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less pleased when he heard about the fight. Perhaps he already knew; Ivo excelled at carrying tales.
    ‘What about Ivo?’
    ‘Sick as a dog,’ said the groom with a gleam of satisfaction.
    Joscelin’s lips twitched. It might be possible to avoid the reckoning until he was fit to cope with it, after all.
    ‘Joscelin!’ A freckle-faced boy came sprinting across the yard and launched himself at Joscelin, clambering his body as if it were a tree and swarming aloft to sit on his shoulders. ‘Will you take me to see the dancing bear at Smithfield?’ He peered down into Joscelin’s face at an angle that made focusing for Joscelin a nauseous pain. Raising his arms, he grabbed the child and somersaulted him to the ground, setting him on his feet.
    His youngest half-brother, Martin, gazed up at him, an urchin grin polishing his face. At eight years old, he was soon to fledge the nest for a page’s position in de Luci’s household. He possessed his full share of the de Rocher self-assurance, although at the moment it was innocent rather than arrogant.
    ‘Why in the world should I take you anywhere?’ Joscelin demanded.
    Chuckling, the groom departed in search of his wily apprentice.
    ‘I’ll be good, I promise!’
    ‘I’ve heard that one before, too!’
    ‘Please,’ Martin beseeched with eyes as soulful as a hound’s so that, despite his aching head, Joscelin had to bite his lip on his amusement.
    ‘Let me settle my wits and my gut first and I’ll see,’ he said, and started towards the house. Martin skipped beside him like a spring lamb and chattered about the dubious fairground delights offered on Smithfield’s perimeter.
    ‘There’s a real mermaid!’ he enthused as they entered the hall together. ‘All bare up here but it costs a whole penny to see her.’
    Joscelin knew the ‘mermaid’ well since fairgrounds and tourneys frequently travelled sword-in-sheath. The nearest she had ever come to being a fish was servicing herring men in a Southampton brothel. Her long blonde hair was a wig and her ‘tail’ was made of cunningly stitched snake-skins. He supposed that she had good breasts if that was the only opportunity you ever got to see a pair, but hardly a full penny’s worth. ‘Gingerbread’s better value,’ he advised gravely and halted, his expression becoming blank, as Lady Agnes descended upon them, her face puckered in temper.
    ‘Where have you been?’ she snapped at Martin and grabbed his arm in a pincer grip. ‘Go and change your tunic, hurry. We’re due at the justiciar’s hall within the hour. You look like something disreputable in a mercenary’s baggage train!’ She released him with a push.
    Self-assured Martin might be, but not stupid, and he obeyed her command at a run, grimacing over his shoulder at Joscelin as he reached the end of the hall.
    Her insult had been all for Joscelin. Last night he had responded to Ralf ’s baiting with violence. Now he offered the lady Agnes a stony courtesy. She might claim that he had been bred in the gutter but she was the one who stooped to it to sling mud.
    He sat down at a trestle and took a small loaf from the bread basket in the centre of the table. Then he poured himself a mug of ale. He could have insisted on taking his place at the high table and commandeering white bread and good wine, but he could not be bothered with that sort of battle this morning.
    ‘Where’s my father?’ he asked, a glance round the hall showing him a suffering, bleary handful of his own men, the steward and servants, but few of the de Rocher retainers. For a moment he thought that she was not going to reply. Her eyes narrowed and her lips tightened. None of your business , her expression said, but the submission to male dominance was so ingrained that she did not openly defy him. ‘He’s gone to fetch Ralf from Leicester’s house,’ she said frostily and turned her back on him to chivvy the servants.
    Joscelin broke the bread and began to eat. Small joy