He left the window niche and crossed the room to stand at her shoulder as she raised the lid. There were rings and brooches, ornate belts, clasps and a braid girdle that her waist had outgrown in the course of numerous pregnancies. Ralf ignored all these and pounced upon a reliquary cross on a thick gold chain.
‘This will do,’ he said and held it up to the light. Amethyst and moonstone, sapphire and beryl flashed amid a fire of sun-caught gold. ‘Thank you, Mother, I can always count on you for an ally.’ He rewarded her with another kiss, less perfunctory this time, and, ducking the cross around his neck, headed for the door.
On the threshold he encountered his aunt Maude, a dish of marchpane-covered dates in her hand. He kissed her, too, snatched several of the sweetmeats off the tray and, whistling loudly, pounded away down the stairs.
Maude looked curiously at Agnes, who, pink-faced, was closing and locking her jewel casket.
‘Ralf ’s uncommonly cocky to say that William almost flayed him alive earlier,’ Maude remarked, setting the dish on the coffer. ‘Have you been helping him out again?’
‘If I have, it’s none of your business,’ Agnes sniffed. She considered her sister-in-law to be a greedy, interfering sow and a spy in the household.
‘Just be careful. I don’t think William would approve.’
Agnes gave her a hostile stare. ‘Are you going to tell him?’
Maude shrugged and reached for one of the sweetmeats. ‘It’s none of my business, is it?’ she said, returning Agnes’ look impassively.
6
Linnet watched the dancing bear shamble in slow circles to the tune its owner was playing on a bone flute. A tarnished silver brooch pinned a moth-eaten bearskin at the man’s shoulder and around his throat was a necklace of bear teeth interspersed with wicked curved claws. She had no doubt that they were the remains of the showman’s former animal.
She eyed the stout chain that attached the bear to its stake and hoped there were no weak links. The beast itself looked weary to death. Its coat was scabby with mange, its eyes listless and the stench emanating from its body caused her to draw her wimple across her face. Poor creature, she thought, for she knew what it was to be trapped and forced to dance at another’s will until nothing of self remained.
Glancing around, she watched her husband and some knights from Leicester’s mesnie trying out the paces of the war-horses at a coper’s booth nearby. Strange how there was money for what he wanted but never sufficient for her own requests. She had almost had to beg him that morning for the coin to purchase needles and thread and linen for summer tunics. It made her feel bitter when she thought of all that silver in their strongbox going to finance a stupid war.
Robert hid behind her skirts and peeped out at the bear, his grey eyes enormous with wonder and fear. He was clutching a honeyed fig in his little hand and Linnet was well aware that her gown would be covered in sticky fingerprints before the morning was out.
‘Joscelin, look, here’s the bear, I told you!’ a child’s voice shrilled.
Turning, Linnet saw an excited boy of about eight years old pointing towards the bear with one hand and dragging a laughing, resigned man with the other. Today Joscelin de Gael had discarded his mail for a tunic of russet wool, the sleeve-ends banded with tawny braid to match the undertunic and chausses. The excellence of the cloth was only emphasized by its lack of embellishment and the slightly worn but good-quality belt slanting between waist and hip, drawn down by the weight of a serviceable dagger. He and the child bore a resemblance to each other in the shape of their faces, the way they smiled and the manner of their walk.
Fascinated by the bear, too young to see the tarnish of its moth-eaten plight, the boy stared. De Gael shook his head and looked indulgent. Then he saw her and his expression became one of surprised pleasure.
‘Lady de Montsorrel!’
Linnet’s maid moved defensively to her side, and the two soldiers whom her husband had set over her as escort and guard eyed de Gael with sour disfavour and took closer order.
‘Messire,’ she murmured and lowered her gaze, knowing that Giles would blame her for any familiarity. And yet de Gael was owed a courteous response. ‘I must thank you again for yesterday.’
‘I didn’t have much choice, did I?’ he asked with amusement.
Linnet knew that she was blushing because her face felt hot. She dared not look up in reply to his teasing gambit. Joscelin de Gael rode the tourney circuits and she had to assume that flirting with women was just another accoutrement of his trade. His very presence at her side was a danger to her reputation, especially after yesterday.
He crouched on his heels, hands dangling in the space between his bent knees. ‘And you look much brighter, young man,’ he said to Robert. ‘Do you like the bear?’
Robert clutched his mother’s hand for reassurance and pressed himself against her. But he managed a silent nod of reply.
De Gael wrinkled his nose. ‘I confess I don’t, but I’ve been dragged to see it nonetheless.’ He spoke softly to the little boy but his words were directed at Linnet.
She nodded towards the older child. ‘Is this your son?’
‘My half-brother Martin. The kind of existence I lead is no recommendation for marriage and children.’ A shadow briefly crossed his face and when his smile resumed it was cynical. ‘The fortune-teller yonder informs me I am going to wed a beautiful heiress and die in my dotage a rich and fulfilled man, but I have a feeling she had more of an eye on my purse than my future. If I married an heiress, beautiful or not, I’d spend all my time defending my new-found fortune by writ and by sword.’
Linnet warmed to his rueful candour despite herself. ‘Instead, you defend other men’s fortunes.’
‘Oh yes, strongboxes full of them, for whatever purpose.’ He slanted her a knowing look.
Sensing danger, Linnet grasped Robert’s small sticky hand. ‘Come, sweetheart,’ she said, ‘it is time to leave.’ She inclined her head to de Gael in a perfunctory, formal farewell. He unfolded from his crouch and returned her salute, his gravity marred by a spark of humour that deepened the creases at the corners of his eyes
As Linnet hurried away from the danger of his proximity, she heard de Gael’s small brother asking if he could have some gingerbread and the mercenary’s good-natured response. Risking a look over her shoulder, she discovered that de Gael was staring after her in speculation. Her throat closed with fear.
‘What did he want with you?’
Linnet halted abruptly as her husband blocked her path. He sat astride a fancy red-chestnut destrier whose paces he was trying. The beast had a rolling, wicked eye and Giles was barely in control, his fists clenched on the reins. ‘Nothing,’ she croaked and had to swallow before she could speak again. ‘He was just passing the time of day.’
‘Then why are you blushing? What did he say to you?’
‘Nothing, I swear it; he was talking to Robert.’
‘To a whey-faced brat?’ The horse plunged and she had to step quickly aside to avoid being barged by its powerful shoulder. ‘You expect me to believe that?’
‘He has his own younger brother with him. Please, my lord, everyone is watching us. You will make a scandal out of nothing.’
Scowling, Giles stared around. Hubert de Beaumont and Ralf de Rocher were watching the scene with open relish. Richard de Luci, who was also inspecting the war-horses, had courteously turned the other way but William Ironheart, who was with him, had no such delicacy and his stare was direct.
‘I hope for your sake that it is nothing,’ Giles hissed, lowering his voice. ‘Is it any wonder that I am loath to bring you anywhere when you shame me thus. You are no better than a whore!’
Linnet gasped at the final word and felt as if he had struck her with his whip. Hating him, sick with fear, she stood submissively before him, knowing she had no defence. Robert, frightened by the atmosphere, by the sidlings of the huge horse and the thunderous expression on his father’s face, began to sniffle into her skirts.
‘Go home and wait for me,’ Giles snapped. He wrenched the chestnut horse around and pranced him back to his audience. She could tell from the looks on their faces and Giles’s strutting manner that her humiliation sat well with them. Summoning the tatters of her dignity, she lifted Robert in her arms and went towards her waiting horse litter on the side of the field.
Joscelin indulged Martin with a square of gilded gingerbread from the booth adjacent to Melusine the Mermaid and, with that bribe, removed the child from the dubious attractions of the fairground to the more sober business of the selection and purchase of an all-purpose riding mount from the dozens offered for sale.
Taught first by his father and then by his uncle Conan upon the battlefields of Brittany, Normandy, Anjou and Aquitaine, Joscelin was an excellent judge of horseflesh. Sometimes a good mount was all that had stood between himself and death in the thick of the fray. He examined with a critical eye the various animals paraded before him, discarding several high-mettled beasts with the most perfunctory of glances despite the horse coper’s assurances of their breeding and quality.
Martin was very taken with a dainty white mare but Joscelin shook his head. ‘She’d do well enough on good roads in summertime but she hasn’t got the heart-room for hard work and her legs are too spindly. Also, she’d never ford a stream without baulking. See how nervous she is?’
Martin pursed his lips. ‘She’s still very pretty.’
Joscelin chuckled. ‘So are many women, but that’s no recommendation to buy.’
‘Lady de Montsorrel’s pretty.’
Joscelin busied himself examining the teeth of a stocky bay cob. ‘So she is,’ he agreed, half his mind on the horse, the other half dwelling upon the memory of Linnet de Montsorrel’s fine grey eyes and delicate features. His usual preference was for large-boned, buxom women - they adapted best to the vagaries of mercenary baggage trains - but occasionally he found himself drawn to more graceful fare. Breaca had been bird-boned and delicate, quick of movement, dark-eyed and quiet, but with a wild fire inside. He still thought of her sometimes on freezing winter nights when his own body heat was not enough to keep him warm. And of Juhel, too. Of him, he thought constantly.
With an abrupt gesture, he commanded the horse coper to trot the cob up and down so that he could study its gait with a critical eye.
Martin nibbled on the gingerbread and stared around the enormous field, which was bursting at the seams with colour and life. The market was held every sixth day of the week and Martin loved to visit if his family was in London. The atmosphere was exhilarating. Everyone was here - rich, poor, lord, merchant, soldier and farmer - all drawn by their common interest in livestock. Here you could buy anything from a plough-horse to a palfrey, from a child’s first pony to a fully trained war-horse costing tens of marks. You could wager on the races between swift, thin-legged coursers and see hot-blooded Arab and Barb bloodstock from the deserts of Outremer. And if you became tired of looking at the horses, there were cattle and sheep, there were pigs and fowl of every variety. There were farm implements to be purchased and craftsmen to watch at their work. And, best of all, there was the fairground.
‘A knight’s riding over from the destriers,’ he told Joscelin. ‘I think he wants you.’ The coper hastily led the cob to one side, his expression anxious. Turning, Joscelin saw Giles de Montsorrel riding towards him upon a sweating chestnut destrier that was fighting the bit and side-stepping. The saddle was ill-fitting and the stirrups far too short. Giles himself was wattle-red in the face.
‘If I see you near my wife again, I’ll garter my hose with strips of your flayed hide!’ Giles growled.
Joscelin stared up into Giles’s temper-filled eyes. ‘We but exchanged courtesies. Should I have turned the other way and slighted her?’
‘You’re a common mercenary. I know only too well what was in your mind.’
‘Not having a mind of your own above the belt that you so freely use,’ Joscelin retorted, his first astonishment rapidly turning to anger.
‘Joscelin . . .’ Martin whispered in a frightened voice.
Giles pricked his spurs into the destrier’s flanks and it plunged towards boy and man, forehooves performing a deadly dance. Martin shrieked as the horse’s shoulder struck him a sidelong blow and sent him flying. He hit the ground hard, the gingerbread flying from his fingers. Giles leaned over the saddle to strike Joscelin with his whip. The blow slashed across Joscelin’s face, narrowly missing his eye and raising an immediate welt. Giles pursued, whip raised in his right fist, his left clamped upon the reins.
Martin scrambled to his feet and dashed for safety. Joscelin, about to be ridden down by a metal-shod fury, grabbed the horse coper’s three-legged stool and swung it hard at the destrier’s head. The stool shattered across rolling eye and temple and the stallion went mad. Giles, fighting to keep his seat, snatched at the right rein and hauled hard but it was too late for that kind of control. Half-blinded, wild with terror and rage, the stallion reared, came down on all fours, and bucked. Then, before the horrified gaze of a gathering crowd, it lay down and deliberately rolled upon its rider.
Giles screamed and screamed again. There was a sickening sound of snapping bones and still he screamed. Joscelin flung aside the remnants of the stool and ran to lay hold of the stallion’s bridle. Others hurried forward to help restrain the horse and prevent it from rolling again while the coper and another merchant dragged Giles clear. Someone else brought a rope to bind the destrier.
Leaving the horse to others, Joscelin turned and dropped to his knees beside Giles. The latter was still alive but for how long was a moot point. Blood bubbled out of his mouth with each released breath, a sign that one or more of his broken ribs had punctured a lung.
‘Let me pass!’ cried a woman’s voice, imperative with fear. ‘In God’s name, let me pass. I am his wife!’
Linnet de Montsorrel fought her way through the crowd, many of whom had diverted from the fairground to view this far more interesting spectacle. Reaching her husband, she knelt at his side. ‘Giles . . .’ She touched his hair with her fingertips, a look of disbelief on her face. Then she raised her eyes to Joscelin.