The Running Vixen

Guyon relaxed, and with a grunt led Adam to the small solar at the far end of the hall, which was screened from the main room by a fine, carved wooden partition and a curtained archway. ‘Not just for the joy of seeing his grandsons, I’ll warrant,’ he said cynically as he sat down on a pelt-covered stool. ‘Since the death of his heir, Henry’s been so eaten up with envy of my own brood that it hasn’t been safe to make mention of them, let alone set them beneath his nose, William in particular.’

Hardly surprising, thought Adam. King Henry had fathered over a score of bastards, Lady Judith among them, but his only legitimate son had drowned and his new young wife showed no signs of quickening. The White Ship had been a magnificent vessel, new and sleek when she was boarded in Barfleur on a cold November evening by the younger element of the court, intent on catching up with the other ships that had left for England earlier in the afternoon. The passengers were well into their cups, the crew also, and the ship had foundered on a rock before she even cleared the harbour, with the loss of almost everyone on board. Guyon’s firstborn son and heir had also been a victim of the White Ship disaster, but there were four other boys to follow, the last one born only a month after the sinking. ‘He’s inviting everyone else too, for the purpose of binding their allegiance to Matilda as his successor.’

Guyon rubbed at a bark stain on his chausses. ‘Bound to come I suppose,’ he sighed. ‘She is, after all, his only direct heir, but it won’t be a popular move. Is he expecting a rebellion?’

‘Reluctance, yes. Rebellion no.’

The lines at the corners of Guyon’s mouth deepened. ‘Some will come very near to it,’ he said, frowning. ‘It’s going to stick in the craw to have to render homage to a woman — a foreign woman at that — and from what I hear of her, Matilda won’t offer them a sweetener to help them swallow their bleeding pride. She’d rather see them choke on it.’ He cast Adam a speculative look. ‘What about William le Clito? He’s the King’s nephew by his older brother, and certainly has prior right to Normandy, if not to the throne.’

‘Are you one of le Clito’s supporters?’

‘God’s balls, no!’ Guyon gave a short bark of laughter. ‘What do you take me for? The lad’s no more set up to rule than a blind hawk’s capable of bringing down prey! He’s done nothing all his life but dance to the French King’s schemes! If I favoured anyone, it would be one of Henry’s other nephews, Stephen of Blois, and even then I’m not so sure. He’s too good-natured and not enough iron in his soul to be strong like Henry.’

Adam nudged a sprig of dried lavender among the rushes with the tip of his boot. ‘What about Robert of Gloucester? He’s Henry’s son, and he’s got the stamina that Stephen lacks.’

Guyon dismissed Adam’s candidate with a wave of his hand. ‘If we allowed ourselves to think of him as our future king, we’d have to consider all the other royal by-blows, and they number as many as the years Henry’s been on the throne, and include my own wife. Besides, Gloucester’s not like that, and I know him well enough to trust one of my sons in squirehood to him. He’s not the kind to desire the weight of a crown on his head, and he used to worship the ground Matilda trod on when they were small children.’

Adam dipped his head. ‘Point taken.’

Guyon looked shrewdly at Adam. ‘But, if we swear for Matilda, then we also swear for her future husband, whoever he might be — or do we have a say in that? Knowing Henry for the slippery creature he is, I think not.’

Adam took a mental back-step, realising from whom Renard had inherited his sudden thrusts of perception.

‘Do you know who he might be?’ Guyon pursued. ‘No clues on your long tramp from Germany?’

Adam felt his ears burning. ‘No, sir.’ He watched his toe crush the strand of lavender and all the little dried balls fall off into the rushes. A pungent, herbal smell drifted past his nostrils.

‘Fair enough.’

‘It’s not that. ’

Guyon shook his head. ‘If you cannot speak, then so be it. Doubtless I’ll learn soon enough. Suffice to see that you are keeping your fighting men. I know what to expect.’

‘I’m not keeping them so much for that purpose as for the Welsh.’ Adam uttered the half-truth, half-lie with what he hoped was plausible sincerity. After all, it was only what he had inadvertently overheard between the King and the Bishop of Salisbury, whose tentative discussion had been more an examination of possibilities than anything solid. ‘Heulwen said that there is a new lord across the dyke causing trouble?’

‘Davydd ap Tewdr,’ Guyon said with a grimace. ‘And trouble is not the word. Either that or I’m slowing down. He’s been running rings around me and the patrols. He claims that my tenants and Ralf ’s have encroached beyond his boundaries. Well, you can’t stop the farmers grazing their beasts where they see good pasture, and the animals can’t tell the difference between Welsh grass and English grass — it all tastes the same. There’s bound to be some encroachment, and I’d be a naive fool if I believed it was all one-sided. I suppose I should take my troop across the border and hunt him down, but he’s skilled in woodcraft, and I’d not be assured of the victory. I’ve even toyed with the thought of offering him a marriage alliance now that Heulwen’s a widow. She’s Welsh on her mother’s side and part of mine through her namesake my grandmother, but I’ve as good as committed myself to de Mortimer’s offer when it is made official.’

Adam was horrified. ‘Jesu — you surely don’t mean to accept!’

Guyon shrugged. ‘Warrin’s father is a personal friend. He mooted the idea of a match between them more than ten years ago, but Heulwen had already drawn her bow at Ralf and I turned the offer down. Since then, Hugh’s been trying to pair off his infant daughter with Renard, but I have no intention of accepting. This will ease the pressure on me. Besides, with the Welsh being so troublesome, we need authority like Warrin’s along the border. Widows don’t stay widows long in the marches. It is too dangerous, and Heulwen accepts the fact of an early remarriage.’

‘You are willing to sacrifice her in the name of policy?’

Guyon looked irritated. ‘Grow up, Adam. How often are matches made without a practical reason behind them? It’s hardly a sacrifice. She likes him well enough, and Warrin’s matured since those early days. Still likes his own way and has the will to get it, but that happens to be an advantage when it comes to dealing with my daughter. She’d walk all over a man of less character. You know what she’s like.’

‘Not the kind to live in amity with a man of de Mortimer’s ilk for long,’ Adam said thickly. ‘What will you do if he thrashes her? As I remember, it was his every remedy for those who baulked his will or answered him back.’

‘I told you, he’s learned control since then. People change as they mature. She is my only daughter, and precious for the memory of her mother as well as for herself. I would never put her in a situation where I thought she would be unhappy.’

Adam said nothing, but his lips thinned.

‘I realise that you and Warrin hate the sight of each other, that it goes gut-deep, and I know you are tired from your journey, so I make allowances. Suffice to say the final choice is my daughter’s. I won’t constrain her to anything she does not desire of her own free will, and she knows it.’

Adam pinched the bridge of his nose. Gut-deep, so Guyon said. Yes, it affected him thus: a quivering tension in the belly, but it also ran bone-deep and soul-deep, and was not something he would ever be able to discuss with detachment. Better to change the subject before there was a rift.

‘How fares Lord Miles? Is he still well?’

‘Fit as a flea considering his years!’ Guyon laughed with relief in his voice, equally anxious not to quarrel. ‘The damp plagues his bones and he tires more quickly than he used to, particularly since Alicia’s death. She was a full ten years younger than he was and he always thought he would go first. He’s taken William into the hills for a few days. The boy wants to learn to track like a Welshman, and my father’s obliging, although I don’t believe the lad’s capable of keeping still for longer than the time it takes to blink. They’re due home tomorrow or the next day.’

Adam said ruefully, ‘I keep thinking of William as a babe in arms, it hardly seems a day since his baptism.’

‘Three months after the White Ship went down and our future security with it.’ Guyon’s expression was suddenly harsh. ‘God grant the lad a warrior’s arm and a lawyer’s cunning when he comes to manhood. He’s going to need both.’