Shields of Pride

Chapter 30

As soon as Linnet had retired to the sleeping loft on the second floor of the house, Ironheart fetched his tools and his shield and brought them outside to the bench by the yard wall.

Bracing the shield against his leg, he took up a pair of blacksmith’s pincers and began to pull out the tacks that held the shield’s rawhide rim in position. A section near the top was damaged and needed replacing. It was something he had meant to do in the winter but had kept putting off. Now the truces had all come to an end and there was no time left.

Robert ceased playing with the kitten and ambled across the yard to watch Ironheart at work.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m going . . . ,’ said Ironheart between grunts of effort as he pulled the tacks out of the wood, ‘to replace . . . this damaged section at the top . . . with a new piece of rawhide. See?’ He pointed with a calloused forefinger. ‘That’s the mark of a Scottish short sword. Nearly got me, the whoreson.’

Robert nodded, grey eyes large and impressed. ‘Can I help?’

‘I don’t see why not,’ Ironheart said gruffly. ‘You see that jar over there? Bring it here, will you? I’ve had a piece of rawhide soaking in it overnight, so it should be soft enough to cut and nail by now.’ He watched Robert carefully lift the yellow glazed jar and bring it to him, a look of intense concentration on his small face. A pang went through the old man, so warm and sweet that it made a mockery of the barriers he had erected against the world a quarter-century ago. Thus had Jocelin learned the art of caring for his weapons, a small child against Ironheart’s knee. Those had been the springtime years. Now, in the cold approach to winter, he could smell the spring again and wanted to weep because he had missed the summertime completely and was aware of the last leaves of autumn drifting from the tree.

‘Now what do we do?’ asked Robert, bringing him firmly back to earth.

‘Take the hide out of the jar and squeeze it as hard as you can.’

‘Like this?’ Robert screwed up his face in disgust as the wet rawhide bulged between his fingers. ‘It’s all slimy and it stinks!’

A chuckle rumbled up from the depths of Ironheart’s chest. ‘You can’t nail it on when it’s hard,’ he said and looked at the child’s tendons standing out on the bony wrist. There was nothing on him - he was like a skinned coney - but there was a powerful underlying tenacity. Still chuckling, Ironheart rummaged among his tools and discovered that his shears were missing.

‘Leave that now. You’ve squeezed out most of the water. Go inside to Gytha and ask her for a pair of shears.’

Robert scampered off. Picking up the crumpled piece of rawhide, Ironheart gave it a final wringing with his own powerful, scarred hands. Gytha’s shriek and Robert’s even louder scream brought him abruptly to his feet.

The little boy shot out into the backyard, the shears clutched in his hands, his eyes huge with terror. Gytha raced after him, followed by Ella, stumbling on her skirts. ‘Soldiers, sire!’ she gasped. ‘Soldiers with swords coming this way from Ferrers’ house! They mean mischief, I know they do!’

‘What’s happening?’ asked Linnet in bewilderment. She stood at the foot of the loft stairs, her face flushed with sleep and her lustrous golden-brown braids bared.

Ironheart opened his mouth, but before he could speak the front entrance of the house was darkened by three men clad in the leather armour of regular troops. Two brandished long knives, the other wielded a hand axe.

Linnet screamed, then cut the sound off rapidly against the palm of her hand. Ironheart seized his sword and shield from the bench and faced the intruders.

‘Get out of my house or, by God, I’ll kill you!’ he snarled.

One of the soldiers laughed. ‘You’re a foolish old man,’ he said, advancing with a heavy, deliberate step. ‘And God’s asleep.’

Linnet backed away. Never taking his eyes off the soldiers, Ironheart sidestepped so that Linnet could squeeze past him. ‘Hide in the cellars next door,’ he muttered from the side of his mouth. ‘Gytha has the keys.’

Linnet cast a frightened glance over her shoulder then ran into the backyard. Grabbing Robert’s hand, she pulled him across the yard at a run and out of the back gate into the communal narrow entry running behind the houses. Gytha and Ella panted behind her. She reached for the iron ring on the gate of the house adjoining Ironheart’s and twisted. The door did not move. She thrust her shoulder against it until her flesh bruised and her bones hurt. The door’s hinges had dropped at some time and its base dragged the dusty ground. Gytha and Ella joined her, kicking and pushing, fear lending them strength. Finally, reluctantly, the door scraped open enough for the women and boy to squeeze through into the yard of the vintner’s house.

Wheezing, Gytha unfastened the hoop of household keys from the belt at her thick waist and found the one to the solid rear door of the building.

‘Lord William said we should hide in the cellars.’ Linnet panted, staring round the empty backyard with wide eyes and thinking that at any moment they would be caught. From the direction of Ironheart’s house they heard a loud bellow and the shriek of steel meeting steel. Then someone screaming in pain. Gytha fumbled the key into the lock and twisted and pushed.

The house was dim and had the musty odour of places left unoccupied for a time. The walls were bare, for the merchant had taken all his portable goods with him and only the plainest of furniture remained. An empty cauldron stood over the fire pit, which had been cleaned of rubbish and new kindling laid to hand.

‘The cellar’s this way,’ Gytha gasped and disappeared behind a wooden screen into the storeroom. Bunches of herbs and smoked hams hung from hooks hammered into strong wooden beams that supported the floor of the sleeping loft above. Two buckets stood on the floor beside an old pair of pattens and several cooking pots were laid out on a trestle. There was a candle lantern standing on the trestle, too. Gytha pounced on this and, with shaking hands, kindled a flame from the tinderbox laid beside it. Holding the light aloft, she hastened to a low doorway at the end of the room and told Ella to pull back the heavy iron bolts. Linnet ran to help the maid. Fortunately, the bolts, although stout, had been kept well oiled and were easy to draw back. The oak door swung open and the candle flame danced, making huge shadows on the rough-cut sandstone stairs that led down into a throat of darkness.

Robert hung back. ‘I don’t want to go down there,’ he whimpered and clung tightly to his mother. ‘I don’t like the dark. Monsters might get me!’

‘You cannot stay up here.’ Crouching, Linnet cuddled him. ‘And there are no monsters. Sir William wouldn’t allow them to live in his cellar, would he?’ Over Robert’s shoulder, she gestured the other women to continue down the stairs. Gytha gave her the hoop of keys, holding out to her the cellar one, and started downwards to the dark horseshoe arch where the first room opened out. Linnet smoothed Robert’s hair. ‘Look, I’ll carry you and you can hide your face against my shoulder.’

Robert still resisted, a whine of fear escaping between his teeth, but Linnet scooped him up in her arms. She did not have the time to cozen him further and could only hope that he would not begin to scream.

A scraping sound came from the direction of the yard entrance and almost simultaneously the women heard the thump of weapons upon the street door.

‘Quickly, my lady!’ Gytha hissed, beckoning from the foot of the stairs, her eye-whites gleaming.

Linnet started down the steps, Robert clinging to her like a limpet. She began to close the cellar door with the hand not supporting him but stopped as Ironheart staggered into the storeroom, his mouth twisted in a grimace of effort and pain. She widened the door again. He was too breathless to speak but gestured her down the stairs. Wordless herself from the sight of blood glistening on his shoulder, she gave him the key and hastened down after the other women. As she reached the cave, she heard the front door crash down and the iron key grate in the cellar lock.

The dampness closed around them like a tomb, musty and cold. Gytha brought over the lantern to light Ironheart’s way down the steps. He leaned heavily on the rope supports hammered into one side of the wall, and when he reached the bottom collapsed against a row of casks, his breathing harsh.

‘I haven’t given you away,’ he panted. ‘We killed the first three, me and Jonas . . . and the two who came after . . .’ His eyes squeezed shut and he put his hand to the wetness at his shoulder.

‘Where is Jonas?’ Gytha asked. Her hand trembled as she set down the candle lantern.

Ironheart swallowed. ‘I’m sorry, Gytha, there was nothing I could do. There were two of them at me and I could not reach him. I tried, God knows I did. Then one of the bastards ran into this yard after you and I gave chase. I got him - but he got me. You think you’re safe enough in your own house not to bother with mail.’

‘Let me have a look.’ Kneeling, Linnet reached to examine the wide split in his leather jerkin, tunic and shirt.

‘No time,’ he gasped. ‘They will be looking for loot, and in a vintner’s house that means the cellar.’

Linnet withdrew and looked at him askance. ‘Then why tell us to come here in the first place?’

‘The cave runs the length of all the houses and then some more. There is a passage branching off beneath the entry where there used to be a meat store. We had a dispute with the old basket-weaver across the alleyway - he cut a room for his workshop and broke through into my cellars. As far as I know, the hole has only been boarded over. It should be possible to crawl through. Give me your arm, girl.’

Linnet was almost dragged to the floor by Ironheart’s weight as he levered himself to his feet and leaned briefly against the casks.

‘Here, boy,’ he commanded Robert, who was holding tightly to Linnet’s skirts. ‘Carry my sword for me, be my squire.’ He held out the weapon. The candlelight flashed upon the blade edge and up the tendons of the man’s rigid hand.

Tentatively Robert did as he was bid, his own small hand inadequate on the braided grip.

At the top of the stairs, the door suddenly rattled vigorously on its hinges. ‘Locked,’ said a gruff voice. ‘Use the axe, Greg.’

‘This way,’ Ironheart whispered hoarsely and began weaving a path through the casks. The cellar door shook beneath the blows of an axe and they all heard the sound of splintering wood.

Linnet did not like the way Ironheart was breathing and from the size of the wound, as she had briefly seen it, she was sure that it would need attention very soon if he was not to bleed to death.

They rounded a corner and had to stoop as the roof of the cave suddenly dipped and seemed to reach an end. The lantern light illuminated the chisel marks on the walls where the cave had been cut. To their left the shadows seemed blacker than elsewhere and it was towards these that Ironheart headed. In a moment, the shadows resolved themselves into a narrow, dark connecting passageway. Gazing over her shoulder, Linnet saw only blackness but the hammering sounds went on and there was a cry of triumph as the soldiers split through the door.

‘I want Joscelin,’ Robert whimpered as they crouched along the passage and into the storage cave of the house next door. ‘Will he come and save us, Mama?’ He, too, looked back with the wide eyes of a hunted animal. The weight of the sword was making his wrist droop.

‘If he is able to, I know he will,’ Linnet said. She knew he had gone to the castle. Probably the alarm had not even been raised there yet, and by the time it was it might well be too late. ‘But for now, sweeting, we have to use our own wits.’

‘Mama, why can’t we—?’

‘Hush,’ she admonished quickly, ‘they will hear us!’

They could not see the soldiers’ torchlight but suddenly they could hear their voices in the first cellar and the grate of footsteps on the sandy cave floor.

‘’E don’t have much wine stored down here to say he’s such a busy merchant,’ complained a rough voice. ‘Hold the light closer, Greg, I want to see the mark on this barrel. Hah, Rhenish!’ A glint of greedy pleasure entered the voice and there were various unidentifiable clinking, scraping sounds, followed by the trickle of wine into some sort of vessel. All in the tunnel held their breath. Gytha shielded the light of the lantern beneath her cloak and turned away from the first cellar. Ironheart silently removed his sword from Robert’s hand.

‘You reckon there’s anything upstairs worth a look?’ asked one of the looters between swallows.

‘We’ll investigate in a minute. By Christ’s toes, this is good stuff.’

Footsteps scuffed in the direction of the passageway and Ironheart tightened his hand around the grip of the sword.

‘Hoi, Thomas, look at this. There’s a passage here; bring the torch!’

In the moment while the refugees deliberated between fight and flight, another voice, angry and imperative, filled the first cave.

‘I might have expected you two tosspots to find the wine!’ There came the sound of a blow and a pot smashing on the cave floor. ‘Get upstairs now. The men I sent to de Rocher’s house are all dead and there’s no sign of the old fox or the woman and child. I want them found, is that understood?’

‘Yes, sir. We was only investigating the cave. They could be down here for all we know!’

‘Oh, aye,’ said their captain sarcastically. ‘I presume you were drinking all the barrels dry to make sure they weren’t hiding in them. You must think I was born yesterday and blind. Go on, get out of here and find Simon; he’s coordinating the search parties.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The sound of running footsteps retreated and the captain’s voice, softly cursing, followed them, boots crunching upon the shards of broken pottery.

Linnet released her breath and sucked air into her starving lungs. Ironheart groaned and slipped slowly down the wall. His grip loosened on the sword and it clattered sideways. A single blue spark flashed along the edge of the blade and was quenched in semi-darkness. Linnet crouched beside her father-in-law. His eyelids flickered.

‘Go on,’ he croaked. ‘I won’t be able to keep pace with you.’ A wry smile barely curved his lips. ‘I doubt I’m even able to stand up. Fetch help if you can. If not . . . guard yourself. Take my sword. I still have my dagger.’

Linnet bit her lip, considered briefly, then nodded. ‘Give me the lantern,’ she said to Gytha, and when the older woman handed it across she set it down beside the wounded man.

‘Leave me,’ he growled. ‘You have no time.’

‘Time enough to make you comfortable,’ she retorted. ‘I won’t be gainsaid. You saved me once. At least let me redress the balance a little.’

Ironheart snorted. ‘I didn’t save you to indulge in this kind of folly,’ he said but, after a brief attempt to push her hand away, allowed her to have her will.

Linnet raised her skirt and undergown to reach the good linen of her shift. Taking the hem in both hands at the side seam, she tore it upwards and then hard across. The fibres resisted and she had to use her belt knife to finish tearing off a long, wide strip. This she used as wadding and bandage to cover Ironheart’s wound, securing it with her own braid belt. Ironheart’s tougher leather belt she took and bound around her waist, setting her knife in the empty dagger sheath.

‘It will cause you pain but you must press down hard on the bandage to staunch the bleeding,’ she told him. ‘I don’t think you are losing as much blood as you were.’ She picked up the lantern from his side and returned to the first cave, picking her way over the shards of broken pottery and the dark glimmer of splattered wine. There was a small ledge carved into the wall and on it stood two more pitchers of a similar design to the one that lay in pieces on the floor. Lifting one down, she filled it from the broached keg and brought it to Ironheart, setting it down at his good side.

He regarded her with grim amusement. ‘What’s this for, to drown my sorrows?’

‘To dull the pain and replace the blood you have lost,’ she replied, her tone sharp.

Ironheart hefted the pitcher and took a shaky gulp of the wine from the cracked rim. ‘Waes hael,’ he toasted with irony. ‘Go on, wench, get you gone. There’s nothing to be gained in watching a drunkard die.’

Linnet blinked hard. ‘Get as drunk as you want,’ she said, ‘but don’t you dare die!’ Bending over him, she kissed his cheek fiercely then straightened and gestured brusquely at Gytha to lead on.

Ironheart watched their small light disappear in the direction of the third cellar and raised the pitcher to his lips again. He was indeed inordinately thirsty. He was tired, too, and could feel the chill of the cave floor seeping up through his bones. How long did it take to die? He closed his eyes, then remembered he was supposed to drink the wine. The pitcher was so heavy. He raised it, swallowed, choked, swallowed, lowered his aching arm.

The meat store in the fourth cellar had a fatty, strong aroma, and this despite the cool temperature of the sandstone vaulting. Linnet’s stomach churned and fluid filled her mouth so that she had to turn aside to spit. Gytha’s wavering candle illuminated the boarded-up hole, the source of the dispute between Ironheart and his neighbours.

‘We need something to prise off these planks,’ said Gytha. ‘It ain’t safe down here. They’ll be down after us soon enough, the scavenging vultures. My poor Jonas . . .’ Her double chins quivered.

‘Gytha, I’m sorry—’ Linnet began, knowing that whatever she said would be inadequate, but the older woman cut her off short.

‘Nay, Mistress Linnet, it is kind of you to offer comfort, but it ain’t much use. It’ll not bring him back, will it?’ Gytha compressed her lips. ‘He’s dead. It’s our own lives we must save.’

Linnet bit her lip and nodded, recognizing the older woman’s brusqueness as a bulwark against the onset of grief. On a stone slab jutting from the wall lay the carcasses of two skinned sheep and she had to swallow several times before she could speak. ‘We could try the sword,’ she suggested.

‘You will break the blade, my lady.’

‘I don’t think so, not if we put the hilt under like this.’ She lodged the pommel, which was shaped like a flattened fist, beneath one of the wooden planks and pushed downwards. For a moment nothing happened. Linnet raised her foot and braced it against another strut for more leverage. With a loud creak and then a sudden splintering sound, one of the holding nails flew out of the wood and tinkled on the ground. Gytha took hold of the loosened plank in her strong laundry pummeler’s hands and ripped it away from the hole.

‘It’s mortal narrow,’ she pronounced, peering dubiously through and running her hands over her ample curves.

Linnet loosened some more boards and Gytha and Ella pulled them free. The women held the lantern up to the hole and saw that it led through into a dusty cellar full of bundles of rushes and withies, woven baskets and trugs, some completed, some half-finished and beyond them, stairs leading up to a shadowed doorway.

‘Old Andrew’s workshop,’ Gytha said. ‘The door comes out in his garth, under his grapevines.’ Her plump face wrinkled. ‘There’s no telling it’s going to be any safer there, save that his cellar door’s well hidden beneath all the greenery and he’s not a rich man - nowt worth looting.’

But it was not loot alone they were after, Linnet thought, remembering the exchange of words between the soldiers in the first cellar. She, Robert and Ironheart were sought, and God alone knew for what purpose. Anger at their helplessness flashed through her like fire and renewed her courage.

‘Hold up the lantern,’ she commanded Gytha. ‘I’ll go first and you can pass Robert through. Here, sweetheart, take the sword for me.’

The gap was like a lightless window set in the middle of the wall and she had to drag her skirts through her belt so that she could clamber through the aperture. The air on this side was thick with the chaffy residue of old Andrew’s trade and made her sneeze. She stifled the sound against her hand but it still seemed to echo resoundingly.

‘Pass me through the sword,’ she called to Robert. ‘Hiltfirst; it’s very dark in here and I don’t want to cut my fingers.’

There was a scraping, grating noise. Using the haphazard gleams of Gytha’s lantern, Linnet located the grip and pulled the sword through into the new cave. Robert followed it through, agile as a small ape. As she helped him down, she could feel him trembling, but he neither spoke nor whimpered.

Then, without warning, without time to run or hide, Andrew’s cellar door was flung open and bright daylight flooded down the dozen stairs, blinding Linnet and Robert.

‘I told you, I ain’t got no valuables hidden away!’ whined an elderly, cracked voice. ‘See for yourselves. This here’s me workshop!’

‘Nothing valuable? Oh, come now, I wouldn’t say that. Looks to me as if you’ve got two little birds nesting in your straw.’

Linnet’s eyesight began to adjust and she saw a broad-shouldered, leather-clad soldier standing at the head of the stairs grinning down at them. An old, scrawny man dangled from the soldier’s fist by the ripped edge of his hood.

‘I nivver seed ’em before!’ the old man squeaked with an incongruous mixture of fear and indignation. ‘They’re nowt to do wi’ me.’

‘Good, then you won’t be wanting a share in the reward for finding them,’ the soldier said cheerfully, and dropped him. Turning, he shouted, ‘Lads, come and look at what I’ve found!’ Grinning broadly, he started down the stairs. Linnet saw his look intensify as his eyes settled on the dark hole in the wall behind her and Robert. She licked her lips, knowing he would investigate and soon discover the two serving women and Ironheart. It was too late to distract him from what he had seen and deduced.

Robert was shuddering, his eyes growing wider with each footfall of the approaching soldier.

‘My lady,’ the man said. ‘You will yield yourself and the child into my keeping.’ His left foot scraped the bottom step. He made a beckoning gesture.

Linnet wrapped both hands around the sword grip and attacked him. The blade swung in an arc and hit his lower bicep and elbow. Although the blade did not bite flesh, he was knocked off balance. Cursing her, he began to straighten up and reach for his own sword but Linnet struck again and this time caught his throat between the edge of his gambeson tunic and his jawline.

He choked and clutched at the wound, blood spurting between his fingers. Linnet dropped the sword, picked up Robert and thrust him at the wall. ‘Go back!’ she commanded. ‘Stay with Gytha and Ella until I come for you.’ As the women took him, Linnet began feverishly piling up baskets and stacking rushes against the hole to concealing it, while in front of her the man died, his eyes full of frightened disbelief.

More soldiers arrived at the top of the stairs. ‘Found some treasure, have you, Rob?’ one shouted. The laughter left his voice and his eyes widened as he took in the scene below. ‘Rob?’ he croaked. ‘Christ, you bitch, what have you done to him?’

Linnet backed away from the men, sidestepping the body so that their eyes followed her to the far wall, not the one that concealed the opening behind the precariously balanced trugs and baskets. ‘I am the lady Linnet de Gael, daughter-in-law of William Ironheart,’ she said as they advanced down the steps, clubs and swords at the ready. ‘It will go ill with you if I am harmed.’

She saw the looks they exchanged. The soldier who had spoken reached the foot of the stairs and crouched beside his dead compatriot to check him for signs of life. His fingers came away bloody and he looked at her across the corpse, his face twisted with revulsion. Linnet returned his stare. ‘Soldiers killed my father-in-law,’ she said. ‘I took his sword to defend myself.’

He jerked to his feet and, crossing to her in two swift strides, struck her across the face. ‘You whore!’ he snarled. ‘Rob would never have attacked you. Soft as mutton fat he was with women!’ He raised his hand to strike her again but one of the others caught him back.

‘Steady, Alex. Lord Ferrers said he’d pay good money for her and the brat. And he can be mighty peculiar. It’s nothing to him to thrash a woman to death but if we bring her to him in any kind o’ state, he’ll have us on the gibbet for sure - and that’ll be all of us dead because of her, and no profit.’

Alex resisted the hand clamped on his wrist for a moment longer, then shrugged free and pushed his way out of the cave.

‘Where’s the boy?’ demanded the soldier who had intervened. His face was stone-hard and without compassion.

‘At the castle with his stepfather,’ she lied, looking straight in his eyes. ‘You’ll not get your hands on him.’

He scowled. ‘Get her out of here,’ he snapped to his two companions. ‘Take her to Lord Ferrers’ house. Alex and I will follow with Rob’s body.’

Linnet was seized by the elbows and dragged up the stairs into the full daylight of the basket-maker’s backyard. They tied her hands with a strip of leather and knotted a rope leash through her belt with which to pull her along. Linnet put up a token struggle, enough for them to jerk her roughly a couple of times, but she did not engage in spirited resistance. The sooner they were away from the cellar, the better.

As Ferrers’ hirelings pulled Linnet out of the yard, more men came running up the alleyway from the direction of Ironheart’s house, their swords drawn. Linnet dug in her heels and stared. Her heart pounded in swift hammer strokes. ‘Joscelin!’ she screamed. ‘Joscelin, Conan, help me!’

The soldier holding the rope swore and turned to strike her with his sword-hilt. Linnet dodged the blow and kicked him as hard as she could in the testicles. Unbalanced by her tied hands and the rope at her waist, the force of her effort toppled her and sent her sprawling in the alley’s filth. The soldier grunted and hunched over, for while she was only wearing soft indoor slippers, his gambeson was on the short side and at least part of the blow had connected. Before he could straighten and turn, Joscelin was upon him with a single killing blow. Linnet screamed and rolled away as the body struck the ground at her side. She struggled to her knees. Joscelin pulled her to her feet and freed her wrists, untied the the rope at her waist, then pulled her fiercely into his arms.

She clung to him, shaking. One man had fled up the alley towards Organ Lane, the others lay dead. Linnet could smell their lifelessness as though they were already putrefying. The stench invaded her nostrils and descended to her stomach, bringing on a lurching nausea. Then she realized that Joscelin’s garments were the source of the stink and that they were naught but infested rags.

‘Are you all right?’ He held her a little away to study her face. His hand gently touched the swollen mark where the soldier had hit her. ‘Where are the others? Once they’ve done looting and burning, they’ll turn on anything that moves and even the size of Conan’s troop might not deter them. We have to reach the castle as quickly as we can.’

Linnet nodded jerkily. She was far from being all right but for the nonce she could cope because she had to. She compressed her lips as the stench of his garments continued to agitate her stomach. ‘We hid in the house cellars. The others are still there.’ She swallowed and swallowed again, then pushed out of his arms. ‘Your father’s been wounded - badly, I think. It was very hard to tell in the dark. We had to leave him in the passageway between the caves - he could go no further. I bandaged him as best I could and left him a pitcher of wine to ease his thirst and his pain. He gave me his sword, and I—’ She shook her head and refused to think in that direction. She needed all of her faculties until they were safe. Averting her gaze from the corpse at her feet, she stumbled towards the vintner’s backyard. ‘I will take you to him,’ she said.

Pausing only to give Conan orders and send a soldier in search of a hand cart to carry the wounded Ironheart, Joscelin hastened after her.