One of the keep’s laundresses stopped by with her little girl to watch him setting out his wares and started haggling with him over a small pair of sewing shears in a tooled leather case. Her astonishment was boundless when Matthew scarcely bothered to argue over the price of the shears and accepted her second offer with a wan smile. Emboldened, she also purchased half a dozen beads to make a necklace for her daughter.
‘Lost your killer instinct, Matthew?’ Henry asked as the laundress walked off with a gleam of triumph in her eyes, the little girl skipping excitedly at her side.
The peddler rumpled his hair and sniffed loudly. ‘Bit of a chill in the bones,’ he said. ‘I’m all right.’
‘I’ll get me mam to make you some hot cider and honey,’ Henry offered. ‘Or Lady Linnet might have some mulled wine if I ask her nicely.’
Despite his savage headache, the peddler did not miss the proprietorial note in Henry’s voice. The dapper cut of Henry’s tunic and his new gilded belt had not gone unnoticed either. ‘Taken a ride on fortune’s wheel, have you?’
Henry smiled. ‘I’m Lord Joscelin’s understeward these days. It’s my task to see that everything runs smoothly and that grumbles get aired rather than festering in dark corners. Lord Joscelin says it’s no use having a head if there’s no backbone to support it and legs to make it walk.’
‘He’s a better master than the last two, then?’
‘Make up your own mind. He’ll be home by compline tonight. You landed on your feet arriving when the men are due back in triumph from battle. They’ll all have money in their pouches and women they’ll want to spend it on. And there’s to be a feast with marchpane subtleties and swan with chaudron sauce!’
Matthew gagged. Chaudron sauce was made from the bird’s blood and entrails. It was considered a delicacy but at the moment even the mention of ordinary food was enough to make him heave. The image of the dark, almost black sauce was too much for his quailing stomach.
‘Best go and lie down,’ Henry said, his smile fading as he took a proper look at Matthew. ‘Your customers aren’t going to run away in a day.’
Matthew nodded, suddenly not having the strength to argue. Feeling as limp as a wrung-out dishcloth, he began clumsily replacing his wares in his pack. Henry stooped to help him, then spun round at an unholy whistling sound immediately behind him.
‘Henry, look what cook gave me!’ Robert waved a bone flute under the servant’s nose. ‘Father Gregory says he’s going to teach me to play a tune!’
‘Sooner rather than later, I hope.’ Henry winced and decided a serious word with Saul the cook was long overdue, since the man’s nature appeared to have taken an irresponsible and sadistic turn.
‘Oh yes, before Papa comes home, then I’ll be able to play it for him.’ Robert gave the flute another excruciating twiddle then stopped, his head cocked on one side. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Matthew’s too sick to sell his wares today; I’m helping him put them away.’
‘Can I help, too?’ Before Henry could answer, Robert had knelt down on the trade cloth and reached for a small heap of crosses carved of bone.
‘Better, I think, if you leave me and Matthew to it, Master Robert,’ said Henry as the child returned the crosses to their leather pouch, pulled the drawstring tight and handed them to the peddler. If Matthew was exuding evil vapours then this was the last place Robert ought to be. Although the child had grown in stature and girth this summer, he still looked as if a puff of wind would blow him away and his mother would roast anyone who put him in danger.
The peddler reached for the bag of beads but fumbled and knocked them over. Robert, attracted by the bright colours, ignored Henry and leaned over to pick them up. Matthew was taken with another bout of coughing. Spasms ripped through him, and although he covered his face with his cloak sputum still sprayed into the atmosphere.
‘Go now,’ Henry commanded Robert, his voice sharp with anxiety.
Robert jutted his small chin. Henry stared him out. The boy’s eyes flickered away and landed on Matthew, who was loudly wiping his nose on his sleeve. Robert pulled a face. ‘Don’t want to stay anyway,’ he said and scampered from the hall, the shrill notes of the bone flute alerting everyone to his passage.
It was very late and Joscelin had still not arrived. Linnet paced the bedchamber, beset by anxiety. The distance between Rushcliffe and Nottingham could easily be covered between dawn and dusk in the early autumn and he had said he would be here today. She went to the hearth and crouched shivering before the glowing logs as her imagination conjured up all manner of terrible things that might have happened to him on his way home to her.
The wind moaned in the chimney and the flames gusted upon the logs. Otherwise there was a suffocating silence. Below in the hall, the household was settling down for the night, the arrival hour of compline but a memory. The tables had been cleared of their fine linen cloths and glazed cups. The feast had been consumed by those with an appetite, but barely a morsel had passed her own lips and what she had eaten she had not tasted. Most of the swan had been polished off by the men of the garrison. Robert too had picked at his food and whined, demanding to know when Joscelin would be back. At length her patience had snapped and she had had her women put him to bed.
Rising from the fireside, she went to look at him. He was curled in a ball on his small truckle bed, his thumb in his mouth and his breathing easy and regular. She gently touched his cheek. It was flushed but he did not appear overly warm and she decided that it was just a residue of his earlier tantrum. Linnet felt like screaming herself and knew she was being foolish. It was only a night. If something disastrous had happened, Joscelin would have sent word. He might not think to do so for a minor delay, for men were like that, and what worried women did not worry them.
She undressed, washed her hands and face in the laver and went to bed. The sheets were cold as she drew them around herself. She thought of Joscelin’s warm bulk and the comforting security of his arms and felt bereft. If he did not come tomorrow, she would send a messenger to Nottingham and find out where he was. The decision made her feel a little better and after a while, as the bedclothes grew warm from her solitary body heat, she fell asleep.
A dream came to her, shockingly erotic and vividly real. She was lying on top of the bed dressed in the red samite wedding gown of her first marriage. A man was teasing her, his hand beneath her skirts and his hot, slow kisses draining her.
‘Does that feel good?’ he whispered against her mouth.
‘Joscelin,’ she murmured, arching towards him. She raised her hands to bury them in his thick, dark hair. Instead she encountered thin wisps receding from a broad, bony forehead. Her eyes flew open and met the lustful gaze and cruel smile of Raymond de Montsorrel, and she screamed. Candlelight blossomed in her face and she shot bolt upright in bed, scrabbling backward in terror from the brightness.
The light flickered rapidly sideways as its bearer placed the candlestick on the coffer. She saw the glitter of rain-drops on a wet cloak, the flash of metal on brooch and belt, dark hair curling around a cap. Her heart flopped over and over like a struggling, landed fish.
‘I didn’t mean to startle you,’ Joscelin said.
She became aware that she was exposed to his stare and that it was both admiring and avid. Kneeling up among the bedclothes, she donned her chemise. ‘I’ve not long retired and then to a nightmare. I have been so worried; where have you been?’
‘We didn’t leave Nottingham until after noon.’ He tossed his hat and cloak over the coffer. ‘I was using that old baggage wain of Giles’s and another wheel broke.’ He drew her against him and cupped her face for a long, exploratory kiss.
Linnet closed her eyes and melted against him. His lips and hands were cold but warmth spread through her from their touch. ‘Do you want to eat?’ she murmured between kisses.
‘Only you.’ He pushed aside the bedrobe to cup her breast. She uttered a small gasp that was silenced by another kiss. Her knees weakened.
‘You’re all wet!’ she giggled as his lips followed the touch of his fingers and spikes of hair struck cold against her throat and chest.
‘That’s because it’s filthy weather outside,’ he answered in a muffled voice as they fell together across the bed. ‘So are you, come to that.’
