Shields of Pride

Chapter 34

In Maude’s chamber a single candle burned at the dying man’s bedside. The priest finished his ministrations and started to put away the vial of holy oil and Communion wafers in a small cedarwood pyx.

Linnet watched the proceedings from a low stool in the corner where she sat with Ella and Martin. Agnes lurked near the priest and Linnet fancied that she was like a demon, awaiting her moment to dart in and snatch Ironheart’s soul. This was her dark domain. The rooms belonging to Ironheart had been seized by Ralf to underline his authority, and so Agnes had insisted on nursing him here.

Nursing him! Standing over him smiling like a gargoyle, Linnet thought with a shudder. The nightmare, she knew, had only just begun and she couldn’t let it progress any further. Yet, trapped like this, how was she to prevent it?

The priest turned to leave, murmuring that now was the time for the grieving relatives to pay their last respects. Linnet rose from the stool and quietly apprehended the cleric as he approached the door.

‘Father, I beg you to intercede with Lord Ralf, make him see that what he is about to do is godless.’

The priest looked down at the hand she had laid upon his sleeve with ill-concealed distaste and she quickly removed it.

‘Daughter, what will be, will be, and I cannot change it,’ he replied. ‘Lord Ralf is not acting without just cause.’

Linnet wiped her hand on her gown, wishing now that she had not touched him. ‘Just cause!’ she choked. ‘You call murdering his own brother a just cause!’

‘Daughter, your loyalty commends you but it is misplaced. You must search your heart for the obedience to God’s will.’

‘To God’s will I am ever obedient, Father,’ she retorted. ‘But perhaps you should search your own heart, too, if you can find it beneath the fear for your purse.’

The priest drew himself up but, full of disgust, she faced him and refused to let his haughty stare beat her down. Finally, he turned on his heel and stalked out.

Linnet released her breath and her shoulders drooped. When she turned round, she discovered that Agnes de Rocher was watching her with a smile. ‘There is no way out,’ she said softly, and a cold ripple ran down Linnet’s spine. Thank Jesu that she had owned the foresight not to bring Robert to Arnsby. But if Joscelin was hanged, how long would her little boy be safe?

Ironheart groaned and Agnes’s head rotated to the sound. She hastened to the bedside and leaned over her grey-faced husband who was propped up on several goose-down bolsters. Everything about him was sunken, as if all his vital juices had been sucked out, leaving naught but a skeleton clad in skin. Against all adversity, a spark of life still glinted in the bruised eyes and it was directed not at his gloating wife but at Linnet and his youngest offspring. With a tremendous effort, his hand wavered up and he beckoned.

Linnet approached the bed and stood at the opposite side from the glowering Agnes. Her flesh crawled. Martin hesitated, then came to stand beside her. He refused to look at his mother and Linnet felt his shoulders trembling as she put her arm around them.

Ironheart stretched out his hand to her and his youngest son. Linnet took it and felt through its thinness the blaze of fever.

‘You were right,’ he whispered. ‘I should have died in Nottingham.’

Linnet blinked and swallowed. Within her, a rage of bitterness demanded that she agree with him but she held it down, knowing it would serve no useful purpose. Nor would she show him anything but love and duty in front of Martin and his rejoicing, mad wife. She looked at the scarred, shiny hand within her own two smooth ones. ‘For that matter, we should have kept you at Rushcliffe.’

Agnes snorted and Linnet glared at her through a veil of tears.

Ironheart closed his eyes and Linnet saw him struggle, summoning what strength remained in his emaciated body for the effort of speech. ‘The scribe . . .’ he said. ‘I have made my will known to him.’ His eyes opened again and met hers, pushing a message at her. ‘The scribe,’ he repeated, as if rambling, but his gaze was lucid.

At first Linnet was bewildered and then she remembered that Ironheart’s scribe these days was Fulbert, whom Joscelin had sent here rather than hang. Fulbert might owe Joscelin a life, but he was as spineless as a lump of blancmange. It was a slim thread of a chance at the most but, nevertheless, it was hope and the spark of it filled her with new energy.

Agnes snorted again. ‘Do not look so eager, girl,’ she sneered. ‘There’s nothing in his will for you. The fool has made grants to the Church and freed some serfs. Of course,’ she added with a sly smile, ‘the bequest to the nunnery won’t be necessary now, will it?’

Ironheart’s lips curved cynically. ‘Do not be so sure of that, wife. Ralf won’t keep you here unless it’s under lock and key.’

‘Ralf and I have a perfect understanding,’ Agnes said coldly.

‘Yours or his?’

Agnes drew herself up but he turned his head away from her and addressed Linnet. ‘Have a care to yourself, whatever happens,’ he whispered. ‘And my blessing upon you and Joscelin. Give it to him if you can. There is so much I wanted to tell him . . . so much.’

Linnet leaned over Ironheart and kissed him on his dry, hot lips. The presence of death was so close that it was tangible. Once, she would have recoiled in horror from the very thought of doing this but she was free of her fetters now. And she wanted him to know that he was not alone, that she at least would stand on the edge of the river and bid him farewell with sorrow.

Then it was Martin’s turn. He knelt at his father’s bedside and Ironheart laid his hand on his youngest son’s bright-brown hair. Martin flinched but once, then held his ground, his lips pressed together. Linnet could see that Ironheart was beyond speech and that the boy’s composure was more than precarious as he struggled with his revulsion.

‘If you die,’ he suddenly burst out, ‘Ralf will kill Joscelin!’

Ironheart’s lids tensed and squeezed. He drew in a wheezing breath and let it out, shuddering with dry anguish. Linnet quickly drew Martin away from the bedside, gesturing the maids to come and take the boy, but he twisted in her arms and made the sign of the cross over himself. ‘And then I swear by Jesus Christ that I will kill Ralf!’

‘Martin!’ Agnes marched around the foot of the bed and slapped her youngest son across the face.

‘I will do it!’ he yelled. ‘I swear I will!’ His chin jutted in defiance. The handprint on his cheek slowly turned from white to red.

His mother quivered. From the bed there came a sound that might almost have been grim laughter and Agnes whirled, her hands closing and unclosing, her face scarlet with pent-up fury.

‘You think it amusing, do you?’ she hissed at Ironheart, leaning over him. ‘Then let me make you laugh some more. Let me tell you about your whore, your precious Morwenna, about how she died. You would like to know, wouldn’t you?’

Horror froze Linnet to the spot as Agnes bent over her husband, her lips tauntingly close to his in the parody of a lover’s. She saw the man try to turn aside but Agnes turned with him, her head moving like a snake.

‘For all these years you thought she tripped on her gown and fell down the stairs. I saw her, you know, I was behind her at the time. She was so big with child that her balance wasn’t good. One push was all it took, one small push and down she went, belly first, then head over heels.’ Agnes spoke slowly, relishing each word, her eyes never leaving his face. ‘She was still conscious when she reached the bottom of the stairs, so I dropped a loom weight on her head to make sure she was silenced. She never recovered her wits and I saw you put in the hell you deserved.’ Her voice sank to a whisper. ‘Jesu, but it was worth it.’

Ironheart’s right hand whipped up and clamped around her throat.

‘Poisonous bitch!’ he wheezed. ‘I’ll show you what hell truly is!’

Agnes clawed and struggled, but the man whose physical strength had once denied the bite of an iron sword blade only tightened his death grip. The tendons stood out like ropes on his taut forearm.

Agnes collapsed to her knees at the bedside, her face the colour of ripe plums. Linnet recovered the use of her limbs and ran to the bed to pull Ironheart and his wife apart. She wedged hip and shoulder against the strangling Agnes and grasped Ironheart’s arm at the juncture of wrist and palm. Through her own hand she felt the violent shuddering of his fury. And then, as she strove to break his grip, crying at him to stop, his eyes suddenly widened. ‘Morwenna,’ he gasped, staring beyond the women at something only he could see. His fingers relaxed and his arm fell limply to his side. He did not draw another breath.

Wheezing, gulping for air, Agnes fell to the floor. Linnet left her to the maids, and taking Martin’s arm, pulled him away.

He was trembling and pale, and the eyes he raised to her were numb with misery and shock. Linnet squeezed his thin shoulders - too thin to carry the burdens with which they were being laden.

‘We must save Joscelin,’ she said, drawing him towards the door. ‘Now is our one chance while your mother and the maids are distracted. Take me to the chapel and then go and bring Fulbert the scribe to me.’

He looked at her uncertainly.

‘Fulbert owes Joscelin his life. I am calling in the debt. It is the only way of sending a message outside. Does Ralf read and write?’

‘A little - only his name. He uses a scribe normally.’ The words emerged stiffly, his lips barely moving.

‘Good. Quickly now.’ She urged him towards the door. A swift glance over her shoulder reassured her that for the moment Agnes was too taken up by her struggle to breathe to notice their exit and the maids were all fussing round her.

Once out of the room with its death smell and dreadful images, Martin rallied. A guard had been posted at the foot of the stairs but he let them pass when the boy told him in an authoritative tone that his mother had bid him take Lady Linnet to the chapel to light a candle and say prayers. Linnet, the image of distressed modesty, kept her eyes lowered and shrank from the guard’s scrutiny. Let him believe she had no spirit.

A cold draught twisted round the newel post and fingered past her. She caught the familiar smell of dank stone, but there was an underlying, elusive scent. The guard must have noticed it too, for he turned and looked at the stairs behind him and even mounted them to peer around the newel post. Linnet shivered, thinking of Morwenna de Gael, and remembering Robert’s tale of a lady in a green gown he had encountered here. ‘If you can hear me,’ she entreated Morwenna’s spirit, ‘help me save your son and your unborn grandchild!’

She was answered only by the echo of her own whisper and the heavy fluttering of the torches in the sconces.

In the cold, functional chapel, Linnet lit a candle and genuflected to the altar, then bowed her head to pray, seeking the strength to stay calm throughout the following hours. Martin dutifully crossed himself and then slipped away in search of Fulbert.

As Linnet eased her position on the hard stone flags, she heard a sound from one of the niches in the chapel wall. Heart pounding, she looked round, half expecting to see the luminous figure of Morwenna de Gael but it was a man’s form that rose from the shadows and began edging towards the rear of the chapel.

‘Who’s there?’ she demanded, standing up. The man did not reply but she knew he had heard her speak, for he hesitated. A brief gleam of light caught the side of his face before he went out and she wondered for who or what Ivo de Rocher had been praying. Was his soul troubled at the prospect of fratricide? She wondered if she dared approach him for succour.

Hesitant footsteps pattered outside the chapel door, stopped, were silent for the space of several heartbeats, and then advanced.

‘My lady?’ The scribe’s whisper was hoarse with anxiety. ‘It is not safe here. I just saw Lord Ivo. What if he says something?’

‘He won’t,’ Linnet said with more confidence than she felt and came to draw the scribe farther into the church, before the altar so that the cross cast a long shadow between them.

Fulbert licked his lips and gave a worried look over his shoulder. ‘I cannot stay long. I’m supposed to be visiting the privy.’

‘I suppose I should be grateful that you have come at all,’ Linnet said, her nostrils flaring with anger. ‘Lord Joscelin spared your miserable neck once. Is it too much to expect that you should repay the favour?’

Fulbert ceased licking his lips and began to chew them instead. ‘Of course I will help if I can, mistress, but I fail to see what I can do.’

She swallowed and controlled both her temper and her patience. ‘It is obvious what you must do. Write to the constable in Nottingham and Conan at Rushcliffe, telling them to come at once. You are responsible for giving sealed parchments to messengers and Ralf will have had much to send out today. It will not be hard to include another two.’

Fulbert gulped.

Linnet watched him wring his fat hands and wondered how he managed to create such wonderful, delicate script. Somewhere there had to be a hidden wellspring. ‘Yes or no?’ she said fiercely as he continued to mumble and scrutinize his feet.

‘Mistress, I will do my best.’ He darted her a look from beneath his brows and sidled towards the door.

Linnet’s heart plummeted. The man was a coward; she could read his intention clearly in his eyes. ‘God grant you forgiveness, for I will not!’ she hissed, her voice shaking and then, hearing herself, she compressed her lips. Jesu, I sound like Agnes de Rocher, she thought. What if I become like her? And she knew that at noon tomorrow, if Joscelin died, she would not care what she became.