Red Adam's Lady Read online

  “I’ll apologize for him” he said.

  “Have done, my lord. No blame to you.”

  He grinned wryly. Julitta silently shoved the winecup to his hand. Reynald subsided forward on to the table with a blubbery snore, Odo whisking the gravy-soaked trencher-bread from under his face by a bare inch. Wary murmurs of conversation strengthened as his slumber showed profound. Up in the gallery overhead the quartet of instrumentalists seized on the comparative silence to afflict them with disharmony; their new lute was even more tuneless than the one Julitta had broken over Reynald’s head. Red Adam gulped a mouthful of wine, distastefully rejected the congealed mess on his trencher, glanced along the table and nodded to Odo to remove the first course.

  The second went more comfortably, talk rising along the board. Julitta, recognizing duty, took hold on the first chance and steered it into discussion of horses and hunting, that never-exhausted topic. She was absurdly pleased when her husband touched her hand in thanks; his approval should mean nothing to her. When the talk flagged the minstrels renewed their assault, and when the dishes were removed and the cloth withdrawn Red Adam’s tolerance snapped. “Hell’s Teeth, stop that caterwauling!” he shouted.

  Baldwin chuckled. “I marvel that you, of all men, should have borne with them so long!”

  “Yes, you’ve had dolorous entertainment this evening. We’ll amend that. Odo, my own lute!”

  All hushed as his head leaned to the lute and the strings sang to his tuning. It was seldom that a tenant-in-chief entertained his guests as a trouvère, especially in the north where civilization’s graces barely penetrated. He turned to Julitta and spoke so that all might hear.

  “My lady, I sing for you. What will please you?”

  Her pulse fluttered. She knew what would best please all there, and steadied her voice. “A story, my lord.”

  “Being myself enchanted, I sing of enchantment.”

  He recited and sang a weird tale, new to her, of how the wizard Merlin, infatuated in his dotage with the witch Vivien, disclosed to her the spell there was no undoing, and was by her bound forever in a hollow oak in the forest of Broceliande. Dusk deepened in the hall, the fires sank, and the servitors spellbound on their benches never stirred to kindle lights. His voice softened almost to a whisper on the last lines.

  “Between the boughs the sunset crimsons die,

  Black bats flicker in the pallid sky,

  The wild swans’ wings beat back towards their mere,

  Through the gray twilight mousing owlets call,

  The white hart halts and lifts his antlers tall,

  None else in the enchanted wood may hear

  Lost Merlin groaning, never to be free,

  Till Doomsday’s trumpets tear the land and sea…..”

  A long moment’s silence paid tribute to the spell he had cast himself, and then applause crashed. Someone called for light, and servants scurried with tapers. He sat half-smiling, reddening to their approval as probably he had never done in other men’s halls, and Julitta, knowing what was required of her, rose to make him a formal curtsey. Then, as the noise subsided, a surly voice demanded more robust entertainment.

  “Here’sh dish—dismal stuff! Lesh have shojer song—chorush—”

  Odo advanced with the wine-jug. Red Adam frowned, strummed at random a moment and then swung into a dance-tune. Reynald lurched up, ignoring his refilled cup.

  “Shing kish a girl in Parishity—or willing wench come to me—” With some difficulty, as though the cup presented itself in duplicate, he brought it to his mouth and gulped. Wine dribbled down his chin and slopped upon the table. He slumped down, heaved his bottom more securely on to his stool and glared blearily at Julitta. “Show wha’ woman for—lay ’em an’ leave ‘em.”

  “Use courtesy to my lady!”

  He shook his head over the wine. “Good comrade onesh,” he mourned. “Besh man empty cup or shwive wench—gone now. Turned dull-sober—turned ‘gainst ol’ frien’sh—grudge li’l wine—married proud wench—” Two tears coursed down his cheeks and dripped into his cup. “Ol’ comrade—ol’ daysh all forgot—all gone—”

  “You’re maudlin,” Red Adam pronounced in disgust. “Drink yourself speechless and have done.”

  “Who comesh first—ol’ comrade—new wife? An’ we’ll have proper shong—shojer shong—” He lunged for the lute lying across Red Adam’s knees. His fingers clutched discord from the strings, and he began to bawl, “Willing wench—come to me—” Red Adam fended him off, tossed the lute to Julitta, and twisted out of his chair, striking up the fist wavering for his face just in time; drunk or sober, that insult could only be expunged with blood. Odo and Brien seized him from behind and mastered him. He heaved against them, and then the wine clubbed him senseless and he slid to the rushes.

  “Take him to his bed!” Red Adam snapped, and Odo stolidly hoisted him over his shoulder. “Hell’s Teeth, are we never to digest our meat in peace for him?”

  “He drinks to forget the comrade who has forsaken him, my lord,” Constance said sweetly.

  He ignored that insolence, and gave the winecup into Julitta’s hands. Receiving it again, he bowed to her before all there. “To my dear and honored lady!” As he had done at dinner, he set his lips to the place hers had touched and drank to her. Blood scorched to her brow, but she could yet command her body to salute him in a deep curtsey. Gravely, disregarding the hum of comment, she paced from the hall and fled to her chamber’s privacy.

  Her brain in turmoil, she dismissed Avice and got herself to bed. It was outside her craziest dream that any man should show her so much honor. She peered into her mirror. Her gray eyes under thick dark brows stared back; a plain girl with too wide a mouth, too sharp a chin, and hair in disarray from hasty undressing. He had wedded her because his conscience demanded it; she was not desirable. Maybe it was his conscience, remorse, even pity that had pricked him to that day’s splendid extravagances, the gestures of a lover.

  He came at last, barred the door, took her by the shoulders and kissed her squarely on the mouth. “Now God be praised, we’re the same breed of wolves, you and I!”

  She lifted a hand to rub her lips, and let it drop. “You mean—?”

  He sat at her feet. “That I thank the Saints I’m not saddled with a convent-bred ninny. No, you don’t need your dagger. I’ll cultivate patience, since that’s the virtue will best serve me.”

  “A useful one to start with!” she agreed waspishly, covering her senses’ reaction to his touch.

  He leaned back, drew up a knee and linked his hands about it. “I’ve to apologize again for Reynald. It’s hard to credit, but he was a good comrade when he followed the tourneys. Now God knows what I’m to do with him.”

  She hitched herself up against the pillows. “He’s from Normandy,” she observed. “It’s beer and cider they drink there. A man can swill ale until his back teeth are awash, and it will only make him barrel-bellied and dull-witted. But when he moves south and does likewise with wine—”

  “It corrodes his bowels and his brain together,” he finished. “Yes, we’ve both seen it.” His voice softened a little on the last words, as though he guessed her father had taught her that truth. “It’s easy for a landless man and a mercenary to go that way,” he added thoughtfully. “When he grows older and hopes and ambitions turn sour in him, when the younger men surpass him and he looks to dying in a ditch, and brothel and tavern are all his fellowship—yes, Julitta, it’s easy to find comfort in a wine-jug.”

  “He’s gone past comfort. He’s turned beast.”

  “And for that I’m greatly at fault. This past year he’s swilled his fill at my charges—Hell’s Teeth, I’ve swilled and wenched and roistered as swinishly! Sottish too, I saw no fault.” He frowned at his laced fingers. “Then I saw myself in your eyes, and was sickened. I stay sober.”

  “Because you regret—”

  “Regret? Best night’s work of my life when I slung you over my shoulder and
carried you home!” He swung from the bed and began to unlace his tunic. “Apart from all else, with whom but you in this bleak eyrie can I converse?”

  She considered that in startled silence as he peeled his tunic over his head and tossed it across the perch. Then he knelt to rummage in the chest, and came to her. “Fulfilling my promise.” He held out a sheathed dagger, flat and slender. He drew the six inches of steel to show her, and gave the ivory haft into her hand. The sheath had a buckled strap to fit a forearm. “Until the times mend, my girl, never go abroad without it.”

  Julitta tendered him his own weapon. “Indeed, my lord, I am grateful—”

  “I won it from a cutpurse at dice,” he told her, grinning over his shoulder. He hauled out his pallet, and put out the candle.

  She wriggled down in the bed. “You have been very gracious to me this day, my lord—”

  “Don’t underrate your value, vixen.”

  He was still now, rolled up in his cloak. She settled for sleep. Then his voice came quietly out of the dark. “Julitta, I ride to York at first light.”

  “The Scots are over the border?”

  “From what Erling says it’s almost sure. I must consult the Sheriff. I’ll take Reynald with me; a forty-mile ride will shake up his spleen admirably. Benefit fat Giles too. You found Brien serviceable to your orders?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “I’ll leave him with you. While I am gone, my lady, you’ll command Brentborough.”

  10

  Red Adam’s parting kiss still tingled on Julitta’s lips; he played the part of a devoted lover more vigorously than there was need. Yet she warmed to him; his public delegation of authority to her had been absolute. Only one person had temerity to contest it; Reynald de Carsey, stale-drunk and scarcely able to heave himself astride, rocked beside him, his expostulations at not being granted the command instead of a whey-faced ninny floating back through the grey glimmer of dawn until they faded into the wind. She stood by the gate until the company had vanished behind the ridge, and then nodded to the guards to close it and hoist the drawbridge. She drew a deep breath, lifted her chin, and zestfully set about earning a reputation as the hardest-driving mistress in the North.

  There was very nearly a mutiny when the servants realized that immediate repayment of several years’ deficit of labor was required of them, but they looked from her to Sir Brien, tapping a riding whip against his boot, and then to the spearmen, and resentfully chose to preserve their skins. With shovels and rakes and pitchforks they swept up decayed rushes from bower, hall, chambers and guardroom, choking the narrow stairs and stirring up the filth of years as well as a multitude of fleas. A bonfire in the bailey consumed the refuse and its vermin, gusting malodorous smoke at every shift of wind. Most of the tattered, moth-ravaged hangings were tossed into the blaze. Women armed with brooms assailed walls, ceilings and floors; weighty furniture was heaved aside; the piles of ash were cleared from the hearths, and the castle cats grew bored with pouncing on evicted mice and stalked tails aloft from the turmoil.

  Julitta, her old gown caught up above her ankles and her hair bundled away in a kerchief, hounded laggards from task to task. As soon as the dust had settled she had the floors thrice broomed over with scalding lye, compounded of wood-ash boiled with urine,* to kill the fleas and their eggs in the crevices of the boards. Fleabane and elder leaves were scattered over the damp wood. The village women and children, promised their bellyfuls of bread and beef and ale, had been deployed since daybreak along the river cutting rushes. In the laundry, the carpenter was patching leaky tubs, which were then filled and refilled with water to swell tight their warped seams. Every horse was out of the stables, even the destriers picketed at grass on the headland, while swearing grooms scraped floors, scoured walls and posts and mangers, and swept the last locks of aged hay from rat-ridden lofts. Sir Brien only left off snarling at their heels to have every weapon, piece of armor and strap of equipment out of guardroom and armory, inspected, burnished and sorted for repairs, and the smithy clanged through the rest of the day. Julitta, hurrying up and down stairs and from one end of the bailey to the other, thanked the Saints for him as she harried servitors who leaned on their brooms to complain of ill-usage whenever she turned her back.

  She was thankful also for Hodierne, quietly setting the bower to rights while Constance sulked, bereft of sycophantic wenches. If ever she was rid of Constance she would appoint Hodierne in charge of the women. She knew gratitude also to Adela, who descended upon her husband’s mercenaries to speed their hosts’ labors, her tongue a sharper spur than the sternest captain’s.

  Next morning she purged laundry, dairy, bakery and brewhouse. A new kitchen she was determined to have, and at first chance a new cook. She summoned the Arnisby carpenter, and by the time he appeared she had had Godric’s lair knocked apart, the main timbers salvaged and the rest fired. The frame was up on a new site by nightfall.

  Every cauldron was devoted to soap-making. Wood-ash was sieved into them, boiled up with water, strained and reboiled with melted tallow. The tallow supplies were scanty, and as the shortage could not be due to any inordinate consumption of soap and it was too early for candle-making, her suspicions turned inevitably towards Godric. She could guess his market; the tanner’s two sons drove a thriving by-trade as chandlers and soap-boilers with the inferior tallow from the lime-vats.

  Julitta turned from the cauldrons to the fumes of lime-slaking and a tremendous mixing of whitewash. The servants manhandled ladders, trestles and planks up and down spiral stairs. Buckets clattered and brushes slapped. The plaster was sound enough, and if one layer of whitewash did not cover the grime a second would.

  Sir Bertram moved about, peering unhappily as she compelled cleanliness and order from chaos. Julitta found time to be sorry for him, forced to depend on incompetent assistance for his duties’ performance and betrayed by it. Every omission she rectified indicted his governance. His first friendliness had soured; his wife was always at his elbow muttering of slights, and now he shunned Julitta.

  Baldwin Dogsmeat offered his sixteen men to augment her garrison without charge, for as long as Red Adam should be absent. It would suit him to have his men housed and fed while he sought an engagement. The troop was less of a menace within Brentborough wall than without, ranging loose to plunder the peasants or employed by rebels. Adela was worth a dozen Hodiernes as an overseer, though she set the women simmering with resentment. Her elf-child roamed like a small ghost, and folk who would have cuffed a normal brat from under their feet tried to coax him to them. He would go to no one but his mother, and drifted erratically as a tassel of thistledown past the noisy business of living. Julitta wondered with pity what future God would provide for him.

  Erling and Hakon came to make their farewells, surveying her work with approving grins. “A valiant labor,” Erling pronounced, “and your lord will know how to value you for it.”

  “Not he!” muttered Hakon. His sire ignored his indiscretion.

  “Wine, spices, the drugs you listed, and if the winds serve I’ll put into a south coast haven for a well-fleeced ram. No more, my lady? We are at your service.”

  “All the news of Flanders?”

  “That of course, my lady. God be with you!”

  She gave them her hand. Hakon’s grasp was no formality, nor his lips’ pressure on her knuckles. “Always and wholly at your service, Lady Julitta,” he murmured fervently, and trod after his sire to the gate.

  A fortnight ago life could have offered her nothing fairer than Hakon’s devotion; she would thankfully have matched with him and built content, borne his children and loved him for his simple kindness. Now she was bound to Red Adam, and Hakon would wed a girl of his own north and remember her as a dream. She was no legendary beauty to inspire an undying passion at first encounter. Her chief feeling was surprised gratitude that he admired her at all.

  The kitchen walls had the wattle set in, and the workmen were troweling plaster over
the withies. Cookery was going forward over open fires, whose flaring kept Godric active as a flea.

  “You’ve sweated a summer’s tallow off their ribs, my lady,” said Brien’s voice in her ear. “Aye, and proved that Constance an idle slut.”

  “Here’s venom, Sir Brien.”

  “She used my poor wife most spitefully, Lady Julitta.”

  “Reason enough.” She looked round on the confusion, and burst out, “But why? She was undisputed chatelaine! Why turn slut?”

  “Lord Maurice would sanction nothing that disturbed his peace, but within his limits she ruled well enough, until his death-sickness took hold of him two years ago.”

  “But she was still mistress, until his heir should bring home a bride.”

  “It’s my belief,” he said, lowering his voice though none could have heard him through the turmoil, “that she hoped he’d wed her.”

  “But she has a husband!”

  “Did you not know, my lady, that Sir Bertram lives on the grave’s edge? He suffers cramps in his breast that seize on his heart’s beating, and thrice in four years he has received the last rites.”

  “A grievous pity,” she said, and crossed herself, shocked and sorry. More to herself than to the knight, she murmured, “Odd, that Lord Maurice inspired so much loyalty.”

  He smiled bleakly. “It was not altogether loyalty, my lady. We are all fugitives from vengeance.”

  “Fugitives?”

  “How else could he have officered his garrison? You’ve a right to know. Bertram killed his half-brother for insulting his wife; he made pilgrimage to Jerusalem in penance. Giles cuckolded the wrong man. Nicholas the Marshal, God rest him, got a troop butchered in an ambush on the Welsh Marshes, and his lord’s son was among them. And I carried off my lord’s bastard daughter when he’d promised her elsewhere, and never regretted it.” He watched the plasterers, and then shrugged. “I reckon Lord Maurice felt a fellowship with wanted men, for he too dared not put his neck in reach of his wife’s kinsmen.”