recently harvested and that cider brewing was under way.
‘Yes.’
Joscelin hesitated, perturbed by the dull tone of her voice and unable to see her face behind the tangled screen of her hair. ‘Linnet?’
She turned towards him and folded her arms across her breasts, not in modesty but in a gesture of shivering cold. ‘It will be for the best if you give the apple juice to Ella and do not come back,’ she said through chattering teeth. ‘She has had the spotted fever before.’
Fear flashed through him like a sheet of fire and flared into terror. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I think you know.’
Stubborn anger joined Joscelin’s other emotions. ‘Then you will also know that you cannot command me to something like that.’
‘Then I ask it.’
‘No!’ he said violently. ‘You ask too much. Breaca sent me away when Juhel was dying. She said that it was a woman’s domain, that I should be out earning silver to keep us in firewood. And when he died and she took sick with the bloody flux, she would not let me near her either.’ His voice became ragged as old scars were torn open and became new wounds. ‘Christ on the cross, I will not bear it again!’ Striding to the bed, he seized her in his arms and crushed his mouth down on hers in a long, hard kiss, absorbing her sweat and fever-heat.
‘There!’ He parted from her, gasping and darkly triumphant. ‘I’m irrevocably committed now. I’ll go and bring the apple juice and the willow-bark tisane and you won’t gainsay me again!’
Chapter 26
Left foot presented, Ralf leaned into his shield and hammered his sword-hilt lightly against the rawhide rim in a steady litany of challenge. The blade was fashioned of whalebone and his opponent was Hamo, one of his father’s knights, who had agreed to a practice bout in a corner of the bailey.
All the pent-up anger and tension within Ralf came seeping to the surface. He found himself wishing that it were for real: that he could strike and see blood flow. From the perimeter of the battle circle, soldiers, knights and retainers shouted advice and encouragement. Ralf could smell their anticipation. A rapid glance upwards showed him that his mother and aunt were watching from the bower window. He would give them what they wanted, prove to them the kind of warrior he truly was. But desire for their admiration was not the spur that drove him. That particular goad was in the possession of the badger-haired man who had reined in his grey horse and, hand on hip, was watching Ralf thoughtfully.
Ralf started to circle Hamo, seeking a weakness, an opening to exploit. He lunged. Hamo twisted and quickly parried with his shield.
‘Come on, Ralf, get him!’ shouted someone in the crowd. Two or three others added their voices and Ralf noted them with grim pleasure. For all that he had been in disgrace for joining Leicester’s rebellion, he was still the heir. His father had pardoned him and accepted him back into the family fold. It was believed in some quarters that William Ironheart was beginning to fail and Ralf had done nothing to disabuse that notion. Only let them look to him as Ironheart’s natural successor.
Hamo weaved and dodged and managed to strike the occasional good blow on Ralf’s shield but the effort it cost him told in his scarlet complexion and whistling breath. Ralf remained on the balls of his feet - light, elegant and deadly.
‘Get yourself out of that corner, Ham, or he’ll have you!’ a knight in the crowd yelled, his own sympathies with the older, heavier man.
Eyes blazing with exultation, Ralf sprang like a lion and made a triumphant killing blow. Hamo dropped sword and shield and knelt, conceding defeat. Ralf ’s roar of triumph rang around the bailey, raising hairs on scalps and spines. The whalebone sword lifted on high, he pivoted in a slow circle, acknowledging the adulation of the women in the window splay. Eyes hot with jubilation, he sought his father’s gaze. But Ironheart’s attention was not upon him. His father’s back was turned and he was listening to the mercenary Conan de Gael, who had just dismounted from a foam-spattered courser and was talking rapidly.
Ralf’s pleasure turned to bitter resentment. He spat over the side of his raised shield, then stalked over to his father and the mercenary.
‘It is very important that you come—’ Conan was saying but broke off and turned to look Ralf up and down. ‘Learning to fight?’ he said pleasantly.
Ralf wished that his practice sword had a true steel blade. He looked at his father but the old man’s expression was so stiff with control that it might have been carved of rock. ‘I already know how to fight - but if you want me to teach you a lesson?’ he sneered and raised the whalebone sword suggestively.
Conan lifted his brows. He, too, glanced at Ironheart, but receiving the same stony response he shrugged his powerful shoulders. ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘I’ve to wait while a fresh horse is saddled, and a man gets rusty without regular practice. Besides, it won’t take long.’ He went to Hamo. ‘May I?’ He took the whalebone sword from the knight and tested its balance.
Ralf quivered with rage at the mercenary’s nonchalance. The man was near his father’s age, with more scars than a raddled old tomcat. His blond hair was receding and the suggestion of a paunch bulged his quilted surcoat. It was obscene that Conan de Gael should even dare to take up the challenge.
A larger crowd was gathering now, drawn by the scent of drama. Martin pushed and wriggled his way to the forefront of the audience. Conan saw him and winked and grinned. Martin winked back and then cheekily stuck his tongue out at Ralf.
It was the final insult and Ralf attacked without warning, fast and hard. Conan was flung backwards by the flurry of blows but, after the first undignified leap, he kept Hamo’s shield high to absorb the violence of Ralf’s attack and played a defensive role until he had worn the edge off the younger man. Again and again Ralf came at him, full of vicious aggression, determined to make a kill. Conan parried and heard the shouts of derision from the watchers, the yells encouraging Ralf to finish him off.
‘Come on, you whoreson, yield!’ Ralf snarled as he pressed Conan to the edge of the circle.
Conan was panting hard and didn’t reply - but the expression in his eyes was eloquent.
Ralf redoubled his efforts. Although he still moved with grace, his face was pink and streaked, and his chest was heaving rapidly. Conan watched and waited for his moment, then made a deliberate, almost clumsy feint at Ralf ’s legs. Ralf immediately lowered his shield to counter the intended blow, but Conan straightened and changed direction like a sudden dazzle of lightning and the blunt sword came down across the back of Ralf’s unprotected neck.
‘You’re dead,’ Conan gasped, lowering his guard and standing back.
A shocked silence descended, the onlookers not quite believing what they had seen. Ralf quivered, muscles tense to renew the attack. ‘Don’t make a fool of yourself,’ Conan said softly out of the side of his mouth. ‘Part of learning is knowing how to take defeat.’
‘I don’t need a lecture from vermin like you!’ Ralf spat and, tossing down his sword, shoved his way out of the circle, making sure that his shoulder barged Conan’s in passing.
Conan returned the whalebone sword and the shield to Hamo and watched Ralf stride towards the hall with thoughtful eyes. The spectators started to disperse.
‘He let his hatred cloud his senses,’ Conan said to Ironheart. ‘Otherwise he’s an accomplished young man.’
‘You didn’t exactly encourage him to be rational,’ William answered as his courser was led out and a fresh horse was brought for the mercenary.
Conan set his foot in the stirrup. ‘Neither would an enemy,’ he retorted. ‘He’s wound up as tight as the pulley on a siege engine. Just make sure that when he lets fly you aren’t standing in the way.’
Ironheart grunted. ‘I don’t need your advice on how to handle my own son. Ralf doesn’t like you and I don’t blame him.’
Conan sighed deeply. There was still a wide rift between himself and William de Rocher and he didn’t think that, despite praying together at Morwenna’s tomb, it was ever going to narrow beyond a brusque truce.
