Red Adam's Lady Read online

  “Ivar!” she exclaimed, interrupting the greetings. “Where is Ivar?”

  “Hold your tongue!” her uncle bade her.

  “Is he sorely hurt? What—”

  “He’s dismissed my service for offering me gross insolence, and I’ll hear no more of him.”

  “Ivar—Ivar a masterless man!” she cried, and rounded on the man beside her. “Is there no end to the wrong you have wrought, monster?” His face and bandaged head swam in a blur of tears.

  “It seems not,” he agreed.

  A white wimple came between them. “If you’re to wed,” snapped Lady Matilda, “it’s unseemly and unlucky so much as to set eyes on each other this day until you stand before the priest, though there’s been little enough that’s seemly between you, and wedding will do no more than patch over your shame. So I’ll trouble you to give this wretched girl into my care, Lord Adam, to take her in charge and make her ready while you set your marriage feast in hand, though it’s asking a miracle of me to order a fitting ceremony at half a day’s notice and you must be distempered in your wits to expect it. Not that that isn’t plain to all when you choose to marry this graceless wench instead of Sibylla!”

  “But we may surely expect the impossible from a lady of your repute?” Red Adam replied courteously.

  The women closed on Julitta and hustled her in a scandalized flurry across the bailey, into the keep and up to the bower, vacated for their use. Lady Matilda as they went enumerated her requirements to the seneschal’s wife. “Bride clothes she must have for very shame, and no time to make or alter. And wedding attire for all of us, and bring my tire woman and all the sewing maids; I’ll not have Brentborough folk looking down their noses. Let me reckon; my second-best cendal smock and four linen ones from the chest by my bed. For the marriage, Sibylla’s scarlet gown.” Sibylla squawked dissent, and was smartly clouted. “We must all make sacrifices, and it becomes you not, so stop sniveling! My blue with the embroidered neck—no, she’s too tall; we can’t contrive four more inches. Sibylla’s green riding cloak—one more whine from you, my girl, and I’ll birch you so that you sleep on your belly for a week! Yes, and household linen; none shall sneer that she came from us empty-handed! Three pairs of sheets at least, and three of the good tablecloths—”

  The seneschal’s wife dismissed to deal with a formidable list, she pounced on Julitta to question, cross-question and requestion her about the night’s events, and then condemn her as a contumelious liar.

  Lady Constance billowed in, gracious enough to set one’s teeth on edge. “I am chatelaine of Brentborough, Lady Matilda, and would place all its resources at our bride’s disposal.”

  “Chatelaine, is it? And fine resources this slut’s domain offers, as anyone may see! Yes, and you connive at that randy young sot’s abducting noble demoiselles—”

  “And how should anyone have guessed her quality?” the fair woman retorted, and withdrew.

  “Such insolence, and to her future lady! You’ve no light task there, my girl, to set that impudent strumpet in her place after she’s queened it here ever since Lord Maurice’s wife was lost. Yes, and now I’ve set eyes on her I know what to think of her place.”

  “Her husband is seneschal,” Bertille, a professional peacemaker, pointed out.

  “It’s well known he’s as blind as a mole, and when did a husband ever deter that lecher? Did you note the gown on her? Flanders broadcloth, no less, and her girdle of silk with silver clasp and tags! A slut she is; cast your eyes over those hangings, and the smuts and cobwebs everywhere, and that sewing tossed down like a dishclout, not to mention rushes never changed these two years at least. And the serving wenches—strumpets every one, and the hold no better than a brothel.” She glared at Julitta. “Oh, yes, a splendid marriage you’ve achieved!”

  “Lady of Brentborough!” said Sibylla resentfully.

  “No! I will not!”

  “What’s that? You should be on your knees thanking God! Here you stand, cast off by Gerald of Flackness, dowerless and housed by our charity you’ve so shamelessly disgraced, and Red Adam—Saints keep his wits from him until the knot be safe tied—will make you Lady of Brentborough!” Lady Matilda sniffed disapproval of Heaven’s decrees.

  “It is rape!” Julitta protested in panic, her horror waking afresh.

  “Rape? Nonsense! It’s what befalls every girl on her marriage, and never let that insult come to Red Adam’s ears when he has condescended so far. School yourself to be meek and obedient and please your husband. However you mislike him, you will have a great estate to rule, and your children for consolation. Besides, he will soon weary of you and return to his low-born paramours.”

  Julitta had no wish to rule a great if disorderly estate, and the prospect of a string of brats in Red Adam’s image appalled her, but the probability of a husband who would turn from her to peasant paramours she found, inconsistently enough, even less tolerable. She stared at the great bed set against the wall, clenched her fists until her nails cut into her palms, and fought revulsion that would set her shrieking if she gave way.

  “Lechers and ravishers to a man, the Lorismonds,” Lady Matilda yapped on, “and unchancy to marry, as old Maurice proved.” She did not add the conventional “God rest his soul” to the dead’s name, because no one had ever entertained any doubts as to that sinner’s destination when he died unconfessed and unshriven nearly a year ago. “We’ll not know what befell his poor wife until the dead rise up at Gabriel’s trumpet, but I for one will never believe he didn’t slay her, for it stands to reason she’d have gone to her kinsmen if she’d been alive—”

  “And this cousin’s another drunken lecher,” said Sibylla spitefully, “and he’s only wedding you to avenge his broken head.”

  Julitta backed from them. “No!”

  “You’ll do as you’re bidden, and thank God—”

  “I’ll refuse at the altar!”

  She held desperately to that resolve through all the clamor they raised about her. As a last resort Lady Matilda sent for her husband, and he limped into the bower. He had been drinking; wine temporarily deadened the pains in his joints but did nothing to ameliorate his temper. “God’s Head! You’re mad!” he bellowed at her. “Refuse such a match for some silly distemper?”

  “I will not!”

  “Think, you witless ninny! You’ll rule a dozen rich estates, you’ll wear fine clothes and jewels, and by God’s Blood, Red Adam will be an easier husband than Gerald! And who else would take his leavings?”

  “No!”

  “And what of your duty to me, your guardian, after I’ve housed you all these months? Let alone it’s my right to dispose of you, is there no decent gratitude in your carcass? This match is God’s answer to our prayers! We must have Brentborough with us if our righteous enterprise on behalf of the Young King is to prosper, and your part is to join your husband to us, so that we dispossess that tyrant the second Henry who oppresses England. There’s the holy Saint Thomas, martyred at his own altar, to avenge, and our Young King to set on his throne! It is manifestly God’s will; why else should Lord Adam set his crazy fancy on you?”

  “I will not—”

  “God’s Head, you’ll obey if I have to thrash you twice a day and lock you in the cellar on bread and water! It’s not for you to say you will or you will not, but to wed where you’re given and be thankful.”

  But dread had become an obsession in the girl; no normal fear could take root in her. She snarled at him. “No!”

  “Wait until I have you home in Chivingham, and I’ll flay the skin from you! You’ve shamed my household, brought scandal on my name, and defied me to my face. Honest wedlock’s not for you? If you’d turn whore like your mother you’ll do it beyond my boundaries.”

  The women, blasted into the furthest corner by his wrath, squeaked and cowered. Julitta confronted him, her legs quivering and her loins a jelly; she could not have budged had she tried, but that served for resolution. An icy-cold corner of her
brain wondered how long he might indulge himself in meat, wine and fury before an apoplexy smote him. His voice reverberated through the keep. Words failing him, he lifted an arm to clout her headlong, and a voice behind him said sharply, “My lord!”

  He turned heavily. “The wench defies me—”

  “And you’re so gently persuasive!” Lord Adam came swiftly between them, and Julitta involuntarily recoiled, to her own fury. It braced her. He halted within arm’s reach, and she stared up savagely into his dark eyes. “Demoiselle,” he said gravely, “let me make this reparation. I swear to honor and cherish you all our days. If you go back with your kindred you’ll be very hardly used.”

  “If I’m to be raped I’ll not consent to it,” she spat. He blanched.

  “God’s Head, I’ll exorcise this madness!” Lord William roared.

  “My lord, be merciful! Use her kindly—”

  “Kindly? For defiance to my face? I’m master in my own household, Lord Adam, and I’ll thank you to remember it.”

  He bit his lip. “Lord William, she’s a desperate maid. Grant her time to consider—”

  “She’s run mad. Put her from your mind. You’ll do better with my daughter.”

  A gesture brought Sibylla forward, shrinking and preening at once. Red Adam cast one blighting glance over her and shook his head. “My mind is fixed, and I’m obstinate as your niece.”

  Lord William grunted and beckoned his women. “And she’s made a fool of me; there’ll be no wedding this day. Out with you!”

  Down in the bailey there was delay while surprised grooms scurried to saddle up. Deserting the wine-jug, the men trooped down from the hall, moistened to imprudence and broadly jesting over the abandoned marriage. Lord William champed, every look at Julitta a threat; sick apprehension assailed her as she considered the reckoning. Red Adam watched her.

  A square brown man, last night’s comrade who had disputed her possession, slouched to him, clouted him on the shoulder with a hoarse laugh, and said in his ear, “Heart up, man! The Saints have preserved you from your own folly, so thank them for it!”

  “I intend to marry the lady.”

  Gerald brayed. “She’s but sharpened his appetite!”

  “You set an example of rare virtue!” Humphrey jeered.

  “You reckon tossing your wenches to your men-at-arms a fitter one?”

  Humphrey snarled, and hit back. “When you’ve satisfied your revenge you can fling her from the cliffs; you’ve a fine precedent for wife-murder.”

  “Since you’re in some sort my guest,” Red Adam said evenly, “I’ll not challenge you, but neither will I tolerate you longer within my gates.”

  “Content you, I’m eager to be outside them.” Julitta stared at his livid face, and for a heart’s beat he regarded her as malevolently as he had Red Adam. Then he strode away yelling for his squire. She watched him go, her heart lead within her. Her uncle thrust her from behind, Lady Matilda yapped in her ear unheeded. The whole company, anxious to escape, was moving towards the gate. Their host in courtesy accompanied them.

  “Lord William, I pray you grant your niece respite to consider my offer,” he persisted.

  “She’ll consider it more favorably if her back smarts,” he growled, with a finality there was no disputing.

  Humphrey clopped back astride his tall chestnut, and halted under the gatetower’s arch. He looked venomously at Red Adam, and then leaned to bestow on Julitta a smile of such warmth that her wits reeled and all her dreams flowered. “Demoiselle, you’ve misery whichever way you turn,” he said, and she lifted her face, aglow with betrayal. “Come with me and escape them both.” He extended his hand.

  The instant’s dazzled, heart-hot marveling turned to rage that seared her infatuation into disillusion. Folly it had been, but it had meant light and hope through the months in her uncle’s household. Now she knew exactly how Humphrey valued her, to toss her that offer in public; an easy conquest, a few nights’ amusement, an ugly triumph over a man he disliked, and the hope of humiliating Red Adam counted first. He might as well have spat upon her.

  “Come, sweet friend, and this night share delight with me,” he invited, urging his horse closer.

  “I am no man’s whore!” she cried, and dodged aside, impeded by the press of astounded folk behind her.

  “Up with you!” He seized her right arm and tried to haul her across his saddle bow, spurring his horse under the arch. Dragged from her feet, she struck out with her free hand, her gown flapping against the chestnut’s legs. He squealed and reared, so that her arm seemed to be tearing from its socket, and Humphrey clutched his saddle bow and heaved again. The drawbridge thundered beneath them. A red head flashed on the edge of her sight. A startled howl blew from Humphrey’s mouth, his right leg jerked high from a sharp thrust, his hand slipped from the saddle bow and he sprawled beside her, tumbling her to her knees.

  She wrenched free and scrambled clear of the hooves and to her feet, surprised to find herself on the ravine’s further brink. The chestnut plunged and snorted. Red Adam set a hand on the crupper and vaulted over, landing with both feet on Humphrey’s spine. The remaining wind whooped out of him. The horse danced sideways from them. Red Adam caught Julitta before she could run a step, dropped a kiss awry on her eyebrow as she ducked, took a sharp crack under the chin as she flung her head up, and swung her round by the elbows and grappled her fast when she tried to stamp on his toes. She could feel the laughter shaking him.

  Humphrey rolled over, crowing and squawking, sleeved mud from his face and fumbled for his sword.

  “Hell’s Teeth, can’t you even heave a wench over your saddle?” Red Adam demanded unkindly. “Do you expect them to swoon under your boot soles for one smirk from your pretty face, Ladies’ delight?”

  Humphrey spat out mire and choked, “You’ll meet me—”

  “Oh, be off! You poor randy tup, you should thank me. If you tossed this one to your men she’d carve your liver out.”

  Humphrey pushed erect and cautiously straightened his backbone. He scowled at his enemy and limped to his mount, which jibbed and flung up its head. He subdued it with a vicious jerk on the rein. “God’s Blood, you’ll hear from me!” he promised, and heaved himself up.

  Julitta twisted round in a slackened hold to voice her own defiance, and past Red Adam’s shoulder saw the gorse on the ravine’s edge part, a hand grasp the drawbridge’s planking and pull, a ragged body lift over its edge and hurtle, steel glinting, at Red Adam’s back. One glimpse of a murderous face tore a screech from her.

  “Ivar!”

  She was flung sprawling, and rolled to her knees. Red Adam threw himself backward under the knife, which passed over his shoulder with a rip of cloth. He grabbed up at Ivar’s wrist and dragged him down. They squelched side by side into the mire. Ivar wrenched round and lunged at Red Adam’s throat as he rolled on to his back. Still grinning, the younger man brought up both knees, drove his feet into his foe’s exposed midriff and hurled him across the track into the rough grass. The knife sparkled wide. Red Adam bounced up, swooped on it, seized Ivar and threw him back on to the planks. The knife glinted.

  “Quick, girl, with me!” called Humphrey, reaching a hand as Julitta scrambled up. She struck it away, scarcely heeding, her horrified gaze on the other two.

  “No, you butcher!”

  Lord William’s hangman’s scowl loomed over them. “He attempted your life, Lord Adam? A priest and a rope, with all dispatch!”

  “Why so much trouble?” he asked. He caught Ivar by the neckband and hauled him, oddly unresisting, to his knees. His head jolted forward, and a groan escaped him. His torn tunic pulled away, and the victor’s grin vanished. Julitta also saw the bloody, half-scabbed stripes across his shoulders, and caught her breath. For a moment Red Adam hesitated; then the knife point pricked under Ivar’s ear, and one eyebrow lifted at her. “It’s for you to say, my lady.”

  “I will marry you.” There had been no hope from the first; she had
only deluded herself.

  “You’ll spare the knave?” demanded Lord William incredulously.

  “I’ve use for him.” He thrust the knife under his belt and hoisted the half-senseless man to his feet. “Odo! Tend and feed him and bestow him safely.” He seized Julitta’s cold hand, his face lighted with triumph. “Rejoice with me, my lords! This is my marriage day!”

  3

  Her marriage day passed for Julitta in a waking nightmare. In a trance of despair, dressed like a doll in scarlet hurriedly cobbled to her body, her hair, by Red Adam’s order, blowing about her shoulders in token of her virginity, she rode and walked, repeated senseless words like a popinjay, gave her lifeless hand into a possessive grasp, and returned unseeing through lines of yelling peasants to her prison. In a blaze of heat and light and color, at the head of a table in a packed hall vague as mist, she sat paralyzed, neither eating nor drinking. The feast roared about her, voices droned speeches of which no word reached her, toast after toast was drunk. All the time an outraged voice insisted within her that this was not real, it was not happening, this girl at Hell’s Mouth was not Julitta de Montrigord.

  God and His Mother had deserted her. A throng of women, her aunt by marriage, Bertille, Sibylla, neighbors she should know and strangers she could not name, drew her by the hands between ranks of wine-flushed faces shouting lewdness, up dark stairs to the same chamber where last night she had stunned Red Adam. Laughing and bidding her take heart, they pulled off the gown, the golden circlet from her hair, and the shoes and hose from her feet, but when they would have stripped off the cendal smock reality touched her with their fingers, and she cried out and pulled away, huddling her arms about her breasts. Someone thrust a steaming cup at her tight lips, and the scent of wine, honey and spices filled her nostrils. She ducked her head aside from it, and Lady Matilda gripped her sore shoulders, hissing admonition in her ear.