The sun was striking noontide as Brunin rode into Whittington on a lathered, blowing Jester. He was too cold to feel its warmth on his spine, too preoccupied to notice the green of the trees or the watery glint of the marsh surrounding the keep. The attendant took Jester’s bridle and led the horse away to the stables. Splashed with mud from his hard ride, hair windblown, Brunin strode toward the keep. Joscelin’s sword banged at his side and he clutched the scabbard to hold it steady. Servants and soldiers watched his progress, but he didn’t see them, for his mind was on a single goal.
Avoiding the great hall, he mounted the outer stairs to the private quarters and, setting his hand to the lion’s head ring, heaved open the door.
His mother’s women stared at him with open mouths and shock-widened eyes. A small child, black of hair and eye like himself, let out a wail and was picked up by Heulwen, the Welsh nurse. Her hands patted; her voice soothed. “Tawelwch nawr, tawelwch nawr, cariad bychan.”
Her voice resounded inside Brunin’s head, which felt like a cavern that was alternately echoing with nothing and overstuffed with wet fleece. He hesitated on the threshold, forcing himself to take measured breaths instead of gasping as if he had run all the way from Ludlow on his own legs. The women were not weeping and, until he had burst into the room, had been going about their daily tasks; therefore his father yet lived and was not about to expire on the moment. Lit prayer candles stood in all the niches though. Clenching his fists, he went to the second door, which partitioned the bedchamber from the day room, and pushed it open.
The sweet, fetid stench of sweat and sickness made him reel and take an involuntary backstep. For a moment he almost continued retreating, but, with a determined effort, he controlled himself and, breathing shallowly through his nose, approached the bed.
His father was propped upright and supported by numerous cushions and bolsters. His unlaced shirt exposed a glistening mixture of herbs and grease, which had been spread across his chest to ease his breathing. Brunin was shocked at the sunken cheekbones, the hollow eyes with lids like scraps of shrivelled leather, the fever-blistered lips. Sweat beaded his father’s scalp, glistening through the receding hazel-brown hair. Seated either side of him like mourners at a tomb were Mellette and Eve. The family chaplain was present too, and Brunin’s brothers. A deathbed.
Brunin dug his short fingernails into his palms and joined the tableau. “Is he…?”
Mellette glared at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed and inflamed, but without tears. “You took your sweet time.” Her voice was a haggard croak. “Fortunately he still lives.”
It was an unfair accusation, for Brunin could not have arrived any quicker unless he had wings, but he did not argue, merely flicked her a look.
His mother’s eyes were brimming. She moved to one side, making room for him at the head of the bed.
Brunin leaned over his father. The heat emanating from him was like a brazier and the smell of the herbs so pungent that it was almost visible. His father’s breath bubbled in his chest and emerged through his open mouth in a hoarse crackle.
“Father…sir?” Brunin leaned over and gently touched his shoulder. “It is Brunin. I have come from Ludlow.”
There was no response, save perhaps a quickening of the chest and the rattle of deeper-drawn air.
“He won’t hear you,” Mellette said. “And even if by some miracle he does, you won’t get any sense out of him. The fever’s put him out of his wits.”
“What hope is there?”
“The hope of prayer, my son,” said the chaplain.
“Hah! It hasn’t done much good so far,” Mellette snapped. “My son at death’s door, his wife carrying badly, a murrain among the sheep, the Welsh all over the border like rats in a granary, and no one to put a stop to it.” Her gaze flashed to Brunin, sharp as broken glass.
The chaplain looked uncomfortable. Brunin tried again. “My lord father, there has been a battle at Ludlow. Lord Joscelin has taken Gilbert de Lacy prisoner and demanded a ransom of his family.”
FitzWarin moved his head and groaned softly. His eyelids strained as if trying to ungum one edge from the other.
“I have been knighted on the field of battle,” Brunin added, addressing his words to his father, but intending them for Mellette, who was eyeing him narrowly. “I will tell you more later, but, in the meantime, I promise to hold our lands together while you recover.”
“Even if you have been knighted, that does not grant you manhood,” Mellette said with a jaundiced look at the scabbard hanging by his left hip.
Eve spoke up from the other side of the bed. “It has to be enough. What other choice do we have? And do not say Ralf. He is younger than Brunin and less experienced…nor has he had the benefit of Brunin’s training.”
“Be careful with your assumptions,” Mellette snapped. “You know naught of my mind.”
“More than you think, madam,” Eve replied, trembling with the effort of holding her ground and answering back.
“Must I die to the sound of bickering too?” FitzWarin’s voice was a rusty wheeze, pursued by a bout of severe coughing. Eve hastily set a wine cup to his lips.
“Drink, my lord,” she said in a panicky voice.
He shoved her hand aside, and the wine spilled down the front of her dress in a bloody stain. For a moment he struggled to breathe through the phlegm clogging his lungs; finally he won through.
“How can I drink, woman, when I can’t even breathe?” he gasped and slumped back against the bolsters. But his purple color slowly eased to red and his gaze wandered with an effort to Brunin. “I cannot separate dream from truth,” he said hoarsely. “Did you say there was a battle at Ludlow?”
“Yes, sir.” Brunin told his father what had happened, but sparsely, putting no meat on the bones. “And then your messenger arrived.”
FitzWarin winced. “Blame the women for that. I am not yet at death’s door. And Joscelin has given you your knighthood.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you must have acquitted yourself well.” He licked his swollen lips and gestured to his wife, demanding the wine that moments ago he had flung aside. Eve refilled the cup from the flagon and tilted the rim toward her husband’s lips. He took several swallows and suffered Eve to dab away the trickle that ran from the side of his mouth. “Joscelin would not give such an accolade lightly.” He reached to take Brunin’s hand. “I put Whittington in your care until I am better.”
“Yes, sir.” Brunin felt the heat of his father’s blood pulse against his own flesh, swift as a river in spate, and knew that now he himself must either sink or swim.
***
“I’m glad you’re home,” Richard said, as Brunin entered the old bedchamber that he had once shared with his brothers.
“You are?” Brunin looked warily at his second brother. Two servants had assembled a rope bed and were busy stuffing a mattress with clean straw. Brunin slung his baggage roll down at the side of it and wondered when he was going to find time to sleep. “I suppose absence has made the heart grow fonder then.”
Richard shrugged. “Ralf thinks that all he has to do is shout to make people obey and respect him.”
Brunin gave a sour grin. “He hasn’t changed much then. Where is he?”
“Gone to Oswestry.” Richard rubbed the back of his neck and looked uncomfortable. “He’s got a girl there.”
Brunin arched one eyebrow. “He’s gone to see a girl when our father is so sick that he has a priest at his bedside?”
“He says he’s gone to gather news. The Welsh raids have been growing more bold and there’s talk of the King going to war against them.”
Brunin wandered the length of the room, looking at the embroidered hangings. Since his last visit, his mother had completed a scene of summertime and added a border of stylized wild strawberries. He paused by his youngest brother’s bed. William had been an infant when Brunin had gone for training to Joscelin. Now he was eleven years old and the practice sword and shield on his rumpled coverlet were badges of approaching manhood. Brunin picked up the sword and swung it, rotating the hilt at speed, swishing the air. He had watched soldiers perform such tricks when he himself was a boy and had been awed. He smiled ruefully at the memory.
Richard watched him. “Is it true that Lord Joscelin made you a knight?”
Brunin sighed and cast the wooden sword back onto Thomas’s bed. “Yes, it’s true,” he said, “but not in a moment. It took nine years, and I’m still not sure that he was right.”
***
Ralf arrived as dusk was falling. The distance between Whittington and Oswestry meant that he had had time to sober up a little and was able to dismount unaided from his horse—which had not been the case when struggling into the saddle outside the alehouse. He knew he should have remained at home, but he had been unable to bear the stench of sickness and the oppressive atmosphere. His mother hunched like an old woman, but clutching a belly ripe with yet another child, her eyes full of haunted despair. His grandmother purse-lipped and angry. Everyone looking to him to make it right. It was what he had always claimed to want; he had even muttered that the FitzWarin barony was his lost birthright. But for the inconvenience of his milksop older brother, he would have been the heir. Now that the prospect was imminent, however, he was terrified, and since he dared not admit that terror, even to himself, he had run away to the alehouse and the arms of wool merchant’s daughter Sian ferch Madoc. She didn’t care who he was. She was small and well endowed, maternal and welcoming. He wanted to make her his mistress, but he knew his grandmother would not countenance her presence at Whittington. The only way he could see her was to ride to Oswestry.
“Your brother is here, sir,” said the groom as he took Ralf’s horse.
“Which one?” Ralf took a lurching backstep, then managed to steady himself.
“Master Brunin.”
Bitterness and relief flooded his throat. The scapegoat had arrived. There was no longer any need to worry who would take the blame.
“And my father?”
“Word is that there is no change, sir.”
“See to the horse.” Ralf wove unsteadily toward the hall. Before he entered, he doubled up against the lime-washed wall and heaved up the last quart of ale he had drunk. Wiping his sleeve across his mouth, his nose and eyes streaming, he lurched toward the door, but before he could make an entrance, his elbow was seized and he was pushed down onto the stone bench by the door.
“Our grandmother will crucify you if she sees you in that state,” Brunin hissed.
Ralf squinted up at him. In the soft spring gloaming, Brunin’s eyes and pupils had merged into one dark circle like a hunting cat’s. He was wearing a dust-stained tunic; there was a sword at his hip with a plain grip and hilt, and spurs glinted at his heels. He looked seasoned and dangerous.
“Why should you care? Thought you’d be glad to see her nail me up.”
Brunin smiled sourly. “I would not be glad to see her do that to any of us. Besides, with our father so ill, we need all to be of one mind, not squabbling and divided.”
Ralf sleeved his face and stared up at his brother. Something had changed, but his brain was too fuddled to decide what.
Brunin sat down on the bench beside him and threw back his head. “You have never liked me, and in truth I have responded in kind,” he said with closed eyes. “But if we don’t mend our differences now, we never will.”
Ralf snorted as if with contempt, but he could think of nothing contemptuous to say. He wanted to grasp the olive branch being held out, but he did not know how to without seeming weak. The fact that he had ridden in drunk, and discovered Brunin on the territory that had long been their battleground, had set him at a further disadvantage. “Where did you get that sword?” he demanded with a gesture.
Brunin used his left hand to draw the blade straight up and out of the scabbard. “It is Lord Joscelin’s old one. He said to take it for protection on the road.” He handed it across.
Ralf set his fingers around the tightly bound buckskin grip and tested the heft. He held the hilt flat on his palm and checked the balance, then thumbed an edge that was as bright and thin as a sliver of new moon. A little oversharpened with wear perhaps, but still a good weapon. “If it is his old one,” he said, enunciating the words carefully, “then he must have fought with it when he was a mercenary.”
Brunin’s eyes opened and narrowed. “Yes. What of it?”
“Nothing…It must have carried him through many trials.”
“You once said that you would rather be trained at the hands of an earl than at those of a common mercenary.”
“Much good it did me.” Ralf handed the sword back to his brother. “I didn’t envy you when Joscelin de Dinan took you to train, but you had the last laugh, didn’t you?”
“I’m not laughing,” Brunin said quietly. His eyes glittered in the darkness as he looked at Ralf. “What news did you gain in Oswestry…assuming you did more than go there just to put distance between Whittington and yourself and avail yourself of some female comfort.”
“Hah, you’re well informed,” Ralf said sourly. “Enough to know nothing.”
“Then tell me.”
Ralf’s stomach rolled queasily and he thought he might be sick again. “King Henry’s going to war against the Welsh,” he said. “The news is all over the town like the stink of blood on a slaughter day. There’s a summons to muster in Northampton at midsummer.”
Brunin’s glance sharpened. “You are sure?”
“I’m drunk, not deaf,” Ralf said belligerently. “The messenger’ll be here by the morrow and you’ll hear for yourself. Henry’s set to rein in Owain Gwynedd before any more of our territory goes down his throat.”
Brunin swore under his breath. Frowning, he began to count on his fingers. “We owe the service of at least six knights,” he said, “or the value of such, and God knows how much silver’s in the coffers. I’ll check on the morrow and have the scribe draft letters to our vassals.”
Ralf wiped his hand beneath his nose and sniffed loudly. “Sian says she does not know if her father will stay in Oswestry or retreat over the border. The rumor is that Iorwerth Goch and the heirs of Rhys Sais are gathering followers to join Owain Gwynedd’s troop.”
Brunin said nothing, but Ralf could tell he was thinking hard. “Sian is your woman,” he said at length.
Ralf shrugged. “I suppose you could call her that.” He cleared his throat and looked at the ground. “She’s got red hair,” he mumbled, and suddenly had to stagger away to be sick again.
Brunin watched, feeling sorry for him, and irritated, but behind that irritation was a thawing of hostility. Perhaps he owed this Sian more than he knew. Ralf tottered back to the bench and put his head in his hands. His fair hair flopped forward over his fingers. “Our grandmother would explode like a barrel of pitch if I brought Sian to Whittington,” he groaned. “I can’t marry her, and I can’t keep her under this roof…but I can’t afford to keep her anywhere else.”
Brunin gave a wry smile. “It’s a long traipse to Oswestry…or Wales.”
Ralf thrust out his lower lip. “I won’t give her up.”
Brunin made a gesture with his spread hands to indicate that he acknowledged the dilemma but had no solutions. He did not ask if Ralf’s opinion of red-haired women had changed. That much was obvious. He thought of Hawise. Of the storms of the previous couple of days. He was not sure that they had weathered them yet. He remembered little of their farewell; only that she had said she was sorry, her eyes wounded with imminent tears. He grimaced. If Henry was going to take on the Welsh and he had to ride with the English force, then there would be no wedding in June. A blessing or a curse, he could not decide; nor, given his current difficulties, did he very much care.
“I need sleep,” he said and, stretching like a cat, rose to his feet. “And you do too, but first you had better dunk your head in the water butt. Then we’ll go and see how our father fares.”
A shudder ran through Ralf as he gained his feet. “I hate the sick room,” he said in a low voice. “I hate the stench and the way our mother and grandmother sit there like two mourners at a bier.”
“How do you think our father feels?” Brunin answered, his voice harsh to cover his guilt. He had felt exactly the same as Ralf on walking into the bedchamber. “Do not let your own self-pity overcome your compassion or your duty.”
“Hah, you’re turning into a priest again,” Ralf snapped, and lurched off in the direction of the water butt.
***
Marion inclined her head to the guard and waited while he opened the door to the prisoners’ chamber. They had been here a week now and had settled into a routine. Their care had continued to fall to Marion, for Sybilla refused to go near them, as did Hawise, and that suited Marion very well indeed for it meant she had Ernalt to herself.
As she entered the room, her stomach darted with anticipation. She directed the maids accompanying her to lay the food they were bearing on the coffer and then told them to make de Lacy’s bed. De Lacy himself was sitting by the window, staring out as he always did. He seldom acknowledged the presence of the women and kept his distance—for which Marion was glad, for he made her nervous. So did Ernalt, but for entirely different and much more delightful reasons.
“How is your arm today, sir?” she asked softly.
“Much improved, demoiselle, owing to your diligence and care.” His voice was vibrant and pitched low, so that it struck her somewhere between midriff and loins, and spread in delicious rings of sensation. He rolled back tunic and shirt to expose the wound. It was drying nicely and would soon be ready to have the stitches removed.
Marion sat on the edge of his bed and took the pot of honey salve from her basket of nostrums. She was acutely aware of his gaze as she removed the stopper from the jar, scooped a dollop onto her forefinger, and anointed his exposed arm.
“So gentle,” he murmured. “I will miss your touch when my wound no longer needs attention.”
She blushed and looked quickly over her shoulder, but the women were busy with their bedmaking.
“They are not listening,” Ernalt said. “But I wish you could stay. It is so lonely confined to this chamber and my lord is not the best of company.”
“Lady Sybilla would never allow it,” Marion whispered, studying him from beneath her lids.
“Just to play a game of chess or merels. Would she truly be so cold as to deny such a request?”
“I…don’t know.”
“Then will you ask her?”
Marion gnawed her lip. “She has no cause to love you or your lord.”
“She is right to be cautious. But is loyalty to one’s lord so bad a thing? It was my duty to follow him and do his bidding. To refuse would have been dishonorable.” He gave her a warm smile. “Although captivity does have its compensations.”
Marion started to withdraw from his wrist, but he captured her hand in his. “I do not want to lose my wits to boredom. My heart I have already lost, and the lady looks at me as if she does not know what she has taken.”
Marion gasped and snatched her fingers away. “You must not talk like that!”
“What is wrong with the truth?”
The other women had finished making de Lacy’s bed and were turning back into the room. Cheeks flaming, Marion rose from Ernalt’s bedside.
“Ask her,” he said again. “By your mercy, demoiselle.”
Marion stood aside and he rose while the women saw to his covers.
“What if she refuses? What then?” she said in an agitated whisper.
“Then I must accept and respect her judgment. But I trust your good sense to make her see sense too,” Ernalt said smoothly.
***
“Knowing Henry, he’ll want money as well as men,” Joscelin sighed to Sybilla, “but I expect some of the service can be commuted to coin.” Husband and wife were in the private chamber, talking over the royal summons to the assembly at Northampton where the forthcoming campaign against the Welsh was to be organized.
“Will you go with him into Wales?” Sybilla’s voice was deliberately neutral, and, because of that, Joscelin recognized her anxiety.
“That depends on what he asks. If he desires my sword, then I am honor bound to give it to him.”
“I am proud of such honor, but I fear it too.”
He ran his hand down her arm in a gesture of comfort and understanding. “You would fear more without it, love.”
Sybilla sighed. “I suppose I would,” she capitulated. “The wedding will have to be postponed.” She glanced toward the window embrasure where Hawise was busy at her embroidery. Yellow silk spilled over her lap and her lips were pressed firmly together in concentration. “Unless you want it to go forward in the midst of preparations for war.”
Joscelin shook his head. “That would be overloading an already piled trencher, both for them and for us. Besides, the lady Mellette will expect a wedding of great splendor and ceremony, and neither her family nor ours will have the time for that until the autumn at least…perhaps longer if FitzWarin does not recover from his illness.”
Behind them came the soft sound of a throat being cleared and they turned to look at Marion who was twisting her clasped hands together at waist-level.
Joscelin raised his brows. “Child?”
“I was wondering if I could take a chess set to our hostages,” she said hesitantly. “It would be an act of charity.”
“Charity!” Joscelin snorted. “Do you not think I gave them enough charity when I spared their lives?”
“Yes, my lord.” She looked at the floor and bit her lip.
“Did either of them ask you to do this?” Sybilla asked suspiciously.
“Sir Gilbert spends all his time looking out of the window,” she said breathlessly. “Sir Ernalt says that he will lose his wits to boredom. I thought that—” She broke off.
“Sir Ernalt is also very handsome,” Sybilla said with a knowing look. “Perhaps you have lost your wits to his appearance.”
“No, my lady.” Marion reddened. “He is indeed fair to look upon, but he is our prisoner and, because of his lord, our enemy. I thought it no great sin to give him a chess set. If I was wrong, forgive me.”
Sybilla opened her mouth, but Joscelin pre-empted her with a wave of his hand. “I do not suppose that Ludlow will fall for the giving of a simple chess set,” he said. “You have my permission.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Marion did her best not to skip away, but her delight was still obvious.
“Was that wise?” murmured Sybilla.
Joscelin gave her a sour smile. “It was certainly charitable,” he said. “Oh, let her have her way. All to the good if it gives her more experience as a chatelaine and hones her maturity.”
Sybilla looked skeptical but said nothing.
Hawise glanced up from her sewing to watch Marion take a chessboard and box of pieces from one of the coffers. Marion gave her a blinding smile but no explanation, and in a moment was gone from the chamber.
Now that she had raised her head from her needlework, Hawise paused to rest her eyes.
“You are progressing well with the banner,” Sybilla said, joining her.
Hawise sighed. “But I do not know if it will be ready for June.” She smoothed the silk beneath her fingers. A half-embroidered wolf in crimson and black snarled across the bright background. Crimson and black lozenges decorated the borders too. “Perhaps he is more like a cat,” she said with a smile, “but no man would go into battle with a cat blazoned on his banner.”
Sybilla smiled at the words, but in a preoccupied way. “My love, your wedding day is set for midsummer…”
“Yes, Mama.” Hawise knew what Sybilla was going to say. She had heard the rumors in the hall. “You are going to tell me that I have longer than I thought to stitch this banner.”
Her mother nodded. “Yes, child. The King has called a council for midsummer, and from there his barons will muster and ride into Wales…and that probably includes your father and Brunin.”
Hawise studied her sewing. “What if we were to wed despite the muster?”
“There would be very little time.” Sybilla looked dubious. “Perhaps it would be wiser to delay the marriage. You and Brunin will have enough to deal with, without the adjustments being husband and wife will demand of you.”
“I know that, but I have had time to think while I have been stitching Brunin’s standard. We have been betrothed for over a year and I have known him for more than half my life.” She swallowed, for she had not often challenged her mother’s opinion. “I think that it will be easier if we are wed. I want…” She bit her lip. “I want to have the same as you and Papa have—to be able to talk and touch freely, knowing that a chaperone’s eyes are not watching our every move. I want to have Brunin to myself without guilt or fear. When all eyes are upon us, we are like mummers. We act our part, without being our true selves.”
“I thought after the argument you and Brunin had that you would desire more time before the wedding.”
“No, Mama. Perhaps that was one of the difficulties. If we could just have—” She broke off and picked up her needle. It was something to do and gave her an excuse to drop her gaze from her mother’s searching one. “It would have made a difference,” she said in a firmer voice. “If my father goes away to war, you and he will have your chance to say a proper farewell. But Brunin and I will not.” She made a slow, neat stitch, forcing herself to concentrate.
“Yes, I see,” said Sybilla slowly. “And I understand. You have grown up, haven’t you? I will speak with your father, and Brunin’s family will have to have their say…and Brunin too.”
Hawise watched her fingers take another stitch. Brunin most of all. She would not dwell on the thought that he might prefer a postponement.
“You do know that being wed will not put an end to arguments,” Sybilla warned ruefully. “Indeed, it may even provoke them.”
“Yes, Mama, I know.” Hawise answered with a smile. “I have watched you and Papa, but at least you have a chance to resolve them away from other eyes.”
“So be it.” Sybilla rose to her feet. “You are certain about this?”
Hawise nodded. “I have had a long time to ponder while sewing this,” she said, a mischievous curve to her lips. “Perhaps men should embroider and think instead of taking up the sword to solve their disputes.”
Sybilla laughed. “That would be beyond their capabilities. Solid heads are for butting down walls, not embroidery!”
Hawise laughed too. Her mother left, but it took a while before Hawise resumed her sewing, for her hands were trembling and she did not want to spoil the neat, intricate work. She had set the cart rolling. Now she had to hope that any obstacles on the road ahead were navigable.