Covering her with her blanket, Josce left her where she lay. God be praised that none of the rest of the household had been up and about at that hour. She didn’t deserve the shame the world would surely lade upon her were their relationship revealed.
Surprise blinked through Josce. Relationship? In the next instant, he sighed in acceptance.
What they’d done between them at the pool had been but an encounter, happenstance and nothing more. Last night they done something far more significant. Rather than expunge ‘Lianne from his thoughts, the experience left Josce only wanting more of her.
That his heart might now fixate on his enemy’s honest daughter was beyond irony. God knew he’d played the game of slap and tickle often enough. There’d been chambermaids, rich widows and other men’s wives, but whether or not he succeeded in his seduction, he never once gave any of those women so much as a sliver of himself. That included his seed.
Out of the depths of Josce’s memory came the echo of his father’s voice, Baldwin of Haydon lecturing that while a man of principle always lived up to his responsibilities, a wise man never put his seed where it didn’t belong. Yet, for the second time Josce had let the sensations Elianne made in him wash away all thought, until he once again sowed seeds where they had no place being.
Lost in the complexity of what he did to himself, Josce stared at the city’s yellowish stone walls. Wood and coal smoke, the result of so many kitchen fires burning all at once, snaked and curled above the city’s skyline into an ever-thickening brown cloud. Clinging to that acrid smell were hints of hundreds of breakfasts all being cooked at once. Cocks crowed from within the walls, greeting the sun with the same arrogance they displayed everywhere else in this world. Not far from the apron of dirt fronting this gate, the river that served as both Knabwell’s water source and its sewer chuckled as it spilled through the town’s watergate, glinting and sparking in day’s newborn light.
A single treble peal broke the morning’s peace. A deep bass boom followed, then bell after bell rang until all five of Knabwell’s churches were reminding the city’s faithful that Prime service was at hand. What with each bell’s note at war with all the others, the invitation became more clatter than carillon.
The gatekeepers didn’t hesitate. With a rhythmic song to mark their pace they put their hands to their ropes and lifted the massive bar that closed the gate. When it was out of its braces, the door moved, bellowing out a groan with its inward swing. Before it came to a rest against the gatehouse wall, the waiting peasants surged into the opening.
Well known to those who guarded this portal, the commoners were within the city walls almost before Josce and Perrin had time to urge their horses into movement. Reaching the porter, Josce reined in his mount, expecting to be called to a halt and asked his business. Instead the man waved him on with a “Good morrow, sir.”
Startled that he might be known after only a few days time, Josce did as the man's movement suggested and rode into the city. The street he traveled ended in a fork only a dozen yards ahead of him. Where was he going? In his exhaustion he’d forgotten where Perrin said his comrades resided.
Perrin urged his palfrey ahead of his master. “It’s the home of Alfred the Goldsmith we want. This way, sir.”
Josce gratefully put control of his life into someone else’s trusted hands. He needed time to gather his energy. It wasn’t just his friends he met this morning; he wanted to confront du Hommet again and reissue his threat. This he did to convince himself that despite his growing fondness for Elianne, he hadn’t forgotten he meant to avenge his father. Besides, the more he threatened the sheriff, the more unsettled du Hommet was likely to be. That increased the chance that he might err and betray himself.
The house before which Perrin halted was as narrow as its neighbors, but the goldsmith’s home towered over the rest, rising three storeys in height. Even that hadn’t been enough space for the wealthy smith. Beneath a cap of expensive slate the house’s upper storeys hung out far enough into the lane that tall men would have to step to the street’s opposite side to pass.
Warned to expect Josce’s arrival this morn, Alfred the Goldsmith watched the street from his shop, its window already open although another hour would pass before his apprentices and journeymen were tapping at their precious wares. Josce recognized the smith from his meeting yesterday with the town aldermen. Alfred smiled and came to his feet as he saw his visitor.
“Sir, I hope this morn finds you well come to my house,” the merchant said in polite greeting as Josce dismounted. “Your gentle comrades await you in my hall, the chamber just above us,” he pointed to the ceiling over his head. “The stairs within yon door,” he pointed in the direction of the portal that stood alongside the shop window, “will lead you there. My daughter will be pleased to serve you as you break your fast.”
“You are too kind, master smith.” Josce managed a sketchy bow, finding the part of courtly knight cumbersome when exhaustion lay so heavily upon him.
Leaving Perrin to watch their mounts, Josce climbed the steeply angled stairs to the second floor. What couldn’t be seen from outside was that the steps were open to the tradesman’s shop. Alfred watched his progress almost until Josce reached the second storey landing. Leaving the stairs to twist back and climb on upward to the third storey, Josce stepped into the hall.
And what a chamber it was. Not only did the goldsmith’s house extend outward over the street, it stretched back from the shop until it was three times the size of the lower level work space. The interior walls were painted a bright blue and stenciled with red crosshatching. A line of windows cut into the street side wall, their shutters thrown wide to admit what they could of the day.
Despite that she held a pitcher like some servant there was no doubting the plump, dark-haired lass near the door was the householder’s daughter. Rich brown fur trimmed the neckline of her blue overgown, while golden threads glinted in her green undergown. These were surely her best garments, donned in the hopes of piquing the marital interest of her father’s gentlemen-guests. Still, her best was far better than anything Josce could afford. Or rather, anything he could have afforded before he became warden to his stepmother and sister.
“Josce!” Rafe Godsol’s welcoming cry echoed around the room.
Josce’s gaze went to the high table at the hall’s end and the five men who waited there to break their fasts. Gratitude rolled over him, just as it had when Perrin first told him who had come. Here was the rest of his family, his brothers, made so not by blood but by their joint fostering and upbringing at King John’s court. For love of him these men had set aside their own doings and duties to come here.
Wearing a leather hauberk atop his brown tunic and a blue cap upon his curling black hair, Rafe, Josce’s dearest friend, rose from his bench, a worried look upon his handsome face. Beside Rafe sat Stephen de St. Valery, an earl’s youngest son. The arms of his sire’s house were tooled into the fine leather hauberk he wore atop his blue and red tunic. Beneath his thatch of dark brown hair, Stephen’s usual merry expression was banished for the moment.
Simon de Kenifer, dressed in sturdy tan the same pale brown shade of his hair, shared a bench with the dark-haired Hugh de Aincourt, who wore a fine red tunic. The thick scar cutting across Hugh’s cheek, a token of their Welsh battles, lent his otherwise dour face a rakish air.
At the table’s opposite end sat Alan FitzOsbert, his tunic the same pale gray color as his eyes. With his handsome face and fair coloring, Alan was the unwilling darling of ladies addicted to tales of courtly love—paradoxical, indeed, when Alan’s own personal standards of behavior were so high that he’d won the pet name Priest from his less abstemious companions.
Rafe strode across the room to catch Josce by the shoulders. Another man would have asked after the business of this trip, the whys and wherefores. Not Rafe. “It’s pain I see on your face. How fares your heart, my friend?” he asked, his voice gentle.
The corner of Josc
e’s mouth tightened. “As well as can be expected after bidding an earthly farewell to my father and two sisters all at once,” he replied, his voice ragged as the gaping emptiness left by those he’d lost opened anew in him.
Rafe reared back from him, his dark eyes wide. “Clarice and Adelaide are gone as well?!” His shock was echoed by the men yet at the table.
“It's that awful band of thieves who did it,” offered Alfred’s daughter, speaking in carefully cultivated French. “The brigands slit the throats of those wee noble lasses and left them to die,” she continued, inappropriate excitement filling her voice as she spilled the lurid details. “Papa says this is what comes of having a sluggard for a sheriff. Evil men do as they please whilst Reiner du Hommet spends all his time wrenching pennies from the purses of hard-working folk in order to enrich our greedy king.”
Josce whirled on her. Too tired to contain his emotions, much less understand them, he let what ached in him explode. “How dare you demean my lord sire’s death by making it into a complaint against our king!” he roared.
The girl whitened. The pitcher slipped from her hands to shatter at her feet, watered wine splattering the expensive embroidery at her hemline. Her lips quivering, she backed away from Josce, tears leaking from her eyes.
Footsteps thundered up the stairs, then Alfred appeared upon the landing. The smith’s eyes widened as he looked at Josce. Only then did Josce feel Rafe’s hand on his arm. His friend strove to keep Josce’s sword in its sheath when Josce hadn’t even realized he’d reached for his weapon.
What ached in Josce collapsed. In confusion and regret he shoved his sword back where it belonged. God help him, but these last days he’d been a ship tossed on a stormy sea, each new wave leaving him more lost than the last, until he no longer knew where he was or what he felt about anything.
“Pardon, master smith,” Josce managed, his voice quiet, his apology sincere. “My grief leaves me overwrought. I mean neither you nor your daughter any harm. Shall I leave your house?”
Alfred’s face relaxed. He bowed slightly, granting Josce the forgiveness he needed. “You’re no more overwrought than any other man would be in your position, sir. Stay, if it pleases you. Iva, you must go to your mother now and leave these men to their conversation,” he commanded his daughter. His tone left no doubt that his daughter would be hearing a lecture on immodest female behavior at some future hour.
Gibbering now, the lass whirled and dashed toward the safety of her sire’s voice. Her shoes clattered upon the stairs as she raced to the upper floor.
“Call for her when you’re ready for your meal, sirs,” the smith said, then closed the hall door behind him. His footsteps were a steady thud as he retreated to his shop,
At the table, all Josce’s friends were now afoot. Hugh had paled beneath his olive coloring. Simon’s and Alan’s heads were bowed as if in prayer. Stephen crossed himself.
Rafe’s eyes glittered in new anger. “Lady Clarice and Lady Adelaide were but children. What sort of rat-kissers kill babes?” he demanded of the room at large.
“We didn’t know,” Stephen cried, naught but sadness and shock on his face. “We’d only heard what the man who came to fetch you from Glevering said, that there’d been a battle and your sire was gone.”
“Lady Beatrice can but be beside herself,” Hugh said softly, “the way she values her daughters.”
“You have no idea,” Josce replied with a sigh. “Her grief nigh on killed her, while I stood blindly by and let it happen.”
“Come, sit and tell us all,” Rafe urged, his arm now across his friend’s shoulders. “And when you’ve spilled it, tell us if there’s aught we can do for you.”
As he and Rafe started across the room, Alan eyed his grieving friend from his stance at the table’s far end. “You speak of your lady stepmother ailing, but what of you? You look gaunt and worn.”
Josce’s laugh was a bitter breath. If he was worn it was because he spent last night futtering his enemy’s daughter and liking it all too well. “Each day I’m better than the last, as every dawn brings me closer to unraveling the mystery surrounding my kinsmen’s deaths and wreaking my vengeance.”
“What mystery?” Rafe demanded. “What do you know?”
“Come and listen as I remind you how this shire has been plagued by thieves for too long,” Josce replied, settling onto the edge of the bench Alan used as he glanced across his friends’ faces. Alan joined him on the seat, while Rafe stayed where he stopped. The other three men yet stood, each positioned so they might watch him as he spoke.
“As my sire and sisters made their way here, they came upon this very band attacking a spice merchant. Not only did these thieves outnumber the total of my sire’s men combined with those of the merchant, these bandits were so well trained they bested a battle-canny knight and all his soldiers.” There was no little sarcasm in Josce’s voice as he spewed this bit of information. “When my sire was dead, these foul men murdered my sisters just as the goldsmith’s daughter described.”
While the others muttered anew against such an outrage, quiet Alan shook his head. “Thieves with such skills? Men that well trained would have no need of banditry, not with the north of England arming for rebellion just now.” Led by several disgruntled nobles, the always fractious north country was alive with talk of deposing John, who insisted on forcing his rule, and more to the point, collecting his taxes in those distant shires.
Josce sent his benchmate a sidelong look. “You’ll think it all the stranger, Priest, when I tell you that my sire was left in his armor with his sword and shield at his side. Not even his signet was removed.” His left hand curled until he felt the band of his sire’s ring against his palm. “So too was his purse, and those of his men, yet filled.”
“What?!” In his surprise, Hugh dropped back to sit on his bench, his brow clenched. “But, this makes no sense. Are these marauders thieves or not?”
“What if they were down-trodden knights who yet cling to some shred of honor?” Simon offered, intelligence bright in his blue eyes. “They didn’t wish to kill your sire, but he forced their hands by defending the beleaguered merchant.”
Josce nodded. “So I think as well. However, if these down-trodden knights of yours had any honor at all they’d be working for some great house, as Priest says. Moreover, where are they? There’s no uncharted forest in this shire, offering hidden grove or leafy shield in which to hide. Knights have horses to feed and armor to maintain. Yet, seven years has Reiner du Hommet sought these men and been unable to run them to ground.”
Stephen leaned forward to see around Simon, his fists braced on the table. “Here’s your answer. The whole country knows du Hommet couldn’t find his ass in a garderobe. Why our gracious majesty keeps him here as sheriff is beyond me.”
“What cares John for du Hommet’s character?” Alan scoffed. “All our royal master wants is the blanche and taille this shire owes its king, along with du Hommet’s payment on his debt. And both those things the man delivers up each and every year.”
Startled by Alan’s mention of the sheriff’s debt, Josce shifted on the bench to look at his friend. “Priest, what do you know of du Hommet’s financial state or the profit he gleans from shire management?”
“Me?” Alan shook his head. “Nothing, save that each year my cousin and his fellow clerks wager as to how long du Hommet will moan and complain before he makes his personal payment.” Alan’s kinsman was a clerk serving the king’s treasury. “Apparently, it’s a pageant better than any mummery,” he added with a shrug. “Why do you care?”
“The man’s debt bothers me.” Josce frowned at the nagging sense that what the sheriff owed meant more than appeared on its surface. Giving his tongue free rein, he thought out loud in the hope that what he sought might magically tumble past his lips. “He seems strangely impoverished for his position. If what it cost him to buy the position was truly beyond him, then why did he purchase it in the first place? Did something ch
ange that drove him into unexpected penury? Who would remain in a position that cost him more to hold than he reaped from it?”
No answer appeared. He sighed. That left only his original theory to share.
“All this leads me to wonder how far the man might go to free himself from such a burden,” he said, preparing to tell his friends that he suspected Elianne’s sire didn’t seek the thieves, but shielded them for his own profit.
Across the table from him Rafe caught his breath, his expression startled. “You cannot think the sheriff is your thief.”
Josce’s mouth opened to deny this, but his words died unspoken. A great light exploded at the back of his brain. “By God, Rafe, you’re brilliant,” he crowed to his friend, then once more looked at the others. “I ask you all, where better to hide a well-trained band of thieves than in a castle filled with well-trained soldiers?”
If Simon, Stephen and Hugh shook their heads, Alan gave a disgusted huff. “It wouldn’t be the first time a sheriff took from his own folk, although most wouldn’t expend the effort to hide what they did.”
“True enough,” Rafe agreed, a sour twist to his lips.
Josce turned to Alan. “Priest, can I beg your aid?”
“Ask, and it’s done,” his friend replied without hesitation.
Josce couldn’t help but smile in gratitude. “I need to know everything and anything you can discover about du Hommet’s finances. If he’s our thief, has he used his illegal profit to make headway in his debt? Your kinsman would know if the sheriff’s payments have changed over these last years. Can you reach him and return to me before ten days’ time?”
Alan grinned, his gray eyes alight at the challenge. “If I can’t then my horse isn’t worthy of his oats. Why ten days?”
Josce’s smile was grim. “Because, I’ve warned the sheriff that if he doesn’t present these murdering thieves to me for justice, I’ll meet him instead, sword to sword. It’ll be his life I take in their stead.”
The Warrior's Maiden (The Warriors Series Book 2) Page 15