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CHAPTER 1
Within sight of Brentborough village and the castle lowering over it, and five miles from home, the lady's palfrey cast a shoe. Pronouncing maledictions on the cross-eyed sot who had shod her, the groom swung down, set his mistress in his own saddle, recovered the shoe and started to lead the limping mare.
"Could ha' been worse, Lady Julitta. Handy enough to a forge, and if t' smith's not sober he soon will be."
"A little early for him to be incapable," she replied drily.
"Who's to say these days, wi' t' new lord setting such a rare fine fashion in tippling? And mind you, m' lady, while I deals wi' t' smith, you sets mum as a mouse in t' priest's house outa sight."
The lady grinned. "So desperate a ravisher?"
"Best put no temptation in his road, m' lady," the groom answered austerely, and as they squelched into Brentborough through the drizzle he steered her firmly for the church on their right hand. A man standing in the doorway of the alehouse, whose green bush proclaimed a fresh brewing, recognized their plight and called over his shoulder. One fellow came running to take the nervous mare, and the smith appeared, no more than amiably moistened, and ambled towards his forge. Then the alewife herself emerged and trotted heavily across the miry green, her bosom surging with the effort, and dropped a curtsey.
"If you seeks Father Simon, m' lady, he's up at t' castle shriving some poor sinner, God rest him," she panted, crossing herself. "'Twouldn't be seemly, for sure, for you to set foot beyond t' gate, and a stiffish climb too. But if you're wishful to rest out o' t' rain while Edgar shoes your mare, Lady Julitta, I'd be honored, though 'tisn't fitting I knows —"
"Right gladly, and I thank you," The lady accepted, dismounted and shook out the damp-spangled skirts of her shabby riding dress. On so wet an evening she was grateful for any shelter. Ignoring her groom's disapproving eye, she accompanied her hostess to the alehouse, where the customers were summarily shooed out.
"Off home, ye slummocky gawks — off ye gets to your wives, trying to keep your suppers from scorching while you swills! Mend your manners, goggling like codfish at the noble lady!" She flapped her apron at them, and they scuttled, laughing, all save one old woman sharply regarding them over a wooden piggin. Her wizened face disappeared behind it, and she swallowed like a veteran. "Aye, you too, gran'mother! Time all honest women was inside their own doors!"
The old woman smacked the piggin down on the bench with a jar that demonstrated its emptiness. "If I was your gran'dam you'd ha' been born wi' more wit nor you've got now, Gunhild," she declared belligerently, "an' as for honest, I'm past being owt else an' so are you!" She bounced from the bench, a bundle of bones in withered skin, and past them to the door. Outside, she poked her head round its frame. "Put less water to your malt if you'd have a brew worth drinking," she recommended, winked alarmingly at the girl, and vanished.
"Tippling owd besom — never heed her! Come sit you down, my pretty dear — m' lady. A horn o' new ale, now? And what's your fancy? There's green cheese, and eggs, and fresh-baked bread, or shall I toss you up a fry o' bacon? You'll be sharp-set riding from t' nunnery, and likely not much to your dinner, the Reverend Abbess being too holy-minded to set much thought on folk's bellies."
Holy was not the word the girl would have applied to the Reverend Abbess' mind, but she laughed, accepted the horn of ale, coarse bread warm from the hearth and soft cheese, declining all else the widow's bounty pressed on her. She warmed to a kindness seldom hers, even though she knew that Brentborough would be wearied for weeks to come by the honor done Gunhild's house by young Lady Julitta of Chivingham. She looked about her in the twilight that came through the open door. The single log, flat on its bed of ash, smouldered sullenly, eddying a blue haze about the blackened side of bacon, the half mutton-ham, the dried fish, strings of onions, and bunches of herbs that hung from the rafters. In a corner a shaggy bitch suckled a tumble of pups, and the earthen floor, smooth and hard as polished wood, had been newly swept and strewn with green rushes. The air reeked of the sweet-sour scent of brewing.
"Let me fill up, m' lady. Dismal riding today, and your gown all mired. A rough road for a lady, and on a bootless errand too, for o' course you're about Lord William's business, and everyone knows as t' holy Abbess isn't t' lady to abate a scrap o' her house's rights, and all Holy Church to her back. But 'tis your uncle's affair." She cocked a knowing brown eye at the girl, who retired prudently behind the ale-horn, marveling afresh that the peasants knew every secret of hall and bower. Not that her uncle had any secrets, since he loudly proclaimed his mind on all matters that engaged it.
The alewife bustled about the hearth, pulling the iron firedogs closer, setting a couple of fresh logs against them, sweeping in the ashes. The girl munched with healthy hunger, reflecting on an unpleasant errand whose fruitless outcome she would have to explain to her uncle, though why he should expect her to prevail when his lawyer, his chaplain, and he himself had failed to budge the Abbess a hair's breadth from her stand, was past her comprehension. Whatever flaws his lawyer had discovered in his grandsire's charter making over the disputed acres, the nunnery had been in possession these thirty years, and his suggested compromise that it restore half, to avoid the mutually ruinous costs of a lawsuit, had been rejected with the contempt it merited. Nor was it easy to plead a hopeless cause with a detestable woman. The girl shrugged incautiously, and regretted it; her shoulders still ached from the beating her protests had brought her.
A steady ring of hammer on iron proclaimed the smith's industry. She had not a penny on her for payment, and her uncle, applied to, would blame her again. She would not be back before dark, incurring further censure. She swallowed the last morsels, drained the horn, and thanked her hostess. She moved to the door. The sky was darkening fast. The castle's black bulk was already pricked out with lights, gathering strength as the night thickened. A raucous yowling, rapidly approaching, jerked her head round.
Four men were trampling up the track on lathered stallions, affronting the evening with their variant versions of a lewd song. They reeled every way as they rode, reins loose and heads thrown back, but their high-peaked saddles and horseman's instinct kept them astride their mounts. The girl stepped back from the doorway with a snort of mingled amusement and disgust, knowing them for the new lord of Brentborough and his pot comrades, returned a fortnight ago to scandalize the neighborhood, this rainy harvest-time of 1173. Opposite the alehouse the leader suddenly flung up a hand and wrenched on the reins, halting song and mount together in a splatter of mud and foam.
"Come, you gallant — hey, the bush! New ale!" The other three overshot him and swung plunging horses about. "New ale!" Moved by that stimulus, they pounded across, tumbled from their saddles, and surged for the doorway.
The alewife already blocked it, hissing over her shoulder, "T' back room, m' lady!"
The lady had needed no telling, but by mischance she was on the wrong side of the doorway. The men's rush spun even Gunhild's bulk from their way, and as she staggered the foremost exultantly gave tongue.
"Hey, a wench! Hell's Teeth, she's found us a new wench!"
He lunged at her, his face split by reckless laughter under the fire-red crest of hair. She backed to the wall, too furious to be afraid.
"Hold off!" she cried in French, as they deployed about her. "I am Julitta de Montrigord, no peasant for ravishing!"
They were past heeding or understanding; yelping gleefully, they closed in. She eluded one man's wavering grasp, to be grabbed by the redhead, whose eyes functioned less independently of each other. A third clawed the kerchief from her head, and her braids tumbled free. "A match!" he howled. "A red match — for Red Adam!" As she dragged against the hold on her wrist, he flung his arms about her and planted a slobbery kiss awry on her eyebrow. His breath reeked of wine and ale.
The girl clouted him across the mouth. The redhead hauled her to him, twisting aside barely in time to evade her upjerked knee. The alewife, on all fours with her broad buttocks uplifted like a rising cow's, heaved erect, snatched a piggin from the bench and lumbered round the scrimmage's fringe, thwacking at every head in reach and yelling abuse at her liege lord and his friends. The mongrel bitch shot snarling from her corner into the tangle of legs, and snapped at any unprotected by skirts. The pups squeaked, the bitch worried, the bench and ale-barrel crashed over, the piggin cracked and Gunhild cursed, and the flurry swirled rushes and ash underfoot and gushed the murk full of smoke and sparks.
The lady's groom came on the run shouting to his mistress, and dived dagger-first through the door. The glint of steel cleared fighting men's wits. His dagger spun from a numbed hand, a kick struck his legs from under him, and he fell backwards across the overset bench and rammed the flimsy wall so that the cottage reeled. Gunhild, stepping back to clear her aim, tripped over the dog, caught her heel in her gown and sat backwards in the fire.
She rebounded screeching and rolled across the floor in a throat-catching stink of scorched wool. A foot hurled the bitch tail over teeth through the doorway. The groom scrambled up and grabbed for the dagger winking in the rushes. The only man of the four drunkards to wear a sword fumbled for it, twisted round at his back, and began to haul it clear. The lady, held by the redhead and his comrade, screamed warning, but the last man kicked at the groom's head. He went down, blood spattering from his broken mouth, and as he lurched to hands and knees, the last man caught up a trestle and stretched him senseless.
"Murderers! Ivar — you've killed him!"
The attacker spun round, lost the trestle, crossed his legs and sat on the alewife. He stared vaguely at the rivulet of ale from the overturned barrel. "Waste 'f ale," he pronounced, groped for the piggin between his feet and held it more or less under the bung hole. "Mus'n' washe good ale." His comrade had at last drawn his sword and brandished it aimlessly. "Gone 'way," he mumbled, peering about him. He observed his friend's preoccupation and conjured a piggin into his own hand.
The redhead and the other grinned across the struggling girl, who fought again to wrench free and reach her groom. "You've killed him!"
"Y'r hushban?" asked the brown man. "Nev' min'— not mish him tonight."
"Not dead," the redhead assured her, still grinning. "Broke head — salve in morning — hish price. Don' fight — more fun with me." He tugged her towards him.
"No!" his companion objected. "My wench — you had lash one — thish mine."
"Who's lord of Bren — Bren'b'rough — me or you?"
The girl braced herself against their tugging and spoke with icy clearness. "I tell you, I am William de Montrigord's niece, no peasant!"
Despairingly she realized that even had they been sober enough to understand her and appreciate the quality of her French, they would not have believed her; William de Montrigord's niece should not be found in a village alehouse, attired like a peasant girl and attended by only one groom.
'"S my turn!" the brown man was arguing with drunken tenacity. "You had yellowhead — thish one mine." He hauled at the lady's arm as though to tear her asunder, and she kicked him fiercely on the kneecap. He staggered. The redhead, who had either imbibed less or owned a harder head, jerked at her other wrist, and as he stumbled within reach smote him under the ribs' arch with his clenched fist. He reeled back, fetched up against the wall, slid down it and spewed all that was within him.
The redhead hooted gleefully and grappled the girl to him, spinning her round adroitly so that she could only kick back at his legs. He heaved her from her feet and slung her over his shoulder. "Alwaysh liked — sh-spirit," he declared with satisfaction, and shouldered out of the doorway into the sodden twilight. Hanging upside down, the girl pounded fists against a hard back and kicked ineffectively. He slapped her bottom. "No need — kick 'n claw — out o' hushban's sight," he told her cheerfully. She felt him squirm and fumble under her waist, and then she was swung back on to her feet, his cloak bundled her into a cocoon, and he heaved her on to a saddlebow that drove out what breath remained in her. Then he was up too, gripping her to him, urging his tired beast into a run. The rain driving into his face seemed to clear some of his wits, for he continued his tavern song to the disapproving sky.
He finished on a note more becoming to a hunting wolf, and tightened his hold on the girl, who had ceased struggling and was praying desperately to God and His Mother and the Saints for succor. He tried to kiss her, and she ducked her head into the cloak so that her crown caught his chin and made his teeth clack. He yelped. She twisted to slide through his slackened grip and over his horse's withers, and he tightened it ruthlessly. "Wan' to break silly neck?" he demanded. "Have fun — shan't hurt you."
The horse slowed for rising ground. The girl turned her head and saw the mass of a gatetower loopholed with yellow light. "Let me go!" she gasped. "Indeed I am no harlot! My uncle is lord of Chivingham —"
He did not heed her. There had been a hail, the drawbridge was creaking down, and then its planks rang hollow under the horse's hooves, the ditch's gulf gaped black below, and the portcullis' spikes hung over the gateway like the fangs of Hell's Mouth. Torchlight flared at the tunnel's further end, completing the illusion; the girl cried out to the waiting fiends that crowded forward.
"In God's Name, help me!"
"She's bashful!" Red Adam exclaimed. "Who — whoever heard of a shy whore?" He rode forward into rainy darkness, the torches spluttering along with him, and then reined in. A shape, more like an upright bear than anything human, caught the reins. He was suddenly out of the saddle, and before the girl could struggle had slung her again over his shoulder and was climbing a flight of steps, to the sound of devils' laughter below.
Candlelight glimmered on matted rushes, shifting legs and tunic hems; bawdy jests and sniggers were about her, and then her captor was mounting unlit spiral stairs. Once he stumbled, and gripped harshly as she writhed. The blood was drumming in her ears and darkening her eyeballs, she could scarcely breathe, and such terror filled her that only Red Adam's solid bones and gripping arms had reality. She kicked futilely, and he lurched against the wall and then recovered. Six strides took him to an open door, from which a pair of feet skipped nimbly aside, and he thrust through it.
For a moment he stood jerking breath into his lungs; then he grunted and kicked shut the door behind him. Sobbing in desperation as she glimpsed the bed filling most of the space, she fought frantically. He stumbled. Somehow she hooked a foot inside his knee, and they fell sideways across the bed, still locked fast. His hand fumbled at her breast, and she wrenched one arm free of the cloak, gripped a fistful of hair and tore his head back with all the strength she possessed.
He yelped and rolled from her, clutching again at her wrist. "Whash amiss?" he demanded with sottish indignation. "Don' be 'fraid — shan't hurt you. Have fun, you'n me. Shan't be mean, either." He grinned at her, his teeth gleaming in the dim light, as the crushing hold forced open her fingers and he jerked his head free. "Hushban' won' inner — interfere — shan't be mean with him either." He heaved up on his elbow, jerked her wrists together to grasp them in one long hand, and reached for the neck-lacing of her gown.
She ducked her head, sank teeth into the fleshy base of his thumb and bit until the tough skin burst and her mouth filled with salty blood. He yelped again, his hold involuntarily slackening, and she writhed free, rolled out of his cloak, off the bed and to her feet in one frantic surge of effort, wild-eyed and claw-fingered.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Red Adam's Lady"
by .
Copyright © 1973 Grace Ingram.
Excerpted by permission of Chicago Review Press Incorporated.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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