The Running Vixen

Chapter 4

Sweating, Adam closed his eyes against the glare of the sun and gulped wine straight from the costrel. Opposing him, Jerold FitzNigel rested his swordpoint in the dust and wiped his forehead upon the back of his hand.

Red juice trickled down Adam’s chin. Finished, he handed the costrel back to the knight, wiped his mouth, then, bending over, hands on knees, blew out hard through puffed cheeks.

‘You’re out of practice,’ grinned FitzNigel, who drank heartily, then, gasping with satisfaction added, ‘I’d have killed you then if we’d been using sharpened blades instead of these whalebone pretences.’

‘You wouldn’t,’ Adam retorted with the surety of self-knowledge. Practice was practice, a repetition of various moves in a shifting dance of aggression and avoidance until perfection was accomplished — necessary, but devoid of the deadliness that gave true battle its edge. There was devastating exhilaration in pitting your skill against another man and knowing that the stake was either your life or his. But as he had no intention of murdering his marshal, Adam’s edge was as dull as the rebated sword he was using.

Jerold finished drinking, stoppered the costrel and tossed it over to Austin, for whose edification this bout was partly taking place. ‘Care to wager?’ he challenged Adam and, spitting on his palms, raised his shield and dropped behind it to a battle crouch.

Adam wiped his right hand down his hose and applied it once more to his sword-grip. ‘I’d not part you from your hard-earned coin,’ he retorted, shifting his stance on Thornford’s gritty practice-yard floor. As Jerold attacked, he leaped over the low swing of the blade and beneath the knight’s guard, feinting at the shield and sweeping under it. Jerold sprang backwards like a startled hare and a breath came hard between his teeth. Laughing, Adam pressed his attack.

Horses clattered through the main gateway and into the bailey. Grooms went out and a servant came running in and spoke to the squire.

‘Lord Adam,’ Austin called, ‘Miles le Gallois is here. He’s brought you some horses and craves a moment of your time.’

Adam misjudged his stroke, lost his balance, and found himself once more looking down the fuller of Jerold’s sword and into the knight’s laughing eyes. He pushed the blade aside in disgust.

‘Sorry, lord,’ said Austin, biting his lip.

‘My own fault, lad, I’m not concentrating.’ Adam thrust the blunted sword at the boy. ‘Here, take my place and see if you can improve on my performance.’

‘Shouldn’t be too difficult,’ Jerold mocked.

Adam made an eloquent English gesture, dropped his shield and wandered into the main bailey.

An elderly man was dismounting with care from Ralf ’s bay destrier. Behind him, an expression of wistful pleasure on his face, Renard was loosening the sorrel stallion’s girth, while beyond on a leading rein, the piebald sidled friskily.

‘Lord Miles!’ Adam strode forward with genuine pleasure and held out a calloused palm. ‘This is indeed a surprise!’

Miles clasped the proffered hand. ‘Indeed it is,’ he answered, smiling as he gazed upon Adam’s state of sweaty déshabillé.

‘I’ve been practising my swordplay in the tilt yard — not with any great success. It’s a relief to leave it.’ Adam pushed his wet hair off his forehead.

‘Grandpa has brought you these on his way home, since you forgot them in your haste to leave us.’ Renard gestured towards the horses, his mouth curving with mischief. ‘My sister doesn’t usually have that effect on men, rather the opposite.’

Adam gave Renard a sour look. ‘Perhaps I know her too well,’ he retorted.

The youth shrugged. ‘Or not well enough.’ He fondled Vaillantif ’s whiskery muzzle and glanced at his own grey crossbreed. ‘It’s like riding silk. Old Starlight’s going to seem as rough as sackcloth by comparison.’

Miles smiled at his grandson. ‘You’re developing expensive tastes, boy.’

‘Why not — I’m the heir, aren’t I?’ Renard’s spoke flippantly, but there was an almost bitter expression in his eyes. The sound of weapon play drifted across from the direction of the tilt yard. Leaving the horses, Renard sauntered towards it.

‘Too sharp for his own good sometimes, that one,’ Miles said, as the grooms set about unsaddling the destriers and leading them and the remounts to the water trough. It had once been a coffin, so the priest said, undoubtedly Roman, for there was a vague weather-beaten inscription in Latin just visible on its side. ‘With a tongue like that in his head, he’s got to learn when to keep it sheathed.’

‘Most lads of that age are indiscreet to some degree,’ Adam said, thinking of his own squire’s recent misdemeanours.

‘Or that’s what you tell yourself in lieu of throttling them.’ Miles eased himself down on the mounting block with a sigh, and spread his palms upon his knees.

Adam laughed in wry acknowledgement and signalled to a servant. ‘You’ll stay to dine?’

Miles thanked him for the hospitality, then added, relenting, ‘Renard’s a good boy really. They’ve sent him to see me home. Partly it’s to be rid of him for a while, and he needs the responsibility and experience of commanding men. Partly it is because I wasn’t well a few days ago.’

Adam looked concerned. Miles waved the air in dismissal. ‘It was nothing, my own fault. I exhausted myself trying to keep up with a child of five. They say the old return to their infancy. Well by God, I paid for my foray. Judith and Heulwen had me posseted up in bed for two days and wouldn’t let anyone near me.’ A mischievous spark kindled in his eyes. ‘I told them I’d have more company laid out dead in the chapel, and made myself so difficult a patient that in the end they saw sense and just about pushed me out of the keep!’ He looked over at the horses snuffling around the trough, their shadows mingling in the dust. ‘Heulwen told me why you quarrelled,’ he said quietly.

Adam tossed his shirt on to the ground and sat down beside it, his back to Miles so that the latter did not see his frown. ‘Did she?’ He twisted his fingers around a clump of grass growing near his feet, uprooting it from the dry soil.

Adam’s back might be turned, but Miles could see the tension in his neck and shoulders, could feel it in the quality of the atmosphere, and thanked Christ that Renard had gone to investigate the training. He nodded towards the three stallions and said, ‘She sent them by way of an apology. She knows she treated you unfairly.’ The wrinkles deepened around his mouth and eyes. ‘She’s also very stubborn.’

Adam looked round at Miles. ‘Did she tell you everything?’

Miles spread his hands. ‘As much as any woman. A carefully adjusted version of the truth, I hazard. She did not explain what the two of you were doing in the solar at midnight in the first place.’

Adam lowered his gaze to the grass clod dangling between his fingers. ‘We spoke of another matter too, concerning Ralf and what may be an affair of treason. Heulwen was worried, and so was I when she told me — and one thing led to another.’

‘Do you want to tell me? About Ralf, I mean?’

Adam threw away the grass and stood up in one lithe movement that made Miles envious. ‘No.’ He rotated his left arm to ease a muscular ache and eyed the horses. ‘Not yet. Not until I know more.’

Miles inched far more circumspectly to his own feet, pain knifing through his knees.

Adam went to the three stallions and began to look them over again with a knowing hand and admiring eye. He stroked Vaillantif ’s muzzle. The stallion butted him and mouthed the bit. He took the bridle and led him towards the training ground, a deep frown knitting his brows. He had his truce. Now all he had to do was find the grace to accept it and forget.

‘It’s a great pity,’ Miles added, limping beside him. ‘If only you hadn’t grown up with her, she wouldn’t be thrusting the obstacle of “brother” under your nose, and in my opinion, you’re far more suited to her needs than the strutting cockerel she’s determined to wed.’

They passed between the shadows cast by the corridor of two storesheds and Adam did not see the quick, calculating glance that Miles shot his way. ‘I am not and have never been a brother to her,’ Adam said curtly. The word sent a shudder through him. ‘But it does not mean your opinion is right — with respect. I am not some willing hound to come at a whistle and be leashed because it suits the need of others.’

‘That is not what I meant, and you know it. You are as difficult as my granddaughter.’

‘Let it be, sire,’ Adam said stiffly. Gathering the reins, he mounted Vaillantif and trotted him across the training yard to a bundle of lances that were stacked against the far wall.

The men paused in their sword practice and turned to watch him. Jerold took another swig of wine from the skin and passed it to Renard, who was now stripped to his shirt and in possession of a whalebone sword and a kite shield.

Adam leaned over the saddle and took up a lance, then rode Vaillantif to the quintain course down the long edge of the ground.

Smiling slightly, Miles strolled over to the knot of expectant men and paused beside his grandson.

‘He’s using the French style,’ Renard said with interest as Adam couched the lance under his arm and fretted Vaillantif back on his hocks.

‘Well that’s because it’s a French sport,’ said Jerold. ‘Besides, underarm’s better than over. More thrust behind it when it’s positioned like that.’

Renard shook his head. ‘I’ve tried, but God’s life, it’s difficult.’

‘Watch,’ said Jerold, giving him a silencing look. ‘Hold your tongue, and learn.’

The quintain was a crossbar set on a pivot, with a shield nailed to one edge and a sack of sand to the other, the objective being to strike the shield cleanly in the centre and thus avoid being struck from the saddle or severely bruised by a knock from the bag of sand.

Adam crouched behind the shield and positioned the lance across his mount’s neck. He tightened the reins and Vaillantif ’s forefeet danced left-right on the ground. ‘Hah!’ he cried, and drove in his heels. Vaillantif arrowed down the tilt run, dust spurting from beneath his hooves, sunlight flashing on the bit chains, stirrup irons and bright sorrel hide. He moved effortlessly, eating the ground, and each stride that he took hammered the word brother into Adam’s skull. The tip of the lance wavered and readjusted. Adam hit the target precisely where he intended and cried out in triumphant rage as he ducked over the pommel, his face buried in Vaillantif’s flying blond mane. The sandbag kicked violently on the post and grazed the air over his spine.

Vaillantif galloped on to the end of the tilt. Adam sat up and reined him round, set heels to his flanks again and repeated the manoeuvre, swirled in the dust, and charged back down the tilt. The lance cracked the shield and the sandbag hurtled round. Adam ducked, drew on the bridle, and hurled the lance point-down into the dust. There was no sense in foundering a good horse just to take the edge off his frustration. No sense in anything. He looked at the quivering ashwood shaft, wrenched the tip free of the ground and walked Vaillantif over to his audience.

‘Christ!’ declared Renard, eyes round with admiration. ‘I’d hate to face you across a battleground!’

Jerold FitzNigel was watching his lord with a peculiar look in his pale eyes. He knew Adam playing and Adam for real, and just now they had been permitted a rare, deadly glimpse of the latter.

Miles kept his own eyes lowered and his thoughts to himself, but when Renard began to demand enthusiastically to be shown how it was done, he cut him short with an elder’s brusque prerogative.

‘It’s all right.’ Adam managed a smile as he slid down from Vaillantif ’s back. ‘We all have to learn some time — don’t we?’