Joscelin wanted to deny his father, tell him it was impossible, but the pain that had been toying with him like a cat with a mouse now sheathed its claws in his skull and the world became a seething agony. He was only dimly aware that the words emerging from his mouth were not the ones he desired to say.

Ironheart went to the door and shouted for the servants.


Linnet felt something lying on top of her. Hot and smothering, it pinned her to the mattress, making it impossible to breathe. She struggled to push it off but it responded by tightening its grip. She thought she could feel cruel fingers digging into her flesh and the bowl of her pelvis cramped as if she had been invaded. Choking for air, she opened her eyes and at first saw only the darkness of the night illuminated by the one lonely flame of the night candle beside the bed. She could make out the figure of a man sitting in the chair. He started to rise and bend towards her, and as he did the weight on her chest grew leaden.

‘Don’t fight me,’ whispered the voice of Raymond de Montsorrel. ‘You cannot win.’

She tried to scream but there was no breath in her lungs. A whirling darkness engulfed her. Her eyes were blind but she could still hear voices. Raymond whispering in her ear with the darkness of lust, Giles raging, calling her a harlot. Joscelin . . . Joscelin saying, Christ, wake up, I don’t want to listen to this. Another voice, closer, harder with frustration.

‘Come on, woman, damn you. Fight. Or was I wrong about your spirit? Do you think I’m going to let you do this to my son? You will not die!’

The other voices faded and the darkness ceased to whirl. Her lungs shuddered, filling with cold air. Making a tremendous effort, she forced her lids apart. The figure was leaning over her now, eyes darkly gleaming in the candlelight, cadaverous features intense but very different from Raymond’s. William de Rocher laid a calloused palm on her brow in a surprisingly gentle manner. She tried to flinch but her weakness was too great. Indeed, her eyelids were too heavy to hold open, and after a brief struggle she had to let them flicker down.

‘Hmph, still hot,’ she heard Ironheart say, ‘but steadying down. You, girl, see to your mistress.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Linnet heard the trickle of water in a bowl, and in a moment a blessedly cool cloth was laid across her forehead. The bedside chair creaked as Ironheart sat down again. Why was he here? she wondered vaguely, and where were Joscelin and Robert? It was too difficult to think. Sleep was claiming her in a soft, deep blanket and she welcomed its embrace.

Ironheart watched Linnet sink into sleep as the maid lightly wiped her down. Dawn was still several hours away, late because of the encroaching winter, but he judged that the crisis had been reached and perhaps a corner turned.

After a while, as Linnet continued to breathe deeply and evenly without impediment, he left the maid in attendance and went stiffly into the antechamber, where Joscelin was sleeping with Robert on a makeshift pallet. The child was visibly improving. Probably by the morning he would be complaining he was hungry. Thin and small though he was, sapped to pallor and shadows, he also possessed the tenacity of a clinging vine.

Ironheart turned his attention to the man against whom Robert was curled. Even in sleep, the marks of pain were etched between Joscelin’s dark brows. He remembered his son’s earlier words. A woman and child in the mercenary camps. The thought, which had been held on the surface by other considerations, now began to seep into every level of his being. Ironheart stooped to the hearth to pick up the flagon of usquebaugh-laden wine. Seven missing years in which, unaware, he had become a grandfather and then been bereaved. Joscelin was so much like him that he wondered if his bloodline was cursed.

Chapter 27

Christmas, 1173


An inflated pig’s bladder sailed through the air and struck the dais with a solid thump, dislodging a branch of evergreen and a pair of antlers pegging the foliage in place. The bladder bounced off the decorations and squelched into a dish of tripe on one of the lower tables. A diner fished it out and hurled it back the way it had come. Blazing a comet-trail of sticky lumps, the bladder curved across the dais and landed on the floor at Father Gregory’s feet. A look of intense revulsion on his fine-cut features, the priest nudged the improvised ball away with the edge of his boot.

With considerably more enthusiasm, a gazehound surged from beneath the table to lick at the remnants of tripe still clinging to the bladder. When a servant approached with the intention of rescuing the missile, the dog wrinkled its muzzle and snarled, then secured the bladder firmly between its forepaws and bit at the knotted end. There was a bang. The remnants of the football shot into the air and landed on the dog’s back. Ears flat, the hound scooted beneath the table and knocked Father Gregory off the bench.

Conan leaned down, flexed his forearm and hauled the unfortunate priest back on to his seat to howls of mirth and appreciation from the unruly crowd below the dais.

‘Church always does take a tumble on Twelfth Night!’ Conan laughed. ‘Never fear, you’ve got all year to take your revenge in tithe payments, Peter’s pence and penances. Isn’t that right, Josce?’

‘If you say so.’ Joscelin, resplendent in a tunic of dark-red wool trimmed with gold silk braid, toasted his uncle in mead. The garment was a Christmas gift from Linnet. Robert had one exactly the same and could not be persuaded to wear anything else.

Conan made a rude face at Joscelin’s indifferent tone of voice. ‘God, you’re getting to be as sour as your father!’ he declared. ‘Where’s your Twelfth Night spirit?’

‘Wearing thin,’ Joscelin said as one of the cook’s apprentices capered past the dais wearing a woman’s gown, a wimple set askew on his yellow curls. Twelfth Night was never any different: short of murder, everyone was given licence to behave outrageously and the rules were always stretched to their limit. Usually Joscelin would have joined the merriment, if not with alacrity, then with a reasonable degree of grace, but tonight, although he knew he should be rejoicing, he did not have the will. The residue of yet another headache burned behind his eyes.

There had been no real peace since October’s end - since Linnet had almost died of the spotted fever and shown him in her delirium what he did not wish to see. And she had no recollection of her illness beyond the first day of fever, did not know what she had said and what had changed. He had tried to behave in a normal manner while he battled his demons but, from the bewildered, almost hurt way she looked at him sometimes, he knew he was failing.

‘Oh, come on, Josce! Don’t be . . . don’t be so miserable! ’ Conan’s words were starting to slur under the powerful influence of the Welsh mead that Brien FitzRenard had sent to them as a Christmas gift in thanks for Joscelin’s aid earlier in the year. ‘Let’s . . . let’s have a game of hoodman-blind!’ He pushed himself to his feet, took a step backward and then steadied himself. ‘I’ll wear the blindfold first, if you want. Henry, lend me your hood!’

Joscelin opened his mouth to say that he did not wish to play hoodman-blind, or any other boisterous, stupid game that his uncle had in mind, but the good humour surrounding him and the look of bright anticipation on Robert’s face made him close it again and yield to Conan’s jovial bullying.

A space was cleared in the well of the hall. Conan, blindfolded by Henry’s hood, which he had donned back-to-front, was placed in the centre of the space, spun round several times to disorient him, then given a vigorous push. The object of the game was for the hoodman to try to capture someone to take his place, and for the others to poke and prod and tease him without being caught themselves.

Conan made several wild, bear-like swipes and embraced only thin air. He growled like a bear, too. Giggling, Robert ran in beneath the mercenary’s clutching arms and struck him on the leg. Conan lunged, Robert evaded him and, shrieking with glee, ran to the safety of Joscelin’s arms.

‘Papa, did you see?’

Conan struck rapidly towards the sound of the child’s excited voice. Joscelin spun Robert out of the way. Conan’s fingertips touched the soft red wool of Joscelin’s sleeve. Joscelin twisted sideways, grabbed hold of a laughing Milo and flung him straight into Conan’s path. The mercenary’s arms closed on his prey. Now all he had to do was guess whom he had caught.

‘Not a wench,’ Conan muttered, spreading his hand across the bearded face. ‘Not unless she’s standing on her head.’

‘You’d be surprised what a wench will do on Twelfth Night, Sir Conan,’ Milo said, affecting a falsetto voice that had an appreciative audience doubled up with laughter.

‘Reckon I would. In fact, I’d be downright buggered!’ Conan retorted, feeling lower across shoulders and chest until his fingers happened upon the ornate silver-gilt cross that Milo wore on a cord around his neck. ‘I’d know this anywhere. It’s bigger than anything Father Gregory’s got! Has to be you, Milo de Selsey!’ He pulled off the hood and gave a hoot of triumph.

The game progressed, becoming more boisterous. People swapped clothing to confuse the hoodman, although when Robert was captured by Henry and had to wear the hood, everyone gentled their performance and Joscelin allowed Robert to catch him, although not too quickly, for the sake of the child’s pride.

As the hood was secured around his head, Joscelin discovered that he was actually enjoying the sport. It was like the tourney field where all thought was bent upon controlling the body in order to survive and no space was left for introversion and brooding.

‘Now then.’ He rubbed his hands, entering the bawdy spirit of the game. ‘To catch me a coney!’

He felt a push low on his leg and heard Robert’s squeal. The hood smelled of wool and sheep oil and very effectively blocked out the light from the sconces and candles. He tried to blot out the calls and countercalls, the disguised voices. He ignored the pushes and buffets and gave his instinct free rein. He began to turn towards the nudges and blows before they were made; he began to know whose voice it was on the first word.

Twice he almost captured Milo, then Henry. He deliberately missed Robert, who spun away, shrieking with glee. Conan was very nearly his victim and only escaped by sheer brute strength. Joscelin staggered, unbalanced. A softness brushed against him, and a hint of summer herbs and rose petals invaded the smell of wool. Turning quickly, he grabbed and pulled, and suddenly there was a slender body in his arms and the summer scent was much stronger. Before he could begin a litany of bawdy suggestions and guesses, his victim snatched off the hood and stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the lips.

The audience cheered and whistled. Robert screwed up his face. Linnet and Joscelin looked at each other with a mutual combination of merriment and sparking lust, and kissed again.


Flushed, laughing, a little giddy with the mead she had drunk, Linnet hung against Joscelin, returning him kiss for kiss, then flopped onto their bed, her eyes soft with desire, with wanting, and the hope that tonight had broken the mould of the past two months.

Ever since she had almost died of the spotted fever, Joscelin had been different; not towards Robert - he still doted on the little boy. If anything, the bond between man and child had deepened; the change was in Joscelin’s attitude to her. He treated her with the caution that had characterized the days in London when he had been a mercenary with a reluctant duty to perform and she had been a lady of high birth beyond his reach. Now and then she would find him looking at her, his expression one of frowning, almost angry bewilderment but, when she asked him what was wrong, he would shake his head and smile and pretend that he had not been brooding. She had learned not to push the point.

But now he was neither brooding nor remote and his eyes were bright with laughter and desire. Whatever was troubling him had been banished for the moment and she intended it to remain that way. Reaching up, she unpinned her wimple and shook free her braids, then leaned forward, letting him inhale their herbal scent while their lips met and parted, met and parted. He buried his hands in her hair.

Below in the hall, where the yule celebrations still continued, the revellers danced to pagan tunes that wore only the barest dressing of Christian decency.