Red Adam's Lady Read online

  She peered under shading hands at the blinding sky to find the lark, a palpitating star hung high aloft. She watched the gulls sailing in their endless spirals or riding the breakers below. A long-tailed mouse ran out upon the turf near Red Adam’s foot, misled by their stillness, and sat up to groom his coat and whiskers, his eyes and quivering nose constantly alert for the least stir. Julitta smiled, and sat unmoving until the tiny beast had finished preening and flicked away into the tussocks. Then a blue-gray missile hurled past her and down among the sailing gulls. One exploded in a burst of feathers and blood, and with one fierce scream raptor and prey plummeted towards the sea, checked, leveled and beat away for the cliff beyond Arnisby.

  Red Adam was up on one elbow, blinking against the dazzle, his right hand on dagger haft. He glanced inquiringly at Julitta.

  “A peregrine!” she cried, and pointed. He followed the speeding arrowhead, dark against the bright water, with the carcass dangling from its talons, out of sight. Then he sat up and clasped his knees.

  “Flagrant discourtesy, to fall asleep in a lady’s presence. Why didn’t you kick me in the ribs, vixen?”

  “I was enjoying the novelty,” she answered demurely. “In my lord’s company, and he not uttering a word.”

  She had never heard him laugh aloud before, this chuckle of delight. He jested for others, but his grin had little mirth about it; occasionally he had smiled at her with kindness, and now this rare laughter joined a frail bond between them. He scrambled up and reached both hands to pull her to her feet.

  “Oh vixen, vixen, I adore you!”

  She saw his intention in his mirthful face, and drew back sharply. He checked at once.

  “No, you’re not ready yet. The dog-wolf must woo and wait until his lady yields freely.” He slipped his arm almost absently about her waist and faced out over the sea.

  “I … it’s not … I must seem surly and ungrateful …”

  “Don’t put gratitude between us! In your own good time, Julitta. Moreover, I’ve observed that the surest way to your tender heart is to be hurt or sick or wretched, and I don’t qualify.” He smiled down, and turned back towards the castle while she digested that. He gave a jaw-cracking yawn, and then seemed to notice his own state, for he dropped his arm and beat at his filthy tunic. “Hell’s Teeth, I’m too foul to be handling a lady!”

  “A bath will amend that.”

  “It’s digging out I’ll need, after forty miles on these roads. We were benighted at a lonely farmstead, where the fleas rejoiced in us. They’d not heard of the Scots until we gave warning. If those fools had listened to me we could have set watchers and beacons five leagues out on the hills. Hugh de Puiset must have let them pass. If he’d raised Durham he’d be howling to York for reinforcements. He hasn’t learned yet there’s more to being Bishop of Durham than building a vast cathedral to his glory!”

  He strode into the castle precincts shouting for Odo, and disappeared into the laundry, where a cauldron of water was now always simmering over a low fire. Half an hour later Julitta was summoned from the bower. A court was convened in the hall, and the household assembling. Her husband was already in his great chair, sleek-headed as an otter and trimly shaven. As she joined him he leaned to murmur in her ear, “Oswald’s run.”

  “What do you wager he’s at Crossthwaite?”

  “Not a clipped penny; you’d win.”

  The errand-runner mattered little; Constance’s treachery was known if unproven, and in her spite she had over-reached herself. She would go as soon as Red Adam could arrange it. Yet when Julitta looked at her, standing beside her husband, she did not seem downcast. Indeed, her face was secretly satisfied, so that uneasiness prickled along Julitta’s spine.

  The household knights stood on either side of the high chairs. The sergeants had marshaled the guards below the dais. Father Simon, there to administer the ordeal or to shrive condemned sinners, set out ink-horn and manor rolls at the side table and unhandily trimmed a quill. Servants and a sprinkling of peasants were gathered together to see what kind of justice Lord Adam dispensed.

  The prisoners stumbled in, blinking at the daylight. The better part of twenty-four hours in which to think on the noose had worn threadbare even Godric’s truculence, and the woodcutter seemed a walking corpse. They had no possible defence, and they knew it. Brien’s indictment was a formality. Red Adam, contemplating them stone-faced, was curt.

  “You confess?”

  Godric licked dry lips, glanced from him to the waiting soldiers, and jerked his head. “Aye, me lord.” The innkeeper echoed him. The woodcutter, beyond speech, writhed colorless lips.

  “You’re hanging-ripe, all three. But three lives have already been paid for this sin, and my dear lady has asked mercy for you. I refuse her nothing. Sweyn! A hundred lashes for Godric the thief. Fifty each for his accomplices. Then cast them forth.”

  “Turned squeamish?” Reynald sneered as the hall emptied. He shot at Julitta a glance of sour dislike. “If you’d heed my advice inst—”

  Red Adam thrust erect, and he recoiled, his utterance chopped off in mid-syllable. For a moment he stood slack-jawed; then he scowled impartially at them both and slouched out to watch the entertainment in the bailey. Red Adam drew audible breath. “One of these days I’ll tear his lewd tongue out!” he growled, and stalked after him to supervise the punishment he had ordered. Julitta saw that whatever substitute for friendship had once linked her husband to Reynald was irrevocably sundered. They had come to detest each other, and Reynald blamed her for it.

  A flogging was an entertainment Julitta preferred to miss. She hastened to the bower with Avice, and tried to close her ears to the sounds rising from the bailey. The green gown was finished, the black well advanced. She worked until the women came chattering back, dwelling with relish on the spectacle’s horrid details. They would despise her for squeamishness if she forbade the discussion, so she set them to work and left them to it.

  On the landing she was almost overthrown by her husband, bounding up three steps at a time. He caught her arms. “Here you are! Your pardon, lady!” He drew her round the corner to the window splay where yesterday the priest had knelt, and gently pushed her on to the stone seat. He leaned over with one foot resting on it.

  “You’ll command again tomorrow, lady captain. I’ll leave you Sweyn and the four oldest spearmen; they’re dependable. A dozen archers, and Sir Brien of course. It’s a scanty garrison, but if the Scots appear the peasants will take refuge here, and those that haven’t bows can at least throw rocks at their heads.”

  “I warned Arnisby and Brentborough yesterday.”

  “If your uncle and his friends weren’t too addled to heed me—a bloody lesson they may find it, and too many innocents with them. Chivingham might be held by a stout defence, but Digglewick and Crossthwaite haven’t even walls to keep them out.” He pushed erect and ran his hand through his hair; he looked tired and harassed. “We’ll be gone at first light, and in York by nightfall if the horseflesh holds out. It’s in a wretched state, and if you can trace that groom of yours, drag him in by the hair. We need him.” He jerked his head at Avice, shrinking against the wall. “Here, girl! Run down to the stables and send Odo to me.”

  She cringed into the plaster. “Oh no, m’ lord … please m’ lord, not me… oh m’ lady…”

  “What ails you now? Do as you’re bidden!” snapped Julitta.

  “That ugly beast … he’ll ravish me … oh, please …”

  “If he stays for that when I’ve summoned him I’ll have his ears. Go!” he ordered, and she took one white glance at his face and fled wailing. “Your Ivar can count one gain out of his troubles; she’s no use to any man.”

  “She’s a timid creature,” Julitta agreed temperately. “She’d reason to dread wedding Cuthbert; he’s a brute and his first wife was happy to die. And the sluts here fill her with tales of rape until she’s scared of the sight of a man.”

  “She’s coddled her fears unt
il there’s nothing else in her. As soon as you can procure a decent maid-servant I’ll be rid of her.”

  She looked up curiously. “I’d not thought so poor a thing worthy of your loathing.”

  He grimaced. “I’ve always loathed those pale things that scuttle from the light when you lift a flat stone. Irrational, I know.”

  And all the stronger for that, Julitta realized. His antipathy had been plain from the first, though he might not have voiced it had his temper not been frayed by strain.

  “Have I angered you, Julitta?”

  “No, my lord,” she answered honestly. “She was to have married Ivar, but she’s never uttered a word of concern for him. It’s only herself she whines for, and I’m sick of it.”

  “So much damp I wonder you’re not covered with blue mold!”

  A shaggy head poked round the corner. “You wanted me, Lord Adam?”

  “Salute your lady, you unmannered lout! You’ll pardon me, sweet wife?” He turned to Odo. “All’s ready in the stables?”

  “Ready as it’ll every be, Lord Adam.”

  “Then furbish up my good hauberk and see my sword’s well edged. A spare lance, and the open helmet.”

  “Now, Master Adam, the closed pot’s a deal safer—”

  “Apart from being stifled in a hot engagement, one sideways swipe and the thing turns and blinds you. I’ll see what’s about me.”

  “None the less, I’ll take the closed pot—”

  Their voices faded in the stairwell. Julitta firmly collected her sniveling maid-servant and marched down to the kitchen, where Godric’s successor came near steaming under his mistress’s eye in his anxiety to reach her exacting standards.

  When the household was assembling for supper Baldwin Dogsmeat and his wife approached their host to thank him for his hospitality. “I trust we’ve been of service to your lady in your absence, but we’ve burdened your graciousness long enough, Adam, knowing your views on mercenaries,” he finished, with that shaft of malice to point his courtesy.

  “I hope you’ll find my uncle-in-law as gracious,” Red Adam answered drily.

  He blinked, disconcerted. Adela grinned at him. “Well informed, Lord Adam?”

  “You’ve met no one else who could afford you,” he explained. “And if he’s promised you the plundering of Brentborough, I warn you, your share won’t buy a week’s drinking for your company.” Baldwin’s gaze involuntarily sought the display of plate on the sideboard, and swiveled back to his host’s smile of grim amusement. “And if you go hunting with that pack, you’ll need sharp teeth to tear a mouthful from your comrades’ jaws.”

  His warning had bitten sharply into Baldwin’s own doubts about the venture; Julitta glimpsed the uncertainty in his face before his shark’s grin covered it. He shrugged jauntily. “You’ll not deter me, Lord Adam. Even a mercenary must live.”

  “More’s the pity,” his host agreed mordantly, and moved away for a word with Brien and Giles.

  Adela said quietly to Julitta, “Indeed, it’s past time we went.”

  “I have been truly glad of your helpfulness.”

  “You’ve been most gracious, as my husband said, to welcome me into your household, when you knew I was a whore and my son’s not his.”

  “That’s your concern, not mine.”

  “Oh, I’m not repentant,” she said coolly. “I married for my son’s sake. Baldwin’s an honest enough scoundrel, and he knows Charles is all my life.”

  “It’s a grievous pity,” Julitta murmured.

  “God’s judgment on my sins, the priests say,” she answered harshly. “Four sons I’ve borne and lost, and only this one left me.” The fierce face was maternal as Julitta had only seen it when she looked on her elf-child. Then it hardened again. “I grow maudlin. Yet believe I wish you well, and whatever I can do to further your happiness is yours to command.” Her clear eyes gazed levelly into Julitta’s, she bent her knee and was moving to her place at the table’s end when the girl’s attention was jerked from her by a growl of intense wrath two paces from her side.

  “You are dismissing me fron Brentborough!” Sir Bertram confronted Red Adam, towering as he had done in his mighty prime.

  “I’m offering you an honorable retirement to easier duties, after your hard years here.’”

  “You imply I’m incapable—”

  “Imply!” Reynald jeered. “You purblind dotard, there’s hoof-rot in the stables, the cook thieving—”

  “Be quiet, Reynald! Sir Bertram, you must admit your handicap, and that you’ve had to trust too much to worthless underlings. My lady—”

  “Aye, there’s the heart of it! It’s to satisfy that wench you’ve wedded, because she resents my gracious lady’s help and counsel.” His voice rose to a lion’s roar, and his huge hands lifted in threat.

  “Hell’s Teeth, are we disputing who’s mistress of this household?” Red Adam’s own tinder-dry wrath had kindled. “Your wife’s a slatternly chatelaine, and you’ve closed your nose to it, whatever the state of your eyesight.”

  One knotted fist drew back and then dropped. Sir Bertram reeled, a spasm of pain screwing his face, and stood drawing careful breath. Red Adam, poised to dodge the blow, started forward with extended hands, his wrath turned to compunction, but the older man’s glare checked him in mid-stride.

  “I have lived too long,” he said desolately. “My own true lord would not have used me so.”

  Constance was there as he turned away, her arm about him, and he labored towards the stair, leaning on her solid shoulder. For all the solicitude of her hands, the look on her face was one of satisfaction. Red Adam watched them go, biting his under lip. As the curtain fell behind them he shrugged slightly and moved towards his high chair.

  “If you’re planning to make me seneschal in his room,” stated Reynald aggressively, “I’ve no wish for it. That place of yours near Bristol will suit me best.”

  “No.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “That I’ll have no drunken incompetent mismanaging my wealthiest estate, nor yet this one.”

  “God’s Head, is your word worthless? You promised me—”

  “Neither. You may have the manor in Devon, or that by Chester, and drink and wench at my charges. There’s my word fulfilled.”

  “God’s Death, here’s piety! The wildest devil ever emptied a jug or tumbled a whore, and now your blood’s bewitched to whey! With all the choicest wines and strumpets in York for your pleasure, not once would you go sporting with me of a night like a comrade.”

  “Why, you did double duty by both,” Red Adam said evenly. Reynald, sober enough to recognize peril, sat down grumbling under his breath, but by now folk were so accustomed to his boorishness that, as long as he did not interrupt the conversation, none heeded him. The talk ran on the Scots. The memory of their last incursion was still raw in the North Parts, and stories of atrocities provided enlightenment for the incomers; priests gelded, pregnant women ripped up, babies spitted on spears, naked girls roped in droves and driven away to shameful slavery. It was not conducive to good appetite, and Julitta was glad when the company dispersed.

  Red Adam went down to the guardroom to make the final arrangements for the morrow. Reynald, for once moderately sober, engaged with Giles in a game of dice. Julitta made a brief round of her household, but forebore to enter the bower, where Sir Bertram lay in the great bed that should be Lord Adam’s and hers, had they not preferred the wall chamber’s privacy. Conscious of a long day behind her, she mounted to it now as the last sunrays slanted to fill the western windows. Her hands were sticky with unguents from the hospital. “Fetch water and towels, girl,” she commanded Avice at the landing. Her hand was on her door when a squeal on the stair swung her swiftly about. A rush of stumbling feet, and Avice hurtled out shrieking with every breath, and flung herself at Julitta.

  “Save me, m’ lady! Oh Mary Mother, save me! Don’t let him—no! No!”

  Reynald lumbered grinning throu
gh the doorway, and she fell to her knees, scrabbled round behind Julitta and clung wailing to her skirts. Julitta slapped her smartly.

  “On your feet, you silly wench, and be quiet! He’ll not touch you.”

  “God’s Blood, lady whore’s get, you’re lofty now you’re wedded!” Reynald sneered. “You’ll do as Adam bids you, and he’ll not refuse his comrade a serving wench.” He lurched forward, and Avice shrieked again and cowered between Julitta and the heavy door, without wit to dive within and bar it.

  “You drunken lout!” Julitta wrenched free to confront him. “There’s a household of strumpets for your use; my serving maid’s not for your ravishing.”

  Her contempt scalded his self-esteem. His face suffused almost purple, he snarled at her. Feet pelted up the stair, and Red Adam projected himself on to the gallery.

  “Hell’s Teeth! Whose throat’s being cut?” Avice uttered a thin cry and crouched against the door. He looked down at her in utter disgust. “Stop squealing like a pig with the knife at its neck, you drizzling ninny! It’s time you learned what a man is.”

  “You’ve refused me my due rights, Adam,” Reynald stated thickly. “You’ll not deny me this serving wench tonight—or are you keeping her for yourself?”

  “For myself? I’ve no use for the misery.”

  Reynald took that for consent, and grinned at Julitta in brutal satisfaction. Avice squealed and scrambled up. Julitta thrust her towards her chamber, but she backed away along the gallery, mouth and eyes witlessly agape. Julitta set herself in Reynald’s path, staring past him with all her earliest aversion into her husband’s shocked face.

  “She is my serving maid under my protection.”

  “You heard Adam. Give her up as he bids you!”

  “You make me a bawd to provide a brothel for your friend’s pleasure?” Julitta demanded savagely of her husband, her right hand at her sleeve. Appalled comprehension filled his face.

  “Reynald, no! My wife’s honor is mine! No!”

  Reynald was already launched. He grabbed Julitta by the arm and spun her back into the doorway. Red Adam hurtled past her and sprang on him as he clawed for the screaming girl. They grappled, reeling against the wall. Reynald, his forearm under Red Adam’s chin, tried to crack his skull against the stone. The younger man twisted lithely, back-heeled him and flung him off. He shot backward, arms upflung and whirling, and crashed against the gallery rail. With a splintering screech the rotten wood gave way. For a heart’s beat he hung poised on the edge, a yell of alarm bursting from him. Red Adam lunged, making a grab at his tunic skirts, but the falling weight was too much for him. The two toppled together to crash among the stacked trestles, boards and benches below.