The Running Vixen (18 page)

Warrin had a negligible advantage of height, although Adam had the leg length whereas Warrin’s was in the body. Warrin was more powerfully developed, but not quite so fast, and both men were skilled fighters.

Warrin came on again and Adam parried. The blade bit his shield and rebounded with a dull, metallic thud. Adam struck his first blow and Warrin’s shield was immediately there to catch it. The shock rippled along Adam’s arm, jarring it to the shoulder socket. Warrin pushed and Adam leaped backwards, half turned and, shield presented, swiped backhanded and low at Warrin’s unguarded right knee. Warrin jumped and skidded on the frozen grass. The crowd roared and surged and were forced back by the Marshal’s men. Adam followed through, but Warrin took the blow on his shield and behind its protection regained his balance and attacked, driving Adam back towards the stakes in a savage flurry of hacking blows.

The men fought each other forwards and back across the arena. Their swords crashed and thudded on the shields, biting gouges in the wood. Occasionally the grating sound of steel upon steel rang out as they parried blade to blade. They began to breathe harshly and hard. First blood went to Warrin, and second too, both of them minor cuts but signs that Adam was losing the edge of his speed.

Heulwen half turned her head, her soul shrinking, her body constrained to remain and witness. Beside her, Matilda was tense, her blue eyes gleaming. She resembled some ancient goddess presiding over a rite of sacrifice and appeared to be enjoying every moment.

‘Ah,’ she breathed softly and leaned forward a little. ‘He has him now, I think.’

Heulwen swallowed and willed herself to look at what her incautious tongue and body had wrought. There was another wound bloodying Adam’s gambeson, more serious she judged from the way he was holding himself, scarcely managing to parry the blows raining down on him, and the more enfeebled his defence, the more vigorous and confident grew Warrin’s attack. His left arm dropped another degree, and without awareness, Heulwen cried out.

‘God’s death Adam, be careful,’ Guyon muttered, his hand tightening on Heulwen’s shoulder.

Warrin’s sword flashed and bit down again. Adam gave ground, staggered, and slipped to one knee, his shield splaying wide in an invitation that the other man could not resist. The crowd roared.

Guyon’s grip became a vice on his daughter’s shoulder as she made to jerk to her feet. ‘Be still,’ he commanded against her ear, ‘can’t you see he did that apurpose?’

Warrin drew back his arm for the death blow, and in that split second Adam launched himself in a move so fast that Warrin had not time to recover and guard. His surprised grunt became a shriek of agony as Adam’s sword took him across the ribs and abdomen and brought him down.

Gasping, bleeding, his stance as unsteady as his swirling vision, Adam laid the point of his blade at Warrin’s throat, knowing that all he had to do was lean on it to cleanse away in blood the years of abuse he had suffered as a squire, the resentment, the insult to Heulwen. For Ralf ’s murder, or for himself ? He squinted at the dais and through a blur saw Hugh de Mortimer gesticulating in agitation at the battleground and speaking rapidly to Henry. The King was listening, his expression impassive.

Adam forced himself beyond fatigue and pain to think with the speed of necessity. He had Warrin de Mortimer at his mercy, a single, short sword-thrust from death. Already his case was proven. To kill Warrin as he deserved was to gratify himself and end one small feud at the expense of beginning a far greater one that Heulwen’s father could not afford.

Henry’s eyes were inscrutable as slate while Hugh de Mortimer pleaded for his son’s life, but his right hand started to move as if to make a command. Adam did not wait, for whatever it was would have to be obeyed. He stepped quickly away from his fallen opponent and moved unsteadily to the stand.

‘My claim is proven,’ he panted. ‘Let him live with his dishonour.’ He sheathed his sword.

Henry gave Adam a calculating look before dipping his head the briefest fraction and turning to the man beside him. ‘My lord, your son has seven days’ grace to quit my lands. After that his life is forfeit.’ He looked at Adam again and said in a tone as frosty as the weather, ‘Adam de Lacey, your cause is upheld; God has found in your favour. You have leave to depart and seek attention for your wounds.’

Adam opened his mouth to give the formal, customary reply, but his tongue refused to serve him as his vision darkened, and his last awareness was of Heulwen’s cry of consternation, and the ground rushing up to strike him.

14

‘It isn’t far now.’ Heulwen laid her hand on Adam’s sleeve, her eyes anxious, for she could tell from the awkward way he sat in the saddle that his wounds were paining him.

‘I’m all right.’ He tossed her the semblance of a smile. ‘Sore and tired. Nothing that Thornford’s hospitality cannot cure.’

‘You should not have set out so soon,’ she remonstrated, not in the least reassured, for although his main injury was not mortal, it was too serious to be treated with the lack of respect he was affording it. The wind was bitter, stinging their faces, the sky the colour of a dusty mussel shell and full of fitful rain, and he had been forcing the pace. ‘It was Warrin who was given seven days to leave the country, not us.’

‘I have explained why it was necessary Heulwen, stop fussing.’ He pressed his knees to Vaillantif ’s sides. She bit her tongue and threw an exasperated glance at his back. In her ignored opinion they should still be in London, allowing time for his flesh to knit properly and his strength to return. But Adam, as stubborn as ever, and a querulous patient, declared that he was surfeited with the city and the whole damned circus of the court; that he had cauldrons simmering in the marches that he could not afford to let boil over - his Welsh hostage for one, his Welsh hostage’s brother for another, his new wife’s lands for a third - and nothing his new wife had been able to say or do had shifted his resolve.

They forded the river and clopped through the village, the dwellings huddled together beneath the lowering sky. An urchin with a sling at his waist lifted a stone and contemplated folly until noticed and clipped around the ear by his horrified father, whose back was bent under a load of kindling for their croft fire. They passed the carrier with his train of pack ponies making for Shrewsbury via a night’s lodging in Oswestry, and greeted the reeve astride his sturdy black cob descending from the keep. The news had gone ahead of them with their messenger, and they were congratulated upon their marriage.

Heulwen smiled and thanked the men whose eyes were frankly curious. Adam said nothing, but stiffly inclined his head. As they rode on up the low slope, her gaze remained anxious as she thought back to their wedding four days ago on the morning that they had departed Windsor. As in all her dealings thus far with Adam, convention had been thrown to the winds. They had made their vows at the convent of St Anne’s-in-the-Field, whose abbess was her father’s widowed half-sister Emma. The ceremony, performed by John, was witnessed by immediate family and thirty nuns. Following a hastily organised wedding feast, they had left their guests to finish the celebration, if such it could be called, and set out at Adam’s stubborn insistence on the road home.

It had taken them four nights, and their marriage had yet to be consummated. Adam was too sore and saddle-weary to take advantage of his altered state, and there had been no privacy on their nightly stops. They had bedded down among his men in the halls and guest houses where they had been given hospitality, rolled in their cloaks around the hearth for warmth.

Heulwen had begun to notice an air of constraint in him. He scarcely addressed a word to her, and only met her eyes for the most fleeting of wary glances. If she had not been so concerned for his physical well-being, so unsure of her ground, she would have rounded on him with the honed edge of her tongue. As it was, she kept that weapon in its sheath and tried her best to be meek, gentle, and attentive - the perfect wife.

Had Heulwen yielded to her first impulse and berated him, she would have been spared much anxiety. Adam, beset by the pain of his injuries and bodily weakness, was an easy prey to doubt. He reasoned to himself that Heulwen had been forced into this marriage by circumstance, and the anxious, fussy concern that was all she seemed capable of displaying towards him smacked of guilt and was more than he could bear.

He could feel her watching him now but knew that if he turned round, she would be gazing at the forelock between her mare’s ears and would not look up again until his eyes turned elsewhere. Giving vent to his frustration, he kicked Vaillantif with more force than was prudent as they reached the gatehouse and in consequence received a jolt of speed from the horse that whiplashed pain through his body and made him gasp.

The guards saluted him and a groom ran to catch the stallion’s bridle. Adam gripped the pommel so hard that the oak leaf design carved upon it was imprinted on his palm. Before anyone had time to help her from her own saddle, Heulwen was down from her horse and hastening to her husband.

‘I knew we should have rested up in Shrewsbury for another day,’ she said with self-recrimination. ‘Look, there’s blood on your tunic!’

‘Hush, Heulwen.’ He glanced around the busy ward. ‘Do you want my people to think I have brought a shrew to rule them?’

‘Adam, it’s no light matter!’ Tears filled her eyes. ‘You have been very fortunate. You could still take the wound fever or stiffening sickness, or perhaps just die because you have pushed yourself too far.’

His tension eased a little and a hint of natural colour returned to warm his face. ‘I admit to folly, but there is no need to publish it abroad.’ He touched her cheek and saw her own colour come up. Her eyes were luminous and he could have drowned in them. Abruptly he said, ‘Your grandfather is waiting,’ and removed his hand to command Austin to help him down.

She saw that his face had closed again, every plane taut and resisting, and with a feeling of helplessness she turned from him, lifted her skirts and cloak free of the bailey floor and almost ran to the old man who stood expectantly at the foot of the forebuilding steps. With a cry of relief, she cast herself into the haven of his embrace, and hugged him tightly.

‘How now, child,’ he said softly. ‘It is a smile that I thought to see on your face, not these floods of tears!’ And then with a lightness that covered serious concern, ‘Do not tell me, you and Adam have quarrelled again?’

‘Worse than that, Grandpa,’ she gulped. ‘I’ve married him on the heel of disgrace, and it’s been a terrible mistake. I know it has!’

‘Wandering in the wood again looking for the trees,’ he answered comfortably, patting her shoulder, and looked over the top of her head towards Adam who was advancing on them slowly and stiffly, his face wearing the guarded, defensive look that Miles knew of old. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

Heulwen dragged the trailing end of her sleeve across her eyes and turned in his arms to study her husband. To her own eyes Adam was moving a little more easily now, only his tight jaw muscles betraying his pain. ‘He took on Warrin in a trial by combat,’ she said and felt her grandfather’s hand grip her in surprise.

‘Warrin’s dead then?’

‘No, but severely wounded and accounted the loser and banished from Henry’s domains. It’s been horrible, Grandpa. I don’t want to talk about it, not now. Can we go inside?’

He looked at her bruised face, seeing more than just the fading marks. Hugging her against him, he turned to the forebuilding.

Adam eased himself carefully into the high-backed chair, closed his eyes while he mastered the pain, then opened them again upon Miles and the cup of usquebaugh-spiked wine he was holding out. He managed to give the old man the semblance of a smile. ‘It’s not as bad as it looks. I’m just stiff from the saddle, that’s all.’

‘How serious are your wounds?’

Adam drank and felt the usquebaugh hit his stomach like a swallowed hot coal. ‘Not mortal, but sore. I’ll wear a lifelong scar from hip-bone to lower ribs. I made a mess of things in Windsor, not just my body.’

‘A trial by combat was always a possibility,’ Miles said.

‘Well, yes, but you do not know the half of it.’ Adam glanced at Heulwen. Her back was turned and she was talking in a low murmur to Elswith her maid as they unpacked the travelling chests.

Miles looked too. ‘Like that, is it?’ he asked, remembering Heulwen’s distress in the bailey.

‘Worse.’ Briefly, Adam gave him the flesh-pared bones of the tale.

Miles pursed his lips. ‘No wonder you headed with such haste for the marches rather than make a prolonged feast for those vultures at court.’

‘I was an idiot. If I had not raced head-first into the thing I would not have come such a cropper, would I?’

‘Probably not,’ Miles admitted, ‘but at least Ralf ’s murder is avenged and you have your heart’s desire.’

‘Yes.’

Adam’s tone of voice caused Miles to raise his eyebrows and then, after a moment’s hesitation, reach inside his tunic. ‘I warned Heulwen against walking in the forest looking for trees, and if you are doing the same thing at the opposite end of the same forest, how are you ever going to meet?’ he demanded gruffly, and held out on his shiny, age-creased palm a piece of cunningly worked gold.

‘What’s this?’ Adam reached out, winced, and completed the movement to discover a circular cloak brooch of intricate English craftsmanship - a wolf curved round, chasing its own tail, its eyes set with red garnets.

‘It belonged to Heulwen’s grandmother, my first wife Christen. She was English, and it had been in her family time without memory. She treasured it the most of all her jewels, not for its beauty, but because it represented a new beginning. I was going to give it to Heulwen as a wedding gift, but perhaps it might be more appropriate coming from you when the time is right.’

Adam raised his head to meet Miles’s shrewd, patient gaze. ‘Is there anything you don’t see?’ he asked ruefully.

‘Put it down to my ancient years,’ Miles said with a like smile in reply. ‘That and knowing you are both more stubborn than mules, and I do not have much time.’