Shadows and Strongholds (52 page)

'When can I see them?'

'Later,' Hawise said, thinking of the gory battleground she had left behind. She wiped the heels of her hands beneath her own eyes.

'When later?'

'Soon… as soon as they have been prepared for the church.'

After a long cuddle, they returned to the hall. The news had clearly spread for Emmeline's two companions had abandoned their game and been taken away by their mother. Hawise delivered Emmeline into Heulwen's arms, and returned to the bedchamber.

The maids had stripped and disposed of the bloody bedsheets. A fresh mattress case had been fetched and stuffed with new, fragrant bracken and straw. The midwife had recently finished washing Eve's body, and now she and her assistant were robing her in a clean chemise, lifting her up, laying her down. Eve's limbs were loose and tensionless, her flesh pale and doughy. A granite-faced Mellette handed the women Eve's dress of red-gold silk.

'Her wedding gown,' she told Hawise. 'Must only be the third or fourth time since her marriage that it has been out of the coffer.'

Hawise watched in tear-stung, silent pity as the women went about their task. The laces had to be let out to their widest to accommodate Eve's waistline and the bright colour was a terrible contrast to the waxen hue of death.

Hawise had to swallow before she was able to speak. 'We should send word to Lord FitzWarin.'

Mellette shook her head. 'No point. Once they hear about Whittington, they will come here… they will know soon enough.' She pursed her lips. 'There is naught to be done about this'—she gestured to the bed—'but at least our other loss can be rectified.'

'Is that all you care about, madam? Whittington?' Hawise flashed her an appalled look. 'Do you not feel the pity and grief of Lady Eve's death?'

Mellette's jaw tightened until her tendons strained in her wrinkled throat. 'She was a good wife to my son, but mourning the dead will not bring them back. I cannot afford my menfolk to be distracted by their grief if we are to regain what is ours.'

'I hardly think you will stop them grieving,' Hawise said curtly.

'No, but I will not give them an atmosphere in which to wallow—and neither will you.' Mellette's voice was as harsh as a quern stone.

Fetching a comb, Hawise combed and smoothed Eve's hair. The dull gold was stranded here and there with the first grey but, whatever privations her body had suffered during pregnancy, her tresses had remained as thick and lustrous as a harvest wheatfield. Hawise wound the braids with silk ribbons and arranged them upon Eve's lifeless bosom. The midwife leaned over and placed the swaddled infant in its mother's arms. The baby resembled a child's tiny doll with perfect features. Even the eyelids, dainty—and pink as tellin shells, were lined with downy lashes. Hawise swallowed the ache in her throat, and then she wondered why she was holding back her tears and let them flow, uncaring of Mellette's censorious stare.

The FitzWarin men rode into Alberbury in the midst of a drenching summer downpour. The sky was bruised with clouds and thunder rumbled in the distance—fittingly from the direction of Wales. The men were soaked through their cloaks and hauberks, through gambesons and tunics to the skin. As they turned off the Shrewsbury road and approached the castle, Brunin's gut clenched. Against the stormy sky and the brooding green of the trees, the stone and timber structure of the walls stood out in sharp relief. Torches burned in some of the window arches, although many were shuttered against the weather. He fixed his eyes on the beckoning golden eyes like a starving man given a distant sight of bread.

They had sent armed scouts ahead to announce their imminent arrival, but Brunin knew that until he rode through the castle entrance and heard the gates close at his back, the fear would haunt him.—as it haunted every man in the troop—that Alberbury too might no longer be a stronghold and a sanctuary to the FitzWarin family. His father rode at the head of the men, his head carried high and his face carved in sharp angles and hollows. He looked exhausted but the set of his mouth was resolute and harsh, shunning all offers of comfort.

They had ridden hard from Wales, and on their journey had fought skirmishes with scouts from Owain Gwynedd's army and a troop of Iorwerth Goch's Welsh retainers. Many of the FitzWarin men had sustained fresh injuries on top of those they had taken fighting for Henry in the forests beyond Basingwerk. The horses were stumbling with exhaustion and their riders were in little better case: red-eyed, incoherent, chilled beyond bone to the very marrow of the soul. Once, Brunin thought he had felt the brush of a cold hand across his hair and a moistness on his face, not of rain but of lips. He had woken from a saddle doze with a grunt of alarm and been eyed strangely by the serjeant riding at his side.

The King had given the FitzWarins permission to leave his campaign, but he had spared them no troops and no aid beyond sympathetic words and a wave of dismissal. Owain Gwynedd was the initial threat. lorwerth Goch could wait. Joscelin had perforce to remain with the King, but he had given FitzWarin a knight and three Serjeants. They had proved their worth during the skirmishes, but it would take a concerted effort to winkle the Welsh out of Whittington. Brunin wondered grimly what sort of account Guy L'Estrange was going to give of events that would leave him with an iota of credibility.

Soldiers paced the wall walks and there was a double guard on the gates that swung open to admit them. Brunin drew rein in the bailey and slid from Jester's steaming, soaked back. The gelding hung his head and snorted at his front hooves in an equine gesture of exhaustion.

The grooms hastened out from the stables to take the horses. Glancing round as the gelding was led away to a rub down and a hay-filled stall, Brunin saw Hawise hesitating in the entrance to the keep and felt a thread of energy flash through his weary body. Raising her gown above her ankles, she ran across the bailey towards him, shoes splashing in the mire, auburn braids leaping beneath her veil.

'Brunin, Brunin… Brunin!' She reached him and flung her arms around his neck. He raised his hands and embraced her hard, drinking in the scent of her, the comfort of her presence and the way she made him feel whole by the very way she had run to him. He turned his head, found her lips and kissed her, his mouth cold and hers warm and yielding. After a moment she broke away, but he followed her, still seeking with his lips for the security of hers but finding only her cheek and the taste of salt. Belatedly he realised that she was weeping, and not with joy.

'Hawise?'

The rain tipped down. The front of her dress bore a long wet stain from his hauberk. She pressed her sleeve across her eyes and raised her chin. 'We heard about Whittington,' she said in a wobbling voice, 'but I am afraid there is more bad news.'

'More?' Involuntarily he swung to look at the gates, his hand going to his sword hilt.

'No, not of battle.' She took his arm and he felt her steel herself. 'Your… your mother is dead. The baby came too soon and we could not stop the bleeding.'

The words fell on him like rain and slowly soaked inwards. 'When?' he heard himself ask through stiff lips.

'Two days since. We have been looking for you.' She tugged at him. 'They have been laid in the chapel.'

He followed her to the hall where she furnished him with a cup of sweetened wine laced with ginger and pepper. He watched her go to his father and embrace him too. FitzWarin received the gesture with no more reaction than a statue, his expression one of stone. Water streamed from his garments and soaked into the floor rushes. He took the wine she offered him, drank it in one gulp, thrust the cup back into her hands and, blank-eyed, strode towards the chapel.

Brunin wanted no more than to retire to a darkened chamber and lie down with his arm across his eyes. To sleep, to draw Hawise close and bathe his wounds in her healing warmth. What he wanted would have to wait. Duties and responsibilities would not go away just because he turned his back on them.

Hawise had taken up the role of chatelaine, making sure that the soldiers all had wine, that the kitchens were organised to provide bread and pottage, that blankets and sleeping space were available and that there was aid for the wounded. A young lad helped Brunin out of his wet equipment. Hawise arrived with a dry chemise and tunic for him, but only on her way elsewhere.

'Where is my grandmother?' he asked. He felt like a poled ox, staggering, numb, but still on his feet.

'In the chapel, keeping vigil. She pretends that she is unmoved, but that is not true.' Hawise looked around the hall. The stink of wet cloth and unwashed bodies was beginning to create an almost visible fug. 'In truth I am glad, for I would rather do this on my own than have to keep looking over my shoulder.' For the first time she noticed his bandaged hand. 'You are wounded?'

He heard the sharpness of anxiety in her tone and forced a smile of reassurance. 'It's been attended to,' he said, 'although if you could…'

She helped him don the clean chemise and dry tunic. The faint smell of spices from the clothing coffer clung amid the folds and he inhaled the sustaining scent. Hawise, Sybilla, Ludlow. He knew that he needed to go to the chapel too, but it could wait. The dead, however dear they might be, had an eternity of waiting before them, and a few moments more would not matter. 'Where,' he asked, 'is Guy L'Estrange?'

My father will be wondering why you are still alive.' Brunin's tone was neutral.

Guy L'Estrange looked at the floor rushes. 'I am wondering that myself,' he said wearily, his face grey with despair.

They were in the small retiring room behind the dais, which was partitioned off from the hall and contained space for a coffer, a bench and two chairs. It was cosier than the hall in winter and offered a modicum of privacy on the lower floor of the keep.

Brunin wrapped his hands around his belt. 'How did Iorwerth Goch come to seize Whittington?'

L'Estrange grimaced. 'He brought his full host against us at dusk. We were preparing to close the gates and they came up out of the woods at us before we knew what was happening… We would have had time, but they had brought two fodder carts through the entrance and overturned them so that we could not close the gates. We were tricked—easily tricked.' His mouth twisted in self-anger at the last word. As soon as I saw what had happened, I rallied the soldiers, but it was too late. There were Welsh soldiers in the cart and they held on long enough for their main force to arrive. Goch's captain offered surrender or death to every man, woman and child in the place. That was my only choice. For myself I would have chosen to die, but not the women, not the children. I do not ask your forgiveness, or your father's—how could you give it? All I ask is for the opportunity to live long enough to redeem myself and take revenge.'

'For that you will have to consult God and my father,' Brunin said.

L'Estrange rubbed his palms over his face. 'I still do not understand how it happened. One moment there was nothing, the next we were overrun.'

Brunin knew that he should be angry beyond reckoning, but for the nonce his emotions were numb. Besides, he had experience of Welshmen who attacked out of nowhere and created bloody mayhem. If a king were susceptible, then a constable could fail too, even an experienced one. 'The Welsh are good at watching and waiting their moment,' he said. 'They have to be since they have fewer resources.'

'I should have sent out more patrols…'

'Yes, you should,' Brunin said flatly. 'But "should have" is no use to either of us.' He breathed out hard. 'What concerns us immediately is that Iorwerth Goch is over the border in full strength too.'

L'Estrange nodded. 'He won't attack Alberbury though. The Welsh seldom use siege tactics; they don't have the resources. If they can't win by sudden assault, they melt away into their forests and hills.'

Brunin tightened his grip around his belt. 'I need no lessons in the ways of the Welsh,' he said curtly.

'No,' said L'Estrange in a low voice, and dropped his gaze.

Brunin reined back the spark of anger that had flickered through his numbness. It was his father's place to deal with L'Estrange, and he knew the danger of trampling upon a pride that was almost battered to extinction.

'I am blaming you no more than you blame yourself,' he said, 'and that is blame enough.' He moved to the curtain across the entrance. 'We'll talk later, and doubtless my father will speak to you when he has finished in the chapel. We have to decide what is to be done, not waste the time in recrimination.'

A subdued L'Estrange followed him back out into the hall. 'I am sorry for the loss of the lady Eve,' he muttered. 'She will be sorely missed.'

Brunin paused, and gazed out across the hall, busy with men, filled with the smell of their damp garments, woodsmoke and root pottage. 'Yes,' he said softly, 'she will.' He looked round at L'Estrange. 'You always take for granted what you have until it is gone. And then you realise how much value it truly held in your life.'

The chapel was a small timber building adjoining the keep. Built as a convenience for the lord and the garrison, it was a sparse, military affair. There were a few embroidered hangings on the walls and the altar boasted candlesticks of silver gilt, donated by Mellette's father at her marriage. FitzWarin knelt in prayer before the bier of his wife and child. Outside he could hear the rain thudding down and smell the wet air through a half-open shutter. The candles surrounding the corpse fluttered, but at least none went out. He could not believe that he was kneeling here, keeping vigil for his wife. A month ago she had been ripening with child as they stood together at their son's marriage and watched the uniting of the lines of FitzWarin and de Dinan, and, with it, the promise of half of Ludlow for their grandchildren. Now it was all so much dross.

The breeze from the window stirred the wisps of fair hair at her brow that had been too short to braid. Her skin was white and cold, unlike the living, pliant warmth that had occupied his bed for twenty years. Now there would be an empty space. Even if he filled it with another woman, it would not be the same… ever. He looked at the shine of the silk wedding gown and remembered standing in the church porch to make his vows. He had been astonished at her beauty, and frightened too. How was he going to live with a creature so perfect and ethereal? He had no sisters and no knowledge of women. She would surely break in his hands. And yet he had been the envy of every man at the wedding, young and old. If only they had known. If only he had known… and now it was too late.