A chilling screech rang in their ears. Klara moaned. ‘Enough of that,’ Gwenn said, tightly. Klara ignored her, rocking to and fro as she knelt. Her moaning rose, became a wail.

Mary chanted more loudly. ‘Save us now and at the hour of our death.’

Katarin had emerged from their sleeping alcove and looked at them with a child’s wide-eyed curiosity. Gwenn dredged up a smile and held out her hand. ‘Good girl, you’re dressed. Come here, sweetheart.’ Wrapping her sister’s cold hand securely in hers, she knelt to pray.

Chapter Eighteen

Waldin St Clair, champion-at-arms, was in his element. Glad to be in harness again after his recent life of ease, his sword whirled before him, clearing a route directly to the centre of the maelstrom in the hall. Surrounded by his brother’s enemies and cutting them down as though they were no more than stalks of corn and his sword was a reaper’s scythe, he was outnumbered, but undaunted. He bared his teeth in a fierce grin and welcomed the frantic pounding of his heart. The blood rushed invigoratingly through his veins. He felt alive as he hadn’t for weeks.

The clamour was deafening. It was like the mêlée in a tournament, with one notable difference. In the mêlée, Waldin’s inbuilt sense of chivalry made him temper the blows he had delivered. Chivalry did not shackle his hands today. There was no need for him to take care to avoid giving a death-dealing blow or a crippling strike. These lousy assassins had crept up on Kermaria like thieves in the night, they deserved as bad a death as he could give them. They were allied with a lord whose quarrel with Jean ranked them lower than the meanest outlaw. In Waldin’s eyes, they had signed their own death warrants.

François de Roncier was fighting by the great fire, and though well mailed and helmeted so his shock of copper hair was concealed, his round, ruddy visage was plain for anyone to see. He had stepped outside the law in loosing his cutthroats on Kermaria. Barely a month ago, Waldin’s brother had taken his claim to the de Wirce lands to court. The judgement had not been given, and it might well be made in the Count’s favour, for his family had held the land for years and possession was nine tenths of the law. If the court found in favour of de Roncier, this slaughter would be for nothing.

And it was slaughter. One keen, professional glance told Waldin that the couple of dozen men who guarded his brother’s manor were outnumbered four to one. Though Waldin’s own dexterity and the tactics he had passed on to Jean’s guard tipped the scales a little in Kermaria’s favour, his brother’s men would probably meet their maker before the sun rose. Against so large a force, they did not have a chance. Waldin was not afraid to die – not this way. For this would be a glorious death. He would go with his sword in his hand. He would go cleanly, fighting a just cause.

The last winter had brought him the odd twinge of rheumatism, his first. It had been a depressing warning of what was in store. Reluctantly, Waldin had resigned himself to a slow diminishing of that vitality by which he had lived. If his fate was to grow old slowly and painfully, growing less mobile and more feeble with each passing season, then so be it. He had managed to convince himself that he was resigned to his fate. But now, with his blood running hot and fierce, he acknowledged he had been deluding himself. He had not wanted to die a slow, lingering death with his faculties diminishing year by year. And all at once he was presented with the opportunity to go the way he would have chosen – the warrior’s way. And for his brother’s sake, Waldin vowed to give a good account of himself before his soul was hewn from his body.

Waldin saw Jean’s squire, young Roger de Herion, go down squealing, a spear through his belly, and winced. He repaid the man who’d skewered Roger with a clean thrust. ‘More than you deserve,’ he muttered, pulling his sword clear. There was no time to wipe his sword clean on his victim’s leather breeches before another of the Count’s men stood before him. Buoyed up, exhilarated, Waldin parried thrust after thrust. Another de Roncier heathen threw down the gage. Waldin ran him through with cold efficiency, but instantly another sprang up to take his place. The odds were stacked against them, and knowing that his end must come soon, Waldin’s mind worked feverishly, as though it could squeeze several years’ thinking into one minute. Jean, Waldin recalled, scorned his own love of glory. Jean would not appreciate the honour in dying outnumbered. Jean would not want his lifeblood to drain to away on the floor of his hall. He scanned the room for his brother. Jean had engaged de Roncier himself and, like most of the St Clair men, he had not had time to don his hauberk.

‘You won’t get away with this,’ Jean gasped, making a pass at the Count.

De Roncier side-stepped nimbly and lifted his lips in a snarl. ‘You think not?’

Jean made another stroke. ‘They’ll know who did this.’ François lunged, aiming for the knight’s heart. Jean turned his opponent’s blade aside with a grace that brought a smile to Waldin’s lips.

‘Neatly done, brother,’ Waldin breathed approvingly, and started clearing a path towards them.

‘The Duke will suspect,’ Jean ground out, ‘when it comes to light that we’re at odds in his lawcourt.’

François shook his head.

‘Who else would dare break the Duke’s peace? This land is his, and his writ is absolute here.’

François held up a mailed hand. ‘If you’ll hold off a moment?’

Jean nodded and shifted his sword to one side, eyes wary, but listening.

A wolfish gleam fired in the ruined hazel eyes. ‘You must know that a band of pirates have taken to mooring their ships in the Small Sea,’ François said. ‘They’ve been working their way up the estuaries, of which yours is but one. They take cover in the forest. I think you’ll find it’s the pirates who shoulder the blame for this, not I.’

A blond hulk blocked Waldin’s view, and made a pass. Waldin turned it aside without conscious thought, and tried to forge towards his brother and the Count, but the hulk had a long reach and barred his way. Waldin swore, for his mind was set on purging the world of the parasite that was de Roncier.

His brother and the Count re-engaged. Little by little, de Roncier was driving Jean back to the gaily tiled hearth. Waldin frowned. Another step and Jean would be dancing on hot ashes. He saw his brother’s sword sweep wide of the mark, and his frown deepened. That was not his brother’s style, a four year-old could have done better. What was he up to?

But almost before that question had finished forming, Waldin’s febrile mind threw up an answer. Jean was not even trying. Staring at his brother, it dawned on Waldin that for months they’d been gazing at the face of a man who had already suffered a mortal blow and was scarcely keeping body and soul together. Behind the front, his brother had crumbled to dust. Jean had relinquished responsibility for military matters, and he had not merely been providing a bored brother with something to stop him twiddling his thumbs. The delegation had been total. Jean had had the stuffing knocked out of him. He had lost interest in life, he had given up. He remembered the moves – witness that brilliant warding pass he had made a few moments ago – but he was not choosing to use them. Since the day his wife had died, Jean had been a shell of a man.

Waldin flicked his wrist, and severed an artery in the neck of a de Roncier trooper. Petrified, the soldier stared at Waldin with the eyes of a man who knew that he had been dealt a mortal blow. He toppled slowly, soundlessly, his blood pumping into the rushes. Jean was practically in the fireplace. Stepping over the fallen man and forcing his way through the scrimmage, Waldin went to give him aid. It was far better to go on your own home ground, he thought grimly. Far better to go fighting for a brother you loved than to die on a stranger’s land for a cause you had no share in. He would have his warrior’s death, and it would be a burning, glorious, defiant death. He’d fight to the bitter end, and if he couldn’t take François de Roncier with him, he’d have to trust in God to see that that swine’s felonies did not go unrewarded.