Shadows and Strongholds (29 page)

Hawise had never been close to Cecily. When Hawise had been born, Cecily was already married to Roger FitzMiles. Now, they were walking together, the oldest and the youngest of Sybilla's offspring, returning from Hereford Cathedral where they had been giving thanks for Roger's miraculous recovery. Against all expectations, he had revived and was preparing to go and make his obeisance to King Henry.

Behind them, Hawise was aware of their mother murmuring quietly to Marion and one of the other women. Sybilla had insisted that they came to Hereford. She had no intention of allowing Roger to dispose of his wife in such a cavalier fashion. On arriving and discovering the seriousness of her son-in-law's illness, she had taken over the running of the keep with the same brisk efficiency that she brought to the task at Ludlow, thus leaving Cecily free to nurse her husband.

Hawise ran her prayer beads through her fingers as they walked towards the castle. 'Will you stay at Hereford now?' she asked Cecily.

Her half-sister made a pensive face. 'That depends upon
Roger,' she murmured and glanced quickly over her shoulder as if checking that their mother was not listening.

Hawise frowned at her. 'You mean he might send you away again?'

Cecily sighed. 'It is likely. Mother has known him since he was a babe in arms and he respects her. He respects my stepfather too, but I am not sure that it is enough to stop him.'

'And what about you?' Hawise asked, for Cecily had left herself out of the reckoning. 'Doesn't he respect you?'

'In his own fashion,' Cecily said bleakly. 'He has never beaten me, nor has he reviled me because I have tailed to conceive. He doesn't lie with whores—or at least not under the same roof as me—and he affords me every courtesy in the great hall when all eyes are upon us. But he is indifferent. His dogs receive more affection than I do—and in similar wise, I do my duty by him and compensate myself with the fact that I am Countess of Hereford and can wear silk at my whim.' Her hazel eyes filled with desolation.

Hawise thought of their mother's determined insistence that she and Sibbi should have a say in selecting their future mates. 'Didn't Mama let you choose your husband?'

Cecily shook her head. 'My father wasn't soft in those matters like yours. Sometimes she could argue him round, but once he had made up his mind there was no moving him… and he wanted me to marry Roger because he was his best friend's son and had a rich inheritance.' She gazed pityingly at Hawise. 'Even with choice it is the way of the world—you'll discover that.'

The guards saluted them through into the castle. At the gate a priest was doling out bread to a line of beggars and unfortunates and Cecily scattered a handful of quarter pennies among them, exhorting them to pray for their lord. 'Roger is still not well,' she murmured to Hawise, 'but he is determined to go to the King at Wallingford.'

'Will he give up his castles?'

'He has no choice, save to have them taken away by force. The King might give them back to him for his lifetime, but not by right of inheritance.' Cecily set her jaw. 'He has been talking about taking the cowl. But where does that leave me? I have no desire to become a nun. If he puts me aside for the cloister I cannot stay at Hereford, and I don't want to be pitied at Ludlow.'

'You wouldn't be pitied!' Hawise declared with widening eyes. 'Indeed you would not!'

'No?' Cecily gave a cynical smile. 'Then perhaps I need to fight my own pride instead.'

'What does Mania say?'

Cecily gave another swift glance over her shoulder. 'I haven't told her. I don't need to. Unless Roger changes his mind, it will be common knowledge soon enough.'

'I am sorry,' Hawise said, feeling completely out of her depth and wishing herself elsewhere.

'So am I,' Cecily said.

The bailey was busy with knights and soldiers making preparation to leave and join the King and Hawise saw Brunin amongst them. One of Hereford's older squires wanted to spar with him, but Brunin was shaking his head and refusing to cooperate.

'Come on,' the squire laughed, raising his voice. 'It's good practice and the ladies like a show!' He cast a swift look towards the women. He was a handsome young man, blond-haired, brawny and strong.

Brunin's glance flickered and a grimace crossed his face. The squire grabbed a spear from a stack leaning against the wall and tossed it at him. Brunin caught it, and reluctantly took up a quartering stance. The squire leaped at him with a cry. Brunin's blocking of the assault was clumsy and he received a sharp rap on the knuckles.

The two Serjeants of the women's escort paused to watch the contest with folded arms and judgemental expressions. 'It's a pity about the lad,' remarked one after a moment, nodding at Brunin. 'You wouldn't think he'd got a grain of ability to look at him now, but I've seen him train with my lord and he's faster than a swallow on the wing.'

'I heard a rumour that he was originally intended for the Church,' his companion muttered. He pointed as Brunin took a blow to the side. 'Look at that. I could understand it if he'd never fought with the staff before, but not at this stage.'

The men shook their heads. 'You'd think he was frightened.'

'Likely so. I've seen fear make men as clumsy as bears with burned paws.'

Hawise watched Brunin duck out of the squire's way. His mouth was grim and tight, his eyes blank. Having taken a couple of blows to the hands and body he had dodged out of the way but was being relentlessly pursued and backed towards the castle wall.

Hawise wondered if what the Serjeants were saying had a ring of truth. Surely not. She too had seen Brunin train with her father and knew what he was capable of… but that was with her father and at Ludlow. She could not make a guess at why his performance was so clumsy now, for she was no longer certain of him. The easy camaraderie of their childhood had become awkward with adolescence. His physical presence made her stomach jolt, but these days he was not often in the bower. As maturity and knighthood approached he spent most of his time in the company of men. She only saw him in close proximity at the dinner trestle, or if he were attending on Joscelin in the women's chamber. And even then he was distant and polite. She suspected that it had much to do with the incident at Sibbi's wedding, for he was distant and polite with Marion too. It irked her; made her want to kick his shins. Once she might have done, but they were no longer children.

Brunin withdrew from the bout by tossing the spear to another squire, who caught it with a startled look.

'Coward!' the blond youth panted, angrily. 'You spar like a clumsy child!'

Brunin absorbed the taunts with a neutral expression. 'Then there's no gain to you in fighting me,' he said and, inclining his head, walked away, leaving the blond squire opening and shutting his mouth.

There was a moment's silence. One of the Serjeants muttered under his breath with disgust and other gave a snort of contemptuous disbelief. The other squire hastily returned the spear to the stack before he became Brunin's surrogate. The blond youth shook his head in disgust, his hands to his hips. 'Remind me never to fight at your side in a battle!' he called in Brunin's wake. Ignoring him, Brunin kept on walking.

Hawise felt as if she had been struck in the soft part under her heart. She wanted to shout at Hereford's squire that he was wrong, but she held back, afraid that his perception was perhaps sharper than hers.

'Brunin?' Joscelin folded his arms and leaned against the door of the small antechamber that had been allotted his squires while they were at Hereford.

Brunin had emptied the straw from his pallet and was folding up the linen canvas ready for their departure. 'Sir?' His heart sank because he knew why Joscelin was here.

'What happened this afternoon on the sward? Look at me.'

Reluctantly Brunin raised his gaze to Joscelin's flint-bright one. 'I am not a coward, my lord,' he said tautly.

'I know very well that you are not, but I need to understand what is wrong with you. Sybilla says that you were like a green boy in the first days of training; so did my Serjeants, yet I know you can hold your own against any of the grown men in my retinue.' He dug his hands through his hair. 'If the truth be admitted, sometimes you press me hard.'

Brunin flushed at the mingling of praise and censure in Joscelin's speech. 'I didn't want to fight him, sir.' He arranged the pallet on top of his bundle of gear.

'So I was told.' Joscelin frowned at him, perplexed. 'It's not the first time that you've drawn back. The men say they've noticed it in you during training of late. I cannot say that I have, but perhaps I stand too close to see. What is binding you?'

Brunin grimaced. 'Nothing, sir.'

'Then think.' Joscelin seated himself on the narrow bench cut beneath the window-slit. Hands folded between his knees, he contemplated the young man. 'I have done as much as I can for you out of my own store. I cannot help you unless you help yourself.'

'No, sir.'

The silence stretched out, but Joscelin continued to wait. 'What happened with Roger's squire?' he asked in a level voice.

Brunin gnawed on his lower lip. 'He reminded me of my brother… and of Ernalt de Lysle,' he said slowly.

'Who?'

'Gilbert de Lacy's squire,' Brunin mumbled, feeling his ears begin to burn with shame as Joscelin compressed his lips. 'They are both of a kind, tall and fair and boastful… At first…' He swallowed. 'At first I didn't want to fight because I… I was afraid.' It took all of Brunin's will power to make the admission and meet that intense grey stare.

Joscelin nodded. 'Go on.'

'I…'

'You said "at first".'

'Then… then my fear of him went away and I knew I had to stop.'

Joscelin folded his arms and waited.

Brunin hesitated. 'Because instead of being afraid of him, I was afraid of myself,' he said at last. 'I knew what I would do to him if I let slip the leash. He called me a coward… I walked away rather than risk killing him.'

'I see.' Joscelin thumbed his jaw. And is this the same reason you hold back against your own training partners at Ludlow? Because you are afraid your rage will get the better of you?'

Brunin shook his head. 'No, my lord.' His expression brightened. 'It is not the same, and none of them remind me of Ralf or de Lysle.'

'What then?'

'Well, I know most of their moves. Thomas never holds his shield tight enough into his body and Rob always does that backhand swipe at the legs but leaves himself wide open.' He demonstrated with his arms. 'I could hurt them if I wanted. It has become too easy.' He looked anxiously at Joscelin. 'I never pull my blows with you, my lord. I know I don't have to.'

Joscelin narrowed his eyes. His palm crossed his mouth. From the look in his eyes, Brunin guessed that he was hiding a grin he did not consider appropriate to the occasion. 'I haven't entirely lost my edge then,' he said drily before he sobered. 'It seems to me that we need to move your training up a notch in that area. But it also seems to me that you need to tackle your demons. I can only do so much. What is in here,' he tapped his head, 'is yours to deal with.'

'I know that, my lord.'

Joscelin nodded briskly, indicating that the discussion was at an end, and, placing his hands on his knees, eased to his feet, grimacing slightly as his joints cracked. 'Good then,' he said. 'When you have finished here, come down to the hall. I've plenty of tasks for you.' He gave Brunin a perceptive look. 'Of all the squires I've trained down the years, you've been the greatest challenge… and in all likelihood the best. Remember that.'

'Yes, my lord.'

Joscelin left and Brunin finished packing his baggage. He didn't go straight down to the hall though, instead he spent several moments staring across the room at the plastered wall, absorbing everything that had been said.

Brunin stood in the shadow cast by the keep at Bridgnorth. The sun was so hot that it had bleached the sky and every footfall raised a powdering of dust from the baked cart track. Henry had sent an army against Hugh Mortimer's defiance and the land surrounding the castle was clumped with tents and cooking fires, with horse lines and the raw wood of trees new felled to make siege engines. Older and wiser now, Brunin was not holding out hopes of getting to operate either a perrier or a trebuchet. If they had been part of the besieging troop at Cleobury he might have done so, for there had been some stiff skirmishing before the castellan had yielded. Wigmore was being invested too and there were bets being taken on which would fall first. Brunin had put a shilling on Cleobury.

'Mortimer will have to dismount from his high horse and negotiate,' Joscelin murmured. 'Thank God that Roger agreed to yield up Hereford. He would never have held it… and I would have had the nightmare of choosing between loyalty to my kin or loyalty to my King.'

Brunin nodded, folded his arms on his breast and tried to look wise. He did not know what he would have done and was glad that it had not come to the crux with Lord Joscelin.

Roger of Hereford had yielded to Henry, but from necessity, not choice. They had all expected Roger to die of the fever and congestion thai had attacked him six weeks ago; none had expected him to rally, but rally he had. Not only that but he had swallowed the unpalatable and submitted on bended knee to Henry, handing Hereford Castle into royal custody.

It was obvious that Roger was still seriously ill and that surrendering the right to hold his earldom as a hereditary title had broken his spirit. His cheekbones were like knife-blades, his eyes sunken. He had never possessed a robust build, but his wiry strength had been in proportion to his frame. Now his body was cadaverous with deep hollows beneath his rib cage and limbs where muscle and sinew were no more than string attached to the underlying bone. He talked constantly of becoming a monk and even now was closeted in his tent, praying with his chaplain.

Brunin glanced towards the laced-up canvas flap and squeezed his fist to feel the strength and vitality flowing through his own young body. Despite the burning heat of the day and the sweat dripping from the tips of his hair, a shiver ran down his spine. Footsteps on his grave, as there had been footsteps on so many others. While his flesh was still tingling, a horn sounded three sharp blasts, and men turned their attention away from the keep and towards the road where a dust cloud billowed the horizon.