Shields of Pride (13 page)

Waiting impatiently for the ferry on the wooded banks of the Trent, Ralf looked over his shoulder, ears straining for the sound of pursuit, but the horizon remained innocent. He returned his stare to the sullen sheet of grey water. The ferry was a dark wedge on the opposite side of the river, and the two ferrymen were taking their own good time about pulling their craft across.

Ralf chewed his thumbnail and cursed under his breath. He could still see Hubert de Beaumont’s eyes wide open in disbelief as Joscelin’s sword entered his body and the image within his mind’s eye made him queasy. He glanced at the baggage wain. His instructions had been to capture Montsorrel’s strongbox and deliver it to the Earl of Leicester, its rightful owner. Success should have elated him but he was assailed by nagging doubts. Something stank like rotten fish. He eyed the strongbox where it stood, squat and stolid amid various casks and barrels. Joscelin had been entrusted with its safety and it was more than his hide was worth to lose it. So why had he not pursued?

The doubt became a sickening suspicion. Ralf drew his sword from his belt and went to the box. The iron bindings and oiled bolts gleamed almost like a smile. He could not bear the tension and struck at the hasps but they were stoutly made and held fast. Sparks flashed in the dim light and the sound of his blade on the iron was loud enough to waken a corpse. It brought the other men running, demanding to know what he was doing.

Sobbing with effort and frustration, Ralf took one last swing. The hasps shattered and a sliver of metal from his beautiful, lovingly honed sword flew from the blade and lodged in his brow-bone. Blood streamed from the wound, blinding him. It was one of the other soldiers who opened the violated strongbox and discovered that the scuffed leather money pouches within held not silver pennies but small, round stones, smelling pungently of river and weed.

12

Arnaud de Corbette, Rushcliffe’s seneschal, folded his hands inside his silk-edged sleeves and rocked back and forth on his gilded leather boots. Heel and toe, heel and toe, restless with anxiety. Eyes narrowed against the wind, he stared over the wall walk towards the approaching troop. A messenger had brought him advance warning of the new lord’s arrival, together with a parchment bearing the seal of the justiciar ordering him to yield the castle into the hands of Joscelin de Gael and offer him every cooperation.

Corbette focused upon the glossy liver-chestnut stallion and the man sitting confidently astride. William de Rocher’s bastard, a man of repute in some circles and reputation in others, hand-picked by the justiciar. But this new position was a step up indeed. Obviously de Luci had selected de Gael for his ability, a thought that made Corbette ease his finger around the gilded neck band of his tunic.

Halfdan, the serjeant in command of the keep’s garrison, jutted his jaw. ‘Why can’t we just keep the drawbridge up and tell ’em to piss off ?’ he demanded.

‘If you want to end up in the forest as an outlaw you may do just that,’ Corbette said irritably. ‘If you had brains, you’d be dangerous. It is not just a piddling matter of someone’s fetch-and-carry presenting a writ of authority at our gates. It is William de Rocher and Richard de Luci; it is the King himself!’ He shook the parchment beneath Halfdan’s nose like a curse. ‘Don’t you understand!’

Halfdan stared at him blankly. Corbette gave an exasperated growl. ‘Just keep your mouth shut and stay out of the way. Let me do the talking.’

Halfdan shrugged and shambled off down the stairs. Corbette breathed deeply in and out. Old Lord Raymond had favoured Halfdan, whose muscles and fighting ability were as impressive as his intellectual capacity was lacking. Occasionally, for entertainment, Raymond had organized fights between Halfdan and other mercenaries, sometimes to the death, with money wagered upon the outcome. Corbette had found the man useful for keeping awkward castle retainers in line after Raymond’s death but this change of master had rapidly altered that perspective.

Descending to the bailey, Corbette could feel sweat chilling his armpits. The next few moments were going to be uncomfortable.

As the liver-chestnut stallion paced over the drawbridge and entered the courtyard, Corbette hastened forward to bend the knee at the new master’s stirrup. ‘Welcome, my lord, and gladly so.’ He made certain to emphasize the title.

De Gael drew rein. ‘And who might you be?’ he asked glacially.

‘Arnaud de Corbette, my lord - I am the seneschal.’

The air grew more frigid still. ‘Get up,’ said de Gael and Corbette flinched, for the new lord’s expression was carved from ice.

‘Why did you permit armed men to lie up in the coppice on the Nottingham road?’

Corbette swallowed. He had known the question was coming - de Gael’s messenger had told him what had happened - but finding an excuse was difficult. ‘I did not know they were there, my lord. Some of our soldiers were in the village yesterday, but they made no mention of—’

De Gael cast him a look of utter contempt that boded ill, and stiffly dismounted. He swept the bailey with a disparaging gaze that took in its state of untidy filth and hurled it at Corbette’s gilded leather feet. ‘Your business is to know everything that pertains to the security of this keep, especially in times of rebellion and war.’

Corbette cleared his throat. ‘Lord Raymond was a difficult master to serve in his last year and Lord Giles only came into the inheritance at Easter. I—’

‘I am not interested in your excuses. The evidence before my eyes is enough to prove to me that you’re as incompetent as your previous masters.’

‘My lord, I’m not seeking to absolve—’ Corbette began, and broke off with relief as a roan mare entered the bailey, pacing daintily beside a wain that bore a pall-covered coffin and several wounded soldiers. ‘My lady,’ he murmured, flourishing a bow and silently thanking God for the distraction.

‘Messire Corbette,’ she acknowledged with a cool nod.

‘I am sorry to hear the news about my young lord, God rest his soul.’ Corbette crossed himself. ‘It is a shock to all of us.’

‘I have no doubt it is,’ de Gael interrupted curtly. ‘I promise you that more than dust is going to fly in this place before I am finished and I will talk to you of what’s to be done very soon. For now, I want a priest to minister to such of my men as are in need and food and rest for all.’

‘My lord,’ Corbette said, and gestured to a servant. De Gael was right. Something would have to be done, and very soon.

Linnet looked up from the row of pallets occupied by the men of Joscelin’s troop too sorely wounded to return to their duties, and saw their commander standing in the doorway. It was late. Dusk had fallen and rush dips flickered in the gloom. The tallow in which they had been dipped was so coarse and salty that there was more sputter and smoke than flame and the room was filled with the stink of burning mutton fat.

‘I thought you were not coming.’ She turned away to pick up her shears.

He moved stiffly into the room and, unlatching his belt, laid it across a bench. ‘I’ve been inspecting the keep. The structure is sound but the rest is little better than a butcher’s shambles.’

‘Giles’s father had no wife to keep the place in order.’ She turned the shears in her hands and studied the dull gleam of the tempered iron. ‘After he and Giles quarrelled, we did not visit to see how he lived - not even when Raymond was on his deathbed.’

‘What about Corbette’s wife? I assume he has one?’

‘Oh yes.’ Linnet wrinkled her nose. ‘The lady Mabel. She was always conspicuous by her absence whenever there was work to be done and I doubt she’s changed. I haven’t seen her in the sickroom once, nor her daughter, but the moment the dinner-horn sounds they’ll be first at the trough.’

‘In my troop, the men who don’t work don’t eat,’ he said grimly, and went to the row of wounded men to address each one in turn and speak words of comfort.

Linnet could see from the manner with which he carried himself that he was tired and in pain, but he did not skimp his duty. He lingered at Malcolm’s pallet and she heard their low exchange of words and then wry laughter. Joscelin was still grinning broadly and shaking his head when he returned to her.

‘Malcolm says I’m nae to fash myself, you’ve a touch like an angel,’ he declared in appalling mimicry of a Lowland Scots accent and sat down on the padded cover of a clothing chest.

Linnet opened and closed the shears and smiled. ‘Did you believe him?’

‘He’s a notorious fibber but I reckon you’re bound to be gentler than Milo, who’d act the chirurgeon otherwise. ’ He started to remove his surcoat, but desisted with a gasp of pain.

Quickly Linnet moved to help him, easing the garment over his shoulders. The mail shirt proved more difficult for it was heavy and the sleeves fitted closely over the padded undergarment. The intimacy was disturbing; the heat of his body, the acrid smell of battle sweat. The proximity made her feel stifled and panicky. She had too many memories of this room and what had happened here, and it was with relief that she finally succeeded in divesting him of his mail and gambeson and was able to step away.

His head was bowed, his breathing harsh with pain. When it eased, he looked up at her through sweat-tangled hair. ‘Is there any wine before we go further?’

She laid his garments on the coffer and fetched a pitcher and cup from a trestle by the embrasure. ‘It’s last year’s,’ she apologized, pouring him a cloudy measure. ‘It tastes more like verjuice than wine but it’s all we have according to Corbette’s manservant. I will check myself when I have time.’ She gave the cup to him and tried to conquer her feelings of oppression.

‘It doesn’t matter.’ He took several fast swallows.

His shirt was glued to his shoulder-wound by dried blood. Linnet started to soak it away with firm, careful strokes, watching his face for indications that she was hurting him too much. ‘You’re fortunate it wasn’t much worse,’ she murmured. ‘It looks as if you’ve only cut a surface flap of skin. The rest is bruising.’

‘What did Giles and Raymond quarrel about?’

Linnet ceased bathing his wound and turned away to wring the pad out in a bowl of scented water. The droplets plinked over the surface and were absorbed into the shimmering whole. Her fingers started to hurt as she twisted the linen. Her womb, her lights, the center of pleasure in her loins, were twisting, too. By asking her a question to take his mind from pain, he had inadvertently touched her own wounds.

‘Giles and his father were always disagreeing,’ she said with careful neutrality as she resumed her ministrations. ‘Giles could never do anything right. Raymond criticized him at every turn, told him how much better he could manage things and, of course, he could. Giles never had a chance. There, ease your shirt off now so I can take a proper look.’

‘And?’ he prompted.

Linnet drew the shirt over his head and pulled it off down his uninjured arm, avoiding the shrewd clarity of his stare. ‘You come from these parts yourself. Did you know Raymond de Montsorrel?’

‘Not well. Occasionally he and my father would go hunting together but they were uneasy neighbours. Raymond de Montsorrel had a high opinion of himself - born of the highest blood in Normandy, if you can call it that. He looked down on my father because my father’s mother was English. Mind you,’ Joscelin added wryly, ‘he was determined to improve the breeding stock of those less fortunate than himself; his lechery was a legend far and wide.’

Linnet drew a constricted breath and put his bloodstained shirt on the coffer, looking anywhere but at his face while memory and guilt assaulted her. Raymond de Montsorrel, here, almost where she stood now, touching her hair, his breath at her throat, hoarsely whispering.
If my son had any steel in his sword, I’d have a grandchild by now. You need a real man to quicken you.
And then the heat of his mouth on hers and his hand stroking between her thighs with delicate, perfect knowledge. It had been wrong, it had been shocking, but pinned against the wall by his suggestively thrusting hips, for the first time in her life she had felt exquisite twinges of pleasure stabbing through the other emotions.

A shudder ran down her spine. She was aware of Joscelin’s scrutiny and sought frantically for a way across the pit that had opened up beneath her feet. ‘Raymond baited Giles once too often and too far,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Swords were drawn and Giles had to be dragged off by the guards. We left the same day and did not return until Raymond was dead.’ She darted a glance at him and saw that he was frowning. Quickly she broke the wax seal on a pot of salve and dipped her forefinger. ‘You have few scars to show for a man of your trade,’ she said to change the subject. Men liked to talk about themselves and, by appealing to his vanity, she hoped to divert his attention from something she did not wish to discuss.

‘You learn fast or you perish.’ His pensive expression lingered as she daubed the ointment on his shoulder. ‘And not all of the scars are visible. I - Ah!’ He broke off and gripped the coffer edge.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said breathlessly. ‘That’s the worst part over now.’

He had clenched his lids against the pain but now he opened them and caught her gaze with his. ‘I know what happens when you don’t bury the past and let it go. My father has grown old on bitter grieving for my mother and I, too, have known my share of folly.’ His expression grew bleak and he stared beyond her into the shadows behind the sputtering rush dips. ‘The problem with burying the past is that you keep on stumbling over unquiet graves,’ he added softly.

Linnet wiped the ointment from her fingers on a piece of softened linen and then used the material to bandage his shoulder. Not graves but corpses, she thought as she used a cloak pin to hold the dressing in place. The living dead.

Her fingertips touched his as he held the fabric and she secured the pin. Their eyes met and hunger leaped in his. A maid entered the room with a pile of linen sheets over her arm and he dropped his gaze. Linnet withdrew and Joscelin lowered his hand to pick up his half-finished wine.