The Running Vixen

Chapter 10

Down in the south, the snow had turned to freezing rain and the ground was a morass of puddles and melting, muddy slush. The court was keeping Christmas at Windsor, and almost every royal tenant-in-chief was present in answer to the summons from the King. The lesser but still important barons were here, the high clergy and the King of Scots with his retinue — all present to swear allegiance to the Dowager Empress Matilda, King Henry’s daughter and designated heir. Banners and shields adorned the balconies of the wealthy, and the evergreen bunches outside every alehouse welcomed the swollen ranks of Windsor’s temporary population

Heulwen shivered and tried to huddle deeper into the folds of her cloak as the wind flurried her garments and blustered rain into her face. She struggled to display an interest she did not feel in the bolts of cloth laid out for her inspection upon the counter of a cloth merchant’s booth. Dutifully she rubbed the fine, white linen between her fingers and agreed that it would be perfect for making shirts and shifts, trying to smile as lengths were cut and folded to one side.

‘Now,’ Judith said with a note of satisfaction, her discerning gaze on the merchant’s displayed bales of cloth, ‘your wedding gown. What about that green silk over there?’

Obligingly the merchant reached for the bolt indicated.

‘I don’t know, I had not thought.’ Heulwen shivered, her face pinched and pale.

‘Well in the name of the saints do so now!’ Judith snapped with the exasperation that came of having trailed around the market-place all morning with a limp rag in tow. ‘Heulwen, you’re to be betrothed tomorrow morning and married at Candlemas. You haven’t time for vagueness!’

‘I’m sorry, Mama. It’s just that I’m cold and out of sorts,’ Heulwen excused herself, giving again that wan, forlorn smile that made Judith want to scream. ‘The green will suit me very well.’

‘God in heaven, child, you haven’t even looked at it!’

The merchant lowered his eyes from the irate lady of Ravenstow and the woebegone young woman at her side, and busied himself unfolding the bolt and rippling the grass-green silk across the counter.

Heulwen’s lower lip trembled as she fought with tears. Fine sleet stung her face like flung shingle. Behind, two accompanying men-at-arms were stamping their feet to keep warm, and Helgund, her stepmother’s elderly maid was grimacing at the pain from her chilblains.

‘I trust in your judgement, Mama,’ she said in a subdued voice and stared at the muddy hem of her cloak.

Judith closed her eyes and swallowed. A packhorse laden with brightly coloured belts was led past, and someone else’s servant scurried by clutching a cloth-covered pie dish, the savoury steam teasing the nostrils and torturing the empty stomachs of those freezing at the draper’s booth. ‘Very well,’ Judith said with commendable calm for one who was so sorely tried. ‘The green silk, and some of that gold damask over there for an undertunic and trim. Have them brought to my lodgings and my steward will pay you.’

The merchant bowed, and started to refold the bolt of silk, his face expressionless.

As the women left the booth, Judith’s exasperation gave way to concern, for Heulwen was following her with the vapid docility of a sheep. ‘Perhaps this betrothal should be deferred until you are feeling better,’ she said with a frown.

‘No!’ That response at least was sharp and swift and so at odds with Heulwen’s mood that Judith stared at her stepdaughter with widening eyes.

‘No,’ said Heulwen in a more controlled voice. ‘I’m not ill, Mama. I need this betrothal to take place tomorrow. It is the waiting as much as anything else that is dragging me down. I cannot take an interest in my wedding gown when I have this dreadful fear that something will happen to prevent the marriage.’

‘Nonsense!’ Judith said brusquely.

‘I know, but it does not make the fear go away.’

Judith allowed her man-at-arms to boost her into the saddle of her waiting mare. The frown remained on her face. Heulwen might be more than half Welsh, but her nature was essentially practical, without the eerie sense of premonition with which so many of her race were gifted. If she was having brooding foresights, it was because she felt like a condemned prisoner who sees the moment of execution approaching, and is impatient for that moment to have come and gone and have the peace of darkness.

She and Guyon might not have pushed her into this marriage, Judith thought grimly, but neither had they done anything to stop her, and if you let a boat drift with the tide, frequently it smashes to pieces on the rocks. Perhaps the betrothal should indeed be cancelled until Heulwen had had more time to settle down. After all, there was no rush.

‘Your father and I were forced to marry,’ she said as she shook the reins. ‘I was unhappy and terrified and there was nothing I could do short of killing myself to prevent it from happening. It took a long time and a great deal of patience on your father’s behalf before I learned to trust, even longer before love grew out of it — for both of us.’ She looked across at her stepdaughter. Heulwen’s mouth was stubbornly set now, but whether to resist Judith or tears was uncertain.

‘It was different for you and Ralf,’ she continued. ‘You wanted him from the beginning, and he wanted you — but I think it was your dowry and the thought of having a nubile fifteen-year-old in his bed whenever he chose to sleep there that decided him, not love.’

‘Mama, what are you trying to tell me?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps that you should not let your experience with Ralf sour your future expectations.’

‘It hasn’t.’ Heulwen grimaced. ‘Not soured, but lowered. I no longer think that the stars will fall down into my hands just because I reach for them. Was that how my mother felt about Papa?’

Judith reined back her mare as a laden cart splashed past them. She had never concealed the past from Heulwen, but it was seldom the girl asked, and some parts were too painful for Judith to broach without direct demand. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I suppose it was. Your mother knew it was impossible for them to wed — a Welsh merchant’s daughter and a marcher lord — so she guarded her heart from him. I met her only once, on the day before she was killed. She came to tell Guyon that she was severing the old ties and getting married; it was a business arrangement like your own.’

Helwen was momentarily diverted from her troubles. ‘Weren’t you jealous of her? When I found out about one of Ralf ’s women, I was ready to take a dagger to her throat — and geld him!’

Judith’s lips twitched. ‘Jealous?’ She urged the mare forward again. ‘Oh yes, so jealous that until I met her it gnawed at me like poison, but I could not hate her. Besides, although your father occasionally visited her, he did not lie with her after we were wed.’ The twitch became an open, rueful smile. ‘Oh, not for reasons of moral nicety or to salve my feelings I am sure, but she was heavily pregnant with you, and by the time you were born, he was beginning to notice that he had a wife for that kind of comfort.’ The corners of her eyes crinkled. ‘I did once take a knife to one of the women at court though when she presumed too far on their old acquaintance — Alais de Clare. She’s bound to be at court tonight. It’s a long time since we met on that kind of battlefield — I wonder if she still remembers.’ Her mischievous laugh lightened Heulwen’s mood and she responded with the first genuine smile of the morning.

When they rode into the courtyard of their town house, the grooms were already busy tending several fine blood-horses. A squire was fondling a strawberry roan trapped out in expensive, gilded harness. The stallion’s superb pinkish coat was as glossy as satin, revealing that its owner could afford to keep it stable-fed during the long winter months. The squire glanced round and a delighted grin flashed across his round face. Having swiftly handed the roan’s bridle to another boy, he ran across the courtyard, to help Judith and Heulwen from their mounts.

‘Henry!’ Judith kissed her fourth child joyfully. He squirmed away, concealing a grimace, and smoothed down the sandy hair she had just tousled, a red flush mantling his freckled face. He was of his royal grandfather’s build, stocky and compact, promising bull-like strength rather than the feline grace of his brothers, and he was the only one with his mother’s tawny-hazel colouring, the others all being dark like Guyon.

Warned by his reaction to Judith’s embrace, Heulwen confined herself to a swift peck on his cheek and an admiring remark about the new dagger at his belt.

Smiling proudly, he showed it to her. ‘Earl Robert gave it to me last night for serving so well at table,’ he said, his head high.

‘You’ve learned something then,’ Judith said, looking him over with brisk approval. Henry had been something of a scarecrow before leaving them to squire in Robert of Gloucester’s household, but he had acquired a certain polish since then to judge from his spruce, outward appearance and the smooth alacrity with which he had helped her down from the mare.

‘He was dining with the Empress. She smiled at me. She’s very pretty and not as. ’ He left the rest of the sentence in midair and looked at Heulwen, who was staring at a particularly handsome dark bay stallion tethered among the others.

‘He’s a beauty, isn’t he?’ Henry said enthusiastically.

‘Henry, what’s he doing here?’

The boy blinked at the sharpness of her tone. ‘Lord Robert’s just been over at the horse fair. He took a fancy to this one, and it was Adam of Thornford selling and he’s got a good reputation. My lord said that the price was high, but probably fair for what he was getting.’ Puzzled, he looked from his mother to his half-sister. ‘What’s wrong? What have I said that’s so funny?’

Heulwen shook her head. ‘He was one of Ralf ’s stallions — Adam was selling him for me. What did Earl Robert pay?’

‘Seventy marks in the end. What do you mean, Adam was selling him for you?’

Heulwen touched his arm. ‘I’ll tell you all about it later.’ Biting her lip, she followed her stepmother into the house.

Before a smoky central hearth, Earl Robert of Gloucester, senior child among the cluster of illegitimate offspring King Henry had sired, was warming his feet at the fire, cup of hippocras in hand, high forehead ribbed with pleading sincerity as he addressed the dubious Lord of Ravenstow.

‘We need your support. I know you have your doubts about swearing for Matilda, God knows, she’d tempt a saint to commit murder sometimes, but she’s capable of ruling, I swear it.’

Guyon gave him a pained smile. ‘I do not doubt her capabilities. I’m married to such a one myself.’ His eyes darted with wry amusement to the threshold where his wife was handing her cloak to a maid. ‘But men look to be ruled by a man, not a woman.’

‘Do you?’

‘By preference, yes — well, in some ways anyway,’ he added with another amused look at his wife, but then he sobered. ‘What worries me is that she will wed someone who is going to try the crown on for size and in consequence break us all.’

‘My father is wiser than that. He will look and choose most carefully,’ Gloucester objected, bristling. ‘And Matilda’s no meek maid to give up what is hers by right.’

Frowning, Guyon stared into the middle distance, and finally back at the earnest face of his brother-by-marriage.

‘It is not enough to say your father will choose carefully. He will choose to his own dictates unless he is made to swear that he will not go about the purpose of arranging Matilda’s marriage without the agreement of his tenants-in-chief.’

‘You have been talking to Henry of Blois, haven’t you?’

‘No, I haven’t. It is what any sensible man would say.’ Guyon’s nostrils flared with impatience. ‘I’ve only seen Henry of Blois from a distance thus far. The only man to whom I have spoken is the Earl of Leicester, and that’s because my son’s a chaplain in his household — and Leicester is not happy about swearing an oath to Matilda, with or without a husband.’

Robert of Gloucester scraped his hands rapidly through his receding dark hair. Mustering support for his sister’s cause was like ploughing a stony field; every few paces he met solid opposition, even from such reasonable loyalists as Guyon of Ravenstow whose own children were Matilda’s nieces and nephews. ‘Guy. ’ he began again, but his brother-in-law interrupted him, spreading his hands and sighing.

‘All right, Robert. I’ll swear to her, for her, and at her, but only if Henry promises not to tie her to some entirely unsuitable husband.’

‘I am sure he can be brought to an agreement,’ Robert said, with the smoothness of a diplomat, meeting the by now familiar response of a half-raised shoulder and a look of badly concealed disbelief. He judged the moment propitious to leave and let Guyon mull over what had been said. If he made haste, there was still time to visit Hugh of Norfolk and sound him out before it was time to prepare for the evening’s feast and make his report to Henry.

He stood up and turning, kissed his half-sister and then Heulwen in greeting and farewell.

‘We were just admiring your new stallion,’ Judith said. ‘If Heulwen had known you were looking for another destrier, she’d not have trailed the bay all the way to Windsor.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Gloucester smiled and looked blank.

Laughing, Judith told him from whom he had actually purchased the horse.

Robert laughed too, if a little ruefully as he donned his hat. ‘One of Ralf ’s stallions, no wonder! I did think it strange that young de Lacey should have a horse of that calibre to sell when he’s only just home from the Empire. The sly fox, he never said anything!’

‘Perhaps he wasn’t sure you’d offer the full price if you knew it was almost in the family,’ Heulwen suggested, the insult negated by the dimple that appeared at the corner of her mouth.

Robert snorted. ‘Very probably. He’s as wary as an undercroft cat, that one. Doubtless since I paid him seventy marks for the beast, you’ll be seeing him sooner rather than later.’

Heulwen fiddled with the brooch pinned at her shoulder, heavy as a man’s hand clasped in possession. She had not set eyes on Adam since the day of the Welsh attack and had managed in the interim to convince herself that what she felt was a passing lust, and that any male could as well be substituted — but a substitute was not the genuine article. She thought of Adam’s dark smile, that quizzical way he had of looking, his dry humour, the gentle pressure of his hands on a horse’s flank, or on her waist.

‘I saw Warrin de Mortimer at the horse fair too,’ Gloucester added. ‘He and his father were trying the paces of a courser. I gather that the young man’s soon to be wed. He’s very lucky.’

‘I’m very fond of him,’ Heulwen said tonelessly.

Guyon eased to his feet to see their guest out. ‘I hope Warrin and Adam did not encounter each other,’ he said. ‘Last time they were within rubbing distance I had to stop them going for their swords.’

Gloucester shook his head. ‘No. They were at opposite ends of the field, and young de Lacey was making to leave even as I did.’ He smiled secretively.

Guyon gave him a questioning look

Robert glanced over his shoulder at Heulwen. ‘Yours won’t be the only betrothal we celebrate this feast-tide, my dear. I have it on good authority that my father intends offering Adam de Lacey a rich bride in reward for services rendered to the crown. There are one or two choice heiresses in his wardship, and he is going to give young de Lacey first pick.’

After he had gone, Heulwen realised that she must have made the appropriate responses, for no one had remarked upon her behaviour, and they were all at ease, talking among themselves. They were her family, and yet she felt like a stranger, sneaking warmth from a hearth not her own.

The thought of Adam with a wife cut her to the quick. She could mouth that it was what she wished for him; she could say it with seeming sincerity, but the truth was different. For three months she had turned a blind eye in the same way that she had turned a blind eye to Ralf ’s infidelities — full knowing but refusing to acknowledge. But such blindness did not last for ever, and the light when it returned was too dazzling to be borne.

She complained of a headache when at length Judith noticed her silent pallor, and allowed herself to be bundled up in warm furs and put to bed like a child, a hot stone at her feet and a drink of honey in hot water between her cold fingers, permitting everyone to think that she had caught a chill from standing too long at the market stalls. When Warrin came calling, she told Judith to send him away and curled herself into a foetal ball of misery, wishing she were dead.