by Grace Ingram
During the next two hours a spur of the hills pushed them southward; they climbed its lower slopes, and over the ridge came on thick woodland, filling the valley with its green-black mass and thrusting up into a shallow dip between the high moors. Julitta regarded it with dismay. To skirt it would take them three or four miles out of their way, and she had learned now to reckon miles afoot differently from miles on horseback. Resignedly she followed Adam along the forest’s edge, thanking her Saints and Erling for the comfortable brogans on her ill-used feet.
Within half a mile they came upon a track appearing over the ridge and diving into the woods, and halted, looking dubiously from it to each other. Adam shook his head. “We dare not approach a settlement,” he decided.
She summoned up the inadequate knowledge of the district her confinement in the nunnery and in her uncle’s household had given her. “I reckon it’s Digglewick.”
He frowned. “I’ve never been this way, but it would be my guess too. We’ll not linger.” He caught her hand and pulled her round a tangle of elder and hawthorn massed with red and black berries. A horseman trampled out from behind it; Everard of Digglewick himself, sword in hand.
“Stand!” he ordered, and then saw Adam’s face. His mouth dropped open, and his sword drooped. “Lord Adam! Who—who used you so vilely?”
“Your comrade of Flackness,” Adam answered, slipping forward and to the right.
“No! I withdrew—I refused to have part or share—”
“Squeamish, Lord Pilate?” Adam mocked. Julitta edged to the left.
His glance flicked from one to the other, and he actually yielded ground, he the mounted man, weapon in hand, before their menace. Alarm warred with compunction in his indecisive face as he looked on the outcome of his flirtation with treason. “I’d no knowledge—no intent—Lord Adam, I’ll make amends. I’ll provide you with horses.”
Adam, gathered to spring, checked on the instant, catching his breath. “You mean that?”
“Truly, my lord. Horses—food—fresh clothing—” He regarded Adam’s tunic, rustily blotched with diluted blood, and grimaced, jarred out of his blindfold complacency by this accounting. “Only come with me.” He sheathed his sword in a gesture of amity.
They looked at each other, and Adam nodded. The chance could not be refused; horses would save them one weary day at least. Judging Everard mercilessly, Julitta reckoned him sincere; a weak man, easily overborne by pressure of a stronger will, but well-intentioned, and now honestly revolted by Adam’s mistreatment. They fell in beside him, not too near. Everard, inspecting him at closer quarters, shuddered.
“Believe me, Lord Adam, I’d no idea—I insisted no harm should be done you or your lady—”
“No harm to dispossess me for old Maurice’s bastard?”
He recoiled, and the horse reared and squealed as the bit wrenched his mouth. “His bastard? No!”
“Hell’s Teeth, were you daft enough to believe the whelp Maurice’s lawful get? His bastard out of the woman Constance, Sir Bertram’s wife.” And as the man gaped at him in appalled comprehension, he demanded, “Who conceived this crazy plot?”
“I—I—the plan was to declare for the Young King—but we had to have Brentborough, and you’d not be persuaded. I don’t know who found the boy. William of Chivingham sent his son to bring him—he’d been bred up in some monastery—and Humphrey housed him at Crossthwaite. And we did offer you one last chance,” he justified himself almost angrily, “but you rejected it, and Leicester’s reinforcements were on the way, and no time to waste, so—”
“So my seneschal was deluded into opening the gates, poor fool, to his wife’s bastard,” Adam finished in pure disgust. “Aye, and learning it killed him. It was the woman’s contriving, and who but that bitch could have provided the boy?”
“You… there’s no certainty he’s hers…”
“I’ve proof.”
“You’ve set yourself from the first…”
“I stand by my King.”
“An oppressor… a usurper… and he murdered the holy Saint Thomas!”
“I’d rather be oppressed by a murderer,” Adam said brutally, “than misruled by a whelp who calls in the Scots.”
Adam was being singularly unconciliating, Julitta reflected, glancing up at Everard’s resentful face, and then amended that judgment; Adam simply did not know how to be conciliating.
“The Scots… I can’t believe it…”
“Believe as you please. It’s ’thirty-eight over again.”
The unhappy conspirator humped himself in his saddle, staring at the dust, and said no more until the woods thinned and opened, and they glimpsed fields beyond. A herd of ridge-backed swine surged grunting from a patch of bracken, and as Everard swore at them, a man and a dog drove them from the path. Then they encountered a group of children picking blackberries, who scuttled squeaking from the sight of Adam’s face, and emerged into a narrow valley where sheep and cattle were foraging in the stubble fields and a plough team was at work in the fallow. A dozen cottages bordered the track, and beyond them the thatched roof of Everard’s manor house rose above a decrepit palisade.
“Do you depend on prayer to guard you from the Scots?” Adam demanded, after one comprehensive glance. Everard looked at him with dislike.
“I’ll not believe—”
“Until they’re beating in your door.”
The gate stood open on the cluttered garth. Hens scratching round the dunghill scattered squawking before the horse’s hooves, and at the soiind a woman came out to the head of the wooden steps that went up to the hall door; a woman in her thirties, with a fretful face prematurely wrinkled and a few wisps of graying hair escaping from beneath her wimple. She exclaimed at sight of strangers and labored down the steps, heavy with child and near her time.
“Who—Adam de Lorismond!”
“And his lady. I’ve offered them horses.”
“Are you mad?” she cried, taking the last steps in haste and lumbering to bar their way to the stable. “Aid our enemies and betray our King and friends? Send them back to Brentborough bound!”
“Our guests—”
“Have you taken thought for me and the son within me, and the vengeance there’ll be for your folly?” she screeched at him. Everard blenched; it was plain which of them ruled. “You’ll risk all for a murderer and a whore and see me miscarry of the trouble? Give them to justice, and take your proper place among his friends when our King comes to rule.”
Faces gaped from doorways and round corners, but she heeded none. Everard’s mount sidled nervously as his hands tightened on the reins, and he expostulated without conviction, “Now, wife, I cannot… to be murdered…”
In a kind of frenzy she raised her arms, fists knotted; a heavy ring glittered silver under Julitta’s nose. “You fool! Will you risk your son and his inheritance for these?” she shrieked, and clutched at her burden.
“He’ll be proud when he learns you turned Judas for his sake!” Julitta blazed, backing away.
Everard hesitated, shamed by the choice he was about to make. Adam leaped. He had jerked his left foot from the stirrup before the older man could move, and a heave under knee and thigh flung him to sprawl across his own dunghill. Adam had vaulted into his saddle as it emptied, caught the reins and wheeled the plunging beast for Julitta. The woman screeched at the servants and tried to block her way, but Julitta spun her off with a stiff-armed thrust and ran. She caught Adam’s extended hand, set her foot on his and swung up behind him. The bundle at her belt caught the crupper; she grabbed it with one hand and clung with the other to Adam’s belt as he wheeled the horse on its haunches and rammed spurless heels into its ribs. The termagant shrieked to her men to shut the gate; two threw their weight on it, but even as it came ponderously round they were through the gap.
Fading yells followed them. Women, children, poultry and dogs fled the track as he thundered down it. He slithered to a stop in the middle of the street to shout to
a face looming beyond a half-door. “Guard yourselves! The Scots are over the border!” They were shattering through spray across the ford before Julitta realized incredulously that she had known that barely-glimpsed face; it was Ivar’s. Then they were pounding between the ploughlands, across the waste into the woods. Branches slashed at them. Adam eased the horse to a run in respect for the rutted track.
“Dear God,” he said, in a half-throttled voice, “to be a cur like that—and live with it—”
“We’ve saved two leagues, and won a horse,” Julitta replied practically.
“Crows’ meat on four legs,” Adam grunted, and let the over-burdened brute slacken pace further. When they came to the end of the open woods he halted to listen, but they heard no pursuit. He slipped from the saddle, lifted her into it, and took the stirrup leather to lope alongside, through dense forest untouched by foraging pigs and firewood-cutters. They must conserve the beast’s strength, and their combined weights would speedily founder it. Julitta insisted on taking her turn afoot, and they pressed westward, avoiding skylines, while the sun swung round and down until it glared in their faces. The horse suddenly stumbled and began to limp painfully on his near fore.
“Might have expected Everard would ride an unsound beast,” Adam pronounced disgustedly, gently exploring the affected shoulder. “An old strain. Take a month at grass to render him serviceable again. He’s done.”
Julitta hitched up her skirts again and shifted her bundled cloak to ride more easily on her shoulders. They were climbing out of a valley with a brawling stream at the bottom. The sun had gone behind the hill, and already dusk was thickening under the trees. Waves of bracken bowed in the evening wind. Adam looked about him, unconsciously bracing his own tired shoulders, his face hideously blue and purple.
“We’ll find a hole to pass the night,” he decided, and led the crippled horse back down the hill and along the stream.
Luck was theirs. They shortly found an over-hanging rock-face, and leaning against it a slab thrice as tall as a man. Between them was a dry hollow drifted deep in last year’s leaves. A lingering stink and a litter of feathers, bones and scraps of shriveled skin told them a vixen had whelped and reared her cubs in it that spring, but they were past fussing about such tenants and soon kicked it clear. Adam threw saddle and bridle under cover and turned loose the lame beast to graze; with no weight to carry he would most likely hobble home.
Julitta dumped her bundle on a flat stone. “As well we shan’t need a fire.”
“I don’t suppose Everard pursued us.” Adam shrugged off his strapped cloak and dropped it beside the food. “He’s probably thanking God we won away and sweating for fear your uncle will learn he bungled so.” He stretched his arms, and as she turned away closed them about her from behind, holding her to him. His breath was warm in her tangled hair. She stood quite still, but her heart hammered, her pulses leaped, her mind dizzied. “Julitta,” he murmured thickly. “The angels that watch over drunken fools guided me to you that night.”
“Then you don’t—don’t resent it any more—that you were obliged to marry me?”
“Resent—?” For a heart’s beat he stood rigid; then he spun her about and held her by the shoulders. “Julitta, I wanted you as I never wanted anything in all my life!”
She gasped in unbelief, and he shook her slightly. “But—but—me?”
“Listen, Julitta! I didn’t marry to do penance for my lifetime! When you’d beaten my wits back into my head that night, and I saw you, so scared and so valiant, I knew I’d found you—the one woman—my children’s mother—my heart’s dear delight—” His voice roughened and broke.
“I—I—I didn’t guess—me!”
His swollen mouth twisted in a smile. “I’ve told you before, you undervalue yourself, Julitta. I had to constrain you, or I’d have lost you forever. But I love you, my own vixen. Haven’t I proved it in my wooing?”
“You never said—” she whispered, too stunned to feel anything but astonishment.
“I feared to,” he confessed, pulled her close and kissed her softly on the mouth. Then he loosed her. “I’ll not constrain you to anything, Julitta,” he promised soberly, and started away up the hill. His sword flashed, gold under the sunset. She watched him scything the rank bracken, standing in a dream. She looked down at the bundle of food, up at the paling sky all streaked with feathery clouds that were just flushing pink. Absently she freed herself of the bundled cloak, wriggling her shoulders to break the grip of her sweaty smock.
Up the hill she could hear Adam’s sword steadily slashing. The stream below her chuckled to itself, and its voice reminded her how intolerably heated and grimy she was from the day’s dust and sun. She slipped between the trees, following the water until it widened into a pool, not deep enough for swimming, but an admirable bath. She stripped off her filthy garments, stained with blood and mud and seawater, and knelt to souse and pound her linen smock against the stones. She tossed it over a bush to dry. Distastefully she surveyed the wreckage of her new riding dress. The heavy wool would never dry before morning, and she knew well the grappling discomfort of damp clothing on a march. She beat the dust out of it and shook it viciously. Then she knotted up her hair and slid in, gasping at the first shock of cold hill-water and then rejoicing in its embrace. Emerging at last clean and glowing, she dashed the water from her skin with her hands and stood to let the warm air dry her. She was wrestling on her gown when she heard Adam calling her.
“Downstream!” she answered him, tied on her brogans and started back. He was cleaning his sword, unalarmed, and the shelter’s entrance was piled with bracken. “I’ve been bathing,” she explained as he smiled at her. “I’d recommend it.”
“With reason,” he agreed, sheathed his blade and moved away among the trees. She looked over the camp. He had set out a frugal meal and prepared their beds. Two beds, one within the shelter and one at its entrance, deep piles of springy bracken with their cloaks atop. An odd smile quivering on her mouth, she heaped all the fern together under the overhang and laid her cloak across it. The bitter scent of it in her nostrils, she spread Adam’s cloak over all. She was his wife. Lying apart in their shared chamber she had wondered shamefully how it would be to know the love of his urgent body. Now, with a half-scared eagerness, she waited to surrender. She did not want him sobered, defeated, bludgeoned into humility; she wanted her arrogant Adam. But the reckless boy, she reckoned sorrowfully, was gone for ever. All she could do was give him this triumph.
He pushed through the bushes, as carelessly attired as she was in unlaced tunic and brogans, and dropped an armful of clothing and weapons with a clatter. She smiled at him, her breath fluttering, and he glanced past her at the bracken bed. His eyes widened.
“Julitta?”
“I am your wife, Adam.”
He took her by the shoulders, and she could feel the tremor in his hands. “Julitta, it’s not your reluctant body I want. I could have taken that any time I chose. Dear girl—”
She lifted her hands to grip his. “Adam—”
“I don’t want you out of pity or obligation or duty, Julitta. I want all of you, for love.”
She reached up her hands to pull his head down. “All of me is yours, Adam. I love you.”
He drew one gasping breath, his face transfigured, then caught her up. She strained to meet him, lifted her unpracticed mouth to his, and the sunset whirled about her. Then he had swung her off her feet and was carrying her to the shelter, helping her from her gown, stripping off his tunic. Naked in the brazen evening, they drew together. He unfastened her hair and shook out the heavy ripples over her shoulders and breasts, running his fingers through it. “My own lovely Julitta!” he murmured, and she went trustfully into his cool, damp embrace. He carried her down beside him on the heap of fern.
18
Julitta stirred slightly, and desisted at a tug on her hair. Completely awake, she realized that it was spread abroad and Adam was lying on it. The weight
against her shoulder was his head, and his arm lay warm across her. She smiled up contentedly at the moon flooding the shelter with silver light, remembering his tenderness. To Adam the act of love was a simple pleasure to be shared joyously, and they had mingled love with laughter. She moved a little closer, and with a wordless murmur Adam tightened his clasp. Then he woke.
“Julitta, Julitta,” he whispered, his lips moving softly over her breast and up to her throat. She kissed his hair, and nibbled gently at his ear. He chuckled and shifted back to her shoulder. “I never lay with love before,” he said wonderingly. “All the bought pleasure is worthless—a regret—”
“Consorting with harlots at least taught you how to pleasure your wife,” she said judicially, jarring him from contemplation of his misspent past.
He laughed aloud. “That unseemly observation deserves punishment,” he pronounced, and tickled her ribs. Giggling, she tugged at the hair on his nape, bringing his mouth to hers. Mirth and love joined in her; she had never dreamed of such delight. They lay quietly, entwined together, and he sighed in utter content. “Julitta, you’re sweetness itself.”
“Sweet? But—but folk called me sour and surly.”
“The fairest fruit sets the teeth on edge if you don’t wait on its ripening, heart’s darling. You are all my desire, my heart’s core.”
Such avowals came less easily from her, contemned and rejected for so long. Her skin scorched, her voice shook as she answered. “Adam, I—I do love you—I’ll try to be sweeter—”
“Oh no, my vixen. Who’d live on honey? Fruit needs a tartness to relish it. Your tongue’s my constant delight. Don’t alter—not at all.”
He slid back into sleep, and she followed. She did not rouse until the sky was bright above the trees, and Adam’s hand squeezed her arm. She blinked awake, and saw him slightly lifted on an elbow, watching. His head jerked infinitesimally, indicating something beyond their feet, and his lips shaped her name. He was smiling. She, too, cautiously eased her head from the bracken, and saw a red hind with a long-legged fawn at her heels stepping delicately to the flat rock. She sniffed at last night’s forgotten supper, and presently lifted her graceful head, a limp oatcake flapping ridiculously from her mouth. The fawn nosed the fish, attracted by the salt, and tested it with a long red tongue. Another oatcake vanished in two gulps, and the fawn, after a doubtful bite at the fish, grabbed at a third before its mother could devour the lot. A squirrel scolded from a branch above them. Then the hind, having finished the last oatcake, sniffed at the bundle and prodded it with a sharp hoof.