‘Look, Mama!’ he cried, holding out the ladybird on the palm of his hand. The beetle opened its glossy red wing-cases and whirred into the air. ‘It’s gone!’ Robert dashed across the grass in pursuit.
Joscelin drew a slow, deep breath and clamped his hands around his belt, in unconscious imitation of his father. ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘being honourable is very hard. Yes, I’ve considered laying claim to Arnsby. If it weren’t for Martin, I might even have discarded my integrity to do it.’ He smiled with more pain than humour. ‘And if it weren’t so important to you that this three months of mourning be observed, I’d have laid claim to your bed weeks ago.’
Linnet could feel her spine dissolving in the look he was giving her. She was sorely tempted to say that the three months of mourning were far less important than they had been but she held back. He knew that Giles had not trusted her and she did not want to give Joscelin cause to wonder if Giles had been right. Let him see that she could resist temptation. And, on a level far deeper and fraught with guilt, she had to prove it to herself.
‘It is not that I am unwilling but I would rather make sure that I am not carrying Giles’s seed,’ she said. ‘And because it is the “honourable” thing to do by the dead. Besides, people must see that you are the justiciar’s true representative, not some adventurer who has snatched me from across my husband’s coffin and dragged me before the nearest priest.’
Joscelin sighed. ‘People will see what they want to see,’ he said. ‘They always do,’ but stood aside to let her walk up the path to the open chapel doorway.
She could feel his eyes burning upon her spine like a physical touch. Shivering, she forced herself neither to quicken her pace nor to look over her shoulder. She heard Robert cry to Joscelin that he had found another ladybird, and Joscelin’s distracted reply. And then the solid walls of the chapel interior cut off all sounds from outside and she was immersed in a tranquillity of pale stone arches rising in two tiers to a ceiling patterned with curves and lozenges of chiselled stone.
Linnet’s breathing slowed as she absorbed the atmosphere of clarity and peace. She paced solemnly up the small flagged nave to the altar and, kneeling, crossed herself and honoured God before she rose and approached the tomb of Morwenna de Gael.
Diamonds of colour from the windows painted Linnet’s shoulder and the drapes of stone clothing the plinth. She touched the smooth alabaster pleats of Morwenna’s robe. White, with a hint of translucence, Ironheart’s mistress lay in stone state above her mortal remains, her hands clasped in prayer. Tucked against her arm was the swaddled baby she had died bearing. Someone had recently crowned the folds of her veil with a chaplet of threaded marigolds and they cast an amber glow upon the smooth, white brow.
Ironheart and Conan had come to kneel side-by-side facing the altar. Tall candles, thick as a warrior’s wrist, stood upon it like spears and between them rose a Byzantine cross of garnet and silver-gilt, a crusading legacy of a former de Rocher. There was no sign of the priest or the nuns, although they must be nearby to tend the candles and the votive lights beside the tomb. For now, the two men were left to their silence and perhaps their healing.
Linnet quietly lit a votive candle of her own. Her lips moved in silent prayer for the soul of Morwenna de Gael. Then she said a prayer for herself, asking silently for courage and forgiveness. When she crossed herself and rose she noticed that William de Rocher’s hands bore a golden dusting of pollen, as if he had been gathering flowers.
Chapter 18
It was raining outside and pitch-dark. Joscelin cursed as he surfaced from sleep and heard the water spattering against the shutters. He pushed down the sheepskins that had been cocooning him and, shivering, sat up. The night candle had gone out. Groping, he found the coffer, and, after a moment, the tinderbox on top of it. By the time he had managed to coax a light from the two flints and the small pieces of shaved wood, a yawning Henry had appeared with a sputtering taper in his hand.
‘I’m sorry, my lord. You woke before I did,’ he apologized, kindling a steadier flame from the night candle. ‘My mam’s boiling up some pottage for the men to eat before you ride out.’
Joscelin grimaced. There had been other times like this in his days as a mercenary - foul pre-dawn mornings when any sane man would bury his head beneath the covers and hibernate. Even packed in waxed linen for travelling, mail shirts, helms and weapons would be rusty within hours, and the chill of steady rainfall would seep through garments into flesh and permeate the bones. Unfortunately, with the Scots over the border in force and rapidly heading south, granted free passage by the treacherous Bishop of Durham, there was no alternative but to ride out and intercept their ravages. The command from de Luci had arrived yesterday noon with the instruction that Joscelin was to take his men and join a preliminary muster at Nottingham.
Henry’s teeth chattered as the rain threw itself full force against the shutters. ‘Can’t say as I’m sorry to be staying here, my lord,’ he said. ‘Do you reckon they’ll get as far as Derby?’
Joscelin donned his gambeson over his shirt and tunic. ‘If we act now, I doubt it. But the Earl of Leicester is massing troops across the Narrow Sea for an invasion. It would be inconvenient if he were to strike at the same time as the Scots. That’s why de Luci said we had to move as fast as possible.’
‘I’ll pray for your safekeeping and victory, my lord,’ Henry said, crossing himself.
When Joscelin arrived in the great hall, his men and Conan’s were crowded around the fire, sipping bowls of pottage, wrapping their leggings, fastening belts, yawning and scratching. Not particularly hungry, but knowing he must eat something if he was to survive a long wet day in the saddle, Joscelin went to claim his own breakfast from Henry’s mother, Dame Winifred.
‘God send you good fortune, my lord,’ she said, presenting him with a steaming bowl. Her bright black eyes fixed on him until he had taken the first mouthful and assured her that it was good. The crone at the caldron Milo called her, but only because she guarded its contents jealously and would not permit him to go sampling them as and when he chose.
Joscelin moved among the men, speaking a brief word here and there. Conan eyed him sidelong, concealing a smile in his greying beard. ‘Seems not a moment since I was giving you the orders,’ he remarked.
‘More than five years,’ Joscelin said sharply.
Conan raised a defensive hand. ‘Pax, you pay my wages. As long as your head doesn’t swell so much that you can’t fit it through your tunic neck, I’ll not interfere.’
‘And as long as you keep your tongue behind your teeth, I’ll not be tempted to cut it out!’ Joscelin retorted. ‘When you’ve finished your pottage, you can give the order to mount up. I want to be on the road by first light.’
Conan pursed his lips. ‘You always were a grouchy sod in the mornings,’ he said, but attended to his food with increased speed.
Joscelin narrowed his eyes but let the comment pass. At a tug on his gambeson hem, he looked down to find Robert standing at his side. The child’s hair was still sleep-ruffled and his tunic had been put on back-to-front and inside out. Juhel had often stood thus but his hair had been black and he had had the dark eyes of a faun.
Joscelin crouched. ‘Shouldn’t you still be in bed, young man?’
‘I wanted to see you - to tell you not to go.’
Joscelin took Robert’s icy hands in his, then drew the shivering little boy into the circle of his arms and perched him on his thigh. ‘We spoke about this last night, didn’t we?’ he said gently. ‘I have to leave for a short while at least. The man who asked me to take care of you and your mother needs my help.’
‘But if you go to him, you won’t be here to look after us.’
‘Milo is staying. You know Milo; he won’t let anything happen to you. And Malcolm will be here, too. His wound’s almost better but not quite enough for a long ride. I won’t be gone long, I promise.’
Robert was quiet for a moment, but not in acquiescence. Joscelin could almost see his mind working, seeking reasons for Joscelin not to leave. ‘Mama doesn’t want you to go either,’ he said.
‘But she knows that I must.’
