The Running Vixen
Authors: Elizabeth Chadwick
The Running Vixen
Book Jacket
None
A forbidden love takes England to the brink of war ...|1126. Heulwen, daughter of Welsh Marcher baron Guyon FitzMiles, has grown up with her father's ward, Adam de Lacey. There has always been a spark between them, but when Heulwen marries elsewhere, to Ralf le Chevalier, a devastated Adam absents himself on various diplomatic missions for King Henry I. When Ralf is killed in a skirmish, Heulwen's father considers a new marriage for her with his neighbour's son, Warrin de Mortimer. Adam, recently returned to England, has good reason to loathe Warrin and is determined not to lose Heulwen a second time. But Heulwen is torn between her duty to her father and the pull of her heart. Adam is no longer the awkward boy she remembers, but a man who stirs every fibre of her being - which places them both in great danger, because Warrin de Mortimer is not a man to be crossed and the future of a country is at stake ...|
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - The Welsh Marches, Autumn 1126
Chapter 5 - France, Late Autumn 1126
Chapter 19 - Anjou, Spring 1127
Chapter 23 - Thornford, Summer 1127
Chapter 24 - Wales, December 1127
Chapter 25 - Ravenstow, Summer 1128
Elizabeth Chadwick
lives in Nottingham with her husband and two sons. Much of her research is carried out as a member of Regia Anglorum, an early medieval re-enactment society with the emphasis on accurately recreating the past. She also tutors in the skill of writing historical and romantic fiction. Her first novel,
The Wild Hunt
, won a Betty Trask Award. She was shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists’ Award in 1998 for
The Champion
, in 2001 for
Lords of the White Castle
, in 2002 for
The Winter Mantle
and in 2003 for
The Falcons of Montabard
. Her sixteenth novel,
The Scarlet Lion
, was nominated by Richard Lee, founder of the Historical Novel Society, as one of the top ten historical novels of the last decade.
For more details on Elizabeth Chadwick and her books, visit
www.elizabethchadwick.com
Praise for Elizabeth Chadwick
‘Chadwick’s historical grasp is secure and vivid . . . an absorbing narrative that canters along’
Financial Times
‘Wonderfully written, immensely moving and immaculately researched . . . An author who grows in stature with every book she writes’
Lancashire Evening Post
‘The best writer of medieval fiction currently around’
Historical Novels Review
‘Blends authentic period details with modern convention for emotional drama’ Elizabeth Buchan,
Mail on Sunday
‘Compelling historical fiction . . . by the best novelist in this genre’
Driffield Leader
‘One of Elizabeth Chadwick’s strengths is her stunning grasp of historical detail . . . her characters are beguiling, and the story intriguing and very enjoyable’ Barbara Erskine
‘Elizabeth Chadwick knows exactly how to write convincing and compelling historical fiction’ Marina Oliver
‘Strong, memorable characters, richly realised historic settings and terrific storytelling’
Keighley News
Also by Elizabeth Chadwick
THE WILD HUNT
THE LEOPARD UNLEASHED
THE FIRST KNIGHT
DAUGHTERS OF THE GRAIL
SHIELDS OF PRIDE
LORDS OF THE WHITE CASTLE
THE CONQUEST
THE CHAMPION
THE LOVE KNOT
THE MARSH KING’S DAUGHTER
THE WINTER MANTLE
THE FALCONS OF MONTABARD
SHADOWS AND STRONGHOLDS
THE GREATEST KNIGHT
THE SCARLET LION
sequel to
THE GREATEST KNIGHT
A PLACE BEYOND COURAGE
THE TIME OF SINGING
The Running Vixen
ELIZABETH CHADWICK
Hachette Digital
Published by Hachette Digital 2009
Copyright © 1991, 2009 Elizabeth Chadwick
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission in writing of the publisher,
nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover
other than that in which it is published and without a similar
condition including this condition being imposed on
the subsequent purchaser.
All characters and events in this publication, other than
those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious
and any resemblance to real persons,
living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
eISBN : 978 0 7481 1309 5
This ebook produced by JOUVE, FRANCE
Hachette Digital
An imprint of
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Acknowledgements
As always, I would like to say a big thank you to my agent Carole Blake at the Blake Friedmann agency. Also my editor Barbara Daniel at Little, Brown. They have not only shared this journey with me, they have made it possible.
My thanks and love to my husband Roger. He lets me be who I am with quiet support and without complaint, and that is something without price. For long-term readers of my work - yes, he is still doing the ironing!
My thanks too, to numerous friends and e-groups online who keep me sane and thoroughly enrich my moments of procrastination, especially the members of
historicalfictiononline.com
, Friends and Writers and the RNA.
Author’s Note
My first publishing contract was for two novels -
The Wild Hunt
and this one,
The Running Vixen.
When I signed the contract I had yet to write the latter. Due to the vagaries of the publishing industry, not least the death of media tycoon Robert Maxwell,
The Running Vixen
was published in a very small print run in hard cover for the libraries. The paperback, although it came out, was on and off the shelves faster than the sell-by date of milk in a supermarket, and the paperback imprint under which it was published crashed soon after.
Down the years readers have often asked me whether it was going to be reissued and until recently I had to say, sadly not. However, my current publishers decided it would be good to make my out of print novels available again - and I wholeheartedly agreed with them, naturally! My only proviso was that I be able to take a look at the material with the eye of increased experience and historical knowledge.
Inspired by such films as
The Vikings
,
The Warlord
,
El Cid
and even (blushing) Errol Flynn’s
The Adventures of Robin Hood,
I set out writing at the romantic adventure end of historical fiction and through a steady career path graduated to writing fiction where the star players had actually lived. In earlier works, my protagonists are fictitious, but woven into a firm historical backdrop.
The Running Vixen
falls into the former category and is a stand alone follow-up to
The Wild Hunt.
Readers often ask me if I had a specific location in mind when writing the backdrops to
The Wild Hunt
and
The Running Vixen.
The answer is that I took my inspiration from the area of the middle Welsh marches as a whole: Chepstow, Ludlow, Shropshire, the former Montgomeryshire. I didn’t have one ‘set’ place in mind, but almagamated many into a general description.
As far as the historical backdrop to the story is concerned, I have embroidered my tale on the known details. In 1120, King Henry I’s only legitimate son was drowned while crossing from Normandy to England. The only other direct heir of Henry’s blood was his daughter, Matilda, and she was dwelling in Germany as wife of the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry V. When Henry died in 1125, her father recalled her and made his barons swear an oath of allegiance to her. He also planned a second marriage for her with the house of Anjou. This was not a popular move and there was a plenty of muttering and some outright resistance. Henry had a nephew - William le Clito, the son of his older brother, and le Clito’s claim was just as good, if not better than Matilda’s. Political wheeling and dealing was every bit as underhand and murky as it is today. Despite changes in mindset and social habits, many things remain exactly the same!
1
The Welsh Marches, Autumn 1126
On the day Adam de Lacey returned to the borders after an absence of more than a year, the monthly market at Ravenstow was in full, noisy cry, and thus numerous witnesses watched and whispered behind their hands as the small but disciplined entourage wound its way through their midst.
The young man at the head of the troop paid scant attention to their interest, to the bustling booths and mingling of scents and stenches, the cries and entreaties to look, to buy - not because it was beneath him to do so, but because he was preoccupied and tired. As Adam rode past a woman selling fleeces and sheepskin winter shoes and jerkins, the lilting cadence of the Welsh tongue pleased his ears, causing him to emerge from his introspection and look around with a half-smile. Of late he had grown accustomed to heavy, guttural German, spoken by humourless men with a rigid sense of rank and order, their lifestyle the opposite of the carefree, robust Welsh, who had few possessions and pretensions and set very little store by those who did.
The outward journey to the mourning court of the recently deceased German Emperor had been filled with the violence and hardship of long days on roads that were often hostile, and the route home had been even worse owing to the querulous temper of his charge. Adam was an accomplished soldier, well able to look after himself where the dangers of the open road were concerned. The lash of a haughty woman’s tongue - and she the King’s own daughter and Dowager Empress of Germany - was a different matter entirely. Her high estate had prevented him from defending himself in the manner he would have liked, and the obligation of feudal duty had made it impossible for him to abandon her on the road, forcing him to bear with gritted teeth what he could not change; but then he was used to that.
A crone cried out to him, offering to tell his fortune for a quarter-penny. His half-smile expanded and developed a bitter quality. He flung a coin towards her outstretched fingers but declined to wait on her prophecy. He knew his future already - the parts that mattered, or had mattered once until time and grim determination had rendered them numb. Abruptly he heeled his stallion to a rapid trot.
Ravenstow keep, the seat of his foster father’s barony shone with fresh limewash on the crag overlooking the busy town. It had been built during the reign of William Rufus by Robert de Belleme, former Earl of Shrewsbury and now King Henry’s prisoner, his evil rule a fading but still potent memory; too potent for some who had lost their friends and family to the barbaric tortures he had practised in his fortress strongholds a generation ago.
Adam’s own father had been de Belleme’s vassal and accomplice, his name stained with the overspill from de Belleme’s infamies. Adam knew from servants’ tales, whispered in dark corners, the kind of man his father had been: a dishonourable molester of women and young girls, tarnished with murder and guilty of treason. Not an ancestor to claim with pride, but one to bury deep with guilt and shame.
