The Running Vixen

Chapter 22

‘I’ll leave the fur-trimmed overgown out, shall I m’lady?’ Elswith held up the said garment for her mistress’s inspection. ‘You don’t want to catch cold on the road tomorrow, especially now it’s raining so hard.’

Heulwen considered the gown of blue Flemish wool, the hanging sleeves edged with marten fur, then glanced towards the sound of the rain on the shutters. The candles had long been lit and outside a wet, blue dusk was settling. ‘No, Elswith, pack it with the others,’ she said. ‘Last time I travelled in that it was raining and it got so waterlogged I nearly drowned. I’ve never been so uncomfortable in all my life.’

‘But my lady, what will you wear instead?’

Heulwen turned to a pile of garments on the bed. ‘These,’ she said with a smile that quickly became a splutter of laughter as she saw the maid’s horror.

‘By the Virgin, my lady, you cannot!’ Elswith squeaked. ‘It’s ungodly, it’s not decent!’

‘But a sight more comfortable and practical. Come, unlace me, I want to try them on.’

‘What will Lord Adam say?’ Elswith protested as Heulwen discarded her gown and undertunic in favour of a pair of Adam’s braies and chausses and one of his tunics. She was tall for a woman; not as tall as Adam, or as broad, but her breasts took up some of the slack and a firmly buckled belt dealt with the rest.

‘Lord Adam?’ She sat down on the bed and neatly tied the leg bindings, her eyes dancing with mischief. ‘I don’t know what he will say, Elswith. I think that his eyes might pop out of his head, but then it’s useful to keep a surprise or two up your sleeve!’ She laughed at her own weak joke and lay back on the bed, her arms folded behind her head, one knee bent sideways.

Elswith made a shocked sound and Heulwen giggled again. ‘Do you know,’ she observed, ‘men have by far the fatter end of the wedge. Could you imagine me lying like this in a skirt…or like this?’

‘My lady!’

Heulwen’s giggles transformed into gales of laughter. Her face suffused with colour and tears poured down her cheeks, but at last she took pity on her maid’s suffering, rolled over, and sat up on the edge of the bed. ‘It’s true, though!’ she said defensively, wiping her eyes. ‘Men’s clothes are a deal more practical to wear.’

‘My lady, tomorrow. ’ Elswith’s eyes bulged with dread, ‘you’re not really going to. ’ She could not bring herself to say it.

‘Yes, I am!’ Heulwen said stoutly. ‘I’ll be wearing my cloak over everything and a wimple and pilgrim’s hat to cover my braids. Don’t be such a goose. If you. ’ She stopped and stared at the door as it shook to the violent thumping of an agitated fist.

‘My lady!’ Thierry cried, voice urgent. ‘Come quickly, it is Vaillantif. He’s down and threshing in the straw and I fear he’s dying!’

Heulwen shot to her feet, all merriment flown. ‘Jesu no!’ She grabbed her cloak. ‘All right, Thierry, I’m coming!’ She fumbled about, found and donned her shoes and struggled to tie on her pattens.

‘My lady, you cannot go out dressed like that!’ Elswith held out an imploring hand which Heulwen pushed impatiently aside. Her eyes flashed, anger making their colour vivid.

‘God’s blood, if I’d known you were going to be so prim and purse-mouthed for a trifle, I’d never have brought you to attend me!’ She tossed her braids over her shoulders and stood up, adding as she went to the door, ‘I expect you to have finished packing that trunk by the time I return, including that fur-trimmed gown!’

Elswith’s chin wobbled; she bit her lip and looked at the floor. Heulwen unbarred the door to the wet, windy night. Water dripped from the brim of Thierry’s hat which was dipped low, concealing his eyes in shadow. The rushlight made dark spangles of the raindrops on his cloak and caught the quick glint of his teeth as he spoke.

‘Quickly mistress, I beg you!’ He took hold of her arm and, drawing her out of the room, began to help her down the stairs. He did not appear to have noticed her strange attire but she felt him trembling and his face, caught for an instant in the full light before Elswith barred the door, was a tight mask. Her anxiety increased as she prepared herself for a gruesome sight. Having come to know Thierry in their weeks of travel, she had found his nature to be quick and fox-sly, with a propensity for women and dice and a devil-may-care attitude to life that left very little room for trembling distress over the death of a horse.

‘What has happened to him? When did it start?’ She shook her arm free as they reached the foot of the stairs. Her wooden pattens squelched and stuck in the mud and an unswept mulch of horse droppings, loudly sucking free as she moved.

‘About half a candle-notch since, mistress. His legs just suddenly buckled and down he went…I do think he ought to be put out of his pain, but I need your or Lord Adam’s yea-say.’

Heulwen looked up at the sky in supplication and received a face full of rain.

‘Perhaps I should send to the keep?’ Thierry said doubtfully and took her arm again.

‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘I’m not about to take a fit of the vapours.’

His grip tightened and his teeth flashed again in a grimace. He hooked one leg neatly behind hers and brought her down hard on a pile of wet straw sweep ings outside the stable door.

Heulwen screeched and struggled, but Thierry, fifteen years the trained mercenary, adept at brawling and undisturbed by any feelings of moral nicety concerning her womanhood, efficiently set about immobilising her thrashing limbs and trussing them as though she were a hunted deer he was preparing to carry home from the forest. She succeeded in biting him, clamping her teeth into the fleshy part of his hand between the base of his little finger and wrist. His skin punctured and she tasted his blood. He gave a smothered exclamation of pain and pressed the arch of his free hand across her windpipe, until choking, she was forced to let go.

He wadded a piece of rag brought for the purpose into her mouth and bound it tightly with a length of cross-garter, then sat back on his haunches to study her and regain his breath. Blood was still trickling down his hand. He stanched the wound on a fold of his cloak. ‘Vixen,’ he panted, but without too much rancour, and his smile flashed briefly when he took his eyes from her face to admire the rest of his handiwork and realised that the reason she had given him such a hard time was that she was wearing men’s garments instead of two layers of heavy, encumbering skirts.

‘I always did wonder which of you wore the chausses!’ he chuckled maliciously. ‘Now I know.’

Heulwen writhed, frantic with anger and fear. She was trussed like a fly caught in a web, but somehow she did not believe that Thierry was the spider. His appetite was not of that kind.

He stooped over her now, grinning cheerfully at her ineffectual struggles, and laying one hand on the belt at her waist, hauled her up and over his shoulder in true huntsman’s style, setting off with her across the path and down through the dark, rain-sodden orchard.

His gait was slightly uneven, for Heulwen was no lightweight. Hanging upside down, her breath foreshortened by his shoulder butting into her mid-section, by her bruised throat and the clogging wad of fabric in her mouth, she felt consciousness recede to a dark, striving undulation. Her wet braids slapped across her cheek. Momentarily her eyes flickered upon tree trunks darker than the sky, and a crack of lantern light from a loosely fitting upstairs shutter in the house they were leaving behind.

Unbalanced by her weight, Thierry staggered and bumped against one of the trees. A deluge of fat, cold droplets struck the exposed nape of Heulwen’s neck, arousing her with a jerk from the edge of oblivion. Thierry cursed good-naturedly. She wondered hazily what he was receiving to make all this worthwhile. Adam paid all his immediate retinue two shillings a week, plus extra when they were on active duty such as now. Good wages, but a man like Thierry had his eyes set upon a sudden sunburst of gold rather than a steady trickle of daily silver — probably the reason he gambled. In many ways he was like Ralf.

He lurched again, almost missing his footing on a moss-covered step, and then they were down at the river’s edge. Heulwen heard the water lapping on stone and saw a wheeling, glittering darkness of solid water and rain-slashed sky as he swung her down off his shoulder and dumped her on the wet timbers of a merchant’s small private wharf.

‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ he warned. ‘If you roll, you’ll go into the river and I’m not going swimming in the murk to fish you out.’ He stepped over her, executing a neat leap as she tried to trip him up. ‘Tut tut,’ he said, wagging his forefinger and shaking his head, ‘you ought to know better than that.’

She glared at him and fought her gag, jerking her body as he picked her up again and with an effort heaved her into a small rowing boat, where she lay at his feet wriggling like a new-caught salmon. The small craft seesawed precariously as Thierry cast off the mooring rope and sat down on the bench. Water puddled the planks on which Heulwen lay and the wood bore the ingrained stink of fish and stale riverweed.

‘It’s hardly a royal barge, my lady,’ Thierry mocked as he positioned the oars and began sculling out into the current, ‘but I can promise you a royal welcome when we get to where we are going.’ And then he laughed, but it was a strained sound, like the whinny of an anxious horse.

The journey downriver was a nightmare. The boat was leaky and every now and then Thierry had to cease rowing and bale out the water with a large leather tankard. The river was choppy and water kept slopping over the sides, drenching her. While Thierry was capable of rowing, he was not an expert oarsman.

Frozen to the marrow by shock and exposure, Heulwen shivered violently at Thierry’s feet while her fear crystallised and took human shape. Warrin had obviously not left Angers this morning with le Clito and his retinue. It had been a ruse. Somehow and somewhere he was still here and she was being taken to him. This thought paralysed her mind as surely as Thierry’s efficient binding had paralysed her limbs: bound and at Warrin’s mercy, and no one aware of her predicament. Water slapped over the boat’s bows again and Thierry had to ship oars and bail. Heulwen closed her eyes and prayed to drown. Her brother Miles had drowned. They said that it was an easy death, but perhaps that was just to comfort the living.

Thierry started rowing again. After a little while, he started to sing softly — a soldier’s ditty that Heulwen knew although she was not supposed to. She had been ten years old when caught singing ‘The Coney Catcher’s Ferret’ for a dare during Mass. Her stepmother had marched her to the laundry by the scruff of the neck and there scrubbed out her mouth with disgusting tallow soap, the near-apoplectic priest as a witness and Adam and Miles, who had put her up to it, hovering in the background, terrified that she might tell. Public penance done, she was taken in disgrace to the bower where Judith had given her a dish of sugared comfits to take away the taste of the soap, and then, lips twitching, had asked her if she knew all the words because she had never been able to discover the entire version herself!

The memory scalded her eyes. Tears oozed from between her lids, grew cold and seeped sideways into her soaked braids. She wondered how her resourceful stepmother would deal with this situation. Her shoulders shook. She thought of Adam and her throat wrenched, making the ache there unbearable.

‘Feeling sorry for yourself?’ Thierry broke off singing to ask. ‘Aye, well I hazard you’ve got cause. It’s a pity for you I don’t have a conscience. Rather see gold than a woman’s gratitude any day.’ He winked at her, tilted the brim of his hat against the sweep of the rain, and continued to row in time to the words of his song:

‘I kissed her once, I kissed her twice

I kissed her full times three

I let her feel my ferret bold

As she sat on my knee

And when I popped him in her ho—’

The boat bumped and grated against a larger bulk, and he stopped singing to guide the fishing boat alongside a small, fat Angers cog that was anchored at one of the main wharves close on one of the wine warehouses.

‘Hola!’ A pale moon-face appeared at the side and stared down at them. ‘What’s your business?’

‘Promised cargo for Lord Warrin de Mortimer!’ Thierry called back. ‘Delivered on payment of agreed sum, of course.’ Removing his hat, he performed a brief, sarcastic flourish.

The face withdrew. There was a short pause, the sound of voices, a thumping, dragging noise, and then the face was back and a rope ladder was tossed over the side.

‘I’ll wait here for my money,’ Thierry announced, narrow-eyed and watchful. ‘It’s a mortal long way to fall, especially with a cut throat.’

There was a pause. Thierry folded his arms and sat down. The face disappeared again. More muttering, a raised impatient voice, and then two faces materialised and stared.

‘Christ on the cross!’ Thierry’s good nature began to show ragged at the edges. ‘Is this going to take all night? Perhaps I’ll just row away and barter my goods somewhere else, eh?’

‘All right, I’m coming down.’ The second man lifted himself over the ship’s side to take purchase of the swaying rope ladder. He paused on the final rung, judged carefully and stepped into the small boat, but he still caused it to wobble violently from side to side. Thierry fought to balance it and prevent it from capsizing.

‘Careful, my lord,’ he said on a rising note, ‘you’ll have us all in the water and I’ve no mind for a swim.’

‘When I want your opinion, I’ll let you know,’ growled Warrin de Mortimer and transferred his interest to the bottom of the boat and its bedraggled occupant. Heulwen turned her head aside and tightened her closed lids. ‘Why is she wearing men’s clothing?’ he demanded suspiciously.

Thierry shrugged. ‘How should I know? It hasn’t been the kind of journey for pleasant chit-chat. Ask her yourself. Perhaps she and that husband of hers like to play games.’

Warrin’s eyes snapped up again, his anger burning bright and dangerously. ‘Don’t go too far,’ he snarled.

‘Pay me what we agreed and I’ll leave you in peace.’ Thierry held out his hand.

Warrin fished beneath his cloak and brought out a leather purse, its contents promisingly musical. His lip curling with scorn, he handed it over, fastidiously ensuring that their fingers did not touch.

Thierry noticed this with a scornful amusement of his own. ‘Mind if I count it?’ he grinned, not caring if de Mortimer did or not, and tugging on the drawstring he poured the coins out into his palm. ‘Jesu, but for a man exiled you’re mortally rich,’ he observed. ‘Or you were…I congratulate you, it’s all here.’ Thierry trickled the money back into the purse and remained on his guard. He was fully aware that were it not for the precar iousness of this tiny fishing boat, de Mortimer would long since have leaped on him with dagger drawn.

Warrin swallowed his anger and bent carefully to lift Heulwen from the bottom of the boat. The craft tipped and reeled. Heulwen kept her eyes closed but could not feign unconsciousness, for when he laid hold of her, his fingers were bruising and her body contracted from the pain.

Thierry started bailing the boat out again as Warrin manoeuvred himself and his burden carefully on to the rope ladder. ‘What about her husband?’ Thierry asked curiously as he worked. ‘He is bound to scour the city for her.’

‘He won’t find her.’ Warrin paused on the ladder to gain his breath. ‘Not until I’m ready, and by then he’ll be glad to die.’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that,’ Thierry said. ‘A word of advice: don’t think you’ve won until you’re standing over his body.’

Warrin’s knuckles whitened on the ladder rung. ‘Get you gone,’ he said through his teeth, ‘now, while you still have the chance.’

‘There speaks a man of decision,’ Thierry retorted. Performing a mocking salute at Warrin’s turned back, he sat down and took up the oars.

Warrin puffed a hard breath and completed the journey up the ladder. Stepping over the vessel’s side he took his burden to an aftward awning — a somewhat flimsy affair of oiled canvas and wooden struts, where he threw Heulwen down on a leaky straw mattress at the far side.

Cursing the rain and hoping that it would have emptied its worst and moved on by dawn, Adam squelched into the house and hung his dripping cloak on a clothing pole near the fire. The men-at-arms were organising to bed down for the night, but the rush dips were still kindled against his return and a trestle stood close to the hearth upon which a platter of cold meat and fruit and a pitcher of wine were laid out.

Adam glanced at the repast and then ignored it. The fare at Fulke’s table had been rich and spicy and the wine potent. Although not drunk, he was not entirely sober and had no wish to begin the morrow’s journey with a blinding headache and churning gut.

He left Sweyn and Austin peeling off their sodden garments and went back out into the downpour and up the outer stairs to the floor above. Elswith opened the door to his knock. ‘My lady, thank the Virg—Oh it’s you, Lord Adam!’ The maid wrung her hands and looked at him with a mingling of relief and consternation.

Adam removed his sling, and picking up a towel from beside the small laver began to rub his hair dry. ‘Where’s your mistress?’ He looked round the room. The travelling chests were packed, all save one small one of oxhide for their personal effects, and the room was tidy, almost as bare as a monk’s cell.

‘Lady Heulwen went down to the stables more than a candle notch since with Sir Thierry. He begged her to come quickly, said that Vaillantif was dying!’

Adam’s hands stopped. ‘What?’

Elswith burst into tears. ‘Oh, my lord, she was cross with me, ordered me to stay here and finish packing…I said it wasn’t decent, but she wouldn’t heed me. I didn’t mean to be insolent, truly I didn’t!’

Adam stared at the maid, thoroughly bewildered. ‘What wasn’t decent? What are you babbling about?’ He threw the towel down.

‘My lady was japing. She tried on some of your clothes and said that she was going to travel in them tomorrow — I begged her not to — and then Sir Thierry came and she went with him without even bothering to change.’ She buried her face in her palms and shook her head from side to side.

‘To the stables?’

Elswith peered at him through her fingers and gave a loud, mucus-laden sniff. ‘Yes, my lord, but it has been a long time now…I was wondering whether to go down, but I did not want her shouting at me again.’

Adam began to feel cold, and it was nothing to do with his wet clothing. ‘Stop snivelling and go and tell Sweyn and Jerold not to unarm,’ he said with quiet intensity, and went back out into the rain.

Vaillantif raised his head from the manger. Munching noisily, he stared at Adam with alert liquid eyes. His cream tail swished softly against his hocks and he pricked his ears. In the next stall, the new black mare was dozing slack-hipped, and beside her Heulwen’s dappled grey was asleep. Except for contented, normal horsy sounds there was silence. Adam stared round, eyes wide, ears straining. Nothing. The cold sensation in the pit of his belly crystallised into a solid lump of fear.

He turned to the groom who had emerged from a empty stall in the stable’s far reaches, knuckling his eyes and yawning. A woman’s voice complained, calling him back, and he gave Adam a sheepish grin. ‘Thought I’d have an early night ready for tomorrow, my lord,’ he said to Adam’s set features.

‘Have Lady Heulwen or Thierry been here tonight?’ Adam demanded curtly.

‘No, sire. Not since your mare was settled in. Is there some trouble?’

Adam ignored the query. ‘Has Vaillantif been all right?’

‘Yes sire.’ The groom gave him a gappy grin. ‘Dancing on all fours he were when we brung the mare in. I reckon as she’ll come into season before long.’

‘Saddle him up.’

‘Now, my lord?’ The man’s eyes widened in dismay.

‘No, in three years’ time!’ Adam snarled. ‘Of course I mean now, you idiot! And you can do the same for Sweyn’s and Sir Jerold’s. Be quick about it. You don’t get paid for doing nothing!’

The man’s face became as blank as a dunce’s slate. He tugged his forelock and scuttled off to find the harness. Adam stalked back to the hall.

Thierry’s cousin Alun was all numb astonishment. ‘Thierry? Take Lady Heulwen?’ He shook his head emphatically. ‘I know he has his wild moments but he would not do such a thing, I know he wouldn’t!’

‘And you have no idea of his whereabouts?’ Adam pressed his hand against the doorpost, his knuckes showing bone-white with pressure.

‘My lord, if I did, I swear I would tell you, if only to prove his innocence.’ He shifted his feet and cleared his throat nervously. ‘Perhaps Lady Heulwen had an errand and he went to escort her?’

‘Then why did he need to use the pretence of a sick horse to lure her from the room?’ Adam retorted.

‘Perhaps it was just an excuse for the maid to hear.’

Adam’s hand flashed down to his sword-hilt, then stopped. Carefully, breathing hard, he transferred his grip to his belt and squeezed the leather as though it were a man’s throat.

Alun said, ‘Thierry has a girl at the keep, a kitchen lass called Sylvie. Probably he’s with her. I know there has been a mistake.’

‘So do I,’ Adam said grimly. ‘Sweyn, Austin, come with me. Jerold, take the men and search the streets.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

Adam collected a brand and set off for the back of the dwelling.

‘It’s Warrin de Mortimer, isn’t it?’ grated Sweyn, pacing beside him.

Adam did not answer, but Sweyn received his reply in the rapid increase of Adam’s stride as though he were propelling himself away from the very thought. Passing the stables, Adam slowed his pace to wait for his bodyguard and said, ‘You’ve had more command of Thierry than I have. What do you think of him?’

Sweyn grunted and gave Adam a sideways look. ‘You’ve seen him fight, my lord.’

‘He’s damned fast in a tight corner,’ Austin contributed.

‘Usually of his own making,’ Sweyn growled. ‘Got no moral backbone. He wenches, he drinks and he gambles. Christ’s balls, how he gambles! And then he gets into a fight.’ The old warrior cleared his throat and spat. ‘Alun’s the steadier one, covers up for him when he can. If you recall, when you took them on it was Alun who did most of the talking.’

‘Is he covering up for him?’ The question was half-rhetorical. They reached the edge of the garden. The rain pattered and dripped. Beyond the orchard, unseen but heard, the river lapped at the wharving.

‘No, I’d say not,’ Sweyn said to his master’s silence, ‘but probably he will try to find him and warn him what’s afoot.’

‘Send one of the men to follow his movements and make sure Alun’s given the chance to break away. Austin, take the message back to Jerold.’

Hunching into the collar of his cloak, the youth saluted and left. Adam paused and leaned against one of the trees and said quietly to the older man, ‘Sweyn, if I stopped to think what might be happening to her, you’d be dealing with a madman.’

Sweyn hesitated, then set his huge hand on Adam’s soaking shoulder and gripped it. ‘We’d all go mad if we stopped to think, lad,’ he said gruffly.

Adam acknowledged Sweyn’s attempt at comfort with a stiff nod, and holding the torch aloft, started off again. His right foot came down on something small and hard that made him catch his breath and swear. He thought it was a broken twig, but the torchlight reflected off a shiny surface instead of the matt darkness of bark. Sweyn stooped and picked up a small metal object and gave it silently to Adam.

It was an engraved silver braid fillet, one of a pair that Heulwen had bought that morning in the market, and Adam recognised it immediately since he had made the final choice for her. ‘It is Heulwen’s,’ he said hoarsely to Sweyn. ‘She would not have come down here in this rain unless she had solid reason — or was forced.’

‘The river. ’ Sweyn began, but Adam had already moved off in that direction at a brisk pace.

The merchant’s wharf was deserted. Adam rested his hand on the weed-slippery mooring post and stared out across the dark water at dark nothing. The torch hissed and sputtered and the wind wavered streamers of heat back into his face. ‘The boat isn’t here,’ he said over his shoulder to Sweyn. ‘There was one moored here when we took these lodgings, and it’s gone. It would be the safest means of abduction; no guards to pass.’

‘What now? He could have taken her anywhere.’

‘We alert the Count and turn Angers inside out,’ Adam said, tight-lipped.

‘Where do you want me to start?’

The smell of the river was very strong. Adam’s nostrils clenched. ‘Try the wharves and warehouses along the waterfront; start on this bank and work your way across to the other — I’ll join you as soon as I’ve seen the Count — try the drinking dens too. It may be that we can run Thierry to ground. He can’t get out of the city until the gates open.’

‘What about by boat?’

‘The chain is down across the river until dawn.’

‘My lord. ’

Adam turned. Sweyn closed his mouth. ‘Nothing,’ he muttered into his beard and trudged back towards the house. Adam stared down at the small silver fillet in his hand, then closed his knuckles over it and clenched them so hard that he distorted the shape of the ornament. Then he set off after Sweyn.

For a moment Warrin stood panting, the pounding of his heart almost blinding him as his vision throbbed with each beat. Heulwen lay where she had fallen, face pressed in the straw, waiting and wanting to die.

‘You can stop pretending,’ Warrin said between breaths. ‘I know that you are aware.’

The canvas billowed in the wind. She heard the scrape of his feet on the planking as he moved and with difficulty turned to stare at him. He stared back and, chest still heaving, slowly drew the dagger from the tooled sheath at his belt. ‘Wondering what I’m going to do with this?’ he mused, flipping it end over end like a juggler. ‘Well, so am I.’ And his cheeks creased into the mockery of a grin as he squatted down beside her.

Heulwen flinched and tried to back away from him.

‘There’s no cause to be afraid,’ Warrin mocked. ‘If you’re a good girl, I am sure we can come to a bloodless agreement.’ Setting to work, he cut the cords that bound her ankles.

Heulwen stared at his rain-darkened pale hair, thinning at the crown, and wondered queasily if this was an appetiser to whet his hunger for rape. However, after he had freed her legs, he cut the ropes at her wrists and released her mouth from the foul gag. She watched the rings sparkle on his fingers as he worked and found herself fixing on them with unnatural concentration, for she dared not look at his face and see what was written there.

He frowned down at her as if unsure of what to do with his prize now that it was in his possession. Her chin was trembling, not with distress, but with cold, and her flesh was a pinched bluish-white. He thought of her in de Lacey’s arms last Christmastide — her hair a lustrous copper swirl, skin flushed with a satisfied glow, eyes both brilliant and misty — and contrasted the memory with the shivering, half-dead creature lying at his mercy now.

‘Sit up!’ he commanded harshly, disturbed by the ambivalence of his thoughts.

When she did not move, he seized her by the wrists and dragged her up. ‘I said sit up!’ he snarled.

Heulwen screamed as his fingers dug savagely into the weals left by Thierry’s expert binding. Her hair, heavy with water, had begun to untwist from its braids, and hung about her face in sodden strands. She bent her head, breathing in shuddering gasps and keeled sideways. He slapped her across the face and her eyes opened, but they were barely focusing, and in the next moment she flopped limply forward against him.

Warrin swore and shook her to see if she was feigning, but she jerked back and forth in his grip like a child’s rag doll.

‘Bitch,’ he said, but with more irritation than malevolence, and laying her back down on the straw he studied her with a scowl. He had sufficient experience of cold-season battle campaigns to know the signs and what would happen if he just left her, and he did not want her dead…at least not yet.

Methodically, quickly, he stripped away her soaked garments and then, starting with her dripping hair, began to rub her vigorously with the coarse woollen blanket from the pallet. Her flesh was goose-pimpled and ice cold to the touch, but under the rapid friction it began to warm and turn a scrubbed red.

Her breasts were full and firm, tipped by taut pink nipples and they undulated against the wool as he worked. Lower down at the juncture of her thighs, a red-gold triangle drew his eyes and for a moment his imagination ran riot as he thought of it tangling in a lovers’ knot with his own flaxen bush. He quelled the image sharply. De Lacey’s father had been the one to pleasure himself futtering corpses; such a desire had never been the core of his own need.

Heulwen moaned and stirred, her eyelids fluttering. He dragged the pallet into the middle of the room, close to the brazier, and wrapped her in his own fur-lined cloak before fetching from his belongings a flask of aqua vitae and a small horn cup.

One of his men-at-arms poked his head through the opening and he snarled at him to get out. When he tried to pour the aqua vitae from flask to cup he discovered that his hands were shaking. He set the cup down abruptly and turned round to Heulwen. Her eyes were open now, heavy-lidded, watching him with awareness and apprehension.

‘Is this in the cause of revenge?’ she asked weakly.

‘Revenge?’ He knelt down beside her and drew her towards him to tip the contents of the cup down her throat. He felt her tense and try to resist him, applied pressure to the back of her neck and felt a small flicker of triumph as she was forced to yield and, choking, swallow it. ‘It’s more than revenge, sweetheart,’ he said with satisfaction, ‘much more.’ He refilled the cup, his hand steady now. ‘Drink,’ he commanded.

‘I can’t…I don’t want to.’

‘Shall I force it down your gullet?’

Heulwen looked at him; saw that there was no way out except to comply. Shuddering, she gulped the stuff down in two fast swallows. It hit her stomach and exploded into her blood. She gasped for breath. Tears stung her eyes.

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.

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.