Elizabeth Chadwick - The Running Vixen

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.

Thornford, Summer 1127

Adam curled his fingers around his belt and contemplated the mosaic that the two craftsmen were so painstakingly working on. It was a copy of the ruined Roman one in the forest beyond Rhaeadr Cyfnos with a few adaptations of his own, and when finished it would transform Thornford’s plesaunce from a merely functional herb garden into a delightful place to sit on warm summer evenings.

He sat down on the turf seat and studied the mosaic from a different angle. The colours were autumnal — cream and bronze, russet, gold and brown. His attention wandered towards his wife, who was discussing the siting of the new mint and sage beds with the gardener and whether they had room for another patch of stavesacre to combat the current epidemic of lice.

Busy, he thought with a twist of his mouth. In the two months since their return from Anjou she had not stopped. She was not just busy but frantic, and she would not talk to him — at least not beyond any trivial, meaningless chatter masking God knew what. He could not get close enough to find out. He watched the tilt of her head as she listened to what the gardener was saying and the gesture of her arm as she pointed to the soil-bed at their feet. Superficially there was no difference, but it was like skimming the surface froth off a bubbling stew and never reaching the meal itself.

She had not spoken of her time as Warrin’s prisoner on board the Alisande — not one word, but he had been able to deduce much from her actions. In the early days she had lived in a bathtub and scrubbed herself raw, and it did not take great alacrity of mind to realise that Warrin had done more than just question her.

He had opted for time and gentleness to bring her round, but they seemed to be having the opposite effect. Heulwen retreated further into her shell with each day that passed, and nothing that he said or did seemed able to draw her forth. The nights were difficult too. It was not that she rejected him: on the contrary, she frequently demanded more of him than he was capable of, and with such desperation that there was no real pleasure in it for either of them.

He looked at the wolves that made up the centrepiece of the mosaic. Black wolves chasing their tails surrounded by a ring of red vixens. The men were working on the huntsmen now. The gardener had gone. Adam rose and strolled across the plesaunce to join his wife. She was pressing her hand to her stomach and her complexion was the unhealthy shade of whey.

‘Heulwen?’ He put an anxious arm around her. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’ She gave him that vapid, closed look that he was learning to hate, and smiled brightly. ‘It’s those salted herrings we bought last month. They’ve been disagreeing with me. Cuthbrit says the mint should go here and the tansy over there, but I don’t know. There’s more sun. ’

He tightened his hold, silencing her. ‘Heulwen, for God’s love, I cannot bear any more of this hoodman’s blind! We have to talk about Angers. When I look at you, I feel as though I’m looking across the Styx at a being from the underworld.’

‘Angers?’ She drew a deep breath, let it out again shakily and looked around the plesaunce, which was taking graceful shape from the silver of Henry’s gratitude. A king’s price. Cheap. She felt laughter rising in her throat, and then the nausea. ‘It is with me every waking moment without having to talk about it as well,’ she said stiffly. ‘I…I don’t feel well. I’m going to lie down.’ She pushed herself out of his concerned embrace and ran from him.

Adam stared vacantly down at the prepared herb bed. He wondered if he ought to go after her, but the thought daunted him. He was still wary of rejection even when he knew it was not personally intended. He chose the coward’s way, and deferring the confrontation went to tell Austin to saddle up Vaillantif.

He took the men out on a wide-sweeping patrol. After a few miles he paused in a village to speak to the reeve and accept a cup of new ale from the beaming, flustered ale-wife, and then rode on. The open spaces and the silken gait of the stallion eased him. He drew rein on the crest of Thornford Dyke, looked across to Wales, and inhaled deeply of the sweet spring air.

He found himself wishing that Miles was still alive. He could have confided in him. Guyon had lost Heulwen’s own mother to rape and butchery, and Heulwen’s situation was too close for him to broach it. Countess Judith would offer him abrasive advice in her usual forthright manner, and just now, that thought was unpalatable. All Miles had left them was the wolf brooch — a light in the darkness, but a light did not show you which path to take, it only illuminated the way you chose.

He shook the reins and paced Vaillantif along the top of the dyke, examining its state of repair. Not that he expected to clash with the Welsh this year, thank Christ for small mercies. It was rumoured that Rhodri ap Tewdr was getting married to the daughter of another local Welsh lord; he wondered how true the rumours were and if it would alter the delicate balance along the borders.

He moved down the dyke to visit a fortified manor held by one of his vassals and sat down to meat with the man while they discussed the need to put more of the forest under plough. Having declined his invitation to hunt, Adam then set out for home.

It was a little before vespers when he rode into the bailey, and although the slanting sun was still warm and golden, he felt the hairs prickle erect on his spine at the atmosphere as he dismounted. He started to ask his groom what was wrong, decided he would rather not know in so public a place, and hurried towards the hall. There was no sign of Heulwen or Elswith. His steward, Brien, was busy at a trestle with tally sticks and an exchequer cloth, an inky quill between his fingers, but when he saw Adam he rose and came quickly to him.

‘Lady Heulwen was taken ill while you were out, my lord.’ He looked anxiously at Adam. ‘We did not know where you had taken the patrol, so we put her to bed and my wife took it upon herself to fetch Dame Agatha from the village.’

The information struck Adam like a fist. Dame Agatha in her capacity of wise woman and experienced midwife was a frequent visitor among the keep’s women. Adam had known her literally since his own birth. White-faced, he pushed past his anxious steward and took the tower stairs two at a time.

Dame Agatha was emerging from the outer chamber, the comfortable folds of her face marred by a frown as she dried her hands on a clean square of linen. Like the rest of her they were pink, plump, and capable. ‘My lord,’ she said deferentially, but blocked his way, forcing him to stop his headlong stride towards the bedchamber.

‘Where’s my wife? What’s happened?’ He stared at the drawn curtain behind her.

‘Be at ease sire, it is nothing serious.’ Her French was mangled by a heavy English accent and hard to understand. He had to concentrate and it brought him off the simmer. He breathed out once, hard, and held himself to patience. ‘She is sleeping now; I have given her a tisane. What she needs is plenty of rest with her feet well raised. The bleeding has stopped, but she will need to be careful.’

‘Bleeding?’ Adam said stupidly, clutched by the horrified thought that Heulwen had perhaps attempted her own life while he was gone. ‘What do you mean?’

Dame Agatha gave him a curious look, then her face softened into comfortable folds. It was not the first time she had come up against this kind of stunned disbelief. Men might profess themselves the stronger sex, but they were frightened ignorants when it came to this particular arena. She patted his arm solicitously. ‘It sometimes happens. With rest I do believe she will settle down. Leastways she hasn’t lost the child.’

‘Child?’ Adam reeled. ‘What child?’

Dame Agatha sucked a sharp breath between the gap in her front teeth, and stared at him in dismayed surprise. ‘Forgive me, my lord. I did not realise she had not told you — perhaps waiting to be sure, eh?’

‘You’re telling me that my wife is with child?’ he asked unsteadily.

‘Somewhere between two and three months along,’ she nodded. ‘Sometimes bleeding happens at this time. It is my opinion we’ll see a healthy babe this side of the Christmas feast.’

Adam stared at her blankly. Somewhere between two and three months along. Christ’s sweet wounds, no!

‘My lord, are you all right? Shall I get.?’

He looked down at her sympathetic hand on his sleeve and swallowed. ‘Yes, he said stiltedly. ‘Just taken by surprise, that is all.’ He withdrew his arm. ‘Thank you for coming.’ He fumbled in his pouch, found a silver penny and pressed it into her hand.

Dame Agatha folded her several chins into her chest and looked puzzled. There was the same checked, wild tension about him that there had been in his wife, as if this pregnancy was a disaster instead of a boundless joy. It took some people that way, usually those who already had a dozen offspring to feed and no hope of nourishing a thirteenth beyond the breast. A man in Lord Adam’s position was usually delighted at the prospect of an heir; his wife too, at having proved her ability to conceive.