Free The Running Vixen by Elizabeth Chadwick

inscription O Sancta , repeated several times to make a decorative pattern. The pommel was an irregular semicircle of inlaid polished beechwood. ‘Papa says I can have a proper sword of my own next year day,’ William said eagerly.
    ‘With a proper blunt blade,’ Heulwen added. ‘You do enough damage with the plain wooden one you’ve got now!’
    Adam chuckled. ‘I can imagine!’ Gently, with more than a hint of poignant understanding, he took the sword back from the child, slotted it home, tousled the tumbled black curls, and continued with Heulwen into the keep.
    She sent a servant to fetch hot wine and offered him a chair on the dais set close to a brazier. He unfastened his cloak and draped it across the trestle; unlatching his scabbard, he placed it on top.
    ‘Do you want to unarm?’ Heulwen indicated his hauberk as he stretched out his legs to the warmth.
    He shook his head. ‘Thank you, but no, it’s only a passing visit, I won’t keep you long.’
    Heulwen looked down, wanting to apologise for the way their last encounter had ended but unsure that a reconciliation was in her own best interests. White-hot physical attraction frightened her. She had sat at its blaze before, watched it go out, and shivered over the ashes.
    The servant brought the wine and a dish of the cinnamon apple pasties, and returned to his duties. Across the hall at another trestle, Adam’s men sat around a basket of loaves, bowls of salted curd-cheese, and flagons of cider. Watching them Adam said, ‘I’ve returned Ralf ’s stallions so you can decide whether you want to sell them at Windsor.’
    Heulwen poured wine for them both, keeping her eyes on her task. ‘What are they worth? Have you had time to find out?’
    ‘The bay is almost fully trained and sufficiently well bred to fetch you around forty marks,’ he said, his tone brisk and professional. ‘The piebald’s not of the same calibre, but because of his markings you should get around twenty for him. If I continue to school him over the winter, he could fetch a top price of twenty-five.’
    ‘And Vaillantif ?’ she matched his tone.
    ‘That’s really why I came.’ He transferred his gaze from contemplation of his men and fixed it on her instead. ‘I want to buy him from you, Heulwen. I’ll give you a hundred marks.’
    She forgot her circumspection and stared at him in astonishment. ‘How much?’ she gasped
    ‘It is what he is worth.’ His eyes were bright and intense as he leaned forward in the chair.
    ‘Adam, no, I cannot accept such a sum from you!’
    ‘But you would accept it from a complete stranger at Windsor,’ he pointed out.
    ‘I wouldn’t feel guilty about taking a stranger’s coin.’
    He set his jaw. ‘Heulwen, I’m asking you as a boon - as a favour to me. Let me have him. You’ve slapped me in the face once. In Christ’s name, leave me some small shred of pride. Do you know what it cost me to come here today?’
    She opened her mouth to speak, changed her mind and drank her wine instead. ‘Yes, I do know,’ she said after a swallow. ‘The same that it cost me to come down from the bower to face you.’
    Adam considered her across his own cup and eventually he smiled. ‘ Pax? ’ he said gravely.
    ‘ Vobiscum .’ She returned the smile, feeling as though a great dark cloud had been lifted from her horizon. ‘Very well. For the sake of our mutual pride, you can have Vaillantif, but I won’t accept the full price - and before you start arguing, let me say that I owe you for the training and stabling of the other two horses. Eighty marks I’ll take for him, not a penny more.’
    ‘And if Warrin thinks that you have undersold a part of his future property?’ he asked with an edge to his voice.
    ‘Then Warrin can go whistle. I’m not . . .’ Her voice trailed off and she put her hand to her mouth.
    ‘What’s wr—’ Adam followed her gaze down the hall and saw, as if conjured from thought, Warrin de Mortimer advancing