This volunteering of information was precisely what Joscelin had been hoping for. ‘He’s going to be more vexed yet,’ he replied and leaned against the carved chair back. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Henry, sire.’ Given encouragement, he was enthusiastic. ‘I was born the year the king came to the throne and me mam had me christened to honour him.’ He added with a note of pride, ‘My da’s head groom here and older brother’s following him on. I serve in the hall with me mam and two sisters.’
‘So you must see and hear a great deal of what goes forth?’
‘I do, sire, more than some would like.’ He glanced furtively over his shoulder. ‘But I ain’t a gossip. I know when to keep my mouth shut.’
Joscelin considered him with thoughtful amusement. ‘I’m sure you do,’ he said. ‘But I also hope you know when to speak out.’
Henry was quick on the uptake. ‘Yes, sire,’ he said. ‘I know where my duty lies.’
‘Well, do it well by me and I will see you promoted. I promise you that, and I keep my promises.’
Henry’s face shone with pleasure. ‘Thank you, sire.’
Joscelin smiled wryly. ‘Don’t thank me just yet,’ he said. ‘Wait and see a while before you make judgement.’
‘Yes, sire.’ Henry continued to beam. ‘Me mam said you’d be good for us, though, and she can always tell.’
‘And which one is she?’
‘She tends the big soup pot, sire, and airs the pallets by the fire.’
‘Ah, yes.’ He grinned as his mind filled with the image of a beady-eyed stick of a woman poking all two brawny yards of Milo away from her precious cauldron, armed with nothing more than her ladle and her razor- sharp tongue. That was the kind of spirit he had to nurture in order to obtain a harvest from his ambition.
After Henry had departed, jaunty as a young cockerel, Joscelin’s grin faded and, with a sigh, he set to work. Gradually he began to frown. Several times he erased his own calculations and began again. As he moved counters on the chequer cloth, his frown deepened and his lips compressed.
Thirty hogsheads of wine delivered last week, so the accounts stated, and only eight left. The lord not being in residence, that left only a skeleton household of servants and retainers to maintain, half of whom would only drink ale or cider. Someone, it seemed, had found a fatted calf and stuck in the knife with a vengeance.
Leaving his calculations, Joscelin took a lighted lantern and descended into the vast, vaulted undercroft beneath the great hall, intent on checking matters for himself.
Near the door, standing against three casks of cider, he found the hogsheads of wine, the barrels stamped with the mark of their Angevin producer. There were seven of them. He had passed the eighth in the hall where one of Henry’s sisters had been filling flagons from it for the high table. The evidence agreed with the tally. So what had happened to the others?
Holding the lantern on high, Joscelin prowled forward. There were barrels of salt beef and pork, herrings and cod. Cured sausages and hams dangled from the ceiling together with bunches of herbs and strings of onions and garlic. A dozen Easter buns had been hung up to dry so that, when required, pieces could be broken off and crumbled into drinks to cure the ague. There were crocks of honey, firkins of tallow, ash staves, hides, bundles of rushes and two broken cartwheels. Obviously Rushcliffe’s wheelwright was not a master craftsman. Neither was its chatelaine, to judge by the chaotic state of the undercroft. Sins had been swept in here out of view and provisions used without the supervision of a diligent storemaster or mistress.
Staring around the arc of lantern light, Joscelin’s stomach contracted as he realized that if this place were tidied up, and everything that was useless discarded, it would be nigh on empty.
A castle was built to hold supplies, to be self-sufficient for long stretches of time. As a mercenary, he knew just how vital the principle was. Run out of salt beef, stock fish and wine, and you ran out of morale. Run out of bread and you were finished. Cursing under his breath, he picked his way across coils of rope and a broken eel- trap to the stores of winnowed grain. It appeared to be plentiful and of a high quality. He examined all the bins, thrusting his arm well down into the golden harvest to make sure that it was not just a thin layer of wholegrain poured on top of chaff. All appeared to be well until he stepped back and realized that it in no way tallied with the written accounts. Standing there, staring at yet more evidence of not only mismanagement but outright thievery, he remembered the previous evening in the hall and Corbette’s urgent conversation with Fulbert, the scribe. His temper ignited and he stormed from the undercroft and upstairs to the bower.
His wounded soldiers gaped at him in astonishment as he strode past them without a word.
‘Someone’s in for it,’ muttered Malcolm. ‘I’ve never seen him look sae fashed before.’
Joscelin strode across the bower to the corner where Linnet and Fulbert were working on a parchment. Jaw clenched, he flung the most damning of the evidence across Fulbert’s lectern. The pot of goose quills flew across the room and smashed on the laver, and the ink tipped over, ruining the exquisitely formed letters on the parchment.
‘What’s wrong?’ Linnet stared at Joscelin in astonishment.
‘Ask this turd here!’
Fulbert’s neck reddened against his fine linen shirt. ‘I do not know what you mean, my lord,’ he said, his gaze sliding off Joscelin’s as though it were a sheer glass wall.
‘These accounts are in your hand, I presume?’
Silence.
Joscelin slammed his good fist down on the lectern, causing the remaining sheets of parchment to slide off on to the floor. ‘Answer me!’ he bellowed.
‘I’m only a scribe, my lord!’ Fulbert gibbered. ‘I write what the seneschal tells me and the rest is none of my business!’
Joscelin clutched a fistful of Fulbert’s thick mulberry-red tunic. ‘Your clothes sing a different tune, scribe. You dress more finely than the king himself!’
Unleashing the power in his bunched arm, he shoved Fulbert away as if the man’s deceit had physically soiled his hands.
The force of the thrust sent Fulbert to his knees. He did not rise, but stayed there, weeping. ‘I had no choice, my lord. If I had protested, Corbette would have set Halfdan upon me and my family. Lord Raymond was not in his right wits at the end and no one could make him understand what was happening. And where Corbette’s influence didn’t run, his daughter’s did, if you take my meaning.’
‘In God’s name, will you tell me what is happening?’ Linnet demanded, rising to her feet.
‘Thievery on a vast scale,’ Joscelin said tersely. ‘The undercroft’s near-empty and, if I’m not mistaken about the grain tally, about to be emptier still.’
Her eyes met his, appalled, then settled on the weeping Fulbert.
Joscelin breathed out hard. As he looked down at Fulbert’s pathetic snivelling form, his anger dampened into disgusted irritation. He remembered building castles of mud as a child and then pissing on them from a height to watch them collapse. ‘I doubt marching you down to the cells is going to be of benefit to anyone, including myself,’ he said in a more normal tone of voice. ‘I’m very tempted to swing you from the battlements but there are things I need to know and perhaps you would like to barter your hide for the answers?’
Fulbert nodded. ‘Ask of me what you will. I’ve a wife and four children, the youngest is only a babe in arms. They will starve if I hang.’
‘You should have taken thought for that earlier,’ Joscelin said icily. ‘Where are the stolen goods sold?’
‘Corbette has a relative in Nottingham who’s a merchant. The goods go to him downriver or on pack ponies once a month. Please, messire, I beg you to be lenient. I’ll serve you faithfully, I swear it!’
‘As well as you served your two previous lords?’ Narrowing his eyes, Joscelin scrutinized the spineless blob at his feet. He had every right to hang him. At the very least he ought to have the fool stripped, flogged and put in the stocks for a week without sustenance, but as he stared an idea came to him, one that might yet save the man from himself. ‘You’re of no use to me,’ he said. ‘For your own safety and my peace of mind, I cannot keep you in this household but I know that my father, William de Rocher, is in sore need of a scribe at Arnsby. He can read and write after a fashion but he’s not fond of the quill and his eyesight is not what it was. You’ll go to him under escort, giving him your full history and a letter of recommendation from me.’
Fulbert gave a wet sniff and looked at Joscelin in abject misery.
‘It’s either that or the gibbet. Make your choice quickly before my patience comes to an end.’
