Shadows and Strongholds (10 page)

Joscelin nodded firmly to show that the matter was dealt with and changed the subject. 'While I think on it, and while we are here, I have a gift for you. I understand that your father was unable to find you a new mount at Shrewsbury Fair.'

'Yes sir.' Once again caution entered Brunin's eyes. The reason they had not found a mount was that owing to the incident with Gilbert de Lacy's squires their choice had been very limited by the time they came to look. All the best animals had been sold.

'I thought I might have a fitting beast among my herd. My daughter Hawise is your own age and I asked her to choose.' He indicated the black pony. 'His name is Morel and, if he suits you, he is yours.'

If innate caution had held Brunin back before, now he was lost for words and could only stand and stare. Joscelin watched him, the corners of his eyes creasing. 'I take it that he does.'

'He is mine?' Brunin echoed, tearing his eyes briefly from the pony to look at Joscelin.

'Have I not just said so?'

Somehow, Brunin stammered out a thank you. The pony regarded him out of long-lashed eyes, stalks of hay protruding cither side of its whiskery, moleskin muzzle, jaws champing. Brunin stretched out his hand, palm flat so that the pony could grow accustomed to his scent. The small cob stretched its neck and lipped at his tunic.

'You probably smell of new hay' Joscelin said with a smile.

Brunin smiled in return, but all his attention was on the wonderful gift. While the dream lasted he was going to enjoy it to the last drop. He ran his hands over the sleek, black neck, working back until he found the spot on the withers, and scratched. The pony leaned blissfully into him. Brunin admired its short, glossy back, the rounded hindquarters, the raven cascade of tail. He had wanted either a pied pony, or one as black as midnight shadow—and, in a roundabout and strange way that he was not going to think about too hard, he had got his wish. He spoke softly to the cob, unlooped its tether and, grasping a handful of mane, threw himself across its back. The pony responded with a startled snort, but answered the grip of Brunin's thighs and the tug on the rope.

A thoughtful expression on his face and satisfaction at his core, Joscelin watched boy and pony circle the barn and then trot out into the yard. FitzWarin was right about the child. Out of his element, Brunin was as awkward as a grounded swallow, but give him the open sky and he had the potential to soar.

'You see now why I asked you to take him,' FitzWarin said.

Joscelin fondled the ears of the deerhound curled beside his chair and took a drink from his cup. It was Welsh mead, sweet, potent and dark. 'Yes, I see,' he said. 'And I am glad to have him… truly glad. His light may be hidden under a bushel, but I saw it glow as bright as day when I gave him the black pony.'

'That was generous of you.'

Joscelin gave a negating shrug. 'I knew that you had found nothing suitable at Shrewsbury. The boy rides as if he and the beast are one.'

A spark of paternal pride lit in FitzWarin's eyes. 'He was on a pony before he could walk,' he said. 'I have done the same with all my sons, but it is Brunin's particular skill.'

Perhaps because it was one of the few areas where he could be free, Joscelin thought. And a horse might act up, but it was never judgemental.

A brief silence fell between the men, punctuated by the settling of the logs in the central hearth and the soft snoring of one of the dogs. The women had retired to their chamber and the children were abed. In the hall, folk were laying out their sleeping pallets along the side aisles. Joscelin drained his mead. 'I heard some interesting news last week,' he said casually.

'Oh yes?' FitzWarin refilled Joscelin's cup and tipped the remainder of the flagon into his own. 'Where from?'

'Family connections.'

Ah.' FitzWarin rubbed his chin. Joscelin's relatives held land in Devon and in Brittany and they had strong ties with Empress Matilda's Angevin faction. Joscelin frequently heard snippets of information long before they became common knowledge.

'Prince Henry is crossing from Normandy in the spring.'

'With an army?' FitzWarin grimaced, 'Last time he came, he was a whelp of fourteen with grand notions and naught in his coffers.'

'I do not know what will be in his coffers this time,' Joscelin said slowly, 'but he is to be knighted by King David of Scotland and, of course, all those who wish to see him achieve manhood will be present to wish him well.'

FitzWarin gave him a piercing glance. 'The knighting will take place in Scotland?'

'Carlisle, so I am told. My son-in-law is to be knighted too.'

FitzWarin nodded. Joscelin's eldest stepdaughter, Cecily, was married to one of Prince Henry's staunchest supporters, Roger, the young Earl of Hereford, so such a privilege was to be expected and welcomed. 'I assume that the gathering will be more than just a muster of celebrants and witnesses.'

Joscelin said nothing. He didn't need to.

Sighing, FitzWarin pushed his hair off his forehead. It was thirteen years since King Henry had died, leaving his throne to his only surviving legitimate child, his daughter Matilda, widow of the German Emperor and remarried to Geoffrey, Count of Anjou. Many barons had refused to be ruled by a woman… and, what was worse to their Norman sensibilities, by a woman with an Angevin husband, Anjou being Normandy's traditional enemy. They had opted instead to bow the knee to Matilda's cousin, Stephen. War had ensued as the opposing factions had battled for supremacy. The FitzWarin family, itself dominated by a strong woman, had sworn loyalty to the Empress from the beginning. That loyalty had remained staunch through every day of thirteen traumatic, bloody years.

Joscelin had been one of King Stephen's hired mercenaries at the start of the dispute, but soon after becoming lord of Ludlow he had revoked his oath and sworn instead for the Empress. There had been triumphs that burned in the blood like new wine, and defeats that had left grown men broken and weeping. The land had burned under summer skies and winter's starving grey. The price of life had become both as cheap as straw and as valuable as gold.

'When Empress Matilda left England in January, many said that she would never return.' Joscelin warmed his goblet between his hands. 'Perhaps they are right, but with her eldest son almost grown to manhood, it does not matter. In truth,' he added softly, 'many will be glad to see Prince Henry steering the ship.'

'Let's hope he can keep it steady in a storm,' FitzWarin muttered. 'He's perilously young.'

Joscelin gave him a quizzical look. 'Are you having doubts at this late stage?'

Jesu no!' FitzWarin choked. 'Even if I were sympathetic to Stephen, I'd not bend the knee to him, knowing that that son of his would inherit the crown. Eustace is about as fit to rule us as a whore to be an abbess. Young as he is, Henry has more of the spirit of kingship in his little finger than Eustace has in his entire body'

Joscelin nodded. 'Many who would follow Stephen to their last drop of blood will not spill so much as a pinprick for his son.'

'I suppose they think it will be easy to manipulate a raw youth to their own ends.' There was a cynical note in FitzWarin's voice.

Joscelin's laugh was devoid of humour. 'What they will do when they realise that Henry is about as easy to manipulate as a mountain of granite remains to be seen.'

FitzWarin quirked an eyebrow. 'And just what are we supposed to do with a mountain of granite?'

Joscelin contemplated his mead before lifting his gaze to FitzWarin. 'Build ourselves a fortress that will keep us and our families safe.'

'What if Gilbert de Lacy comes courting Prince Henry too?

Joscelin's wide, generous features grew closed and hard. 'Possession is nine-tenths of the law,' he said grimly.

Brunin had never been to Ludlow and, although he was accustomed to the sight of stout castles such as the one at Shrewsbury, nothing had prepared him for the imposing proportions of the massive stone walls rising out of the smoky autumn mist.

The fortress stood on a ridge with steep slopes descending to the river below. Where the river did not guard, a deep, dry ditch had been cut, spanned by a timber bridge leading to a passage through a heavily defended gatehouse.

'There's not another to touch it in the Marches… not even Shrewsbury,' Adam said, his eyes alight with pride.

'I doubt that the people of Shrewsbury would agree with you,' Joscelin replied drily as he joined his squires. He was relaxed in the saddle—a contrast to his earlier tension. Although Brunin had not been told anything in great detail, he knew that Lord Joscelin had been worried about being ambushed or attacked on the road by the men of de Lacy and Mortimer, who were his enemies. Hence, the knights had ridden in close formation with shields at the ready and hands never far from their scabbards. Now they were almost home and there was a perceptible lightening of the atmosphere.

The thought of encountering a troop led by Gilbert de Lacy had churned Brunin's stomach. He didn't want to meet up with the baron's squires ever again and the fear of doing so had haunted his dreams ever since Shrewsbury Fair. The anxiety dwelt at the back of his mind like a small, vicious rodent, spending much of its time asleep, but occasionally rousing to bite him hard.

'But do
you
agree with me, my lord?' Adam pursued. Of Joscelin's two squires, he was the more garrulous and familiar.

Joscelin smiled. 'Of course I do, lad, but then I'm not of Shrewsbury. Just now, I have never seen a sweeter sight in my life than those walls. I cannot wait to be rid of the weight of this thing.' He grimaced sweatily at the mail shirt encasing his body from throat to knee.

Brunin thought that Lord Joscelin looked rather splendid in his hauberk, and was anticipating the day when he could be a knight and wear one himself. From his child's perspective, the weight seemed a small price to pay—

They rode over the timber bridge spanning the ditch. Brunin listened to Morel's hooves beat on the wood and straightened proudly in the saddle, imagining that he was a lord returning from a day's deeds in the field, and that the knights and men-at-arms surrounding him were his own.

The guards on duty at the gatehouse saluted Joscelin and his troop through into the bailey. To the right were the timber dwellings of the guards' quarters, the laundry and sundry storage buildings. Straddling the thatched roof of one of them was a girl of about Brunin's own age. Much of her curly, dark-red hair had straggled loose from its braid and coiled around her dirty, tear-streaked face in eldritch tangles. A rip in the side seam of her dress exposed her chemise and an orchard ladder was skewed at the foot of the shed as if it had been climbed and then fallen awry.

Astonished, Brunin stared at her. Catching his eye, she stared defiantly back, as no peasant's daughter would have dared. Beneath the grime, her complexion flushed campion-pink. She scrambled to her feet, balancing precariously on the dusty, chopped reeds of the thatch.

'God's bones!' Joscelin muttered and spurred Rouquin over to the store shed.

'That's the lady Hawise,' Adam side-mouthed to Brunin. 'Lord Joscelin's youngest daughter and the apple of his eye.' The squire gave a low chuckle. 'I wonder what scrape she's got herself into this time.'