‘Ho!’ cried one of the soldiers. ‘You there, have you seen a noble running this way? Tall, wearing a dark-red cloak?’
Joscelin shook his head and mumbled a reply in the rustic Anglo-Dane of the countryside. At the same time, he gestured with his arm so that the dreadful stench of his garments wafted towards the men. Neither of them, he hazarded, would want to move in as close as it would take to kill him.
‘Ah God, he stinks as if he’s been dead a week!’ declared the other soldier. ‘Can you tell what he’s saying?’
His companion shook his head, equally baffled. ‘His accent’s too heavy. Come on, we’re wasting our time. Let’s search round the other side.’
Cold sweat clasping his body, Joscelin watched them walk rapidly away. He breathed out hard, then in again. The smell from his garments was not as bad now that he had grown accustomed and it had quite probably saved his life. Turning, he cut his way across the marketplace and up towards the town gate near Derby Road. The looted houses of Long Row bordered the marketplace with a ragged line of fire. As he hurried up the muddy thoroughfare, Joscelin hoped desperately that his father’s houses were close enough to Derby’s not to have been torched.
From a dark alleyway, a band of hurrying soldiers emerged like wine running from an open flask. They spilled over Joscelin before he could avoid them and then they drew back, exclaiming at the stench of him.
Joscelin’s hand relaxed on the grip of his dagger. ‘Where in God’s name have you been!’ he roared at Conan.
His uncle set his hands on his hips and stared Joscelin up and down. ‘I might ask the same of you.’ His scarred lip curved lopsidedly towards his left nostril. ‘Christ’s buttocks, but you stink worse than a three-week-old battlefield! ’
‘I had to exchange clothes with a tanner’s corpse to keep myself from being skewered by two routiers,’ Joscelin said shortly. ‘I thought you’d be in the Weekday.’
‘And so we would, except that Godred’s uncle has an alehouse on Cherry Tree Lane. We were paying our respects there when a brawl of Derby men came by and started causing trouble. We got rid of them soon enough, then realized it was more serious than our little disagreement. We’re on our way back to your father even now.’
‘There’s no time to waste.’ Joscelin began hurrying up the hill again. ‘I don’t think Derby’s men will harm Linnet and Robert - they’re too valuable - but I don’t want them taken into his care.’
‘Surely your father’s knights will protect the place?’ Conan trotted beside him, his nose still wrinkled in response to the stench of Joscelin’s garments.
‘My father had business with a wool factor up Organ Lane and he gave most of his men leave to go round the town, the same as I gave leave to you,’ Joscelin answered. ‘As far as I’m aware, only the servants are there.’
They arrived at Ironheart’s three houses to find them standing ominously silent and tranquil. A cookshop across the road was on fire but otherwise this quarter of the town had seen less damage. But it was still obvious that all was not well. The front door of the first house hung drunkenly on one hinge and on the floor in the passage were the plundered bodies of Ironheart’s squire and Gytha’s husband, Jonas. The rooms were all empty. Everything of value had been stripped and no one answered Joscelin’s shout. He strode into the yard. Gytha’s laundry tub lay overturned, a mess of torn, crumpled linens, spilling across the ground. Ears flat to its small skull, Gytha’s kitten hissed and spat at him from beneath a wooden trestle. A bowl of water containing some strips of softened rawhide stood on the bench beside some of his father’s weapon-mending tools. His father’s red and gold shield lay on the ground, a great split running from a damaged section of rawhide right through to the centre boss. There were blood smears on the ground.
He picked up a pair of blacksmith’s pincers and squeezed the grip until the pressure brought pain. He could not be too late. It was impossible; he would not allow it to happen.
And then he heard the sound of shouting from the gardens backing on to the other side of the narrow alley and a woman’s scream.
Dropping the pincers, he grabbed his father’s shield by the short hand-straps and began to run.
Chapter 30
As soon as Linnet had retired to the sleeping loft on the second floor of the house, Ironheart fetched his tools and his shield and brought them outside to the bench by the yard wall.
Bracing the shield against his leg, he took up a pair of blacksmith’s pincers and began to pull out the tacks that held the shield’s rawhide rim in position. A section near the top was damaged and needed replacing. It was something he had meant to do in the winter but had kept putting off. Now the truces had all come to an end and there was no time left.
Robert ceased playing with the kitten and ambled across the yard to watch Ironheart at work.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m going . . . ,’ said Ironheart between grunts of effort as he pulled the tacks out of the wood, ‘to replace . . . this damaged section at the top . . . with a new piece of rawhide. See?’ He pointed with a calloused forefinger. ‘That’s the mark of a Scottish short sword. Nearly got me, the whoreson.’
Robert nodded, grey eyes large and impressed. ‘Can I help?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ Ironheart said gruffly. ‘You see that jar over there? Bring it here, will you? I’ve had a piece of rawhide soaking in it overnight, so it should be soft enough to cut and nail by now.’ He watched Robert carefully lift the yellow glazed jar and bring it to him, a look of intense concentration on his small face. A pang went through the old man, so warm and sweet that it made a mockery of the barriers he had erected against the world a quarter-century ago. Thus had Jocelin learned the art of caring for his weapons, a small child against Ironheart’s knee. Those had been the springtime years. Now, in the cold approach to winter, he could smell the spring again and wanted to weep because he had missed the summertime completely and was aware of the last leaves of autumn drifting from the tree.
‘Now what do we do?’ asked Robert, bringing him firmly back to earth.
‘Take the hide out of the jar and squeeze it as hard as you can.’
‘Like this?’ Robert screwed up his face in disgust as the wet rawhide bulged between his fingers. ‘It’s all slimy and it stinks!’
A chuckle rumbled up from the depths of Ironheart’s chest. ‘You can’t nail it on when it’s hard,’ he said and looked at the child’s tendons standing out on the bony wrist. There was nothing on him - he was like a skinned coney - but there was a powerful underlying tenacity. Still chuckling, Ironheart rummaged among his tools and discovered that his shears were missing.
‘Leave that now. You’ve squeezed out most of the water. Go inside to Gytha and ask her for a pair of shears.’
Robert scampered off. Picking up the crumpled piece of rawhide, Ironheart gave it a final wringing with his own powerful, scarred hands. Gytha’s shriek and Robert’s even louder scream brought him abruptly to his feet.
The little boy shot out into the backyard, the shears clutched in his hands, his eyes huge with terror. Gytha raced after him, followed by Ella, stumbling on her skirts. ‘Soldiers, sire!’ she gasped. ‘Soldiers with swords coming this way from Ferrers’ house! They mean mischief, I know they do!’
‘What’s happening?’ asked Linnet in bewilderment. She stood at the foot of the loft stairs, her face flushed with sleep and her lustrous golden-brown braids bared.
Ironheart opened his mouth, but before he could speak the front entrance of the house was darkened by three men clad in the leather armour of regular troops. Two brandished long knives, the other wielded a hand axe.