'Yes, sir, King Henry.
'Then you must also know that I am your kin, your half-brother. He gave a slight grimace as he spoke. The age difference of forty years was a telling reminder that their father's carnal weakness had not diminished with the passage of time.
Once more Richard nodded. 'Mama said I should remember that I was a king's son because I might have need of it one day.
Robert looked vaguely surprised. 'I never thought her capable of looking further than the next summer's day, he murmured, more than half to himself.
'She did the best by her lights for Richard. Catrin spoke up in her dead mistress's defence, as again she heard undertones of judgement in a masculine voice.
'The best by her lights, Robert repeated, looking at her and stroking his dark beard. 'Then I suppose it behoves me to do the best by mine. Let her be laid out in the chapel and the proper rituals observed. He gestured with an open hand. 'I will provide both you and the boy with a place in my household. Sander, go and find out if the Countess has returned from the town.
The squire bowed and left.
Catrin murmured dutiful thanks. Just now she cared not where her place was, only that it was quiet and dark and solitary. A prison cell would have been ideal, she thought wryly. A sidelong glance showed her that Oliver had drunk his wine to the lees. When the Earl turned to pace the room again, she tugged the cup from his hand and quickly replaced it with her own full one. After the first moment of resistance and a blink of surprise, Oliver let her have her way.
The Earl paused beside a gaming board and shuffled the agate pieces at random. 'Pascal, I want you to head the burial escort to Penfoss.
Oliver took a deep gulp from the second cup of wine. 'When, my lord?
'On the morrow. Take Father Kenric and as many foot-soldiers and Serjeants as you deem necessary. Report back to me as soon as you return. He waved his hand in dismissal.
'Yes, my lord. Oliver swallowed down the rest of his wine and started towards the door, but before reaching it swung round to Catrin and Richard. 'I'll come and plague you with my presence, he said, ruffling Richard's dark hair. 'I told you, I keep my promises.
The boy gave him an enigmatic look and the smallest of nods that said he was not prepared to trust beyond the day.
Catrin produced a wan smile, the merest stretching of her lips. 'Thank you for what you have done.
'I doubt it is enough, he answered heavily. 'Let me know if you are in need and I will do what I can.
She nodded, her smile warming.
As Earl Robert raised his head and stared, Oliver bowed and left the room.
A clear summer dusk had fallen by the time Oliver emerged from the keep. Grey-winged gulls clamoured in the skies over the Frome and the Avon, escorting fishing craft to their moorings. Others plundered the midden heaps and gutters, arguing raucously over the scraps.
Oliver breathed deeply of the evening air, uncaring that some of the scents were less than delightful. He would far rather the aroma of fish guts, smoke, and boiling mutton fat from the soap-makers' establishments, than the more civilised atmosphere of Earl Robert's private solar. It was not the Earl to whom he objected, he would never have given his oath of loyalty if he had; it was the room, and that mural of the two women in the garden. Although stylised in the court fashion, it had been painted from life more than ten years ago when Amice and Emma had dwelt here. The painter had been taken with their dissimilar beauty — Amice statuesque, golden-haired and blue-eyed, Emma fey and dark — and had used them as his models for that particular scene.
Oliver had visited the Earl's solar on several occasions since swearing him allegiance. He tried not to look at the mural, but it always taunted the corner of his eye and made everything else seem insignificant.
As the dusk deepened, Oliver supervised the conveyance of Amice's body to Earl Robert's chapel, and there saw it laid out decently before the altar, but he did not linger. He had sat in vigil the previous night and said his private prayers and farewells. Others would pray over her now and give her a fitting burial. Two girls in a garden and both now dead, one in childbirth, one in miscarriage. But their images still danced unchanged on Earl Robert's wall.
His thoughts strayed to the other young woman he had left in that room. Like Emma she was dark of feature, although not so fey of build or sweet-natured. He knew that she must still be suffering from a severe headache. Such maladies did not just disappear, and he admired the way that she had pushed her will through the pain. A vision of the red stockings filled his mind, and of the set of her jaw as she tugged the eel basket out of his hand. Without being aware, he started to smile, the grin deepening as he remembered how she had exchanged their goblets and made him drink both measures of wine. It burned in his blood now, making him a little giddy, for he had not eaten since a hasty noonday meal of stale oatcakes.
In the hall, the Earl's household would be sitting down to a feast of at least three courses — twice as many on the high table. Oliver could have claimed a place at a trestle and eaten until he burst if that had been his will. His will, however, took him not to a bench in the hall, beneath the pompous gaze of Steward Bardolf, but through the camp, between the tents and woodsmoke fires, until he arrived at one shelter in particular.
There was no sign of Gawin, but his dun stallion and Oliver's grey were tethered nearby, their noses in feedbags. An elderly woman was crouching by the fire and stirring the contents of a cooking pot. Her gown was of homespun wool, plain but clean. Deep wrinkles carved her face, and her expression was set awry by a slight dragging of the muscles on the left side. Whiskers sprouted from her chin and the corners of her upper lip, but her bones were fine and there was a lively gleam in her eyes.
'I'd almost given up on you, my lad, she announced in a firm voice that had weathered the years better than her flesh. Holding a bowl over the cauldron, she shook in the chopped, skinned eels. 'Gawin's gone to find a dish more to his taste in the town — her name's Aveline.
Oliver snorted. 'It was Helvi last week. Gawin's sown enough wild oats to cover a five-acre!
'Aye, well, this war makes folks live their lives all in a day lest they don't see the next sunrise. She gave the cooking pot a vigorous stir. Her hands were straight and smooth, with short, clean nails, and showed small sign of her seventy-four years, except for her favouring of the left one. Until a recent seizure in the winter, she had dwelt in excellent health.
Oliver had known Ethel all his life. She had delivered both him and his brother Simon into the world, and had held a prestigious position in the Pascal household as nurse, wise-woman and midwife to the women of castle and village. Ethel it was, who had fought tooth and nail to save Emma and the baby too large to descend her narrow pelvis, and when she had failed had grieved deeply. There had been no more infants to deliver after that, for Simon's wife was barren. When the Pascal family were disinherited of their lands, Ethel was branded an English witch by the new lord's Flemish wife, and forced to flee before she was hanged. It was a common tale and Bristol was full of such refugees.
Oliver sat on a small stool and looked at the steam rising from the cauldron's surface. 'Did Gawin tell you what happened at Penfoss?
'Aye, he did. Ethel shook her head and sucked on her teeth. Most of them were worn to stumps by a lifetime of eating coarse bread made from flour adulterated with minute grains of millstone grit. 'And it's right sorry I am. Nowhere is safe any more. If you stay in your village, the soldiers come plundering, and if you flee to a town, either they burn that too, or the cut-purses take your last penny and leave you in the gutter to starve. Don't suppose you know who did it?