Shadows and Strongholds (65 page)

Brunin sat up and eased himself to the side of the bed. Pain shot through his body and he had to swallow the groan that swelled in his throat, knowing that Hawise would latch on to it like a hunting cat at night.

'You shouldn't be doing this,' she said, watching him with anxiety.

'It's been twelve days now,' he replied stubbornly, 'and I'm mending well.'

'Yes, you are, but that wound almost killed you and it's going to take longer to heal than a scratch.' Her voice filled with exasperation. 'It is one thing to rise from your bed, go down to the hall and conduct business, another to mount a horse and ride to the King.'

'I feel strong enough.'

'You do now, but how will you feel in five miles' time?'

They locked stares and wills.

'Probably I will feel like admitting you were right,' he said, 'but that won't stop me.' He beckoned for his shirt and tunic.

Hawise gave an impatient cluck of her tongue. 'I am as mad as you are,' she capitulated as she handed the garments to him. 'I ought to tie you to this bed and lock you in here for a month at least.'

Although in some pain, a gleam filled his eyes. 'If that's a threat, I'll take you up on it,' he said, 'providing that I can have you beneath me.'

'I wouldn't want to take advantage of an invalid,' she retorted. 'And stop trying to distract me with foolishness.'

He widened his eyes in innocent affront. 'It was you who suggested tying me to the bed.'

'That wasn't foolishness,' she replied with tightening lips. 'The true folly is in what you are about to do… and before you say that it is for my father's sake, you know that he would not expect you to do this in your condition… whatever is happening to him.' Her voice faltered a little and she raised his chin, her eyes fierce, daring him to take advantage.

He sobered. 'I know what your father expects of me. That is not the question. It is what I expect of myself, and of the King. It has to be settled—like a wound has to be cleaned out before it can heal.' He reached out to stroke the side of her face on his forefinger. 'I will take care, I promise.'

Hawise laughed mirthlessly. 'I have heard you say that before.' She brought him a clean pair of braies and chausses from the coffer and insisted on looking at the healing wound before he put them on. There was still a considerable hole, and the dressing had to be changed twice a day, but the flesh was healthy with no sign of taint, or even laudable pus. He had been lucky, very lucky, and she wanted that luck to hold.

'I mean it this time,' he said. 'I've seen what a single moment of carelessness can do.'

By the time he was dressed in his gambeson and hauberk, cold sweat was dewing his brow. With tightly pursed lips, Hawise watched him latch his swordbelt. 'Don't wear your dagger on your left,' she said. 'It'll chafe the wound.'

He flashed her a look from beneath his brows. 'Mother hen,' he said, but with a smile, and swivelled the mounting to the back of his belt. 'Does that suit you?'

His not going at all would suit her best, but there was no point in saying so. At least she was accompanying him, which meant that she might be able to prevent him from too much exertion.

As he turned on a short, cautious step to collect his helm, his grandmother entered the room. She was not using her stick and was walking as stiffly as he had been doing these last few days, but that was neither here nor there. What was a cause for eye-widening was her gown of moss-green silk decorated with wide bands of gold embroidery. She had pulled the side lacings in so tightly that even with a chemise beneath, the contours of her body were outlined: the remnants of what had been a slender, supple waist in young womanhood, a small mound of belly, and breasts like two flattened purses pressing against her lower rib cage. She had discarded her usual face-framing wimple for a gauzy veil edged with seed pearls and gold beads and her braids hung down beneath it in straggly silver ropes.

'Jesu,' Brunin whispered. He had to suppress the urge to cross himself.

Unsteadily but without hesitation Mellette approached him.

'
Madame grand-mere
?' he said, his hair prickling at his nape.

A frown crossed Mellette's features. 'Why do you call me that? Do I look like your grandmother?'

'You are my grandmother.' Brunin darted a glance at Hawise who took a step towards the older woman, her hand extended.

Mellette ignored her. 'You have no right to insult me,' she said angrily. 'You would be nothing without me and well you know it. Your position depends on my father's favour and that can soon be lost.'

'I think perhaps you are a little confused, my lady,' Hawise said gently. 'This is your grandson, Brunin.'

'I know full well who he is… and who you are.' Mellette's voice filled with low venom. She turned to Brunin. 'Husband, I have some news that will please you.'

'You do?' Brunin said in a choked voice. He looked again at Hawise. She shook her head and moved away to summon the maids. Mellette gave a small, satisfied nod.

'I am with child. Isn't that what you wanted to hear? You need not share my bed any longer, and that will be a blessing for us both.' Her eyes snapped with pride, challenge and anger. 'But I will not have your slut under the same roof. If you must couple with her, do it in the barn where you both belong.'

Brunin stared, dumbfounded, filled with pity and a darker stirring of revulsion. 'I know I resemble my grandsire, perhaps the more so in my armour, but I am not him,
Grand-mere
. He was Warin. I am Brunin.'

A shadow of doubt crossed her face and, raising one hand, she pressed her knuckles to her forehead. 'There is a veil across my eyes. I do not… I do not feel…'

Hawise returned with Sian and a maid. Murmuring softly, the women guided Mellette to a window-seat and gave her wine. The old lady's voice sounded querulous and lost for a moment, before it sank to a murmur and her head drooped. Looking worried, Hawise returned to Brunin.

'She thought I was my grandfather,' he said with a grimace, 'but then all my life she has compared me to him. I suppose it is not so far a step to see us as one.' He rubbed his chin. 'Is this the first time that her wits have gone wandering?'

Hawise frowned. 'She has been a trifle forgetful of late—calling people by different names… probably those from the past. I see now. Yesterday she called me Eve when she demanded a tisane for the ache in her joints, but the lapses have been small—compared to today's.'

'Is she fit to travel?'

She considered, then reluctantly nodded, her sense of fair play not permitting her to do otherwise. 'Yes, she is… and not so confused that she will not notice us leaving without her. She is quite capable of summoning an escort and riding to Gloucester on her own.' She screwed up her face. 'In truth, she is probably more fit to travel than you.'

He didn't answer her remark because she was right, and he wasn't prepared to admit it.

Henry's entire court and administration were crowded into the city of Gloucester and there was not a lodging room to be found anywhere. Barons and lesser knights, Serjeants and common soldiers had pitched tents on various areas of sward, and Brunin found himself having to do the same. At least it wasn't raining and the weather was mild.

Ralf gazed around at the vast array, the tents jammed together like teeth in a jaw that was a fraction too small. 'How in God's name are we going to get near Henry, let alone petition him?' he asked as they left the women and the baggage attendants erecting their shelters.

'I don't know, but we must do it,' Brunin said grimly. He was tired and in pain. The sixain of sitting across a saddle was tugging on his wound and he wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep for a week. But wanting and having were miles apart… unlike the press of tents. Brunin rubbed his forehead. He was aware of Ralf waiting for him to lead them… Ralf who had always wanted to be the leader in their childhood, but now recoiled from it—and with good reason, Brunin thought grimly.

'First we go to the cathedral,' he said 'and seek out Bishop Gilbert.'

'Why should we do that?'

'Because he has the King's ear. Because he knows us and is sympathetic to our cause. We don't have to ride through a wall if we can find the postern.'

Ralf still looked slightly nonplussed and Brunin almost smiled as he thought that Ralf's way of doing things was indeed to ride through walls.

The streets were crowded with townspeople and soldiers, jostling cheek by jowl. Ralf spurred to the front and, as if Brunin's thoughts had been transparent, began forcing a path through for their entourage. People were swift enough to leap out of his way, even if they did shake their fists and curse after him, but Ralf was impervious, except to remark that the citizens of Gloucester were a surly bunch.

Outside the cathedral door the beggars of the town clustered with their wooden bowls, their sorry stories, their sores. Brunin doled out a handful of silver and wondered for how much longer he would have such largesse in his purse. The manors he owned were not big when compared to the size of the estates that he and Hawise had lost. There was also the matter of the death duty owing to King Henry in order that Brunin could inherit what remained.

'God bless you!' cried a milky-eyed bundle of rags with torn black fingernails and a mouth of yellow stumps. More largesse than this wretch here, he thought, and crossed himself. Dismounting was difficult and he was slow, pain pulsing with every movement he made, but Jester seemed to understand and stood still until Brunin had both feet on the ground. He expected to feel the sudden heat of fresh blood, but the wound appeared to have withstood the strain. He steadied himself against jester's warm bay flank, then straightened as much as he could. He tied the horse to the hitching bar and, hand pressed to his side, walked slowly towards the ornate cathedral entrance. Ralf shooed away some small boys who were turning somersaults on the bar and, gesturing the other knights to stay with the horses, followed his brother.

The cathedral was as busy as a market place and reminded Brunin of the fair at Shrewsbury. Within the open nave, men were conducting business. Scribes were hiring their services to those who wanted letters either writing for or reading to them. Ink-grinders sat at small tables surrounded by their wares: oak gall and gum arabic; egg white; precious powdered lapis. A trader was selling little knives for trimming pens, and beside him a woman had laid out a cloth on which were quills fashioned from the feathers of different birds: goose and gull, swan, heron and peacock. Old men sat on the benches at the side of the nave and gossiped. One pair were deeply engrossed in a game of merels. Nearby a mail-clad soldier was making an assignation with a gaudily clad woman. Brunin saw money change hands and watched them leave the cathedral with quickening pace.

'Bishop Gilbert probably isn't…' Ralf began to say, then stared as a colourful array emerged from one of the chapels and advanced down the nave. Surrounded by monks and courtiers came three of the most powerful men in the land, their progress marked by folk kneeling as they passed, the effect like a scythe through a wheat field. Flanked by his chancellor, Thomas Becket, and Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of Hereford, King Henry moved down the nave with a bouncing walk, as if each stride threw his energy into the ground and reflected it back up through the soles of his feet. His eyes were bright, his red-gold hair was sticking up where he had raked his fingers through it, and there was a dangling thread on his tunic where a cluster of seed pearls had torn off.

Ralf stared open-mouthed and then dropped to his knees and bowed his head. Brunin was slower to kneel, easing down, cold sweat dewing his brow. But he was exulting too. There could not be a more fortuitous opportunity.

Thomas Becket looked down his patrician nose as if he were offended at the time it had taken Brunin to make his obeisance. Gilbert Foliot studied the two young men with shrewd and narrowing eyes. Henry stopped so precipitously that those following behind collided with each other.

'Brunin FitzWarin?' He stared. 'You are newly arrived at our muster.'

'Sire,' Brunin said.

'Is your father here?'

'No, sire… he is dead, God rest his soul.' He crossed himself.

Henry's gaze widened in surprise. He gestured Brunin and his brother to stand, Ralf set his arm beneath Brunin's elbow and helped him rise. 'And you are sore wounded, by the looks of you,' Henry said. 'There is a tale here.'

Brunin drew several shallow breaths and waited until the pain had abated sufficiently for him to speak. 'I sent a messenger when my father died, but it is less than a month ago, and your scribes may not have counted the matter important.' His tone was carefully even. What mattered to him did not necessarily matter to Henry. 'He had been ailing with a bad chest for some time, but he breathed powdered lime at the fight for Ludlow.'

'Ah, Ludlow.' Henry compressed his lips and from his expression it was clear that he knew at least something about the matter. 'Is that how you have come by your own wounds?'

'Yes, sire. I have come to plead for justice and petition you to intervene.'

Becket made an impatient sound. 'Then you will have to wait your turn. Think you that the King has the time for this just now?'

Henry held up his hand to stay his chancellor. 'Peace,' he said. 'It was I who spoke of a tale, and I would hear it.'

Becket's nostrils flared and he made no attempt to conceal his irritation. Bishop Gilbert gave the chancellor a glance filled with dislike and smug pleasure that Becket had been overruled.

Succinctly, Brunin gave Henry the meat of the matter and watched the King's cheekbones flush and his eyes brighten with anger. 'This storm between de Lacy and de Dinan has gone on for too long,' he said tersely. 'You say that Joscelin is now de Lacy's prisoner.'

'If he still lives, sire,' Brunin replied. 'When last I saw him he was wounded and receiving rough treatment from de Lacy's knights.'

'De Lacy has ever served his own interests,' muttered Gilbert Foliot. 'During the war he changed sides more often than a nurse changes a baby's swaddling clouts.'