Linnet hastily rose from the chair, afraid that Agnes was going to assault her and Robert. The maid, who had been about to present Linnet with a cup of wine, quickly sidestepped to avoid spilling it. With Robert in her arms, Linnet headed towards the door. ‘I think it best if I leave, my lady,’ she said. ‘You are obviously unwell.’
‘No, you will hear me out first.’ Agnes continued to advance on Linnet but the sole of her shoe caught in the hem of her undergown and sent her sprawling.
The maid, a look of horror on her face, set the cups aside and stooped to her mistress. Linnet hesitated on the threshold, desiring nothing more than to make her escape but prevented by her conscience. Supposing Agnes had broken a bone or was having a seizure?
She set Robert on his feet. ‘Do you think you can go down to the hall and find Conan and Joscelin?’
Robert looked up at her. ‘You come, too.’ He tugged on her hand.
‘I cannot. Lady Agnes needs help. Find Joscelin and stay with him until I come. Yes?’
Robert nodded, his underlip caught in his teeth.
‘Good boy. Go on then, quickly.’ Linnet hugged him and shooed him on his way. It was astonishing how Joscelin’s name had become a talisman to the child. Mention it and a hundred doors opened where doors had not existed before. Here he was in a place he did not know, turning from the security of her skirts because Joscelin was the prize.
Giving brisk orders to the frightened maid, Linnet checked Agnes for broken bones. Thankfully there were none and she helped Agnes to rise and wobble to her bed. The sheets had a stale smell and there were smears and crumbs upon the coverlet. Linnet urged a cup of wine upon Agnes. Grey-faced, the woman sipped and gradually her colour began to return. Her eyes cleared and focused on Linnet. ‘How I envy your innocence,’ she said wearily. ‘I, too, was innocent once. I can see it in your eyes; you think I am mad, don’t you?’
‘I certainly think you are ill,’ Linnet said, pity softening her attitude.
Agnes looked bleakly at the wall where a plasterwork scene depicted two lovers seated at a merels board in a garden. ‘William wants to lock me up in a nunnery. I’m past childbearing and naught but a burden to him, but I would have him carry his burden until it kills him and then may he rot in hell with his precious whore!’
When Linnet rose to leave, Agnes did not try again to stop her but rocked gently back and forth in her bed, cradling her cup, and muttering softly to herself.
It had been more than twenty years since the last encounter between William de Rocher and Conan de Gael. On that occasion, William had taken his sword and fought Conan from tower to tower, room to room, across the ward and out of Arnsby’s gates. Then he had slammed them in the mercenary’s face and ordered him never to return on pain of hanging.
Now, face-to-face, eyes on a level, they confronted each other.
‘Going to string me up, then?’ Conan asked, lounging upon his sword hip.
‘Don’t tempt me,’ William growled. His hands gripped his belt in lieu of Conan’s throat. ‘What are you doing here except to cause trouble?’
Conan looked reproachful. ‘You do me an injustice, William, but that’s nothing new. You’ve always believed my motives to be the worst in the world. Don’t worry, I’m not staying long. I’ve about as much taste for your company as you have for mine.’
‘Then why are you here at all?’
‘He’s working for me,’ Joscelin said. ‘I need seasoned men with the trouble that’s brewing and Rushcliffe’s garrison is as magnificent a collection of oafs and lack-wits as ever graced a fool’s banquet.’
‘You must be one of them if you’re hiring him!’ William snapped.
‘Not so much that I would cut off my nose to spite my face.’ Joscelin fixed his father with a hard stare. ‘Would you rather he sold his sword to the rebellion?’
Ironheart ground such teeth as remained to him.
Conan smiled, the creases at the corners of his eyes deepening with sardonic humour. ‘I think he would,’ he said to Joscelin. ‘I could keep my eyes open for Ralf and Ivo then, couldn’t I?’
Joscelin cast his uncle a warning stare and made a chopping movement with his right hand. Unperturbed, Conan continued to smile, his scar turning his expression into a leer.
‘Is he really your uncle?’ asked Martin, who had attached himself to the three men without being noticed. He looked upon Conan with the same bright curiosity he had given to the bear at Smithfield Fair.
Joscelin chuckled and tousled his younger brother’s chestnut curls. ‘I’m afraid he is but don’t let his appearance deceive you.’ He looked at Conan. ‘Although he’s a liability when there’s no one to fight, there are few people I’d rather have at my back on the battlefield.’
Conan raised a mocking eyebrow. ‘Kind of you to admit it,’ he said but Joscelin could tell he was pleased.
‘Why aren’t you at sword practice?’ William snapped at his youngest son.
Martin regarded his father without fear. ‘Sir Alain sent me to get another sword. The old wooden one I was using broke.’
‘And you are on your way now?’
‘Yes, sir. But I thought it good manners to stop and greet our guests.’
Ironheart’s lips twitched. ‘I suspect that a long, inquisitive nose is nearer to the truth. Go, hurry now, before you find yourself answering to Sir Alain for your tardiness. ’ He gave the boy’s shoulder a swift shake.
No sooner had Martin gone than Robert appeared at a run and flung himself at Joscelin, who swung him up into his arms.
‘Where’s your mother? Does she know that you are here?’
Robert nodded and burrowed his head against Joscelin’s throat, his arms tightening. Joscelin could feel the rapid pitter-patter of the child’s heartbeat beneath his fingers. ‘She sent me to stay with you,’ Robert said. ‘The lady we went to see wasn’t very nice. I didn’t like her, but she fell over and Mama stayed to help her get up.’
Joscelin looked across Robert’s fair head at his father.
‘Agnes has been very difficult of late,’ Ironheart said with an impatient shrug and a look of distaste. ‘She spends all her time brooding about Ralf and Ivo and plotting ways to see them back into my favour.’
Joscelin cuddled Robert and said nothing.
‘In the spring, once Martin has gone for fostering in de Luci’s household, I’m going to buy her a corody and settle her with the nuns at Southwell,’ William said.
‘Should have done it years ago, man,’ Conan said bluntly.
William’s mouth twisted. ‘She is my penance. I have worn her presence like a hair shirt for more than half my life.’
And she had worn his, too, for the sake of her sons, Joscelin thought, and was unlikely to agree to enter a nunnery while their future remained in doubt.
‘I saw another lady on the stairs,’ Robert piped up as his hero’s attention strayed. ‘A nice lady. She smelled like flowers.’
‘Did she?’ Joscelin said, not taking much notice.
‘Her hair was longer than Mama’s, nearly to her knees, and she was wearing a pretty green dress with dangly sleeves,’ Robert babbled.
His words were like stones dropped in a pool. Ripples of silence expanded from them and drowned the men in shock. William’s face turned the colour of ashes.
‘Jesu!’ Conan muttered and, crossing himself, stared at the child.
‘Did she speak to you?’ Involuntarily, Joscelin looked towards the dark entrance of the tower stairs, then raised his head to study the long walk of the gallery and the double row of oak rails. Sunlight from the tall windows above the dais gilded the spear tips that impaled the family banners above the hearth. They stirred in the updraught from the flames. He could feel the erratic, hard thud of his own pulse against the pressure of the child’s body.
Robert shook his head. ‘No, but she smiled and walked down the stairs with me so I wouldn’t be frightened of the dark. She’s gone now.’
The men looked at one another, not daring to voice what their minds were shouting.
‘Probably one of the maids,’ Conan said, his heartiness too hollow for conviction. ‘Or perhaps the lad has overheard something and embroidered it with his imagination. ’ His gaze went as Joscelin’s had done to the dark tower mouth where they had found his sister unconscious, tangled in the folds of her green gown. He closed his eyes and did not open them again until he had turned to face William Ironheart. ‘You asked why I was here. I never did pay my respects at Morwenna’s tomb. You threw me out and said you would hang me like a common felon if I so much as set foot on Arnsby land. But that was a long time ago. We’re old men now. I want to make peace with the past before it is too late for all of us.’
‘There is no such thing as peace,’ William replied hoarsely, his own eyes riveted on the tower entrance.
17
The chapel dedicated to Morwenna de Gael stood on the edge of the forest, close to the village of Arnsby but separated from it by the mill stream, which was crossed by means of a humpbacked stone bridge. In front of the chapel sheep cropped the grass, keeping it nibbled to a short turf dappled with daisies and pink clover.
Astride her mare, Linnet studied this shrine to Joscelin’s mother. The white Caen stone wore a golden reflection of the afternoon sun. Windows eyebrowed with intricate stone patterns viewed the world from dark irises of painted glass. A solid wooden door, handsomely decorated with barrings of wrought iron, was wedged open and a path of sunlight beckoned the eye over the threshold and into the nave. Beautiful and tranquil, she thought, so unlike the restless spirit that walked Arnsby’s corridors in the minds of its occupants.
She glanced at Robert, whom Joscelin was lowering from his saddle on to the turf. Joscelin had told her what her son had said. ‘He scared us half to death.’ He had looked wry. ‘Conan says it was probably one of the maids and we’re all clinging to that belief, but . . .’ Then he had shrugged and spread his hands. ‘It is strange all the same, very strange.’
Linnet watched Robert kneel in the grass and cup his hands around a ladybird. The sunlight made a nimbus of his hair and his face was open and bright with pleasure. Whatever he had seen or absorbed on that stair had done him no harm. Any darkness had settled on the adults long ago and was probably of their own making. She thought of Agnes de Rocher with mixed feelings of pity and revulsion.
Joscelin was waiting at her stirrup and he held up his arms to lift her down. ‘Why the frown?’ he queried.
Her brow cleared and she shook her head. ‘Nothing. I was thinking of your father’s wife, and there but for the grace of God . . .’ She descended into his arms, twisting slightly to avoid hurting his wounded shoulder.
‘She upset you, didn’t she?’ He set her on the ground but his hands remained lightly at her waist. She felt the pressure of his palms and fingers, and her loins softened. She was aware of the rise and fall of his chest and the brightness of his stare.
‘More than a little,’ she admitted breathlessly and tried to concentrate on what he had said rather than the effect of his closeness on her senses. ‘She told me you had deliberately come to Arnsby to remind your father that he still had a loyal son of full age and also to show me off as a trophy of your success.’
He smiled and tilted his head to one side. His hand drew light circles in the small of her back. ‘And is there anything wrong with either of those?’
‘It was the way she spoke of your motives, as if you had come to take what advantage you could.’
‘She doesn’t know how close to the truth she was,’ he said with obvious double meaning and lowered his head to kiss her.
It was heady and sweet, tender and strong. Linnet clutched him for support and felt him move back on his heels to keep his balance as she swayed against him. In that moment Robert thrust between them, eager to show off his ladybird. Joscelin staggered and released her. Linnet stumbled one pace after him then steadied herself. Robert stared up at the adults out of light, shining eyes.
‘Look, Mama!’ he cried, holding out the ladybird on the palm of his hand. The beetle opened its glossy red wing-cases and whirred into the air. ‘It’s gone!’ Robert dashed across the grass in pursuit.
Joscelin drew a slow, deep breath and clamped his hands around his belt, in unconscious imitation of his father. ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘being honourable is very hard. Yes, I’ve considered laying claim to Arnsby. If it weren’t for Martin, I might even have discarded my integrity to do it.’ He smiled with more pain than humour. ‘And if it weren’t so important to you that this three months of mourning be observed, I’d have laid claim to your bed weeks ago.’
Linnet could feel her spine dissolving in the look he was giving her. She was sorely tempted to say that the three months of mourning were far less important than they had been but she held back. He knew that Giles had not trusted her and she did not want to give Joscelin cause to wonder if Giles had been right. Let him see that she could resist temptation. And, on a level far deeper and fraught with guilt, she had to prove it to herself.
‘It is not that I am unwilling but I would rather make sure that I am not carrying Giles’s seed,’ she said. ‘And because it is the “honourable” thing to do by the dead. Besides, people must see that you are the justiciar’s true representative, not some adventurer who has snatched me from across my husband’s coffin and dragged me before the nearest priest.’
Joscelin sighed. ‘People will see what they want to see,’ he said. ‘They always do,’ but stood aside to let her walk up the path to the open chapel doorway.
She could feel his eyes burning upon her spine like a physical touch. Shivering, she forced herself neither to quicken her pace nor to look over her shoulder. She heard Robert cry to Joscelin that he had found another ladybird, and Joscelin’s distracted reply. And then the solid walls of the chapel interior cut off all sounds from outside and she was immersed in a tranquillity of pale stone arches rising in two tiers to a ceiling patterned with curves and lozenges of chiselled stone.
Linnet’s breathing slowed as she absorbed the atmosphere of clarity and peace. She paced solemnly up the small flagged nave to the altar and, kneeling, crossed herself and honoured God before she rose and approached the tomb of Morwenna de Gael.