Looking dazed, Ivo took Martin by the scruff and dragged him away, still kicking and shrieking. The guards stripped Joscelin of sword, dagger and purse. Then they manhandled him towards the keep, jabbing him roughly with their spear butts to make him move.
Linnet screamed his name and rode her mare at the guards but she was intercepted, the bridle was grasped, and she was pulled down off the horse. Agnes de Rocher seized her arm in a vicious grip. ‘You don’t want to go where he’s going, my dear,’ she hissed. ‘The oubliette’s no place for a lady of gentle breeding.’ Her voice oozed venom. ‘Come with me to the bower and learn from me how a sick man should truly be nursed.’ Her gaze gloated upon Ironheart.
Linnet struggled to wrench herself free but Agnes held fast. Hanged and then flayed. Burning nausea rose in Linnet’s throat. Straining away from Agnes, she was sick. Agnes did not for one second relent of her fierce grip, but her brown eyes roved quickly over Linnet’s figure and then narrowed.
‘You’re not really going to hang him tomorrow, are you?’ Ivo looked nervously at Ralf and ignored the steaming, skewered small birds on the trencher in front of him.
Shrugging, Ralf took a loaf from the dish that the squire had just placed in front of him. He sat in his father’s chair on the high dais, a white linen cloth covering the trestle. The best tableware had been set before him: silver-gilt goblets and expensive golden wine glowing through the incised rock crystal of a Byzantine flagon. He had exchanged his bloodstained tunic for one chequered in two shades of blue. The effect was not as opulent as the green but it still flaunted his rank and displayed to advantage his strong bone structure and thick, red-blond hair.
‘What else should I do with him?’ Ralf broke the bread and bit into the fragrant, soft interior.
‘He’s our brother, too.’
Ralf swallowed. His gaze narrowed. ‘Surely you’re not squeamish?’
Ivo grimaced. ‘I don’t like Joscelin,’ he said, taking one of the loaves, ‘but I don’t hate him like you do. It doesn’t matter who his mother was, he’s still of our blood.’
Ralf continued to eat. ‘I have never noticed yours being thicker than water before,’ he said.
‘You have never taken it this far before.’ Ivo crumbled the bread between his fingers and then blinked at the mess on his wooden trencher. ‘Papa heard everything you said in the bailey. I saw his face.’
Ralf’s expression darkened. He threw down his own bread and lifted a knife from the table to drag one of the small birds off the spit. Amber fat dripped on to the cloth. ‘I intended him to hear every word,’ he said. ‘Let him have his first taste of hell even before he gets there.’
Ivo drank his wine and wondered how long it would take to get drunk.
‘Of course,’ Ralf added softly, his voice still nasal from the dried blood clogging his nostrils, ‘if you don’t approve of what I do, you can always take to the tourney road and hold Joscelin’s memory sacred by selling your own sword - although God knows who would want to buy it! I warn you, if you’re not prepared to work in my interests then get out now.’
Ivo bit his lip. ‘And if I am prepared?’
‘You have always coveted our father’s manor house near Melton. You can have that and the hunting lodge and I’ll find you a rich young wife to go with it. But only for your obedience. I don’t want you running here and there in your usual weasel fashion, carrying tales and blowing hot and cold.’
Taking his cup, Ivo left the table and went to stand before the deep fire pit around which the eating trestles were grouped. Red heat simmered over him. The manor house had only been built six years ago and boasted a proper stone fireplace and a private room where the lord could withdraw to his pleasures, whatever they happened to be. The windows in the solar were fitted with real glass and the ceiling had a French design of gold knots upon a rich green background. Their father did not care for luxury but recognized that sometimes important guests had to be entertained and it was useful to have somewhere opulent to do so. A manor house was far less expensive to furbish than a castle.
Ivo swung round to find Ralf still watching him. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘You have my obedience.’ And at the back of his mind he saw the image of a man swinging from the castle battlements in the wind.
Ralf smiled. A moist white sliver of meat dangled between his forefinger and thumb. ‘And you will do me homage for what I give you before witnesses. Tomorrow, in the bailey.’
Suddenly the image of the hanging man came sharply into focus and Ivo saw with foreboding that it was his own body that dangled on the end of Ralf’s rope, suffused and choking.
‘Go and get the scribe,’ Ralf said, wiping his fingers on a napkin. ‘I’ve got messages to send.’
Chapter 34
In Maude’s chamber a single candle burned at the dying man’s bedside. The priest finished his ministrations and started to put away the vial of holy oil and Communion wafers in a small cedarwood pyx.
Linnet watched the proceedings from a low stool in the corner where she sat with Ella and Martin. Agnes lurked near the priest and Linnet fancied that she was like a demon, awaiting her moment to dart in and snatch Ironheart’s soul. This was her dark domain. The rooms belonging to Ironheart had been seized by Ralf to underline his authority, and so Agnes had insisted on nursing him here.
Nursing him! Standing over him smiling like a gargoyle, Linnet thought with a shudder. The nightmare, she knew, had only just begun and she couldn’t let it progress any further. Yet, trapped like this, how was she to prevent it?
The priest turned to leave, murmuring that now was the time for the grieving relatives to pay their last respects. Linnet rose from the stool and quietly apprehended the cleric as he approached the door.
‘Father, I beg you to intercede with Lord Ralf, make him see that what he is about to do is godless.’
The priest looked down at the hand she had laid upon his sleeve with ill-concealed distaste and she quickly removed it.
‘Daughter, what will be, will be, and I cannot change it,’ he replied. ‘Lord Ralf is not acting without just cause.’
Linnet wiped her hand on her gown, wishing now that she had not touched him. ‘Just cause!’ she choked. ‘You call murdering his own brother a just cause!’
‘Daughter, your loyalty commends you but it is misplaced. You must search your heart for the obedience to God’s will.’
‘To God’s will I am ever obedient, Father,’ she retorted. ‘But perhaps you should search your own heart, too, if you can find it beneath the fear for your purse.’
The priest drew himself up but, full of disgust, she faced him and refused to let his haughty stare beat her down. Finally, he turned on his heel and stalked out.
Linnet released her breath and her shoulders drooped. When she turned round, she discovered that Agnes de Rocher was watching her with a smile. ‘There is no way out,’ she said softly, and a cold ripple ran down Linnet’s spine. Thank Jesu that she had owned the foresight not to bring Robert to Arnsby. But if Joscelin was hanged, how long would her little boy be safe?
Ironheart groaned and Agnes’s head rotated to the sound. She hastened to the bedside and leaned over her grey-faced husband who was propped up on several goose-down bolsters. Everything about him was sunken, as if all his vital juices had been sucked out, leaving naught but a skeleton clad in skin. Against all adversity, a spark of life still glinted in the bruised eyes and it was directed not at his gloating wife but at Linnet and his youngest offspring. With a tremendous effort, his hand wavered up and he beckoned.