Elizabeth Chadwick - Shields of Pride

‘Are you all right?’ He held her a little away to study her face. His hand gently touched the swollen mark where the soldier had hit her. ‘Where are the others? Once they’ve done looting and burning, they’ll turn on anything that moves and even the size of Conan’s troop might not deter them. We have to reach the castle as quickly as we can.’

Linnet nodded jerkily. She was far from being all right but for the nonce she could cope because she had to. She compressed her lips as the stench of his garments continued to agitate her stomach. ‘We hid in the house cellars. The others are still there.’ She swallowed and swallowed again, then pushed out of his arms. ‘Your father’s been wounded - badly, I think. It was very hard to tell in the dark. We had to leave him in the passageway between the caves - he could go no further. I bandaged him as best I could and left him a pitcher of wine to ease his thirst and his pain. He gave me his sword, and I—’ She shook her head and refused to think in that direction. She needed all of her faculties until they were safe. Averting her gaze from the corpse at her feet, she stumbled towards the vintner’s backyard. ‘I will take you to him,’ she said.

Pausing only to give Conan orders and send a soldier in search of a hand cart to carry the wounded Ironheart, Joscelin hastened after her.

‘If I’m going to die,’ Ironheart grumbled, ‘I’m going to do it at Arnsby in the bed where I was conceived and born, not on some poxy borrowed pallet in this godforsaken place!’

Linnet eyed him with exasperation as she cleaned the razor with which she had just finished shaving him and went to empty the laver bowl of scummy water down the waste shaft. ‘This godforsaken place’ was a comfortable private room in the tower of the castle and had been vacated by a senior officer at some considerable inconvenience. The bed, far from being poxy or a pallet, was a sumptuous affair, large enough to hold six people, and boasted crisp linen sheets and the finest Flemish coverings. In the three days since he had been placed there, Ironheart had gone from grey-faced docility to his current state of febrile crabbiness in which he was impossible to please.

‘You’re too lively to think of dying, Father,’ she said briskly. ‘If you would only keep still and cease complaining, the wound would pain you less.’

‘It’s the pain that tells me I’m still alive!’ he retorted, shifting irritably against the pillows. His left arm was caged in a leather sling and beneath it he was padded with swathes of bandage. The constable had sent his own physician to attend Ironheart. According to the good doctor, who had stitched the tear, Ironheart was suffering from an excess of choler and the wound had only served to further unbalance his humours. Linnet had had to bite her tongue on the comment that her father-in-law’s humours had always been out of balance. Fortunately, the physician had owned the good sense not to suggest bleeding as a remedy, otherwise she would have been bound to speak up since, in her opinion, Ironheart’s wound had already bled him white.

The doctor had applied a token leech or two to Ironheart’s arms and prescribed an infusion of Black Alder and agrimony to soothe the choler and help balance the humours. He had drawn up a strict diet for the wounded man, consisting of broth made from oxblood and dark bread soaked in milk, sprinkled with iron filings from a sword blade. It was small wonder that the invalid baulked every time he saw her or her maid approaching him with a bowl and spoon.

‘I have a bad feeling,’ he complained as Linnet returned to his bedside. ‘I need to go home to Arnsby.’

‘A bad feeling about what?’

‘If I could put my finger on it, I’d not be so frustrated. All I know is that I have to go home.’

‘Joscelin could go in your stead,’ she suggested.

Ironheart shook his head and the two vertical frown lines between his brows deepened with anxiety and pain. ‘It is not something Joscelin can do. I’m sick of lying here staring at the wall and swallowing that piss-faced chirurgeon’s poisonous brews. One more day and, even if I have to crawl out of here on my hands and knees, I’m leaving.’ He paused, out of breath, his skin shiny with the sweat of effort. Linnet wiped his brow, murmured soothing words until his lids drooped, and went in search of Joscelin.

She found him in a corner of the great hall sitting on an upturned half-barrel, patiently working the nicks out of his father’s sword with a small, hand-held grindstone.

‘Go and talk some sense into your father,’ she said. ‘He’s threatening to leave his sickbed and ride home to Arnsby.’

Joscelin laid the sword carefully down and wiped his hands on a linen rag. ‘I know. He spoke to me late last night.’ Seeing her pinched expression, he added, ‘Does the sight of this bother you?’

She glanced briefly at the sword, its edges bright now and unstained. ‘I can look at it without feeling sick any more, if that is what you mean,’ she said, ‘but the sight will always bother me.’

‘Once you have felt the killing force, it always does.’

A shudder rippled down her spine. They looked at each other, the weapon between them gleaming with dull, quiescent power. Joscelin rose from the barrel and, taking her by the hand, led her out of the hall into the courtyard.

‘Where’s Robert?’

‘With Conan. He’s taken him to see the hawks in the mews.’ His expression was rueful. ‘Much as I love the boy, I need some respite.’

‘He kept asking for you when we were hiding in the cellars,’ she said. ‘And when you came, he thought you were a god to have answered his cry.’

They walked across the baileys to the small herb garden, which was set in a quiet corner near one of the auxiliary kitchen buildings. ‘But I’m not,’ Joscelin said grimly. ‘My feet are as much clay as any man’s, and if he believes otherwise he is going to be terribly let down one day. He clings to me so hard that sometimes it is like being eaten alive. I need to escape for a while.’

‘And now I come to you to eat you alive with my burdens, too,’ she said. They entered the small garden and were assaulted by the scent of the various herbs basking in the sunshine.

Joscelin squeezed her hand. ‘Burden me with anything you want.’ He drew her down on to a turf seat situated under a rose vine. The flowers were just coming into bloom, the petals as pink as baby toes. Bees from the castle’s hives hummed industriously among the blossoms.

She looked at him sidelong. In the cramped confines of the castle, beset by demands from every quarter, there had been no opportunity until now for them to talk in privacy. ‘Even with another mouth to feed?’ she asked, smiling.

At first he did not understand, but she saw the moment of comprehension brighten in his eyes and then slowly spread, lighting up his whole face. He kissed her - hard first and then very tenderly. ‘You bring me not a burden but a wonderful gift,’ he said, hugging her against him. ‘How long have you known?’

‘A few days only. I had a suspicion when we were preparing to travel to Nottingham and it has grown ever stronger. I do not believe my flux will come now.’ She laughed and squeezed him back. ‘The baby will be born in midwinter, I think, between Christmastide and Candlemas. I haven’t told anyone else but your father suspects. He has a very sharp eye for all he claims never to take notice of women.’ She sighed with exasperation. ‘I did wonder about using it as a lever to keep him in his bed - the opportunity to live to see his grandchild - but I think he would just bellow at me and rupture his stitches. He’s a stubborn old ox.’

‘The news might sweeten him a little,’ Joscelin said thoughtfully, ‘but then again, if he already suspects, he’ll have spent time mulling over the prospect and it won’t keep him occupied for long.’

‘What if we told him the child was to be given his name?’

‘He would say that it was his due but be secretly flattered. I doubt it would have any deep hold on him.’ Joscelin shook his head. ‘If he wants to go home to Arnsby, then so be it. I may just be able to persuade him to be borne on a litter for most of the journey. It will be more than his pride can stomach to enter the place flat on his back, so we’ll have to provide a quiet horse for the final mile.’

‘He is very weak,’ Linnet objected. ‘He lost a great deal of blood and he hasn’t the strength to fight off the fever if it sets in. A day’s jolting in a litter would be dangerous. He says he wants to die at home in his own bed. That is surely what he will do, doubtless with his wife gloating over him.’

Joscelin sighed. ‘It is his choice. I believe he is dying anyway and if I can fulfill his wish to do so at home, then I will.’

‘So you are not going to stop him?’

‘I will talk to him but I will not gainsay his final decision.’

Linnet rose and walked to a small sundial standing as a hub in the midst of a wheel of fragrant herbs. The sun was almost directly overhead and no shadow touched the surface. She laid her palm on the warm stone. One life beginning, one drawing to a close, she thought, feeling the connection, and in between a lifetime’s wheel of light and shadow.

Joscelin came up behind her and she turned in to his arms, knowing that, for her and Joscelin, their time was now and every moment too precious to be wasted.

Leaning on his elbow in the hay of the stable loft at Arnsby, Ralf watched Hulda, a kitchen maid, tidy her hair and brush ineffectually at the stalks of straw caught in her gown. She slid him a look through her lashes. Her eyes were a bright, winter-blue and, apart from her lush white breasts, her best feature. Her nose was lumpy, her lips thin and she had crooked teeth. Still, she was athletic and accommodating, tight and moist where it mattered.