His words were like stones dropped in a pool. Ripples of silence expanded from them and drowned the men in shock. William’s face turned the colour of ashes.
‘Jesu!’ Conan muttered and, crossing himself, stared at the child.
‘Did she speak to you?’ Involuntarily, Joscelin looked towards the dark entrance of the tower stairs, then raised his head to study the long walk of the gallery and the double row of oak rails. Sunlight from the tall windows above the dais gilded the spear tips that impaled the family banners above the hearth. They stirred in the updraught from the flames. He could feel the erratic, hard thud of his own pulse against the pressure of the child’s body.
Robert shook his head. ‘No, but she smiled and walked down the stairs with me so I wouldn’t be frightened of the dark. She’s gone now.’
The men looked at one another, not daring to voice what their minds were shouting.
‘Probably one of the maids,’ Conan said, his heartiness too hollow for conviction. ‘Or perhaps the lad has overheard something and embroidered it with his imagination. ’ His gaze went as Joscelin’s had done to the dark tower mouth where they had found his sister unconscious, tangled in the folds of her green gown. He closed his eyes and did not open them again until he had turned to face William Ironheart. ‘You asked why I was here. I never did pay my respects at Morwenna’s tomb. You threw me out and said you would hang me like a common felon if I so much as set foot on Arnsby land. But that was a long time ago. We’re old men now. I want to make peace with the past before it is too late for all of us.’
‘There is no such thing as peace,’ William replied hoarsely, his own eyes riveted on the tower entrance.
Chapter 17
The chapel dedicated to Morwenna de Gael stood on the edge of the forest, close to the village of Arnsby but separated from it by the mill stream, which was crossed by means of a humpbacked stone bridge. In front of the chapel sheep cropped the grass, keeping it nibbled to a short turf dappled with daisies and pink clover.
Astride her mare, Linnet studied this shrine to Joscelin’s mother. The white Caen stone wore a golden reflection of the afternoon sun. Windows eyebrowed with intricate stone patterns viewed the world from dark irises of painted glass. A solid wooden door, handsomely decorated with barrings of wrought iron, was wedged open and a path of sunlight beckoned the eye over the threshold and into the nave. Beautiful and tranquil, she thought, so unlike the restless spirit that walked Arnsby’s corridors in the minds of its occupants.
She glanced at Robert, whom Joscelin was lowering from his saddle on to the turf. Joscelin had told her what her son had said. ‘He scared us half to death.’ He had looked wry. ‘Conan says it was probably one of the maids and we’re all clinging to that belief, but . . .’ Then he had shrugged and spread his hands. ‘It is strange all the same, very strange.’
Linnet watched Robert kneel in the grass and cup his hands around a ladybird. The sunlight made a nimbus of his hair and his face was open and bright with pleasure. Whatever he had seen or absorbed on that stair had done him no harm. Any darkness had settled on the adults long ago and was probably of their own making. She thought of Agnes de Rocher with mixed feelings of pity and revulsion.
Joscelin was waiting at her stirrup and he held up his arms to lift her down. ‘Why the frown?’ he queried.
Her brow cleared and she shook her head. ‘Nothing. I was thinking of your father’s wife, and there but for the grace of God . . .’ She descended into his arms, twisting slightly to avoid hurting his wounded shoulder.
‘She upset you, didn’t she?’ He set her on the ground but his hands remained lightly at her waist. She felt the pressure of his palms and fingers, and her loins softened. She was aware of the rise and fall of his chest and the brightness of his stare.
‘More than a little,’ she admitted breathlessly and tried to concentrate on what he had said rather than the effect of his closeness on her senses. ‘She told me you had deliberately come to Arnsby to remind your father that he still had a loyal son of full age and also to show me off as a trophy of your success.’
He smiled and tilted his head to one side. His hand drew light circles in the small of her back. ‘And is there anything wrong with either of those?’
‘It was the way she spoke of your motives, as if you had come to take what advantage you could.’
‘She doesn’t know how close to the truth she was,’ he said with obvious double meaning and lowered his head to kiss her.
It was heady and sweet, tender and strong. Linnet clutched him for support and felt him move back on his heels to keep his balance as she swayed against him. In that moment Robert thrust between them, eager to show off his ladybird. Joscelin staggered and released her. Linnet stumbled one pace after him then steadied herself. Robert stared up at the adults out of light, shining eyes.
‘Look, Mama!’ he cried, holding out the ladybird on the palm of his hand. The beetle opened its glossy red wing-cases and whirred into the air. ‘It’s gone!’ Robert dashed across the grass in pursuit.
Joscelin drew a slow, deep breath and clamped his hands around his belt, in unconscious imitation of his father. ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘being honourable is very hard. Yes, I’ve considered laying claim to Arnsby. If it weren’t for Martin, I might even have discarded my integrity to do it.’ He smiled with more pain than humour. ‘And if it weren’t so important to you that this three months of mourning be observed, I’d have laid claim to your bed weeks ago.’
Linnet could feel her spine dissolving in the look he was giving her. She was sorely tempted to say that the three months of mourning were far less important than they had been but she held back. He knew that Giles had not trusted her and she did not want to give Joscelin cause to wonder if Giles had been right. Let him see that she could resist temptation. And, on a level far deeper and fraught with guilt, she had to prove it to herself.
‘It is not that I am unwilling but I would rather make sure that I am not carrying Giles’s seed,’ she said. ‘And because it is the “honourable” thing to do by the dead. Besides, people must see that you are the justiciar’s true representative, not some adventurer who has snatched me from across my husband’s coffin and dragged me before the nearest priest.’
Joscelin sighed. ‘People will see what they want to see,’ he said. ‘They always do,’ but stood aside to let her walk up the path to the open chapel doorway.
She could feel his eyes burning upon her spine like a physical touch. Shivering, she forced herself neither to quicken her pace nor to look over her shoulder. She heard Robert cry to Joscelin that he had found another ladybird, and Joscelin’s distracted reply. And then the solid walls of the chapel interior cut off all sounds from outside and she was immersed in a tranquillity of pale stone arches rising in two tiers to a ceiling patterned with curves and lozenges of chiselled stone.
Linnet’s breathing slowed as she absorbed the atmosphere of clarity and peace. She paced solemnly up the small flagged nave to the altar and, kneeling, crossed herself and honoured God before she rose and approached the tomb of Morwenna de Gael.
Diamonds of colour from the windows painted Linnet’s shoulder and the drapes of stone clothing the plinth. She touched the smooth alabaster pleats of Morwenna’s robe. White, with a hint of translucence, Ironheart’s mistress lay in stone state above her mortal remains, her hands clasped in prayer. Tucked against her arm was the swaddled baby she had died bearing. Someone had recently crowned the folds of her veil with a chaplet of threaded marigolds and they cast an amber glow upon the smooth, white brow.