Elizabeth Chadwick - The Running Vixen

‘I will be all right,’ she said, as Adam took her arm, one eye on the waiting page, the other on le Clito, who had joined a dice game near the hearth. As Fulke’s guests he and his men were sleeping within the castle itself.

‘Are you sure? Christ, I could well do without this particular twist of fate.’ Scowling, Adam sought Warrin de Mortimer and saw him still sitting at the trestle, wine cup beside him, a red puddle slopped around the base, and upon his knee a black-haired woman with sultry eyes. Her arms were around his neck, her fingers in his hair. His hand was on her thigh. She was whispering in his ear, but he was only half listening, all his attention focused on Adam and Heulwen.

‘Yes, I’m sure.’ Heulwen suppressed a shudder and kissed her husband, shutting out the sight of Warrin’s accusing stare against Adam’s cheek, drawing reassurance from his familiar individual scent.

Adam squeezed her waist and took her across the hall to give her into the care of his bodyguard, saw her on her way, then returned to his duty. Warrin de Mortimer he pointedly ignored, but he was still aware of him in the periphery of his vision, unpinning the neck of the woman’s gown.

The squire poured wine, left the flagon and a plate of small marchpane confections to hand, and bowed out of the room. One of Fulke’s dogs circled several times, then flopped down before the hearth.

Adam gave Fulke the sealed parchment that had been his responsibility for the past several weeks and sat down at the Count’s gesture on a chair that had been made comfortable with cushions.

Fulke broke the seal, opened out the parchment in his stubby hands and started to read. Geoffrey picked up a marchpane comfit and decisively bit it in half. ‘Interesting?’ he asked as he chewed.

Frowning, Fulke shook his head, took the document nearer to the candle and started to read it again. Geoffrey raised one eyebrow, but after a calculating glance ignored his father. He picked up another piece of marchpane and tossed it to the dog. It leaped and snapped and licked its jaws. ‘Do you joust, my lord?’ he asked Adam.

Adam blinked at him, taken by surprise. ‘Occasionally, sire,’ he said cautiously.

‘More than occasionally, I think,’ Geoffrey contradicted. ‘I saw your stallion in the stables earlier, and when I spoke to your squire about him he said you could hit a quintain shield dead centre ten times out of ten.’

Adam looked across at the Count whose lips were moving silently as he read. ‘Austin tends to exaggerate, my lord.’

‘There’s a mêlée organised for tomorrow, le Clito’s party against mine. I’d be honoured if you’d take part…on my side of course.’

It was tantamount to an order, no matter the manner of its phrasing. Behind a neutral mask, Adam considered the young man who was obviously accustomed to having his own way and probably dangerous if he didn’t get it. ‘Sire, the honour is mine,’ he responded gracefully. The English barons were going to love Geoffrey of Anjou, he thought wryly.

Geoffrey smiled. ‘Weapons à plaisance, my lord. No sharpened edges, whatever personal grudges you might harbour.’

Adam inclined his head and took a drink of his wine. ‘No sharpened edges,’ he repeated after a moment when he was sure of his control.

Fulke looked at Adam with cold, shrewd eyes. ‘Do you know what is written here?’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘What is it?’ demanded Geoffrey. ‘A bribe from King Henry to stop us getting too friendly with his favourite nephew?’

Fulke snorted. ‘You might say that.’ He handed the parchment across, and put both palms up to cover his mouth while he watched his son read.

‘God’s death!’ Geoffrey choked as he reached the relevant part of the document. ‘She’s old enough to be my grandam!’

‘She is also the Dowager Empress of Germany and King Henry’s designated heir,’ Fulke’s voice was sharp with warning, ‘and she is but five-and-twenty.’

Geoffrey’s first high flush of colour had receded to a dirty white. He swallowed and reread the parchment as if willing the words to change before his eyes.

‘A crown and a duchy,’ Fulke said, watching him intently.

Adam quietly drank his wine, observing them from beneath downcast lids. They were like two stags, one in its prime, at the peak of its powers and recognising that the only way was down, and the other young, unsure, but gaining rapidly in strength and experience with the occupied peak as its goal.

‘I don’t want it.’ Geoffrey tossed the parchment down. His throat worked.

‘Think with your head, boy, not your heart. We’ll not better an offer like this, not in a hundred years. Think of the power! The woman’s only a means to an end. God’s blood, once you’ve planted a seed in her belly, you can sport wherever the fancy takes you. Surely a few nights in Matilda’s bed is a cheap enough price to pay!’

Turning away, Geoffrey paced heavily to the narrow window slit and leaned his head against the wall. The dog left the hearth and padded across to nuzzle its moist nose against his thigh. After a short silence the youth rubbed his face and drew a shuddering breath. His back still turned, he said, ‘You told me, Father, that Henry of England was like a spider weaving a web to entrap all men. Why should we be lured into its strands?’

‘Is the answer not obvious?’ Fulke said impatiently. ‘We too are spiders.’ Fulke crossed the room to reach up and squeeze his tall son’s shoulder with a firm, paternal hand. ‘And these matters are better discussed in private.’

Adam drained his cup and stood up, neither slow nor loath to take Fulke’s warning to the boy as reason to depart. ‘With your permission, my lords,’ he said.

Fulke looked round and nodded. ‘Yes, leave us.’

‘Sire.’ Adam picked up the parchment from the rushes, put it carefully back down on the trestle and made a courtly obeisance as he departed.

Jerold and the men of his escort, other than those who had seen Heulwen home, were waiting at the stables for him. A convivial game of dice was in progress and a flask of wine and a giggling kitchen girl were being passed from hand to hand.

Adam secured his cloak and strode across the ward. ‘When you’ve finished, gentlemen,’ he said, his sarcastic tone redeemed by the merest glint of humour.

Thierry’s teeth flashed. He pocketed the dice. ‘I was losing anyway,’ he said disrespectfully and stood up. Wiry and light, he was at least two handspans smaller than his lord. He caught the girl by the arm, murmured something in her ear and slapped her buttocks to send her on her way.

Adam narrowed his eyes at the Angevin and paused, his hands on Vaillantif’s neck, one foot in the stirrup. ‘You’ll lose a week’s pay on top of it if you don’t look sharp,’ he warned.

Thierry tilted his head, unsure whether to take the words as threat or jest, and opted for caution to the extent that he knew it. Saluting smartly he took a running jump at his bay and vaulted effortlessly into the saddle. ‘Ready, my lord,’ he announced, cocky as a sparrow.

Adam’s mouth twitched. ‘Spare such tricks for tomorrow. Young Geoffrey’s got a mêlée organised, and we’re fighting on the Angevin side.’

The news was greeted by cheers all round, for when not actually involved in a war, Adam’s men enjoyed nothing better than practising for it. The mêlée was a dangerous game, sometimes crossing the narrow line between war and mock-war, but the hurly-burly was fun and offered the chance to gain rich prizes, for a man defeated had by the rules to yield the victor his horse, hauberk and weapons, or their value in coin.

Adam listened to their eager banter and felt the excitement stir his own blood. It was his sport: he excelled at it, and the prospect of decent competition was exhilarating, or would have been had not the presence of Warrin de Mortimer buzzed like a huge black fly in the ointment.

Thierry was watching him with a tense, speculative gaze. Adam returned the look sharply and the mercenary quickly wheeled his horse into line and made himself busy with a loose piece of harness.

‘A mêlée!’ Heulwen exclaimed, throwing down her comb on the bed and whirling round to face him, her hair a flaming swirl around her shoulders and waist. ‘Have you run utterly mad?’

Adam spread his hands palms upwards. ‘Warrin is no match for me on horseback,’ he said defensively. ‘On foot at Christmastide it was a little too close for comfort, I admit, but not astride.’

Heulwen laughed in his face. ‘You do not seriously believe that Warrin will play by the rules?’

He sat on the bed and looked at her. ‘Heulwen, understand this, I want to fight in this mêlée.’ He hesitated, searching for words that were difficult to find because it was a feeling that came from the gut, not the mind. ‘It is…oh, I don’t know, bred into me, blood and bone. A sword is still a sword no matter how much you cover it in gilt.’ His palms opened wider as he spoke, displaying to her the calluses of his trade and the thick white scar of an old battle wound bisecting his life line. ‘Even if I didn’t want to take part, it is expected of me. Henry’s honour as much as mine is at stake.’

‘Honour!’ Heulwen choked on the word, fortunately too overwhelmed by fear and rage to say more.

Adam’s eyes narrowed and the light shivered on his tunic as he took a swift breath. ‘Yes, honour,’ he said and lowered his hand to pick up the comb she had thrown down.

‘Warrin doesn’t know the meaning of the word!’

He ran his thumb along the ivory teeth. ‘No. He just digresses from it when it’s a choice between his honour and something he wants. Then he conveniently forgets he ever lapsed.’

She exhaled hard, not in the least mollified. ‘Is that supposed to be reassurance?’

Adam sighed. ‘It was supposed to tell you I’m not entirely naïve.’ He pulled her down on to the bed beside him and gently began to draw the comb through her hair. ‘Would declining to take part guarantee my life? I think not. A swift thrust from a dagger in the crowd could as easily be the manner of dispatch. In a mêlée I will have Sweyn to my left, Jerold to my right, and Thierry and Alun thereabouts; and if it has worked before a dozen times in battle, there is no reason to think it will not work on a tourney field.’

She felt his palm following the course of the comb down her hair, smoothing, coaxing. Men, she thought with contempt. Willing to die for the art of showing off their prowess in the killing arts and calling it honour; fighting cocks strutting in their fine feathers. She could still see the eager gleam in Adam’s eyes when he had first come to her, could hear the laughter of his men.

Adam set his palm to her jaw and turned her face to him. She looked down but he exerted pressure so that she had to meet his gaze. ‘Look, sweetheart, I will avoid him if I can, that much I swear to you. Not because I don’t want to separate his head from his neck, there’s nothing I’d like more, but I cannot allow personal enmity to stand between myself and what I am here to do for Henry.’ He stroked her cheek. ‘It will be all right, I promise you.’

She shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. ‘You stubborn, pig-headed. ’

‘Tail-chaser?’ he suggested with a raised brow, and bent his mouth to hers.

‘In God’s name Adam, do not chase it too far!’ she whispered against his mouth. ‘I will die if I lose you.’

The chosen site for Geoffrey’s mêlée was a broad green field just outside the city walls, and it was here, shortly after dawn, that the court assembled either to watch the sport, or prepare to partake. The early March morning was mild with the promise of warm sunshine, and although furred cloaks were much in evidence, there was no real discomfort from cold. If people gathered around braziers, it was because they served as a focal point over which to discuss and anticipate the fighting to come.

Heulwen listened to the bright chatter surrounding her and was aware of an overpowering feeling of dread and isolation. She tried to smile and respond to the tide of enthusiasm, agreeing with a baron’s wife that yes, the weather was fine and that the sport should be well worth watching. She bought ribbons from a huckster to tie around Adam’s lance, clapped and laughed emptily at the antics of a dancing bear, and pretended to listen with attentive enjoyment to the ballad of an itinerant lute-player. Her mouth ached with the strain of forced merriment and her head with the strain of the pretence, when all she wanted to do was run away, dragging her husband with her, and not stop until she reached the haven of her own Welsh marches.