The Running Vixen (35 page)

‘Louder, whoreson, I can’t hear you.’

Thierry responded with a bubbling choke and Jerold realised that it was not rain on his hands but the heat of blood, and that the man he held was badly, if not mortally wounded.

‘Waiting for me outside,’ Thierry gargled, ‘tried to run . . . Too much drink. Can’t always throw to win . . . She’s on the
Alisande
. . .’ The last word was an indistinguishable choke that faded to nothing.

‘Listen, you poxy Angev—’ Thierry’s head lolled, and Jerold found that he was holding a literal dead weight. A soft oath issued from his lips. He was in a pitch-dark alleyway with a freshly stabbed man and, most probably, his murderer. He backed up against the door, every sense straining. There was silence, but that did not mean it was safe.

His alertness gave him a split second’s warning; enough time to sense the direction of attack and to thrust Thierry’s body towards the dark shape that came at him. He heard a grunt of surprise, saw the faint gleam of light along the edge of a knife, and ran sideways out of the doorway which was protecting his back but giving him no room to manoeuvre. He transferred his dagger to his left hand and drew his sword in a shiver of steel.

His attacker leaped and struck. Jerold felt the dagger tip prick through his mail, but the hauberk was triple-linked and the rings held off the force of the knife. He tried to swing the sword, but a gauntleted fist crashed into the side of his face, making him reel, and the long dagger flashed again, striking not for his body this time, but for his throat.

Jerold got his arm up in time, and again the hauberk saved him from certain death, but he was stunned, his vision and reflexes impaired. Light blossomed, contracting his pupils; he had a momentary impaired glimpse of the face of his assailant, staring upwards at the shutters above, which once more had been flung open, and recognised him for one of Warrin’s men.

‘Drunkards, go and brawl in someone else’s doorway!’ shrieked the woman with the dark braid, and accompanied her abuse with the well-aimed contents of a chamber pot. The other man involuntarily recoiled. Jerold reversed his sword and buffeted the hilt into the other’s diaphragm with as much force as he could muster. He heard the air retch out of him, saw him double up, and was feverishly upon him, fingers winding in the rain-and urine-soaked hair to jerk back the head and expose to the sword a pale expanse of throat. Above him, the woman screamed more abuse and banged the shutters closed again.

More footfalls splashed in the darkness coming at a soft run, and voices echoed. Breathing hard through his mouth, Jerold stared towards them. Torchlight flared against the slick alley walls; horses’ hooves rang on stone.

He gave a great gasp of relief and the wildness went out of his face as he recognised first the sorrel and then, half concealed behind a pitch-soaked brand, his lord. Sweyn and Austin were with him and half a dozen serjeants on foot. ‘She’s been taken to a ship or a boat by the name of
Alisande
,’ Jerold panted. ‘If we can make this whoreson sing, he’ll tell us precisely where.’ And then, eyes flickering sideways to one of the men on foot who was crouching over the form in the doorway, ‘It’s no use Alun, Thierry’s dead for his sins. One gamble too many.’

‘I know where the
Alisande
is moored, I saw her today,’ Adam said, the quietness of his voice betraying how close to the edge of reason he actually was. ‘Jerold, deal with this. You can have the footsoldiers.’ Backing Vaillantif, a difficult feat in the narrow alley, he turned him and spurred towards the wharves at a speed that would have been considered reckless in the light of day, and was pure insanity in the middle of a black, rainy night. Sweyn spat an obscenity and struggled after him, Austin not far behind.

Jerold closed his eyes for a moment. There was blood running from a deep cut on his cheek. He wiped at it with the back of his hand, looked at the dark smear, then lifted his weight from his semi-conscious assailant.

‘Bring him,’ he said tersely to one of the gawping footsoldiers, and rammed his sword back into its sheath before he gave in to temptation and used it.

Vaillantif skidded on a patch of mud and almost lost his hind legs. Adam clenched the reins and clung on. He lost a stirrup and had to fumble with his foot to find it. Bubbling pitch from the torch oozed on to his hand and burned - solid pain - practical considerations. The stallion was sweating and trembling. He patted the satin sorrel neck and murmured soothingly, and in so doing brought himself under control.

It was several hours since the search had first begun, and as building after building had been scoured and found empty, black imaginings and the self-indulgent guilt of ‘if only’ had clawed at the bulwarks of his sanity. Then one of Jerold’s men had come running to find him with the news that Thierry was found and being followed. Desperate hope, desperate prayer, desperate bargains with God. If only.

So this was it, Heulwen thought. If her submission to him had been the heart of the matter, then this was the cold blade of reason. She avoided his gaze. ‘Adam wanted me with him,’ she said in a subdued voice.

Warrin splayed his hand on the soft, tender skin and dug in his fingers. ‘Not just half the truth, Heulwen, all of it,’ he said, ‘and do not plead innocence because I won’t believe you.’

She swallowed. ‘Adam had messages from King Henry to Count Fulke. I do not know what was written, I swear it.’ Which was the literal, if not the perfect truth.

‘Try harder.’ Warrin’s lip curled. ‘As you value your life, Heulwen, try harder.’

‘What more do you want me to say? How can I tell you what I do not know?’ She made her voice sound tearfully puzzled. It was not difficult.

‘You’re lying,’ he said savagely and his hand left her thigh and snaked to her throat.

‘I’m not, I’m not!’ She choked, flailing against him, panicking as his grip tightened on her windpipe.

‘My lord!’ cried one of his men-at-arms, poking his head through the canvas flap. ‘There are soldiers searching the wharves upriver and their lights are coming down towards us.’

Warrin swore and shoved Heulwen down on the straw. ‘How far away?’ he demanded, and wrapping his cloak around his nakedness, hastened outside to see for himself.

Heulwen dragged air into her starving lungs. It still felt as though his fingers were squeezing the life from her. When she was able to move, she rolled over and scrambled to her feet. The flask of aqua vitae lay on its side nearby. She picked it up, pulled out the stopper with clumsy, shaking fingers and choked down a mouthful, her eyes on the canvas flap. Outside she could hear Warrin talking to his men, his voice quick and agitated.

He ducked back into the shelter and she took an involuntary step backwards, the neck of the flask gripped tight in her hand.

‘I’ll give that whoreson husband of yours his due, he’s fast,’ Warrin growled, ‘but not fast enough. By the time he arrives, there’ll be nothing to find except his own death. Do you want to watch?’ His arm reached out. ‘Come here.’

She shook her head and moved sideways. He came after her, moving with the heavy grace of a hunting lion. ‘There is nowhere to go,’ he said. ‘Do not make me lose my temper.’

Heulwen circled the brazier. He followed and made a sudden lunge. She swooped from his reach so that his fingertips just grazed the ends of her hair, and then she flung the contents of the flask into the brazier.

A blinding, white pyramid of flame whooshed upwards and Warrin reeled back, his eyebrows singeing, forearms crossed to shield his face. Heulwen kicked over the brazier and ran for her life. Warrin roared a warning to the men without and sprang after her.

The flames licked experimentally at the straw, nibbling delicately at first, beginning to chew and then greedily devour.

A soldier made a grab for Heulwen and caught her right wrist. She used her left one to snatch his dagger from its sheath and slash at him. He howled and let her go, the arch of his hand gashed to the bone. Breath sobbing in her lungs, she dashed for the side of the vessel.

Warrin seized her as she reached the ladder and spun her round, his hand reaching for the dagger, his eyes on its deadly flash. He did not see the sudden, violent jerk of her knee until it was too late, and doubled up retching as she caught him straight in the soft base of his testicles. She wrenched herself free, scrambled and jumped.

The black, cold water closed over her head and rushed into the fibres of her makeshift garments, weighting her down. She lost the dagger. Blind and deaf, encapsulated, she kicked for the surface and broke it, gasping, trod water, sank a little, and choked on a gulped mouthful of the river. Through blurred eyes she saw the outline of the wharf and struck clumsily out towards it. Her clothes hampered her. The water was cold and leached her strength, as did sheer terror as she heard a splash behind her and realised that Warrin was coming after her.

He was a strong swimmer, as she knew only too well. Ravenstow overlooked the Dee, a large, commercial and dangerous river and her father had insisted that his children and his squires learn the art. In childhood, she had been taught beside Adam and her brothers in the backwater shallows . . . and so had Warrin.

She floundered frantically towards the wharf which never seemed to come any closer, although it could only have been a matter of a few short yards. She swallowed water again. The back of her throat stung as the river washed up her nose. Her fingertips grazed weedy stone and her knees jarred into it. She was beyond feeling pain, knew only relief as she started to drag herself on to the rain-washed dockside.

A hand fumbled at her ankle. She screamed and kicked hard. The hand lost its grip and with the strength of panic she pushed her body to its limit. Stars burst before her eyes, maiming her vision, but she reached solid ground, got her feet beneath her, and began to shamble towards the distant, bobbing torchlight.

Warrin came after her. He was frighteningly fast and he still had breath to spare for curses as he ran to catch her. She heard his footsteps right behind, and then he was level with her. She twisted away, but he twisted too, caught her arm and spun her off her feet, a knife flashing in his other hand.

Heulwen saw the blade descending and screamed out all the breath that remained in her body before the world darkened beyond darkness.

‘Steady now,’ Adam said softly to the horse, and eased him forward again. Sweyn and Austin joined him, and they rode at a jog trot towards a group of moored merchant cogs. Austin rose in his stirrups and pointed. ‘God’s bones, look, one of them’s on fire!’

Adam followed Austin’s finger towards the deck of a merchant cog that was well ablaze. They could hear the roar of the flames fanned by the wind and the cries of men who were frantically trying to bail them out with buckets. Reflected fire danced on the water. ‘It’s the
Alisande
!’ Adam said with a sureness born of the gut, not the mind.

As they watched, momentarily frozen with shock, a figure half rolled, half dragged itself out of the river on to the wharf, thrashed blindly to its feet and started towards them at a stumbling run: a woman, for the streaming hair was as long as the tunic she wore. Adam stared, and the disbelief gave way to a heart-stopping jolt as he recognised his wife, and saw behind her Warrin de Mortimer in hard pursuit, drawing a knife from his belt.

‘Hah!’ Adam cried to Vaillantif, and once again risked spurring him. The stallion’s hooves struck blue-white sparks from the cobbles. Adam drove him straight at his enemy. Warrin was as preoccupied with Heulwen as a spider with a trapped fly as knelt over her, the knife at her throat.

Adam did not hesitate. He drove the burning brand, lance-fashion, straight into Warrin’s shocked, upturned face. Warrin screamed and reared up and back, the knife clattering to the ground. His shrieks rent the air and he fell to his knees, arms over his face, then rolled over, writhing in mindless agony. Adam dismounted and dropped the torch into a puddle, where it sputtered out. With the same deliberate purpose that had carried him through thus far, he followed Warrin’s contortions, drew his sword, and applied the
coup de grâce
. After he had watched him die, Adam jerked the blade free, wiped it meticulously clean on Warrin’s blood-sodden shirt, and without looking back, sheathed the weapon and turned to Heulwen.

Round-eyed, Austin gaped. Sweyn, of a more practical mind, dismounted. ‘Come on, lad,’ he jerked his head at the ground, ‘help me throw this fish back whence it came. We can’t leave him in the middle of the street.’

Adam knelt beside his wife. ‘Heulwen?’ he said tentatively and examined her quickly for signs of injury. His mouth tightened as he saw the blue and red fingerprint bruises lacing her throat. Lower down on her thigh there were marks too. He swallowed bile and lifted her up against him, and knew that he would never be able to see Warrin’s death as a confessable sin.

‘Sweyn, get me a blanket,’ he commanded over his shoulder.

Heulwen’s throat moved. Her eyelids shuddered and half opened. She felt a strong arm supporting her head and another gently around her shoulder blades, but then Warrin had been gentle and violent by turns, and she remembered that he had been about to kill her. She stiffened and struggled.