‘In my troop, the men who don’t work don’t eat,’ he said grimly, and went to the row of wounded men to address each one in turn and speak words of comfort.
Linnet could see from the manner with which he carried himself that he was tired and in pain, but he did not skimp his duty. He lingered at Malcolm’s pallet and she heard their low exchange of words and then wry laughter. Joscelin was still grinning broadly and shaking his head when he returned to her.
‘Malcolm says I’m nae to fash myself, you’ve a touch like an angel,’ he declared in appalling mimicry of a Lowland Scots accent and sat down on the padded cover of a clothing chest.
Linnet opened and closed the shears and smiled. ‘Did you believe him?’
‘He’s a notorious fibber but I reckon you’re bound to be gentler than Milo, who’d act the chirurgeon otherwise. ’ He started to remove his surcoat, but desisted with a gasp of pain.
Quickly Linnet moved to help him, easing the garment over his shoulders. The mail shirt proved more difficult for it was heavy and the sleeves fitted closely over the padded undergarment. The intimacy was disturbing; the heat of his body, the acrid smell of battle sweat. The proximity made her feel stifled and panicky. She had too many memories of this room and what had happened here, and it was with relief that she finally succeeded in divesting him of his mail and gambeson and was able to step away.
His head was bowed, his breathing harsh with pain. When it eased, he looked up at her through sweat-tangled hair. ‘Is there any wine before we go further?’
She laid his garments on the coffer and fetched a pitcher and cup from a trestle by the embrasure. ‘It’s last year’s,’ she apologized, pouring him a cloudy measure. ‘It tastes more like verjuice than wine but it’s all we have according to Corbette’s manservant. I will check myself when I have time.’ She gave the cup to him and tried to conquer her feelings of oppression.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ He took several fast swallows.
His shirt was glued to his shoulder-wound by dried blood. Linnet started to soak it away with firm, careful strokes, watching his face for indications that she was hurting him too much. ‘You’re fortunate it wasn’t much worse,’ she murmured. ‘It looks as if you’ve only cut a surface flap of skin. The rest is bruising.’
‘What did Giles and Raymond quarrel about?’
Linnet ceased bathing his wound and turned away to wring the pad out in a bowl of scented water. The droplets plinked over the surface and were absorbed into the shimmering whole. Her fingers started to hurt as she twisted the linen. Her womb, her lights, the center of pleasure in her loins, were twisting, too. By asking her a question to take his mind from pain, he had inadvertently touched her own wounds.
‘Giles and his father were always disagreeing,’ she said with careful neutrality as she resumed her ministrations. ‘Giles could never do anything right. Raymond criticized him at every turn, told him how much better he could manage things and, of course, he could. Giles never had a chance. There, ease your shirt off now so I can take a proper look.’
‘And?’ he prompted.
Linnet drew the shirt over his head and pulled it off down his uninjured arm, avoiding the shrewd clarity of his stare. ‘You come from these parts yourself. Did you know Raymond de Montsorrel?’
‘Not well. Occasionally he and my father would go hunting together but they were uneasy neighbours. Raymond de Montsorrel had a high opinion of himself - born of the highest blood in Normandy, if you can call it that. He looked down on my father because my father’s mother was English. Mind you,’ Joscelin added wryly, ‘he was determined to improve the breeding stock of those less fortunate than himself; his lechery was a legend far and wide.’
Linnet drew a constricted breath and put his bloodstained shirt on the coffer, looking anywhere but at his face while memory and guilt assaulted her. Raymond de Montsorrel, here, almost where she stood now, touching her hair, his breath at her throat, hoarsely whispering. If my son had any steel in his sword, I’d have a grandchild by now. You need a real man to quicken you. And then the heat of his mouth on hers and his hand stroking between her thighs with delicate, perfect knowledge. It had been wrong, it had been shocking, but pinned against the wall by his suggestively thrusting hips, for the first time in her life she had felt exquisite twinges of pleasure stabbing through the other emotions.
A shudder ran down her spine. She was aware of Joscelin’s scrutiny and sought frantically for a way across the pit that had opened up beneath her feet. ‘Raymond baited Giles once too often and too far,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Swords were drawn and Giles had to be dragged off by the guards. We left the same day and did not return until Raymond was dead.’ She darted a glance at him and saw that he was frowning. Quickly she broke the wax seal on a pot of salve and dipped her forefinger. ‘You have few scars to show for a man of your trade,’ she said to change the subject. Men liked to talk about themselves and, by appealing to his vanity, she hoped to divert his attention from something she did not wish to discuss.
‘You learn fast or you perish.’ His pensive expression lingered as she daubed the ointment on his shoulder. ‘And not all of the scars are visible. I - Ah!’ He broke off and gripped the coffer edge.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said breathlessly. ‘That’s the worst part over now.’
He had clenched his lids against the pain but now he opened them and caught her gaze with his. ‘I know what happens when you don’t bury the past and let it go. My father has grown old on bitter grieving for my mother and I, too, have known my share of folly.’ His expression grew bleak and he stared beyond her into the shadows behind the sputtering rush dips. ‘The problem with burying the past is that you keep on stumbling over unquiet graves,’ he added softly.
Linnet wiped the ointment from her fingers on a piece of softened linen and then used the material to bandage his shoulder. Not graves but corpses, she thought as she used a cloak pin to hold the dressing in place. The living dead.
Her fingertips touched his as he held the fabric and she secured the pin. Their eyes met and hunger leaped in his. A maid entered the room with a pile of linen sheets over her arm and he dropped his gaze. Linnet withdrew and Joscelin lowered his hand to pick up his half-finished wine.
‘Do you remember your mother?’ she asked.
He gave a one-sided shrug. ‘Only in fragments. I was younger than Robert when she died. I know that she had long, dark hair and that she used to scent it with attar of roses.’ He looked beyond her. ‘I remember the ends of her braids hanging at my eye level when I stood at her side. She used to decorate them with ribbons and little jewelled fillets. Perhaps because she had lived such an uncertain life before she took up with my father, she was fond of frippery and fine clothes.’ He swirled the drink in the cup. ‘Truly, if I look into my childhood, my comfort wears the face of my aunt Maude. She had no children of her own, and since I had no mother, she decided that we could each fulfill the other’s need.’ He half-smiled. ‘The wonder is that I’m not as fat as a bacon pig and that I still have all my teeth the way she used to stuff me with sweetmeats!’ Then he added softly, ‘Maude’s care meant a great deal to me. It still does.’ His gaze had been idly following the linen maid’s progress towards the door but now it stopped and widened. Linnet had been about to say how much she liked Maude herself, but seeing the look on his face turned round instead.
A young woman had hesitated on the threshold of the room. The expensive dark-red wool of her gown encased a voluptuous figure that stopped just short of being plump. She had creamy skin and her glossy black hair was bound in two long braids. Her roving gaze lit upon Joscelin and she drew a deep breath that served to enhance her lush bosom. His eyes widened. Smiling, she ran her hands over her body as if to smooth her gown, although the motion was blatantly provocative. Then she undulated over to Joscelin and knelt at his feet.