Shields of Pride Read online

  ‘They’re still celebrating their victory over Leicester’s army,’ said his guide with a tolerant smile as a well-lubricated villager staggered out of the doorway and towards a cluster of dwellings huddled around the green. ‘It’ll be the talk of the parish for generations to come - how Grandpa beat off hordes of Flemings with nowt but a pitchfork.’

  ‘My sons,’ said Ironheart icily. ‘I want my sons. Now.’

  The smile dropped from the soldier’s face. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘This way, my lord.’ He flourished towards the alehouse doorway like a servant ushering a great lord into a magnificent hall. It took all of Ironheart’s control not to send him teeth over tail into the mud.

  Ralf was dozing, the nearest he could come to sleep in his cramped, cold prison. They had handled him roughly, goaded by his lack of response and the contempt in his eyes. The places where they had kicked him had stiffened, and since there was virtually no room to move he had set.

  In his shallow dream there was a witch who wore the face of a lovely dark-haired woman with shining green eyes that reflected the shade of her gown. But then she changed. The flesh began to melt from the face until it was a hideous skull. The hand reaching out to curse him was a white filigree of bone. The skull whispered, ‘Look at me.’ Terrified, but forced to obey, he raised his eyes to the cavernous orbits and saw the eyes of his mother staring out at him.

  Ralf jerked awake, his breath ragged in his throat and his heart thundering against his ribs like a runaway horse. The sweet smell of apples cloyed the darkness, hinting that they would soon be overripe - rotting. Slumped against him, Ivo whimpered in his sleep. They had not abused Ivo as much for there had been no challenge in taunting such easy game.

  Above their heads there was a continuous muffled cacophony of footsteps, voices and raucous laughter. They were celebrating with a vengeance. Ralf thought about the mistakes he had made and how, when he got out of this pit, he would go about rectifying them. Groping in the darkness, he found the loaf they had lowered down earlier. ‘Help yourself to apples,’ his captors had said, laughing. He set his teeth in the coarse brown sawdust and thought of the soft, golden honey-bread that his aunt Maude would always bake on feast days. The thought of it brought moisture to his mouth and at least he was able to chew this current excuse for sustenance.

  He swallowed hard then raised his head, suddenly attentive as the general noise subsided and the heavy trestle bench standing over the cellar trap was scraped to one side. He nudged his brother hard. Ivo woke with a start and a cry.

  The bolt on the trap was drawn and the door flung back to reveal, by dingy rushlight, a rectangle of blackened ceiling-beam festooned with three coils of sausage and a bundle of besom twigs. These were almost immediately blotted out by the human shapes that bent over the entrance and peered down.

  ‘Safe and sound like I told you,’ declared the smug voice of the English soldier responsible for Ralf and Ivo’s capture and their current ignominious situation. ‘Snug as apples in a barrel.’ A snort of amusement followed.

  ‘Ralf, Ivo?’ Ironheart’s voice sounded as if his larynx were fashioned of rusty link mail. ‘I’ve come for you. God knows neither of you are worth the ransom but at least I know the duty owed to my blood.’

  Duty! Ralf almost gagged as he heard the word. How often it had been rammed down his throat like a medicine to cure all ills. By God, he would show his father duty!

  ‘Sire?’ he said and, inching gingerly to his feet, looked up through the trap. ‘We were trying to reach you but these gutter sweepings took us for ransom and threw us down here.’

  ‘Less of the gutter sweepings!’ growled the soldier. ‘We could have left your butchered bodies in the forest for the foxes and ravens to eat.’

  ‘With your own for company!’ Ralf retorted, fists clenched. Then he took a deep breath and steadied himself. ‘Sire, you were right about the Earl of Leicester and young Henry. They’re not worth the spit of any man’s oath.’

  Ivo struggled to rise and, even in the bad light, Ralf could see that his eyes were as round as candle cups. ‘But you said—Oooff!’ Ivo collapsed as Ralf’s elbow found his midriff.

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’ Ironheart demanded as a wooden ladder was slotted down through the trapdoor.

  ‘Belly gripes,’ Ralf said. ‘He’s been eating too many apples.’

  Ivo groaned and retched. Ralf climbed gingerly up the ladder. His limbs felt like struts of rickety wood, and when his father stretched down his hand and pulled him out into the light he did not have to feign a grimace of pain. After the darkness of the apple cellar, the rushlit main room of the alehouse appeared as huge and bright as a palace, although the courtiers wore the appearance of reprobates and beggars. And his father was king of the beggars in his water-stained, shabby garments, grey hair showing wild wings of white and his flesh slack upon his gaunt bones.

  Shock hit Ralf like a physical blow. Christ, he was looking at an old man, not the granite-hewed God of his childhood and adolescence.

  ‘I knew you’d come to your senses, whelp,’ Ironheart said with a disdainful curl of his upper lip. ‘Pity it took so long and cost so much.’

  ‘Yes, sire.’ Ralf stared at the floor while he recovered himself.

  ‘Don’t think you can pull the wool over my eyes. It’s no more in your nature to be meek than it is for a wolf to turn into a lap dog. Look at me!’

  Ralf raised his head and stared his father in the eyes. Defiance flickered - there was nothing he could do to prevent it - but it brought a wintry smile to Ironheart’s lips.

  ‘That’s more like the truth. I know you’re not spineless. ’ Ironheart turned his regard upon Ivo, who had emerged unaided from the cellar. ‘If it had been your brother here, I could well have believed it.’ He seized Ivo by the scruff and dragged him forward into the light. ‘He’s always had curd for guts!’

  Hunched and shivering, Ivo stood like an ox outside a slaughter pen and made no defence. There was a tightness in Ralf’s throat and rigors shook his jaw. He had never felt such hatred in his entire life but knew that it would transmute into an explosion of love and remorse if his father offered but one word or gesture of affection.

  Hard-eyed, Ironheart said, ‘Go outside and wait for me. There are saddled horses and an escort waiting.’

  The alewife, a smirk on her face, handed over two meagre peasant cloaks. The fine fur-lined ones in which the brothers had arrived had been put away against her daughter’s dowry.

  ‘Are we under guard?’ Ralf asked huskily.

  ‘No,’ Ironheart said.

  ‘Then we are free to leave?’

  ‘Where would you go? Take to a nomad life on the tourney circuits for the price of a crust? Walk out on me now, Ralf, and you might as well be dead. I’ll not seek you out a second time. Why should I when I have a son at home and another whose loyalty I do not doubt?’

  Ralf clenched his teeth and with a supreme effort prevented himself from either answering his father in the manner he deserved or storming out. He had learned all about cutting off his nose to spite his face. Taking the cloak from the woman, he swept it around his shoulders. The ragged hem hung drunkenly at knee level and the pin was fashioned out of a chicken bone. ‘I know where I stand, Father,’ he said, his voice quiet but filled with bitterness. ‘I hope to God that you do.’ And strode into the dark, rainy night to the waiting soldiers.

  Chapter 23

  The weekday market in Nottingham was almost as busy as London’s Cheapside, Joscelin thought as he threaded his way through the crowded butchers’ shambles of Flesher Gate and Blowbladder Lane and headed up the hill to the shops and booths that thronged along the road to St Mary’s Church and Hologate. Cheek by jowl, squashed together like herrings in a barrel, the stallholders cried aloud the merits of their wares or sat at their trade behind trestles cluttered with their tools.

  At a haberdasher’s booth Joscelin purchased a small set of bridle bells, thereby fulfilling his promise to
Robert. They jingled merrily on their leather strap as he stowed them in his pouch. He remembered Juhel’s dark eyes wistfully admiring such bright trinkets dangling from a trader’s stall in Paris. In those days, money had provided the luxuries of bread and firewood and the gauds had remained a dream. He thought about a gift for Linnet. The coins in his pouch were not part of Robert’s patrimony but his own property, courtesy of his prowess against Leicester’s men. Withholding a death blow and claiming a ransom instead was by far the most profitable way of conducting warfare and he had indeed made an excellent profit.

  There were gold and silver merchants aplenty to offer him cunningly worked rings and brooches, earrings and pendants. He knew that Linnet possessed little jewellery but what he saw upon the stalls did not appeal to him. It was too common-place. Every woman of means had a round brooch with a secret message carved on the reverse - Amor vincit omnia or Vous et nul autre. He had bought Breaca one in cheap bronze when she first became pregnant, and the memory was still so poignant that he had to avert his eyes from the wares at that particular stall. One stallholder offered him a reliquary cross in which, amid a confection of silver and rock crystal, was set a sliver of bone from the blessed Virgin herself, or so he was assured. Shavings of pig bone from the cesspit in the merchant’s yard was the more likely source, Joscelin thought, and without difficulty declined the bargain.

  What he did purchase finally was an exquisitely carved ivory comb and a mirror-case to match. The seller, Gamel, was a former mercenary who now made his living making such items as well as dice and trinkets for members of the garrison to which he had once belonged. A sword had sliced off his leg at the knee. He had survived the wound fever and now stumped around on a peg leg, ungainly but determined. Just now, the wooden limb was lying beside his bag of tools on the rushes of the Weekday alehouse as he thirstily accepted the piggin of ale that Joscelin had bought for him.

  ‘How’s the leg?’ Joscelin joined him at the cramped trestle. A pang of nostalgia ran through him as he absorbed the smoky, noisy atmosphere of the little alehouse. He had not known Gamel when the man had two sound legs but the wound had only been a few months old when he first met him sitting in the guardroom at the castle, carving a rattle for a retainer’s infant son.

  ‘Not bad, not bad. Mustn’t grumble or you’ll not bother to keep me in ale.’ Gamel wiped his mouth. ‘Mind you, I had a close escape last month. The landlord’s new hound took a fancy to chew up me old peg while I was resting here. Regular mess, he made of it - huge great teeth marks, you shoulda seen ’em.’

  ‘I’ve seen the dog,’ Joscelin said sympathetically. Chained in the yard was something that appeared to be a cross between a boar hound and a pony, and certainly looking more bite than bark.

  ‘You’ll not see it for much longer if I have me way,’ Gamel muttered and took another drink of ale. Then he looked at Joscelin sidelong. ‘We hear you’re a man of means now.’

  Joscelin smiled and spread his free hand wide. ‘Who am I to deny rumours?’

  Gamel ran his tongue round his teeth. ‘They’re fine, fair lands you’ve got yourself.’

  ‘And a fine, fair wife.’ Joscelin looked at the comb. He had wanted to give Linnet a personal gift and this, with its evocations of their wedding night, was perfect.

  ‘God grant you many fine, fair children, too,’ Gamel toasted, and when he had finished drinking, he lifted his empty cup on high and signalled to the serving woman. ‘I carve the best infant rattles in three counties. Best walrus—’ He broke off as four soldiers swaggered into the alehouse and made loud demands to be served. One of them apprehended the woman who was on her way to Gamel and Joscelin.

  ‘C’mon, sweetheart, soldiers first, cripples c’n wait,’ he sneered, grasping her arm.

  Joscelin opened his mouth but Gamel quickly nudged him silent. ‘Leave be. It’s best not to tangle with Robert Ferrers’s men, ’specially when they’re drunk.’

  ‘You let them get away with it?’ Joscelin eyed the raucous soldiers with disfavour. He knew the type. Put swords at their hips and they thought they had a licence to intimidate everyone they encountered. Give them ale to drink and the result was volatile. Looking at them, he judged they had already consumed a skinful elsewhere.

  ‘Too many of ’em to do otherwise. Town’s been overrun with ’em recently. There’s no peace to be had in any alehouse this side o’ Sneinton.’

  Joscelin rubbed his jaw. Robert Ferrers, Earl of Derby, was a known ally of Leicester’s. Had Leicester’s army of Flemings reached the midlands, Ferrers would have leaped to join him, of that there was no doubt. Despite the fact that the Ferrers family owned substantial lands in Nottingham, the city had remained staunch to the Crown and showed no sign of wavering - a probable reason for the intimidation. With Leicester imprisoned and truces agreed until spring, there was bound to be a corked-up surplus of frustration and bad feeling.

  Gamel shrugged. ‘They’ll not be here much longer. With all the king’s men like yoursen arriving into the city, it won’t be as easy for them to do their mischief.’

  ‘Can’t the garrison deal with the troublemakers?’

  ‘Oh, aye, we’ve seen some rare old street battles and it goes quiet for a while, but then the trouble starts again. Earl Ferrers turns a deaf ear to all complaints. That’s why the landlord’s got hissen that dog in the yard.’

  With set lips, the serving woman approached Joscelin and Gamel to replenish their cups. One of Ferrers’s men tried to trip her but she avoided him with an adroit swish of her hips. Two tradesmen drank up and left. Joscelin decided to do the same.

  ‘Strap on your leg,’ he said to Gamel. ‘I’ll take you back to the castle.’

  Gamel reached down for his peg, but before he could grasp it one of Ferrers’s men darted forward and snatched it away. ‘Look what I got, lads!’ he crowed. ‘A lump of firewood!’ He approached the fire pit, tossing Gamel’s stump from hand to hand.

  Joscelin stood up. ‘Return it now,’ he said quietly.

  ‘What if I don’t?’ The young soldier threw the leg in the air and deliberately refrained from catching it until it was almost too late. Joscelin looked at the rash of adolescent pustules on the young man’s face, at the erratic individual hairs sprouting on his chin, and began to feel very angry indeed.

  ‘You won’t live to grow up.’

  The young man flushed. Narrowing his eyes, he dropped Gamel’s leg into the flames.

  All hell let loose. Joscelin leaped upon the soldier, and his three companions leaped upon Joscelin. Gamel crawled across the floor to the fire pit to rescue his peg before it went up in flames. The serving woman ran outside screaming for help and encountered the landlord, who had just returned from an errand. He unchained his dog and, with his fist wrapped around the broad leather collar, plunged into the dark interior of the alehouse. Hard on his heels followed Conan, who was in search of Joscelin. For several frantic moments the pandemonium redoubled. The dog snarled and bit indiscriminately at anything it could get its teeth into. The landlord belaboured the soldiers with a quarterstaff until Conan seized it from him and, with his greater bulk and experience, wielded it to far better effect. Joscelin emerged from the heap of flailing arms and legs with his fist firmly upon the scruff of the youth who was spitting blood, teeth and curses. He was the first of Derby’s men to sprawl in the street and his companions quickly followed. Nor did they stay to hurl abuse. The dog made sure of that.

  ‘Just like old times!’ Conan panted with relish, leaning on the quarterstaff to regain his breath.

  Gasping, clutching his bruised ribs, Joscelin gave him an eloquent look and turned to Gamel, who was blowing on his wooden leg and scrubbing at the worst of the charring with his sleeve. ‘How bad is it? Can it be saved?’

  ‘It’ll do, until I can carve a new ’un.’ Gamel shrugged. He did not seem particularly perturbed; indeed, a grin was slowly spreading across his leathery features. ‘It were almost worth it, just to see them get their comeupp
ance, the turds.’

  Joscelin sat down on a bench and gratefully took the cup of ale the landlord served him. Several inquisitive bystanders braved the Weekday now that the danger had gone and Gamel became an instant celebrity.

  ‘Is everything ready to leave?’ Joscelin finally asked Conan whom he had left in charge of loading the wain for the last stage of their journey home.

  ‘That’s what I was coming to tell you.’ Conan rubbed the back of his neck. ‘There’s a bad axle on the front wheel. It might last until we reach Rushcliffe but, then again, it might break miles from anywhere. I’ve taken the cart down to Warser gate to get a wheelwright to patch it up but it won’t be ready until noon at the earliest.’

  Joscelin swore at the news and then swore again, cursing Rushcliffe’s wheelwright for a cross-eyed, incompetent mash-wit.

  ‘Does this mean another night in Nottingham?’

  ‘It means travelling by moonlight if necessary,’ Joscelin said. ‘Come fire or flood, I’m sharing my wife’s bed tonight.’

  Conan flashed his brows ‘A touch impatient, eh?’ He grinned.

  ‘More than that.’ Joscelin gave his uncle a heartfelt look. ‘These have been the longest days of my life.’

  Chapter 24

  Matthew the peddler unfastened his pack and, spreading a cloth of madder-red wool on the floor rushes, proceeded to lay out his wares for the inspection of his potential customers. Every October and April for the past ten years, Rushcliffe had been a point on the circumference of his regular trade route between Nottingham and Newark. He was a sturdily built, red-cheeked man in his early thirties and usually enjoyed the rudest of health. Recently, however, he had caught a chill he could not shake off and today he felt like death warmed up. A tight band of pain was slicing across the top of his skull and his limbs felt as if they were made of hot lead. Shoulders jerking, he fought to subdue the spasms of a racking cough, knowing that it was extremely bad for business.