Shadows and Strongholds (61 page)

Puddles filled the ruts in the road and the sky was a chill grey, darkening over the Welsh hills. Hawise hunched into her cloak. She was cold, hungry and bone-tired, but knew that journey's end was not going to bring her succour. A dying man, an anguished husband, a cantankerous old lady. She had to face those hurdles whatever. Worrying about them would make no difference, unless it diminished her ability to cope.

Lights flickered through the gathering murk and it was with equal feelings of relief and dread that she rode into the village of Alberbury. There were few folk about. Having shut up her hens for the night, a woman was hastening back inside her cot, arms huddled beneath her mantle. A man was ushering two pigs up a rutted track towards the shelter at the side of his house and his wife watched him from the door as she whisked batter in a bowl with a bunch of twigs, two children peeping either side of her skirts. Hawise glanced and for a moment was wistful, wondering how it would be to change places with that woman. To have her man enter the house and bar the door against the weather and to sit cooking batter cakes over the fire with everyone safe, warm and within reach. She gave herself a mental shake. Doubtless the woman sometimes thought of how it would be to live as a fine lady with servants to do the cooking, a feather mattress to sleep upon and no worries about where the next meal was coming from or how the rent was to be paid.

They turned down the road to the castle and the curtain wall rose out of the dusk. The heavy wooden gates were barred and one of Hawise's escort had to bang heavily on them with the side of his fist.

'Open in the name of the lady Hawise FitzWarin!'

The sound of the draw bar grating out of its socket filled the rain-drenched air, followed by the squeak of hinges. 'We had not looked for you until the morrow, my lady,' the surprised guard apologised as he made haste to admit the bedraggled party.

'We rode hard,' Hawise answered curtly. 'Does Lord FitzWarin yet live?'

'Aye, my lady.'

She nodded and knew that she could have answered her own question, for the church bells were silent and, had he died, they would have been tolling a knell.

A second guard had gone running to announce their arrival. On the heels of the grooms and a lad bearing a torch, Brunin came striding through the deluge. The pale bandage on his right hand stood out in the gloom and, when he reached her, she saw from his blank expression that things were bad indeed.

For a moment they embraced in the cold strike of the rain. Then, without speaking, he took her hand in his good one and brought her into the keep. A fire was burning in the central hearth and a cauldron of pottage simmered gently over the flames. A neatly dressed young woman was tending the mixture and keeping an eye on a griddle laden with flat cakes.

'I came as swiftly as I could ride.' Hawise extended her hands to the warmth of the fire and felt the first thawing sting in her fingertips. She had not realised how chilled she was.

He gave an empty smile. 'It seemed for ever. I have been counting the moments since the messenger rode out… You cannot know…' He clamped his jaw and turned his gaze towards the flames.

'But I do,' she said softly and wrapped her arm around his. He sighed and she felt some of the rigidity leave his body.

'The priest is with my father now,' he said. 'I've sent messengers out to my brothers other than Ralf and Richard, but I doubt they will be in time. He breathed in powdered lime at Ludlow. It would greatly harm a man sound of wind, and to one in my father's condition…' He shook his head. 'The wonder is that he has lasted this long.'

She looked anxiously at his hand. 'You took hurts yourself.'

'Nothing that will not mend,' he said impatiently. There was another brief silence while he flexed his fingers within the bandages. 'My grandmother has retired to the women's chambers,' he said. 'I sent someone to tell her that you'd arrived, but I do not know if she will come down, or wait for you to go to her.'

Hawise glanced involuntarily towards the stairs and hoped that she was not going to see Lady Mellette descending them. 'She would have been here by now had she chosen to greet me,' she replied, and I am sure she can wait a few moments while I talk with my husband and warm myself It came to her that they stood on the cusp of change. Brunin was about to become lord of Alberbury and all the other FitzWarin lands. She would be their lady, and she was no Eve FitzWarin to bow her head and do Mellette's bidding, meek as a sheep. Brunin's grandmother must know that her power was waning… and perhaps fear it too. But would she make a light of it, relinquish grudgingly, or just let go? And how would Brunin deal with her when she had been the cause of so much wretchedness in his life?

'My lady, would you like some pottage?' The young woman who had been tending the cooking pot brought Hawise a deep wooden bowl filled with the hot soup and a spoon with which to eat it. Her accent bore the strong lilt of Wales. She had green eyes flecked with glints of reddish brown and strong auburn brows. 'It's leek and barley, my nain's recipe.'

Hawise thanked her with a smile and wondered who she was. Not a servant to speak so familiarly, but not of Hawise's own rank to be stirring a cooking pot in the main room. There were two silver rings on her wedding finger and the brooch at the throat of her gown was silver too and set with amber and garnets.

'I have not seen you at Alberbury before,' Hawise said diplomatically.

The girl blushed and looked quickly at Brunin, and then over her shoulder as if expecting to be rescued. 'I am but recently arrived, my lady. My name is Sian ferch Madoc and I am… I am…'

'And she is hoping that you will find a place for her amongst your women,' Brunin interrupted. 'I should have introduced you, but as you can tell my mind is so full that some details have gone wandering. You should know that she is under Ralf's protection… and that she is welcome.'

Sian was blushing harder now. A mistress then, Hawise thought, and wondered how that sat with Lady Mellette. Perhaps that was another reason why the elderly lady was not in the hall. But then William the Conqueror had been the product of a liaison between the Duke of Normandy and a girl from the town's merchant quarter and Earl Robert of Gloucester had come from similar circumstances too.

'If she makes pottage like this, she is more than welcome,' Hawise said with a smile.

'I knew you would see it in those terms,' Brunin said, and she saw the gratitude and relief in his eyes… and also in Sian's. Hawise realised how much power she did indeed have the potential to wield. A smile or a frown, agreement or disapproval was all it took to alter lives and atmospheres.

In the dark hour before dawn, Brunin's father died, bequeathing to his eldest son the FitzWarin lands and the fight to regain Whittington.

Brunin crossed himself and stood by the bedside, illuminated in the flicker of a dozen beeswax candles.

Their faint honey scent was mingled with the tainted deathbed aroma of struggle and sweat, and with the colder, sharper scent of the rain-drenched night where one of the superstitious maids had opened a window to let the dead man's soul depart instead of lingering with the body. The sound of the priest's soft chanting filled the room, no longer a counterpoint to the harsh rattle from the man on the bed, but a single purity.

Brunin felt unutterably tired. It was as if all the burdens had passed to him like a black cloak, pocketed with stones. Hawise stood quietly beside him, her head bowed over her clasped hands. At his other side Ralf and Richard shuffled their feet, their fair heads gleaming in the candlelight. His grandmother stood at the head of the bed, her body and features carved in stone.

Brunin cleared his throat. 'Let the women wash and prepare my father for chapel, and then we will keep vigil. When that is done, I will take the oaths of my vassals and see that news is sent to the King.'

One by one the mourners and witnesses left the room until there remained only Brunin and Hawise and his grandmother. Brunin knew he should leave too, but his feet refused to move. While he stood here, he could almost imagine that his father was only sleeping, that he would open his eyes and mutter something querulous about the nagging of a 'fool boy'. While he stood here, he did not have to deal with everything that awaited him.

Mellette turned to him. 'Why do you linger?' she said, as if she could reach inside him and see all the seething doubts. 'The dead don't arise until judgement day'

For a moment he was a small child again, caught in transgression and fixed by her knife-edge stare. Even here, even now, she had the ability and the desire to wound. He drew himself up, shouldering the cloak and its weighted burden. 'Perhaps the dead are more fortunate than we know,' he said and went from the room.

With set jaw and clenched fists, Mellette watched him leave.

Hawise narrowed her eyes. With quiet authority she directed the women to heating water for washing, to lighting more candles, to finding herbs and oils. She poured wine and brought it to Mellette. 'My lady, you must bend before you shatter and destroy everyone else into the bargain,' she said.

'What do you know?' Mellette snapped.

' I hat our lives would be easier if you could find it within you to show some gentleness towards the living—no matter our unworthiness.'

Mellette opened her mouth.

Hawise gave her the goblet. 'I am now lady of Alberbury' she said firmly. 'Brunin's wife. To whom do you think he will listen? What do you think he will do with you?'

'You are insolent!'

'No, my lady, I am practical.' Facing Mellette, Hawise was acutely aware of the flickering candles in the niches round the bed, of the women making preparations for the tending of the dead man, of the body itself, still warm and malleable. Her heart was pounding, her mouth was dry, but she stood her ground. 'I will have no battlefields in this house. You have a right to respect, my lady, but so do I, and so does my husband.'

Mellette gave her a scornful stare. 'Respect does not come of right. It has to be earned.'

'So it does, my lady.' Hawise inclined her head to Mellette and turned to the task in hand.

The old woman frowned and for a long moment remained where she was, standing like a lone tree when all the forest around it had been chopped down. Then she rallied. A shudder rippled through her body and she uprooted herself to go and join the women by the bed. Hawise quietly yielded her the senior place, for Mellette was FitzWarin's mother and she had the right.

Brunin set his foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle. The rain had stopped but the ground underfoot was boggy and the air was as misty as witch's breath.

'Have a care,' Hawise said as she handed him his shield. 'I have knelt in too many vigils of late.'

Brunin threaded his arm through the handholds. His shoulder twinged, but the ache was not too bad. His sword hand was protected by a hawking gauntlet stitched with mail rivets. 'So have I,' he said, and almost managed a smile. 'I hope to be summoning you to good news within a few days.'

'I hope so too.' She forced a smile in return. She would not send him back to her father with tears and wailing. There had been enough sorrow to fill a cauldron already. FitzWarin had been laid to rest in Alberbury's church beside his wife; the funeral had been a muted affair. Brunin had taken oaths of fealty from those vassals close enough to attend the burial. Those left at Ludlow would give their allegiance when he arrived back at Joscelin's camp. The rest had been summoned to ride from their villages and manors to give their oaths at the Christmas feast.

Beside Hawise, a wan-faced Sian watched Ralf swing to horse. Mellette stood with her head up and her shoulders back. There was no sign of the walking stick that she used around the castle's rooms. Hawise wondered at the terrible burden of the old woman's pride: how much it had cost and was still costing her and those who had to live with her.

Brunin patted Jester's neck and stared without speaking at Ludlow. The gates had gone, except for some charred remnants, and the timbers of much of the gatehouse tower had burned too. That particular damage must have been sustained during his absence. Most of the bailey buildings were blackened ruins and the timberwork on the middle tower of the inner bailey was scorched. Joscelin had a grip on the superficial structures, but the heart of Ludlow remained in de Lacy's keeping. So much loss for so little gain.

'Has there been word from King Henry?' Brunin asked at length.

Joscelin looked gloomy. 'Not yet, but then he has larger fish to fry than this. I sent a second messenger yesterday morning, but whether he will have more luck than the first…' He let the words trail away, then sighed. 'I've faced more difficult challenges and if de Lacy can wait fifty years to take his chance, then what is a couple of months?' He laid his hand on Brunin's shoulder in a gesture that sought reassurance as much as giving it.

'Nothing,' Brunin said with a smile that did not reach his eyes. 'A couple of months is nothing.'

They were setting up one of the trebuchets to hurl stones and rubble from the ruined gatehouse tower when one of their scouts came galloping amongst them. 'Banners, sir!' he cried. 'There are men on the Wigmore road!'

'Whose?' Joscelin ceased leaning against one of the support struts, his brow creased with anxiety.

Brunin ducked under the trebuchet arm and stood at Joscelin's side. 'Surely not Mortimer.'

'No, sir, not that I could tell. Welshmen I'd say… at least fifty, and well armed. About half a mile's distance.'

'Flag of truce?' Joscelin demanded, not wasting words.

'No, sir.'

'Then we assume they're not riding to assist us.' Joscelin began barking orders.

'Could be the King's men,' Brunin said as he strode with Joscelin towards the horse lines.

'The King's men would come under a banner of leopards, and my scout wouldn't mistake them for Welsh,' Joscelin said grimly. 'I suspect that word has got out and, as always, the kites are circling to see what they can plunder.'

Within the heart of Ludlow, a horn sounded. Joscelin and Brunin listened to the notes, looked at each other and, cursing, began to run. Whoever was advancing on Ludlow, the defenders viewed them as allies.