Free Shields of Pride by Elizabeth Chadwick Page A

I’ll allot the task elsewhere,’ he said grimly.
    ‘He won’t fail you,’ Ironheart replied. ‘What you saw now was an affliction he gets sometimes - like Becket used to. A sickness comes upon him and a headache worse than anything you’d get out of a flagon of bad wine. All he needs to do is sleep it off. His mother was the same.’
    De Luci shook his head, not entirely convinced. ‘Nevertheless, he seemed disturbed at the command.’
    ‘That’s because he’s attracted to the widow and knows that if he abandoned his honour and the trust you have in him, he could have her out from beneath your nose and her fortune, too.’
    ‘He told you this?’ De Luci’s nostrils flared.
    William laughed sourly. ‘Christ, my sons never tell me anything! But I have eyes in my head. Joscelin’s not like Ralf to rut all over the town. He’ll do without rather than take anything just for the sake of sheathing his sword. Your young widow appeals to him and she’s only just beyond his reach. If he stole out on a limb, he might just touch her.’
    De Luci stroked his chin. Clever and shrewd was William de Rocher and he loved his bastard son with an intensity he tried not to parade, and didn’t always succeed. De Luci well knew his friend’s vulnerability - and his ambition. He was aiming high for Joscelin, but not hopelessly so given de Luci’s own opinion of the young man.
    ‘This needs thinking about more deeply than I have time for just now, William,’ he said to give himself a breathing space, then he smiled knowingly. ‘You wouldn’t have planted that notion in my mind unless you thought it had a chance of taking root.’
    Ironheart returned the smile and did not attempt to press the matter further. ‘I think we know each other well enough by now,’ he said.

9
     
    Stripped to the waist, Ralf worked at putting an edge on his sword: smoothing the oiled Lombardy steel over the grindstone, honing out the nicks, brightening the edge until it shone bluish silver like the underbelly of a fish. Honing a blade was something Ralf did well if he was in the mood to be patient and even a professional craftsman would not have bettered his work today.
    He blotted his sweating brow on his forearm and paused to rest. The courtyard was bustling for the earl was preparing to leave London for Southampton tomorrow dawn. The girl Aelflin smiled intimately at him across the yard, her arms piled high with linens for the countess Petronilla. Ralf looked in the opposite direction, watching a wain that had become stuck in the muddy wheel ruts by the gateway. Pleasure he had had from her in the stables not an hour since but, as far as he was concerned, the silver penny he had given her was a release from obligation.
    The sun disappeared into shadow as Hubert de Beaumont arrived to stand over him. ‘May I?’ he asked and, without waiting for Ralf’s consent, took the bare sword from the latter’s knee and hefted it, testing the balance and then the edge. ‘Excellent,’ he said, then grinned. ‘You could make your fortune as a swordsmith.’
    Ralf snorted. ‘Do I look like an artisan?’
    Beaumont eyed him up and down. ‘I suppose not. You’re too disreputable by far without half your clothes and sporting that purple eye.’ He returned the sword.
    Ralf applied more oil to the stone. He wondered why Beaumont had sought him out. The knight was a seasoned member of Leicester’s mesnie and not given to applying the lard of friendship to newcomers unless he had wheels to grease.
    ‘That half-brother of yours is fast on his feet for one so tall,’ Beaumont remarked.
    Ralf scowled and touched his tender eye socket. ‘I’d have got the better of him if Brien of Ravenstow hadn’t poked his nose where it didn’t belong.’
    ‘Doubtless you would, but I was thinking of my own tangle with him yesterday evening.’
    Ralf laid the sword edge to the grindstone and rasped it across. He almost smiled because, while he might detest Joscelin,