Shadows and Strongholds (35 page)

Hawise was diverted into a splutter, but not for long. 'And what did you say?'

He sobered. 'I couldn't believe my good fortune. I knew it was a possibility, but I had never dared to hope. There are many families your father could have chosen. And to know that you had been given a say in the matter and not refused…' He fell silent, pondering what to say without exposing too much of himself. 'It was a great honour and responsibility,' he said at last. 'I swear you will never regret your choice.' There were no words of love. He would not have known how to speak them, or even be familiar with the emotion. He knew lust; he knew the warmth of friendship and affection. Sometimes she exasperated him beyond bearing, and sometimes he ached with the need for her presence. But he was no troubadour, and his feelings were conflicting. He knew that emotions could be both enemy and friend and he was wary.

'I will hold you to your oath,' she said with a smile and a tilt of her head. 'But you still haven't told me the number of women you have bedded.'

He looked exasperated and amused. 'I do not see that it matters… unless you think I need the experience.'

She blushed. 'No… but it is natural for women to wonder.'

'Is it?' His eyes shone with a salacious masculine gleam. 'Is that what you talk about together when the men are out warring or hunting?'

'Sometimes.' Hawise folded her arms and made a face at him. 'But not in the same fashion as you men do. You all laugh and brag about your conquests to each other, and are not thought the worse for your deeds or boasting. But if a woman does that, she is branded a slut and a whore. If I do not come to my marriage bed a virgin, then I am shamed. If you do not, then it is a matter of no consequence… save that some will laugh at you for not having the knowledge, and pity me your lack of experience.'

He shrugged. 'Some men brag of their conquests in the same way that some women will browbeat others by talking of their clothes and possessions,' he said. 'It is a means of making themselves appear more important and powerful than they are.' He gave her a rueful smile. 'I am sorry if you are vexed, but my experience is my business alone. All I will say is that you can rest easy that no woman in Ludlow is going to look at you askance and say she had me first.'

The subject matter had put a high colour in her cheeks. 'I am glad for that, even if Marion tries to tell me otherwise.'

He looked indignant. 'That was no more than a kiss.'

Not to hear Marion speak.'

Brunin exhaled hard. 'You were there. You saw what happened. And I have never laughed or bragged about it. There is only Marion who keeps it alive, and out of pique. As soon as your parents settle a husband on her, she'll forget she ever wanted to be my bride.'

'Mayhap, but it doesn't help that the last offer my father made to that knight of Bishop Gilbert's was turned down. Marion's been brooding like a thundercloud ever since.'

'I—' He closed his mouth and looked towards the stairs as they heard the sound of footfalls. Moments later, Annora poked her head around the door and murmured that Sybilla wanted Hawise. Then she waited to escort her. The maid's shrewd gaze went to the closed weapons chest and Brunin seated upon it and calculated the distance between the couple.

He was tempted to make the sarcastic observation that they still had all of their clothes on, but decided that it wasn't worth the aggravation, and besides, Annora was only doing her duty. Murmuring that he would speak with Hawise later and repeating that he had no preference as to the hangings in their prospective chamber, he returned to his task.

Once he had checked and oiled the weapons, secured the chest and returned the key to Sybilla, he went to inspect Jester. Three days of rest seemed to have cured the leg strain and when he rode the horse around the bailey at a bareback trot, there was no sign of the injury. Satisfied, he returned the gelding to the stables and gave him a thorough grooming. It was a pleasure to do so, for, despite his comical ugliness, Jester's glossy copper-bay coat put many a more elegant mount to shame. By the time he had finished working on his mount, Jester's hide was shining like a mirror, Brunin's arm was aching, and so was his head. Overcome by a nauseous lassitude caused by the dregs of his concussion, he lay down in the empty stall next to Jester's. The groom had cleaned it out and refurbished it with a pile of thick, fragrant hay, redolent with the scents of the meadow from which it had been cut. Rather than seek out his pallet, which would have meant toiling up a set of narrow tower stairs, Brunin lay down in the horse bedding and closed his eves.

Marion sat in the window-seat and looked out through the open shutters on the late spring afternoon. She had just caught sight of Lord Joscelin's troop returning from their day's business in relaxed formation. Within the body of the room the maids were industriously sweeping the floors and dusting cobwebs from the plastered walls. The room in this tower was generally used as a guest chamber, but Brunin and Hawise were to take it for their own after they were wed.

Marion had watched Hawise return with Annora, had seen that the former was flushed and smiling and had known bitter envy. She comforted herself with the notion that Brunin was only doing his duty, that his family was forcing him into this marriage and that he still secretly yearned for her. She envisioned Hawise dying in childbirth nine months from the marriage and herself taking Hawise's place. She would be a good stepmother to the baby Hawise had borne and she would produce a string of healthy sons for Brunin.

'Red and green,' said Hawise, hands on hips, gaze studying the walls. The plaster was limewashed and already painted with a frieze of leafy green scrolls, punctuated by deep red flowers.

Marion sniffed. She would have chosen blue to enhance her eyes and because it was more expensive. Different too. There was plenty of red and green in Sybilla's apartments.

'Marion, what do you think of red and green?'

She gave an enthusiastic nod and smiled. It wasn't her fault that Hawise had no taste and she had no intention of helping her with suggestions. When the time came, Marion would have her blue and her gold and everyone would marvel.

'The bed can go here,' Hawise murmured, planning in her imagination. 'With hangings along that wall, and coffers over there.'

Marion turned from the window and wrapped her forefinger around one silky fair braid. Behind her, among the trees on the other side of the river, steel caught the flash of the sun.

Sybilla was considering with Hawise. Looking at them standing side by side, Marion was consumed by misery. She ought to be the one making this room into a home, not Hawise. Cecily looked miserable too, but then all this must be a reminder of what she had lost. Even if she hadn't been wildly in love with Roger of Hereford, she had once had her own apartments to rule over.

'My stomach hurts,' Marion said abruptly. 'I'm going to lie down.'

Immediately Sybilla was all concern. 'You should have said, sweetheart. Shall I make a tisane for you?'

Marion shook her head. 'I suppose it's no more than my flux coming on, and you are too busy here.' She could not prevent a note of bitterness edging into her voice. The fact that Sybilla called her 'sweetheart' only made it worse.

'I am not too busy to care for the needs of my family,' Sybilla said, giving Marion a severe look which warned her not to play the martyr. 'If you are truly in pain, then all of this can wait.'

Yes I am, Marion thought, without saying anything. And you have no notion of how deep.

Hawise stood by the window arch to view the room from a different angle and decide where the candle prickets should go. She turned to consider the light flowing through the open shutters and her gaze lingered on the view from the tower window. The river shone with the reflected green of the spring trees. A pair of swans preened near the bridge, made four by their images in the water. Above the riverbank, the woods climbed the slope to Whitcliffe. It was a tranquil scene, one to lift the heart, especially with her father riding homewards, his troop encircled in a small halo of dust. Above the river, within the woods, something twinkled as brightly as the light on the water. Hawise narrowed her eyes, and realised with a jolt that it was armour. But it wasn't her father and his troop. They were on the road and clearly visible.

The sound she made brought her mother, Marion and Cecily to the window, crowding beside her. Sybilla whitened and stifled a cry against the back of her hand. Hawise watched in horror as her father's troop was set upon by an armed conroi, their shields and banners proclaiming them as de Lacy men. They were too far away for Ludlow's archers to do much, and even a skilled marksman would have been hard pressed to separate the sudden melee of troops. It was like watching a cauldron boil and spill over.

'God on the Cross, he will be killed!' Sybilla gasped. She swayed like a storm-threatened sapling. Her first husband had been slaughtered in an ambush, but, hard as it had been to bear, she had not witnessed him being massacred before her eyes.

Hawise saw de Lacy's banner waver and then topple as his standard-bearer was run through by a lance. The wyvern banner rippled boldly on its shaft, but, moments later, it too dipped and vanished as the fighting intensified. It sailed upright again as another knight took it up, but so too did de Lacy's banner. Sybilla, usually so composed and calm, uttered a soft moan and, for the first time in her life, collapsed in a dead faint. Uttering a cry of concern, Cecily dropped to her knees at her mother's side.

'They're not going to win through,' Marion said. There was a strange look in her eyes: shock and terror, and horrified delight. She clenched her knuckles on the stone sill, her posture stiff and intent.

Hawise swallowed a retch. There had to be something they could do: send out the castle guards; rouse the town. Her father was forcing his way towards the bridge, carving a path by sheer skill and strength of arms. She could see his wyvern shield clearly now and follow the rise and fall of his arm. Then de Lacy himself placed his mount in her father's way and the two men exchanged a fierce volley of blows. More of de Lacy's followers surged forward, reinforcing their lord, and her father had to yield ground, fighting desperately now.

The chamber door opened and Brunin wandered in, yawning and stretching, his tunic burred with stalks of hay and his hair sticking up in untidy spikes. He had slept longer and more deeply than he had anticipated, but had woken feeling refreshed and relaxed, his head truly clear for the first time in days. He had decided that it might be diplomatic to go to the north-west tower and see what the women were doing. While he had no deep interest in the appearance of the room, he knew women set great store by such things and it would be diplomatic to make the right kind of noises. Crossing from the stables to the tower, he thought he heard a shout at the gates, but the guards often called to each other and his mind was preoccupied with thoughts of Hawise, so he paid it little heed. The thick stone blotted out all other sounds as he climbed the stairs to the top chamber, and thus he was unprepared for the sight that met his eyes: Sybilla on the floor; a crying Cecily crouched over her, patting her face and hands; Marion leaning at the window; a wild-eyed Hawise turning between the latter and her mother. His first thought was that Sybilla had suffered a seizure.