Elizabeth Chadwick - Shields of Pride

‘We wouldn’t rightly want to quarrel with you either,’ said the older of the two men, ‘but we’d like you better if you was to hand over that cloak and clasp as a sign of goodwill.’

‘Your purse and belt, too,’ added the second, whose quick crafty gaze had not missed the promising roundness of Joscelin’s money pouch and the gilding on the tooled leather belt.

One soldier moved right, the other left. Joscelin ran at the latter, dagger lifted to strike. His attack was blocked as the man grasped his knife hand. Joscelin responded in a similar manner by grasping his opponent’s wrist and used their grip on each other as leverage to hurl the man hard to the right, fouling the other soldier’s path. Having broken free, Joscelin ran. He heard the sound of rapid footfalls in pursuit but he had a start on them and, being faster into the bargain, reached the market square well in front. Across it, Joscelin saw soldiers rolling wine barrels out of a vintner’s cellar while the vintner and his family watched in helpless shock. A hauberk-clad soldier sat astride his war-horse conducting operations, a long whip dangling from his fist.

Behind Joscelin, there was a triumphant cry. ‘There he is, the whoreson, get him!’

Flashing a glance over his shoulder, Joscelin saw the two soldiers he had just evaded running out of the doorway of a house on Cuckstool Row. Joscelin took to his heels, knowing that if they caught him they would kill him.

The marketplace was a shambles of overturned booths and stalls, the looters picking among them like scavengers at the scene of a larger animal’s kill. Joscelin sought the shelter of these booths, dodging in and out between them, weaving from one to the other across the square towards Organ Lane. Near the low wall that separated the corn market from the rest of the stalls, a looter threatened him with a short knife but backed off the moment he saw the gleam of Joscelin’s dagger and went in search of easier prey. Joscelin was preoccupied in watching the looter and did not see the body sprawled behind one of the raided booths until too late. He measured his length across the corpse and lay upon it, momentarily too winded to move. When he drew his first breath he almost choked, for the stench emanating from the dead man’s garments proclaimed him an employee of one of the numerous tanneries down by the Leen bridge. Essence of excrement mingled with that of putrefaction, rancid mutton fat and the metallic tang of tannin. The stink was so powerful that Joscelin retched. In the background he could hear his pursuers approaching and knew that in a moment they would be upon him.

In haste, Joscelin tore off his mantle and gilded tunic. Stuffing them beneath the trestle in the booth, he rolled the corpse over, dragged off its cloak and stained tunic and dressed himself in the foulsome rags. A greasy, louse-infested hood and a knobbled quarterstaff completed the ensemble - and not a moment too soon. As Joscelin started to walk away from the corpse, his two pursuers ran panting round the side of the booth.

His fall had been greatly to his advantage. Still winded, Joscelin did not stride out as he might have otherwise done, which would have given him away immediately. Instead he moved with a shuffling walk more reminiscent of a peasant.

‘Ho!’ cried one of the soldiers. ‘You there, have you seen a noble running this way? Tall, wearing a dark-red cloak?’

Joscelin shook his head and mumbled a reply in the rustic Anglo-Dane of the countryside. At the same time, he gestured with his arm so that the dreadful stench of his garments wafted towards the men. Neither of them, he hazarded, would want to move in as close as it would take to kill him.

‘Ah God, he stinks as if he’s been dead a week!’ declared the other soldier. ‘Can you tell what he’s saying?’

His companion shook his head, equally baffled. ‘His accent’s too heavy. Come on, we’re wasting our time. Let’s search round the other side.’

Cold sweat clasping his body, Joscelin watched them walk rapidly away. He breathed out hard, then in again. The smell from his garments was not as bad now that he had grown accustomed and it had quite probably saved his life. Turning, he cut his way across the marketplace and up towards the town gate near Derby Road. The looted houses of Long Row bordered the marketplace with a ragged line of fire. As he hurried up the muddy thoroughfare, Joscelin hoped desperately that his father’s houses were close enough to Derby’s not to have been torched.

From a dark alleyway, a band of hurrying soldiers emerged like wine running from an open flask. They spilled over Joscelin before he could avoid them and then they drew back, exclaiming at the stench of him.

Joscelin’s hand relaxed on the grip of his dagger. ‘Where in God’s name have you been!’ he roared at Conan.

His uncle set his hands on his hips and stared Joscelin up and down. ‘I might ask the same of you.’ His scarred lip curved lopsidedly towards his left nostril. ‘Christ’s buttocks, but you stink worse than a three-week-old battlefield! ’

‘I had to exchange clothes with a tanner’s corpse to keep myself from being skewered by two routiers,’ Joscelin said shortly. ‘I thought you’d be in the Weekday.’

‘And so we would, except that Godred’s uncle has an alehouse on Cherry Tree Lane. We were paying our respects there when a brawl of Derby men came by and started causing trouble. We got rid of them soon enough, then realized it was more serious than our little disagreement. We’re on our way back to your father even now.’

‘There’s no time to waste.’ Joscelin began hurrying up the hill again. ‘I don’t think Derby’s men will harm Linnet and Robert - they’re too valuable - but I don’t want them taken into his care.’

‘Surely your father’s knights will protect the place?’ Conan trotted beside him, his nose still wrinkled in response to the stench of Joscelin’s garments.

‘My father had business with a wool factor up Organ Lane and he gave most of his men leave to go round the town, the same as I gave leave to you,’ Joscelin answered. ‘As far as I’m aware, only the servants are there.’

They arrived at Ironheart’s three houses to find them standing ominously silent and tranquil. A cookshop across the road was on fire but otherwise this quarter of the town had seen less damage. But it was still obvious that all was not well. The front door of the first house hung drunkenly on one hinge and on the floor in the passage were the plundered bodies of Ironheart’s squire and Gytha’s husband, Jonas. The rooms were all empty. Everything of value had been stripped and no one answered Joscelin’s shout. He strode into the yard. Gytha’s laundry tub lay overturned, a mess of torn, crumpled linens, spilling across the ground. Ears flat to its small skull, Gytha’s kitten hissed and spat at him from beneath a wooden trestle. A bowl of water containing some strips of softened rawhide stood on the bench beside some of his father’s weapon-mending tools. His father’s red and gold shield lay on the ground, a great split running from a damaged section of rawhide right through to the centre boss. There were blood smears on the ground.

He picked up a pair of blacksmith’s pincers and squeezed the grip until the pressure brought pain. He could not be too late. It was impossible; he would not allow it to happen.

And then he heard the sound of shouting from the gardens backing on to the other side of the narrow alley and a woman’s scream.

Dropping the pincers, he grabbed his father’s shield by the short hand-straps and began to run.

As soon as Linnet had retired to the sleeping loft on the second floor of the house, Ironheart fetched his tools and his shield and brought them outside to the bench by the yard wall.

Bracing the shield against his leg, he took up a pair of blacksmith’s pincers and began to pull out the tacks that held the shield’s rawhide rim in position. A section near the top was damaged and needed replacing. It was something he had meant to do in the winter but had kept putting off. Now the truces had all come to an end and there was no time left.

Robert ceased playing with the kitten and ambled across the yard to watch Ironheart at work.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m going . . . ,’ said Ironheart between grunts of effort as he pulled the tacks out of the wood, ‘to replace . . . this damaged section at the top . . . with a new piece of rawhide. See?’ He pointed with a calloused forefinger. ‘That’s the mark of a Scottish short sword. Nearly got me, the whoreson.’

Robert nodded, grey eyes large and impressed. ‘Can I help?’

‘I don’t see why not,’ Ironheart said gruffly. ‘You see that jar over there? Bring it here, will you? I’ve had a piece of rawhide soaking in it overnight, so it should be soft enough to cut and nail by now.’ He watched Robert carefully lift the yellow glazed jar and bring it to him, a look of intense concentration on his small face. A pang went through the old man, so warm and sweet that it made a mockery of the barriers he had erected against the world a quarter-century ago. Thus had Jocelin learned the art of caring for his weapons, a small child against Ironheart’s knee. Those had been the springtime years. Now, in the cold approach to winter, he could smell the spring again and wanted to weep because he had missed the summertime completely and was aware of the last leaves of autumn drifting from the tree.

‘Now what do we do?’ asked Robert, bringing him firmly back to earth.

‘Take the hide out of the jar and squeeze it as hard as you can.’

‘Like this?’ Robert screwed up his face in disgust as the wet rawhide bulged between his fingers. ‘It’s all slimy and it stinks!’

A chuckle rumbled up from the depths of Ironheart’s chest. ‘You can’t nail it on when it’s hard,’ he said and looked at the child’s tendons standing out on the bony wrist. There was nothing on him - he was like a skinned coney - but there was a powerful underlying tenacity. Still chuckling, Ironheart rummaged among his tools and discovered that his shears were missing.

‘Leave that now. You’ve squeezed out most of the water. Go inside to Gytha and ask her for a pair of shears.’

Robert scampered off. Picking up the crumpled piece of rawhide, Ironheart gave it a final wringing with his own powerful, scarred hands. Gytha’s shriek and Robert’s even louder scream brought him abruptly to his feet.

The little boy shot out into the backyard, the shears clutched in his hands, his eyes huge with terror. Gytha raced after him, followed by Ella, stumbling on her skirts. ‘Soldiers, sire!’ she gasped. ‘Soldiers with swords coming this way from Ferrers’ house! They mean mischief, I know they do!’

‘What’s happening?’ asked Linnet in bewilderment. She stood at the foot of the loft stairs, her face flushed with sleep and her lustrous golden-brown braids bared.

Ironheart opened his mouth, but before he could speak the front entrance of the house was darkened by three men clad in the leather armour of regular troops. Two brandished long knives, the other wielded a hand axe.

Linnet screamed, then cut the sound off rapidly against the palm of her hand. Ironheart seized his sword and shield from the bench and faced the intruders.

‘Get out of my house or, by God, I’ll kill you!’ he snarled.

One of the soldiers laughed. ‘You’re a foolish old man,’ he said, advancing with a heavy, deliberate step. ‘And God’s asleep.’

Linnet backed away. Never taking his eyes off the soldiers, Ironheart sidestepped so that Linnet could squeeze past him. ‘Hide in the cellars next door,’ he muttered from the side of his mouth. ‘Gytha has the keys.’

Linnet cast a frightened glance over her shoulder then ran into the backyard. Grabbing Robert’s hand, she pulled him across the yard at a run and out of the back gate into the communal narrow entry running behind the houses. Gytha and Ella panted behind her. She reached for the iron ring on the gate of the house adjoining Ironheart’s and twisted. The door did not move. She thrust her shoulder against it until her flesh bruised and her bones hurt. The door’s hinges had dropped at some time and its base dragged the dusty ground. Gytha and Ella joined her, kicking and pushing, fear lending them strength. Finally, reluctantly, the door scraped open enough for the women and boy to squeeze through into the yard of the vintner’s house.

Wheezing, Gytha unfastened the hoop of household keys from the belt at her thick waist and found the one to the solid rear door of the building.