Shields of Pride

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 comeuppance, 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.’