The Running Vixen tor-2

by Elizabeth Chadwick

  ‘No, but from the way he spoke to me it is not something he wants to air in public.’ She slipped him a look along her shoulder, but his face was bland, no expression on it to reveal what he was thinking. ‘Have you any ideas?’

  Adam shook his head. ‘Not an inkling, unless it is something to do with Ralf. The King was going to investigate the matter. Perhaps Robert has news.’

  Heulwen shivered. ‘I don’t think I want to know.’

  Adam squeezed her waist. ‘It might be nothing of that, love. No point in conjuring ghosts out of thin air.’

  No,’ she said, and leaned against him.

  They went into the keep, where Ranulf de Gernons was snoring stertorously in the straw near the door. Adam was very tempted to tread on him, but discretion won out at the last moment. ‘I wish that I was a dog or a small boy,’ he murmured, as he stepped delicately over de Gernons’s scuffed, ceiling-pointed toes. ‘There’s so much more leeway for lack of manners.’

  Heulwen’s upper lip curled with disgust. ‘Why not just be a pig?’ she said.

  Chapter 18

  Rhaeadr Cyfnos cascaded like a white mare’s tail over fern-edged rocks and foamed into a basin a hundred and fifty feet below, where the water became as dark as polished onyx before it trickled like liquid silver over the lip of the basin and into the stream beneath. Adam drew rein at the head of the falls and stared, half hypnotised by the roar of the water and its wild beauty. His skin was damp, his hair and garments cobwebbed by droplets. Vaillantif bent his neck to snatch at the grass, which even this early in the season was a lush green. The bit-chains jinked, while the stallion’s teeth tore rhythmically at the grass. Munching, he raised his head and looked round, ears pricked curiously, nostrils flaring to catch the new scent.

  Adam laid one hand on the crupper and turned. Robert of Gloucester, astride his rangy dark bay, was picking his way carefully along the narrow track and then down over the shallow leap of rock to join him. The two knights with him hung back to speak with Austin and Sweyn so that he reached Adam alone. The Earl looked briefly at the tumbling water, then away. He had an aversion to heights: looking over battlements was a necessity to which he had schooled himself, but staring at waterfalls for pleasure was a different matter entirely.

  ‘Spectacular,’ he said dutifully, and backed his stallion from the spray.

  ‘There are better ones in Wales,’ Adam said, exhilarated by the wild, foaming power of the water.

  Gloucester smiled sourly. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’ Adam laughed. He nodded at the other destrier. ‘Is the horse all right?’

  ‘Excellent.’ Gloucester slapped the elegant bay neck. ‘The Empress tried him out while we were at Windsor — he suited her very well. I might make of him a betrothal gift.’

  Beyond the damp black tree trunks a watery sun was trying to break through the clouds. Adam squinted up, then looked along the foxfur collar of his cloak to his companion. ‘Is that a means of introducing what you wanted to talk about?’

  ‘In a way, I suppose.’

  Adam laughed. ‘I can just see the Empress astride a destrier, she likes to have firm control of the male. What sort of way, my lord?’

  Gloucester tugged gently at a short stalk of straw that had become tangled in his stallion’s mane. ‘The King wants you to take letters of enquiry to the father of the prospective bridegroom.’ The words bore a slightly pompous ring, as though he had been rehearsing them.

  Adam watched the pheasant feathers in the Earl’s cap begin to droop in the fine water vapour from the falls. The news was not unexpected, but even so, he felt queasy. ‘What makes you think I am the man to be the King’s herald in this matter?’

  ‘You know how to keep a close mouth. You’ve done this kind of work before and know its dangers and pitfalls.’

  Adam shook his head. ‘I have the Welsh to deal with, my lord, and I am an English baron. I witnessed the King’s oath to us all that he would not seek a foreign husband for his daughter, and Geoffrey of Anjou is not only foreign, he’s Angevin — an enemy.’

  Gloucester blinked rapidly. ‘How did you.?’

  ‘I overheard the King and the Bishop of Salisbury talking about it last autumn.’

  ‘And you said nothing to anyone?’

  ‘They were only discussing the possibilities at the time and, as you say, I know how to keep a close mouth.’ He turned his head towards the falls.

  ‘Geoffrey of Anjou is an excellent choice.’

  ‘Is he?’ Adam felt the cold beginning to seep beneath his cloak, chilling him. ‘Convince me.’

  ‘He’s young and strong. ’

  ‘He is fifteen years old,’ Adam pointed out.

  ‘With his life before him,’ Robert argued, ‘and likely to be a sight more potent than her last husband who apparently had, er, difficulties.’

  ‘You surprise me,’ Adam said sarcastically. ‘She would shrivel any snake to the size of a worm with the way she has of looking.’

  Robert’s face reddened. ‘You will keep a civil tongue in your head when you speak of my sister.’

  Adam gave him a look and gathered the reins. ‘Why? She never extended that courtesy to me.’ He clicked his tongue to the horse.

  Gloucester caught at his bridle. ‘Wait, my lord, at least allow me to finish what I have to say. It avails us nothing if we each ride away in anger.’

  Vaillantif started to plunge and sidle. The Earl took his hand off the bridle. Adam checked the stallion and in so doing, mastered his own anger. Robert of Gloucester had always had a blind spot where his sister the Empress was concerned, and Adam liked the Earl who, despite his royal blood and high status, still managed to be as genuine and honest as a plain rye loaf. He slapped Vaillantif ’s neck, and said, ‘You are right, it avails us nothing. I apologise.’

  Earl Robert removed his hat and looked dismally at the dripping feathers. ‘I leap to her defence because no one else ever does,’ he said wearily. ‘Like you, everyone sees a bad-tempered bitch who needs a whip taking to her hide to teach her humility, but that’s just a façade. If you knew her as I did, you would be more charitable.’

  Adam raised a sceptical eyebrow but forbore in the interests of peace to comment.

  The Earl sighed, cast him a doubtful look from beneath hoary brows and said, ‘Geoffrey of Anjou is far more than a champing young stallion bought to prove his worth at stud. I grant you that he’s tall and handsome to look upon, but he’s also well-educated, and certainly no political innocent. His father has taught him well and he has the makings of a fine warrior and general. If we make Geoffrey Matilda’s consort, then Fulke, as his father, won’t be as eager to stir up the mud using William le Clito as his stick.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Adam, beginning to understand. Henry’s obsession. ‘It has to do with le Clito again.’

  ‘It has to do with a very dangerous thorn in our side,’ the Earl corrected him. ‘Pluck out the root from which it draws sustenance, and it will wither and die.’

  ‘You are gambling for very high stakes.’ Adam leaned down to adjust his stirrup. ‘If you succeed and your father can hold the reins until he has grandsons old enough, then it will be a gamble well repaid. If it fails. ’ He straightened and looked bleakly at the cascading water without finishing the sentence.

  ‘It won’t fail,’ Gloucester said forcefully. ‘Can I give my father your yea-say that you’ll go herald in payment of your forty days’ service this year?’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Adam said neutrally.

  ‘I need to know within the week.’

  Adam inclined his head, but refused to give more response than that.

  ‘My lady.’ The Earl inclined his head to Heulwen as she guided her grey mare carefully down to join them.

  ‘Sire.’ She slackened the reins to let Gemini crop at the grass and looked at the Earl. ‘Mama wants a word with you — something about getting Henry to learn English. She thinks it will stand him in good stead when Papa gives him Oxley, and she
also wants to ask you the name of that stone carver from Bristol you mentioned yesterday.’

  The Earl smiled at her, but in a distant way, his mind obviously not on such day-to-day trivia. He looked hard at Adam. ‘Within the week,’ he repeated, setting his cap back on his head at a rakish angle. ‘Is de Gernons still at the keep?’ he asked Heulwen.

  Her lip curled. ‘Just preparing to leave. His temper’s about as vile as the headache he’s nursing; I shouldn’t go near him.’

  ‘I won’t. I think I’ll take the long way back. The horse needs a good workout, anyway.’

  They watched him leave. The hoofbeats and the voices of his escort faded through the trees. The falls roared. Adam’s face felt stiff. He slid his fingers along the reins and applied gentle pressure.

  ‘Trouble?’ Heulwen followed him back to where Austin and Sweyn were waiting.

  He turned his mouth down. ‘Only to my conscience. I have known this has been coming for a long time. I should have been better prepared, but I’m not.’

  Vaillantif’s hind legs slithered on mud, but he lunged powerfully with forequarters and neck and recovered. The woods enclosed them, smelling of damp and fungus. Dormant bramble bushes snagged at their cloaks as they rode through the forest in silence. Heulwen let the reins hang slack, for Gemini was placidly following the stallion’s lead. She stared anxiously at Adam’s back, knowing that she could not force him to tell her what was on his mind.

  The trees thinned and they came suddenly upon a clearing and the mossed-over remains of a once-proud building, now reduced to chunks of tumbled stone. Some white edges only just beginning to rethread with green gave evidence of pieces having been recently cut.

  Adam dismounted and tethered Vaillantif to a young tree. A weasel leaped over his boot and streaked away through the damp grass. The sunlight broke through the clouds and trees to stroke weak fingers over the ruins. Heulwen jumped down from the mare and tied her beside the destrier.

  ‘Why have we stopped?’ Shivering, she stooped under a low hanging branch. Twigs stretched like fingers. She felt as if hidden eyes were watching her every movement.

  Adam caught her hand in his. ‘Whimsy,’ he smiled. ‘I used to come here sometimes as a boy when we visited Milnham-on-Wye with your father.’

  ‘You never brought me!’ she said half indignantly, for in childhood she had thought to share every secret and experience of Adam’s — the still, clear backwater of the Wye so wonderful for summer swimming, the haunted well at the farmstead where the Welsh had raided, the rock upon Caermoel ridge with its strange carvings.

  He tightened his fingers around hers and raised them briefly to his lips. ‘It was in the days when you did nothing but dream about Ralf and scheme how to get him,’ he said without rancour, and drew her around an outcrop of masonry and between some broken stumps of rock. ‘I wasn’t good company myself, then. I think it’s Roman. Look, you can see where they’ve taken pieces recently for that new section of curtain wall.’ He rubbed his hand over a jagged white edge, then wiped away the smear on his cloak.

  ‘Was I really so heedless?’ Heulwen asked.

  He shrugged, trying for lightness and not quite succeeding. ‘You had other matters on your mind, and I had long been a piece of familiar household furniture taken for granted — your foster brother.’

  ‘Oh, Adam!’ Her throat tightened and her eyes began to sting.

  ‘Everyone blamed my moods on my growing body, not on jealous sulks — and this was an excellent place to come and sulk alone, opportunity permitting.’ Abruptly he tugged at her hand. ‘Come.’

  He led her onwards until they came to a short avenue overgrown with brambles, straggling grass and tree saplings. Out of the tangle grew jagged slender pillars of grooved, weathered stone, and at the end of the avenue was a section of tessellated mosaic floor depicting a hunting scene. Fragments here and there were missing or displaced by tree roots, and chunks of stone from what had once been a roof married one edge, but the overall effect was still magnificent.

  ‘There’s another one over there,’ Adam nodded, ‘but it’s more broken than this one. I would come here and work on it — clear the debris so I could see what lay beneath.’

  Heulwen picked her way among the ruins to look. He followed her. A spring of icy water bubbled up near their feet and meandered away in the rough direction of Rhaeadr Cyfnos. Rooks cawed somewhere above the dark trees. Behind them the horses snorted and champed. Adam returned to Vaillantif; unslinging the wine costrel from around the cantle, he brought it to Heulwen, who now sat on a block of lichened stone regarding the hunting mosaic.

  ‘Drink?’ He withdrew the stopper and held it out to her. Companionably they shared the wine and contemplated the ruins.

  ‘I wonder who lived here?’ Heulwen mused.

  Adam wiped his mouth and shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Some of the stones have inscriptions, but they’re either too weathered to read or parts are missing. I had thought to make a copy of the hunting mosaic at Thornford in the plesaunce. What do you think?’

  Heulwen nodded approval and swallowed her mouthful of the rich, tart wine. ‘And the herb beds fanning out from it.’

  Adam gave her a bright amber glance. ‘I thought I’d change some of the animals, though — wolves and vixens instead of boar, perhaps a leopard or two since they are your father’s device, and most certainly some horses.’

  ‘A sorrel with cream mane and tail,’ she smiled.

  He raised one eyebrow. ‘In pursuit of the vixens?’

  She laughed and swiped at him. He ducked and dragged her down off the stone and into his arms. Cold, tasting of wine, their lips met and through the laughter, desire rippled suddenly like a bright thread decorating a garment.

  ‘I think you should also include a priapus,’ she murmured against his mouth.

  ‘Only if there are nymphs in it too!’ he retorted. ‘Stop that, you hoyden. Austin might not bat an eyelid, but Sweyn’s more set in his ways. You’ll shock him for certain!’

  She glanced over his shoulder. ‘They can’t see us from here.’ She kissed him, her tongue flickering as delicately as a serpent’s. His hand strayed down to the curve of her buttocks and squeezed her against him. Despite his protest, he began to wonder hazily where they could lie, or failing that if it would be possible standing up, for there was no great discrepancy in their heights. The novelty of that thought increased his arousal and his breath caught and shortened as Heulwen tightened and relaxed against him. What had started out as a jest was swiftly becoming a desire-driven imperative. ‘Heulwen, let me. ’ he said hoarsely, but the jingle of harness and the noise of horses pushing through the trees made him look up and then stop what he was doing and swing her hard around, so that she was shielded by his body.

  ‘Adam, what’s the matter, why are you—?’

  Behind them a sword cleared its scabbard. ‘Sweyn, put up,’ said Adam without taking his eyes off the men who were moving through the trees and surrounding them. The sword grated back into its sheath, but the old warrior moved closer to Adam, as did the squire.

  Rhodri ap Tewdr drew rein and contemplated the small group before him, while at his back, his men shifted restlessly.

  ‘Welcome to the tryst.’ Adam performed a mocking bow. ‘May I enquire what you are doing so far from home?’

  ‘A matter of unfinished business.’ Rhodri levelled the spear he was carrying and directed it at Adam’s breast.

  Heulwen stiffened, her thoughts flying to Thornford’s tilt yard and the moment when the Welsh prince had almost ridden Adam down. She took an involuntary step forwards, but Adam gestured her back. ‘Such as?’ he said and, as before, stood his ground, matching Rhodri look for look.

  The latter held the moment for a long time before tossing the spear to the soldier beside him. Adam breathed out, cold sweat slicking his palms. Rhodri smiled as he saw the tell-tale trail of vapour coil the air. Dismounting, he tied his horse to a sturdy beech sapling.

  ‘I want a
truce,’ he announced. ‘There has been too much blood spilled already and I don’t want to see this summer’s harvest go up in flames — mine or yours.’

  ‘I’m in full agreement with that,’ Adam said, steadying the euphoria of relief into a careful neutrality. He reached for the costrel lying on the stone and handed it to Rhodri. ‘If you cease raiding over the dyke and making a nuisance of yourself among my father-in-law’s tenants, I’ll try to persuade him and the rest of the funeral guests that exterminating you is not the next best thing to going on crusade.’

  ‘I am sorry about Lord Miles.’ Rhodri drank from the skin and returned it. ‘I learned respect and fondness for him during the time that I was your prisoner. If I could undo the manner of his dying I would. Davydd went too far.’

  ‘And paid for it,’ Adam said with grim satisfaction.

  Dull colour suffused Rhodri’s skin. His cloak brooch flashed as he took a deep breath. ‘Yes, he paid for it,’ he said, his voice over-controlled. ‘But our raiding began as revenge — we were provoked. Our grazing lands are being ruined by Ravenstow’s tenants, and yours too on the southern side. Only last autumn one of your villages cleared an assart on our side of the border, and on le Chevalier’s former lands the boundary stones have been moved. I know they have. I came down that way to be here. We are only taking back what is ours!’ His dark eyes burned as he looked from Adam to Heulwen, half accusing, half defensive.

  Adam inclined his head, acknowledging Rhodri’s argument. ‘I will talk to my bailiffs and stewards, and I’ll ride out and see for myself what liberties have been taken. Send a witness to attend on me if you want. Peace never flourishes on half-measures.’ He frowned and folded his arms. ‘As to your complaint with the Earl of Ravenstow, you’ll need to talk to him yourself. I cannot vouchsafe for him or his tenants.’

  ‘That is the reason I am here,’ Rhodri said sombrely. ‘I knew he would be here…and also I want to pay my respects to Lord Miles. I need you to give me safe escort to the keep.’

  Adam sucked in his cheeks and looked dubiously at his wife. ‘Did you say that de Gernons was leaving?’