Shields of Pride

Chapter 11

In the warmth of a midsummer afternoon, Joscelin approached Rushcliffe by way of the Fosse road that ran through the undulating wolds to the east of the river Trent and the city of Nottingham, and then he struck on to a rutted byway that linked Rushcliffe to Southwell and Newark.

Leaning against his chest, tucked into his cloak, was Robert de Montsorrel. Joscelin had taken the child on to his saddle to give Linnet and her maid a respite and, besides, he now had a paternal responsibility to the little boy. Indeed, an empty space within him seemed a little less barren for the comfort of the warm weight lying against his ribs.

He smiled down at Robert’s drowsy blond head, imagining Ironheart’s response could he but witness the scene. His father would snort and say that he was storing up trouble, would say that people would consider him soft and afford him less respect. A child’s place was with its mother and its mother’s place was at the hearth if a man had any sense. Joscelin’s smile grew wry and dark. He was obviously not a sensible man.

As he rounded a turn in the dusty road, the castle of Rushcliffe came into sight, filling his vision, and momentarily taking his breath. Limewashed to protect the timber and stone from the weather, it stood out in the landscape like a perfect white tooth, proclaiming the local power of its lord. Joscelin had served garrison duty in imposing castles such as Dover and Nottingham but as a small cog in the doings of influential men. But this keep before him was greater by far because the authority was now his own. A warm feeling of possession washed over him but he did his best to hold it down. Rushcliffe was only on loan to him until the child in his arms should come of age and it was unwise when faced with a banquet after years of privation to devour and gorge. For his own sake he had to consume sparingly.

A village had grown up in the security of the castle’s shadow and, as they rode down the narrow main street and negotiated the market cross, folk emerged from their wattle-and-daub dwellings to watch the procession of soldiers and the funeral cortège. Poultry and children scampered from underfoot. Dogs barked. An enormous spotted sow held up their progress while she was persuaded to leave the middle of the road, where she had been lying in a puddle suckling her litter.

Women with children at their skirts and babies in their arms watched from their doorways. A carpenter stood outside his workshop, wood shavings curling from the plane in his hand. Joscelin was aware of cold eyes and unsmiling mouths. One or two people crossed themselves as the coffin filed past but most just stared. An old woman outside the alehouse was even bold enough to spit and shake her fist.

Joscelin guided his mount over to Linnet’s roan mare. ‘Giles was not popular,’ he remarked.

‘They hated him,’ she said. ‘He wanted their respect but never understood it was an entitlement he had to earn. He ruled them with a heavy hand - often with a whip in it.’

He gave her a searching look. ‘Did you hate him, too?’

She lowered her gaze. ‘He was my husband.’

‘A fittingly dutiful answer.’

She flushed. ‘Do you have a complaint?’

‘Only that I would know your true thoughts, not what you think you ought to say.’

She gave him a startled look.

Joscelin shrugged. ‘I’m used to the women of the barracks and the camps. Propriety never stands in their way and better so, I think.’

She considered this for a moment and he saw her hands clench on the reins. When she spoke, though, her voice was steady and dispassionate. ‘By all means let us be candid but I do not want to talk about Giles.’

Joscelin was enough of a strategist to know when to withdraw. From the set of her jaw he judged that persistence on the subject would cultivate hostility. He looked down at the sleepy blond head pillowed against his body. ‘Then let us talk about this young man’s future. As soon as I have an opportunity, I’ll find him a pony of his own.’

She nodded with alacrity and looked relieved. ‘Indeed, I agree with you. It is past time he began his training.’

In murmured conversation, so as not to wake the child, they rode on, past the water mill and then through some coppiced woodland of birch and hazel. Beyond the woods lay rich meadowland on which grazed the castle’s dairy herd and farther up the slope, closer to the keep, sheep and geese kept the grass nibbled to a springy turf.

Robert woke up and Joscelin returned him to his mother. The child straddled the saddle in front of her, small hands grasping the pommel. Dusty sunlight turned his hair to white gold and lightened his eyes to the palest grey-blue, making of him a radiant faery being.

From somewhere on their left at the far side of the coppice they heard the chunk of an axe on wood. The nape of Joscelin’s neck began to prickle. The coppiced trees resembled deformed fists with fingers sprouting from the knuckle joints. He glanced over his shoulder at the pall-covered coffin. The wain on which it lay creaked and jarred over the ruts in the track and Joscelin had an irrational expectation that they were going to jolt into one rut too many and awaken the dead.

‘What’s the matter?’ Linnet asked.

‘Oblige me by riding in the centre of the men, my lady.’ Unstrapping his helm from the side of the saddle, he donned it then brought his shield from its long strap on his back and slipped his left arm through the two shorter handgrips.

Linnet stared at him, her mouth open.

‘Ware arms!’ He turned in the saddle to alert his men. ‘Malcolm, stay with my lady!’

‘Yes, sir!’ The young Galwegian took Linnet’s bridle and guided the mare into the heart of the troop.

The path through the coppice remained innocent and sunlit but the soldiers took up their positions, weapons bared and shields raised.

‘Did you see something, sir?’ asked Milo de Selsey, riding abreast of Joscelin.

‘Intuition,’ Joscelin said. ‘A soldier’s gut, as my father always says. Have you noticed how still it is - no birdsong? Something is not right.’

De Selsey looked over his shoulder into the trees. He narrowed his eyes and nodded brusque acknowledgement of Joscelin’s concern.

As they rode on, Joscelin strained his eyes and ears, every tiny hair on his body upright. Whitesocks pranced, responding to his master’s mood. They approached the end of the coppice, the track bearing the imprint of foresters’ carts and old hoof marks. The path divided like a snake’s tongue but a fallen log blocked the wider route and the troop had to filter into the narrower one.

A glint of silver flashed among the trees, disappeared, then flashed again closer. Joscelin heard a shout and the thunder of hooves as a troop of horsemen moved to block the way out of the coppice. The leading knight whirled a mace around his head, the sunlight gleaming along its flanges. Then he caught it by the base of the haft and used it as a baton as he bellowed the command to attack.

Within moments the enemy troop was upon Joscelin’s. The advantage of surprise had been lost, thus the first impetus of assault was not as devastating as it might have been. Nevertheless, the odds were against Joscelin, for he was outnumbered and, with two baggage wains and a coffin cart to protect, unable to manoeuvre.

Two of the enemy hacked their way through the guard surrounding Linnet and Robert. A bay destrier drew level with Linnet’s roan and its rider seized the bridle to bring the small mare around. A screaming Robert was torn from her arms. She shrieked at the full pitch of her lungs for aid and looked desperately around. Malcolm struggled valiantly to respond but he was engaged in fierce battle with an opponent on either side of him and couldn’t break free.

A powerful chestnut stallion surged into the midst of the attempted abduction. The downswing of Joscelin’s sword took off one man’s hand clean through the wrist, freeing the restraint on Linnet’s bridle. Howling, the knight toppled from his saddle. Joscelin spurred Whitesocks around Linnet, thrust his shield into the swordstroke of the second knight who held Robert, heaved the blade off, and counterstruck. The knight doubled over, choking on blood. Joscelin caught Robert and hauled him to safety.

‘Take him!’ he gasped to Linnet.

She closed her arms convulsively around her child and then, seeing the blood, recoiled. Feverishly she dabbed at where it was thickest with a fold of her cloak, trying to gauge the extent of his injury.

‘God’s death, woman, it’s not his!’ Joscelin snarled. ‘You’ll have wounded aplenty to tend without fussing over trifles!’

She shot him a fulminating glare but he had gone, spurring Whitesocks towards one of the wains which the enemy had succeeded in capturing.

Joscelin’s driver was sprawled facedown on the coppice floor and in his place one of the attacking knights was making a competent effort at turning the horses. He had set his shield down while he handled the wain. The device of a golden firedrake on a scarlet background was enough identification for Joscelin but, before he could reach his brother and deal with him, his sword was caught and turned by a hand axe wielded by a paunchy knight, powerfully muscled in arm and shoulder. Joscelin tightened his thigh against the saddle to hold his seat and turned his wrist to free his blade. In the moment that the weapons disengaged, he locked eyes with Hubert de Beaumont and knew that this time there would be no backing down.

Beaumont swung the axe. Joscelin ducked. The blade sang past his ear and struck his shoulder. The blow bit through the links of his hauberk and rocked him back against his cantle, but in the surge of battle he felt no pain. Beaumont attacked again but Joscelin had his shield up now and struck back forcefully. Taught to fight in the routier camps of Normandy and Flanders, he could stand hard and Beaumont, although strong and well muscled, was not in the same physical condition. Joscelin’s sword-work was fast and inexorable. When he saw a gap he took it and the look of astonishment on Beaumont’s features was his final expression as he tumbled from the horse, struck the ground and was still.

Panting with exertion, Joscelin watched the baggage wain containing the Montsorrel strongbox disappear down the track in the direction of the Nottingham road, escorted by a dozen hallooing, jubilant soldiers.

‘Shall we ride after them, sir?’ asked Milo de Selsey.

Joscelin shook his head. ‘No, let them go. We’re outnumbered and we’ve been fortunate to escape with the mauling we got.’ His smile was brief and humourless. ‘Let Ralf savour his victory for the small time it is his. Safer, I think, to ride for Rushcliffe before he takes it into his head to look at his prize.’ He stared round the battle site. ‘Put our dead across horses. The men too badly wounded to ride can use the funeral wain.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Milo turned away and began shouting commands.

The uninjured men in his troop began the depressing task of tying their lifeless companions across spare horses like slaughtered deer at the end of a day’s hunting. Four dead in all and four too badly injured to ride with competence - almost a third of his troop. He picked his way among the men, talking, helping, until he came to Linnet who was bending beside one of the sorely wounded, comforting him while he waited his turn to be lifted onto the wain.

‘Malcolm?’ Joscelin crouched beside the young mercenary and looked at the bloody spear gouge that had ripped open the milky, freckled skin from collarbone to bicep.

‘I wasn’t fast enough, sir . . .’ Malcolm’s teeth clenched in a rictus of pain. Tears oozed from his eyes and trickled into the red hair fluffing around his ears. ‘There were two of them and I was stuck between them like a fox in a trap.’ He stared from Joscelin to Linnet, who was holding his blood-soaked shirt in her hand. ‘I’m going to die, aren’t I?’

‘Of course not!’ Joscelin snapped.

‘I’ll admit it is a nasty tear—’ Linnet’s voice was firm as she bent over him ‘but no worse than holes I’ve had to mend in my gowns. It can be darned and you’ll live to fight another day. See, it’s only of the flesh; no vital part has been touched.’

Beneath her calm authority, Malcolm’s breathing eased. ‘Ye must think I’m a bairn!’ he lamented.

‘No worse than any man,’ she said. ‘It’s going to hurt when they lift you but, God willing, you’ll soon be comfortable in a bed.’

As Malcolm was gently raised by two soldiers and taken to the wain, Joscelin laid his hand upon Linnet’s sleeve. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

She shrugged. ‘It was the truth. If he does not take the stiffening sickness and if the wound stays clean, he’ll survive with barely a scar.’

Her pragmatic tone sat completely at odds with her earlier hysteria over her son but Joscelin knew only too well how fierce the bond between mother and child could be. A glance showed him Robert cuddled in the maid’s arms, his eyes as huge as moons in his thin, pale face.

‘I am sorry I shouted at you,’ he said as he turned to mount up. ‘In the heat of battle, everything happens so fast.’

She shook her head and smiled ruefully. ‘You made me so angry that you killed my terror.’

He acknowledged their pax with a brief smile of his own but quickly sobered. ‘Hubert de Beaumont was leading them, so they must have been acting on Leicester’s orders.’ He looked grim. ‘My brother Ralf was with them, too.’

‘I’m sorry, it must be a grief to you.’

He shook his head. ‘I have never known Ralf as anything but my enemy. The grief is all my father’s.’

‘They took the strongbox.’

‘Yes, they took it.’ A look of understanding flashed between them. ‘And also five casks of vinegar and two of scouring sand for cleaning mail. Nothing of value.’ The hangings and tapestries, household goods and trinkets, were stored at Nottingham and would arrive later that week down the Trent by slow barge. Grimacing, he turned his stallion. ‘Nothing of value,’ he repeated bleakly, ‘but the lives of four good men. The life of Hubert de Beaumont is scarcely adequate recompense.’

Waiting impatiently for the ferry on the wooded banks of the Trent, Ralf looked over his shoulder, ears straining for the sound of pursuit, but the horizon remained innocent. He returned his stare to the sullen sheet of grey water. The ferry was a dark wedge on the opposite side of the river, and the two ferrymen were taking their own good time about pulling their craft across.

Ralf chewed his thumbnail and cursed under his breath. He could still see Hubert de Beaumont’s eyes wide open in disbelief as Joscelin’s sword entered his body and the image within his mind’s eye made him queasy. He glanced at the baggage wain. His instructions had been to capture Montsorrel’s strongbox and deliver it to the Earl of Leicester, its rightful owner. Success should have elated him but he was assailed by nagging doubts. Something stank like rotten fish. He eyed the strongbox where it stood, squat and stolid amid various casks and barrels. Joscelin had been entrusted with its safety and it was more than his hide was worth to lose it. So why had he not pursued?

The doubt became a sickening suspicion. Ralf drew his sword from his belt and went to the box. The iron bindings and oiled bolts gleamed almost like a smile. He could not bear the tension and struck at the hasps but they were stoutly made and held fast. Sparks flashed in the dim light and the sound of his blade on the iron was loud enough to waken a corpse. It brought the other men running, demanding to know what he was doing.

Sobbing with effort and frustration, Ralf took one last swing. The hasps shattered and a sliver of metal from his beautiful, lovingly honed sword flew from the blade and lodged in his brow-bone. Blood streamed from the wound, blinding him. It was one of the other soldiers who opened the violated strongbox and discovered that the scuffed leather money pouches within held not silver pennies but small, round stones, smelling pungently of river and weed.