed his wrist across the dark down on his upper lip. ‘They are laying bets in the alehouse down the road that you won’t last more than ten minutes against Warrin de Mortimer,’ he said, his young voice torn between indignation and doubt.

‘Are they?’ Adam arched one eyebrow. ‘Because I am guilty of slander, or because my sword arm’s supposedly weaker than his?’

‘Both, my lord.’

Adam shoved the empty cup aside and swept his hand impatiently across the debris of bread on the trestle. ‘Did you make a wager?’

The squire reddened. ‘Yes, my lord. They all laughed at me, but they were willing to take my coin.’ His eyes brightened with contempt. ‘Their loss. They haven’t seen you fight.’

Adam snorted. ‘God knows what your father will think. He entrusted your training to me, and thus far I’ve set you a fine example, haven’t I? Drink, women and gambling.’

Austin’s blush receded. He gave Adam one of his incorrigible looks. ‘It was Papa who gave me the money for the bet and told me to put some on for him too while I was about it.’

‘That’s very encouraging,’ Adam said with a pained smile, adding, ‘Austin, I don’t want you standing round catching your death of cold while I do battle. God knows, one fatality is enough today. Get my sword, lad, then I want you to go to your father’s house and await my summons.’

Austin’s throat rippled. ‘My lord, I want to be there,’ he said resolutely. ‘It is my place as your squire.’

‘It won’t be pleasant, whatever the outcome,’ Adam warned, watching him with thoughtful eyes, assessing the youth’s degree of control and maturity. ‘If I am killed, I expect all members of my household to behave with dignity. If you think your grief or rage are going to goad you into some act of folly, then I cannot permit you to come.’

‘I promise to uphold your honour, my lord.’ Austin stood straight, tears glittering in his hazel-green eyes. ‘Please do not send me to my father.’

Adam gave him a curt nod. ‘So be it then.’ He left the trestle and went to pick up and buckle on his swordbelt, giving the youth time to compose himself. Austin wiped his face on his cuff, then went to lift the scabbard from its leaning place against the wall. The gilded leather sheath resting across one palm, the pommel across the other, he suddenly stiffened and stared at the woman standing in the doorway.

‘My lady,’ he muttered, his face burning scarlet.

Adam swung round, his own complexion as dusky as his squire’s before it slowly faded to match the hue of his bleached linen shirt. Without taking his eyes from Heulwen, he held out his hand for the sword and dismissed Austin with a brief gesture. The boy hesitated, then bowed, and with obvious reluctance left the room. Heulwen stood aside to let him pass, then closed the door and, putting down the hood of her cloak, advanced towards Adam. He noticed that the ornate brooch no longer adorned her cloak but had been replaced by the simple braided pin she had formerly worn.

‘You should not be here.’ His voice was level, betraying none of the conflicting emotions that the sight of her aroused in him.

‘I couldn’t skulk behind my father’s closed doors when I knew what you had to face today.’

‘It might have been easier for us both.’ He set his hand to the sword grip and gently eased the weapon from its sheath.

‘But not the best or truest path.’ She looked from his face to the gleaming steel and shuddered. ‘Adam, I have to be present at this trial by combat, for Ralf ’s sake. It is my duty as his widow to be there whatever happens.’

‘Heulwen, if I fail, it will go hard with you. You’ll be branded a whore in full public view.’

She shrugged and forced a smile. ‘I still have my father and Judith and family friends between me and such disaster. I am not afraid on my own count.’ And then her smile slipped to reveal the terror and tension beneath it. ‘Adam, in God’s name, put up that sword until you have need to draw it,’ she whispered.’

Carefully he resheathed the weapon and laid it down on the trestle, then crossed the three paces between them. One of her braids slipped and swung forward to brush against his hand. He touched it, using it as a rope for his fingers to climb until they reached her face. Tenderly he touched the purple and yellow swelling beneath her left eye.

‘Am I then a matter of duty too?’ he challenged softly.

‘Adam, that’s not fair!’

He stroked the other, unmarked side of her face. ‘Am I more to you than a stallion to a mare?’ he persisted.

‘You know you are!’ she said with furious reluctance.

‘Do I?’ Her anger sent a pang through him. He wondered how long it would take to break down the barriers she had built around herself during her marriage to Ralf.

She made an impatient sound, at whom he did not know, and raised her hand to take his away from her face. ‘When I saw you at Ravenstow in the autumn, I wanted you,’ she said, her voice low and intense. ‘Half my mind saw you as the boy I used to know, my foster brother. The other half saw the man you had become, and between the two I did not know which way to turn. I still don’t, and it’s too late for choices now anyway. I’m trapped.’ She turned his hand over so that it lay palm upwards in her own, the skin hard across the fleshy pads beneath each finger from the constant pressure of gripping a sword.

Ralf ’s hands had been fine-boned and swift in motion like the man. Adam’s were those of an artisan - strong and square with spatulate, capable fingers that would have looked utterly ridiculous decorated with rings. A jolt of terror shot through her at the thought of them gripping a sword in the arena. Her breath caught and her grip tightened.

‘I’ve been trapped all my life,’ he said, ‘and it’s not too late. After today, it is only the beginning.’ He turned his hand in hers, linking their fingers, and drew her against him. For an instant she resisted, and then he felt her body flow against his. He bent his mouth to hers, desire beginning to melt reason like a flame burning down the wick of a candle, stripping the wax.

In the doorway, Sweyn loudly cleared his throat. ‘My lord, I’ve fetched the whetstone for your blade and you have yet to warm up for the fight.’ He flicked a granite, impervious look at Heulwen and inclined his shaggy head. Adam sighed and fumbled for his grip on reality. The flame inside him steadied, receding to a glow, but his eyes were intent as they memorised her face upturned to his. And then he took a deep breath, controlling himself, and released her. ‘Pray for me,’ he said with a rueful smile. ‘If all goes well, then we’ll rejoice together later. If not,’ he shrugged, ‘at least we have had this opportunity to say our farewells. I’m glad you came.’

Heulwen swallowed, unable to speak for the tears crowding her throat. It was almost like being widowed again; worse, in some ways. Ralf ’s death had struck her like a bolt of summer lightning. This time she had the long, slow roll of thunder to warn her beforehand. And if by God’s mercy Adam lived, then Warrin would die, and even if he was guilty, she could feel no satisfaction, only utter weariness.

‘God keep you safe,’ she managed to whisper at last, and drawing up the hood of her cloak, hurried from the room before she broke down before him.

Hugh de Mortimer watched his only son duck beneath the arena rope in the tower’s ward, and clenched his war-scarred knuckles into fists.

‘He is innocent,’ he said in a harsh, metallic voice.

Guyon stamped his feet to keep them warm and regarded the arena and the two young men now within it. Adam was moving restlessly, trying to keep his muscles from stiffening up in the cold. ‘I am afraid my foster son does not share your belief, and although it pains me to say so, Hugh, neither do I.’ He looked along his shoulder at the older man standing beside him on the raised platform.

‘You would take the word of a Welsh barbarian and a traitor’s hell-begotten spawn above that of my own son?’

Guyon’s jaw tightened. An acerbic retort burned on his tongue but he said nothing. What was the point in blistering an open wound? ‘I don’t wish to quarrel with you, Hugh,’ he said evenly. ‘This goes hard with us both.’

‘If wishes were horses then beggars would ride and whores be restored their virginity!’ his companion grated. ‘Do you know how much store Warrin set by your wanton daughter?’

‘I know how much store he set by his own vanity,’ Guyon was driven to retort in Heulwen’s defence. ‘My daughter is not a wanton. Choose very carefully what you say to me.’

‘Choose carefully? Blood of Christ, when I think what . . .’

‘Peace, my lords,’ said the King, stepping smoothly between them. ‘It is grievous enough that these young men should be fighting at all, without the unseemliness of two of my senior barons turning the occasion into an open brawl.’

Guyon swallowed his anger and bowed to Henry. ‘It was not my desire to cause insult or unseemliness,’ he said, and held out his open palm to Hugh de Mortimer. The latter ignored it, but inclined himself stiffly to the King.

‘A pity that you did not pursue such sentiments in the ordering of your own household, my lord,’ said the cool silken voice of the Empress Matilda who was now standing beside her father. She was wearing a woollen gown the precise colour of fresh blood, topped by a sable-lined cloak.

Guyon regarded his wife’s half-sister with a blank expression and disfavour that did not show on his face. ‘I hazard we all have skeletons rattling to escape from the places where we have walled them up,’ he said, his eyes seeking among the gathered nobility and resting for a pointed, benevolent moment upon Alain Fergant’s bastard son Brien.

The Empress’s face did not betray by so much as a flicker that she had understood what he meant, but he saw the twitch of her fingers within the fashionably long sleeves of her gown, and knew without any satisfaction that his barb had hit the mark. Brien FitzCount was a handsome and intelligent young man with a forceful personality and all the finer attributes of a courtier married to the pragmatic approach of a common soldier. He was also the illegitimate son of a popular but only moderately important Breton count, and as such stood not a chance in the darkest pit of hell of becoming Matilda’s approved consort. What went on behind locked doors and closed shutters was another matter, of course. Thou shalt not be caught was the eleventh commandment of the court, and Matilda had been fortunate enough not to violate it . . . yet.

There was a brief flurry in the crowd that had gathered to witness the fight, followed by a burst of excitement. In the arena, the opponents turned their heads from their hostile regard of each other and watched a group of men-at-arms approach the dais, escorting at their centre Judith of Ravenstow and her by now infamous stepdaughter. The common folk craned to take a better look, murmuring to each other, quoting the various superstitions connected with red-haired women and speculatively admiring the picture she made as she walked the path cleared for her by the Ravenstow serjeants. Her eyes were modestly downcast and her skin so pale that it might have been moulded from ice, her pallor emphasised by her sombre garb, unadorned except for the flash of agate prayer beads glimpsed briefly through the opening of her cloak as she walked.

From somewhere in the crowd the jeer of whore went up, but it was only echoed sporadically, for she did not look like a whore, and among the common people at least, there was sympathy for a pair of lovers. Counter-cries went out, good-humoured, egging Adam on, cheering Heulwen.

‘It’s a circus!’ Hugh de Mortimer ground out. ‘Can you hear them? Thank Christ I didn’t bring my little Elene to Windsor.’

‘Why else do you think they are here?’ Guyon said, a hint of disgust in his own voice. ‘They want to be entertained.’ He shouldered across the dais to his wife and daughter and helped them up the steps.

Hugh de Mortimer, who had smiled upon Heulwen and embraced her as his daughter on the last occasion they had met, now stared at her with loathing, the word harlot in his eyes if not on his tongue.

Feeling as if she had been spat upon, Heulwen curtsied first to Henry and then the Empress. The latter gestured her to rise, subjected her to a thoughtful, thorough scrutiny, then bestowed on her the kiss of peace. ‘Come, Lady Heulwen, sit by me if you will and warm yourself at the brazier. Wine?’ She beckoned to a servant. The gesture was both diplomatic and kind, but the keen glitter of Matilda’s eyes first on Hugh, and then Warrin de Mortimer, dispelled any illusion Heulwen had that the Empress was being pleasant. Matilda was a cat patting a captive mouse between her paws.

Heulwen let herself be guided and sat down beside the Empress, feeling like a player in some monstrous show. She looked down at her bleached knuckles while the charges and counter-charges were read out and refuted, then raised her head to risk a glance at Adam as he made his denial and accusation. He was bareheaded, his hair curling and dark with hoar droplets, and like Warrin he wore no mail, only a padded tunic that ended wide-sleeved below the elbows and beneath it his ordinary robe. He had a shield, his sword and his skill, and Warrin possessed the same. Two living men had entered that arena; only one would emerge.

Adam glanced once and briefly at her, and half raised his sword in salute; the edge shivered with blue light that cut her to the heart. Behind her, her father set his hand on her shoulder and gently squeezed. ‘Courage
fy merch fach
,’ he murmured in Welsh, the language of her birth and first few years. She swallowed and put her own hand up to grasp his, as Henry nodded at the steward beside him, and the man inflated his lungs.

‘
Au nom de Dieu et le Roi, fait votre bataille. Laisser-aller!
’

Adam crouched behind the shield and felt the ground delicately. Each blade of grass was a knobbled white spear, slippery with potential death. Warrin sidled, sword and shield extended like pincers. On his cheek, the scabbed-over deep scratch was a remnant and reminder of the brawl in the bedchamber.

He attacked. Adam parried the blow with a swift, economical move and twisted out of range. Someone jeered, but he was oblivious, his whole being taken up in the concentration of battle. This was no tilt yard session where their tutor would separate them before damage was done, no courtesy match where the victor would accept the yielding of the vanquished with good humour. This was kill or be killed, simple and conclusive.