‘You need not worry about that. I’ll see to it that you’re not destitute.’ Joscelin tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. Their concerns were obviously vital of this moment to them. ‘How many soldiers did you see?’
‘I don’t know, only got a couple o’ glimpses.’ She counted laboriously on her fingers. ‘’Bout a score, I suppose, but only half of them had horses. They took the seneschal’s destrier and madam’s palfrey. They’d have had our old cob, too, if Rob and Will hadn’t taken him this morning.’ She surveyed the burning building dismally. ‘We’d heard rumours o’ trouble, but we thought it was all ale-talk. King Henry won’t stand for no nonsense from his sons, we said.’ Her chin wobbled and she compressed her lips and glared at Joscelin.
‘I am responsible for the king’s justice on these lands,’ Joscelin replied. ‘If there are bands of routiers at large of whatever faction, I will deal with them and swiftly.’
‘Yes, my lord.’ She looked sceptical. And then her eyes widened and focused on a point beyond Joscelin. The younger woman shrieked and fell to her knees.
Turning in the saddle, Joscelin saw a motley assortment of horsemen and foot soldiers advancing towards them from the direction of the woods. The leading horse was the seneschal’s handsome piebald stallion and the warrior astride it had the raddled face of a fallen angel. A scar running from left mouth corner to mutilated left ear tilted and creased his grin, transforming it into a leer as he drew rein before Joscelin.
‘Greetings, nephew,’ said Conan de Gael, performing a mocking salute with the hilt of his drawn sword.
‘We heard in Nottingham that the Rushcliffe lands were yours.’ Conan shook his head, the grin still in place, and reclined on one elbow in the grass. ‘Lucky bastard - no offence intended.’
Joscelin was not deceived by his uncle’s air of relaxed affability. The hazel-green eyes were as hard as stones, and although Conan had removed his sword in token of goodwill he would still have a knife in his boot and another up his sleeve. ‘I could be forgiven for disbelieving you,’ he replied, nodding at the smoke still puthering from the longhouse. An ox that had been slaughtered in the earlier mayhem had been carved into chunks and was now roasting over a purpose-built fire pit. The two peasant women had retired to a distance but Joscelin could feel their hatred boring into his spine, together with their belief that he was a worse devil than the two previous lords of Rushcliffe put together.
‘Ah, come now, Josce, that wasn’t my fault.’
‘Wasn’t it?’
Conan drew his meat dagger from his belt and went to the fire pit to test a lump of meat to see if it was cooked. The women glared at him. Conan saluted them, the tip of his knife holding a sizzling, bloody chunk of their plough ox. ‘We bumped into your seneschal and his family on the road. Course, I didn’t know he was yours then and a man has to have the money to eat and clothe himself - you know that. If a fatted calf walks up to you dripping in wealth, it’s just begging to be sacrificed. It was obvious he was on the run with his ill-gotten gains.’ The mercenary tore a shred of meat off the edge of the beef portion and chewed vigorously. ‘The women ran like headless chickens into the longhouse and barred the door against us. One of them must have caught her gown in the hearth because, next thing we knew, the place was on fire and the flames too fierce for any of us to get near enough to rescue anyone.’
Joscelin eyed Conan narrowly. ‘I saw my seneschal’s body,’ he said. ‘In the old days you’d not have mutilated the dead.’
Conan spat out a knurl of gristle. ‘That was Godred’s work.’ He jabbed his head in the direction of a young soldier sitting close to the fire pit, moodily prodding the glowing embers with a stick. ‘He’s not fond of Normans at the best of times and the way we were treated in Nottingham was bound to have repercussions.’
‘What were you doing in Nottingham in the first place? I thought you were in Normandy.’
‘We sailed just before Pentecost. Trouble was brewing and men of our trade have to sell our swords where we can - unless we land ourselves an heiress.’ He flashed Joscelin a mocking glance. ‘We took employment with Robert Ferrers, Earl of Derby and Lord of Nottingham.’ He spat another piece of gristle into the grass. ‘Ever worked for him, Josce?’
‘No. He might have several fiefs in Nottingham but the castle itself belongs to the Crown. My employer has always been the king.’
Brien, who had been looking at Conan from the corner of his eye as if he did not quite believe in his existence, said, ‘I have heard that Ferrers is a haphazard paymaster.’
‘Haphazard? Hah! If we saw four shillings a week between us, we were fortunate. When I tackled him about it he threw us out, said that he could get Flemings for half as much as he was paying us and that we were lucky he hadn’t slung us in his dungeon for presumption. Arrogant, soft-cocked wind-bladder! He’s lucky I didn’t slit his throat to silence him.’ Conan wiped his bloody knife-blade on the grass.
‘Instead you slit my seneschal’s,’ Joscelin said frostily.
‘You didn’t want him, did you? You ought to be grateful.’
Joscelin made a disgusted sound and shook his head.
‘Did Ferrers hire you for any particular purpose?’ Brien asked.
‘No, just building up his troops in the area. When we were in Nottingham, we were billeted in some ramshackle houses of his near a stinking marsh with tanneries right next door. I’ve shat in better cesspits.’
‘But he said he was going to replace you with Flemings?’
‘Flemings, Brabanters, whoever he could get the cheapest,’ Conan said with a shrug. ‘Of course, like us, they’ll have to cross the Narrow Sea. Be quite an invasion, eh? If you ask me, they’ll come piecemeal, rounded up by those rebellious earls of yours and sent over here with promises of riches beyond their greediest imaginings. Most of ’em won’t be professional soldiers - jobless weavers and dyers for the most part. Won’t know the business end of a sword from the holes in their arses.’
‘But you are not part of the vanguard?’ queried Brien, persisting like a dog with a bone.
Conan half-closed his eyes. ‘You want to know a mortal great deal, my lord.’
‘Brien works for the justiciar,’ Joscelin explained and was amused by the look of consternation that briefly flickered in Conan’s eyes. ‘It is his duty to discover as much as he can about the doings of the rebellious barons.’
‘Well, don’t look to me,’ Conan growled. ‘I can tell you more about the latrine habits of Nottingham tanners than I can about the doings of Robert Ferrers. All he said was that he was going to replace us with Flemings, and we’re not part of anyone’s vanguard, although there’s hiring aplenty going on across the Narrow Sea.’
Joscelin regarded Conan with a mixture of exasperation and curiosity. ‘Well, what are you really doing in England when Normandy is your true field?’
Conan sucked his teeth and eased a fingernail between the front two to loosen a tag of meat. ‘I’m not getting any younger - eight and forty next Christmastide, although I know I don’t look it,’ he added with a sour grin. ‘One day, experience won’t be enough to save me from some youngster’s sword and I’ll be glad to die. But before that happens, I’ve to attend to some personal family business.’ He looked pointedly at Brien, who was swift to take a hint by rising to his feet to go and cut himself a portion of ox.