The Fleming parried a couple of times, cast a rapid glance over his shoulder at the distance to the stairs and cried, ‘I yield, I yield!’ and dropped his weapon.
Joscelin did not lower the spear. ‘Unbar the cells,’ he commanded, jerking the point.
The Fleming did as he was told, fumbling in his haste to lift the heavy wooden beams out of their slots.
‘Now attend to your friend before he dies,’ Joscelin said as the prisoners within pushed open their doors and burst out to freedom. ‘Use that belt you so prized to strap off the bleeding.’
‘Lord Joscelin!’ Guy de Montauban’s eyes were glowing with exultation and an excess of wild anger. ‘How did you manage to escape?’
‘Someone opened the oubliette trap and dropped down a rope. I don’t know who; he did not wait to make himself known. Did you see anyone go past?’
‘Ralf came before midnight, walking as if he owned the world, the whoreson,’ Montauban spat, as if mention of the name had fouled his mouth.
‘No one else?’
‘I don’t know. I think I must have slept some of the time. The rattle of their dice woke me up. What about you, Alain?’ Montauban turned to a bowlegged, sandy-haired man. ‘Did you see anyone?’
‘Someone did come.’ Alain rubbed the side of his nose. ‘But I didn’t see his face. He was wearing a cloak and a short hood - a blue one, I remember. The guards knew him and weren’t bothered.’
‘Ivo!’ Joscelin said with surprise. ‘I always thought he was Ralf’s minion.’ But then, perhaps Ivo was no longer prepared to follow where Ralf chose to lead. ‘How many of us are there?’ He took a swift headcount. Six of his father’s men, six of his own and himself. Thirteen, the unlucky number of the last supper. He grimaced.
‘We have two swords, two daggers, two spears, a scram and a pair of mail shirts,’ said Montauban, casting his eyes over the weaponry.
‘There are spare lance shafts stowed over there; they can be used as quarterstaffs.’ Joscelin pointed to a stack of shaped ash staves leaning against a wall. ‘We won’t have to tackle every soldier in the keep, only the mercenaries loyal to Ralf and, even then, their resistance is likely to be half-hearted.’ He cast a look over his shoulder at the two Flemings. ‘Ralf is the target. Down him and the resistance dies.’
‘You want him dead?’ Montauban licked his lips.
Joscelin drew a harsh breath through his teeth. Every nerve and desire directed him to answer yes, but he held back, afraid of the blackness at his core, as deep and dark as the oubliette in which Ralf had cast him. ‘Hold back unless there is no other way,’ he replied. ‘Better if he is taken alive and dealt with by the justiciar.’ His expression became bleak. ‘Otherwise I am no better than he.’
37
Linnet watched Agnes de Rocher raise a coffer lid, take from it a pile of garments and bring them over to the bed where Ironheart lay. His hands were crossed upon his breast and his badger-grey hair was parted in the middle, combed and oiled as Linnet had never seen it in life. It had always been swept back from his forehead in leonine disorder and very seldom had he used a comb to tame it.
Death had softened some of the harsh lines graven into his face but, without flesh or colour, he was already a cadaver, bearing little resemblance to the living man she wanted to remember. And Agnes was revelling in her moment of glory. She was like an eager bride, her face radiant and her eyes sparkling as she went about her death-chamber duties.
Linnet had been escorted back from the chapel by two of Ralf’s Flemish guards and informed that if she wandered off again, she would be tied up. Agnes had recovered from her near-choking, although her voice was nothing more than a harsh whisper, and she had exchanged the light silk wimple of earlier for a fuller one of linen that swathed her throat and shoulders, concealing all marks.
Linnet had been forced to sit on a stool and watch Agnes prepare her husband to be taken down to the chapel to lie in state; to watch the woman wash his body as tenderly as a lover, dwelling upon the ravaged, calloused flesh with obscene, possessive joy. It had made Linnet sick. Twice she had had to run to the waste pit in the corner of the room, although there had been nothing to bring up but bile. And each time she returned, it was to see Agnes crooning to her husband, smiling and stroking.
‘You are mine now,’ Agnes whispered, running the rose-water cloth over the body in long, smooth strokes. ‘You cannot gainsay my will.’
Linnet shuddered at her tone. She wondered if Agnes, in her madness, would cast off her clothes and leap into bed with the body.
‘Of course, when it comes your turn to do this, your own husband will not be so presentable,’ Agnes continued as she shook out the garments, hurling small, brittle pieces of bay leaf and sage from the folds. ‘I saw a human hide once, nailed on the gates of a house in Newark. You couldn’t really tell it was human, it was all yellow and shrivelled; they mustn’t have tanned it properly.’
Linnet was overcome with nausea again, her reaction so swift and strong to Agnes’ words that she had no time to reach the garderobe and had to use her wimple.
Agnes clucked her tongue. ‘You are suffering, my dear, aren’t you?’ she said, a parody of concern in her damaged voice. ‘When is the babe due?’
‘It is you who is making me sick,’ Linnet gasped, removing her spoiled wimple. Jesu and his mother, help me, she thought, knowing she could not endure much more.
‘Your heart is too tender, as indeed mine was once. Perhaps you see yourself in me?’ Agnes cocked her head to one side, eyeing Linnet with a terrible shrewdness. ‘But you
are
pregnant, aren’t you? I have carried enough infants in my womb to know the signs.’
Linnet removed her stained wimple. ‘It is no concern of yours,’ she said in what she hoped was a cold tone speaking of strength, not trembling terror.
‘Oh, but it is,’ Agnes said. ‘In your belly grows the seed of Morwenna de Gael’s grandchild. We shall have to do something about that unless you lose it of your own accord. It is no use looking at the door. There is a guard on the stairs and he has instructions not to let you pass unless in my company. Come.’ She gestured. ‘Help me dress my husband for the chapel. He cannot go before the altar in his shirt. It would not be seemly.’
Sickened to her soul, Linnet backed away from Agnes’ beckoning finger, backed away until her spine struck the wall and she could go no farther. Agnes smiled and shrugged and turned to the body.
Linnet slipped down the wall until a low, dust-covered oak coffer caught the back of her knees. She slumped upon it, fighting to stay conscious, terrified of the danger to herself and her unborn child. As if from a great distance she heard Agnes directing her maid to lift and lower, pull and push, as they dressed William Ironheart in his court robes, decking him out in the finery that he had shunned in life.
‘Neither will it be seemly for you to accompany me to the chapel with your hair uncovered,’ Agnes croaked over to Linnet. ‘You will find a wimple in that coffer. Put it on and make yourself decent for the priest.’
Spots of light danced before Linnet’s eyes and the room was spinning. She wanted to snarl defiance at Agnes but knew that her only chance of escape lay in leaving this room, in persuading Ralf that she would be better guarded elsewhere if he wanted to preserve her to use as a bargaining counter.
Gingerly she turned round, knelt on the floor, and raised the lid of the coffer on which she had been sitting. The scent of faded herbs drifted to her nostrils as she looked upon folded chemises and summer linen under-gowns. Unable to find a wimple, she burrowed deeper, at last uncovering a rectangle of blue-green silk and another larger one of pale blue linen. A small securing brooch in the shape of a bronze horse was still pinned in the latter’s folds.
It was this second one that Linnet chose, but as she drew the cloth from the chest the brooch pin caught on the garment folded beneath. She lifted both out in order to untangle them and found herself looking at the gown that had been lying in the bottom of the coffer. It was made of green samite with a trim of tarnished silver thread and, when she held it up, she saw that it was cut in the style fashionable when she had been a little girl and that it had been adapted to fit a woman big with child.
‘Dear God,’ she whispered and looked over her shoulder at Agnes. The older woman was busily adorning Ironheart’s body and showed no sign that she had intended for Linnet to discover the gown. Linnet wondered if this coffer had been Morwenna’s. Had she ever worn the blue wimple and horse brooch? Was the green silk wimple the one that belonged with the gown in the bottom of the chest? With shaking hands, Linnet covered her hair with the blue linen and brought an edge across to pin beneath her throat.
Agnes turned round. Her small eyes widened as she looked at the open coffer. ‘Not that one,’ she snapped, ‘the one next to it.’ She pointed at another, larger chest standing against the wall. Then she made a gesture of dismissal. ‘It doesn’t matter. Maude never uses it anyway.’
‘It belongs to Maude?’
Agnes shrugged. ‘I told you, it does not matter.’
Linnet drew the green gown from the coffer, shook it out and held it up. ‘So this is hers?’
If Agnes had been capable of screaming, she would have done so. Mouth open, she stared at the creased green robe with its knotted hanging sleeves and rich silver borders. Her colour faded to the hue of ashes and she dragged air into her lungs with painful effort. ‘I gave orders that it should be burned!’ she wheezed. ‘The stupid, sentimental bitch. I should never have let her stay here to comfort William and the brat after the whore died. Give it to me!’ Hands extended to snatch, she stepped towards Linnet.
‘You destroyed yourself when you killed Morwenna, didn’t you?’ Linnet sidestepped to avoid Agnes. Armoured with the green gown, she was no longer afraid. ‘You kept her fresh and young for ever in your husband’s mind.’
‘Give me that gown, you harlot!’ Agnes lunged. Linnet dodged. The tarnished silver braid glittered and the green silk glowed with absorbed and reflected light as Linnet swept out of Agnes’ reach. Agnes stumbled against the larger chest. Standing on it was a small, open basket containing her tablet-weaving materials. From among the hanks of wool, she grasped her sewing shears and gripped them like a weapon. ‘You whore!’ Agnes whispered, her broken voice saturated with hatred. ‘You’ll not take him from me this time!’
Linnet jumped backwards, trying to avoid the shears as Agnes lunged. Moving sideways, dodging, Linnet tried to reach the bed in order to keep its bulk between herself and Agnes, but Agnes was too quick for her and Linnet’s direction only incensed the older woman further. ‘Keep away from him!’ Agnes hissed, striking at Linnet with the shears. The pointed blades ripped into the old green silk, shredding the front from breast to hip.
Linnet narrowly missed being gouged. The force of Agnes’ assault almost dragged the gown from her hands but she held on to it. As the shears stabbed at her again, she raised the gown on high. ‘Have it!’ she cried, tossing it over Agnes’s head, and ran to the door. She wrestled with the heavy latch, knowing that at any moment Agnes would win free of the gown and come at her again.
Sobbing with panic, she rammed the heel of her hand down on the latch and felt it give. She wrenched the door open, intending to flee down the stairs to the guard but bounced off Ralf instead.
‘Going somewhere?’ he said softly and, seizing her upper arm in a grip of steel, turned her round and pulled her back into the room. He was not alone. Ivo, four knights and the priest followed him into the chamber.
‘Your mother’s trying to kill me!’ Linnet panted, struggling against his imprisoning fingers to no avail. ‘She thinks I’m Morwenna de Gael!’
Agnes had fought free of the green gown and was glaring wildly at Linnet, the shears still tilted at a wicked angle in her hand.
‘She’s a whore!’ Agnes spat, ‘and she’s carrying a child. I’ll have no spawn of a de Gael under my roof!’
Ralf lifted his brows. ‘Mama, she is useful to us for the moment. She holds the key to the Rushcliffe estates. There is no profit to be had in killing her.’
Agnes’ complexion darkened. She compressed her lips and her fingers tightened around her shears.
Ralf gestured towards her work basket. ‘Put them down,’ he said reasonably. ‘We can discuss matters later, after the hanging. My father bought you a nun’s pension before he died. Mayhap we can use it to endow a young widow instead?’
Agnes’ lips remained tight but she obeyed Ralf and replaced the shears among the hanks of wool. ‘I only have your good at heart,’ she said.
‘I know that, Mama,’ Ralf said gently, his tone imbued with a rare warmth. Releasing Linnet’s arm, he crossed the room and looked down at his father’s body, at the wine-red court gown and the battle-hardened hands clasped in an attitude of prayer.
‘It doesn’t look like him,’ he said and rubbed his hand over his lower face in a nervous gesture. Linnet could see that his composure was brittle. There were dark shadows beneath his eyes and downward tucks at the corners of his mouth.
‘It isn’t him,’ Linnet said coldly. ‘He might as well be a dressed carcass on a butcher’s slab.’
Ralf glared round at her. ‘You will keep a civil tongue in your head or I will lock you up in the undercroft,’ he snapped.
‘Is that what you are going to do to everyone who contradicts your will?’ Linnet retorted. ‘Lock them away, strike them silent - murder them?’
Ralf’s fists clenched. He swivelled and took two strides towards her.
‘Ralf, don’t,’ said Ivo in a wavering voice. ‘Not in here, with Papa . . .’ He gestured towards the bed.
Ralf stopped. A pulse thundered in his throat and his eyes were narrow and wolf-golden. Linnet refused to be intimidated. She gave him back stare for stare, knowing that her own gaze was no less wild.
Abruptly he turned his back on her. His fists remained clenched and his voice was raw with anger as he addressed Agnes. ‘Is my father prepared for the chapel?’
‘Yes, my heart,’ Agnes said. ‘See, I have dressed him fittingly in his court robes and set rings on his fingers.’