Hugh’s sole heir, and there’s some prime grazing land and flocks attached to her inheritance.’ He eyed up a smiling Welsh girl. ‘Warrin’s death hit Sir Hugh hard, you know. He was hoping to have him pardoned.’
‘Was he?’ Adam strove for indifference, but the words for all the flatness of his tone were vicious.
‘A street brawl in Angers. Not the most glorious exit to hell, is it?’
Adam’s flatness became a rough snarl. ‘He got less than he deserved!’
‘Is that what happened? Did he really get into a drunken fight on the dockside with some sailors and end up in the water?’
A muscle bunched in Adam’s jaw. ‘How should I know?’ he snapped. ‘If that is the official version given to his father then that must be the truth.’
‘I just thought that with you being in Angers at the same time—’
Adam shot out his hand and grabbed Renard’s shoulder with bruising force. Mead tilted and spilled. ‘Well keep your thoughts to yourself!’ he hissed, putting emphasis on each word.
His face was close, the firelight burning in his eyes. Renard held him look for look, but felt his innards dissolve. He was reminded of a wolf. Adam made a sound in his throat, thrust Renard aside, and having risen to his feet, stalked away from him.
Renard smoothed the mark of fingerprints from the crushed fur on his shoulder and deliberated whether to go after him or not. Did he owe Adam an apology? He pursed his lips and decided he didn’t. It was Adam’s reaction that was at fault, not the imprudence of his own tongue.
The Welsh girl lifted a pitcher and came to replenish his cup. He watched the flow of her body within the simple linen gown and decided that whatever was troubling Adam, he was best left alone until he was cool enough to handle.
It was cold outside the hall, a crisp frost drifting upon the twilit air. Adam watched the vapour steam from his breath and his urine. Laughter floated out to him, and singing, and the warm greasy smell of roasting mutton. He finished and went slowly back within the hall and leaned his shoulder against a supporting pillar to watch the roistering. He not only felt like an outsider, he knew that he was one. Renard was thoroughly occupied in persuading the Welsh girl to sit down beside him. Adam thought about making amends and decided that keeping his distance was probably the best way.
‘He’s on a promise there!’ grinned Rhodri ap Tewdr.
Adam turned to the young Welsh leader who had come to stand at his side. Rhodri was flushed with mead, although only to the point of merriment, but then he had a vested interest in remaining sober tonight. ‘Seldom a time when he’s not,’ Adam snorted. ‘Do you mind? I don’t want some enraged husband or father leaping on him and starting up the war again.’
Rhodri guffawed. ‘There’s only one kind of war I want to wage on my wedding night, and it’s certainly not with you Normans. No, there’s no objection. Branwen’s husband threw her out a year ago when he caught her in the bushes with a wool merchant. I tell you, the path to her door is so well trodden that I’m amazed there’s any grass left growing round it — not that I have any personal knowledge.’
‘Of course not,’ Adam agreed gravely.
‘
The girl had her hand on Renard’s lower thigh and was leaning forward, affording him a perfect view down the front of her gown. Adam found a pitcher of mead and went off to court oblivion.
Heulwen caught her breath and, screwing her eyes shut, braced herself against the wall and gripped it, panting. The pain tightened and squeezed until she was aware of very little else. Beneath her shift, her belly was a taut mound, a burden of which she longed to be rid, and at the same time feared to do so because of the outcome.
‘Come on lass, don’t tense yourself up,’ scolded Dame Agatha, taking her arm. ‘It makes it worse. Scream if you want. There’s only me and my lady to hear. That’s it, gently now.’
Heulwen gasped with relief as the contraction diminished. ‘I wish I was somewhere else.’
Judith straightened from putting a hot stone in the bed and looked round, humour glinting in her eyes. ‘When I was having Miles, I didn’t scream once,’ she said.
Dame Agatha raised a sceptical brow. ‘You had an easy birth then, my lady?’
‘No. I was a day and a half in labour and I swore the vilest soldier’s curses through every single minute of it. Guy said it was a good thing for the sake of my mortal soul that the others were quick into the world.’
The midwife chuckled. ‘Best way. Nowt like a good bit o’ swearing to help matters along…Is that another one, lass? Come on, breathe through it now, slowly…good, good.’
Heulwen subsided, gasping. It was no use saying that she could not go on; she had no choice, but the niggling pre-dawn pains had increased their intensity down the hours until now, near noon, they were rapidly becoming unbearable.
Judith went to the brazier and set about making her a posset containing beaten egg to keep up Heulwen’s strength, and powdered raspberry leaf to aid and ease the pains. ‘It’s best that Adam is away at Rhodri’s wedding,’ she said practically as she worked. ‘He’d only be wearing a hole in the floor and getting underfoot. Men usually do, especially with a first one.’
Heulwen burst into tears and Judith turned and stared at her. She was totally baffled by the changes this pregnancy had wrought in her bright and lively stepdaughter. Yes, the carrying was a burden towards the end, and the labour a time of anxious prayer and endeavour, but Judith had expected Heulwen to weather it with a shrug and a smile, impatient to have the child in her arms. Instead she was acting like a martyr in the act of being martyred.
Dame Agatha crooned and soothed. At a loss, Judith made Heulwen drink the posset and went below to see how the keep was faring in the hands of the steward’s wife. Emerging from the turret entrance into the hall, she was just in time to witness the arrival of Adam and Renard home from Wales, and raised her eyes heavenwards in a silent plea for patience.
Fine sleet filled the wind and as she drew nearer the men her nostrils were accosted by the pungent stink of wet wool. She forced a smile of welcome on to her lips.
‘Where’s Heulwen?’ Adam demanded without even bothering to greet Judith. ‘Is she.?’
‘Her time is here,’ Judith answered calmly. ‘All is going as it should. Dame Agatha is in attendance, but my guess is dusk at least before you’ll meet your heir.’ She took his cloak and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek in a rare gesture of affection.
‘Can I see her?’
Judith in her time had scandalised the rules of convention, but she was more than taken aback by his request. Men simply did not go near a birthing chamber until well after the event. It was forbidden, a mystery, and jealously preserved that way. ‘Adam. ’ she began, trying to phrase the refusal kindly, but something in his expression stopped her before the words were spoken. She sensed he was asking her yea-say, but did not really care whether she gave it or not. It was his keep and she could not prevent him.
‘Look, she is in some pain. If it is going to overset you, then you had best wait without.’
Adam nodded curtly. ‘I’ll manage,’ he said.
Judith gave the ghost of a smile. ‘I suppose you were there at the sowing,’ she said, and did not understand why he gave her such a peculiar look.
Renard, ignored by his mother aside from an abstracted peck on the cheek, approached the hearth, blowing on his cold hands, and crouched down to the heat.
Dame Agatha was horrified to see a man enter the birthing chamber and would have driven Adam out again immediately, her sleeves rolled up, had not Judith dragged her forcibly to one side and begun whispering to her urgently.
‘Adam!’ Heulwen gave a great gasp, ran into his arms and clung to him. He took her face between his hands, fingers laced in her loose hair, and kissed her wet eyes, her cheeks, her lips, tasting the salt of sweat and tears. The swell of the imminent baby intruded between them.
