The Falcons of Montabard (5 page)

Simon gave the floor rushes a rebellious kick. 'I wish I had been.'

'Then you are a foolish child,' Matilda snapped, made waspish by her anxiety. With an effort, she moderated her tone.'Your stepfather will deal with him justly. He is never unfair, you know that.'

He flashed her a resentful look. 'That's what I told Sabin about you when we were in Barfleur. His mood was sour and he said that you wished he had never been born.'

Matilda resumed her sewing, as if she could order her thoughts through the precise control of the needle. Although her expression did not change, Simon's words had struck a tender part of her conscience. 'Even if I took no pleasure in the circumstances of his birth, I do not begrudge Sabin his life,' she said curtly. 'Although God knows what he is going to make of it. In truth I worry for him.' She worried too at the effect

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that Sabin had on this son of hers. Her eldest, Waltheof, was studying for the Church and well removed from the dangerous glamour of Sabin's reputation, but Simon was made of a different metal and was at an impressionable age. She could understand the attraction that Sabin's wild ways might hold for a youth beginning to chafe at the parental rein.

'Do you?' Simon kicked the floor rushes again, releasing the expensive scent of cinnamon bark. 'Have you been to see him?'

'Not yet,' she said.

'The guards wouldn't let me near. They said that no one was to see him until my stepfather had spoken to him.'

The way he said 'stepfather' was telling. Matilda sighed and pushed her needle into the fabric. 'A day in a cell without company will do him no harm. He needs to reflect on the consequences of his actions.'

'You see, you are blaming him already.'

'It was his choice to visit the alehouse and drink himself into a stupor.'

Simon made an impatient sound through his teeth. 'Sabin was right, you do wish him unborn,' he said with the unfairness of burning adolescence, and strode from the room.

Matilda tried to return to her sewing, but she had no heart for the task and her concentration had departed in her son's stormy wake.

Sabin. He had been christened Simon after his father, but she had quickly changed his name to the masculine version of his mother's. Simon was an appellation reserved for the legitimate heir to the earldom of Northampton. She had always felt guilty about that particular act. She had stolen the infant's given name. And because she felt guilty, she felt resentful. His father had yielded to her on the matter, a little too easily, she sometimes thought. Perhaps it was to appease her in the wake of his carnal sin, or perhaps to remind him of the boy's mother. She had never probed that particular sore spot too hard. Matilda had only met the mother once: at the convent of the Holy Redeemer in Evreux. Clothed in a nun's habit, Sabina had

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possessed the grace of a Madonna, and an elegant bone structure dominated by tranquil violet-grey eyes. Her son had inherited her feline grace and owned a masculine version of her features, but his eyes were his father's and they held fire, not tranquillity. He had been born of a single coupling, so both Sabina and her husband had said. A brief slip from the path, before guilt and common sense had returned them to the straight and narrow, but the consequences had already taken root. Sabina had died of a flux when Sabin was five years old, and although Matilda had said the necessary prayers, she had not mourned too hard.

Matilda gazed at her embroidery without seeing it. Dealing with Sabin had been easier when his father was alive. The boy had been less wild then. Into mischief, certainly, but reachable. All that had changed when Simon died. Suddenly it was like dwelling with a wild creature. It had been a relief to send him away to the royal court for training, and an even greater relief when her second husband had shouldered the burden of dealing with Sabin's waywardness on the occasions that the boy returned to their household.

She felt uneasily that she had been shirking her responsibilities. She had promised Simon that even if she could not love his son, she would make sure he lacked for nothing to advance his life. A promise that she had not kept, for Sabin languished in a cell, manacled and involved in a man's death following a drunken brawl.

The thought galvanised her to her feet and caused her attendant, Helisende, to glance up with a blink of surprise. Matilda went to the door and spoke to the guard. The man inclined his head, but looked doubtful.

'Are you certain, my lady?'

Her jaw tightened. 'Quite.'

He bowed and departed on his errand. Rubbing her hands, Matilda returned to the centre of the room. 'Put some more charcoal on the brazier,' she commanded Helisende. 'I am feeling the cold today.'

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Helisende, who had been her maid and companion since they were small children, busied herself with the task. 'Do you know what you're about, mistress?' she asked shrewdly.

Matilda pressed her steepled hands to her lips. 'No,' she said. 'Only that there has to be a way of breaking this circle.' She looked at Helisende. 'What would you do? Would you leave him in the prison to stew?'

The maid considered. 'Not beyond the time he has spent there now.' She dusted charcoal dust from her fingers. 'Did you have time in all the upheaval of Sabin and Simon's return to mark the presence of Edmund Strongfist and his daughter? They were passing through on the way to Branton.'

Matilda frowned, seeking threads of memory among the tangled yarns of recent events. A thin strand emerged. 'Wasn't the daughter among the ladies of the chamber?'

'Aye, she was. Straight from the nunnery at Coldingham.'

Matilda winced at the mention of nuns.

'Strongfist fostered her there after the death of his wife,' Helisende said. 'But she's not taking vows.'

And what have Edmund Strongfist and his daughter to do with Sabin?' Matilda's tone was impatient. She hoped uneasily that Sabin had not debauched the girl. His reputation with women had begun the moment his voice had broken. But then it would have come to her ears earlier than this. Indeed, knowing Edmund Strongfist, Sabin would have been emasculated by now and the offending member cast to the hounds.

'They are making plans to go and dwell in Outremer,' Helisende said patiently. 'I heard it from his sergeant when I was fetching you that camomile tisane from the kitchens.' Her eyes held a crafty glint. 'If I were you, I'd send Sabin with them. He could atone for his sins at the Holy Sepulchre and you would not have to worry about what he was doing.'

Matilda gazed at Helisende in dawning admiration. 'That is an excellent idea,' she said after a moment.

'I know,' Helisende replied without a shred of false modesty. 'It'll either be the making or breaking of the lad. Edmund

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Strongfist is not one to suffer fools gladly. He'll control him.'

There was a tap on the door. Helisende went to answer it, and Matilda swiftly put the eagerness from her expression. It would not do for the young man to see her smiling like a cat that had just eaten a mouse.

Looking dubious, the guard ushered Sabin into the chamber. Stalks of straw adhered to the young man's garments and the musty chill of the cells emanated from him in tangible waves. Beneath the bruising, his complexion was white with cold and tinged with blue. The dark hair lay flat and limp over his brows and the tawny-green eyes were as dull as stones.

A pang went through Matilda and suddenly it was very easy not to smile. 'You look frozen to the marrow,' she said compassionately. 'Come, sit by the brazier and get warm.'

Sabin gave her a wary look, but did as she bade. Usually every movement was imbued with fluid grace, but now he walked with a hunched shuffle more appropriate to an old man.

'Was I released by Prince David's command, or yours?' He glanced around as if expecting to see her husband.

'By mine.' Matilda poured him warm wine from the jug that was standing by the hearth. 'And do not ask me why, because I am not sure that I know myself.' She handed him the cup. He took it with hands that were thin and supple like his mother's. He drank and she saw his teeth chatter against the rim of the cup. There was a red abrasion on his wrist where the manacle had chafed. 'When did you last eat?'

He looked towards the ceiling and frowned in recollection. 'The day before yesterday, at the dinner trestle ... I think.'

'I'll bring food,' Helisende said, and whisked from the room. A brief silence followed her leaving.

'What will you do with me now?' Sabin broke it to enquire.

'If you give your word of honour not to leave these rooms, you may remain here,' Matilda said, knowing that she could not possibly send him back to his cell.

Wry amusement curled his lips. 'Surely that is setting a fox amongst all the plump little chickens? Besides, I thought that

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my word of honour counted for nothing around here.'

Matilda refused to rise to his bait. 'I do not believe that you have ever intentionally acted with dishonour.'

'It is just that circumstances conspire against me,' he mocked.

Matilda went to a coffer standing against the wall and brought out the casket containing her ointments and simples.

'I suppose you know the tale of what happened at Barfleur,' he said. 'Do you not think it was dishonourable of me to steal King Henry's mistress from beneath his nose?'

'I think it was foolhardy,' she said. 'And you both paid the price: she with her life and you with your conscience. Hold out your hand.'

Again he hesitated, but then did so, leaving his left one clutched around the wine. She broke the wax seal on a fresh pot of marigold salve, dipped her index finger and lightly anointed the abrasion caused by the manacle. He did not flinch, but she saw his eyes widen slightly.

'Even so, I am a disgrace to the household and the name of my father ... or so Prince David says.'

'Do you want me to condemn you, or condemn my husband for his opinion?' She wiped her finger on a soft strip of swaddling cloth and then bound it around his wrist, securing it with a silver wimple pin. 'Do you consider yourself a disgrace?'

She released his hand and he withdrew it. 'I think it a little late in the day to seek my opinion,' he said. 'It has never mattered before, so why should it matter now?'

Matilda sighed. He had raised a thorny barrier around himself. She recognised that she was responsible for many of those thorns. And David too. The hedge was not entirely of Sabin's making. 'Helisende made a suggestion to me about your future while the guard was bringing you from your cell.'

'She wants to marry me?' The mocking tone was back. Sabin tipped a fresh measure of wine into his cup.

Matilda struggled with her temper. 'How can I help you if you will not help yourself?' Her voice grew stronger, less modulated.

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'You stand in danger of being accused of taking a man's life. You could lose your own . . . and while you think that it would be no loss to anyone, most of all yourself, you would be terribly wrong.'

She waited for the bored expression, for the raise of a scornful eyebrow, but something must have reached him, for he lowered the cup and gave her a direct look filled with knowing. 'I suppose you would have failed in your duty,' he said.

'Yes, I would.'

'I am not sure about the loss to myself,' he murmured, taking a swallow of wine, 'but I suppose I owe you for the years you have tried and tolerated.' A self-deprecating smile crossed his lips and was gone. 'So what does Helisende have in mind for me — a gibbet?'

'No,' Matilda said. 'A cross.'

A what?' Horrified astonishment filled his eyes. 'She wants to make a monk of me? Or a hermit?' He laughed without humour. 'At least if the latter I'd only have my own company to bruise and damage.'

'No, a crusader's cross.' Matilda clung white-knuckled to her patience. 'Edmund Strongfist is leaving us to take service with King Baldwin of Jerusalem. As a trained warrior, you will be useful company. You can pray for your sins at the Holy Sepulchre and use your skills in the name of God.'

The astonishment remained and the laughing mouth closed to a straight line. His expression was so similar to his father's that it was like a sharp blow in the soft space beneath her heart.

'It is a clever thought,' he acknowledged after a moment. 'I will be safely out of the way and engaged in business of which for once the Church approves. When folk ask of me at home, you can tell them my whereabouts with pride, instead of looking over your shoulder. I won't be here to be a bad influence on Simon either, will I?'

The light in the sconces set a golden gleam on his hair. She thought how vulnerable he looked, how exhausted and young beneath the bravado. 'Indeed that is true,' she answered steadily. 'Do you blame me for such thoughts?'

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He shook his head. 'Doubtless in your position I would be thinking them too.'

'Your father took the cross, but he had to turn back at Dorylaeum because of a leg wound,' she said. 'And when he took it a second time, he knew he was dying and his strength only got him as far as Normandy. I thought that you might complete the pilgrimage in his name.'

'Purpose upon purpose,' he said and the mockery was back in his voice. 'You do not need to pile your packhorse with quite so many riches, my lady. I am already convinced.' He tilted his head. 'I will go willingly, but what does Edmund Strongfist say to this suggestion?'

Matilda had the grace to blush. 'He doesn't know yet,' she admitted.

'Ah. And if he does not want me?'

'I think it unlikely. Whatever your reputation, no one has ever disputed your talents in the field. He would be mad to turn down the skills of another warrior on the journey.'

'And if I get out of hand, they do not call him Strongfist for nothing.' He finished the wine and set the cup aside. 'If I were him, I think that I might err on the side of madness.'

Matilda sighed. 'You are being given a chance, Sabin,' she said softly. 'Do not waste it. Here you have been marked by what has gone before. In Jerusalem, they do not know you. You will be just another Frankish face in the crowd with a future and a reputation to mould as you choose.'