‘Fine feathers,’ Ironheart said sourly.
‘Very fine,’ Joscelin smiled at Linnet.
With an impatient sound, Ironheart turned away and, shrugging off his cloak, began unlatching his belt. ‘There’s no point in wasting this bathwater, it’s still hot enough to boil an egg. Lay me out some fresh towels, will you?’
Beside him, Joscelin felt Linnet stiffen. Her eyes narrowed. Oblivious, Ironheart continued to tug off his clothes and toss them on the floor. In a quiet, cold voice, she told her maid to see to the towels and find fresh clothes for Ironheart to wear. Then, on the pretext of checking that the dinner arrangements were in hand, she excused herself.
Ironheart scowled after her. ‘She’s a wayward wench,’ he said.
Joscelin eyed his father with no small degree of irritation. ‘I think she had had enough of you,’ he said. ‘To have played bath maid, as duty insists, would have been too much. She might have drowned you. I know I certainly would.’
‘Where’s Mama gone?’ Robert sidled nervously around Ironheart.
Joscelin picked him up. ‘To talk to the cook. Do you want to come to the stables and see what I’ve brought you all the way from the north?’
Robert nodded vigorously.
Ironheart shook his head and, naked, went to the hearth to pour another cup of hot wine before stepping into the bath.
It had been October when Linnet had married Giles: fine, clear weather, scented with the pungent mulch from the harvest of cider apples and the trees all russet and golden in the beauty of their dying leaves. She had worn a chaplet woven with ears of grain as a fertility charm representing the ploughing of the virgin soil and the scattering of seed in hope of abundant harvest, and had felt dead inside.
It was October again: the cider harvest under way and the grain stacked in the barns. The weather this time was grey and damp, her bridal chaplet was a simple band of silver-woven braid and feelings were flowing through her, some of them with the same kind of discomfort that came to a cramped limb when unfolded.
On the high table, which was adorned with Rushcliffe’s rescued silver plate, Linnet sipped from the handsome, engraved marriage cup. She had toasted her first union in its depths as now she was toasting this new one to Joscelin. Henry, resplendent in a new tunic of green fustian, leaned between herself and Joscelin to refill the loving cup from the flagon in his hand. When he drew back and moved on down the table, she was faced by the bright hunger in Joscelin’s eyes. His look was like a hot handprint on her bare skin.
She swallowed, feeling afraid. Giles had been drunk and fumbling on their wedding night, full of terse instructions and curses.
Open your legs, damn you. Wider, higher. Don’t just lie there like a cabbage. Stop screaming, it doesn’t hurt.
Joscelin placed his hand over hers and with the other lifted the refilled loving cup to drink from the place where she had set her own lips. It doesn’t always hurt, she told herself.
There is pleasure in sin.
She became aware that Conan was watching them with benign amusement. The mercenary raised his cup in toast and murmured something sidelong to Brien FitzRenard. The justiciar’s man laughed and looked teasingly at bride and groom. Linnet wanted to snatch her hand from beneath Joscelin’s but knew that it would only intensify the ribbing. It was, after all, their wedding night and Conan was doing his best to preserve the traditions. Now and then, Ironheart would raise his head from the stupor of wine fumes to mutter about duty.
‘Use her well in bed,’ he slurred, eyes focusing independently of each other. ‘Girl children’re what you want.’ His head nodded as if too heavy for his neck. ‘When they marry you can choose your sons. Won’t be lum—lumbered with idiots.’
Joscelin cast an exasperated glance in his father’s direction. ‘God, how much longer before the drink poles him silent?’ he muttered to Linnet.
Linnet grimaced as she watched her father-in-law’s behaviour sinking further into boorishness with the diminishing level of wine in his cup. She laid her hand urgently along Joscelin’s sleeve. ‘I know that we are indebted to your father for the restocking of the keep,’ she said quietly, ‘but duty or not, I know I won’t be able to strip myself naked before him when it comes to the bedding ceremony. ’
He shook his head. ‘There is no need for us to stand unclothed before witnesses.’ He set his hand over hers. ‘You have seen me naked before and have been able to judge that you are not getting damaged goods, and I would have to be mad to repudiate you because of some unseen physical flaw. Besides,’ he added with a rueful glance at Conan, ‘do you think I relish the thought of being stripped and drunkenly commented upon? A man has more to conceal than a woman. Stiff or limp, I’ll be cause for all manner of bawdy jests.’
Linnet felt a weak surge of relief and gave him a heartfelt thank you. She bit her lip. ‘When I married Giles, the bedding ceremony was as if I was being shut in a cage with a wild animal and all the guests were grinning onlookers.’
‘You have nothing to fear from me.’
‘Yes, I know.’ She crumbled a sweet honey cake set on the platter beside her trencher. ‘It is not you I fear.’
He frowned in thought for a moment, then leaned closer to speak softly.
‘Look, there’s only one more course to be served and we’ve eaten ourselves stupid anyway. Make the excuse that you’re going to check that Robert has settled down and go to our chamber. I’ll sit here and make idle conversation for a while to disarm their suspicions, then I’ll visit the latrine. By the time they realize what has happened, we’ll have the door bolted in their faces.’
She nodded with alacrity and rose to her feet as the final parade of food began arriving from the kitchens - sweet frumenties and tarts, pressed cheeses, small pasties and bowls of fresh green herbs. She was aware of the salacious glances following her, of men imagining how she would look unclothed, her hair loose. She heard the bawdy remarks shouted to Joscelin and his good-natured rejoinders. Her face flamed and her heart began to thump. Glancing over her shoulder as she reached the tower entrance, she saw that Joscelin was unconcernedly helping himself to a slice of nutmeg tart and bandying words with Conan, lulling him into a false sense of security. Gratefully, Linnet started up the concealing twist of the dimly lit stairs.
Joscelin dropped the bar across the door. ‘They might rattle at the latch,’ he said, ‘but I doubt they’ll go to the trouble of fetching an axe to see tradition upheld.’
Linnet sighed with relief. ‘I could not have endured the bedding ceremony.’
‘Once must be penance enough for anyone,’ he said wryly and sat down in the chair before the hearth. He knew what he wanted. He also knew that to take it with the directness that was now his right would be a grave mistake.
‘Was Robert asleep?’ he asked as he unwound his leg-bindings.
‘Indeed yes.’ Her face brightened. ‘Thoroughly exhausted by all the excitement. He’s head over heels in love with that pony you brought.’
‘I thought they would suit.’ Joscelin felt a glow remembering the joy in Robert’s small face when he set eyes on the little Galloway mare.
‘Do you know what he’s called her?’
Joscelin shook his head.
‘Giles once said that Leicester’s wife had the teeth and backside of a mare. Robert must have been listening. He’s named her Petronilla after the countess.’
Joscelin choked. Petronilla de Beaumont did indeed resemble a horse, although her colouring was more iron-grey than chestnut, and on balance he thought the Galloway pony the more attractive. ‘I don’t know whether the horse should be insulted, or the countess,’ he said with a grin.
‘Is it true that she girds herself like a man and rides into battle at her husband’s side?’
‘More or less. She’s with him now for certain.’ He looked at her from under his brows. ‘Not thinking of following her example, are you?’
‘Perhaps it would be easier than to sit here waiting,’ she said and looked at him as she unbound her braids.
Leaving the chair, he took her wooden comb from her coffer and sat down beside her on the bed. ‘Give me your hair,’ he coaxed. ‘You don’t want to unbar the door to summon your maid and I’ve done this many times before.’
She had tensed at his approach but now she relaxed and gave him an inquisitive smile. ‘Is that by way of reassurance or confession?’ she asked mischievously.
‘Which do you want?’ he responded in a similar tone, and taking her hair in his hands started to brush out the twists of braid. The firelight caught the ripples that the plaiting had left behind, gilding the soft honey-brown with golden-red lights. The scent of rosemary and chamomile rose from the slow movement of the comb and delicately assaulted his senses. ‘If you think I’ve led a debauched life of bedchambers and broken hearts, you are sadly mistaken.’
‘And you a tourney champion?’ Her voice was pitched low as her head yielded to the gentle passage of the comb. He watched the movement of the sinews in her slender throat, the soft hollow above her collarbone. The memory of Breaca hovered bittersweet in the shadows.
‘I do confess to plucking the occasional ripe fruit from a tree overhanging someone else’s orchard wall but, if not into my hand, it would have fallen elsewhere.’ He worked in contemplative silence for a moment. Her hair crackled and glowed with light as if it were an extension of the fire. ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘for a long time I had a woman of my own and no inclination to go filching forbidden apples. Breaca would have gelded me for certain.’
She turned her head. ‘Conan has made mention of your past,’ she said.
‘I thought he might. Probably he believed you would feel sorry for me and your heart would melt.’
‘He was watching you and Robert together. I think he spoke because he was pleased for you, and he said very little. Only that your son had died and that you and his mother had parted.’
How distant it sounded, spoken softly in this chamber resonant with his new beginning. ‘Bloody flux,’ he said. ‘He was only four years old. Breaca nearly died, too. He is buried in a churchyard on the road to Falaise and it cost all the silver I had to bribe the priest to let Juhel lie in consecrated ground - a mercenary’s unshriven bastard child.’ He gathered her hair to one side and stroked the back of her neck with gentle fingers. ‘It hit me hard. For a time I was wild, didn’t care. The summer Juhel died was my most successful ever on the tourney route. I earned back all the silver I had paid to the priest and enough to employ my own troop of men instead of traipsing in Conan’s wake.’
‘Your son’s name was Juhel.’
‘It’s Breton, the name of Breaca’s father.’ He felt her tremble beneath his touch or perhaps it was his hand that trembled with the effort of controlling all that was within him. ‘He was small like his mother but quick and bright as a pin.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s ten years ago now.’
Again she turned to look at him, her brows arching this time in startled question.
‘I was a little short of seventeen when he was born.’
‘And Breaca?’
‘She was two and thirty - old enough to have been my mother,’ he added with a hint of self-mockery.
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘You think it would stay a secret long with Conan in the same household? He would let you have it piece by little piece and I would know from the way you looked at me which occasions he had chosen to enlighten you. Now it is told, it no longer lies between us.’
Her throat moved. Her lashes swept down, making feathery shadows on her cheekbones.
‘Or does it?’ Frowning, he tilted her chin on his fingertips.
‘No,’ she said huskily, ‘it doesn’t.’ But other things did. She was not brave enough to give him the sword of her own past to break across his knees.
He brushed his fingers lightly over her face, traced her brow, her cheekbone, her mouth. She felt his urgency and his restraint and her breathing shuddered as she too fought for control. The tentative first intimacy yielded to a more sustained assault on her senses, but refined and delicate. They drank the last of the spiced wine from earlier and shed their garments slowly, layer by layer, until they were skin to skin. Gestures became bolder, more explicit, as pleasure and tension mounted and they lay down on the bed. Perspiration dampened Linnet’s brow. She was no longer cold. The hot pressure of Joscelin’s body pinned her to the feather mattress but it was a good feeling. Against his ribs she felt the driving thud of his heart. Her palms slid upon the textures of wet skin, smooth muscle and taut tendons. She tangled her fingers in his hair and sought his mouth at the same time arching her hips and opening herself to him. She felt him push inside her - no inexpert fumbling here but the surety of experience. The sound of pleasure he made caused her to gasp and tighten her arms around him.
Someone banged on the door with what sounded like one of her best silver-gilt cups. ‘Joscelin, open up, you spoilsport!’ Conan bellowed. ‘You haven’t been properly bedded yet!’
Linnet stifled a scream and stared over Joscelin’s shoulder at the shuddering door, hoping that the bar would hold.
Joscelin muttered an oath and tensed.
‘Joscelin!’ The door quivered beneath the repeated hammering. Then there was a curse of pain. Milo de Selsey’s voice came muffled through the thick oak and Henry’s, too, trying to cajole Conan away from the barred door. ‘Not fair! ’Tsnot tradish—tradishnal!’ Conan complained.
Henry murmured enticingly that a new cask of wine was about to be broached. Footsteps staggered and scuffled. ‘That’s it, Sir Conan,’ Linnet heard Henry say. ‘It’s much better down in the hall than up here on a draughty landing.’
‘Spoilsport!’ There was a final thump on the door. Sounds retreated and the silence resumed. Joscelin sighed and pressed his head into the curve of Linnet’s throat. ‘Conan in his cups is a fiend straight out of hell,’ he muttered. ‘It’s because we’ve come out of one battle to go straight to another. Drink and women, the mercenary’s sovereign remedy.’
She heard the self-mockery in his tone and touched his sweat-damp hair. ‘Then lose yourself,’ she whispered.