‘Perhaps you will tell me now about Hubert de Beaumont, about this “private quarrel” of yours. I think that perhaps it is not so private after all.’
Linnet raised her hand to the spectacular necklet of bruises at her throat. A red burn mark showed livid where Beaumont had tried to tear off the leather cord upon which the strongbox key had hung. Joscelin was its custodian now. ‘If you had made an issue of it, there would have been a scandal and I would have been branded a harlot at the least. Hubert de Beaumont has a murky reputation and there have been several incidents involving other men’s wives. You ride the tourney circuits, you know the type.’
Joscelin inwardly flinched. Being a tourney champion and an itinerant mercenary he was, by association, linked to such men. He did indeed know the type. Besides, he couldn’t claim to be a lily-white innocent himself.
‘He wanted the silver. It was Giles’s wish, too, but I denied them both. I had to decide how to act in my own interests and my son’s, since the strongbox belongs to him now. I’m not sure I have done the right thing. There is no surety that King Henry will emerge from this rebellion the victor. To lean too far in either direction seems dangerous to me.’
Joscelin had been taking a drink of wine and he almost choked at hearing her deliver these less than honourable sentiments in a thoughtful, pragmatic voice. ‘Playing a double game is even more dangerous,’ he croaked.
She dipped her head and smoothed her gown over her knees. All he could see was the curve of her cheek and her lowered lashes. After a moment, she drew a deep breath and lifted her gaze to his. ‘And sometimes safer, I do believe. No, please, hear me out.’ She lifted her hand quickly to stay his protest. ‘I have a suggestion to put to you about tomorrow’s journey.’
Joscelin looked at the hand she had stretched out to him. It was a quick and capable hand with short-clipped nails. A practical hand, not that of a languid noble lady. ‘Yes?’ he said cautiously.
‘The strongbox is obviously a target. Leicester knows that if he takes his claim to court, he is likely to lose. He also knows that we are leaving for Rushcliffe tomorrow and that we will have to travel through lands where his influence is almost as powerful as the justiciar’s.’
‘Yes,’ Joscelin said again, beginning to frown.
‘What I suggest is that to protect my son’s inheritance, we take—’ She stopped speaking abruptly, her gaze darting to the makeshift door as it was heavily thumped by the fist of the guard outside.
‘Come,’ Joscelin commanded.
Malcolm the Scot poked his head around the door, his flaming hair standing up in spiky tufts. ‘The justiciar and your lord father have arrived, sir, and want a word.’
Joscelin sighed and rose to his feet. ‘All right, I’ll be there directly.’ He turned to Linnet. ‘I’ll be interested to hear what you have to say when I return,’ he said, adding ruefully, ‘If I can stay awake that long.’
* * *
Arriving in the main hall, Joscelin found his father and the justiciar waiting for him. Ironheart’s expression was smug and Joscelin was immediately put on his guard. It was a relief to have the culprits under lock and key awaiting interrogation. Against that small triumph, though, a man had died and the kitchens and stables were naught but heaps of smoking cinders - nothing to foster a smug expression.
Joscelin made a concise report that bordered on the curt. He was tired, but the sharper he became the more his father’s lips curved. De Luci, too, seemed to find it necessary to smile as he seated himself on a padded bench along the wall of the room. Beside him was a wicker cage lined with straw and inside it, curled at the back, Robert’s two black rabbits slept nose-to-tail.
‘Food for your journey?’ de Luci asked, peering inside.
‘They are a gift from my aunt to Robert de Montsorrel,’ Joscelin answered neutrally.
Ironheart made a contemptuous sound. ‘Maude’s got more wool in her head than a downland sheep has fleece.’
‘And more sense than most,’ Joscelin snapped and then, aware that both men were staring at him, shrugged. ‘I lost a good man today and got thoroughly belaboured by an oar when I went after the strongbox on the boat. Between one and the other, I’m not fit company.’
De Luci sobered. ‘It is always a grief to lose a companion. I will pay for masses to be said for him once you are gone. We won’t keep you long but I have a proposal to set before you, one that is very much to your advantage, and it has a direct bearing on the task I have set you.’ His gaze flickered briefly to Ironheart and back to Joscelin.
It was a night for proposals, Joscelin thought. He saw that his father was openly grinning now.
De Luci steepled his fingers beneath his jaw. ‘Originally I wanted you to escort Linnet de Montsorrel and her son back to Rushcliffe and take up the position of castellan while I found a suitable warden for the boy. Well, it seems that it’s my good fortune to have found one already.’
Joscelin eyed de Luci. How could that be of advantage to him unless de Luci was offering him a higher post, which he very much doubted? The qualifications for such a position were means, breeding and influence, and he possessed none of these. ‘My lord?’ he questioned, because it was required of him to play the game out.
‘I am here to offer you the wardship of Robert de Montsorrel by right of marriage to the widow.’
The words entered Joscelin’s consciousness but made little sense to his reeling mind. His eyes widened and his lips moved, silently repeating what the justiciar had said.
De Luci gave a self-satisfied smile. He enjoyed tossing surprises like snakes and then watching his victims juggle frantically. ‘There will be a fine to pay to the Crown for the right to take the lady to wife, but you’ll still have enough to live on while you set the lands to rights.’ He chuckled softly. ‘Don’t look so stunned. If I did not believe you capable of donning baronial robes, I’d not have offered you Rushcliffe to administer. Of course, it will only be yours until the lad comes of age but there is still his mother’s dower property and that’s worth a decent sum. What do you say?’
Joscelin swallowed. His mind was so full of conflicting thoughts and emotions that he was at a loss. ‘I do not know what to say, my lord.’
De Luci laughed. ‘I have thought for some time that you should settle down and breed some sons to follow you in service to the Crown.’
‘Women should be kept busy,’ Ironheart agreed, exposing his chipped teeth and cavities in a broad grin. ‘The bed, the distaff and the cradle: that’s the way to run your household.’
Having seen what the bed, distaff and cradle had done for his father’s wife, Joscelin wondered if Ironheart really believed what he was advocating or whether he spouted it blindly from force of habit. ‘I would rather not season my dinner with wormwood,’ he replied, and turned to de Luci. ‘My lord, I will be pleased to accept what you offer me, providing the lady is willing.’
‘She has no choice in the matter,’ Ironheart growled.
‘Then I am giving her one.’ Joscelin looked defiantly at his father until Ironheart dropped his gaze and spat his disapproval into the rushes.
‘Very well,’ said de Luci with a grave face but a twinkle in his eye, ‘only if the lady is willing but I expect you to persuade her on that score.’ His own wife had had no say in the matter of their marriage but he remembered wanting her to agree to the match of her own volition. First and foremost, it was pride. De Luci did not believe there was the slightest possibility of Joscelin giving up an opportunity like this for the sake of a woman’s word. He wagged an admonitory finger at Ironheart. ‘It damages a man’s esteem, William, to think he has to force his bride to marry him.’
‘It never damaged mine,’ Ironheart snapped. ‘Good Christ, if anything, Agnes was forced on me, the sulky bitch.’
‘And if you had had to force my mother?’ Joscelin asked.
A shadow crossed William’s face. ‘Then perhaps she would still be alive,’ he said bitterly. ‘I warned her to be carefu
l while she was with child but she went her own way, as usual, and I was idiot enough to let her.’
An uncomfortable silence seized the room. Joscelin knew he had stepped upon forbidden territory but sometimes it was the only way of fighting back. The subject of his mother was seldom raised in conversation. For all that Ironheart believed in plain speaking and honesty, she was one subject that he kept locked away in his own personal hell. He blamed himself for her death and his guilt was a wound so deep that it was still bleeding.
Joscelin inhaled to speak, and thus break the stifling silence, but a draught from the door-curtain made him stop and glance round. His eyes widened in dismay for Linnet de Montsorrel was standing on the threshold. From the look on her face, it was plain she had heard every word of their discussion and was fully prepared to be as unwilling as a heifer smelling a slaughter shed.
Ironheart, a superb general, went straight into the attack. ‘Is it your habit to eavesdrop?’ he demanded with a glare that made it obvious what he thought of a woman’s interruption of a man’s domain.
Her face blanched of colour but she stood her ground. ‘No, my lord,’ she answered with dignity, a slight tremble in her voice. ‘I came to fetch the coneys. My son had a nightmare about them being killed and I wanted him to see that they are safe. I heard you talking and, since it concerned me most intimately, I had no qualms about listening.’
Ironheart spluttered.
Linnet faced Joscelin. ‘You want me to consent to be your wife?’
‘I ask of you that honour, my lady,’ he answered with a bow.
‘Honour,’ she said with weary scorn. ‘What an over-used word that is.’
Ironheart clenched one fist upon his belt buckle as if he were contemplating unlatching it to use upon her. De Luci’s face wore an expression of shock, as if a butterfly had just bitten him.
‘My son has need of me,’ she said and, taking the coney cage from the bench beside the justiciar, she raked the men with a look of utter contempt and walked out.
‘By Christ, she needs her hide lifted with a whip!’ Ironheart snarled.
‘I don’t want a wife like the lady Agnes who cowers every time you raise your voice,’ Joscelin answered, staring at the swaying door-curtain.
‘That is precisely the kind of wife you do want!’ Ironheart retorted. Striding across the room to the nearest flagon, he sloshed a measure of wine into a cup and, raising it on high, toasted his son. ‘To the lady’s willingness! ’ he mocked, eyes bright with cruelty.
‘William, enough!’ de Luci admonished.
‘I will gain her willingness.’ Joscelin clung to his temper. ‘And I won’t have to beat her to do it.’
Ironheart grimaced. ‘No, I know you. You will flay your own hide and offer it to her for a saddle blanket.’
‘Perhaps I’ll offer her yours instead,’ Joscelin snapped. ‘You don’t know me at all!’ And he stalked from the room before he committed patricide.
Reassured that no one had butchered his coneys, Robert had fallen asleep, one small hand lightly touching the cage. A lump grew in Linnet’s throat. Quietly she rose from his bedside and went to the laver. Tilting the reservoir, she poured water into the pink-and-cream marble basin beneath and splashed her hot face. De Gael’s words had been courtly, but they were dross. He was as calculating and ambitious as any other landless wolf. A castle, a comfortingly heavy strongbox, someone to mend his clothes, see to his food and pleasure his bed. Servants, herself included, to call him ‘my lord’ and fetch and carry at his whim. And she was supposed to be honoured? Say no, and the soft words would be replaced by a bludgeon. Feeling dizzy and sick she held her wrists in the cold water and tried to breathe more slowly.
‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Maude advanced on Linnet from the other end of the room where a maid had been preparing her for bed. She wore a chemise and her grey hair lay in a frizzy plait on her bosom.
Linnet laughed bitterly. ‘Giles is barely in his coffin and already I’ve been given a new “protector.”’ Her mouth twisted on the final word.
Maude’s expression grew concerned. ‘You mean de Luci has appointed a permanent ward to look after Robert’s inheritance? What about Joscelin? Is he still taking you north tomorrow?’
Linnet stared through waterlogged lashes into the older woman’s bemused, homely face. ‘Joscelin,’ she said stiffly, ‘has been given full custody of everything by right of marriage. My son, myself and our lands. All he requires is my consent and even that can be obtained by a handful of silver to the right priest.’
Maude looked astonished. ‘Richard de Luci has offered you in marriage to Joscelin?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, well, well.’ Maude folded her arms and assimilated the fact with pursed lips. ‘What did Joscelin say?’
‘That wedding me was an honour, that he desired my willingness,’ Linnet said in a scornful voice. ‘Of course, it’s an excuse for him to take what he wants without a bleat from his conscience. He was paying lip service to honour, and I told him so.’
‘You said that to Joscelin?’ Maude’s expression became guarded.
‘I said it to all three of them,’ Linnet answered, drying her hands on the rectangle of bleached linen hanging at the side of the laver. ‘Giles believed in honour, too.’ She yanked her gown and chemise to one side and showed Maude the livid mark of the bite on her neck, the yellow smudges encircling her throat, the friction graze of the leather key-cord. ‘Here’s the proof.’
Maude unfolded her arms and put them around Linnet in a warm embrace. ‘Oh my love, not all men are so tainted,’ she said in a voice tender with compassion. ‘My husband never took his fist to me, nor did he reproach me because I was barren. We were very fond of each other. I still miss him terribly.’
Linnet refused to be diverted from her course. Such paragons might exist but they were a minority. ‘And your nephew, how does he treat women?’
‘Joscelin would not abuse you, I know he would not.’
‘With his father for an example?’
Maude squeezed Linnet’s shoulder. ‘Once you know William, he’s more bark than bite. I’m not saying he’s an easy man; sometimes he can be so vile you want to murder him, but his bad temper is a shield to prevent him from being wounded. Joscelin has always had the strength of will to go his own way. That’s one of the reasons he and William sometimes quarrel fit to fly the doors off their hinges.’
‘Madam my aunt, I would be grateful for a moment alone with Lady Linnet,’ said Joscelin.
Linnet pulled away from Maude’s embrace. ‘I have nothing to say to you,’ she said curtly to him.
Maude stepped protectively in front of her. ‘I think tomorrow would be better for us all,’ she said.
‘No, now.’ The quiet determination in the words informed her that while she might badger him and win on trivial issues such as shopping trips, she would have no success on this matter. He sat down on the coffer where he had earlier eaten his pasty and leaned his back against the wall, indicating that he was not leaving.
Maude held her ground for a moment longer then capitulated with a deep shrug and an apologetic glance for Linnet. She retired to the far end of the room and would have left the partitioning curtain open but Joscelin signalled her to draw it across. After a silent battle of wills, she yielded with an exasperated twitch of her hand.
Feeling sick with apprehension, Linnet faced Joscelin.
He came straight to the point. ‘If not me,’ he said, ‘it will be someone else and soon. You cannot remain a widow, you must know that.’
His tone was reasonable but she was not deceived. He was as tense as herself and filled with anger. She had seen the signs often enough in Giles.
‘My husband has yet to be buried and you speak to me of marriage? Mother of God, you even pursue me here to my chamber to press your claim? You must be eager indeed!’
He looked wry. ‘I would have discussed it in the hall but you showed no inclination to stay.’
‘With the three of you staring at me like hucksters deliberating over a choice piece of ware?’
‘I suppose it must have appeared like that to you,’ he admitted, ‘but the justiciar has not made me this offer out of pure generosity for services rendered in the past. He sees me as a choice piece of ware, too.’
‘So he uses me and my son to buy your loyalty.’
‘In Christ’s name, woman, use your wits for a moment!’ he snapped with exasperation. Then he slumped on the coffer and rubbed his eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I’m tired and sore and my temper’s frayed. I don’t mean to frighten you. Look, de Luci has offered me something that will never come within my grasp again. Most mercenaries die in the ditch. Those who don’t might rise as high as the post of seneschal in a modest keep if they are fortunate. It’s a glittering prize and I would be mad not to desire it with all my being. Surely you can see that?’
Linnet had flinched when he snapped at her but his apology gave her the courage to fight back. ‘Rushcliffe is my son’s by right. You make it sound like a choice morsel that has landed on your trencher for you to devour.’
Joscelin gave a judicious nod. ‘It is true,’ he said, ‘that being the warden of a small child who is heir to wide estates is a lucrative post. I pay de Luci for the privilege and then make good my loss and hopefully a profit out of the estate’s revenues. It would be dishonest of me to claim otherwise but unless I’m a competent steward those profits are going to be negligible, and in the end they will dry up.’
His words held the ring of common sense but Linnet was not yet ready to be mollified. And certainly she had no intention of trusting him. ‘Giles was not averse to selling his own child’s inheritance to the French,’ she said coldly. ‘Why should you as a stepfather be any more tender?’
‘Because . . .’ he began but stopped, the words unspoken. A haunted look filled his eyes. He indicated the right portion of the coffer and eased along slightly so that there was room enough for her to be seated without having to touch him. ‘Please, sit down.’
Shields of Pride Page 8