The Running Vixen tor-2

by Elizabeth Chadwick

  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.

  ‘Lie still, love, you’re safe,’ she heard Adam’s voice say, easy and calm and familiar.

  ‘Adam?’ She drew back to look into his face to make sure it was not her imagination playing tricks. Torchlight marked out golden-hazel eyes and thick, bronze-brown hair. She touched his face and, bewildered, looked around. ‘Where’s Warrin?’

  His hand tightened across her back. ‘Dead.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Dead,’ he repeated, dropping the word like a weighted body into the river, and taking the blanket Sweyn had managed to find, he wrapped her in it and then in his own fur-lined cloak.

  Heulwen closed her eyes and shuddered. ‘He wanted to know why we were in Angers,’ she said faintly as he mounted Vaillantif and she was handed into the saddle before him. ‘I didn’t tell him.’ Her teeth were chattering. She turned her face into his tunic and clung tightly to him like a child beset by a nightmare. Adam kissed the top of her head and blinked hard, then pressed Vaillantif to a gentle walk.

  Chapter 23

  Thornford, Summer 1127

  Adam curled his fingers around his belt and contemplated the mosaic that the two craftsmen were so painstakingly working on. It was a copy of the ruined Roman one in the forest beyond Rhaeadr Cyfnos with a few adaptations of his own, and when finished it would transform Thornford’s plesaunce from a merely functional herb garden into a delightful place to sit on warm summer evenings.

  He sat down on the turf seat and studied the mosaic from a different angle. The colours were autumnal — cream and bronze, russet, gold and brown. His attention wandered towards his wife, who was discussing the siting of the new mint and sage beds with the gardener and whether they had room for another patch of stavesacre to combat the current epidemic of lice.

  Busy, he thought with a twist of his mouth. In the two months since their return from Anjou she had not stopped. She was not just busy but frantic, and she would not talk to him — at least not beyond any trivial, meaningless chatter masking God knew what. He could not get close enough to find out. He watched the tilt of her head as she listened to what the gardener was saying and the gesture of her arm as she pointed to the soil-bed at their feet. Superficially there was no difference, but it was like skimming the surface froth off a bubbling stew and never reaching the meal itself.

  She had not spoken of her time as Warrin’s prisoner on board the Alisande — not one word, but he had been able to deduce much from her actions. In the early days she had lived in a bathtub and scrubbed herself raw, and it did not take great alacrity of mind to realise that Warrin had done more than just question her.

  He had opted for time and gentleness to bring her round, but they seemed to be having the opposite effect. Heulwen retreated further into her shell with each day that passed, and nothing that he said or did seemed able to draw her forth. The nights were difficult too. It was not that she rejected him: on the contrary, she frequently demanded more of him than he was capable of, and with such desperation that there was no real pleasure in it for either of them.

  He looked at the wolves that made up the centrepiece of the mosaic. Black wolves chasing their tails surrounded by a ring of red vixens. The men were working on the huntsmen now. The gardener had gone. Adam rose and strolled across the plesaunce to join his wife. She was pressing her hand to her stomach and her complexion was the unhealthy shade of whey.

  ‘Heulwen?’ He put an anxious arm around her. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She gave him that vapid, closed look that he was learning to hate, and smiled brightly. ‘It’s those salted herrings we bought last month. They’ve been disagreeing with me. Cuthbrit says the mint should go here and the tansy over there, but I don’t know. There’s more sun. ’

 
He tightened his hold, silencing her. ‘Heulwen, for God’s love, I cannot bear any more of this hoodman’s blind! We have to talk about Angers. When I look at you, I feel as though I’m looking across the Styx at a being from the underworld.’

  ‘Angers?’ She drew a deep breath, let it out again shakily and looked around the plesaunce, which was taking graceful shape from the silver of Henry’s gratitude. A king’s price. Cheap. She felt laughter rising in her throat, and then the nausea. ‘It is with me every waking moment without having to talk about it as well,’ she said stiffly. ‘I…I don’t feel well. I’m going to lie down.’ She pushed herself out of his concerned embrace and ran from him.

  Adam stared vacantly down at the prepared herb bed. He wondered if he ought to go after her, but the thought daunted him. He was still wary of rejection even when he knew it was not personally intended. He chose the coward’s way, and deferring the confrontation went to tell Austin to saddle up Vaillantif.

  He took the men out on a wide-sweeping patrol. After a few miles he paused in a village to speak to the reeve and accept a cup of new ale from the beaming, flustered ale-wife, and then rode on. The open spaces and the silken gait of the stallion eased him. He drew rein on the crest of Thornford Dyke, looked across to Wales, and inhaled deeply of the sweet spring air.

  He found himself wishing that Miles was still alive. He could have confided in him. Guyon had lost Heulwen’s own mother to rape and butchery, and Heulwen’s situation was too close for him to broach it. Countess Judith would offer him abrasive advice in her usual forthright manner, and just now, that thought was unpalatable. All Miles had left them was the wolf brooch — a light in the darkness, but a light did not show you which path to take, it only illuminated the way you chose.

  He shook the reins and paced Vaillantif along the top of the dyke, examining its state of repair. Not that he expected to clash with the Welsh this year, thank Christ for small mercies. It was rumoured that Rhodri ap Tewdr was getting married to the daughter of another local Welsh lord; he wondered how true the rumours were and if it would alter the delicate balance along the borders.

  He moved down the dyke to visit a fortified manor held by one of his vassals and sat down to meat with the man while they discussed the need to put more of the forest under plough. Having declined his invitation to hunt, Adam then set out for home.

  It was a little before vespers when he rode into the bailey, and although the slanting sun was still warm and golden, he felt the hairs prickle erect on his spine at the atmosphere as he dismounted. He started to ask his groom what was wrong, decided he would rather not know in so public a place, and hurried towards the hall. There was no sign of Heulwen or Elswith. His steward, Brien, was busy at a trestle with tally sticks and an exchequer cloth, an inky quill between his fingers, but when he saw Adam he rose and came quickly to him.

  ‘Lady Heulwen was taken ill while you were out, my lord.’ He looked anxiously at Adam. ‘We did not know where you had taken the patrol, so we put her to bed and my wife took it upon herself to fetch Dame Agatha from the village.’

  The information struck Adam like a fist. Dame Agatha in her capacity of wise woman and experienced midwife was a frequent visitor among the keep’s women. Adam had known her literally since his own birth. White-faced, he pushed past his anxious steward and took the tower stairs two at a time.

  Dame Agatha was emerging from the outer chamber, the comfortable folds of her face marred by a frown as she dried her hands on a clean square of linen. Like the rest of her they were pink, plump, and capable. ‘My lord,’ she said deferentially, but blocked his way, forcing him to stop his headlong stride towards the bedchamber.

  ‘Where’s my wife? What’s happened?’ He stared at the drawn curtain behind her.

  ‘Be at ease sire, it is nothing serious.’ Her French was mangled by a heavy English accent and hard to understand. He had to concentrate and it brought him off the simmer. He breathed out once, hard, and held himself to patience. ‘She is sleeping now; I have given her a tisane. What she needs is plenty of rest with her feet well raised. The bleeding has stopped, but she will need to be careful.’

  ‘Bleeding?’ Adam said stupidly, clutched by the horrified thought that Heulwen had perhaps attempted her own life while he was gone. ‘What do you mean?’

  Dame Agatha gave him a curious look, then her face softened into comfortable folds. It was not the first time she had come up against this kind of stunned disbelief. Men might profess themselves the stronger sex, but they were frightened ignorants when it came to this particular arena. She patted his arm solicitously. ‘It sometimes happens. With rest I do believe she will settle down. Leastways she hasn’t lost the child.’

  ‘Child?’ Adam reeled. ‘What child?’

  Dame Agatha sucked a sharp breath between the gap in her front teeth, and stared at him in dismayed surprise. ‘Forgive me, my lord. I did not realise she had not told you — perhaps waiting to be sure, eh?’

  ‘You’re telling me that my wife is with child?’ he asked unsteadily.

  ‘Somewhere between two and three months along,’ she nodded. ‘Sometimes bleeding happens at this time. It is my opinion we’ll see a healthy babe this side of the Christmas feast.’

  Adam stared at her blankly. Somewhere between two and three months along. Christ’s sweet wounds, no!

  ‘My lord, are you all right? Shall I get.?’

  He looked down at her sympathetic hand on his sleeve and swallowed. ‘Yes, he said stiltedly. ‘Just taken by surprise, that is all.’ He withdrew his arm. ‘Thank you for coming.’ He fumbled in his pouch, found a silver penny and pressed it into her hand.

  Dame Agatha folded her several chins into her chest and looked puzzled. There was the same checked, wild tension about him that there had been in his wife, as if this pregnancy was a disaster instead of a boundless joy. It took some people that way, usually those who already had a dozen offspring to feed and no hope of nourishing a thirteenth beyond the breast. A man in Lord Adam’s position was usually delighted at the prospect of an heir; his wife too, at having proved her ability to conceive.

  She dropped her gaze to the coin and folded her fingers over it. ‘I’ll come back in the morning — sooner if you need me,’ she said, made her obeisance and left.

  Adam eyed the thick curtain separating him from the bedchamber. He did not need to master his feelings, for just now he did not have any. He was numb. At last, he forced his limbs to move and drew aside the heavy wool. Elswith was in the bedchamber, folding up some strips of absorbent linen. She darted him a quick, frightened look and her industry increased.

  ‘Did you know?’ he demanded.

  Elswith blushed and fumbled. ‘My lady said naught to me,’ she answered defensively. ‘I suspected a month since, but it weren’t my place to speak. ’

  Adam went to the bed. Heulwen was sleeping deeply, her breathing natural and even, as if nothing had ever troubled her life before. Still numb, disbelieving, he wondered what he was going to say to her when the effects of the tisane wore off and she woke up. He sat down on the stool beside the bed and unpinned his light summer mantle. ‘Elswith, go below and tell them not to wait the dinner hour for me. You can bring some bread and pottage up later.’

  He watched her curtsy and leave, then leaned his chin on his laced fingers and stared at Heulwen.

  Heulwen opened her eyes and gazed vaguely around the bedchamber. Her feet were propped up on a swaddled brick and the blankets were tucked up to her chin. The light in the room was dim and grey: morning or evening she could not tell, nor understand what she was doing in bed. And then her stomach churned queasily as it had done for the past several weeks, causing her to remember, and turning her head in discomfort on the pillow she looked straight into Adam’s eyes and flinched with a small cry like a wounded animal.

  Adam flinched too, then with a soft oath leaned quickly over the bed and gathered her to him. ‘Heulwen, don’t.’

  Tears filled her eyes and ove
rflowed. Through them she saw that Adam wept too. He swore again, dashed his sleeve across his face and left her to fetch the flask of aqua vitae. Heulwen watched him tremble a measure into a cup, watched as the fine russet hairs upon his wrist became in her mind’s eye blond and wiry. The smell of the drink was evocative and more than her stomach could bear, and she lunged from the bed, scrabbled for the chamber pot and was violently sick.

  Adam flung down the cup and flask and hastened to her, but he was floundering in quicksand, did not know what to do. ‘Shall I send Elswith for Dame Agatha?’ he said anxiously.

  Heulwen shook her head. ‘It’s not because of that,’ she panted weakly, ‘it’s the aqua vitae…Warrin forced me to drink it before he. ’ She broke off, retching uncontrollably.

  ‘Christ Jesu!’ Adam held her shuddering body, bracing her up until the spasms had ceased, and spent, she leaned wearily against him.

  ‘I set fire to the ship with it too,’ she gulped. ‘I threw the flask on the brazier when I saw my chance. ’

  ‘Hush, love.’ He squeezed her shoulders, kissed her bright hair.

  ‘You asked me about Angers. ’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, truly it does not.’

  She heard the hint of panic in his voice and wondered if it was for her or for himself. ‘But it does,’ she insisted. ‘I’ve been trying to deny it ever happened, but I can’t now, can I?’ She laid her palm against her belly. Haltingly, pausing for respite when the narrative became too painful, she told him everything.

  Listening, Adam was scalded by pity and love and a rage too still and deep to express. It held him immobile, his cry of anguish jailed inside his head. When she finished, there was an absolute, frightening silence.

  ‘I do not expect you to acknowledge the child,’ she whispered when he said nothing, just sat staring at the hanging on the far wall as though it were of vital importance.