The Running Vixen (29 page)

‘God’s death!’ Geoffrey choked as he reached the relevant part of the document. ‘She’s old enough to be my grandam!’

‘She is also the Dowager Empress of Germany and King Henry’s designated heir,’ Fulke’s voice was sharp with warning, ‘and she is but five-and-twenty.’

Geoffrey’s first high flush of colour had receded to a dirty white. He swallowed and reread the parchment as if willing the words to change before his eyes.

‘A crown and a duchy,’ Fulke said, watching him intently.

Adam quietly drank his wine, observing them from beneath downcast lids. They were like two stags, one in its prime, at the peak of its powers and recognising that the only way was down, and the other young, unsure, but gaining rapidly in strength and experience with the occupied peak as its goal.

‘I don’t want it.’ Geoffrey tossed the parchment down. His throat worked.

‘Think with your head, boy, not your heart. We’ll not better an offer like this, not in a hundred years. Think of the power! The woman’s only a means to an end. God’s blood, once you’ve planted a seed in her belly, you can sport wherever the fancy takes you. Surely a few nights in Matilda’s bed is a cheap enough price to pay!’

Turning away, Geoffrey paced heavily to the narrow window slit and leaned his head against the wall. The dog left the hearth and padded across to nuzzle its moist nose against his thigh. After a short silence the youth rubbed his face and drew a shuddering breath. His back still turned, he said, ‘You told me, Father, that Henry of England was like a spider weaving a web to entrap all men. Why should we be lured into its strands?’

‘Is the answer not obvious?’ Fulke said impatiently. ‘We too are spiders.’ Fulke crossed the room to reach up and squeeze his tall son’s shoulder with a firm, paternal hand. ‘And these matters are better discussed in private.’

Adam drained his cup and stood up, neither slow nor loath to take Fulke’s warning to the boy as reason to depart. ‘With your permission, my lords,’ he said.

Fulke looked round and nodded. ‘Yes, leave us.’

‘Sire.’ Adam picked up the parchment from the rushes, put it carefully back down on the trestle and made a courtly obeisance as he departed.

Jerold and the men of his escort, other than those who had seen Heulwen home, were waiting at the stables for him. A convivial game of dice was in progress and a flask of wine and a giggling kitchen girl were being passed from hand to hand.

Adam secured his cloak and strode across the ward. ‘When you’ve finished, gentlemen,’ he said, his sarcastic tone redeemed by the merest glint of humour.

Thierry’s teeth flashed. He pocketed the dice. ‘I was losing anyway,’ he said disrespectfully and stood up. Wiry and light, he was at least two handspans smaller than his lord. He caught the girl by the arm, murmured something in her ear and slapped her buttocks to send her on her way.

Adam narrowed his eyes at the Angevin and paused, his hands on Vaillantif’s neck, one foot in the stirrup. ‘You’ll lose a week’s pay on top of it if you don’t look sharp,’ he warned.

Thierry tilted his head, unsure whether to take the words as threat or jest, and opted for caution to the extent that he knew it. Saluting smartly he took a running jump at his bay and vaulted effortlessly into the saddle. ‘Ready, my lord,’ he announced, cocky as a sparrow.

Adam’s mouth twitched. ‘Spare such tricks for tomorrow. Young Geoffrey’s got a mêlée organised, and we’re fighting on the Angevin side.’

The news was greeted by cheers all round, for when not actually involved in a war, Adam’s men enjoyed nothing better than practising for it. The mêlée was a dangerous game, sometimes crossing the narrow line between war and mock-war, but the hurly-burly was fun and offered the chance to gain rich prizes, for a man defeated had by the rules to yield the victor his horse, hauberk and weapons, or their value in coin.

Adam listened to their eager banter and felt the excitement stir his own blood. It was his sport: he excelled at it, and the prospect of decent competition was exhilarating, or would have been had not the presence of Warrin de Mortimer buzzed like a huge black fly in the ointment.

Thierry was watching him with a tense, speculative gaze. Adam returned the look sharply and the mercenary quickly wheeled his horse into line and made himself busy with a loose piece of harness.

‘A mêlée!’ Heulwen exclaimed, throwing down her comb on the bed and whirling round to face him, her hair a flaming swirl around her shoulders and waist. ‘Have you run utterly mad?’

Adam spread his hands palms upwards. ‘Warrin is no match for me on horseback,’ he said defensively. ‘On foot at Christmastide it was a little too close for comfort, I admit, but not astride.’

Heulwen laughed in his face. ‘You do not seriously believe that Warrin will play by the rules?’

He sat on the bed and looked at her. ‘Heulwen, understand this, I
want
to fight in this mêlée.’ He hesitated, searching for words that were difficult to find because it was a feeling that came from the gut, not the mind. ‘It is . . . oh, I don’t know, bred into me, blood and bone. A sword is still a sword no matter how much you cover it in gilt.’ His palms opened wider as he spoke, displaying to her the calluses of his trade and the thick white scar of an old battle wound bisecting his life line. ‘Even if I didn’t want to take part, it is expected of me. Henry’s honour as much as mine is at stake.’

‘Honour!’ Heulwen choked on the word, fortunately too overwhelmed by fear and rage to say more.

Adam’s eyes narrowed and the light shivered on his tunic as he took a swift breath. ‘Yes, honour,’ he said and lowered his hand to pick up the comb she had thrown down.

‘Warrin doesn’t know the meaning of the word!’

He ran his thumb along the ivory teeth. ‘No. He just digresses from it when it’s a choice between his honour and something he wants. Then he conveniently forgets he ever lapsed.’

She exhaled hard, not in the least mollified. ‘Is that supposed to be reassurance?’

Adam sighed. ‘It was supposed to tell you I’m not entirely naïve.’ He pulled her down on to the bed beside him and gently began to draw the comb through her hair. ‘Would declining to take part guarantee my life? I think not. A swift thrust from a dagger in the crowd could as easily be the manner of dispatch. In a mêlée I will have Sweyn to my left, Jerold to my right, and Thierry and Alun thereabouts; and if it has worked before a dozen times in battle, there is no reason to think it will not work on a tourney field.’

She felt his palm following the course of the comb down her hair, smoothing, coaxing. Men, she thought with contempt. Willing to die for the art of showing off their prowess in the killing arts and calling it honour; fighting cocks strutting in their fine feathers. She could still see the eager gleam in Adam’s eyes when he had first come to her, could hear the laughter of his men.

Adam set his palm to her jaw and turned her face to him. She looked down but he exerted pressure so that she had to meet his gaze. ‘Look, sweetheart, I will avoid him if I can, that much I swear to you. Not because I don’t want to separate his head from his neck, there’s nothing I’d like more, but I cannot allow personal enmity to stand between myself and what I am here to do for Henry.’ He stroked her cheek. ‘It will be all right, I promise you.’

She shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. ‘You stubborn, pig-headed . . .’

‘Tail-chaser?’ he suggested with a raised brow, and bent his mouth to hers.

‘In God’s name Adam, do not chase it too far!’ she whispered against his mouth. ‘I will die if I lose you.’

20

The chosen site for Geoffrey’s mêlée was a broad green field just outside the city walls, and it was here, shortly after dawn, that the court assembled either to watch the sport, or prepare to partake. The early March morning was mild with the promise of warm sunshine, and although furred cloaks were much in evidence, there was no real discomfort from cold. If people gathered around braziers, it was because they served as a focal point over which to discuss and anticipate the fighting to come.

Heulwen listened to the bright chatter surrounding her and was aware of an overpowering feeling of dread and isolation. She tried to smile and respond to the tide of enthusiasm, agreeing with a baron’s wife that yes, the weather was fine and that the sport should be well worth watching. She bought ribbons from a huckster to tie around Adam’s lance, clapped and laughed emptily at the antics of a dancing bear, and pretended to listen with attentive enjoyment to the ballad of an itinerant lute-player. Her mouth ached with the strain of forced merriment and her head with the strain of the pretence, when all she wanted to do was run away, dragging her husband with her, and not stop until she reached the haven of her own Welsh marches.

She looked for Adam across the wide expanse of virgin grass which was soon to be despoiled. He was over at Geoffrey’s pavilion with the Count. Austin was outside keeping a half-hearted eye on Vaillantif, his main interest reserved for a dancing girl who was playing a tambour and flashing her ankles at him. A ragamuffin child with the girl was feeding a wrinkled apple to the stallion.

Adam ducked out of the tent, talking to Geoffrey of Anjou. He pointed to the helm tucked under the young man’s arm and made a comment. Geoffrey laughed and replied, and both of them paused to examine and admire the powerful sorrel stallion. The child made himself scarce, as did the dancing girl. Adam playfully cuffed Austin into awareness, took his leave of Geoffrey and, unhitching Vaillantif, walked him across the field towards Heulwen.

Man and horse were all prepared for the mêlée. Adam was accoutred in his hauberk and a fine new surcoat of blue silk, stitched with a gold lozenge on the breast to match that on his shield. Vaillantif was also trapped out in blue and gold, and both man and horse were bursting with such exuberance that Heulwen’s heart turned to ice.

Halting the stallion, hand held close to the decorated bit-chains, Adam gave her a slow, measuring look that took full note of her pallor and the false curve of her lips. ‘Listen,’ he said gently, ‘Fulke has promised to give me his written reply by tomorrow afternoon, so we’ll be able to start home before the week’s out, I promise.’

He was doing his best to allay her fears, she thought, but he had not a hope in hell of succeeding. No point in tarnishing the shine. Instead of saying that tomorrow might be too late, she patted Vaillantif’s glossy neck and brought out the ribbons.

‘I chose them to match your surcoat,’ she said, and bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry if I’m being a wet fish, Adam. I will make it up to you, I promise.’

He arched one brow and the corresponding mouth corner tilted up. ‘I can think of several ways,’ he said, ‘and I am sure you can think of several more.’

‘At least a dozen . . . I wish today was already over.’

Adam ran the fairing ribbons through his fingers and looked over his shoulder. Men were warming up with short practice charges and courtesy raps of lance on a companion’s shield. Hoarse, joyful cries floated across the field. The leathery smell of harness and horses pervaded the air.

Heulwen gave him a gentle push, the most difficult thing she had ever done in her life. ‘Go. If you linger here with me you won’t be ready. Just don’t take too many risks.’

He hesitated, aware of her pretence, but not knowing how to reassure her any more than he already had. It was the element of danger in this kind of sport that made it so exhilarating. He took her face in his hands and set his lips upon hers. Vaillantif snorted and butted his muzzle into the centre of Adam’s spine, jarring him forwards. Their mouths jolted apart. He turned to the horse. ‘It seems I have my orders,’ he laughed, and set his foot in the stirrup.

Heulwen stared up at him astride the destrier: tensile strength and agility coupled to smooth power. Try as she might, she could not prevent the misgivings that clouded the pride she felt in the picture they made. Despite the increasing warmth of the spring sun, she was shivering. Brusquely she told Elswith to go and buy some hot broth from one of the hucksters, knowing in her heart that it would do nothing to melt the block of ice at her core, for it was fashioned of fear.

Vaillantif danced with eagerness as Adam adjusted his stirrup-leather and made himself comfortable in the high saddle while Austin handed up helm, shield and the blunted jousting lance festooned with blue silk ribbons. Adam rode out on to the field and trotted Vaillantif over it, testing the feel of the ground and examining it for any obvious pot-holes or snags of stone that could bring a horse down in mid-charge.

On his right, Geoffrey of Anjou was cantering and turning his own destrier - a lively Spanish grey, well-sprung in the ribs but a little short of bone in Adam’s estimation. Still, the lad was handling him exceptionally well, and although his constant laughter revealed his underlying excitement, he seemed otherwise steady enough.

Adam came round past Heulwen and the other women. He dipped his lance to salute her and she smiled at him, one hand leaving the bowl of broth she held to wave back. She was trying hard, he thought, his sense of joy dampening slightly. In childhood she had got them both into some dreadful scrapes, had egged him on to all kinds of folly and resultant punishment, always snapping her fingers in the face of danger. But then in childhood it had all been a game. It was frightening to realise, when you grew up, that the game was a reality you could not stop when it grew dark.

He slowed Vaillantif to a walk as they passed the assembling knights of William le Clito. Warrin was among them, leaning against the piebald stallion whose price had never been paid, arms outspread upon withers and rump, looking for all the world like a blasphemous crucifix effigy. He was talking lazily to le Clito, but broke off what he was saying to stare at Adam with a contemptuous smile.

Le Clito spoke and Warrin ceased slouching and turned his back on Adam to check and hitch the piebald’s girth. Adam swung Vaillantif away and trotted him back to his own end of the field where his men were warming up.

Gradually, the opposing lines of knights began to assemble. Horses snapped at each other and were reined back hard, or sent round in a circle to attempt a place in the line again. Men jostled, struggling to position their shields and lances as well as control the reins. It was disorganised chaos out of which, after much bellowing, cursing and energetic waving of arms, Geoffrey finally succeeded in bringing about a reasonable battle formation.