Shields of Pride by Elizabeth Chadwick Read Free Book Online

sleety rain when you were so weary you wanted to give up and die, but couldn’t because people were depending on you. Ralf did not know what real hunger was.
     
    Ralf moved restlessly around his mother’s chamber, touching this and that without any real purpose. Agnes watched his progress with troubled eyes. She could still feel the dry imprint of his kiss on her cheek. He stank of wine, sweat and the cheap scent of whores. She was disappointed but not surprised; nor did she blame him. It was all William’s fault.
    ‘Shall I find you some salve for your eye, my love?’
    Ralf shook his head and fiddled with a piece of braid lying on top of her work basket. ‘It doesn’t hurt,’ he muttered. He dropped the braid and moved to the window.
    Agnes admired his spare, angular grace and the gleam of his sun-bright hair. She was so proud of his golden fierceness and the fact that she had given him life.
    ‘I need money,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to ask my father and, even if I did, he would not give it to me.’
    ‘How much?’
    ‘Enough to see me comfortable while I’m in Normandy with Leicester’s troops.’
    Her heart plummeted. ‘You are truly going?’
    He said nothing but, after a moment, turned his head and fixed her with a stare that held a world of discontent and frustration. His eyes were light brown like her own. With the sun striking them obliquely, they held flecks of suspended gold. The swollen bruise was an affront to his beauty.
    ‘Have you told your father?’
    ‘Not in so many words, but he knows.’
    And would do nothing to help him, Agnes thought, because he thoroughly disapproved of Robert of Leicester. If she herself disapproved it was because of the danger to Ralf’s safety, but she knew she could no more hold him or persuade him to do her bidding than she could handle William’s great Norway hawk. To her mind, it thus made eminent sense to ensure that Ralf had everything he needed to survive.
    ‘How much?’ she asked again and went to her jewel casket. Every penny she spent had to be accounted for to William but she still had her jewellery which was hers to dispose of as she wished. William never noticed whether she wore trinkets or not and she seldom felt the need to deck herself in finery. If she could spare Ralf even a moment of hardship, she would give up every last piece.
    He left the window niche and crossed the room to stand at her shoulder as she raised the lid. There were rings and brooches, ornate belts, clasps and a braid girdle that her waist had outgrown in the course of numerous pregnancies. Ralf ignored all these and pounced upon a reliquary cross on a thick gold chain.
    ‘This will do,’ he said and held it up to the light. Amethyst and moonstone, sapphire and beryl flashed amid a fire of sun-caught gold. ‘Thank you, Mother, I can always count on you for an ally.’ He rewarded her with another kiss, less perfunctory this time, and, ducking the cross around his neck, headed for the door.
    On the threshold he encountered his aunt Maude, a dish of marchpane-covered dates in her hand. He kissed her, too, snatched several of the sweetmeats off the tray and, whistling loudly, pounded away down the stairs.
    Maude looked curiously at Agnes, who, pink-faced, was closing and locking her jewel casket.
    ‘Ralf ’s uncommonly cocky to say that William almost flayed him alive earlier,’ Maude remarked, setting the dish on the coffer. ‘Have you been helping him out again?’
    ‘If I have, it’s none of your business,’ Agnes sniffed. She considered her sister-in-law to be a greedy, interfering sow and a spy in the household.
    ‘Just be careful. I don’t think William would approve.’
    Agnes gave her a hostile stare. ‘Are you going to tell him?’
    Maude shrugged and reached for one of the sweetmeats. ‘It’s none of my business, is it?’ she said, returning Agnes’ look impassively.

6
     
    Linnet watched the dancing bear shamble in slow circles to the tune its