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.
‘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.
The Running Vixen tor-2 Page 27
