‘Your mother’s trying to kill me!’ Linnet panted, struggling against his imprisoning fingers to no avail. ‘She thinks I’m Morwenna de Gael!’
Agnes had fought free of the green gown and was glaring wildly at Linnet, the shears still tilted at a wicked angle in her hand.
‘She’s a whore!’ Agnes spat, ‘and she’s carrying a child. I’ll have no spawn of a de Gael under my roof!’
Ralf lifted his brows. ‘Mama, she is useful to us for the moment. She holds the key to the Rushcliffe estates. There is no profit to be had in killing her.’
Agnes’ complexion darkened. She compressed her lips and her fingers tightened around her shears.
Ralf gestured towards her work basket. ‘Put them down,’ he said reasonably. ‘We can discuss matters later, after the hanging. My father bought you a nun’s pension before he died. Mayhap we can use it to endow a young widow instead?’
Agnes’ lips remained tight but she obeyed Ralf and replaced the shears among the hanks of wool. ‘I only have your good at heart,’ she said.
‘I know that, Mama,’ Ralf said gently, his tone imbued with a rare warmth. Releasing Linnet’s arm, he crossed the room and looked down at his father’s body, at the wine-red court gown and the battle-hardened hands clasped in an attitude of prayer.
‘It doesn’t look like him,’ he said and rubbed his hand over his lower face in a nervous gesture. Linnet could see that his composure was brittle. There were dark shadows beneath his eyes and downward tucks at the corners of his mouth.
‘It isn’t him,’ Linnet said coldly. ‘He might as well be a dressed carcass on a butcher’s slab.’
Ralf glared round at her. ‘You will keep a civil tongue in your head or I will lock you up in the undercroft,’ he snapped.
‘Is that what you are going to do to everyone who contradicts your will?’ Linnet retorted. ‘Lock them away, strike them silent - murder them?’
Ralf’s fists clenched. He swivelled and took two strides towards her.
‘Ralf, don’t,’ said Ivo in a wavering voice. ‘Not in here, with Papa . . .’ He gestured towards the bed.
Ralf stopped. A pulse thundered in his throat and his eyes were narrow and wolf-golden. Linnet refused to be intimidated. She gave him back stare for stare, knowing that her own gaze was no less wild.
Abruptly he turned his back on her. His fists remained clenched and his voice was raw with anger as he addressed Agnes. ‘Is my father prepared for the chapel?’
‘Yes, my heart,’ Agnes said. ‘See, I have dressed him fittingly in his court robes and set rings on his fingers.’
Ralf shrugged. ‘If you were to have dressed him fittingly, it would not have been like this but in his oldest tunic and cloak,’ he said.
Agnes stared at him, uncomprehending. Ralf shook his head. ‘No matter,’ he said. ‘You have done your best.’ He kissed her cheek.
Agnes started to speak, but broke off abruptly as the sound of sword on sword and a choked-off scream twisted up the stairs from the guard post at the foot of the tower.
Drawing his own blade, Ralf strode to the door and gestured one of his knights to go down and investigate. The man hurried out. Almost immediately the occupants of the room heard the clash of weapons and another cry. Ralf ’s man backed up the stairs and staggered into the room, blood pouring from his shoulder.
‘Bar the door!’ he gasped at Ralf. ‘Your brother and his men are loose and they’re armed!’ As he uttered the warning, he kicked the door shut and leaned against it.
White with shock, Ralf stooped to pick up the drawbar leaning against the wall. Seeing the hope of freedom, and then that hope about to be lost, Linnet ran to stop him from pushing the plank through the iron brackets. She blocked his way with her body, her arms outstretched. Ralf shoved her violently away. She landed heavily on her side, bruising hip and shoulder, but rolled over on the straw and grasped a handful of his long tunic. Ralf raised the plank and struck her on the side of the head with its corner.
Black stars burst in front of Linnet’s eyes. Her grip weakened and Ralf tore free. Through swimming eyes she saw him lift the draw bar to slot it into position just as the door was smashed wide by Joscelin and Guy de Montauban.
The wounded knight was thrown to the floor and rolled back and forth, clutching his shoulder. Ralf dropped the wood and leaped backwards with the speed of a bounding deer. The sword he had sheathed while he manipulated the draw bar he now snatched from his scabbard in a rapid flash of steel as he turned in a battle-crouch to face Joscelin.
The run upstairs had winded Joscelin and he was close to the limit of his endurance. He saw Linnet near the door. She struggled to sit up, her mouth working as if she wanted to cry out to him but no sound emerged and she sagged back to the floor. Blood masked one side of her face, staining her wimple and gown. Joscelin’s rage boiled over and, with a howl, he flung himself at Ralf. The blow was made of white-hot fury, mistimed and without control. Ralf parried easily and made a smooth counterstrike, his own breathing calm and deep. The sword edge shrieked upon the ill-fitting mail shirt that Joscelin had purloined from one of the Flemings in the undercroft. He had the Fleming’s sword, too, the hilt worn and slippery in his grasp.
The room filled with the clash and glitter of weapons. The priest sidled quickly out of the door, delicately stepping over Linnet. Ivo allowed himself to be made Guy de Montauban’s prisoner without even a token show of protest.
Ralf ’s strength forced Joscelin backward and Ralf pressed his advantage, using his sword two-handed, swinging it almost as though it were a battle-axe. ‘Side by side in the chapel,’ Ralf panted as he fought Joscelin into a corner. ‘You and our sainted father - wouldn’t that be fitting!’
Joscelin stumbled against a coffer and knew that it must be his last move on earth, but Ralf lost his own footing upon a puddle of green silk that was bunched on the floor and his blow went awry, slicing the coffer instead of Joscelin’s skull. The impetus brought Ralf to his knees, his sword lodged in the wood. Before he could recover and free the blade, Joscelin leaped upon him, bearing him to the ground beneath his weight. The air burst out of Ralf ’s lungs. His head struck the rushes, but he succeeded in landing a knee in Joscelin’s groin, and as Joscelin recoiled Ralf was able to twist free and grasp his sword once more. Both hands to the leather grip, he went all out to take Joscelin.
His sword rang out great hammer blows on Joscelin’s blade as he beat at it, striving to win past the slender bar of steel and cut out Joscelin’s heart. And Joscelin, on the edge of exhaustion, could barely hold him off; his body had taken too much punishment this past night and day to serve him through another bout. His vision started to blur and hot pain seared through his limbs as he parried and defended.
Sensing Joscelin’s weakness, Ralf gathered himself for a final, killing flurry and, in that moment, poised on the brink of his triumph, Martin burst into the room followed by Fulbert the scribe, who was wheezing like a set of bagpipes with the unaccustomed exertion.
‘Soldiers!’ Fulbert gasped out, clutching his side, his face purple. ‘Demanding entry. The seneschal’s just raising the bridge!’
Martin shot between his two brothers. ‘Stop, you have to stop!’ he shrieked, his face white. ‘You can’t kill each other!’
‘Get out of the way, whelp,’ Ralf snarled, his eyes never leaving Joscelin. ‘You heard the scribe,’ he spat. ‘My allies have come. Either we finish this now or you swing on a gibbet for their entertainment. Which is it to be?’
Joscelin stared dully at Ralf. Every nerve and fibre of his body was sodden with exhaustion; there was nothing he wanted to do more than let the weight of his sword hit the floor, but he knew that he would rather die by the grim mercy of a blade, here and now, than by throttling on a rope before a host of witnesses.