Open-mouthed, Hubert de Beaumont stared. Ivo brushed wine from his tunic with the palm of one hand and shifted his position the better to watch the brawl, his complexion flushed with glee.
Ralf came uppermost, his hand flashing to his dagger-hilt. Nine inches of greased steel sparkled free. Joscelin brought up his knee and kicked hard, hurling Ralf back towards the fire pit. Ralf sprawled his head, almost striking a hearthstone, but he recovered swiftly, regained his feet and attacked. Joscelin wove under the slashing assault and again thrust Ralf backward. His own hand streaked to his dagger, closed on the leather grip, then stopped, holding hard, for Ralf lay where he had landed and a soldier was crushing a booted foot down upon Ralf ’s wrist.
Joscelin recognized Brien FitzRenard of Ravenstow, one of de Luci’s retainers - a knight skilled in both reconnaisance and diplomacy. He was tall and powerfully built with exquisitely barbered blond hair and shrewd grey eyes surrounded by fine weather-lines.
‘Enough,’ FitzRenard said and stooped to remove the offending weapon from Ralf ’s hand. He looked at Joscelin, his gaze irritated, but not unfriendly. ‘Best if you leave now before anything uglier develops.’ His voice, like his movements, was measured without being in the least slow.
Joscelin glanced round the room. A low hum of conversation had started again. He was aware of being scrutinized with a mixture of hostility, contempt and curiosity. On the dais, Leicester’s expression was one of cold anger. Giles had succumbed to the wine, his head flat on the board, his mop of fair hair trailing its edges in the finger bowl.
FitzRenard lifted his boot and permitted Ralf to regain his feet but displayed no inclination to return the dagger. Ralf was breathing heavily. His expensive tunic was ruined by the wine stain and stubbled with bits of floor straw.
‘One day I’ll kill you, I swear it!’ Ralf gasped at Joscelin. He was white and shaking with rage.
‘Then I’ll make sure to guard my back,’ Joscelin retorted. ‘It’s the only direction from which I fear your attack.’ Wiping a thin trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, he stormed out into the humid summer evening. His breath came unevenly and tears of fury and humiliation stung his eyes. He was aware of having failed himself, of not wanting to care and of caring too damned much.
Chapter 5
The mouse sat on its haunches, industriously manipulating an ear of grain in its forepaws, sharp teeth nibbling through the husk to reach the sweet, starchy kernel. Sunlight wove through the crack in the stable door, patterning the straw, splashing up the wattle-and-daub walls and gilding the hide of a dozing liver-chestnut stallion.
Joscelin watched the busy rodent with the myopic gaze of the newly awakened. His head was throbbing and his mouth was dry and tasted of kennel sweepings - payment for last night’s sins of which, after the fight with Ralf, he remembered very little - nor wished to.
A blur of rust and gold suddenly shot past the tip of his nose and pounced in a flurry of straw. Startled, Joscelin jerked upright, heart thrusting vigorously against his ribs. The tabby stable cat regarded him, a mixture of wariness and disdain in its agate-green eyes, a mouse dangling from its jaws like a moustache. Then, keeping him in view, it slunk across the stable and undulated through the narrowly open door into the courtyard.
Joscelin exhaled with a soft groan and put his head down between his parted knees. Outside he could hear the sounds of his father’s house coming to life in the bright summer morning - two maids gossiping at the trough, the cheeky wolf-whistle of a soldier and the good-natured riposte. Hens crooned and scratched in the dust. Feet scuffled immediately outside the stable door, voices consulted in low tones, one adolescent, the other mature.
‘I have to tend the horses, sir, but he’s still asleep in there.’
‘Not surprising, the state he returned in last night,’ commented the older voice. ‘All right, go and break your fast. I’ll see if I can rouse him up.’
‘No need,’ Joscelin pushed open the stable door to the full light of morning and squinted blearily at the groom and his wide-eyed lad. He raked his hand through his rumpled hair and plucked out a stalk of straw. ‘I would have made my way to bed in the hall but the stables were closer and I wasn’t sure my feet would carry me the extra distance.’
A grin widened the groom’s weather-brown face. ‘You were a trifle unsteady, Messire Joscelin,’ he agreed.
‘I was gilded to the eyeballs,’ Joscelin replied, ‘and I’ve a head to prove it this morning.’
The apprentice sidled away to get his food before the groom had a chance to press him to his duty now that there was no longer an obstacle.
Joscelin loosened the drawstring of his braies and relieved himself in the waste channel that ran the length of the stable block.
‘Messire Ralf didn’t come home at all,’ the groom volunteered and, picking up the dung fork, looked round in exasperation for his lad. ‘Your lord father’s not best pleased.’
Joscelin adjusted his garments and went to wash his hands and face in the rain butt against the gutter pipe. His cut lip stung and his ribs ached. His lord father was going to be even less pleased when he heard about the fight. Perhaps he already knew; Ivo excelled at carrying tales.
‘What about Ivo?’
‘Sick as a dog,’ said the groom with a gleam of satisfaction.
Joscelin’s lips twitched. It might be possible to avoid the reckoning until he was fit to cope with it, after all.
‘Joscelin!’ A freckle-faced boy came sprinting across the yard and launched himself at Joscelin, clambering his body as if it were a tree and swarming aloft to sit on his shoulders. ‘Will you take me to see the dancing bear at Smithfield?’ He peered down into Joscelin’s face at an angle that made focusing for Joscelin a nauseous pain. Raising his arms, he grabbed the child and somersaulted him to the ground, setting him on his feet.
His youngest half-brother, Martin, gazed up at him, an urchin grin polishing his face. At eight years old, he was soon to fledge the nest for a page’s position in de Luci’s household. He possessed his full share of the de Rocher self-assurance, although at the moment it was innocent rather than arrogant.
‘Why in the world should I take you anywhere?’ Joscelin demanded.
Chuckling, the groom departed in search of his wily apprentice.
‘I’ll be good, I promise!’
‘I’ve heard that one before, too!’
‘Please,’ Martin beseeched with eyes as soulful as a hound’s so that, despite his aching head, Joscelin had to bite his lip on his amusement.
‘Let me settle my wits and my gut first and I’ll see,’ he said, and started towards the house. Martin skipped beside him like a spring lamb and chattered about the dubious fairground delights offered on Smithfield’s perimeter.
‘There’s a real mermaid!’ he enthused as they entered the hall together. ‘All bare up here but it costs a whole penny to see her.’
Joscelin knew the ‘mermaid’ well since fairgrounds and tourneys frequently travelled sword-in-sheath. The nearest she had ever come to being a fish was servicing herring men in a Southampton brothel. Her long blonde hair was a wig and her ‘tail’ was made of cunningly stitched snake-skins. He supposed that she had good breasts if that was the only opportunity you ever got to see a pair, but hardly a full penny’s worth. ‘Gingerbread’s better value,’ he advised gravely and halted, his expression becoming blank, as Lady Agnes descended upon them, her face puckered in temper.