Red Adam's Lady Read online

  “Lady Constance, calm yourself!”

  “Calm—when I see—Mary Mother, I had beauty and dower and birth and love, and you order—you, raw from the convent! What do you know of life and how it cheats you? Yes, beauty cheats you, and love cheats you, and all life, and at the last death itself cheats you! And now my last right is snatched from me by a brat without even courtesy to take counsel—”

  “One look about Brentborough proclaims its worth,” Julitta replied bleakly as the woman halted in mid-spate, consternation checking the spite and fury. She had offended beyond pardon, and she knew it. Yet in that moment the untouched girl understood her bitterness, even pitied her thwarted years, though her malice and selfishness forfeited sympathy. Lovely women expected life to grant them more than womankind’s common fortune, and age’s onset was their tragedy.

  Under her considering gaze Constance turned crimson, then white, and then swung about and almost ran for the keep steps, her kerchief fluttering agitation and her buttocks jolting with the first gracelessness Julitta had seen in her. A few more years, and fat would swallow her beauty. She was still watching the blue back retreating when the horn blared from the gate to announce visitors.

  Red Adam came loping across the grass, his hair on end, mud spattering his tunic and smeared across one cheek. She moved to meet him beyond earshot of the whispering girls, still frowning.

  “Hey, never look so forbidding, sweet! You remind me of a schoolmaster waiting with the birch, and it doesn’t match the pretty flowers.”

  She flushed and snatched at the forgotten garland, but his hand caught hers and rescued it. He set it straight on her head. “My lord, it is not fitting!” she protested.

  “Fitting? You’re yet my bride, and rightly crowned with flowers.” He touched the petals delicately, and smiled down at her. “Nothing could become you more.”

  “But—”

  He gripped her hand and turned her towards the gate. “I am rightly shamed,” he said plaintively, “when I reckon up all the garlands I’ve twined for idle dalliance, and leave it to a gardener to adorn my own lady.” She laughed outright, and he pulled her closer. “Has no one ever told you that you’re a very pretty girl when you smile, Julitta? Come and smile on our guests with me.”

  8

  Red Adam, totally disregarding any opinions but his own, set Erling Thorvard’s son at his right hand. Reynald, displaced by a mere merchant, glowered into trencher and winecup. Baldwin Dogsmeat, a mercenary captain of dubious origin and no knight, conceded in courtesy the lowest place at the high table, comported himself with an assurance that set his betters’ digestions at war with their meat. His wife’s deportment testified to gentle breeding, however far she had fallen from it.

  During the first course the conversation naturally ran on the hazards of voyaging, most folk contributing some gruesome recollection. The servants were going round with ewers, basins and towels for washing hands when Baldwin concluded his preference for being buried in one piece in a Christian churchyard rather than in the maws of a legion of fishes.

  “Instead of a concourse of worms?” Red Adam grinned.

  “And you living on fish from these seas all through Lent! And when Death’s hands were feeling at my neck, I did wonder whether seafaring came near the sin of suicide.” He shook his head at the company’s laughter. “I wished very earnestly I’d stayed in Flanders with the Earl of Leicester.”

  “He’s still there?” Red Adam asked, and faces all along the board sobered to attention.

  “He was when we sailed, a fortnight ago. Waiting for a south wind, and it blowing north, east and west since July.”

  “What sort of force has he?”

  Baldwin snorted professional contempt. “A Godforsaken rabble of guttersweepings and raw recruits. Out-of-work weavers for the most part.”

  “And between sickness and desertion, less than half he first assembled,” Erling put in.

  “What do you expect, when he’s paying with promises and at his wits’ end to supply them?” Baldwin grunted. “What’s this little bird, boy? Not pigeon? Grouse, eh? New to me, but I’ll try it.”

  Nothing destroyed an army more surely than waiting, Julitta knew; scanty food as the countryside was eaten up; fouled earth and water disseminating disease; boredom, gambling, whoring leading to criminal acts and retaliation by an increasingly hostile populace, and the steady attrition by death and desertion. If the winds remained foul a few weeks more, Leicester’s Flemish reinforcements would disintegrate about him.

  “The Count of Flanders withdrew support when his brother Matthew was killed,” said Erling, “and Leicester’s money and credit are spent.”

  “So I reckoned a man of enterprise might profit by reaching England ahead of that rabble,” Baldwin declared, suspending his assault on the grouse. “Master Erling thought it might be done roundabout—”

  “Make out northing towards Denmark, pick up an easterly and run before it,” Erling explained.

  Baldwin’s teeth stripped the flesh from a legbone, and he stabbed it emphatically at Erling as he chewed. “True enough,” he pronounced through the grouse, “but I didn’t bargain for going round by Scotland, near drowned and battered silly, not to mention puking my guts out all the way. Oh yes, we’re in England. A hundred miles and more too far north, and the King’s Justiciar in the way.”

  Red Adam nodded, and looked from his own grouse to Erling. “So you made landfall in Scotland?”

  “North side of Forth mouth, and across to Leith.” A grim smile stirred his whiskers. “I’ve fine stuffs I thought to trade in Edinburgh, but the King and his knights are on the border.”

  A similar smile twitched Red Adam’s lips. “Maybe across it by now.”

  “From the talk of Leith, likely enough.”

  Baldwin licked his lips like a fox scouting the poultry run. “It might advantage any lord in these doubtful times to increase his forces, Lord Adam. Would you consider hiring my company?”

  “I couldn’t afford you,” Red Adam said frankly. Baldwin’s face hardened in unbelief. “I’ve just paid a heavy relief, and the honor impoverished by near twenty years’ neglect. Your best course, Baldwin, is to return to Flanders—and put no faith in Leicester’s promises.”

  “Pitch myself back upon the North Sea when I’ve barely set foot on solid ground?” yelped Baldwin. “My belly heaves at thought of it.”

  “If I could afford to pay you, I couldn’t afford to hire you, Baldwin. Mercenaries, and those who employ them, have been well hated in England by King and people since the days of King Stephen. You’re neck-deep in murky water. Get out while you can.”

  “Go back like a whipped dog to kennel? No, by God’s Head! Your neighbors may be less delicately minded—” His wife touched his elbow, and he subsided before uttering unpardonable offence and plied his knife upon the grouse’s ruins. A moment later Julitta saw him lay it down to give his wife’s hand a reassuring squeeze.

  Erling said calmly in the embarrassed hush, “I suppose, Lord Adam, that you’ve not sold your woolclip this year?”

  “The merchants have not ventured north this season, Master Erling.”

  “And in Flanders the looms stand idle, and the price of wool higher than I’ve known it. Would it ease your problems if I bore it there and drove the bargain?”

  “I’d be your debtor. Your fee, Master Erling?”

  “One-fourth of the price.”

  “Agreed. You’re modest.”

  “Crafty, Lord Adam. I hope for a long and profitable association between us.”

  Reynald emerged abruptly from his cup. “God’s Head, thash insult, Adam. Unknightly—buy and shell.”

  “This isn’t the tourney circuit. Be quiet.”

  “You’ve another asset that could profit you in the future, Lord Adam. You’ve the only fair harbor between Humber and Tees, and a growing town. If you built a pier and wharf you’d attract coasting trade and foreign merchants, and gain by harbor dues and more comme
rce. A market also—”

  “Turn huckster?” Reynald sneered. “True knight takesh profit at sword’sh point.”

  “I have often wondered,” Erling stated equably, “why the knightly sort should reckon it more honorable to cut a neighbor’s throat and steal his goods, rather than buy and sell to their mutual benefit.”

  Most of his knightly hearers choked on their food. Reynald’s fogged intelligence visibly groped for comprehension. By the time he lurched up, mouthing outrage, Red Adam had signaled, and Odo and Sir Brien took him by either arm. Odo set his cup brimming with unmixed Gascony, Sir Brien put it to his lips, and tilted it while he gulped. Even his head was not proof against such a draught; he subsided on to his stool and laid his brow on the table.

  “I apologize for him, Master Erling,” Red Adam said curtly.

  “If you share his sentiments, consider, Lord Adam. It’s not the knightly kind produce a country’s wealth. It’s the men who grow and the men who make, and those who buy and sell.”

  “Oh, I reckon I’ll turn huckster. I stand in need of profit. Your advice may not be entirely disinterested, but it makes sense.”

  “That is why.”

  They grinned at each other. The second course was removed, and the servants went round again with water and towels.

  “If you’ve fine cloth for sale we’ll be pleased to view it,” Red Adam said. “I don’t doubt, my lady, that we need it?”

  A little startled at being consulted, Julitta summoned her wits. “Greatly, my lord, since the New Year liveries are all to make. The local weave will suffice for the servants, but for the knights we must have better.”

  “That’s for you to order.”

  “Also we have but two untapped wine-barrels between Sir Reynald and sobriety.”

  “Can you remedy that, Master Erling?”

  “Not this side of Flanders, Lord Adam. Passengers this trip. I’ll consult with your lady for the next.”

  “Order it between you.” He formally offered Julitta the cup for the last drink, and when she returned it, deliberately set his lips to the place hers had touched and drank to her. Then, while men and women stared and nudged, he gave the empty cup to Odo and signaled for the cloth to be withdrawn. He leaned back, apparently oblivious of surmising faces and his wife’s flush. “Speaking of orders puts me in mind, my lady. How did your foray into the kitchen go?”

  “It will go better next time, my lord, if you resolve one small difficulty,” Julitta said, her cheeks cooling as she realized that his lover’s gesture made amends for last night’s quarrel.

  “Yes?”

  “Am I truly Lady of Brentborough, or in tutelage to your seneschal’s wife?”

  “You are undisputed lady of all I possess.” He stood up, and the company rose, buzzing with consternation. “Sir Brien, be pleased to give teeth to my lady’s bidding.”

  Sir Brien came to life like a somnolent terrier at mention of rats, grinning at Constance’s chagrin. Sir Bertram turned to her in bewilderment, and she murmured angrily in his ear. A diversion was provided by Reynald; hoisted to his feet by two servingmen, he vomited copiously, so that all hurriedly vacated the dais.

  Julitta, marveling at her husband’s endorsement of her authority, stalked towards the kitchen, and behind her Brien hummed a little tune between his teeth. Warning had of course flown before them, but time for acting on it had been lacking. Godric was sitting on a chopping-block, a leather mug in one hand and his spoon of office in the other, brandishing both in vague menace and mumbling curses, while his scullions scrambled about beyond reach, achieving such chaos that Julitta knew just how his underlings liked him. He surged up like a hog from its wallow, glared at his lady, belched, muttered indistinguishably and collapsed back on to the block with a thump that made his teeth clack.

  Brien jerked a thumb. Two spearmen dispossessed him of mug and spoon, wrenched his arms behind him and heaved him up bellowing. The thumb jerked again. They propelled him through the doorway, kicking his hinder end when he resisted, and across the bailey to the stocks. His sister, equally drunk, reeled after them, screeching and beating ineffectively at the men’s backs until the other women hustled her inside the keep. Julitta turned to purging the kitchen, while its tyrant, sobered by a pailful of water, his backside in a puddle, sat festooned with the riper entrails in token of his offence and pelted by urchins with mud and dung.

  Half the wooden utensils were pitched incontinently into the fire. The rest were sand-scoured and scalded, metal burnished, the walls swept down. Scullions shoveled up the nauseating offal into baskets and bore it to the smouldering refuse-pit behind the stables. As they neared the bottom of the pile one fellow, swinging his basket awkwardly, spilled a mess of fowls’ heads, guts and fat and kicked it into the fire. Flame spat and smoke gushed. Brien started forward swearing, and the man blundered at the fire, flapping so that the smoke swirled about them. By the time Julitta had cleared her eyes and throat the fellow was shambling out bleating abjectly, and in the furthest corner another was unostentatiously hanging a carcass of mutton to a hook in the rafter.

  Julitta exchanged pregnant looks with Brien. Both knew that the mutton had been concealed under the offal, but its removal had been so contrived that accusation would be futile. The knight in fact had his lips parted to make one, but her tiny headshake checked him. She sent men scuttling for water, for scouring sand and rushes, for rakes and spades to scrape the floor, while her wits marshaled facts and made deductions. Kitchen workers, with the unrestricted pickings of every meal, had no need to pilfer food. Members of the household, their bellies filled twice a day at a generous table, would have small use for a whole mutton carcass that no single family could eat. It had been hidden for discreet removal from the castle, and in Arnisby was one establishment whose owner could not only dispose of stolen mutton but also pay in coined silver for it. By the furtive glances all about her, every servant knew of the peculation.

  Odo’s bulk darkened the doorway. He bowed clumsily. “May it please you, m’ lady, Lord Adam bade me tell you the merchant Erling awaits you in the bower with his stuffs.”

  Red Adam waited with the merchant, conversing so seriously that they did not notice her entrance. All appearance of gaiety had been abandoned; the frown puckering his brows made of him a worried boy. Then Odo coughed, and his face lighted as though the sight of her was his fairest pleasure. He took her hand. Erling bowed, and conjured from the air a small bundle which he presented benignly.

  “In token of my thanks,” he rumbled in his heavily-accented French.

  “You are most gracious, Master Erling,” she began formally, lifted the loose cloth wrapping and gulped at her first sight of the sables of Norway; a score at least, silken, supple and shining like jet. “Oh! For—for me?”

  “It’s a royal gift,” said Red Adam quietly.

  The merchant smiled. “But for you it would be washing in the tide with all my merchandise, and like as not our bodies too.” The smile broadened to a grin. “Moreover, I am reckoning your lady will need a new gown to do them honor.” He gestured to the stack of canvas-swathed bales by the great bed.

  Odo coughed again, and contorted his whiskers in a grimace, jerking an urgent thumb at his master lest his subtle intimation that he was required elsewhere be missed. Red Adam grinned, “You’ll not need me,” he observed, and left them to it.

  Under the furthest window Avice and Hodierne stitched at Julitta’s green gown, and Adela mended a small tunic. The two cradles rocked at their feet. Quietly, in consideration of their occupants, Erling and the two seamen he had brought unpacked the bales, stitched up in layers of tarred sailcloth, and spread out the cloths on the bed.

  She had made her calculations, and as she had said at dinner, the coarse local weave in the natural grays and browns of the wool, or dyed with madder and bilberry and hawthorn bark, would do well enough for the scullions and grooms, and even for the waiting women. Linen also was to be had in Arnisby; one or two farmers us
ually sowed a little, troublesome as its preparation was, since there were craftsmen to work it at hand, but as the chief demand was for sailcloth it was usually harvested late for the strongest fibers, and the best of it was harsh stuff only fit for tablecloths and hangings.

  A little apprehensively, for she had no idea how the silver stood in Red Adam’s strongbox, she selected Flemish broadcloths; crimson, blue and green for the knights and ladies; heavy black, brown and gray for mantles; a little of the costly scarlet for trimmings, and then fine linen for smocks and shirts. Erling pointed out their merits, recommended this or that for each purpose, and left the choice to her; he was crafty in his trade. He measured and cut and folded, and the pile mounted.

  “For Lord Adam’s own use?” he asked as she checked at last, and lifted a corner of scarlet.

  “Holy Mother, no!” she exclaimed, wincing from the memory of her marriage day and her husband ablaze in red. All the costliest colors, scarlet and crimson and purple, appropriate to his rank, were incompatible with his flaming head. Erling chuckled and pointed out the sky blue, much dearer than the common woad, but that reminded her of Constance. She chose instead a tawny brown and a stripe woven in two shades of green. He would need a cloak too, but she was almost at the end of Erling’s resources and had to settle on a holly-leaf green with more of the tawny to line it. At least he was no peacock to complain of her choice. Erling beckoned the seamen forward to pack and restitch the diminished bales, while he lifted the last four smaller bolts to the bed and deftly whipped out the stitches.

  “After business, pleasure. For your own consideration, my lady.” He unwound the canvas swaddlings as tenderly as a young mother unwraps her firstborn. “This, and this, are from the workshops of Firenze in Italy, where they weave the finest wool in Christendom.”