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
