Shadows and Strongholds (6 page)

'We've been playing sieges,' she said. 'And I was the lord of the castle.'

His lips twitched. 'I hope you fought off the enemy.'

She nodded. 'But I was wounded and Sibbi had to look after me. And Marion was having a baby.'

Her father made an interested sound in his throat and she could tell, from the vibration that ran through him, he was silently laughing. Behind them, she heard the chuckles of the knights, but it was a comfortable sound and she fell indulged rather than ridiculed.

'I might have another surprise for you soon,' he said as she grabbed his hard, callused hand and began pulling him towards the living quarters.

Hawise frowned up at him. Her imagination scurried, but she could think of nothing she particularly wanted beyond bridle bells and juggling balls… unless perhaps a pair of stilts. 'What sort of surprise?' she asked.

He squeezed her hand. 'I'll have to talk to your mother first'

Hawise squeezed him back, exerting all her pressure until he screwed up his face in mock agony and she giggled.

'Tell me, Papa,' she demanded.

'On the morrow.' He tweaked her auburn braid.

'Is it a toy?'

He shook his head. 'Wait and see,' he grinned.

She was intrigued and mystified, but knew her papa and the boundaries he set well enough to realise that he wouldn't say until he was ready, and that neither cajolery nor stamping and tantrums would work. Indeed, the latter would merit the flat of his hand. Besides, despite her high spirits and impulsive streak, she was a stoical child who could be patient when the occasion arose. 'Promise you'll tell me first.'

'I'll think about it,' he said, and gave her another wink.

Replete with spiced chicken stew, white bread, and an obscene quantity of honey and rosewater tart, the girls were preparing for bed. Gowned in their chemises, their hair combed and their prayers said, they sat on their beds and chattered like sparrows as they waited for Sybilla to come and snuff the candle.

'I don't know what sort of surprise,' Hawise said. Having imparted the information, she was now the centre of attention. She tossed three of the five leather balls in the air and for a moment succeeded in keeping them in rotation. 'Papa said it wasn't a toy, though.' The balls fell around her and she picked them up to begin again.

'Perhaps it's some cloth for a new dress,' Marion predictably suggested as she flicked back her hair. The strands shone like a field of barley, pale gold and silky under the breeze.

Hawise shook her head, her own thick curls glowing like dark wine. 'I thought of that, but Papa's not interested in clothes or buying them.'

'A puppy then,' Sibbi offered.

Hawise thought about that. Her papa had several large hunting hounds that followed him around the keep and slept across his chamber door. Their mother would pat the beasts in passing but, although she was kind to them, was largely indifferent to dogs. She probably wouldn't object if worn down by pleading. 'No,' she concluded with a regretful shake of her head, 'because Papa would have brought a puppy with him and he wouldn't have asked her about it.'

The girls mulled the problem over in silence for a while,
Sibbi sitting in contemplation, hands folded neatly in her lap, Hawise casting and dropping her juggling balls, and Marion stroking her already smooth hair with the antler-work comb that Joscelin had brought her from the fair.

'Perhaps he wants her to have another baby,' Marion said at length. 'That would be a surprise.'

Hawise dropped the balls and Sibbi's head jerked up. Both girls stared at Marion.

'Yes.' Marion nodded decisively. 'They don't have a son and everyone knows that boys have the best claim to family lands.' She continued her grooming like a cat washing itself, her air feline and knowing.

'They would have had one sooner than now,' Sibbi said doubtfully.

Marion shrugged. 'Ask them. I bet it's true.'

'All right, I will.' Hawise dropped her juggling balls, scrambled to her feet and ran into the main chamber.

Marion's eyes widened as if she hadn't expected quite so immediate a result.

Hawise found her mother putting away her sewing. Sybilla had removed her wimple and hairnet. Her curly hair was tamed into two thick braids, the sable-black winged and stranded with silver. She had changed from her ordinary dress of brown wool to the crimson one with the deep neckline broidered in gold. It was Hawise's favourite of her mother's gowns, and her father's too, for she had often heard him say so.

'I was just coming to kiss you goodnight,' Sybilla said, and then her gaze sharpened. 'What's the matter?'

'Marion said that Papa wants you to have another baby'

Her mother straightened. A look of complete astonishment crossed her face. 'Where did she get that notion?'

'Papa has a surprise for us, and Marion said that was it.'

'It certainly would be a surprise,' Sybilla said with a shaken laugh. 'I think, failing a miracle, we can safely say that Marion is wrong.' She latched her sewing basket and, taking Hawise by the hand, turned towards the small anteroom where the girls' beds were arranged.

'He said that he had to talk to you first.'

'Well, it won't be about babies, I can promise you that.' She brushed Hawise's red curls tenderly with her palm.

Later, when the girls had been kissed and settled and the lantern snuffed, Marion's mattress rustled. 'Well, if it's not a baby, then it'll be a betrothal,' she whispered knowingly. 'One of us will be given a husband.'

'Go to sleep,' Hawise hissed, 'or else I'll tell Mama, and she'll be cross this time.' Hawise had already been unsettled by Marion's talk of babies and wanted no more threats of disruption to the security of her life.

'Tell her, I don't care,' Marion said, but fell silent after that.

Hawise closed her eyes and, as she waited for sleep, wondered what the surprise was, her previous anticipation now tinged with more than a little apprehension.

Sybilla moved quietly around the bedchamber, tidying clothes, pouring wine into two cups, lighting the beeswax candles that for thrift had been left until now. Joscelin sat in the cushioned window-seat, watching the first stars prick the twilit sky. Now and again, he cast his glance to her work, but he said nothing and the silence between them was companionable.

Sybilla finished what she was doing and brought the cups of wine to the window. She stood looking out for a moment, enjoying the sight of the evening light against the castle towers. She had lived here for most of her adult life and every stick and stone of Ludlow was as familiar as her own hand. Joscelin took a swallow of the wine and leaned his head against the wall. 'Good,' he said.

'It's from a new barrel.' She looked at him mischievously. 'Knowing your taste, I thought you'd appreciate it.'

He gave her a sleepy smile that kindled heat in the bowl of her pelvis. 'You know my tastes well.'

'I should do by now.' She sat down beside him and he pulled her close so that she was leaning against his chest rather than on cold stone. His palm rested at her waist, the gesture light but possessive.

Joscelin had been eight and thirty when they had wed, and she a recent widow whose husband had died in sudden violence during a war with the Welsh. Her first marriage had been a political arrangement as most matches were, but they had made a success of it and she had been grief-stricken when Payne had been killed. Almost immediately, without respect for mourning, King Stephen had forced her remarriage to Joscelin, one of his most experienced mercenaries. Those first months had been difficult, but although he was a soldier first and had long been a bachelor, Joscelin had a courtier's polish and an innate liking of women. She knew her good fortune and its limitations—as he knew his.

'So,' she said, 'what is this surprise of yours?'

'Surprise?'

'You told Hawise that you had one for her.'

'Ah, yes.' He grinned.

'And Hawise told the other girls. Marion seems to think that we are to have another child.'

She felt his snort of amusement, although the comfortable atmosphere developed a strained quality. Sybilla bit back the apology that sprang instinctively to the fore. She was nine and forty and her flux had not come in a seven-month. Nor had she proved a prolific breeder of offspring in her fertile years. As Payne's wife, she had borne Cecily and Agnes. Since her remarriage she had only quickened twice, each time with a daughter.

'Marion is still fascinated by the matter?' he asked.

Sybilla sighed. 'I think a little less than of yore, but still too much for comfort. Whenever the girls play, she is always the lady of the keep and about to give birth. It is as if by acting out the part, she tries to heal herself, or make the outcome different.'

'You have great patience.'

'I need it,' Sybilla said ruefully and took a long swallow of her wine. 'I could kill the fool of a maid who let her wander into the birthing chamber when her mother was bleeding her life away in childbirth.' She folded her arms with indignation, remembering the day when Joscelin had brought Marion to Ludlow from her home—a wan little thing of five years old, peering fearfully over the edge of his fur-lined cloak. Her father, who was one of Joscelin's knights, had died in a fall from his horse and the shock had sent her heavily pregnant mother into labour. There had been complications, and the woman and baby had died, leaving Marion an orphan. Sybilla had taken her under her wing and was raising her with Sibbi and Hawise, but it was no easy task.

She took her mind from the thought and concentrated on her husband. He might have enquired out of politeness, but she was not sure that he would understand or be particularly concerned. 'Your surprise,' she prompted.

'Well, in a way it does concern a child,' he said, 'although not as small as Marion might be anticipating. And it will involve you to an extent.'

'You have another orphan for me?' She kept her voice light, but behind her smile, she braced herself.

'Not as such.' He told her about his meeting with
FitzWarin at St Peter's Fair and the request that had been made. 'I said that I would consult with you first.'

'Providing that he is house-trained, I have no objection.' Her eye corners crinkled with humour.

'Then you will take him?'

She had seldom met the FitzWarin family. Occasional weddings and marcher gatherings had brought her into passing contact with the womenfolk. Eve FitzWarin possessed the beauty and responsiveness of an effigy. Mellette Peverel was an autocratic matriarch with a sword for a tongue. FitzWarin himself had sometimes visited Ludlow and had campaigned often with Joscelin in the war between Stephen and Matilda. He was not at ease with women the way Joscelin was and more than a little dour. But she had seen him laugh once and it had changed his face.

'Yes,' she said, 'I will be glad to take him.' She studied Joscelin. 'What are you not telling me?'

'Nothing.' He avoided her gaze. 'The boy will need gentle handling.'

She sat up and faced him. 'As Marion needs gentle handling?'

'No, not quite like that. But…' He made a gesture. 'He needs encouragement from me… and the tenderness of women from you. He's not had much of either in his own household. FitzWarin did not put it in those terms exactly, but I know what he meant, and after what happened at the fair…'

Sybilla raised a questioning eyebrow and Joscelin gave her an abbreviated account of Brunin's ordeal. As she listened, her indignation grew. 'The poor child,' she said. 'Even if FitzWarin is your friend, he is a dolt.'

'Sometimes,' Joscelin conceded, 'but you were not there to see the undercurrents. Whatever else, he loves the boy.

I'll have a scribe draft a letter on the morrow and send a rider to Whittington.'

She nodded. 'You had better tell Hawise about him, because I am not sure that she believed me. Marion certainly didn't.'

He chuckled. 'I promise I'll do it in the morning, straight after mass.' Draining his wine, he set his cup aside.

Sybilla gave him a considering look. 'You don't think FitzWarin is inveigling a match between his son and one of our daughters?'

'Of course he is,' Joscelin said easily. 'In his place, I would certainly have an eye to the future, but it is the secondary reason for his request. We can observe the boy's progress and measure our decisions as the future dictates. I am in no hurry to betrothe our girls, and I think you are of the same mind?'

'Indeed,' Sybilla said. 'I want them to be content with the choice we make when the time comes, and for that they need to be old enough to have a say in the decision.'

He took the end of her braid in his hand and ran his thumb over the wiry silver and dark strands. 'You want them to have the choice that you did not?'

'Yes.' She covered his fingers with hers, thinking that sometimes his perception was too keen for comfort. 'That is not to disparage you or Payne. Perhaps you also would have preferred a choice… a younger wife, for instance?'

He gave her that sleepy smile again. 'I have no complaint with my lot,' he said. 'Younger wives bring their own burden of troubles and there is much to be said for experience.' His hand left her braid and, with slow deliberation, he unpinned the brooch that fastened the neck of her gown. Leaning into his body, Sybilla closed her eyes and raised her face to his.

Usually he would fall asleep after they had made love, but this time he did not. 'The squires that attacked the boy… they belonged to Gilbert de Lacy,' he murmured as his heartbeat slowed.

Sybilla held her breath. Her cousin's name was one that had echoed down the years of both her marriages as he continuously pressed his claim to Ludlow. Payne and Joscelin had thwarted him at every turn, but that had not deterred him. Rather his persistence had grown until it was a constant, nagging pressure. A knot of apprehension replaced the languor of good lovemaking.

To be fair, he did not know about the assault on Brunin. I could see the surprise in his eyes.'

Sybilla raised up on her elbow and, by the light of the candles, gazed at her husband. His expression gave little away, but she knew how to read him by now. The tightness of line at his mouth corners, the taut eyelids that should have been lax with sleep and satisfaction: all spoke of his unease. 'You came face to face with Gilbert?'