Shadows and Strongholds (25 page)

'My lord?' Brunin fixed him with a questioning gaze. Abandoning the shield, he poured wine. Joscelin had just returned from a meeting of the barons in Henry's tent, and lines of strain furrowed his brow and tightened his mouth corners.

'We're striking camp.' Joscelin took the wine and gulped it down.

'But… but what about Stephen's army? What about the relief of Wallingford?'

'What about them?' Joscelin stood up, took the flagon from Brunin and poured himself a second cup. 'Stephen wants to fight Henry because he thinks that he can win. Eustace wants to fight Henry because he knows that defeating and killing him in pitched battle is the only way he's ever going to get a sniff of the crown. Henry wants to fight them because he thinks he can defeat them outright—he's already trounced Eustace in Normandy.' He gave
Brunin a glance from beneath his brows to see if the youth was following him. 'But no one else desires a battle, myself included. There is too much to lose.'

Brunin nodded but looked uncertain.

'Archbishop Anselm and the Bishop of Winchester are trying to negotiate a lasting settlement. Why should we risk it all now on a single throw of the dice?'

Brunin frowned. 'So why are we in the field at all?'

'Think about it.' Joscelin raised a forefinger. 'While the main armies are apart, they can dare small bites at each other's territory without too much risk. But bring them face to face and it becomes all or nothing. A different prospect entirely' He grimaced. 'Prince Henry didn't see it in those terms, of course. His face turned redder than his hair and he threatened grief to us all if we didn't do as he said, but it's just the same in Stephen's camp. None of his lords wants to fight.'

'So what happens to Crowmarsh and Wallingford?'

'It has been agreed that the siege tower will come down and both armies will leave and seek other targets.'

Brunin controlled his response, but not well enough.

'What is it?' Joscelin demanded. 'Do not tell me that your belly is full of fire for a fight?'

'No, my lord.'

'What then? Come on, out with it.'

Brunin sighed. 'It seems so… so…' He wrestled with the word. '… dishonourable,' he said at last. 'To come to the point of battle and then to shirk away because of too great a fear of loss.'

'I see,' Joscelin said in a biting tone. 'So, you agree with Henry and Stephen; you would risk your all rather than settle for a negotiated peace? You would risk seeing your men slaughtered and all your plans perhaps brought to naught? Indeed, you surprise me.'

Colour branded Brunin's cheekbones and he drew himself up. 'Indeed I would settle for a negotiated peace above battle,' he said. 'But that is exactly what it would be. I would not ride away and attack some lesser target because I thought it was easy plunder.'

Joscelin sighed wearily. 'You ride a high horse, lad. When you have lived in this world as long as I have and been on as many campaigns, you will see wrong and right in subtle and patterned shades. If the truth were known, I suspect much of your irritation stems from the fact that you Ye not going to see that trebuchet launch a stone after you've spent all morning erecting it.'

Brunin's flush darkened for Joscelin was not far off the target.

'Well, that's the way of war too.' Draining his second cup, Joscelin went to the tent entrance. 'It will doubtless suit your notion of honour that I am not accompanying Prince Henry in search of softer targets.'

'Where are we going, my lord?'

'Where do you think?' Joscelin answered over his shoulder. 'Home to Ludlow.'

Brunin's expression brightened.

'Best go and help them dismantle that trebuchet,' Joscelin said.

He watched Brunin run between the tents until he was lost to sight, and chewed on his thumb knuckle. Gilbert de Lacy had been at the meeting of the barons, and he had offered to ride into battle at Henry's side. Not subtle in the least. Hoping that it would tip the scales.

'Should I have done the same?' Joscelin murmured.

'Sir?' Hugh, who was returning from a conversation with some of Hereford's knights, gave him a questioning look.

'Nothing.' Joscelin tipped the cloudy wine dregs on to the ground outside the tent. 'I was thinking aloud.' He stared at the red puddle for a moment, then shook himself out of his ill humour and smiled at Hugh. 'Time to return home and celebrate a marriage,' he said to the young man.

Silver pins poking from between her folded lips, Sybilla worked on the hem of Sibbi's wedding gown. The fabric was a heavy, deep-red wool brocade that suited Sibbi's black hair and fair skin. 'You look just like your mother did on her wedding day to Lord Payne,' said Annora, her mother's chief maid, her expression misty. 'All that curly black hair and those blue eyes If that boy isn't smitten beyond all recovering, then he's a stone.'

Sibbi blushed with pleasure. Hawise thought that her sister did indeed look beautiful, but even without the bridal gown Hugh was besotted. Since his return from Wallingford, they had scarcely been able to take their eyes off each other. Folk were always stumbling over them hand in hand, or kissing in corners.

Brunin came into the chamber from battle practice, bearing Joscelin's wyvern shield. Hawise could remember a time when the shield had been bigger than he was and too heavy for him to bear for longer than a dozen heartbeats. He carried it casually now, his fist curled lightly around the inner strap. His hair was dripping with sweat and hung in his eyes and there were damp patches on his shirt. A pungent aroma coiled about him. His whalebone practice sword hung in a sheath at his hip, its weight and balance the same as a steel blade.

'Hugh isn't with you?' Sybilla said, casting round swiftly for a cloak to cover the wedding gown.

'No, my lady. He knew you were making wedding preparations, so he stayed in the hall.'

Sybilla relaxed. 'You hear that?' She smiled to Sibbi.

'You have a treasure beyond worth there. A man who thinks before he treads—rare as hen's teeth. I hope you are listening too, Brunin.'

'Yes, my lady… and learning,' he added graciously as he went to prop the shield beside Joscelin's coffer. Marion's nose wrinkled fastidiously. When he turned back into the room, she exaggerated the expression and folded her arms.

'A knight would not enter a lady's presence stinking like a hot horse,' she admonished.

Brunin halted. A lady would not call attention to the fact,' he retorted, flourished her the bow of an accomplished courtier, and left the room.

Marion clucked her tongue and looked affronted. Hawise giggled. 'You asked for that,' she said.

'There are worse things in a man than the smell of honest sweat, believe me,' Sybilla remarked as she finished pinning the hem of Sibbi's gown and stood back.

'You could always offer to bathe him,' Hawise said mischievously.

'Don't be foolish,' Marion snapped. 'I couldn't do that unless I were betrothed to him.'

Hawise bit back a smile. Marion's eye might wander over the various squires and young men who visited Ludlow, but she still considered Brunin to be 'her' property and had made it known that barring a marriage offer from royalty, she expected to become Lady FitzWarin. No one had ever agreed with her, but neither had she been contradicted and it was the latter which mattered in Marion's mind.

'The way you spoke to him, he probably thinks it is a good thing you are not,' Hawise said artlessly. 'Still, I do not suppose you'd want him when he has no notions of finesse.'

'Hawise, stop teasing and pass me that roll of gold braid,' Sybilla said with a warning glance.

Marion pouted, but quickly forgot her pique when Sybilla bid her fetch the jewel casket so they could decide whether to decorate Sibbi's belt with pearls or garnets.

Hawise handed her mother the braid and was not surprised when Sybilla sent her on an errand to summon the chaplain with whom she wanted to speak. Hawise knew it was a pretext to separate herself and Marion for a while. Of late, they could not share each other's company for more than a few minutes without bickering. The petty squabbles of childhood had changed as their bodies changed, becoming more complex, more wounding, less easily forgiven and forgotten.

Her father was in the hall talking to Hugh and several knights. She passed them by and went out of the door into the bailey, intending to cross to the chapel. Brunin was standing by the well housing. Stripped to his braies, he was vigorously washing himself in a horse pail, using a linen rag and a jar of soap. His skin was darkly tanned on face and hands where it had been most exposed to the sun. The rest of his torso was a pale, smooth gold. Hawise stared at his flat, taut belly and the stripe of dark fuzz disappearing into his braies as he stooped to the bucket. The wet, black strands of his hair against the nape of his neck. She felt as if her lungs had plummeted into her stomach for suddenly it was impossible to breathe. He was Brunin. She had romped with him and teased him, treated him as a brother, a friend and a nuisance. A short while ago she had watched him walk into her mother's chamber and had laughed at his exchange with Marion, her awareness of him casual and unthinking. But gazing at him now, she felt as if she were staring at a stranger.

He looked up from his ablutions and his gaze met hers, dark as sable. However, he seemed to sense none of her tension and his grin flashed.

'You think she'll find me presentable now?'

'Who?' Hawise asked vaguely.

'Marion, of course. The soap's only what's used on the linens—not scented. But I suppose smelling like a tablecloth is better than a hot horse.'

Hawise found a smile from somewhere. His words seemed to be going in one ear and out of the other. With an effort she tore her eyes from the line of hair running down into his braies. 'You want to impress her?'

His grin broadened. 'Marion's never impressed,' he said. 'But she was right. If I'm to stand attendance, I need to sweeten myself. Your father pushed us hard today and it's been harvest-hot.' He glanced towards the sweltering blue of the sky, and thrust his wet hair off his forehead in a gesture that made Hawise feel hot too. Then he looked at her again.

'What is it?' he asked. 'What's wrong?'

'Nothing,' she said in a flustered voice. 'I'm on an errand for my mother. I can't stop.' But she did not move and the moment stretched out.

His brows drew together in a look of puzzlement, and then his eyes broke contact with hers as a courier galloped into the bailey and flung down from his sweating horse. The beast's flanks were pumping like bellows and its nostrils were as wide as red goblet-rims.

The tension that had been gripping Hawise dissipated as she focused on the messenger. No one rode a horse like that in this heat unless he had vital news and, in this uncertain climate, that news could be either joyous or devastating.

Throwing down the washcloth, Brunin slung his shirt over one shoulder and ran towards the man, Hawise hard on his heels, the chaplain forgotten. Others were converging on the messenger, for his arrival had been noticed from the hall doorway. Her father arrived and thrust his own wine cup into the man's hand. The messenger grabbed it and drank in deep, grateful gulps.

'King Stephen's son Eustace is dead!' he gasped out when he had finished and, although he tried for gravity, there was a joyous light in his eyes.

'Dead?' Joscelin repeated. 'How? In battle?'

'No, my lord. He choked on a fish bone after he had desecrated the lands of the abbey of St. Edmund. Men are saying it is the retribution of the saint.' The messenger crossed himself and bowed his head in a pious gesture that was spoiled by the grin tugging at his mouth corners.

'God have mercy on his soul,' Joscelin murmured and crossed himself too; those around him followed suit, but everyone's eyes were gleaming, for they all knew that it brought an end to war that bit closer. Stephen's eldest son had always been ambitious to inherit the crown and it was his refusal to concede his right that had been delaying the negotiations for a peaceful settlement. With Eustace removed, the path was open and Stephen isolated.

'There is more,' the messenger declared as a groom arrived to walk his horse around and cool it off. Now a broad smile truly did split his face and he raised the dregs of Joscelin's wine on high in toast. 'Prince Henry's Duchess Eleanor was delivered of a son on the same day that Eustace died. He has been christened William, and he thrives!'

Loud whoops and cheers followed his words. Turning, Joscelin slapped Brunin on his bare, sun-hot shoulder. 'Go and tell the butler to broach a cask of the best wine,' he said with a new-moon grin. 'It might be in bad taste to dance at tidings of Eustace's death, but a birth must be celebrated in the proper fashion.'

'Yes, my lord!' Brunin departed with alacrity.

Joscelin hugged Hawise to his side and gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek, then turned towards the outer stairs. 'Let us go and tell your mother the news!'

Although Hawise's reaction to the sight of Brunin in his braies had been a revelation, it was one that she did not have time to think about. The double news of birth and death threw Ludlow into a turmoil of celebration and she was kept busy helping her mother organise an impromptu feast. By the time she saw Brunin again, she had more than spurious errands to the chaplain to think about, and he was fully dressed in a clean shirt and summer linen tunic, with tasks of his own.

Later, when she did have leisure to ponder the matter. Brunin had been relieved of his duties and, in the way typical of young males let loose at a least, had joined the younger knights and attendants to enjoy the celebration with a drinking game. Watching his folly, Hawise could not summon an echo of the way she had felt that afternoon. It was like that other time she preferred not to remember: when she had longed for the sweetness of romance and discovered the violence of lust.

One of the knights started up a song, and the others, including Brunin, joined in. They all knew the words by rote and Hawise realised that it was the one about the maidens and the ginger cat that she had once heard her father slurring when he was drunk and having an injury tended. She had never heard the denouement of the song because her mother had been too swift, but there was no help for it now. It involved days and nights of non-stop copulation, the women's appetites so insatiable that the hero had difficulty satisfying them.