Elizabeth Chadwick - The Running Vixen

Miles made a sound that might have been a chuckle but was never completed, as his last breath sighed into silence.

‘Grandpa?’ Heulwen said again.

Adam leaned in front of her and gently used forefinger and thumb to close the half-open eyes which in their youth had been the same glorious colour as Heulwen’s. ‘He’s gone,’ he said gently, and making the sign of the cross stood back. Then he looked at Heulwen, and drew her into his arms. She pressed her face against his breast and clung to him, but only for a moment, Damp-eyed yet composed, she released him and looked up into his face. ‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘I can accept it now. It was my own fear that would not let him go.’ She drew a deep, steadying breath. ‘I will do whatever needs to be done. This is women’s work now. I’d rather you sent in Elswith and Gytha to me and went to bed. I’ll join you when I’ve finished.’

He studied her intently, then gave a brief nod, recognising her need to be alone with her thoughts, upon which the maids would not intrude but his own continued presence might. ‘Don’t be too long,’ was all he said as he headed for the curtain, ‘the living need you too.’

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.