Shields of Pride Read online

  ‘You have a month to prove yourselves,’ he told them. ‘After that, any man who has shown himself worthy will be guaranteed his wages for the rest of the year. Those who do not measure up will be dismissed. Any questions?’

  When he left them in Milo’s tender care, he knew that their eyes were pursuing him into the keep. He was aware that many of them would fail the test but there were others who just needed the fire rekindling and who, with some intensive training, would do well enough.

  ‘When I’m talking, you pay attention!’ Milo roared, striding forward to fill their vision, a spear brandished in his fist. ‘Anyone know what this is? No, it’s not for leaning on while you fall asleep or ogle a serving girl’s tits! You, stop smirking and come here. Show me how you’d beat down a sword attack with one of these.’

  Smothering a grin, Joscelin left his captain in full flow and went to the small chamber off the hall where the account rolls, tally sticks and exchequer cloth were stored. Taking the key that Corbette had reluctantly handed to him the previous evening, he unlocked an ironbound chest, removed the top layer of parchments, the tally bags and chequer cloth, and bade a young manservant bring him a waxed tablet and stylus.

  ‘Shall I fetch Sir Arnaud to attend you, sire?’ asked the man as Joscelin loosened the drawstring on the tally bag and tipped the notched sticks it contained onto the trestle.

  ‘I’m quite capable of deciphering these without the seneschal’s aid,’ Joscelin replied, then gave the servant a wintry smile. ‘A pitcher of ale would be useful, though. Doubtless there’s a recent brewing if the state of the men in the hall last night was any indication.’

  ‘Yes, sire.’ The young man hurried out, his manner one of cheerful alacrity that was refreshing after the dull indifference that Joscelin had generally encountered thus far. He returned promptly with the requested articles and poured Joscelin a horn beaker full of golden-brown ale. ‘You’ll get none better between here and Newark, my lord,’ he announced with pride. ‘And I doesn’t say that just because my aunt’s the brewster.’

  Joscelin took a deep swallow and savoured the complex, malty bouquet. ‘You’re right,’ he said with a smile and a toast of the horn. ‘My compliments to your aunt. She’s a skilled woman.’ He smoothed out the chequer cloth.

  The serving man, who had yet to be dismissed, eyed him quizzically. ‘Do you really know how to use one of those, sire?’ He indicated the cloth.

  Joscelin shrugged. ‘There is no mystery once you have learned the principle. I was taught by the monks at Lenton when I was a boy. We used to count the flocks when they came in for shearing.’

  ‘But you’re a fighting man, sire.’ The servant looked perplexed.

  ‘Does that mean I cannot have more than one string to my bow? It is useful to have someone else to do this for me but my knowledge of letters and ciphering means that I can check their honesty if the need arises. How else will I know if I am being cheated?’

  The young man shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot as if the floor were hot. ‘Sire, I know it ain’t my place to speak, and I saw last night as you could look after yourself, but the seneschal’s mighty vexed at what you’re doing.’

  This volunteering of information was precisely what Joscelin had been hoping for. ‘He’s going to be more vexed yet,’ he replied and leaned against the carved chair back. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Henry, sire.’ Given encouragement, he was enthusiastic. ‘I was born the year the king came to the throne and me mam had me christened to honour him.’ He added with a note of pride, ‘My da’s head groom here and older brother’s following him on. I serve in the hall with me mam and two sisters.’

  ‘So you must see and hear a great deal of what goes forth?’

  ‘I do, sire, more than some would like.’ He glanced furtively over his shoulder. ‘But I ain’t a gossip. I know when to keep my mouth shut.’

  Joscelin considered him with thoughtful amusement. ‘I’m sure you do,’ he said. ‘But I also hope you know when to speak out.’

  Henry was quick on the uptake. ‘Yes, sire,’ he said. ‘I know where my duty lies.’

  ‘Well, do it well by me and I will see you promoted. I promise you that, and I keep my promises.’

  Henry’s face shone with pleasure. ‘Thank you, sire.’

  Joscelin smiled wryly. ‘Don’t thank me just yet,’ he said. ‘Wait and see a while before you make judgement.’

  ‘Yes, sire.’ Henry continued to beam. ‘Me mam said you’d be good for us, though, and she can always tell.’

  ‘And which one is she?’

  ‘She tends the big soup pot, sire, and airs the pallets by the fire.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ He grinned as his mind filled with the image of a beady-eyed stick of a woman poking all two brawny yards of Milo away from her precious cauldron, armed with nothing more than her ladle and her razor-sharp tongue. That was the kind of spirit he had to nurture in order to obtain a harvest from his ambition.

  After Henry had departed, jaunty as a young cockerel, Joscelin’s grin faded and, with a sigh, he set to work. Gradually he began to frown. Several times he erased his own calculations and began again. As he moved counters on the chequer cloth, his frown deepened and his lips compressed.

  Thirty hogsheads of wine delivered last week, so the accounts stated, and only eight left. The lord not being in residence, that left only a skeleton household of servants and retainers to maintain, half of whom would only drink ale or cider. Someone, it seemed, had found a fatted calf and stuck in the knife with a vengeance.

  Leaving his calculations, Joscelin took a lighted lantern and descended into the vast, vaulted undercroft beneath the great hall, intent on checking matters for himself.

  Near the door, standing against three casks of cider, he found the hogsheads of wine, the barrels stamped with the mark of their Angevin producer. There were seven of them. He had passed the eighth in the hall where one of Henry’s sisters had been filling flagons from it for the high table. The evidence agreed with the tally. So what had happened to the others?

  Holding the lantern on high, Joscelin prowled forward. There were barrels of salt beef and pork, herrings and cod. Cured sausages and hams dangled from the ceiling together with bunches of herbs and strings of onions and garlic. A dozen Easter buns had been hung up to dry so that, when required, pieces could be broken off and crumbled into drinks to cure the ague. There were crocks of honey, firkins of tallow, ash staves, hides, bundles of rushes and two broken cartwheels. Obviously Rushcliffe’s wheelwright was not a master craftsman. Neither was its chatelaine, to judge by the chaotic state of the undercroft. Sins had been swept in here out of view and provisions used without the supervision of a diligent storemaster or mistress.

  Staring around the arc of lantern light, Joscelin’s stomach contracted as he realized that if this place were tidied up, and everything that was useless discarded, it would be nigh on empty.

  A castle was built to hold supplies, to be self-sufficient for long stretches of time. As a mercenary, he knew just how vital the principle was. Run out of salt beef, stock fish and wine, and you ran out of morale. Run out of bread and you were finished. Cursing under his breath, he picked his way across coils of rope and a broken eel-trap to the stores of winnowed grain. It appeared to be plentiful and of a high quality. He examined all the bins, thrusting his arm well down into the golden harvest to make sure that it was not just a thin layer of wholegrain poured on top of chaff. All appeared to be well until he stepped back and realized that it in no way tallied with the written accounts. Standing there, staring at yet more evidence of not only mismanagement but outright thievery, he remembered the previous evening in the hall and Corbette’s urgent conversation with Fulbert, the scribe. His temper ignited and he stormed from the undercroft and upstairs to the bower.

  His wounded soldiers gaped at him in astonishment as he strode past them without a word.

  ‘Someone’s in for it,’ muttered Malcolm. ‘I’ve never s
een him look sae fashed before.’

  Joscelin strode across the bower to the corner where Linnet and Fulbert were working on a parchment. Jaw clenched, he flung the most damning of the evidence across Fulbert’s lectern. The pot of goose quills flew across the room and smashed on the laver, and the ink tipped over, ruining the exquisitely formed letters on the parchment.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Linnet stared at Joscelin in astonishment.

  ‘Ask this turd here!’

  Fulbert’s neck reddened against his fine linen shirt. ‘I do not know what you mean, my lord,’ he said, his gaze sliding off Joscelin’s as though it were a sheer glass wall.

  ‘These accounts are in your hand, I presume?’

  Silence.

  Joscelin slammed his good fist down on the lectern, causing the remaining sheets of parchment to slide off on to the floor. ‘Answer me!’ he bellowed.

  ‘I’m only a scribe, my lord!’ Fulbert gibbered. ‘I write what the seneschal tells me and the rest is none of my business!’

  Joscelin clutched a fistful of Fulbert’s thick mulberry-red tunic. ‘Your clothes sing a different tune, scribe. You dress more finely than the king himself!’

  Unleashing the power in his bunched arm, he shoved Fulbert away as if the man’s deceit had physically soiled his hands.

  The force of the thrust sent Fulbert to his knees. He did not rise, but stayed there, weeping. ‘I had no choice, my lord. If I had protested, Corbette would have set Halfdan upon me and my family. Lord Raymond was not in his right wits at the end and no one could make him understand what was happening. And where Corbette’s influence didn’t run, his daughter’s did, if you take my meaning.’

  ‘In God’s name, will you tell me what is happening?’ Linnet demanded, rising to her feet.

  ‘Thievery on a vast scale,’ Joscelin said tersely. ‘The undercroft’s near-empty and, if I’m not mistaken about the grain tally, about to be emptier still.’

  Her eyes met his, appalled, then settled on the weeping Fulbert.

  Joscelin breathed out hard. As he looked down at Fulbert’s pathetic snivelling form, his anger dampened into disgusted irritation. He remembered building castles of mud as a child and then pissing on them from a height to watch them collapse. ‘I doubt marching you down to the cells is going to be of benefit to anyone, including myself,’ he said in a more normal tone of voice. ‘I’m very tempted to swing you from the battlements but there are things I need to know and perhaps you would like to barter your hide for the answers?’

  Fulbert nodded. ‘Ask of me what you will. I’ve a wife and four children, the youngest is only a babe in arms. They will starve if I hang.’

  ‘You should have taken thought for that earlier,’ Joscelin said icily. ‘Where are the stolen goods sold?’

  ‘Corbette has a relative in Nottingham who’s a merchant. The goods go to him downriver or on pack ponies once a month. Please, messire, I beg you to be lenient. I’ll serve you faithfully, I swear it!’

  ‘As well as you served your two previous lords?’ Narrowing his eyes, Joscelin scrutinized the spineless blob at his feet. He had every right to hang him. At the very least he ought to have the fool stripped, flogged and put in the stocks for a week without sustenance, but as he stared an idea came to him, one that might yet save the man from himself. ‘You’re of no use to me,’ he said. ‘For your own safety and my peace of mind, I cannot keep you in this household but I know that my father, William de Rocher, is in sore need of a scribe at Arnsby. He can read and write after a fashion but he’s not fond of the quill and his eyesight is not what it was. You’ll go to him under escort, giving him your full history and a letter of recommendation from me.’

  Fulbert gave a wet sniff and looked at Joscelin in abject misery.

  ‘It’s either that or the gibbet. Make your choice quickly before my patience comes to an end.’

  ‘Wh—When do I have to leave, my lord?’

  ‘As soon as you can pack your belongings and gather your family.’

  Fulbert sat up. He was still shivering but his tears had ceased.

  ‘Serve William de Rocher honestly and you’ll have nothing to fear,’ Joscelin said. ‘Go now and, as you value your reprieve, say nothing to anyone.’

  Whey-faced, looking as if he were about to be sick, Fulbert bowed out of the room.

  Joscelin exhaled through his teeth. He began collecting the scattered tally sticks and replacing them in their drawstring bag with an untoward gentleness that spoke of rigid control.

  Linnet picked up the sheet of parchment Joscelin had thrust beneath Fulbert’s nose. ‘I still don’t understand. What do you mean, the undercroft’s empty?’

  ‘Corbette’s been diverting the keep’s vital supplies elsewhere to his own profit and Fulbert’s been falsifying the accounts to make everything seem normal at first glance. Come, I’ll show you.’

  On their way to the undercroft, Joscelin paused in the hall and spoke to two of his off-duty troops who were playing a game of merels. ‘Leave that,’ he said quietly. ‘Go and find the seneschal and bring him to the solar. I want him kept there until I’m ready to deal with him.’

  ‘What will you do to Corbette?’ Linnet enquired as once more Joscelin kindled his lantern and together they descended the steps into the darkness of the undercroft.

  ‘String him up,’ Joscelin said. ‘Village or bailey, I haven’t decided yet. Village probably. His corpse will serve notice that I’m not to be duped and that my justice is swiftly meted.’

  ‘And his wife and daughter?’

  ‘They’ve aided and abetted him and I don’t want them under my roof. Let them be put out of the keep to make their own way. There are enough troops in Nottingham to assure them of employment and the daughter certainly has talent. As long as I never see them again, I care not.’

  They reached the foot of the stairs and he took her arm to guide her into the depths of the undercroft. He was aware of the closeness of her body and felt an echo of yesterday’s havoc ripple through him. It was going to be hard to keep his distance for the required three months.

  Raising the lantern on high, he showed her the storeroom: its state of disarray damning evidence of sloppy housekeeping. She clucked her tongue and walked ahead of him, staring round.

  ‘What about supplies elsewhere?’ she asked him.

  ‘I’ve included them in my estimations but, even so, we’re dangerously short.’

  Drawing her between the pillars, he showed her the wine casks, the salted meats and the grain. ‘See how the barrels are spread out? Close them together and you have next to nothing.’

  Linnet lifted her gaze to his. Unspoken between them lay the knowledge that a war was at hand and they were woefully unprepared to face it. No supplies, a sparse demoralized garrison and villagers who were either hostile or indifferent.

  Footsteps grated on the undercroft stairs and the light from a torch swirled around the walls. Joscelin turned. ‘Who’s there?’ he demanded.

  ‘Henry, sire. I knew you was down here; I saw you unlocking the door.’ The servant rounded the corner of the newel post and peered anxiously down. ‘There’s a messenger arrived, says he’s come from the ju—justiciar?’ He stumbled over the last unfamiliar word. ‘My sister’s given him somat to drink and settled him by the fire.’

  ‘Did he give his name?’

  ‘Yes, sire - Brien FitzRenard.’ Henry stared around the undercroft, absorbing every detail.

  Joscelin nodded and moved towards the stairs. ‘I trust your discretion,’ he said to Henry with an eloquent arch of his brow.

  ‘I ain’t seen or heard a thing, sire.’ Henry answered blandly. ‘We’re always short o’ supplies this time o’ year.’

  FitzRenard had left the bench where Henry’s sister had served him hot wine, and was restlessly prowling the hall. His garments were powdered with dust and his mouth was tight, but when he saw Joscelin he relaxed enough to smile.

  ‘I’m sorry to take you from your toil
.’ He nodded at Joscelin’s tunic.

  Glancing down, Joscelin brushed perfunctorily at the cobwebs and crumbs of old mortar festooning his tunic. ‘I’ve been seeking rats in the undercroft - two-legged ones.’

  ‘Ah.’ FitzRenard nodded. ‘Always a hazard when there hasn’t been anyone capable of hunting them for a while. I wish you good fortune.’

  ‘What brings you to Rushcliffe?’ Joscelin took the cup of wine that Linnet handed to him.

  FitzRenard sighed. ‘You know Robert of Leicester was sailing for Normandy with an aid of money and men for the king? Well, he’s done what we half-suspected he would and turned rebel. He’s ridden straight for his own lands and declared for young Henry. The shore-watch has been alerted, the shire levies are being called up and every baron is required to swear his loyalty to the king. Those who do not are by default rebels and their estates forfeit. I’m riding north with the justiciar’s writ commanding the oaths of fealty and serving notice to stand to arms.’

  Joscelin nodded grimly. ‘Anyone who trespasses on these lands will receive the greeting of my sword. Is my father still in London?’

  FitzRenard shook his head. ‘Actually we rode part of the way here together; he was escorting his womenfolk back to Arnsby.’ Brien gave Joscelin a shrewd glance. ‘Your brothers were not with him, apart from the little one, and it was more than my life was worth to enquire after them.’

  ‘They’ve joined Leicester’s rebellion,’ Joscelin said, ‘and you would indeed have risked life and limb asking my father about them.’ He changed the subject. ‘Are you resting here the night or are you bound elsewhere?’

  ‘I’ve to go on to Newark but I was hoping for a bed and a fresh horse in the morning. My grey’s got a leg strain. I can collect him and reimburse you on the return journey.’ Brien sent a perusing glance around the great hall. ‘I had no inkling of the size of this place. You have landed on your feet indeed.’

  ‘I have landed’, Joscelin retorted, ‘up to my neck in dung.’