Shadows and Strongholds (12 page)

'I heard her say to Papa that she hoped you weren't going to pester his new squire to death.'

Marion turned her huge blue stare on Brunin. 'I'm not pestering you, am I?' Her lower lip drooped.

Brunin shook his head and mumbled a disclaimer. Marion cast a triumphant glance at Hawise. 'He's going to sit next to me at the table,' she said possessively.

Hawise placed the last trencher and dusted her crumby hands on her gown, causing Marion to grimace. Brunin thought that they were like cat and dog—one fastidious and elegant, the other boisterous and open. He didn't want to be the morsel over which they fought lest it jeopardise his position. Lord Joscelin might decide that his new squire was causing more trouble than he was worth.

Hawise shrugged. 'I don't care,' she retorted. 'I'm going to sit with Papa.' She lifted a dish of dried figs from the side table and set it on the trestle near the lord's chair—near where she would be sitting. 'I like these,' she said. Taking three in her hand, she juggled them.

Brunin pressed his lips together, but it was too much and suddenly, despite his best effort, he was grinning. Hawise grinned back and, catching the figs in her right hand, returned to her father, nibbling one.

Marion sighed and shook her head. 'She has no manners,' she said in a tragic voice.

Brunin breathed on the shield boss and burnished it vigorously with the rag until he could see his reflection in the iron. Not entirely satisfied, he repeated the action. The body of the shield had been resurfaced with a new leather skin and the latter painted with the design of a mythical winged creature called a wyvern, in fire-red.

Bright spring light poured through the tower window into the chamber, making Joscelin's mail shirt gleam on its pole. Clustered round the base were various items of baggage and weaponry. On the morrow, Lord Joscelin was setting out for Prince Henry's knighting at Carlisle and the household was in a turmoil of preparation. Like everyone else, Brunin was full of tension and excitement, and although it was near the dinner hour, he wasn't in the least hungry. As the youngest squire, he had thought that Joscelin might leave him behind with the women, but Joscelin had said that it would do him good to see the world outside the Marches. The knighting of a prince was not something that happened every day. Brunin's father was attending the muster too and Joscelin said it was an ideal opportunity for him to measure his son's progress.

Joscelin seemed to think that his father would be pleased. Brunin hoped so too, but was a trifle uncertain. His father was not as tolerant as Lord Joscelin; nevertheless, he was looking forward to seeing him. While Brunin had not been homesick these past seven months, there had been occasions when he felt the lack of FitzWarin's dour, solid presence. He missed his mother too—sometimes. Lady Sybilla was kind and maternal, but she did not have the same way of pushing his hair from his brow as his mother did, nor was she bound to him by the ties of the womb. His grandmother he did not miss at all, except in the way of relief from a pain long endured Nor in truth did he have many regrets about leaving his brothers behind. There had never been any love lost between him and Rail and what nostalgia there was had been overwhelmed by all the new experiences and challenges provided by life at Ludlow.

After his initial distrust, he had come to enjoy spending time in Hugh and Adam's company. He would sit with them to polish Lord Joscelin's mail and weapons. He joined them on errands into Ludlow town and began to grow familiar with the area and its inhabitants. The youths built on his rudimentary battle skills and he practised for several hours each day. Sometimes Lord Joscelin would be on hand to supervise and give tuition, usually where sword and shield skills were involved. He was taught archery by a one-eyed Breton serjeant named Judhel, who could hit the target more cleanly than any whole-sighted man in the castle. Brunin played vigorous ball games, skinned his elbows and knees, blacked his eyes, bloodied his nose, but accepted all such scrapes and grazes stoically. Indeed, the worst part of being injured was the tending. As the squires had warned him, Sibbi was a zealot with the bandages and unguent and in desperate need of patients on whom to practise. She treated his skinned knees as if they were serious battle wounds and bathed a cut lip with a lotion that was so foul it almost made him vomit… and then, because he was heaving, she said that he ought to stay in bed for the remainder of the day. Fortunately, Lady Sybilla had rescued him and declared him well enough to run errands for her.

A portion of Brunin's time was spent in the household under Lady Sybilla's tutelage, for there were skills beyond the military ones to be learned and honed: conversing, etiquette, the correct table manners for the court and grand occasions. Usually Marion was his partner at the dining table when such lessons were conducted. She enjoyed the drama of playing the elegant court lady, turning up her nose if she considered that he had served her in a clumsy fashion, thanking him graciously when he succeeded. He rarely shared his trencher with Hawise, for she had a tendency to giggle and not take matters seriously. Once he had dropped a pigeon breast in her lap and, in the end, she had been sent from the room, tears of laughter pouring down her face and a large gravy stain on her dress. Marion had looked utterly horrified and Brunin had had to struggle to master the mirth that had surged through his own chagrin. Sybilla had laughed too, but she had not set Brunin beside Hawise again. However, Hawise partnered him when they went riding, or practised their skills with the hawks in the mews, for Marion had small interest and aptitude in those areas; and it was Hawise who lent him her juggling balls and cajoled him out of his natural reticence… and taught him to laugh.

The shield boss finished to his satisfaction, he turned his attention to Joscelin's spurs and helm. Dearly as he would have liked to polish sword and dagger, that was a task left either to Joscelin himself, or Hugh, and would not be entrusted to him until he began full weapons training.

Entering the room, Hawise saw him at his toil; and wandered over. The expression on her face was almost a scowl.

'What's wrong?' he asked. The fact that he spoke first was testament to the changes that two seasons at Ludlow had wrought.

'I wish I was going with you,' she said moodily. 'It's going to be boring when you've gone.'

He knew that she wasn't referring to him alone, but to her father and the other squires. There would be fewer opportunities to ride out and her freedom would be curtailed. 'It won't be for that long,' he said, although he wasn't sure how many weeks they would be absent.

'It will seem like for ever.' She flounced down on the stool at his side. 'I'll have to sit and do sewing with Marion and Sibbi while you'll be watching Prince Henry knighted.'

Brunin shook his head. 'The ceremony will only be for the barons, not their attendants. The squires will be standing out in the rain holding the horses.'

That raised a half-smile.

'And there'll be so much mud that we'll have to spend all our time grooming and polishing.'

'Would you rather stay here?' she challenged.

'No,' he admitted.

'Well then.' She sulkily kicked the floor rushes.

Brunin draped the cloth over the rawhide top of the shield. 'We could go riding now if you want,' he offered. 'I've polished all the equipment I'm allowed to touch, and no one has given me other tasks yet.'

For a moment he thought she was going to refuse, although she was not usually given to fits of pique. That particular trait belonged to Marion. Then she nodded grudgingly. 'It's the last chance I'll have all summer,' she said, a note of accusation in her voice. However, by the time they had saddled their ponies, she had brightened. Since no grooms or Serjeants could be spared to escort them, they were only allowed as far as the sward beyond the castle walls, but there was enough space to canter their mounts and indulge in short races. Hawise forgot to sulk and her laughter rang out. Brunin found himself grinning in response and realised that he was going to miss her too.

Joscelin lay in bed and, in the soft light from the night candle, played with his wife's hair, repeatedly lifting the strands to release the clean, astringent seem and letting them fall against her shoulders and spine. Her back was to him, but she wasn't sleeping. He could feel her consciousness, and her breath had none of slumber's measure.

'I have a fear,' he said softly, 'that when I return you and Ludlow will be gone. That I will find it has all been a dream and I am naught but a penniless knight.'

The bedclothes rustled as Sybilla turned over and the scent of her body flooded his senses. 'Even when you had nothing, you were always more than a penniless knight,' she murmured, touching his face with her palm. 'What has brought this sudden mood upon you?'

He brushed his lips against her skin. 'Ah, I do not know,' he said, irritated with himself. 'Probably the lateness of the hour and length of the journey I've to make on the morrow when I'd rather lie abed with you.'

She gave a throaty laugh. 'Flatterer.'

'I mean it,' he groaned. 'Earl Ranulf of Chester and the King of the Scots are no substitute for you and Ludlow.'

'And Prince Henry?'

'That is the reason I must go. I would be a fool not to secure his favour. He may still be a youth, but one day he is going to be our king, and he will remember who has served him faithfully and who has not.' Joscelin sighed heavily. 'I am gambling hard and the stakes are high. Sometimes I wonder what will happen if Henry does not prevail and Stephen secures his line to the Crown. What happens if his son Eustace takes all?'

She was silent for a time. Then she said, 'You cannot change your allegiance. It is hard to ride two horses without falling between.'

'Some do,' he said darkly. 'Some men have no difficulty in leaping from one saddle to another.'

Sybilla traced his jaw with her forefinger. 'But not you. I well recall how long you dragged your conscience like a shackle when you renounced your oath to Stephen.'

He didn't want to be reminded of that. Stephen had been his paymaster and had expected him to hold Ludlow against the Empress. But his loyalties had been strained even then, and his new wife had been an ardent supporter of a woman's right to inherit. In a way, his change of horse had been inevitable. 'I did not say I was going to renege my allegiance to Henry,' he answered a trifle testily. 'What I said was that I was gambling hard. I hope for our sake that Henry prevails. And as to men who leap saddles to their own advantage… if you were to ask me what troubled me the most, it is not knowing where Gilbert de Lacy stands in this broil.'

Her finger stopped on the point of his chin and he heard her breathing catch, then resume. 'Gilbert de Lacy rides his own ambition,' she said. 'His loyalty is self-serving.'

'I realise that. What I meant was that I do not know whether he will present himself in Carlisle, ride to join Stephen, or stay here and make trouble. Which strand will he choose? I doubt Carlisle, because Hugh of Wigmore is his closest ally and he is firmly for Stephen… but the other two is any guess. I am worried that he might make an attempt on Ludlow when I am not by to thwart him.'