The Running Vixen

Chapter 17

A scowl blackening his brow, mouth set in a thin line, Adam strode across Milnham’s moon-washed bailey, oblivious of his destination, only knowing that if he had stayed in the great hall for one moment more he would have committed the act of murder on at least one if not more of the gathered funeral guests. Guests, hah! They were a flock of kites descending to eat, drink, mouth empty regrets and platitudes, and declaim fulsome eulogies that were naught but hot air.

Slowing his pace, he breathed out hard. No, that was an injustice born of his own foul temper. Most had attended out of genuine respect and affection for Miles and it was only men like Ranulf de Gernons, who had never really known him, who came out of curiosity and the desire to make mischief. De Gernons was heir to the vast earldom of Chester whose borders blended into Ravenstow’s, and could hardly be turned away.

A fire burned in the ward; guards stamping beside it while they warmed their hands and talked about the torchlit feasting within. Cold began to seep through Adam’s tunic and shirt. He wished he had stopped to pick up his cloak, but there had been no time for rational thought, only the need to escape before he leaped on de Gernons and violated the laws of hospitality. He paused by the welcome heat of the flames. The soldiers acknowledged and withdrew a little, their expressions curious. He held out his hands, rubbed them together, blew on them and shivered.

‘Here,’ rumbled John’s rich deep voice, ‘you forgot this.’

Adam turned to his brother-in-law and took the cloak he was holding out to him. ‘Thank you.’

‘Pay no heed to Lord Ranulf, he does it apurpose,’ John said. ‘Papa’s just given him the bladed edge of his tongue and Gloucester backed him to the hilt. I don’t think he’ll open his mouth again — at least not this side of the curtain wall.’ He gave a cynical shrug.

Adam swung his cloak across his shoulders and fumbled with the pin.

Frowning, John rubbed one finger over the bald, slightly prickly skin of his tonsure. ‘You don’t believe what he said, do you?’ he asked sharply. ‘Oh come on, Adam, he was winding you up like a rope on a mangonel just to watch you let fly. Everyone knows that Grandfather’s death wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have prevented it.’

‘Yes I could,’ Adam said woodenly. ‘I could have hanged Rhodri ap Tewdr higher than the man in the moon long before it happened. I could have left him in the road to die on that first encounter. I could have given Miles a larger escort or made him take a different road home.’

‘Hindsight is a wondrous thing,’ John said with more than a hint of his mother’s asperity, ‘and de Gernons certainly knows how to turn it into a weapon in your case. If you had left Rhodri ap Tewdr lying in the road, Heulwen would now be Lady de Mortimer, wedded to her own husband’s murderer.’

Adam’s head jerked up.

‘Yes,’ said John with an emphatic nod. ‘Think about it. God’s will is oft-times strange.’

Adam snorted and looked away into the flames. Greedy tongues of fire wrapped around the wood and scorched his face.

‘Are you going to go after the boy?’

Adam sighed and shook his head. ‘If it was left up to me, no. Davydd ap Tewdr’s dead and Miles wouldn’t have wanted it. He liked the lad, had high hopes for him. Your father understands that. It is men like de Gernons who worry me. They have the scent of war in their nostrils and they’re doing their utmost to flush it into the open.’

John lowered his arm. ‘De Gernons might be trailing the scent of war with our Welsh, but that is as far as he will get. When Papa stands his ground, there’s no moving him.’

‘I hope not,’ Adam replied, ‘because I think de Gernons is testing our strength for the times to come. If I were your father, I’d look to strengthen Caermoel and Oxley against future assault, and I don’t mean from the Welsh.’

John gave a bark of startled laughter. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Adam! De Gernons might not be everyone’s view of a preux chevalier, but he’s hardly going to start a war with his neighbours!’

‘Not in the present situation, no,’ Adam conceded. ‘But what if the King died tomorrow?’

‘All the barons have sworn for Matilda,’ John said, but the laughter left his face.

‘And how many would hold to their oath — de Gernons? de Briquessart? Bigod? de Mandeville? Leicester? You tell me. With William le Clito to look to and his father still alive, not to mention the claim of the Blois clan, Henry’s dominions would explode into war like so many barrels of hot pitch!’

John crossed himself and shivered with more than just the damp cold of the February evening. ‘Then I must pray wholeheartedly for the King’s continued good health,’ he said, and looked round with relief as Renard emerged from the forebuilding ushering their youngest brother before him together with a half-grown brown-and-white hound.

Renard was laughing so hard that his face was suffused and tears were streaming down his cheeks. ‘Sorry,’ he spluttered. ‘I know it’s no occasion for mirth, but Will’s dog just did to Ranulf de Gernons what we’re all desperate to do but dare not!’

‘He bit him?’ guessed John, beginning to grin with an unholy delight.

Renard shook his head and sleeved his eyes. ‘No!’ he gasped. ‘Pissed up his leg! It was Will who bit him when de Gernons went for his dagger. I hauled dog and boy out by their scruffs before anything worse developed and left Papa to deal with it. Christ Jesu, you should have been in there!’

‘He was going to stick a knife in Brith!’ William sniffed indignantly, his own tears those of anger and distress as he squatted beside the dog, his arms around its shaggy shoulders. The hound whined, and swiped a pink tongue over the boy’s wet face.

Renard tousled William’s profuse black curls. ‘Don’t worry, fonkin, no one’s going to harm you or Brith. Mama might scold your manners and Papa might be annoyed because it’s dishonourable to bite your enemy, but I doubt anything worse will come of it. Perhaps Papa might even give you that sword you’ve been craving for the past year and a half!’

William’s face brightened and his eyes sparkled. ‘Really?’

Renard winked. ‘Just wait and see. ’ He held out his hand. ‘Come then. I’m supposed to be marching you off to bed in disgrace.’

‘I’m hungry,’ William protested, looking pathetic.

Renard flashed a white grin. ‘So am I, being as I left half my dinner behind in there. I dare say we can find some honey cakes in the kitchen on our way — better fare at least than Ranulf de Gernons’s leg!’

Adam burst out laughing and waved him away.

‘Nothing to do with that little yellow-haired kitchen girl?’ John asked with a knowing smile.

‘Well, yes,’ Renard retorted, looking seriously innocent, ‘you should sample her honey cakes.’

Adam and John watched the youth, the boy and the dog cross the ward and go down the steps into one of the auxiliary kitchen buildings. John’s shoulders shook with laughter. He folded his arms, the smile still on his lips, but his eyes were pensive. ‘The new lord of Milnham-on-Wye and Ashdyke by the terms of his grandfather’s will, and only just six years old.’

Adam fiddled with a loose piece of fur on the lining of his cloak. ‘I can understand it not going to Renard,’ he said slowly. ‘He stands to inherit an entire earldom so he’s not in any need of these estates, and you being a priest aren’t likely to continue the line by legitimate means, so you’re not in the bidding.’

John inclined his head.

‘But what about Henry? He’s the third son. Why did Miles pass him over in favour of William?’

‘Henry gets Oxley when he reaches his majority,’ John explained, unperturbed. ‘Like Ashdyke, it came into the family through our English grandmother. It isn’t a large holding, but enough to keep body and soul together. Apparently Grandpa gave it to my father when he was knighted, and Papa intends doing the same for Henry. If Ashdyke and Milnham-on-Wye had gone to him too, there’d have been nothing left for Will except a sword, hauberk and horse. Besides, Grandpa always had a special place in his affections for Will — and for Heulwen too.’

Adam tugged the fur loose and scattered it from his fingers. ‘A man worries about breeding up sons to follow him, and when he has them, he worries about how he is going to furnish their helms,’ he said, with a pained smile.

John darted him a quick look: in ten years of marriage to Ralf, Heulwen had quickened only the once and miscarried early, and although these were still early days, she had shown no signs of breeding with Adam. He was unsure of Adam’s attitude to the likelihood of her barrenness and decided that now was not the best moment to probe lest he make a misjudgement and say the wrong thing.

A baron crossed the ward to one of the storesheds that had been cleaned out and provided with braziers and mattresses to accommodate the guests who over-spilled the capacity of the main keep. He nodded a curt good-night to Adam and John. Adam stared wide-eyed after Hugh de Mortimer. He had ridden in at the last moment to attend Miles’s funeral, ignoring the surreptitious nudges and speculative stares of his fellow barons and mourners. The atmosphere at first had been strained to say the least, but gradually it had eased. De Mortimer had not once mentioned his son or alluded to the painful events at Windsor, and an attempt by de Gernons to bring them into the conversation had immediately been squelched by Guyon. De Mortimer had pointedly avoided Heulwen and Adam, but had been at pains to extend the olive branch to Guyon and Judith.

‘He’s still after a blood bond with us,’ John said quietly. ‘Hugh wants Renard for his youngest daughter, Elene, and he’s willing to let sleeping scandals and feuds lie in order to get him.’ John grinned at the look on Adam’s face. ‘It’s not as stupid as it seems. Renard’s blood-related to the throne, and every marcher lord with a daughter between the cradle and thirty years old is looking at him with the word “son-in-law” shining in their eyes.’

‘God’s life,’ Adam muttered, shaking his head. ‘How old’s the girl?’

‘Just coming up to six. She’s from his second marriage, obviously.’

‘What does Renard say?’

John chuckled. ‘You know my brother. He just smiles and says that practice makes perfect, and hasn’t he got a lot of time?’

‘And your father?’

‘Keeping his head down. Ren’s right, there is plenty of time yet and at least a dozen interested parties. Papa will let Renard do the initial winnowing and make a decision from there. Mind you,’ he reflected, ‘a match with the de Mortimer girl would heal the rift caused by you and Heulwen, and the dower lands he’s offering would be very useful. The girl herself is a real heart-melter. Mama fell for Elene straight away when she saw her at a wedding last year.’

‘Perhaps because she has no daughter of her own,’ Adam suggested. ‘I know she raised Heulwen, but she was still very young herself then, and Heulwen married at fifteen. It must be lonely for her sometimes, particularly now that William is growing up.’

John looked startled. ‘Mama lonely?’ The thought had never occurred to him, for she always seemed so composed and brisk and capable. ‘I suppose so,’ he said doubtfully, ‘but even if the betrothal does take place, Elene won’t come to Ravenstow until she’s at least ten, and there’ll not be a wedding for another two years if not much longer. Anyway. ’

‘Anyway,’ interrupted Heulwen, ‘Ranulf de Gernons is snoring drunk across his trencher because Mama’s been giving him raw ginevra, and everyone’s going to bed, including me. Adam, are you coming?’

She was wearing a very fetching green silk gown that shimmered like the surface of a lake, and her braids in the firelight were a warm, rich red, where they showed below her veil, catching on the curve of her breasts and reaching to the braid girdle encircling her hips.

‘How could I refuse an offer like that?’ he murmured, slipping an arm around her waist and drawing her sidelong against him.

Heulwen elbowed him in the ribs. ‘Your mind is a treadmill,’ she remonstrated, but smiled, knowing that he was teasing her. There was barely any standing space in the small keep, let alone the room for privacy to indulge that kind of need.

‘And who could blame me?’ Adam answered, not in the least set down, and he planted a kiss on her raised eyebrow.

John smiled. ‘Three’s a crowd,’ he said, and bid them good-night.

‘Is de Gernons really asleep in his dinner?’ Adam asked, as arm in arm they went back towards the keep.

‘He was, but Mama got two of the servants to stretch him out on the floor and put a sheepskin over him — and a bowl beside him for when he wakes up.’ Her eyes glinted at the memory and then hardened. ‘If it had been left to me, he’d have spent the night blanketless in the midden.’

‘Now, Heulwen, you can’t do that to the future Earl of Chester,’ he admonished her.

‘Couldn’t I? It is where he belongs, rooting with his trotters. He has the manners of a pig; not only that but he looks like one. If this was Martinmas, I’d be salting him down for the winter by now.’

Adam spluttered. His mood lightened and his head came up. ‘Belike he’d go rancid on you,’ he said.

‘Very likely,’ she agreed, then said, ‘By the by, Earl Robert of Gloucester said that he wanted a word with you, but that it could wait until tomorrow.’

‘What about? Did he say?’

‘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.