The men were drifting from the comfort of the fire and their now-empty bowls. Joscelin was aware of time trickling all too rapidly through his hands. So much to say and the words all stuck in limbo.
‘I’ve still got a knife in my boot,’ he smiled, ‘and Conan riding at my left shoulder.’ Reaching out, he touched her face. ‘In another week, the three months of your mourning will be over. When I come home, we’ll hold a wedding celebration. Take some silver and make yourself a fine gown.’
She bit her lip and suddenly looked both guilty and afraid.
‘Linnet?’
Her colour rose. She met his eyes and then looked quickly away. ‘I already have some silver - thirty marks, to be precise.’
‘What?’ He had been about to set his arm around her waist but stopped in mid-motion. ‘Where from?’
She drew a deep breath. ‘The strongbox. No, wait, hear me out. I took the money in London between the time when Giles died and Richard de Luci gave you custody of the coin. When you and he counted it, I had already removed the money. I did not know what was to become of myself and Robert. It was his inheritance and I wanted to secure some of it at least.’
Joscelin did not know whether to laugh or rail. Certainly he was unsettled.
‘Why tell me?’ he asked warily. ‘You could have said nothing and I would never have suspected a thing.’
‘I know you enough to trust you now.’ She looked up at him through her lashes. ‘You would not do anything to diminish Robert’s inheritance.’
Joscelin laughed inside himself with admiration at the way she had disarmed him. Her timing was superb. He had no opportunity for indignation and by the time he returned the matter would be half-forgotten, its cutting edge blunted. ‘I don’t think I would dare,’ he said wryly.
‘Then you are not angry?’
‘I didn’t say that.’ He drew her into his arms and kissed her long and thoroughly.
Behind them, Conan cleared his throat. ‘Do you want me to instruct the men to bide awhile while you finish your breakfast?’
Joscelin lifted his head and looked round at his grinning uncle. ‘No, tell them to mount up. I’m coming now.’ He kissed Linnet again, as hard as the rain that was sweeping down outside.
‘God keep you safe, my lord,’ she gasped as he released her. Her eyes were very bright, holding the suspicion of unshed tears.
It was the first time she had ever afforded him that title and it was not yet his right. Perhaps it was a placebo aimed at smoothing his ruffled feathers but he did not think so. Her response to his kiss had been too spontaneous. ‘If ever there was a reason to hasten home in one piece, I’m looking at it now,’ he said before he swept on his cloak and headed towards the door.
Chapter 19
‘Christ’s nails,’ Ironheart wheezed before his voice was robbed from him by the innocuous-looking clear liquid in his cup. ‘What is this stuff ?’
‘Don’t tell me you’ve never sampled usquebaugh before!’ scoffed Conan, sloshing a liberal amount into his own drinking horn and passing the flask to Joscelin. It was part of the meager spoils bludgeoned from a party of Galwegians earlier in the day as the Scots retreated over the Tees, pursued by de Luci’s hastily mustered army.
Ironheart rubbed his throat. ‘God, it’s barbaric!’
Conan laughed. ‘Give it time, my lord. Their usquebaugh’s like their women - rough at first, but soon your blood’s so hot that you don’t notice.’
‘That depends where you keep your brains.’
‘Same place as yours.’ Conan straddled a camp stool. ‘I saw you eyeing up that laundry wench when we were setting up camp.’
Ironheart made a disparaging sound and took another tentative sip of the fiery pale-yellow brew. This time his throat did not burn quite so much. A warm glow was spreading from his stomach into his veins, comforting him against the evening chill. Autumn came earlier in the north. Up here on the Scots border, the leaves and bracken were already burnished gold. He stared into the heart of the fire until the heat made him blink and acknowledged that he was becoming too old to go on campaign. His body ached with the effort of keeping pace with younger men and his mood was tetchy. Knowing his limitations did not make accepting them any easier. Perhaps he ought to spread the laundry wench on his cloak and comfort himself with her softness, except that he had an aversion to the women of the camp, an aversion rooted in deep fear. He raised his cup to his lips, took a full swallow this time and told Joscelin to pass the flask.
His son darted a look at Conan but handed it over without comment.
‘What’s wrong, don’t you believe I can handle my drink?’ Ironheart snapped. ‘Good God, the night you were whelped, Conan’ll tell you I drank him under the trestle and walked away damned near sober.’
‘Usquebaugh is not wine, sir. You’d not be able to stand up if you drank that flask to the dregs.’
Ironheart was tempted to prove the opposite but resisted. Joscelin had spoken with the conviction of experience. ‘Where did you learn that, as if I didn’t know?’ He scowled at Conan.
Joscelin’s eyelids tensed. ‘In a disease-ridden camp on the road to Falaise,’ he said. ‘It bought me oblivion for a time.’ Rising to his feet, he left the fire and went to check their horses. Ironheart watched him pause at a captured Galloway pony tethered beside the packhorses and destriers. It was a young but sweet-natured mare with a fox-chestnut hide and silver mane and tail. Ironheart knew that Joscelin intended her as a mount for Robert de Montsorrel, knew everything and more than he wanted to know about the woman and child because Joscelin talked of little else - a besotted fool. The usquebaugh burned in Ironheart’s stomach like a hot stone - or perhaps it was bitter envy mixed with the corrosive lees of memory.
Sparks hoisted their way into the darkness on ropes of smoke. A soldier softly played the mournful tune of ‘Bird on a Briar’ on his bone flute. Conan took out his needle and thread and began mending a tear in his hose. Nearby, two soldiers played dice, gambling for quarter pennies. Joscelin returned to the fire, threw on a couple more branches, and sat down.
William drank, then raised one wavering forefinger at his son. ‘It was on a night like this that I met your mother. Has Conan ever told you the tale?’
‘You’re drunk,’ Conan said with a perturbed look in his eyes. ‘Whatever you say now, you’ll regret it in the morning.’
Ironheart answered the question himself. ‘No, he hasn’t.’ His lip curled. ‘But I wouldn’t expect him to boast his part abroad.’
‘So help me God, William, I’ve made my peace with you and her. I’ll not have you drag it out of the tomb again because you cannot hold your drink!’ Conan said sharply.
Ironheart hunched his shoulders and, ignoring Conan, faced Joscelin. ‘I was sitting at a fire like this one, drinking some poison from Normandy that dared to call itself wine and eating bread with weevils in it, when a young Breton mercenary approached me and begged for employment. Begged,’ he emphasized with a fierce look across the flames.
Conan sat very still. A groove of muscle tightened in the hollow of his cheek.
‘Sir, if you want to speak about this, do it tomorrow when you’re sober,’ Joscelin said.
Ironheart looked down at the restraining hand Joscelin had laid on his sleeve. ‘I won’t want to talk when I’m sober. No, you sit here and listen; it’s time that you knew.’ He shook Joscelin off and raised his cup in toast to Conan. ‘As it happened, I needed men and decided that if he was useful with a sword, I would hire him. In the meantime, soft fool that I was in those days, I let him sit at my fire and share my supper. Imagine that. I might as well have invited a wolf to dinner!’