Shadows and Strongholds (23 page)

Joscelin turned. Brunin was leading his new horse towards them. While the men had engaged in conversation, he had been told to run back to the lodging and fetch him.

'That,' said Joscelin hastily, 'is a bargain disguised as a disaster. I know what you are thinking, but reserve your judgement until you've studied his paces.' He drained his wine and stood up. 'Right.' He clapped his hands together. 'I had better find my wife and daughters before they bleed my coffers dry. You have seen little enough of the lad recently. You'll want some time alone with him.'

'If I did not know you better, I would say that you were absconding before the storm,' FitzWarin growled.

'It is well that you know me then,' Joscelin retorted, and departed with a wave, pausing only to slap the bay gelding on the neck in passing, and wink at Brunin.

Ernalt de Lysle was buying a new strap and buckle for his belt at one of the lorimer's booths when Sybilla and her retinue drew near upon a similar purpose. It seemed like chance, but it wasn't. He had been watching and awaiting his opportunity for some time. He spoke the women fair, and Sybilla, although cool in her greeting, was disposed to allow him to stroll with them awhile. Hawise's stomach fluttered almost as much as Marion's lashes. He was impeccably polite towards the girls, but now and again, when Sybilla's back was turned, he would return Marion's flirtatiousness with a wink, or smile at Hawise in a way that made her bones melt.

He accompanied them to the cookstalls and further ingratiated himself by holding a hot pie with his hawking gauntlet while the women broke pieces off. Then Sybilla met an old friend, and de Lacy's second squire arrived.

'Lord Gilbert's looking for you,' he said breathlessly.

'Best make haste. You know what he's like if he's kept waiting.'

Ernalt nodded. 'A moment.' Carefully removing the gauntlet so as not to spill the portion of pie still resting in the palm, he presented it to Hawise. 'I'll return for it later,' he murmured, his voice so low that it carried no further than the short breath between them. 'Meet me at your stables at compline.'

She stared at him, heat flooding her face, but he had already turned away and was following the other squire through the crowds.

Marion narrowed her eyes. 'What did he just say to you?'

'I… nothing.' Hawise's heart was hammering so loudly that she was certain everyone would hear. She swallowed. 'Nothing,' she repeated. 'He just said to be careful not to drop the pie.' Her, he wanted to see her, not Marion. Her body sang like a plucked harpstring.

'I don't believe you.'

Hawise set her jaw and prepared to brazen it out. 'Believe what you want,' she said. 'You are jealous because he gave the glove to me and not you.'

Hawise had hit the mark: Marion pouted and put her nose in the air. 'He gave it to you because you remind him of a servant,' she retorted spitefully.

Once the pie was finished, Hawise dusted the crumbs from the glove and folded it through her belt. She spent the rest of the afternoon in a daze, taking scant notice of the spice-vendors' booths, the hose-sellers, the cages of brightly coloured finches, exotic coneys and striped cats. She responded to her mother's exasperated questions with vague replies, until Sybilla threatened to have her examined by a physician. Marion too came in for the sharp side of Sybilla's tongue, with a warning that if the wind changed,
Marion would be left with a bottom lip to stand a cauldron upon. Only Sibbi escaped the scolding, and she regarded the other two with bewilderment.

Once back at their lodging, Hawise lovingly cleaned the grease from the glove with fuller's earth and dusted it off with a brush made of badger hair. Marion flounced away to her pallet, complaining of a stomach ache. At first she rejected Sibbi's offer of a soothing rub, but as Sibbi made to leave her alone, grabbed her hand and made her stay. Any attention was better than none.

The evening meal was an impromptu one of goods bought from the stalls at the fair. There were large mushrooms stuffed with breadcrumbs and cheese, chicken pasties, griddle bread, tangy smoked sausages, honey cakes and spicy fruit loaves. Hawise, who would usually have devoured such fare and looked for more, pushed the morsels round her dish, feeling as if her stomach were clamped to her spine.

'I hope you are not sickening for something,' Sybilla said, looking concerned. 'There are often foul airs at large gatherings like these.'

'I am all right, Mama.' Hawise took a drink of wine to wash down the mouthful of bread that would otherwise have stuck in her throat. 'I'm just not hungry.'

Sybilla was plainly unconvinced. Her glance went to Marion who was lying on her pallet and had said she was not hungry either.

Joscelin paused chewing. 'It's probably shopping sickness,' he jested. 'I'd have it too, after three days of wandering the stalls out there.' He smiled at Hawise and then at his wife. 'You worry too much. There is nothing wrong with them but the tiredness of excitement. Early to sleep, ready for the morrow's journey home, will soon sort them out.' He reached for another sausage. 'These are excellent.'

Hawise felt a jolt of alarm. She didn't want to be sent to bed… not yet at least, but she knew better than to make a huge protest. Circumspection was called for.

Following the evening meal, her mother set about packing their travelling chests for the journey home. Helping her and Sibbi, Hawise felt the time crawl by like a beetle up a long blade of grass. Hugh went out to fetch a new pair of shoes that a cordwainer had promised to have ready by dusk. They heard his tuneful whistle fading as he ran down the solar steps and crossed the yard.

The compline bell rang out from the abbey, the sound sweet and plangent on the evening air. Hawise secured the hasp on the chest containing fabric for new winter cloaks and, murmuring that she needed to visit the privy, left the room. Her mother was too busy trying to fit all their purchases into the inadequate space available to reply with more than an absent wave of the hand.

Relieved to have escaped so easily, Hawise opened the door and descended the outer stairs to the courtyard. The shadows had begun to lengthen and the wash of sun on the side of the stable wall had shaded from the afternoon's primrose to deep rose-gold. Hawise glanced rapidly round, her heart thumping. Would he come to the tryst? If he did, what would she say? Would they just talk or would he try to kiss her? The thought was frightening and delicious, and she had to steel herself to go on and not run back up the stairs.

Cautiously she entered the stables. The light was muted and fragrant with the aroma of hay and horses. There was no sign of the grooms and stable boys who were away in the alehouses, enjoying the last evening of the fair. The horses dozed in their stalls, loose-hipped, tails swishing. He wasn't here. Relief and sharp disappointment coursed through her.

'Aha, you managed to escape then?'

Hawise stifled a scream as Ernalt stepped out of the shadows. His hair gleamed in the darkness like the palest barley straw.

'I… Yes… I…' She struggled for coherence. 'I cannot stay long,' she whispered. 'My mother thinks I am visiting the privy' His closeness made her feel giddy.

'Well-thought-of, none the less.'

'I've… I've brought your glove.' She tugged it from her belt and held it out to him.

He took it from her, using the moment when he grasped the fingers to pull her towards him. 'I have been thinking of you all day,' he said and his hand touched hers over the plush, talon-scarred leather.

Hawise swallowed. 'I doubt that,' she said, trembling like a foal with fear and excitement.

'It's true, I swear it. To distraction and the shirking of my duties.'

'What about Marion?'

'What about her?' His right hand held hers. His left moved stealthily to encircle her waist.

'I thought you liked her too.'

'She is pretty, for certain, but I prefer women who are capable and daring.' He moved closer. She felt his breath on her cheek and equal proportions of pleasure and panic jolted through her body. 'It's you I want,' he said and kissed her.

Hawise responded tentatively, but when his tongue entered her mouth and began making small thrusting motions, she drew back sharply.

He gave a sleepy smile, his predator's gaze calculating, and pressed his mouth to her throat instead, sucking there until she shivered. Taking her hand, he pushed it down between them. 'See what you do to me?' he murmured.

Hawise knew enough from whispered discussions with Sibbi and Marion and from snippets garnered elsewhere that a man's member grew stiff when he was aroused, in order that he could mate, but she had never seen one in such a condition, much less touched one. Even separated from her hand by his linen braies, the feel of it was thrilling and terrifying—the latter in ascendance, especially when he groaned. She tried to snatch her hand away, but his grip tightened and he moved it back and forth with his own. 'That's it,' he said. 'Like that.'

'I have to go,' she gasped. 'My mother will be wondering where I am…'

'Not yet. Stay awhile… just a little while,' he cajoled. 'Be sweet to me.'

Hawise had once heard one of the guards at Ludlow inveigling a tavern wench to 'be sweet' to him as he plundered her unfastened bodice and pushed her against the castle wall.

'I can't. I thought we were just going to talk a little…'

'Talk?' He grinned. 'Who comes to a tryst in a stables at dusk to talk?'

She struggled in his grip, beginning to panic. 'Let me go.'

He held on to her, his left arm an iron band around her waist, his right hand still trapping hers at his crotch. 'I promise I won't despoil you if that's your worry. I know ways…'

Thoroughly alarmed, Hawise dug her fingernails into the bulge in his braies and was rewarded by an agonised yelp. She thrust away from him and tried to run, but he stuck out his foot, tripped her and brought her down hard in the straw. The wind flew from her lungs and as she lay stunned he climbed on top of her, pinning her with his weight, grinding his hips against her buttocks. 'I can be as gentle as a dove or as savage as a hawk,' he muttered beside her ear. 'Which is it be?'

Hooves clopped in the yard, a horse snorted, and a shadow darkened the doorway. Raising her head, Hawise saw Jester's comical blaze and pricked furry ears, and Brunin standing at the bridle, his eyes widening in astonishment and then filling with rage. Ernalt started to rise but was only halfway up when Brunin leaped at him, knocking him sideways into the straw. A well-aimed fist drove the air from Ernalt's body and a follow-through blow caught the squire square in the mouth. An oath of shock and surprise sprayed bloodily from the squire's lips and even though he was wounded, he pounced on Brunin. The latter blocked the descending blow with his forearm and tried to kick and roll, but Ernalt was athwart him and, being several stones heavier, was not going to budge. Sobbing, Hawise grabbed the gauntlet lying in the straw, where it had fallen during their struggle, and set about belabouring Ernalt with it. The hard leather fingers whipped across his cheek and caught him in the corner of the eye. His arms came up in defence and Brunin was able to dislodge him, throw him and reverse their positions.

'In the name of Christ, what's all this?' demanded Hugh, striding into the midst of the fracas. Casting aside the pair of boots, which had been tucked under his arm, he seized Brunin and hauled him off his adversary.

Ernalt struggled to his feet, his tunic and hose stuck with straw. Blood dripped steadily from his cut lip. A red weal striped one cheekbone and vanished at its upper edge into the puffy flesh around his right eye.

Hawise whimpered, knowing that she was in the worst trouble of her life, her reputation in tatters.

'It's my fault, I started it,' Brunin panted, one arm bent across his midriff. He sent a glare towards Ernalt and a warning look at Hawise. 'I had an old score to settle.'

Hugh's brows rose into his thick brown fringe. 'An old score?' His tone was incredulous.

'My own business,' Brunin answered stiffly.

'Not when it involves a squire of Gilbert de Lacy's, it isn't.' Hugh's usually mild hazel eyes were aglitter as he looked between the three of them.

'I came to fetch my hawking gauntlet,' Ernalt said, pressing the back of his hand to his bleeding mouth. 'The ladies borrowed it from me at the cookstalls, and I need it early on the morrow… Then this dolt set upon me like a wild beast.' It was a plausible version of the truth with major omissions… omissions that Hawise dared not contradict unless she wanted to be ruined, and he knew it.

Hugh looked at Brunin. 'Is this true?'

Brunin glared at de Lysle. 'The bastard has owed me this for four years,' he said in a smouldering voice.

'Go piss your hose,' snarled de Lysle.

Brunin lunged, and Hugh had to brace his forearm and thrust him back. 'Get out,' he said curtly to de Lysle. 'And stay away if you value your life. A truce is not friendship.' He laid his hand to the hilt of his sword to emphasise his meaning.

'No, it isn't,' Ernalt retorted. 'You had best look to yourselves in the hour that it ends.' He spat a mouthful of bloody saliva into the straw. Head down, he started from the stable, then paused before Hawise and held out his hand. 'My gauntlet, demoiselle.'

She pushed it at him, her chin trembling and her eyes blazing with revulsion.

Hugh exhaled hard into the silence following de Lysle's departure and slowly uncurled his fingers from his sword grip.

Hawise swallowed. 'Hugh, I…'

He held up his hand, the palm and fingers imprinted with the mark of the hilt binding. 'Say nothing,' he warned, his expression grim. 'I knew there would be trouble the moment he joined us at the fair.' He curled his lip and his voice thickened with contempt. 'Taking an interest in booths of women's fripperies, sharing pasties indeed. He had only one thing in mind, and I'm certain it wasn't collecting his hawking gauntlet.'

Hawise fiddled with the long end of her belt and flushed bright red with chagrin.

Hugh shook his head. 'Best return to the chamber and say nothing of any of this,' he said to her. 'Brunin, see to your horse. I trust you to keep your mouth shut in the guardroom.'