Elizabeth Chadwick - Shields of Pride

Casting aside the scramaseax because the Fleming’s sword would far outreach it, Joscelin leaped over the bleeding soldier and grabbed one of the propped spears. Then he moved in again to the attack, jabbing and thrusting with the sharp iron point while, behind him, the other guard screamed and thrashed on the floor.

The Fleming parried a couple of times, cast a rapid glance over his shoulder at the distance to the stairs and cried, ‘I yield, I yield!’ and dropped his weapon.

Joscelin did not lower the spear. ‘Unbar the cells,’ he commanded, jerking the point.

The Fleming did as he was told, fumbling in his haste to lift the heavy wooden beams out of their slots.

‘Now attend to your friend before he dies,’ Joscelin said as the prisoners within pushed open their doors and burst out to freedom. ‘Use that belt you so prized to strap off the bleeding.’

‘Lord Joscelin!’ Guy de Montauban’s eyes were glowing with exultation and an excess of wild anger. ‘How did you manage to escape?’

‘Someone opened the oubliette trap and dropped down a rope. I don’t know who; he did not wait to make himself known. Did you see anyone go past?’

‘Ralf came before midnight, walking as if he owned the world, the whoreson,’ Montauban spat, as if mention of the name had fouled his mouth.

‘No one else?’

‘I don’t know. I think I must have slept some of the time. The rattle of their dice woke me up. What about you, Alain?’ Montauban turned to a bowlegged, sandy-haired man. ‘Did you see anyone?’

‘Someone did come.’ Alain rubbed the side of his nose. ‘But I didn’t see his face. He was wearing a cloak and a short hood - a blue one, I remember. The guards knew him and weren’t bothered.’

‘Ivo!’ Joscelin said with surprise. ‘I always thought he was Ralf’s minion.’ But then, perhaps Ivo was no longer prepared to follow where Ralf chose to lead. ‘How many of us are there?’ He took a swift headcount. Six of his father’s men, six of his own and himself. Thirteen, the unlucky number of the last supper. He grimaced.

‘We have two swords, two daggers, two spears, a scram and a pair of mail shirts,’ said Montauban, casting his eyes over the weaponry.

‘There are spare lance shafts stowed over there; they can be used as quarterstaffs.’ Joscelin pointed to a stack of shaped ash staves leaning against a wall. ‘We won’t have to tackle every soldier in the keep, only the mercenaries loyal to Ralf and, even then, their resistance is likely to be half-hearted.’ He cast a look over his shoulder at the two Flemings. ‘Ralf is the target. Down him and the resistance dies.’

‘You want him dead?’ Montauban licked his lips.

Joscelin drew a harsh breath through his teeth. Every nerve and desire directed him to answer yes, but he held back, afraid of the blackness at his core, as deep and dark as the oubliette in which Ralf had cast him. ‘Hold back unless there is no other way,’ he replied. ‘Better if he is taken alive and dealt with by the justiciar.’ His expression became bleak. ‘Otherwise I am no better than he.’

Linnet watched Agnes de Rocher raise a coffer lid, take from it a pile of garments and bring them over to the bed where Ironheart lay. His hands were crossed upon his breast and his badger-grey hair was parted in the middle, combed and oiled as Linnet had never seen it in life. It had always been swept back from his forehead in leonine disorder and very seldom had he used a comb to tame it.

Death had softened some of the harsh lines graven into his face but, without flesh or colour, he was already a cadaver, bearing little resemblance to the living man she wanted to remember. And Agnes was revelling in her moment of glory. She was like an eager bride, her face radiant and her eyes sparkling as she went about her death-chamber duties.

Linnet had been escorted back from the chapel by two of Ralf’s Flemish guards and informed that if she wandered off again, she would be tied up. Agnes had recovered from her near-choking, although her voice was nothing more than a harsh whisper, and she had exchanged the light silk wimple of earlier for a fuller one of linen that swathed her throat and shoulders, concealing all marks.

Linnet had been forced to sit on a stool and watch Agnes prepare her husband to be taken down to the chapel to lie in state; to watch the woman wash his body as tenderly as a lover, dwelling upon the ravaged, calloused flesh with obscene, possessive joy. It had made Linnet sick. Twice she had had to run to the waste pit in the corner of the room, although there had been nothing to bring up but bile. And each time she returned, it was to see Agnes crooning to her husband, smiling and stroking.

‘You are mine now,’ Agnes whispered, running the rose-water cloth over the body in long, smooth strokes. ‘You cannot gainsay my will.’

Linnet shuddered at her tone. She wondered if Agnes, in her madness, would cast off her clothes and leap into bed with the body.

‘Of course, when it comes your turn to do this, your own husband will not be so presentable,’ Agnes continued as she shook out the garments, hurling small, brittle pieces of bay leaf and sage from the folds. ‘I saw a human hide once, nailed on the gates of a house in Newark. You couldn’t really tell it was human, it was all yellow and shrivelled; they mustn’t have tanned it properly.’

Linnet was overcome with nausea again, her reaction so swift and strong to Agnes’ words that she had no time to reach the garderobe and had to use her wimple.

Agnes clucked her tongue. ‘You are suffering, my dear, aren’t you?’ she said, a parody of concern in her damaged voice. ‘When is the babe due?’

‘It is you who is making me sick,’ Linnet gasped, removing her spoiled wimple. Jesu and his mother, help me, she thought, knowing she could not endure much more.

‘Your heart is too tender, as indeed mine was once. Perhaps you see yourself in me?’ Agnes cocked her head to one side, eyeing Linnet with a terrible shrewdness. ‘But you are pregnant, aren’t you? I have carried enough infants in my womb to know the signs.’

Linnet removed her stained wimple. ‘It is no concern of yours,’ she said in what she hoped was a cold tone speaking of strength, not trembling terror.

‘Oh, but it is,’ Agnes said. ‘In your belly grows the seed of Morwenna de Gael’s grandchild. We shall have to do something about that unless you lose it of your own accord. It is no use looking at the door. There is a guard on the stairs and he has instructions not to let you pass unless in my company. Come.’ She gestured. ‘Help me dress my husband for the chapel. He cannot go before the altar in his shirt. It would not be seemly.’

Sickened to her soul, Linnet backed away from Agnes’ beckoning finger, backed away until her spine struck the wall and she could go no farther. Agnes smiled and shrugged and turned to the body.

Linnet slipped down the wall until a low, dust-covered oak coffer caught the back of her knees. She slumped upon it, fighting to stay conscious, terrified of the danger to herself and her unborn child. As if from a great distance she heard Agnes directing her maid to lift and lower, pull and push, as they dressed William Ironheart in his court robes, decking him out in the finery that he had shunned in life.

‘Neither will it be seemly for you to accompany me to the chapel with your hair uncovered,’ Agnes croaked over to Linnet. ‘You will find a wimple in that coffer. Put it on and make yourself decent for the priest.’

Spots of light danced before Linnet’s eyes and the room was spinning. She wanted to snarl defiance at Agnes but knew that her only chance of escape lay in leaving this room, in persuading Ralf that she would be better guarded elsewhere if he wanted to preserve her to use as a bargaining counter.

Gingerly she turned round, knelt on the floor, and raised the lid of the coffer on which she had been sitting. The scent of faded herbs drifted to her nostrils as she looked upon folded chemises and summer linen under-gowns. Unable to find a wimple, she burrowed deeper, at last uncovering a rectangle of blue-green silk and another larger one of pale blue linen. A small securing brooch in the shape of a bronze horse was still pinned in the latter’s folds.

It was this second one that Linnet chose, but as she drew the cloth from the chest the brooch pin caught on the garment folded beneath. She lifted both out in order to untangle them and found herself looking at the gown that had been lying in the bottom of the coffer. It was made of green samite with a trim of tarnished silver thread and, when she held it up, she saw that it was cut in the style fashionable when she had been a little girl and that it had been adapted to fit a woman big with child.

‘Dear God,’ she whispered and looked over her shoulder at Agnes. The older woman was busily adorning Ironheart’s body and showed no sign that she had intended for Linnet to discover the gown. Linnet wondered if this coffer had been Morwenna’s. Had she ever worn the blue wimple and horse brooch? Was the green silk wimple the one that belonged with the gown in the bottom of the chest? With shaking hands, Linnet covered her hair with the blue linen and brought an edge across to pin beneath her throat.

Agnes turned round. Her small eyes widened as she looked at the open coffer. ‘Not that one,’ she snapped, ‘the one next to it.’ She pointed at another, larger chest standing against the wall. Then she made a gesture of dismissal. ‘It doesn’t matter. Maude never uses it anyway.’

‘It belongs to Maude?’

Agnes shrugged. ‘I told you, it does not matter.’

Linnet drew the green gown from the coffer, shook it out and held it up. ‘So this is hers?’