The Running Vixen (34 page)

For a moment Warrin stood panting, the pounding of his heart almost blinding him as his vision throbbed with each beat. Heulwen lay where she had fallen, face pressed in the straw, waiting and wanting to die.

‘You can stop pretending,’ Warrin said between breaths. ‘I know that you are aware.’

The canvas billowed in the wind. She heard the scrape of his feet on the planking as he moved and with difficulty turned to stare at him. He stared back and, chest still heaving, slowly drew the dagger from the tooled sheath at his belt. ‘Wondering what I’m going to do with this?’ he mused, flipping it end over end like a juggler. ‘Well, so am I.’ And his cheeks creased into the mockery of a grin as he squatted down beside her.

Heulwen flinched and tried to back away from him.

‘There’s no cause to be afraid,’ Warrin mocked. ‘If you’re a good girl, I am sure we can come to a bloodless agreement.’ Setting to work, he cut the cords that bound her ankles.

Heulwen stared at his rain-darkened pale hair, thinning at the crown, and wondered queasily if this was an appetiser to whet his hunger for rape. However, after he had freed her legs, he cut the ropes at her wrists and released her mouth from the foul gag. She watched the rings sparkle on his fingers as he worked and found herself fixing on them with unnatural concentration, for she dared not look at his face and see what was written there.

He frowned down at her as if unsure of what to do with his prize now that it was in his possession. Her chin was trembling, not with distress, but with cold, and her flesh was a pinched bluish-white. He thought of her in de Lacey’s arms last Christmastide - her hair a lustrous copper swirl, skin flushed with a satisfied glow, eyes both brilliant and misty - and contrasted the memory with the shivering, half-dead creature lying at his mercy now.

‘Sit up!’ he commanded harshly, disturbed by the ambivalence of his thoughts.

When she did not move, he seized her by the wrists and dragged her up. ‘I said sit up!’ he snarled.

Heulwen screamed as his fingers dug savagely into the weals left by Thierry’s expert binding. Her hair, heavy with water, had begun to untwist from its braids, and hung about her face in sodden strands. She bent her head, breathing in shuddering gasps and keeled sideways. He slapped her across the face and her eyes opened, but they were barely focusing, and in the next moment she flopped limply forward against him.

Warrin swore and shook her to see if she was feigning, but she jerked back and forth in his grip like a child’s rag doll.

‘Bitch,’ he said, but with more irritation than malevolence, and laying her back down on the straw he studied her with a scowl. He had sufficient experience of cold-season battle campaigns to know the signs and what would happen if he just left her, and he did not want her dead . . . at least not yet.

Methodically, quickly, he stripped away her soaked garments and then, starting with her dripping hair, began to rub her vigorously with the coarse woollen blanket from the pallet. Her flesh was goose-pimpled and ice cold to the touch, but under the rapid friction it began to warm and turn a scrubbed red.

Her breasts were full and firm, tipped by taut pink nipples and they undulated against the wool as he worked. Lower down at the juncture of her thighs, a red-gold triangle drew his eyes and for a moment his imagination ran riot as he thought of it tangling in a lovers’ knot with his own flaxen bush. He quelled the image sharply. De Lacey’s father had been the one to pleasure himself futtering corpses; such a desire had never been the core of his own need.

Heulwen moaned and stirred, her eyelids fluttering. He dragged the pallet into the middle of the room, close to the brazier, and wrapped her in his own fur-lined cloak before fetching from his belongings a flask of aqua vitae and a small horn cup.

One of his men-at-arms poked his head through the opening and he snarled at him to get out. When he tried to pour the aqua vitae from flask to cup he discovered that his hands were shaking. He set the cup down abruptly and turned round to Heulwen. Her eyes were open now, heavy-lidded, watching him with awareness and apprehension.

‘Is this in the cause of revenge?’ she asked weakly.

‘Revenge?’ He knelt down beside her and drew her towards him to tip the contents of the cup down her throat. He felt her tense and try to resist him, applied pressure to the back of her neck and felt a small flicker of triumph as she was forced to yield and, choking, swallow it. ‘It’s more than revenge, sweetheart,’ he said with satisfaction, ‘much more.’ He refilled the cup, his hand steady now. ‘Drink,’ he commanded.

‘I can’t . . . I don’t want to.’

‘Shall I force it down your gullet?’

Heulwen looked at him; saw that there was no way out except to comply. Shuddering, she gulped the stuff down in two fast swallows. It hit her stomach and exploded into her blood. She gasped for breath. Tears stung her eyes.

He adjusted his cloak around her shoulders and drifted his hand casually down the midline of her body within the folds as he arranged it. His palm brushed the crest of her nipple, paused, travelled lower. Heulwen recoiled. A wry smile twisted his lips. ‘You might be a whore, but you’re still a beautiful one,’ he said.

‘Why did you murder Ralf ?’ she asked.

His head reared back at that. ‘I didn’t,’ he said.

‘As near as makes no difference.’

He waved his hand. ‘He was playing a double game: selling information to us and then selling us back to Henry. I put a stop to it because he had gone too far. I had to.’

‘And you are not playing a double game?’

Warrin shook his head vehemently. ‘It is my father who owes his allegiance to King Henry and then to the Empress. I have given my oath to neither of them, so how can I be forsworn? William le Clito has more right to England and Normandy than that sulky bitch will ever have. He is the eldest son of the eldest son.’

‘I see,’ she said in a small, distant voice.

‘No you don’t, you never have!’ Goaded by her tone, he pushed her down on the straw with her arms braced either side of her head. ‘You promised yourself to me then played the whore behind my back. How dare you talk to me of double games!’

‘You murdered Ralf and your honour to get me!’ she spat. ‘I counted that promise null and void.’

The distance receded. He saw her eyes begin to flash with anger, felt the resistance of her body and his own flamed hard in response. ‘Come, Heulwen,’ he muttered, ‘kiss me . . . Kiss me like you kiss de Lacey.’ His mouth descended, hot and avid.

All her senses rebelled, but were whipped into line by the common one, aided by an instinct for survival. If she fought him, he would beat her. She could see the wildness in his eyes, as if he were more than half hoping for her to do just that, and if she was going to escape, she needed her wits and her limbs in functioning order. She parted her lips to the greedy demand of his and responded with all the superficial expertise taught to her by Ralf, using it as a shield.

What followed was unpleasant and painful, but not beyond the limit of her endurance. She understood a part of what drove him and was therefore prepared to permit him his petty victory. Without love or even a seasoning of lust, the act was meaningless. She closed her eyes and ignored the exultant sound he made as he thrust into her - a dunghill cock treading a rival’s hen to mark his ownership.

She wondered if it would have been like this had she married him. Probably. Instead she had married Adam. The thought of her husband darted across her mind like a flare of lightning and made her gasp aloud in anguish. Warrin, conceited, took an entirely different meaning from the sound. He panted something obscene in her ear, his hips grinding powerfully back and forth. Heulwen bit her lip and stifled a cry behind her tongue. It could not last for ever, she told herself, not at this level of fury.

His mouth crushed down on hers, his fingers twisting in her damp hair, gripping convulsively as his whole body stiffened and shuddered in the throes of climax. She stared over his shoulder at the brazier’s glow, the heat blurring her eyes as he collapsed on top of her.

After a while, when his breathing had eased, he withdrew from her and lay down at her side, drawing the fur-lined cloak up and around them both. One hand reached out to fondle her breast. Heulwen folded her lips in and pressed them together, clutching at the dry straw lining the floor so that she would not strike him away.

‘I’ve been waiting a long time for this,’ he said lazily, and with obvious self-satisfaction. ‘Don’t tell me it wasn’t good for you too.’

‘Where would be the point?’ Heulwen said in a tired voice. ‘I doubt you’d listen.’

‘And still she bares her teeth,’ he smiled, his fingers still caressing. ‘Tell me then, vixen, how much do you hate me?’

She drew a sharp breath to spit at him that words could not describe the depth of her revulsion, but looking into his face she caught the fleeting glimpse of another expression behind the mockery - a child peeping out from behind a wall to survey the ruins of a prank that had gone monstrously wrong.

‘I don’t hate you, Warrin,’ she said instead, wearily. ‘God help us both, I pity you.’

The fleeting glimpse vanished, obliterated as he hit her open-handed across the face - not enough to really hurt, but sufficient to give due warning of what was to come if she dared too far. ‘Careful,’ he said gently. ‘De Lacey might be soft enough to let you insult him, but don’t expect it of me.’

Heulwen met his gaze then quickly looked away before he should see her loathing. Warrin smiled and stretched with languorous satisfaction. ‘Do you want a drink?’

She tossed her head and willed herself to smile. ‘Why not?’

He sauntered over to the flagon and splashed wine into the cup. ‘There’s only one,’ he said, raising it to her. ‘Never mind, we can share it like a pair of lovers.’

She sat up, the cloak tucked around her breasts, and reached out sideways for Warrin’s discarded shirt and tunic.

He looked at her sharply. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m cold,’ she protested, ‘and these are warm and dry.’ She flashed him a look full of wide innocence. ‘Surely you don’t believe I’d be so foolish as to try and run?’

He grunted. ‘I don’t know. That Welsh blood of yours is too fickle to be trusted.’ He took a gulp of the wine and returned, but despite his words he did not prevent her from pulling on the garments, amused by the novelty. When she reached for his chausses, however, he rubbed his index finger gently along her naked inner thigh. ‘What are you doing here in Angers?’ he asked softly.

Thierry took a cheek-bulging mouthful of wine, swilled it round his mouth, swallowed and sighed with enjoyment. Then he picked up the waiting dice, blew on them and threw. They landed in his favour. Grinning from ear to ear, he scooped up his winnings amid the groans of his fellow gamblers.

He had been here longer than he should, he knew that, but outside it was still pouring down, and he was winning hand over fist. He promised himself that as soon as he started to lose he would leave. A girl who was filling up jugs of wine kept smiling at him. She had sparkling eyes and dimples. He winked at her and wondered if he could spend the rest of the night comfortably bedded down in the hay store with her breasts for a pillow. Just as he was about to call her over and explore the possibility, his cousin strode into the room wearing an expression as black as the weather.

‘Alun!’ Thierry strove to his feet, staggered, and planted his legs wide apart to hold his balance. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’

‘A murrain on the devil!’ Alun spat, grabbing a handful of his cousin’s tunic and dragging him face to face. ‘What kind of stew have you been stirring your fingers in? Where’s Lady Heulwen?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Thierry tried to push him off, but without success. ‘Let go of me. You’re mad!’

‘Mad, am I? What’s this then?’ Alun had felt the bulge beneath Thierry’s tunic and snatched out the bag of silver from its nestling place against Thierry’s breast. ‘Winnings from dice?’ He flung the silver down on the table. Men turned and looked. ‘Christ Jesu, you’re in dead trouble, and you’ll soon be just dead . . . Come on!’ He dragged at his cousin’s arm.

Thierry belched. ‘Stop panicking,’ he said, belligerent with drink. ‘I was as cosy as a clam in a shell here until you came bursting in.’

‘Idiot, if you don’t—’ Alun stopped. ‘Christ’s balls,’ he muttered under his breath, and stared at Jerold who was blocking the doorway.

‘You tripe-witted dolt, you’ve led them straight to me, haven’t you!’ Thierry spat, and drew his sword.

Jerold moved equally fast, but was tripped by Alun.

‘Run, Thierry!’ Alun bellowed.

Jerold scrambled to his feet. ‘Keep out of this!’ he growled at Alun, and plunged out of the drinking den in pursuit of his quarry.

Water spurted from beneath Jerold’s boots as he ran. He tripped over a startled cat and almost fell again. The cat yowled. He cursed, narrowing his eyes, and licked water from his scrubby moustache. After a pause to listen, he hurried down the narrow black throat of an alleyway running parallel to the waterfront. Before him, faintly, he could hear lurching, staggering footsteps. Thierry’s, he hoped, and his stomach knotted at the thought that he might only be pursuing a worthless drunk.

The footsteps ceased. Jerold stopped, his heart threatening to burst as he drew his breath shallowly, the better not to be heard. Further up the alley a shutter was flung open and someone peered out amidst a dim splash of candlelight. He saw a rope of dark hair hanging down.

‘Who’s there?’

Silence. Jerold flattened himself against the wall and side-stepped softly along it, gently drawing his dagger.

‘Come away,’ commanded a querulous, sleepy voice from the depths of the room, ‘it’s only cats.’

The shutter slammed. Jerold shot out of the shadows, grabbed the man hiding half slumped in the darkness of the recessed doorway, and laid the blade at his throat. ‘Where is Lady Heulwen?’ he hissed.

Thierry’s larynx moved convulsively against the knife. A shudder ran through his body and his weight started to sag against Jerold. ‘The
Alisande
,’ he croaked.