Shadows and Strongholds (48 page)

Hawise opened her eyes. The night candle had long since gone out and the bed curtains were closed, engulfing her in total darkness. She could hear the sound of breathing, steady and slow in sleep, and feel the weight of Brunin's forearm across her body. She sensed that he was lying on his stomach, his hipbone pressed to hers, his breath against her shoulder.

Their slumber had been disturbed several times by revellers arriving to thump on the door and offer drunken, salacious advice.

'Ignore them and they'll go away,' Brunin had muttered, pulling the bolster over his head.

He was right, but it had taken a while for the night to quieten down around them.

There was a deep ache in the small of her back and a sharper pain between her legs; but it was bearable discomfort and when she thought about the alchemy of their lovemaking, it brought a flush of heat to those parts. She knew that she could face Mellette FitzWarin with equanimity this morning for she had gained knowledge that Brunin's grandmother had never possessed, and through that knowledge came power—and not only for herself. She reached out and touched her husband's hair. He murmured in his sleep, his hand tightening at her waist.

Hawise was aware of more sounds in the antechamber and realised that this was what must have woken her. She nudged Brunin and he came awake at once, sitting up and parting the bed curtains in a single motion. She supposed that it came from his training as a squire, where he had had to be ready at the first and smallest command. A few rays of morning light glimmered through cracks in the closed shutters, turning the room beyond the cocoon of the bed curtains to a twilit grey.

There was a loud knock on the bedchamber door and Sybilla spoke. 'Brunin, Hawise, it is full morning. Unless you are going to spend the day abed, will you unbar the door?'

There was a strange note in her mother's voice, Hawise thought, as if she were trying to sound normal and not succeeding.

'Staying abed sounds a fine idea,' Brunin murmured to Hawise as he groped about on the coverlet for his nightshirt, 'but I doubt we'd get any peace… one way or another.'

He fumbled into the garment. Then he slipped his hand beneath her hair, laid his palm on the back of her neck, and gave her a strong, swift kiss.

Treading barefoot across the rushes, he went to the door and unbolted it. Bright sunlight puddled the floor of the antechamber from the unshuttered windows and that light now flowed into the bedchamber, picking out the reds and greens in the wall hangings and sparkling on dust motes. At a gesture from Sybilla, a maid went to the shutters and threw them wide, banishing the grey to the full gold of morning.

Brunin bowed to his mother-in-law and grandmother, to Sibbi and Cecily, and eyed the retinue of maids in their wake. He had expected a larger party of witnesses and could only assume that folk had imbibed too deeply and while nursing their sore heads and nausea in the hall were waiting for the wedding sheet to come down to them… and serve some of them right, he thought with grim satisfaction.

'You both slept well?' Sybilla asked.

'Yes, my lady' It was the required answer, if not exactly the true one, given the periodic interruption of revellers banging on the door and bawling lewd advice and the. number of times he had woken to feel Hawise sharing his space when he was accustomed to lie alone on a straw pallet. Then there had been the occasion he had risen to use the piss-pot and spent a long time gazing upon the silk banner she had sewn for him until the night candle guttered and went out.

Hawise emerged from the bed curtains. She had donned her shift and she came to stand at his side, her hair curling about her face in eldritch tangles. The maids bustled, setting down a ewer of steaming water, a jug of wine and a loaf of bread. A warm, yeasty aroma filled the air.

'You are well?' Sybilla asked, studying her intently.

'Yes, Mama… well indeed,' Hawise replied, blushing. Mellette compressed her lips and stumped straight to the bed curtains, drawing them wide and pulling back the covers. For some time she stood and stared, then looked over her shoulder.

'Lady Sybilla, will you bear witness?'

Her face expressionless, Sybilla went to the bed, glanced, and turned away. 'I am satisfied,' she said. 'Let the sheet be taken to the hall and displayed to all witnesses.' Returning to the couple, she raised a brow at them. 'You know that comments are going to be made,' she warned.

Brunin shrugged. 'Comments are of no consequence,' he said. 'What happens between my wife and myself behind those bed curtains is our business. They have their bloody sheet. Let them read into it what they will.'

'I can read naught but success,' Sybilla murmured, 'otherwise my daughter would not be wearing her smile so easily, or standing so close at your side.'

Brunin inclined his head and said nothing.

Mellette moved away from the bed and if her gaze on Brunin was cold, the one she bestowed on Hawise contained a mixture of wariness and respect. 'You're made of sterner fibre than I thought,' she said. 'God willing, you'll deliver a son from this sowing.' Her tone suggested that only a male child would come from what had obviously been a frenetic coupling.

Hawise had to bite back a smile 'God willing,' she repeated and looked at Brunin, her eyes dancing on his blank expression. His lips twitched and straightened.

'I am sorry to shorten your wedding morn,' Sybilla said briskly as two maids set about stripping the sheet and a couple of others hovered, waiting the instruction to attend to Hawise's toilet, 'but I have grave news. Brunin, Joscelin wants you in the hall as soon as you are dressed.'

He was immediately alert. 'Why, what has happened?'

'Last night Gilbert de Lacy and his companion escaped from the Pendover tower.'

'Escaped?' Brunin's brows rose in astonishment. 'How? They were in the highest room.'

'Down a rope fashioned from my missing napery,' Sybilla said grimly. 'Joscelin's preparing to ride out and see if he can intercept them, but I fear they are long gone, either to Ewyas or Wigmore.'

Brunin turned. Attendants were waiting to help him dress—not in the wedding finery of yesterday, but in serviceable garments for the hunt. He didn't bother to wash. He could do that when he returned; whether they found de Lacy or not, there was going to be some hard riding ahead. He donned his clothes in short order, topped his tunic with a leather gambeson, and, swordbelt in hand, made for the door. On the threshold he paused, turned round and retraced his steps to Hawise.

'I'd rather have stayed in bed,' he said.

'So would I. Have a care.'

He kissed her with softness and strength, and although he meant it for both of them, it was also intended as a sign to his grandmother and his mother-in-law.

Hawise watched him stride across the antechamber, the sword in his hand, his carriage balanced and lithe. A pang started in her midriff and arrowed to her loins. She could feel herself stretching, going with him. She had lain with him and a part of her was in him even as a part of him stayed with her, both in the mind and literally in the body.

'You will want to bathe,' Sybilla said and at a gesture the maids stripped Hawise of her chemise. Hawise was aware of her mother's scrutiny and knew that she was seeking for bruises or evidence of harsh treatment.

'You wished us joy,' Hawise murmured, 'and we found it. As to the sheet… well, you have seen blood on a small wound. If you remain still, it swiftly dries and makes little mark, but were you to wipe it on a towel, the stains would look more and worse than they are.' She glanced at Mellette who was listening with narrowed eyes. 'We had a wild fight with a bolster the second time,' she said, and giggled. 'I won.'

Mellette turned away with a grumpy sound. 'It's a woman's duty to submit to her husband.'

'I did, my lady, most thoroughly I did.'

Sybilla's doubtful expression softened into a smile, albeit a preoccupied one.

'But I still won.'

Mellette was staring at the silk banner laid out on Brunin's coffer and for once she was silent.

Sir William de Sutton, who had been in charge of the garrison the previous night, spread his hands in a bewildered gesture. 'Never thought they'd go down the wall, my lord. Drop's so steep only a madman would risk his neck.' He rubbed the back of his own and looked anxiously from under his brows at Joscelin's set expression.

'And no one saw anything?' Brunin asked. He was holding Jester's reins by the cheekstrap and waiting to mount up. His lather, three of his brothers and a contingent of Ludlow's guards were preparing to ride out and scour the area. Joscelin's droop-jowled slot hounds, usually used to trail deer and boar in the broad green forests, were tugging on the kennel-keeper's leash, eager to be away. Brunin suspected it was going to be a wasted effort. Too much time had elapsed and there were many landholders not far from Ludlow who might give their fealty to Joscelin, but were not unsympathetic to de Lacy's claim. It was quite likely that they would lend the fugitives mounts to be on their way.

'No, sir,' de Sutton said. 'I released as many of the men from duty as I could with it being the wedding celebrations and all… my lord said it would be all right.' He gave Joscelin an anxious look. 'They'd darkened their rope with soot. Wasn't found until the guard went to slop out their piss-pots this morn and discovered the room empty.'

'Someone is a traitor,' Joscelin said grimly. 'They must have had help from within, and when I find out who it was, I will string them from the battlements by their entrails.' He gestured the men to mount up and the guards unbarred the postern gate. The hounds had been given a scent of the bedstraw from the prisoners' mattresses and, as soon as they were through the doorway, began to bell. Across the river they plunged and up towards tree-clad Whitcliffe. But it was as Brunin had thought and as Joscelin had known in his heart: their quarry was long gone and it was too dangerous to follow the tugging hounds and ride beneath Wigmore's lowering walls.

'Sybilla was right. I should have parted Gilbert de Lacy's head from his body and spiked it on the bridge,' Joscelin muttered as they returned empty-handed to Ludlow.

'It is easy to be wise after the event,' said FitzWarin. 'But you must find out how they escaped.'

'It must have been either a maid or a bribed servant,' Brunin said. 'I doubt any of the garrison would know where to begin looking if asked to fetch a sheet or a tablecloth.'

'Whoever it is, they will wish that they were dead when I have done with them… and then perhaps I will grant that wish,' Joscelin snarled.

'I didn't, I swear I didn't!' Marion sobbed hysterically. 'I would never do such a thing. Why do you accuse me?

Sybilla had brought her into the side chamber where the girls had slept as children and drawn the curtain firmly across. 'Marion, you were the last to visit Gilbert de Lacy and Ernalt de Lysle—and on your own when you should have had at least one of the maids with you. What am I to think?'

'I have done nothing,' Marion gulped. 'I brought them wine and honey cakes because everyone was celebrating, that's all.'

'The guards say they have granted you admittance unchaperoned on several occasions… for which they will be punished.' Sybilla folded her arms and frowned at Marion in bafflement. 'What am I to do with you? You must have known that you were treading on dangerous ground by going to see those men alone. You must have known it was wrong.'

'I felt sorry for them…'

'No shepherd should ever feel sorry for wolves,' Sybilla snapped. 'You saw what happened beneath our very walls. If not for Brunin and the garrison, Lord Joscelin would be dead.

Marion continued to sniff and sob. 'No,' she denied, shaking her head from side to side. 'I didn't… No!'

Sybilla was torn between the maternal urge to comfort the girl and rage at the betrayal. She had spoken of wolves and shepherds and was wondering in which camp Marion belonged. Biting the hand that had fed and nurtured her for all these years was the act of a wild thing, not one of the fold, but Sybilla could not divorce the two. Perhaps Marion could not either. The girl's wits had always been the most fragile part of her being. She thought of the two men who had escaped from the tower. Gilbert de Lacy would not exert the kind of influence that would draw a young girl to the chamber alone. But the other one possessed the angelic face of temptation and Marion was ever in search of romantic attention from the opposite sex.

'You gave them the sheets and towels to make a rope, didn't you?' Sybilla demanded sternly. 'Do not lie to me.' She grasped Marion's shoulder and shook it. 'Answer me, you foolish girl!'

Marion shook her head. 'I did not know they were going to make a rope,' she wept.

'No? What did you think they were going to do with the tablecloths? Conduct a banquet?' Sybilla's tone dripped scorn.

'Ernalt said his lord used them when he prayed. He said that it was some ritual used by Templar knights.'

'And you believed him?' Sybilla's voice rose in pitch.

Marion wept harder, her tears making dark blots on her gown. 'Lord Gilbert said he would never pay the ransom and that if they did not escape, Lord Joscelin would hang them both.'

'So you committed the sin knowingly.'

'I didn't wain you to hang Ernalt!' Marion coughed and began to retch. 'Please don't hate me, please!' She threw herself upon Sybilla.

The urge to fling Marion away and see her sprawl on the floor was almost overpowering but, with a tremendous effort of will, Sybilla curbed it. 'I am furious with you,' she said in a voice rigid with control, 'and very disappointed, but I do not hate you. You know what you have done, and that it changes everything. I do not doubt that Ernalt de Lysle was a most persuasive young man, but, if so, you were more than willing to be persuaded.'

Marion raised her head, leaving a snail trail of tears and mucus on Sybilla's line woollen gown. 'What will happen to me?'

Sybilla extricated herself from Marion's grip. 'I do not know,' she said flatly. 'It will be for Lord Joscelin to decide.'