Shields of Pride

Chapter 9

Stripped to the waist, Ralf worked at putting an edge on his sword: smoothing the oiled Lombardy steel over the grindstone, honing out the nicks, brightening the edge until it shone bluish silver like the underbelly of a fish. Honing a blade was something Ralf did well if he was in the mood to be patient and even a professional craftsman would not have bettered his work today.

He blotted his sweating brow on his forearm and paused to rest. The courtyard was bustling for the earl was preparing to leave London for Southampton tomorrow dawn. The girl Aelflin smiled intimately at him across the yard, her arms piled high with linens for the countess Petronilla. Ralf looked in the opposite direction, watching a wain that had become stuck in the muddy wheel ruts by the gateway. Pleasure he had had from her in the stables not an hour since but, as far as he was concerned, the silver penny he had given her was a release from obligation.

The sun disappeared into shadow as Hubert de Beaumont arrived to stand over him. ‘May I?’ he asked and, without waiting for Ralf’s consent, took the bare sword from the latter’s knee and hefted it, testing the balance and then the edge. ‘Excellent,’ he said, then grinned. ‘You could make your fortune as a swordsmith.’

Ralf snorted. ‘Do I look like an artisan?’

Beaumont eyed him up and down. ‘I suppose not. You’re too disreputable by far without half your clothes and sporting that purple eye.’ He returned the sword.

Ralf applied more oil to the stone. He wondered why Beaumont had sought him out. The knight was a seasoned member of Leicester’s mesnie and not given to applying the lard of friendship to newcomers unless he had wheels to grease.

‘That half-brother of yours is fast on his feet for one so tall,’ Beaumont remarked.

Ralf scowled and touched his tender eye socket. ‘I’d have got the better of him if Brien of Ravenstow hadn’t poked his nose where it didn’t belong.’

‘Doubtless you would, but I was thinking of my own tangle with him yesterday evening.’

Ralf laid the sword edge to the grindstone and rasped it across. He almost smiled because, while he might detest Joscelin, there was satisfaction in seeing the de Rocher blood triumph in a fight. ‘What’s your interest in him?’

Beaumont watched the steady rhythm of Ralf’s arm. ‘Lord Leicester wants the Montsorrel silver for our cause and your brother is its guardian.’

‘Ah.’

‘Is he open to bribery?’

The sword sparkled on the grindstone as Ralf choked on mirth. ‘Good Christ, no!’ he spluttered. ‘Why do you think he’s in such high favour with the justiciar? Whatever you offered him would not be enough to make him bend his precious honour. He knows that you are Leicester’s man through and through.’ He scabbarded the sword. ‘The only way you’ll get that silver out of Joscelin is over his dead body.’

Beaumont wrapped his fist around his own sword-hilt. ‘That can be arranged,’ he said, ‘but he is my adversary and I need to know more.’

‘You are taking a risk by asking me.’

‘I don’t think so. I saw the “brotherly love” you have for each other two nights ago. Look, come to the Peacock and we’ll talk over a jug of wine.’ Beaumont jingled the purse lying against his dagger sheathe.

‘Is that by way of a bribe to me?’ Ralf pushed his sweaty hair off his forehead. ‘Do you think I am more easily bought than my brother?’

‘You appear to have finished your work for the moment and you look thirsty.’

Suddenly Ralf smiled, revealing fine white teeth that no chirurgeon’s pincers had ever been near. ‘The Peacock, you said. It just so happens that I am indeed a very thirsty man.’

‘Joscelin’s always been my father’s favourite,’ Ralf said and drew the shape of a dragon in a puddle of spilled wine on the trestle. His other hand propped up his head, which felt far too heavy for his neck. The task of sharpening his sword in the hot yard had made him so dry that he had gulped the first two cups of wine without moderation. The third had followed more slowly, matching pace with Beaumont, and he was now more than halfway down his fourth. ‘I know that if the Arnsby lands were not mine by right of legitimacy, he would give them to Joscelin - his precious do-no-wrong firstborn son.’ A querulous frown appeared between his eyes.

‘You said the other night his mother was a whore.’

‘She was. My father picked her up among the loose women of the army camp during some battle campaign. Supposedly she was a baron’s daughter but no decent woman follows the troops for a livelihood.’ Ralf lifted his cup and gulped. ‘After she died in childbed, my father built a chapel to her memory and endowed a chantry of nuns to sing her praises forever. God’s death, do you know how much it sticks in my craw to see him riding off to visit the place like a damned pilgrim? She wasn’t a saint, she was a witch!’

Beaumont made sympathetic sounds and refilled Ralf’s cup before tipping the final half-measure into his own. Then he took a contemplative swallow and set his enquiries back on their original course. ‘So how did your brother come to be a mercenary? Surely your father could have found him an heiress with lands?’

‘Originally Joscelin was going to be a priest,’ Ralf said. ‘He boarded with the monks at Lenton for three years until one of them tried to make him into his bum-boy and Joscelin knocked his teeth down his throat. My father decided that his true vocation lay with the sword and started his training.’ Ralf resumed dabbling his finger in the spilled pool of wine.

‘And?’ said Beaumont, leaning forward. His curiosity was like the tip of a knife probing an open wound. Ralf began to feel nauseated.

‘There’s little more to tell.’ He shrugged. ‘When Joscelin was fifteen, he and my father quarrelled and Joscelin ran away. My father said he would be home within a month but we didn’t see him again for seven years. When he returned, it was at the head of his own troop of mercenaries. He was treated like the prodigal son, put on a pedestal and held up to me as a shining example.’ Ralf stared at his wine-stained fingertips. ‘For seven years I had dared to dream that he was dead, out of my life for ever, amen.’

Beaumont folded his arms across his broad belly. ‘And you don’t know what happened to him in those missing seven years?’

‘He never spoke about it. I suppose he went to his mother’s brother, Conan, and learned all that was necessary for a common mercenary to survive.’ Ralf raised drink-fogged eyes to Beaumont. ‘How are you intending to kill Joscelin?’

Beaumont pursed his lips. ‘I can see a way of obtaining the Montsorrel silver without directly confronting your brother, a way that will be a far greater blow to his pride.’

‘Are you afraid to face him?’ Ralf’s voice was contemptuous.

The knight reddened. ‘I fear no one,’ he growled. ‘Fortunate for you that you’re drunk or I’d break your arm for that remark. My first concern is recovering Lord Leicester’s money. If you want to be rid of your brother, do it yourself.’ Rising from the bench, he tossed a coin on the trestle to pay for the wine.

‘Where are you going?’ Remaining seated because he did not trust the steadiness of his legs, Ralf blinked up at him.

‘To hire a boat to take me upriver. I fancy a little excursion. ’ Beaumont smiled at Ralf. ‘I’d take you with me but you’d probably puke all that wine over the side.’

Ralf watched him stride from the alehouse. For a moment he stared bleakly at the recently limewashed walls, already streaked around the sconces with candle soot. A serving girl approached to take the money and the empty flagon. Ralf fumbled in his purse for another coin and commanded another jug. There was no point in being only half-drunk.

Beaumont’s excursion consisted of paying a river Thames boatman three silver pennies to row him upriver from Leicester’s house until they were opposite the far more modest building that constituted the Montsorrel dwelling. From his bench on the prow of the boat, Beaumont studied the small shingle beach and wooden steps leading up to the unkempt garth. He heard a rooster crowing and saw hens pecking among the high grass and brambles. The buildings were of the old Saxon type - dung and plaster with thatched roofs. Only the main house was covered with the more expensive red tile. In the heat of the day, the window-shutters facing the river had been flung wide.

‘Want me to beach her, my lord?’ enquired the boatman, who was struggling to hold his craft steady on the tide.

Beaumont shook his head. ‘No. I’ve seen enough. Row me over to the Southwark side. I’ve business there now.’

The boatman arched his brow but did as he was requested without demur. You got all sorts hiring Thames boats, especially these days when so many nobles were in the city seeking permission to join the war in Normandy. The Southwark side had been very popular recently. You could purchase anything you wanted there, from a good time to one that in future you would rather forget. Souls were easily bought and sold in the dark alleyways of the Southwark stews. The boatman eyed the fancy sword and long dagger on the knight’s tooled belt, the well-fed gut hanging over it. ‘Is it a bathhouse you’re wanting, my lord? I can suggest several good ones. Nice clean country girls, no hags.’

Beaumont smiled. ‘Later perhaps. First I want you to row me to the landing nearest the Maypole. You know it?’

‘Yes, my lord.’ The boatman tipped a forefinger against the broad felt brim of his hat. He knew the Maypole, all right. It was a dingy back-alley establishment that housed the worst den of thieves and cut-throats this side of Normandy. ‘You won’t be wanting me to wait for you.’

Beaumont produced another coin from his purse and held it up between forefinger and thumb where it glimmered like a fish scale. ‘I’ve got business there,’ he said. ‘I won’t be long, and it’s full daylight. This will be yours if you’re here when I come back.’

The boatman eyed the money and wondered if the Norman knew what the odds were against returning alive from the Maypole. ‘I’ll wait an hour, no longer,’ he said grudgingly and began working his boat out into the river.