LordoftheHunt (3 page)

Adam jammed another thick candle onto an iron spike. His
squire, Douglas, grunted and fumed behind him. It was difficult to conceal a
grin as Douglas insulted first the slotted wooden bed frame, then the bedding.

“Ye cultivate a hard air, ye do, but I know ye sleep on a
soft mattress. Feathers indeed! Linen and furs!” He sniffed. “Why ye cannot
sleep on a straw pallet like the rest ‘o us, I’ll never know.”

“You claim contempt for all trappings of wealth when you’re
at the alehouse, but I’ve caught you napping on the very mattress and furs you
so soundly curse, so you don’t fool me.”

Douglas sniffed again and tossed a fur across the bed.

Adam gave the man a clap on the back, then a nudge toward
the tent’s flap. “See to Sinner and then hie yourself to the alehouse. I want
to know what brews.”

Douglas touched his forelock and bobbed his head. “Oh, aye.
We’ll see what brews. Ha. Ha. Good one, sir.”

No sooner had Adam tugged off his boots and fallen with a
groan on his soft mattress than Hugh came through from the front section of the
pavilion to the back sleeping space. He sat on one of the two folding stools
near a trestle table on which a page would soon lay out the evening repast.

“So, you persist in this nonsense?” Hugh swept out his hand
to indicate the luxurious pavilion. “Why not share my chamber?”

“It is not nonsense. You may sleep in the keep, but I will
not. Not until I can assume my rightful place.”

“And if you don’t win Lady Mathilda?”

“Then I will never sleep there.” He grinned at his friend.
“But I do not intend to lose.”

It pained him he could not tell Hugh the true reason he was
at Ravenswood. He would miss his friend’s council. Adam shifted his backside on
the mattress. “I feel as if I’ve been beaten with a stick.”

Hugh dragged his stool close to the camp bed and dropped his
voice to a whisper. “Have you no fear someone will recognize you?”

“Mayhap someone will find me somewhat familiar. But I
visited Ravenswood only three times between my ninth birthday and my fifteenth.
Twice at Christmas and once to see my mother buried. Who will remember a child
from so long ago? I’m a man rising three decades. I’ve nothing in common with
that boy.”

Hugh grunted. “Marriage is no way to get Ravenswood back.
You have to take the lady with it.” He shuddered.

The tent flap opened and Adam’s page entered with a tray of
stewed lampreys.

Adam swung his feet off the bed with an oath, then shuffled
over to the table. “Thank God it’s not boar.”

He patted the page on the shoulder. “See to my sword. It may
have sustained some damage today.” The boy bobbed his head with every order.

When he was gone, Adam settled at the table and sliced the
lampreys. “Would you like some of this?” he asked his friend, but Hugh refused
with a grimace.

Adam shrugged. Eels were his favorite dish, but after one
taste he said, “The cook will not recognize me. Whoever made this was not here
in my mother’s time. She’d have sent him to feed the dogs, after she threw the
dish in his face.” With a shake of his head, he poked an eel with the point of
his dagger. “Tasteless. In need of some spice or other.”

Hugh cleared his throat. “Adrian.”

Adam lifted a staying hand. “Do not start. And do not slip
and call me Adrian again. You do not appreciate what troubles you could cause
me. I’ve not the power to test a king’s banishment—or not yet.”

“As you wish,
Adam
. But I think you’re foolish to
persist in this endeavor.”

“We had this discussion in Winchester. I cannot acknowledge
that I am Adrian de Marle. King John might be dead, but my father isn’t cleared
of his crimes. He’s still banished, and I’m still a banished lord’s son. Had we
not been fostered together at de Warre’s castle, you’d not even know I was…who
I am.”

He covered his emotion by attacking the eels.

Hugh touched Adam’s arm. “I recognized you. Others might.”

“Not by my face.” Adam pulled away. “If I’d not whistled,
you’d never have recognized me either.”

“Aye. You’ve changed, I’ll grant you that. You’re a hand
taller than you were at ten and five. You’ve a beard, you’ve that interesting
scar through your eyebrow, but still, you have your father’s mien. ‘Tis that
which might give you away.”

Adam shrugged.

“If you shaved, you’d have better luck with the lady. As it
is, you look like a tuppence-a-day mercenary.”

Mayhap it was fatigue that made Adam turn from the table and
stab the air with his dagger. “I am a mercenary.”

“You cannot change what you are. You were born a baron’s son
and banished or not, you remain one.”

“No longer. Forget who I once was. I am Adam Quintin now and
no one else. Adam because I have no history. I can claim nothing. I am no one.”
He thrust the dagger into the table.

Hugh shook his head. “You may still be recognized. You risk
hanging for entering England under banishment.”

“I’ve been here more than ten years. You’re the only person
who’s recognized me in all that time.”

“But I’ll wager you’ve not been in company with so many of
England’s high born in one place at one time.”

Adam withdrew his dagger from the table. “Bishop Gravant
will not know me. He was fawning over the pope when my father was banished.”

“It is said he will choose for Lady Mathilda if the week
ends and she’s not made her own choice.”

“The lady will choose me,” Adam said. “I was to have been
the fifth lord of Ravenswood and nothing will stop me. Did you know my
grandfather gained this manor through his prowess as a warrior with William the
Conqueror?”

“Ah, then if there are any Saxon folk here, they would
dispute your claim.”

Hugh grinned, but Adam could not join in his amusement. “My
grandfather wed the Saxon lord’s daughter. That should satisfy those who want a
lineage from before William’s time. I grew up on stories of this place and my
right to rule it.”

Hugh shook his head. “You’re setting yourself up for pain.
You’re placing your future in the hands of a feckless female and the power of
your face to lure her to your bed.”

Nay, he was placing his future in his ability to ferret out
a traitor.

Adam rose, ignoring the pain in his spine. “You, who can
have anything, do not know what it is to lose everything. You only grant me
your time because you know who I am. If not for our mutual suffering under de Warre’s
tutelage, you’d not sit within ten feet of me at this table. A mercenary? A man
with no lineage? A man with nothing but what he’s seized with his own two
hands?”

“That’s not true.” Hugh shot to his feet. “Do you think so
little of me? Am I not here to cheer you and your men in the tournament when I
could be currying favor with William Marshal?”

Adam instantly regretted his harsh words. He lifted his
hands palms up in peace. “That was ill considered. I must have jarred my head
when I fell off Sinner.” He extended his hand to his friend.

Hugh stared at it a moment, then took it. “You’re a right
knave when you want to be. If you’d not saved me from de Warre’s fist a dozen
times, I’d toss you like Sinner did—over my head and into that dish of eels.”

Adam stabbed a lamprey and wiggled it in Hugh’s face,
splattering him with the wine sauce. “I saved you a thousand times. And what of
de Warre’s fat daughter? Did I not protect you when she tried to get under your
tunic? Now, sit.”

The two men sat, but not in their usual comfortable silence.
It pained Adam to be at odds with his friend, the only man before whom he
usually need have no pretense. He wished he could tell Hugh he was here to pull
the mask from a traitor, not court a fine lady.

He could have Ravenswood, but only as a temporary owner
through the rights of marriage to the lady. If no son was born of a union with
Mathilda before he died, the manor would go to one of her relatives, not his.

Instead, he would have Ravenswood through a worthy deed for
King Henry, granted to him and his heirs for all time as it should have been.
And his first act as lord would be to send Lady Mathilda away to a convent
somewhere.

But sometimes, when he lay on his bed at night and tried to
sleep, he doubted his ability to find William Marshal’s traitor. So far, and
he’d joined up with most of the suitors in Winchester, they seemed to be only
what they were—men who wanted to lay claim to a valuable manor through
marriage. It did not make them traitors, it made them ambitious. His
inadequacies as William’s arm taunted him.

“So what were you doing alone in the forest today?” Hugh
asked.

Adam was grateful for the switch to a neutral subject. “I
thought to visit a few childhood haunts. I’ve never encountered a boar so close
to the castle.”

“Mayhap ‘twas enchanted. Mayhap Mathilda turned one of her
cast-off lovers into the beast and he could but linger near for a glimpse of
her.”

Adam laughed. “If she has such power, she could conjure up a
mate without resort to a tournament and hunt.”

Hugh stood up. “If you win Lady Mathilda, and I have little
doubt you’ll fail, you’re setting yourself up for misery. I’ve met her half a
dozen times. She’s vain. Vain women think only of themselves and their own
wants. She’ll take lovers. Or, if she does not, you’ll need to fight off those
who aspire to be her lover.”

“I’m not afraid to fight.”

“You’d fare better with a woman like that huntress you met
today.”

“Huntress?” Adam frowned. “When did you see her?”

“I saw her for a moment in the forest, running away, then I
saw her again at the kennels.” Hugh pointed in the direction of the west wall
of the castle. “She’s more your sort. Invite her here and end your monkish
ways. She looks a tasty morsel, and it might soften your manner to the fair
Mathilda.”

“I don’t think the huntress is a whore.” Adam had seen Joan
at the kennels as well. He’d not thought of an easy mark as he’d watched her
lead her dogs inside.

Nay, he’d thought of how the fair huntress, far from plain
by any but a blind man’s standards, might appear in bright sunshine. Would her
brown hair glitter along the golden strands that wove in profusion through its
mass? Would her skin feel as soft as it looked? And what would her doe-dark
eyes look like in sunshine? Or moonlight?

“I should have bedded that wench at Winchester,” he
muttered. To Hugh he said, “The men may say what they wish about her, but the
huntress saved my life. I owe her more than a tumble in the hay.” He picked up
the boar’s tusk that Brian de Harcourt had sliced from the great beast and slid
his hand along its length. “It was uncanny, Hugh. The boar had me. I was
stone-cold dead. Then she and her dogs appeared. I owe her a debt I can never
repay.”

* * * * *

Night cloaked the bailey in its protective embrace. Joan
loved this time of day. Work was done and it was time for one’s own concerns.
The soft light of torches gleamed in every arrow slit and at the open doors of
Ravenswood’s hall. It had not been illuminated in such a grand manner since
King John’s visit a few years before his death. What must it be like to be Lady
Mathilda and look out over this sea of tents and know ‘twas all for her?

Two men, knights by their garb, hurried by on their way to
the hall and swept her with admiring glances. One of these men would win the
lady’s hand. Unbidden, Joan’s eyes went to the black pavilion close by the
chapel.

A truly highborn man would not be sleeping in a tent in the
bailey. He’d be given an honored place within Ravenswood’s keep. She knew from
the preparations there that every spare chamber and space had been cleaned and
readied, and pallets stuffed with straw and sweet herbs to receive some noble
head.

Joan watched her feet and quickened her pace that she might
not attract the attention of the many strangers about. She headed for the wash
house and her good friend, Edwina.

Edwina was not to be seen. The moist heat from the many
boiling pots made sweat break out on Joan’s brow.

“Where is Edwina?” she asked Del, the young man who kept the
wood fires going. He was tall, strong, blond and good-natured.

“Come for some gossip, have ye?” he asked with a grin.
“Folks have been in and out all day after ‘er. She knows everythin’ about
everybody out there.” Del pointed with a length of wood to the many tents.
“Edwina’s eyes are as sharp as ‘er nose. She’ll know what ye want about yon
suitors.”

Joan’s cheeks heated. “I’ve just brought a gown that has
blood on the skirt.”

Del took it, but his grin remained in place. “Aye, well,
ever’one else just has somethin’ they need washed, too. If ye want her, she’s
out there. Some squire, Douglas by name, methinks, had some bloody garments as
needs cleaning. As if a body needs no sleep.” Del shook his head with disgust.

Joan thanked Del and turned away. The air in the bailey felt
cold after the wash house, but her cheeks still burned. She headed toward home.

Joan and the mice had the dark perimeter of the castle wall
to themselves save for the sentries who stood high overhead on the ramparts.
The evening air was almost balmy.

She heard Edwina’s voice before she saw her. The tiny woman
stood at the magnificent black pavilion, her hands on her hips. She was as
round as she was tall. Her full cheeks were permanently red from her years bent
over boiling pots. Her graying hair hid under her linen headcovering. Joan’s step
slowed, and she peered from behind the low branches of an old chestnut tree.

Edwina looked like a child next to the taller figure of Adam
Quintin.

“Ye’ll hand that bloody tunic over as well, sir,” the
laundress said. “I’ve seen the like ‘o ye before, and will no’ blush at the
sight, so give it here.”

Edwina shook her finger in Adam Quintin’s face. Joan took a
quick step forward to interfere, should the warrior take umbrage.