Shields of Pride

Chapter 7

In the bedchamber above the hall, Linnet listened to her husband’s breathing. The sound was akin to a dull-bladed saw dragging through wood. Mad, she thought, I will go mad, and turned away to pace the floor before she was tempted to seize a pillow and press it over Giles’s face. She clenched her fists and halted as she reached the wall of whitewashed dung and plaster. Outside, the shutters rattled as a storm wind tried to gain entry, while within herself a storm fought to escape. ‘Jesu,’ she whispered, closing her eyes.

Giles groaned her name and she returned quickly to his bedside. He tossed his head, moaning softly in the grip of a dream induced by the poppy in wine she had given him. She laid a calming hand across his forehead but his eyes jerked wide open and fixed on her, the pupils black pinpoints in the fogged blue irises.

‘The strongbox!’ he bubbled, and seized her wrist in a grip that was still frighteningly strong.

‘Lie still, my lord,’ she soothed. ‘You must conserve your strength.’

His grip tightened painfully. ‘The strongbox . . .’ he repeated through bloodstained teeth. ‘Give it . . . to Leicester.’ He fell back against the pillows, breath rasping. His grip slackened. She snatched back her wrist and rubbed it, her own breathing loud with distress. If she permitted Leicester to take their coin, she would beggar her son’s inheritance for another man’s glory. She could not do it and yet, if young Henry’s rebellion was successful, she would face terrible repercussions for denying his cause valuable funds.

‘How does he fare, madam?’

Stifling a cry she spun to face Hubert de Beaumont. Her knees almost buckled with terror. Beaumont was squat, but powerful. His ugly tenacity had always reminded her of a bull-baiting dog. ‘My husband needs rest,’ she managed to say and leaned against the wall for support.

Beaumont considered her closely and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. ‘A bad business. The horse coper’s in the stocks and he’ll be lucky to escape the gibbet, selling a killer like that. He must have known the brute had that trick.’ Advancing to the bed, he leaned over the dying man.

Linnet struggled for composure. ‘I beg you not to disturb him,’ she said.

Beaumont straightened and looked at her. ‘As soon as I have possession of the silver your husband promised to Lord Leicester for his Normandy expedition, I’ll leave you both in peace.’ He removed a sealed parchment from the pouch on his belt. ‘Here’s my writ of authorization.’

The Earl of Leicester’s seal dangled on a plaited cord, heavy with the weight of authority and obligation - far too heavy for her to accept into her own hands. ‘My husband said nothing to me of such a promise. I cannot give you what you ask.’

Hubert’s brows drew together across the bridge of his nose. ‘Why should Giles have told you?’ he dismissed. ‘This is men’s business. You would do well to obey.’

Linnet clasped her hands. Her eyes widened with innocent distress. ‘You are right, this is men’s business and I am unable to deal with it. Perhaps when Giles has improved—’

‘Improved, my arse, he’s as good as a corpse!’ Beaumont scoffed. ‘Lord Leicester wants the silver.’ His glance flickered to the money chest beside the bed.

Linnet set her jaw. ‘My lord Leicester will have to wait on the justiciar’s yeasay,’ she said, and going to the chest sat down upon it.

Giles made a strangling sound as he strove to sit up. Beaumont’s eyes bulged. In two strides he had reached the strongbox, seized her arm and flung her aside. ‘Where’s the key?’ he snarled.

‘I don’t know.’ She rubbed her bruised arm.

Beaumont turned to the bed. ‘Key?’ he demanded of the choking Giles, who garbled his wife’s name and pointed an accusing finger.

Linnet slowly backed away from Beaumont until her spine struck the wall and she could retreat no farther.

Beaumont’s arm flashed out and he seized her round the neck. ‘Where is it, you whore?’ His thumb pressed against her windpipe.

Her breath crowing in her throat, Linnet struggled but his grip was too strong.

Ella, who had gone to fetch her mistress a hot posset of milk and nutmeg, halted in the doorway, taking in the scene with horror. Uttering a gasp, she cast the drink aside and fled back down the stairs to fetch help.

‘Tell me!’ Beaumont roared, his fingers tightening. Linnet kicked and struggled and did not answer but Beaumont had noticed a leather cord around her neck, beneath his squeezing fingers, and that it disappeared beneath her undergown and tunic, concealing whatever was strung upon it. Panting with exertion and triumph, he set his fist around the cord and twisted.

Joscelin heard the church bells striking the hour of vespers as he unburdened his bladder in the latrine pit at the foot of the garth. The sky over Westminster was darkly overcast, closing hard on a thin, silver rim of setting light over the Tyburn.

Readjusting his braies, Joscelin started back towards the house. The garden was neglected, although there were signs that it had been hastily tidied. There were no neatly planned and well-tended herb beds as there were at his father’s house, just straggles of half-wild sage and lurching clumps of rosemary. He supposed that although Giles probably used this place for bachelor pursuits when he was in the city, it seldom became a domestic household.

He glanced at the shuttered window above the hall where Giles was slowly bleeding his life away and told himself that the horse would have rolled on Giles whether he had struck out with the stool or not, but the feeling of guilt remained.

Giles’s heir was a frail child whose lands would have to be administered by a guardian for many years, in whatever form that took. He suspected the Crown would sell the widow and her son by right of marriage to the highest bidder and entrust the buyer with the child’s well-being and administration of his lands. From what he had seen, Giles de Montsorrel had been a poor husband and father but his successor would not necessarily be any more competent.

His ruminations were curtailed by Malcolm, a young Galwegian soldier in his troop who was sauntering on his own way to the latrine pit.

‘Lady Montsorrel’s got a visitor, sir.’ His French carried a lilt of Lowland Scots. ‘A paunchy wastrel from Leicester’s household. Said he was a friend of the Montsorrels, but I misliked his manner so I took his sword before I let him go up.’

‘What was his name?’

‘Hubert de Beaumont, sir.’

Joscelin nodded. ‘Paunchy wastrel about sums him up. You did right to confiscate his sword.’ He slapped the young Lowlander’s brawny arm and walked on to the house. He was on the verge of re-entering the hall and about to wash his hands and face at the laver, when Linnet de Montsorrel’s distraught maid seized his sleeve, gibbered something about her mistress being murdered by the visitor, and pointed frantically at the stairs to the upper floor. Joscelin heeled about, drawing his sword as he ran, took the stairs two at a time, shouldered open the door and hurtled into the bedchamber.

On the bed, Giles de Montsorrel gurgled in a spreading stain of blood, fingers outstretched towards his scabbarded sword that was propped against the wall only just out of his reach. Joscelin leaped across the bed to the choking woman and the man panting over her. Grabbing a handful of Beaumont’s hair, Joscelin wrenched him off his victim and threw the knight to the floor, levelling the sword-point at his windpipe.

‘Christ’s blood, what goes forth here!’

Linnet de Montsorrel clutched her bruised throat and drew great gulps of air, her breathing no less desperate than her husband’s.

His complexion a deep wattle-crimson, Beaumont glared along the sword at Joscelin. ‘It’s a private matter,’ he snarled. ‘None of your interfering business!’

Joscelin was heartily sick of being told what was and was not his business. ‘Almost a private murder,’ he retorted. ‘You’ll answer to the justiciar.’

‘No, let him go,’ Linnet choked. Her veil had been torn off in the struggle and her hair tumbled around her shoulders in two dishevelled fair-brown braids.

Joscelin stared at her in disbelief. Beaumont used the instant’s loss of concentration to lunge sideways, past the bed and out of the door.

‘Please, I beg you, let be!’ Linnet implored as Joscelin made to run after him. ‘Let him go!’

‘But he would have killed you, my lady!’ Joscelin said incredulously but, after a hesitation, sheathed his sword and helped her to her feet.

‘And I thank you for your concern but, as he said, it was a private matter.’

Joscelin shook his head in disbelief. Red fingerprints blotched her throat and there was a long graze where Beaumont had tried to tear off the leather cord she was now clutching. Joscelin suspected the key to the Montsorrel strongbox was sequestered upon it beneath gown and chemise. ‘My lady, I do not think it is,’ he said curtly.

Avoiding his gaze, she hastened to the bedside, knelt and took her husband’s hand. Her hoarse entreaties to the Virgin were drowned out by Giles’s rasping struggle for air. He stiffened, exhaled on a choking bubble of blood and did not draw another breath. As his body sagged against the mattress, Linnet bowed her head. Against the shutters the rain spattered in lieu of the tears she would never cry. She was free, unanchored and driving towards the point where she would smash on the rocks of her own guilt.

Leaning over her, Joscelin de Gael gently closed Giles’s staring eyes and told the maid to fetch the chaplain from his meal in the hall.

‘I assume he wanted the contents of the strongbox?’

‘Assume what you wish,’ she said tonelessly, adding, ‘He was Giles’s friend, not mine.’

‘Hubert de Beaumont is no one’s friend.’

Linnet looked over her shoulder and saw that he had gone to the curtain behind which Robert was asleep on his small rope-framed bed. Drawing the fabric slightly to one side, he looked down on her sleeping, vulnerable son, his expression inscrutable. Then he gently let the curtain fall back into place and gave his attention back to her. ‘I can see you object to my questions,’ he said, ‘but you will let me post a guard at the door and send word to the justiciar.’

His tone was courteous but it held authority and expectation of obedience. Since she had no reason to challenge him, she nodded. Her jaw started to chatter and suddenly she was frozen to the marrow.

He took her cloak from the back of a chair and draped it around her shoulders.

‘You need someone to stay with you, another woman of your own rank to help where your maid cannot. Do you know anyone?’

Linnet shook her head. ‘My husband did not permit me to meet with other men’s wives and sisters except on formal occasions when he had no choice.’ She grimaced. ‘I suppose the Countess of Leicester is my kinswoman after a fashion, but I would rather not turn to her for succour.’

‘No,’ he agreed wryly, his tone revealing that his opinion of Petronilla of Leicester differed little from her own. ‘I have an aunt in the city. She’s a widow herself and of excellent character.’

‘To be my jailer?’

His brows drew together. ‘I don’t blame you for being suspicious but it was truly an offer of comfort.’

The outer door swung open and the hissing sound of the rain followed the priest into the room. Linnet touched her bruised throat. She was as good as a prisoner already if a guard was to be set on the door. Another woman’s company would make her fears less overwhelming; there would not be so much time for her to brood on them and magnify them out of proportion.

The priest was brushing rain from his robes and bending over the corpse. Giles demanded her attention. There were rituals to observe for the sake of his soul and his body had to be washed and prepared for its final resting.

‘I apologize,’ she said to Joscelin. ‘Your aunt will be most welcome if she will come.’

His eyes remained guarded but his mouth softened a little. He bowed to her, crossed his breast to the priest and left. She heard his footsteps clattering down the stairs, as Giles’s had done only yesterday and would never do again.