Women with children at their skirts and babies in their arms watched from their doorways. A carpenter stood outside his workshop, wood shavings curling from the plane in his hand. Joscelin was aware of cold eyes and unsmiling mouths. One or two people crossed themselves as the coffin filed past but most just stared. An old woman outside the alehouse was even bold enough to spit and shake her fist.
Joscelin guided his mount over to Linnet’s roan mare. ‘Giles was not popular,’ he remarked.
‘They hated him,’ she said. ‘He wanted their respect but never understood it was an entitlement he had to earn. He ruled them with a heavy hand - often with a whip in it.’
He gave her a searching look. ‘Did you hate him, too?’
She lowered her gaze. ‘He was my husband.’
‘A fittingly dutiful answer.’
She flushed. ‘Do you have a complaint?’
‘Only that I would know your true thoughts, not what you think you ought to say.’
She gave him a startled look.
Joscelin shrugged. ‘I’m used to the women of the barracks and the camps. Propriety never stands in their way and better so, I think.’
She considered this for a moment and he saw her hands clench on the reins. When she spoke, though, her voice was steady and dispassionate. ‘By all means let us be candid but I do not want to talk about Giles.’
Joscelin was enough of a strategist to know when to withdraw. From the set of her jaw he judged that persistence on the subject would cultivate hostility. He looked down at the sleepy blond head pillowed against his body. ‘Then let us talk about this young man’s future. As soon as I have an opportunity, I’ll find him a pony of his own.’
She nodded with alacrity and looked relieved. ‘Indeed, I agree with you. It is past time he began his training.’
In murmured conversation, so as not to wake the child, they rode on, past the water mill and then through some coppiced woodland of birch and hazel. Beyond the woods lay rich meadowland on which grazed the castle’s dairy herd and farther up the slope, closer to the keep, sheep and geese kept the grass nibbled to a springy turf.
Robert woke up and Joscelin returned him to his mother. The child straddled the saddle in front of her, small hands grasping the pommel. Dusty sunlight turned his hair to white gold and lightened his eyes to the palest grey-blue, making of him a radiant faery being.
From somewhere on their left at the far side of the coppice they heard the chunk of an axe on wood. The nape of Joscelin’s neck began to prickle. The coppiced trees resembled deformed fists with fingers sprouting from the knuckle joints. He glanced over his shoulder at the pall-covered coffin. The wain on which it lay creaked and jarred over the ruts in the track and Joscelin had an irrational expectation that they were going to jolt into one rut too many and awaken the dead.
‘What’s the matter?’ Linnet asked.
‘Oblige me by riding in the centre of the men, my lady.’ Unstrapping his helm from the side of the saddle, he donned it then brought his shield from its long strap on his back and slipped his left arm through the two shorter handgrips.
Linnet stared at him, her mouth open.
‘Ware arms!’ He turned in the saddle to alert his men. ‘Malcolm, stay with my lady!’
‘Yes, sir!’ The young Galwegian took Linnet’s bridle and guided the mare into the heart of the troop.
The path through the coppice remained innocent and sunlit but the soldiers took up their positions, weapons bared and shields raised.
‘Did you see something, sir?’ asked Milo de Selsey, riding abreast of Joscelin.
‘Intuition,’ Joscelin said. ‘A soldier’s gut, as my father always says. Have you noticed how still it is - no birdsong? Something is not right.’
De Selsey looked over his shoulder into the trees. He narrowed his eyes and nodded brusque acknowledgement of Joscelin’s concern.
As they rode on, Joscelin strained his eyes and ears, every tiny hair on his body upright. Whitesocks pranced, responding to his master’s mood. They approached the end of the coppice, the track bearing the imprint of foresters’ carts and old hoof marks. The path divided like a snake’s tongue but a fallen log blocked the wider route and the troop had to filter into the narrower one.
A glint of silver flashed among the trees, disappeared, then flashed again closer. Joscelin heard a shout and the thunder of hooves as a troop of horsemen moved to block the way out of the coppice. The leading knight whirled a mace around his head, the sunlight gleaming along its flanges. Then he caught it by the base of the haft and used it as a baton as he bellowed the command to attack.
Within moments the enemy troop was upon Joscelin’s. The advantage of surprise had been lost, thus the first impetus of assault was not as devastating as it might have been. Nevertheless, the odds were against Joscelin, for he was outnumbered and, with two baggage wains and a coffin cart to protect, unable to manoeuvre.
Two of the enemy hacked their way through the guard surrounding Linnet and Robert. A bay destrier drew level with Linnet’s roan and its rider seized the bridle to bring the small mare around. A screaming Robert was torn from her arms. She shrieked at the full pitch of her lungs for aid and looked desperately around. Malcolm struggled valiantly to respond but he was engaged in fierce battle with an opponent on either side of him and couldn’t break free.
A powerful chestnut stallion surged into the midst of the attempted abduction. The downswing of Joscelin’s sword took off one man’s hand clean through the wrist, freeing the restraint on Linnet’s bridle. Howling, the knight toppled from his saddle. Joscelin spurred Whitesocks around Linnet, thrust his shield into the swordstroke of the second knight who held Robert, heaved the blade off, and counterstruck. The knight doubled over, choking on blood. Joscelin caught Robert and hauled him to safety.
‘Take him!’ he gasped to Linnet.
She closed her arms convulsively around her child and then, seeing the blood, recoiled. Feverishly she dabbed at where it was thickest with a fold of her cloak, trying to gauge the extent of his injury.
‘God’s death, woman, it’s not his!’ Joscelin snarled. ‘You’ll have wounded aplenty to tend without fussing over trifles!’
She shot him a fulminating glare but he had gone, spurring Whitesocks towards one of the wains which the enemy had succeeded in capturing.
Joscelin’s driver was sprawled facedown on the coppice floor and in his place one of the attacking knights was making a competent effort at turning the horses. He had set his shield down while he handled the wain. The device of a golden firedrake on a scarlet background was enough identification for Joscelin but, before he could reach his brother and deal with him, his sword was caught and turned by a hand axe wielded by a paunchy knight, powerfully muscled in arm and shoulder. Joscelin tightened his thigh against the saddle to hold his seat and turned his wrist to free his blade. In the moment that the weapons disengaged, he locked eyes with Hubert de Beaumont and knew that this time there would be no backing down.
Beaumont swung the axe. Joscelin ducked. The blade sang past his ear and struck his shoulder. The blow bit through the links of his hauberk and rocked him back against his cantle, but in the surge of battle he felt no pain. Beaumont attacked again but Joscelin had his shield up now and struck back forcefully. Taught to fight in the routier camps of Normandy and Flanders, he could stand hard and Beaumont, although strong and well muscled, was not in the same physical condition. Joscelin’s sword-work was fast and inexorable. When he saw a gap he took it and the look of astonishment on Beaumont’s features was his final expression as he tumbled from the horse, struck the ground and was still.
Panting with exertion, Joscelin watched the baggage wain containing the Montsorrel strongbox disappear down the track in the direction of the Nottingham road, escorted by a dozen hallooing, jubilant soldiers.
‘Shall we ride after them, sir?’ asked Milo de Selsey.
Joscelin shook his head. ‘No, let them go. We’re outnumbered and we’ve been fortunate to escape with the mauling we got.’ His smile was brief and humourless. ‘Let Ralf savour his victory for the small time it is his. Safer, I think, to ride for Rushcliffe before he takes it into his head to look at his prize.’ He stared round the battle site. ‘Put our dead across horses. The men too badly wounded to ride can use the funeral wain.’
