Shields of Pride

Chapter 22

‘We’re lost, aren’t we?’ Ivo snivelled.

Ralf clenched his fists on his wet reins and turned in the saddle to scowl at his brother. ‘God’s eyes, will you cease whining! You’re still alive, aren’t you?’

The rain had been falling steadily since dawn, making of the forest a permanent green twilight. Water sluiced down Ralf’s helm and soaked through the twin layers of his cloak. His hauberk bled gritty rust and his thighs chafed against the saddle with each stride of his exhausted horse.

In heavy drizzle, Leicester’s army had struck across the country towards the earl’s Midland strongholds and had been met by their doom on the marshy ground near the village of Fornham. Earl Robert had relied too heavily on his Flemish recruits - weedy men and boys who were mostly unemployed weavers by trade - and Hugh de Bohun’s knights had smashed them. Filled with rage and fear, Ralf had hacked his way to escape, dragging a terrified Ivo in his wake. Now the forests surrounding Edmunsbury and Thetford stretched for miles, punctuated by the occasional charcoal-burner’s dwelling or verderer’s hut. And outside of their gloomy green protection, for all Ralf knew, the Royalist army was waiting to finish anyone who had not died by the sword or drowned in the marshes.

‘My horse is going lame,’ Ivo complained. ‘Do you think we’ll find shelter soon?’

Ralf closed his eyes and swallowed. In a moment he was going to offer Ivo shelter - six feet deep with a cosy counterpane of leaf mould. The idiot was about as much use as a punctured waterskin. Couldn’t fight, couldn’t think. Ralf did not answer but urged his own horse to a faster pace.

The forest dripped around him like a giant open mouth waiting to swallow whatever was foolish enough to ride over the drawbridge of its mossy tongue. The smell of mildew and fungus was almost overpowering. Ralf ’s eyes stung and his vision became a green blur. He was a rebel, an outcast, shivering to death in a Lowland forest. The spark of rebellion that had led him in fellow sympathy to join young Henry’s cause was extinguished. The desire to wound his father, and at the same time prove his own worth, still goaded him with a vengeance. He hungered for respect and admiration, and the more they eluded him the more desperate he grew.

‘Ralf, wait!’ Ivo’s forlorn cry came muffled through the grey-green downpour.

Viciously, Ralf jabbed the stallion’s flanks. The beast stumbled on a tree root then shied as a woodpecker dipped across the path. Ralf gripped the pommel to steady himself. One shoulder struck a tree branch and he cursed at the crunch of pain. He drew rein to recover and with resignation listened to the beat of approaching hooves as Ivo made up the ground between them.

‘Ralf . . . ,’ Ivo said miserably.

Ralf inhaled to snarl at his brother, but his breath solidified in his chest for Ivo was being held at spearpoint by a grinning English soldier who was one of a group of half a dozen armed men.

‘If your hand is going to your sword, I hope it’s only to surrender it,’ said the soldier in thickly accented French. ‘Give me one small excuse, Norman, and I’ll have your guts to banner my spear.’

Ralf shuddered, more than half-tempted to give the soldier the very excuse he needed. It would be so simple. One thrust and everything would be finished. But was there any guarantee except a priest’s prating assurance that the afterlife was any better? Slowly he grasped the hilt of his sword and drew it from its wool-lined scabbard.

‘Ralf, for Jesu’s sake, give it to him!’ Ivo croaked, eyes huge with alarm. ‘You’ll find us worth the ransom,’ he gabbled, eyes darting around the tightening circle of men. ‘We’re the sons of William de Rocher, known as Ironheart - his heirs, in fact.’ He licked his lips.

Ralf sent Ivo a glare of utter scorn and threw the sword down into the thick leaf mould at his destrier’s fore-hooves as if he were tossing a coin to a beggar.

The Englishman grinned. ‘The sons of the great Ironheart, eh?’ The relish in his tone scoured deep. ‘I wonder how much your illustrious sire is willing to pay for the return of his two lost sheep. Better hope it’s more than your true worth or I might be tempted not to go to the bother of ransoming you.’

‘He’ll pay anything you want,’ Ivo assured the Englishman anxiously. ‘He will, Ralf, won’t he?’

Ralf narrowed his light-brown eyes. ‘Oh yes,’ he muttered. ‘He’ll pay.’

In the wet October afternoon, a bitter wind herded a fleece of clouds northwards and blew into the face of William de Rocher as he and his men drew rein outside the village alehouse to which their English guide had brought them.

‘Is this the place?’ A paradox of hope and sinking despair made Ironheart’s voice harsh.

‘Yes, my lord.’ His guide looked at him sidelong. ‘It might not seem much but there’s a mighty stout apple-cellar under the main-room floor.’

A muscle flickered in Ironheart’s jaw. ‘My sons are in the apple cellar?’

‘Safest place for ’em. If they weren’t worth good silver, they’d be feeding the ravens of Hallows Wood by now.’

‘Watch your mouth,’ Ironheart warned as the soldier nimbly dismounted. ‘Just because you have something I want, do not think you can take liberties with me.’

The soldier looked him up and down. ‘I wasn’t, my lord. I thought you were known as a man of plain speaking and I have told you nothing but the truth. Many of Leicester’s troops have not lived to see their ransoms paid.’

William glared at him and felt a goutish envy for the lively arrogance and fluid grace of youth. Slowly he swung his stiff right leg over the cantle and dismounted. The ground was soggy underfoot with a mulch of dead leaves. They twirled from the elm trees across the green, like souls fleeing into the darkness, some of them falling by the wayside at his feet. Rain spattered into his face, forcing him to squint. Noisy laughter drifted from the alehouse and a raucous voice bellowed an English ballad about a virgin and a blacksmith.

‘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.