Marion stared at the young knight whom de Lacy and one of the guards had just laid on the bed. Through the blood and bruises of battle, she recognized Ernalt de Lysle, with whom she and Hawise had once flirted at the Shrewsbury Fair, and the sight sent a surge of shock through her. His complexion was waxen, his eye sockets tinged with blue, but through the wreckage wrought by battle his features were still clear and fine and his hair shone like ripe wheat. She pushed back his sleeve, studied the damage to his wrist, and recoiled.
“He is worth nothing to you if he dies,” de Lacy said in a grating voice. “His family will pay naught for a corpse.”
Marion swallowed her gorge. “He is not going to die, my lord,” she said, raising her chin at him. She set about cleaning and stitching the injury. Sibbi had always been the best at this kind of task, but Sybilla had trained them all, and Marion was competent. She had been prepared to sulk at being delegated the task of caring for the prisoners’ injuries, but the sight of Ernalt de Lysle had infused her mind with images from a troubadour’s tales. She was the gentle, merciful maiden, bestowing charity and care upon the wounded, handsome knight.
De Lysle’s lids flickered open as she tended to him and his eyes were as she remembered them: colored like the sky but as clear as glass. She was not about to let them grow hazy with fever and death. She would save his life and he would be eternally grateful to her.
***
Sybilla sat down on the rope-frame bed and set one arm around Hawise’s shoulders. “It does not take great wisdom to see that you and Brunin have quarrelled,” she said. “I do not know the reason, but bear in mind that all of us have been out of our wits today.”
“I insulted his courage,” Hawise whispered, looking down at her hands. “He will never forgive me that.”
“You insulted his courage?” Sybilla gazed at her in surprise. “I doubt that very much.”
“I did. I called him a coward.” Hawise sniffed. “I was beside myself when Papa was being attacked. I didn’t mean the words, but I said them. I tried to apologize but he wouldn’t listen. Instead he—” She broke off and hugged herself.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No…Well, not much and only because he was holding me too tightly. He didn’t hit me.”
“So you were embracing?”
Hawise swallowed and shook her head. “It was not an embrace. I scratched his face and he bid me go before he harmed me against his honor.”
“Ah,” said Sybilla, a wealth of experience and knowing in the word. “Wounding a man’s pride is never wise. Best to let his blood cool and then speak to him again.”
“But what if he spurns me?”
“He won’t.”
Hawise raised brimming gray eyes. “How do you know?”
Sybilla’s smile was wry “Your father and I often had similar quarrels when we were first wed—not on the same subject, but for the same reasons. Either he or I would say something that hurt the other and it would end in a blazing argument…but you are grown and we still share the same bed.” Tenderly she brushed a stray wisp of Hawise’s hair away from her face. “It will be all right; you will see.”
Hawise sniffed and wiped her face with her fingertips. “I do not know what to say to him.”
“The words will come to you when they must. But perhaps you could do something too…Make a peace offering.”
A considering look entered Hawise’s eyes. Whenever her parents argued, which was seldom these days, her mother would make amends on her part by sewing Joscelin a garment. She had even heard him jest that all he had to do when he wanted a new tunic was to pick a quarrel. She also knew that there were several rings and brooches in her mother’s jewel casket that stood as apologies for short temper and lack of consideration. But a tunic or shirt was hardly a gift that fitted the crux of the argument. “I will make him a banner,” she said. “I know that we have some spare yellow silk in one of the coffers.”
Sybilla nodded with approval. “Well thought of,” she said. “A man’s banner is one of the deepest symbols of his pride. If you stitch one for Brunin, it will be a token of your faith in him.”
Hawise rose to her feet. “I will begin it now,” she said, feeling as if a burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Dusk had fallen; there were still other duties to perform, but she could at least find the fabric and the embroidery silks.
Later that night, bearing a lighted candle, she went with her mother to the chapel to pray for the dead. Brunin was there with her father. He glanced at her once, but in the darkness and candle shadow she could see nothing in his eyes or expression. He was guarding himself as much as he was guarding the bodies. Hawise had to content herself with the thought that she would prove her pride in him by sewing the banner and that matters would be different in the light of a new morning.
However, the light of a new morning brought not reconciliation but a messenger from Whittington. The man had ridden through the night to reach Ludlow; as Brunin emerged from the church, stiff from his vigil, his eyes gritty with exhaustion, he was greeted with the news that his father was gravely ill with a high fever and he was summoned to his bedside as fast as he could ride. There was no time to sleep, only to break his fast, pack his saddlebag, and ride out.
Brunin’s headache had returned during the night and now it pounded against the walls of his skull like a huge black rock. His stomach rebelled at the dish of wheat frumenty that Sybilla urged on him.
“You have a long ride,” she said. “You cannot do it without sustenance.”
Almost retching, Brunin forced the porridge down.
“Your father said it was nothing, he refused to rest, and he grew worse,” the messenger told him. “Now he’s raving out of his wits and they brought the priest to him yester sunset just as I was setting out.”
Brunin pushed his bowl away, the bottom third still filled with the boiled wheat, knowing he could not stomach another mouthful. “Is anyone else sick?”
“No, sir. Your lady mother has been unwell, but then—” He broke off and attended to his food.
“But then what? Tell me!”
“But then she’s with child again, sir, and suffering with sickness as women do.”
Brunin thrust to his feet and immediately felt as if someone had shot a crossbow bolt through his skull. He paused for a moment, closed his eyes, and summoned his strength. The thought of his father dying made him feel as if a vast, dark chasm were opening beneath his feet, and deep within it, darker than the darkness of loss, was the knowledge that as the heir he would have to take the FitzWarin barony into his hands and rule it.
He barely made it outside the hall before he was violently ill. The spasms ripped through him like the strokes of a lash, dragging him inside out, flaying him raw.
“Best to get it over with now,” Joscelin said, and he felt the solid brace of the older man’s hand on his shoulder. “I won’t ask if you are fit to ride; I can see you are not, but sometimes a man has to push his will beyond his limits.”
Slowly Brunin straightened. His stomach felt as if there were a fist inside it, tightening, clenching, drawing every part of his being downward.
“You have the strength,” Joscelin said compassionately and, taking Brunin’s right hand, placed a pair of spurs in it. “I was saving these for your knighting,” he went on, “but yesterday you earned the right to wear them and call yourself a knight.”
The words brought a sudden pressure to the back of Brunin’s eyes. He looked down at the spurs through a glitter of moisture, and then up at Joscelin. The gray gaze was knowing and filled with concern; the mouth held its natural curve so that it looked as if Joscelin were smiling, even though he wasn’t.
“Put them on,” Joscelin said gently. “And you had better take my old sword from the weapons chest. The roads are not infested with outlaws as they were in King Stephen’s time, but there are still dangers out there, not least from the Welsh.”
“Not least,” Brunin agreed shakily as he managed to rally. Stooping, he fastened the spurs to his heels. When he rose again, Joscelin clasped him to his breast. “Godspeed,” he said.
Brunin returned the embrace, clinging for a moment to Joscelin’s solid bulk, then pushed himself away and headed for the tower to fetch the sword. When he arrived, Hawise was there before him, her father’s spare sword-belt in her hands. Brunin swallowed. He was not going to be sick again.
“Let me buckle it on for you,” she said.
“I can manage. I’ve done it often enough as a squire,” he answered gracelessly, without meeting her eyes, and held out his hands for the belt.
“Then let me be your squire now.”
He said nothing but allowed her to kneel and pass the belt around his waist, to fasten the ties with nimble fingers. His own would have fumbled at the task this morning and, although her presence was unwanted, he realized she was doing him a favor. While she worked, he stared blankly at the wall.
“I want to mend what happened yesterday,” she said in a low voice as she brought the scabbard and laced it to the swordbelt. “But I cannot do it alone.”
His head was thundering, making thought and understanding impossible. “What do you want me to do?”
“Forget everything that was said. Put it behind us.”
Brunin grimaced as a particularly vicious bolt of pain stabbed through his skull. Rising from her knees, she faced him. “I don’t want us to part in bad blood.” She raised her hand to touch his scratched face. “I am sorry.”
Brunin shook his head, then wished he hadn’t. “My wits are so bludgeoned that I forget my own name just now,” he said. Raising his hand to cover hers, he gave it a brief squeeze. “Pray for my father,” he said, “and for me.”
As a way of mending the breach between them, it was a feeble rope, but it was a rope nonetheless and Hawise grasped it with both hands. “Of course I will,” she whispered. “God speed your journey.” Standing on tiptoe, she kissed his other cheek, not quite venturing his lips. Nor did he offer them, for his mind, such as existed beyond the thundercloud in his skull , was occupied with thoughts of his journey and what awaited him at the other end.
***
Marion entered the prisoners’ chamber with two maids in tow and a serving boy bearing a breakfast of frumenty and ale for de Lacy and his knight. Outside, Brunin was preparing to leave for Whittington and his stricken father, but Marion had more important things to do than bid him farewell.
Despite spending a sleepless night, she had dressed carefully in a gown of blue linen and braided her hair with silk ribbons of the same speedwell hue. She had cleaned her teeth with a hazel twig and chewed cardamom seeds to perfume her breath. She walked with small, light steps so that her footfalls barely sounded on the rush-strewn floor.
Marion curtseyed demurely to Gilbert de Lacy who was standing by the window, staring out across the river. Bidding the serving lad leave the food dishes on the single coffer in the room, she went to de Lysle’s bedside.
He was warm to the touch and his face and throat gleamed with sweat. Marion bade one of the women bring her a bowl of tepid water and a cloth. She asked him how he was faring, her voice demure and sweet.
His eyelids flickered and Marion admired the heavy, dark-gold lashes. Although he had a low fever, his eyes were lucid and they met hers with recognition. “I have felt better, demoiselle,” he said and submitted his wrist to her examination.
The flesh surrounding her stitches was puffy, red, and hot to the touch, but there was neither smell nor sign of the inflammation spreading further up the arm, for which she was greatly relieved and said so.
He grunted. “I suppose I must be grateful for small mercies.” His tone was petulant, but Marion forgave him, for he looked so vulnerable—like a little boy clad in the bones of a grown man.
He took the bowl of frumenty she offered him, but, although he was clumsy, refused her offer to feed him. “Why should you care if I starve or not?” he asked brusquely. “You seem tender of my welfare, yet I am an enemy.”
Marion lowered her lashes. “You are not my enemy, sir,” she murmured. “I remember you kindly from the fair at Shrewsbury where your lord and Sir Joscelin made a truce. I know that it is broken now, but I was bidden to attend to your needs, while you are kept here, and…” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “…and I find no hardship in doing so.”
Ernalt exchanged glances with Gilbert, who had turned from the window and was gazing intently at Marion like a hawk watching small movements in a wheat field. The Baron made a terse, circumspect gesture.
“Indeed,” de Lysle replied a trifle more courteously, “it is no hardship in turn to be tended by so fair a guardian—although a cage is still a cage.”
“I can do nothing about that,” Marion said defensively.
“Mayhap not. Besides’—he gestured to his injured arm—“a bird with a damaged wing cannot fly far. Better the cage…for the nonce at least.” He ate the frumenty to the last scrap and, thanking her, handed back the bowl. It was no coincidence on his part that their fingers touched. The contact brought a flush of scarlet to Marion’s cheeks.
The rushes on the floor crackled behind her. Flustered, Marion turned to Gilbert de Lacy who stood watching her, a horn of ale in his hand. His face was marked blue and yellow with bruises and the intensity of his stare frightened her. “Has Lord Joscelin said anything to you about us?”
“No, my lord. Indeed, he would not.”
“And what of Lady Sybilla?” Gilbert demanded harshly. “Surely she speaks to her women?”
Marion shook her head and rose to her feet. The melting feelings engendered by Ernalt de Lysle’s proximity vanished like wind-blown smoke. “Not of you, my lord,” she said, remembering that Sybilla had told her not to talk to de Lacy. He will try and worm knowledge out of you to no good purpose, she had warned, her mouth drawn tight. Do not give him the smallest opportunity for he will seize it with both hands.
The guards, who had been standing inside the door, made a show of bracing their weapons. De Lacy eyed them, gave a contemptuous snort, and walked back to the window.
Marion went to the door. On the threshold she paused and looked over her shoulder at Ernalt de Lysle. Meeting her glance, he inclined his head and laid his hand across his heart, fingers and palm flat. Marion uttered a small gasp and fled.
When the door had been bolted behind the guards and the men were alone, de Lacy turned around.
“With a little coaxing, she will peck corn out of your hand like a tame pullet,” he said.
Ernalt studied his wrist. The stitched wound had been left open to the air to let it dry. It was sore and tight and throbbed in time to the beat of his heart. “You want me to coax her?” He was not averse to the notion. She was as pretty as a spring morning and as full of promise. He smiled at his lord. “You certainly seemed to frighten her off.”
De Lacy snorted. “I’m the ogre. She has been reared on Sybilla’s tales of my perfidy and savagery, but you are different. You follow me because you have given me your knightly oath and your loyalty is proof of your worth.” Here he raised an ironic brow and Ernalt responded with a smile in a similar vein. “You are young and handsome and it was obvious from the way she was looking at you that she’s ripe for the plucking.” De Lacy folded his arms. “I may have turned a blind eye to it, but I know perfectly well that it’s a task you’re good at.”
“What, ‘plucking’?” Ernalt’s smile became a grin.
“In a manner of speaking. Seducing young women away from the safety of the maternal coop and into the briars.” De Lacy bent him a stare that was half jesting, half severe. “And yes, I want you to coax her. She may be of great value to us.”
“In what way?”
De Lacy hooked up a footstool with the side of his boot and sat down. “If you are patient with her, you can find out about the movements of the people in this place. How many soldiers does de Dinan keep on active duty at any time? What are their routines…what are de Dinan’s routines? Cozen her into telling you.”
“That should not be difficult,” Ernalt said. “From what I remember, she is jealous of Lady Sybilla’s daughters and craves flattery and attention the way a plant craves water.”
De Lacy gave a decisive nod. “Then I will keep out of your way when she makes her next visit and leave you to bait the trap. If you are good at your work, it may be that she will give us more than just information.”
Ernalt raised his brows. “Help us escape, you mean? Do you think that she has such a capacity?”
De Lacy rose and returned to the window. Bracing his arms on the stone surround, he stared out. “I think that she has, but she needs careful handling.”
Ernalt clenched the fist of his damaged arm to feel the needles of pain in the stitched wound. “Subtle as the spices in a blancmange,” he smiled.
De Lacy gave a grunt that might have been amusement, but Ernalt could not tell, for his lord was still staring outward. “I would never have guessed from his early showing that the FitzWarin boy would have shaped up to become so fine a warrior,” de Lacy commented after a moment. “He will bear watching.”
“I could have taken him,” Ernalt said. “My horse was at the wrong angle, that’s all. If he’d been fighting beside de Dinan, he’d have been cut down in the first charge.”
“Perhaps,” de Lacy said, “but whatever tactics he employed, they worked and he fought with competence.”
Ernalt fell silent. De Lacy might be speaking the truth, but he didn’t particularly want to agree with him.