Shadows and Strongholds (62 page)

'That's it, we have them!' Ernalt de Lysle cried. A messenger had arrived breathless from the wall walk with the news that a troop of Welsh mercenaries led by Roger and Jonas de Powys of Whittington were almost at the castle gates. 'Now we'll show the bastards who owns Ludlow' He strode across the chamber, seized Marion in his arms and gave her a kiss that flattened her bruised lips against her teeth. 'Look for a blood-red sky tonight, sweetheart!'

'Why… I… I don't understand.'

'Have you been deaf these last days?' he demanded, releasing her so abruptly that she almost fell down. 'Lord Gilbert sent for aid and the de Powys brothers have answered!' He barked a laugh. 'That'll salt their tails.'

She rubbed her arms and gazed at him in perplexity. 'Whose tails?'

'De Dinan's and FitzWarin's.'

'Oh.' She continued to look blank.

He made an impatient sound. 'The de Powys brothers hold Whittington,' he said. 'Their bloodline held it when the FitzWarins were no more than common castle guards in Lorraine, and they've long been the allies of Mortimer and de Lacy.'

When he had gone, Marion went to the window with the wine flagon and her sewing. She had eschewed the hail and the company of the other women whom she had decided were all coarse sluts. She would not besmirch herself by stooping to their level.

The gown she was making was cut from a bolt of fabric looted from Sybilla's coffer: blue wool brocade purchased at last Shrewsbury Fair which had cost Joscelin the earth. Marion had felt no qualms about tailing the cloth. If she hadn't, someone else would, and it was perfect for a wedding gown. She threaded a length of blue silk yarn through the eye of the needle and began to sew as if her life depended on it. At first her stitches were exquisite, but as she drank her way down the flagon, and the sounds of battle began to echo off the battered walls, they grew increasingly erratic and ungainly.

The night was cold and black; rain spattering in the wind. Brunin stood outside the palisade of Caynham's hill defences and stared, wishing he could see through the darkness and know how far away the enemy was. The fine hairs on his forearms were standing upright and there was a prickling sensation down the middle of his spine.

'No point in looking now,' Joscelin said. 'Come and eat. They won't attack until morning.'

Brunin took a deep breath. The air smelled of autumn and the year's ending. He passed through a gap in the rotting wooden palisade and followed Joscelin to one of the watch fires. He wasn't hungry, but he accepted the bowl of watery stew from the soldier who handed it to him. At least it was hot, although it would take more than soup to warm his bones. The extra men brought by the de Powys brothers had tipped the teetering balance in de Lacy's favour and, amid fierce and brutal fighting, Joscelin had been driven back… and back… and back. Everything gained had been lost. The enemy had pursued them as far as the camp at Gaynham, but nightfall had caused them to draw off in order to tend their wounded and regroup.

'They won't need siege engines,' Brunin said bleakly. They can ride three abreast through some of the gaps in those palings.'

'Yes, but they have still got to come uphill at us and it may be that we can break out southwards and lose them in the forest.' Joscelin looked at Brunin. 'It's not over yet. Never think that.'

Brunin drank from the bowl of stew, tasting the layer of mutton grease floating on the surface. 'But there has to be an end to it,' he said. 'Someone has to call enough.'

Joscelin's eyelids tensed. 'Do you want to do that? Do you want to walk into their camp with a flag of truce tied to your horse's tail and cry that you quit?'

Brunin flushed beneath the scorn in Joscelin's voice. 'You know I would not do that,' he said, 'any more than de Lacy would yield to us, but there has to be a middle way'

Joscelin chewed on his thumbnail. 'Like the middle way for Whittington?' he said harshly. 'A long wrangle through courts of law with proofs demanded for the right to every single blade of grass and pile of dung, and in the meantime some piddling fief tossed from Henry's hand like a man throwing a used chicken bone to a dog at the end of a meal?'

'You do not need to remind me of the choice my family was forced to make,' Brunin said. The neutrality of his voice was a warning. 'If there had been a viable alternative, my father would have taken it. As it is, we still have hope.' He did not add that, after tonight, that hope might be lost. Joscelin knew it too. The stew had congealed as it cooled and he tipped the remnants out on the ground.

'I did not mean to smirch your pride,' Joscelin said.

'I know that,' Brunin answered. 'You spoke out of your own.'

'Always goes before a fall,' Joscelin said wearily.

The sun rose above the skyline in a red ball of fire. Joscelin sat his sorrel destrier, his shield on his left arm, his lance in his right. 'If we can fight our way out of this, we'll ride for Stanton,' he said. 'De Lacy will not pursue us that far out of his territory' He gave Brunin a hard stare. 'Get yourself free. I want no heroic sacrifices. Understood?'

Brunin responded with a grim salute. He had made his confession to Joscelin's chaplain. He had had a scribe pen a message that was to be sent to Hawise in the event of his death; Joscelin had done the same for Sybilla: clearing life's ground, scouring it down to a bare courtyard.

'Good.' Joscelin nodded stiffly and turned his mount side-on to the sun.

'They're leaving, my lord,' said Ernalt de Lysle in an urgent tone.

'I have eyes to see that for myself,' de Lacy growled. He gathered his stallion's reins. 'There is time enough to strike. Too soon and those old battlements will hamper us.' He glanced towards the rising sun. 'FitzWarin is yours if you want him.'

Anticipation gleamed in Ernalt's eyes. 'It will be a pleasure, my lord.'

'No,' said Gilbert repressively. 'It will be a hard fight.' He turned to look round at the waiting men. 'Probably the hardest fight of your lives. This,' he said grimly, 'is where it ends.'

Brunin struck with his sword and parried with his shield. The movements were instinctive, the fruit of years of training. His precision was cold, his mind as clear as ice. Nearby, Ralf was bellowing and laying about him like a wild bull and wasting far too much energy in rage. As Brunin dealt with his opponent and moved on to tackle the next, he looked for Joscelin and saw him hard pressed but holding his own. Perhaps… just perhaps, they might be able to win free. The hope flitted through his mind and was dashed as a blade caught the rising light and descended. Joscelin's parry was weak and Brunin saw him flinch as the cutting force of the sword was turned on his mail, but not the bruising impact. His young chestnut stallion reared and plunged. Joscelin lost his stirrup and, before he could regain it, was pitched over his mount's neck.

Brunin whipped Jester round and spurred him across the melee, roaring the de Dinan name as a rallying cry. Joscelin struggled up from his fall, scattering men with his shield, making them fear the danger of his sword, but he was injured and bruised and the sorrel had bolted. Before Brunin could reach him, Joscelin was assaulted again, his shield wrested from his left arm, his sword smashed out of his hand, and he was forced to his knees on the bloody ground.

Brunin forgot everything that Joscelin had said about heroic sacrifices and rode straight for the thick of the fray. Men fell away before him, either leaping from the path of the reaper or being cut down, but he neither saw their faces nor heard their screams.

'Christ, Brunin, no!' Joscelin roared, and was struck backhanded across the mouth by a soldier wearing a mailed glove. His head snapped back and blood welled into the cuts made by the iron rivets. Brunin slammed aside the serjeant blocking his path, determined to reach Joscelin, and in so doing paid less attention than he should to the assault from his left.

'Brunin!' Joscelin's voice was a full, bloody bellow of warning and despair. Ralf was shouting too. Brunin twisted to meet the blow but he was too late and his damaged shoulder not strong enough, and the lance head struck against the side of his shield, slatted inwards and plunged through mail, gambeson and flesh. The lance shaft was flawed and with a splintering crack the ash stave snapped off, leaving Ernalt de Lysle clutching a jagged haft. The blow rocked Brunin back against his cantle and jarred his spine. He could feel himself falling and tightened his thighs. There was no pain, only a flowering numbness that spread from the head of the lance and flowed through his body. Blood darkened around the point of entry. Joscelin was staring in wide and grieving horror. The gelding plunged, hindquarters straining, and the jolt sent the first spark of pain through Brunin's body.

De Lysle cast aside the spear and drew his sword, but was blocked for an instant by the blundering of one of his own men.

'Go!' Joscelin roared to Brunin. 'In God's name, ride!' The last word was lost on a grunt as his captor belted him again, knocking him to the ground.

Ralf reached Brunin and, seizing Jester's rein, yanked the horse around. 'Do as he says!' he cried, whacking Jester's rump with the flat of his sword. The gelding flinched and lunged into a gallop. Brunin reeled in the saddle and almost toppled from it, but the years of discipline and training paid their debt and through a vision of black stars he hung on as they disengaged from the unequal melee and raced for the safety of the nearby woods.

Jester could gallop for ever; his pace was not swift, but it was smooth and his stamina was heroic. De Lysle spurred after Brunin and Ralf with a handful of mercenaries from the Welsh contingent. At first Brunin thought that he and Ralf were going to be captured, but their small head start gave them the lead they needed to stay in front and while the other horses tired, Jester continued his one-paced lope. Ralf began to lag behind, but their pursuers had slowed too, their battle-sweated mounts unable to maintain their speed. Arrows whined over their heads in a parting salvo. Ralf cursed as one thrummed into the high back of his saddle and cracked the wood. He spurred his flagging stallion and it found a final burst of speed to reach the safety of the trees.

The forest embraced them. Brunin was not sure whether it was Jester's breathing he could hear, or his own, harsh and guttural. The pain was harder now, a deep, welling throb. He glanced down at the wound. There was blood, but it was oozing sluggishly, not pouring out. That might all change if the lance head was removed; he had seen men expire in a fountaining gush from doing just that. But to leave it in situ was certain death too.

'Brunin?' Ralf rode up alongside, his ruddy complexion blanched of its usual high colour. He snapped off the arrow thrusting up from his saddle and cast it aside with a look of revulsion.

Sweat crawled down Brunin's spine and his vision blurred at the edges. 'We must keep moving… they won't give up the pursuit until they are certain they won't catch us.' He swallowed. His men would be fleeing the battle, making their escape as best they could. 'Gather the others, such as you can find,' he panted. 'Bring us together.'

Ralf looked appalled 'I cannot leave you!'

'I am all right… Do it.'

Frowning hard and obviously debating with his judgement, Ralf reined away. Brunin hung his head and clung on hard, willing himself not to fall, forcing himself through the hot beat of the pain. He had seen men speared in the guts before, had heard them too. Most died within hours of the event… but some lingered. A few lived to tell the tale… but they were always the ones in whom the iron had pierced no vital place. At least he wasn't screaming yet, but he knew it would come.

Hawise watched Emmeline and the steward's daughter whipping their wooden tops in Alberbury's bailey. She had recently finished speaking to the steward about how many of the castle's pigs they were going to keep and how many were to be slaughtered for salting down and eating through the winter months. The swine, sublimely unaware of their fate, were being herded out of the castle gates and turned towards the nearby woods to fatten on the seasonal glut of beech mast, acorns and roots.

'I used to have a top when I was a child,' she said with a reminiscent smile. 'Indeed, I think it might still be tucked away in one of my coffers.'

She called Emmeline over, and the child ran to her, brown eyes sparkling, raven hair caught back in a red ribbon. 'Let me have a turn,' Hawise demanded, laughing. Taking the braided leather whip from the little girl, she set the painted wooden top spinning with a deft flick, and then chased it across the courtyard. The wind swirled her skirts and blew her veil away from her face. The steward smiled at the winsome sight she made and Emmeline and her friend giggled.

'I can see that you were skilled, madam,' the steward said as Hawise whipped the top back to her starting point.

'Indeed I was!' she declared with breathless delight. 'I used to compete with my husband, and I would beat him quite often… although he was always better at juggling than I was. My father said that we should have been tumblers' children.' She stooped to return the top to Emmeline, and discovered that Mellette had emerged from the hall. Leaning hard on her stick, she was advancing determinedly towards Hawise and the steward.

'My lady, you should not trouble yourself,' Hawise said, starting towards her, but Mellette waved her away with a sour look.

'When I see my grandson's wife running around the yard like a hoyden when she should be discussing affairs of business, then it is my duty to trouble myself,' she snapped.

Hawise swallowed her irritation. She would win this battle as she had won the others, but to have to keep fighting them was wearisome. 'I have dealt with the matter of the swine, madam,' she said firmly. And it is indeed yourself you are troubling—and needlessly' Hawise proceeded to give Mellette a detailed resume of the points she had discussed with the steward. When Mellette disagreed crabbily with the number of hams to be salted, Hawise listened and murmured that she would consider her views. She did not raise her voice, but it was firm and confident.