CHAPTER ONE

Lincoln Castle, Lincoln, England, April 1185.

Later, Nicola would berate herself for not recognising Death’s warning. A mother should have recognised the signs: the hunting hounds howling throughout the night, the cat’s corpse floating in the well, and, most ominous of all, the black-eyed ravens massed on the gaol tower as if waiting for an execution.

But how could she have known?

The day started so well when, seated together in the window seat of the solar, she and Turstin shared one of their rare moments as secret mother and son.

The chessboard still stood on the table from the night before, the ivory queen upright in the square where Nicola had trapped Gerard’s king. He’d groaned, accused her of treachery, then laughed and kissed the top of the queen before setting it into her hand.

“There you are, madam,” he’d said. “The most dangerous piece on the board.”

She’d gone to sleep smiling. Gerard had always liked that she played to win.

“You said you’d tell me more about my father,” Turstin said, his grey eyes so earnest. Morning light streamed through the window, gilding his fine nose, the dark fuzz of his youthful moustache, and the hump at the top of his back.

Nicola smiled. They couldn’t talk about his father in public, but in private he always hungered for every scrap she could give him. She gripped his hand. Turstin might not have been born of her body, but he was Fitz’s son, and, whatever Gerard thought of it, she loved him as her own.

“Fitz was a hero,” she said.

“You never told me how he prevented that massacre in Normandy.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know the details. Next time William Marshal comes, ask him. Marshal was there then, and later when Fitz died saving the Young King’s life.” A shiver ran through her. “I never wanted to think about it.”

“I’m sorry.” A shadow crossed Turstin’s face. “I wish I could remember him.”

“He’d be so proud of you.”

Turstin gave a bitter scoff. “A brilliant tourney knight, proud of his book-loving, crookbacked bastard?”

“You’re as handsome as he was.” She smiled, remembering her first husband. “The first time I saw him, it was as if my heart had caught fire. He was the one true love of my life.”

Something thudded beyond the door.

Turstin crossed the room and pulled on the handle.

Nicola sprang to her feet at the sight of her husband in the doorway, one hand raking through his grey hair. How much had he heard?

“Gerard!”

He remained in the shadow of the doorway, his dark eyes flooding her with the old, corrosive guilt she knew only too well. He flicked Turstin a venomous glance then made a curt bow. “Madam, I’m going for a ride.” He turned to leave.

“Gerard, wait!” she cried. “It’s Tommy’s first day at Song School!”

Surely his bitterness towards Fitz wouldn’t keep him from waving off his own son?

“I won’t be back till dark.” He disappeared into the stairwell.

She sighed. Gerard had never been petty or controlling, as so many noblemen were. When they married, he’d not taken the keys from her belt, displaced her from the high seat in the hall, nor made her castle and inherited lands feel any less her own. And when two difficult pregnancies had left her weak, she’d leaned on him—warm, steady, and always there.

But he’d never been able to master his jealousy of Fitz, and now he’d heard her call Fitz the one true love of her life. Heat climbed her throat. She’d meant it, God help her, but carrying the truth unspoken was one thing; letting Gerard hear it was another. And with Turstin standing before him, grey-eyed and handsome as his father, Fitz must have seemed less dead than Gerard could bear.

But it was Tommy’s first day at school.

She waited at the castle gate with her youngest son for as long as she dared, but when it was almost Sext and Gerard still hadn’t returned, she could delay no longer.

“Look at you, all grown in your new scholar’s robes,” she said, smoothing a lock of Tommy’s auburn hair.

Tommy puffed out his chest. “I’ll be as clever as Turstin.”

Nicola winked at Turstin. “Don’t lose sight of him till you bring him back this afternoon. You know how he wanders.”

“Don’t worry, Mam—” Turstin broke off, wincing at what he’d almost said in front of the castle guards. “Don’t worry, Lady Nicola. I’d protect Tommy with my life.” He took the little boy’s hand. “Come on, the priests are waiting.”

“But Papa promised he’d be here.”

“He’s out riding.” Nicola forced a smile.

Tommy jutted out his chin. “I won’t go till Papa comes.”

She pursed her lips. Gerard shouldn’t have left her in this position. “Tommy, if you arrive on time and pay heed to what the cathedral masters say, I’ll buy you a pony, and then you can go riding too.”

Tommy’s eyes brightened. “Let’s go.” He tugged at Turstin’s hand, and the two boys strode down the path and under the portcullis as the sentries sprang to attention and saluted, huge smiles plastered on their faces.

Nicola watched as they crossed the bridge and disappeared into the crowd on Castle Hill. She shook her head. Where had the years gone? Her youngest was already five, stepping out for the first time into the male world of the cathedral to be schooled in reading, writing, and chanting, and in no time at all he’d be a squire learning to charge a warhorse and wield a sword.

She turned towards the Lucy Tower and her next duty: dealing with Tilly, who Ingrid had reported was still abed with more “tummy-gripes”. Nicola sighed. Yet another baffling, upsetting confrontation with her awkward, twelve-year-old daughter.

Halfway to the motte, she pushed aside a pang of guilt, turned on her heel and marched towards the armoury. She’d be in a much better frame of mind to deal with Tilly if she could just thump some crossbow bolts into a target first.

She fetched her crossbow and bag of quarrels, climbed the steep wooden steps, and emerged onto the sun-drenched western battlements just as the hounds started howling again.

What had got into them?

She scanned the bailey, but nothing seemed amiss. The air was rich with the scents of horse manure and smoke and the mouth-watering aroma of baking bread. Two grooms were leading four horses from the stables to the exercise yard; a cart loaded with barrels was passing through the East Gate, and a grey-haired maid was stepping across the muddy sward with a full basket of laundry on her head. Nothing looked out of place.

A shout rang out, and a boy with a mop of auburn hair tore from behind a shed, brandishing his wooden sword as he hurtled straight at the laundrymaid.

“Dickon, stop!” Nicola cried, but she was too far away for him to hear.

Dickon slammed the flat of his blade into the woman’s stomach. Her basket flew from her hands, spilling linens across the mud. She dropped to her knees, scrambling after them, while Dickon laughed and bolted off in search of another victim.

Nicola clenched her fists, adding her oldest son and heir to her list of tasks. As soon as she’d finished crossbow practice… and spoken to Tilly… she’d deal with him, too.

She slung her crossbow over her shoulder and stepped through the door to the gatehouse above the castle’s West Gate. Inside, a lone soldier in battered leather armour was slumped, half-sitting, half-lying against the wall, his arming cap over his eyes and helmet set to one side. He let out a loud snore.

“Get up, Wat, you idle dolt!” She drove a hard kick into his thigh.

“What the hell!” Wat lurched upright with fists raised and yellow teeth bared until, recognition sparking in his eyes, he removed his cap and bowed his head. “L…la…lady Nicola.”

Nicola fixed the soldier with her most haughty stare. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t have you whipped then thrown out of the castle.”

A flush stole under the big man’s greasy, unkempt beard. “I… I must’a dozed off.”

“Sweet Jesu,” she cursed. “You’ve left your station unmanned. How many other men are patrolling the walls?”

He shoved a hand through his shaggy hair. “Just Sir Jollan and me, m’lady. He’s east and south. I’m west and north.”

“Except you haven’t been.”

“Very sorry, m’lady. I’ve been up here since yester’ morn. Only went down to piss. Ate up here too. Ivo forgot the roster again. Said I’d have to do extra shifts.”

“That’s no excuse,” she said, but her temper had already cooled. Ivo, the garrison commander, had done this before.

“Don’t throw me out the castle,” Wat pleaded. “Whip me if you must, but... I need the work.” He swallowed. “I’ve bairns to feed.”

Nicola studied him. She could ill afford poorly disciplined men, but there was little work in the city unless you were part of a guild, and the villages hadn’t yet recovered from the destruction of the floods. He and his family would be beggared. She couldn’t throw him out, but, to set an example, he’d have to be flogged. She couldn’t have poorly disciplined soldiers; not in such unstable times.

“Lady Nicola!”

Footsteps pounded along the battlements. Ivo appeared a heartbeat later, his neatly pointed beard and fine blue garments making him look more courtier than garrison commander.

“I’m not pleased, Ivo,” Nicola said. “I found this man asleep on duty, and he tells me he’s on his third shift in a row.”

Ivo sneered. “I’ll see to him. It’s past time he was lashed.”

Wat lowered his head, grimacing.

“Why was no one else assigned to cover the extra shifts?” she asked.

Ivo curled his lip. “Wat’s a lazy good-for-nothing. I deemed it fair and just he did extra work to compensate.”

Nicola took a breath. Nicola took a breath. She’d appeased Ivo long enough, even if his family had been oathmen to Gerard’s for generations.

She turned to Wat. “Look at me.”

He raised his head.

“Clean yourself up. Get some sleep. I won’t have you whipped this time. But if you fail me again, you’ll be out of this castle faster than I can reload my crossbow.”

“M’lady.” He bobbed his head and scuttled towards the steps.

Nicola forced herself to meet Ivo’s eyes. “You will do Wat’s shift.”

Ivo gave a sharp, incredulous shake of his head. “I agreed my duties with Lord Camville. I supervise. I don’t patrol.”

“You do now.”

“But your lord husband—” He lifted his chin. “My father served his father before him. We’ve always answered to the de Camvilles.”

Nicola tightened her grip on the crossbow until the wood bit into her palm. “Lord Camville isn’t here. And he may be a lord, but he isn’t my lord.”

Ivo arched one brow. “If you say so.”

She held her gaze. When she’d been heavy with Tommy, and then when he’d still been little, illness and exhaustion had forced her to lean on Gerard more than she’d liked. He’d stepped in where she needed him, and she’d not wanted to undermine him afterwards by unpicking every choice he’d made. But appointing Ivo had been a mistake.

“I’m the constable here,” she said. “Appointed by the king, as my father and grandfather were before me.” She lifted her chin. “Get out of those ridiculous clothes. Fetch your armour and report back before the bells toll Sext. Until then, I’ll do your patrol.”

Ivo turned on his heel and strutted away.

Nicola let out a slow breath. Ever since Saewulf had left the castle, she’d been plagued by lazy, useless men.

She swung the crossbow back over her shoulder and strode along the northern wall towards the eastern gatehouse. Sir Jollan of Ingleby stood there at attention in a fine hauberk, his back straight as a lance. Beyond him, across Castle Hill, the twin stone towers of Lincoln Cathedral rose against the pale blue sky, dwarfing the city below. Crows wheeled overhead, and further along the battlements the ravens she’d seen at dawn still seethed atop the gaol-tower roof in a writhing black shroud.

Nicola crossed herself. Why were these omens of ill fate here?

“Lady Nicola.” Sir Jollan saluted.

“Sir Jollan.” She forced herself to look at his face. At first glance, the thickset tenant knight seemed a fine, handsome man, but his trimmed beard couldn’t hide the mangled flesh where his upper lip should have been.

“It’s good to be back on military service, even if only for thirty days.”

“It’s good to have you here.” He was an excellent tenant on her lands at Ingleby and an even better soldier.

The grumble of thunder echoed across the city.

“Passing strange,” he said, scanning the sky. “There’s not a cloud to be seen.”

A hound let out a long, desperate howl.

The stone floor lurched beneath Nicola’s feet.

“Sweet Mary!” She caught at a crenel.

The battlements bucked again, harder this time. Across the city, the cathedral bells erupted into a wild, clanging peal. Shouts broke into screams, and below them the dogs’ howls rose to a frenzy.

It was like a bad dream. Straight ahead, on the far side of Castle Hill, less than four hundred yards away, Lincoln Cathedral’s western towers swayed like ship-masts in a storm.

Nicola clung to the crenel as the wall thundered beneath her feet. Across the hill, stone tore from the cathedral in great pale bursts, masonry and mortar spraying through the air like chaff from a flail.

Sir Jollan drew his sword. “The cathedral’s going to collapse!”

Nicola’s blood turned to ice.

Turstin. Tommy.

She stumbled along the battlements, seizing one crenel and then the next while the nine-foot-thick walls shuddered under her feet.

A deafening crash split the air, and dust exploded upwards in a vast grey cloud.

She couldn’t see. She couldn’t hear. She couldn’t breathe.

She yanked her veil over her nose and mouth and fought her way through the choking, swirling dust.

She had to get to her boys.

***

Their footsteps echoed on Lincoln Cathedral’s stone floor as they crossed the nave towards the north transept and the chapterhouse. Turstin gripped Tommy’s hand. The little boy kept wriggling, trying to break free, but Turstin had promised to keep him safe. He loved Tommy, but just like his older brother Dickon, Tommy was always fidgeting, racing off, and getting distracted.

He’d get this duty right, at least. He’d embarrassed Mama in front of the soldiers, almost referring to her as his mother—something he hadn’t been allowed to do in public for nigh on six years. But sometimes, it was hard. She wasn’t his mother by blood, but she was the only one he’d ever known, and it was difficult calling her ‘Lady Nicola’ as if she were some distant, unrelated noblewoman.

He had to do better. She’d only ever shown him kindness, despite his very existence being an embarrassment: the bastard-born, crook-backed product of his long-dead father’s liaison with Mama’s maid.

They reached the slype and the entrance to the chapterhouse.

“Remember, don’t speak unless you’re spoken to,” Turstin whispered to Tommy. “It’ll seem strange at first, but don’t worry. I’ll be there.” He drew a deep breath, then guided the little boy through the archway for his first day of formal learning.

The chapterhouse was dimly lit by a row of high, narrow windows. Remigius, a white-haired, tonsured, pink-faced canon in a black gown, was perched on a stone wall-bench, reading a psalter by the light of a candle flickering in the wall sconce above. Before him stood a group of child scholars, silent and still, their hands clasped in front of their dark robes.

Canon Remigius lifted his head from the psalter. “Ah, Turstin,” he said. “I’ve a message for you from—” He broke off. “And whom do we have here?”

“This is Lady Nicola and Lord Camville’s youngest son, Thomas,” Turstin replied. “It’s his first day. You said to bring him at Sext.”

“Ah, yes. Come here, lad. Let me look at you.”

Tommy stepped forwards. He lifted his chin as if unconcerned but swallowed twice in quick succession.

“Are you named after Saint Thomas Becket?” Remigius asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. You’ll learn to chant the psalms just like the archbishop did, and then we’ll teach you to read. How does that sound?”

“It sounds fine,” Tommy said unconvincingly, twisting in his dust-stained new shoes. He looked ready to bolt for the door.

Brother Remigius’s gaze shifted to Turstin. “My boy—”

“Shall I get the psalters ready? Psalm hundred-and-nineteen? For an auspicious beginning for little Thomas?”

“No. You’re wanted by Master Montibus.”

“But I always help you. And I promised to look after Tommy on his first day.”

Remigius passed his tongue over his chapped lips. “You should be honoured. The Master wants you to teach Hebrew to some of the boys, and mayhap, some of the priests. Go and join the canons for Sext, then seek him out.”

A flicker of pride stirred before Turstin could suppress it. He’d learnt both the Hebrew language and alphabet from a young age with his Jewish friend Leon, knowledge rare amongst Christians but much in demand by the Church.

But today, Tommy came first.

“Can I speak to him after Nones? I said I’d make sure little Thomas settled in.”

Remigius waved a dismissive hand. “Nonsense. I’ve managed small boys for nigh on forty years. Run along and join the other canons. I know how to handle young Thomas, don’t I, boy?” His eyes settled on Tommy.

Tommy swallowed and nodded.

“But—”

“I said go.”

Turstin didn’t argue any more. Remigius did know how to deal with children, and Master Montibus, one of the greatest minds in England, had recognised him, Turstin, as having knowledge worthy of teaching others.

He left Tommy with Remigius and the other boys and made his way towards the chancel for Sext. The north transept blazed with candles and incense, and whispered prayers drifted through the chill air like holy vapour. The vicars choral sang in the quire. Thunder rumbled in the distance. As the bells for Sext began to toll, Turstin increased his stride into the crossing where the nave and transepts met.

The ground shuddered beneath him. He stumbled onto the stone floor, tearing his dark scholar’s gown. Confused, he scrambled to his feet. The stones beneath him began to growl. Then a sharp crack sounded overhead. Turstin looked up in horror. The nave vault was tearing apart before his eyes, dust pouring from the wound.

The rumbling grew louder, and the singing faltered. Bells clanged wildly, as if a madman were yanking the ropes.

“God’s judgement is upon us!” someone wailed.

The earth convulsed again. It was as if God Himself had seized the whole building and shaken it in wrath. Masonry tore from the walls, breaking from the vaulted ceiling and slamming onto the tiled floor with deafening force. The four enormous stone columns supporting the tower above the crossing swayed from side to side.

Screams and shouts filled the air.

“Save yourselves!”

Canons fled in every direction.

Tommy!

Turstin turned and raced back towards the chapterhouse, running faster than he’d ever done before as stone and dust showered onto his head, shoulders, and back.

Finally, he reached the slype. He was no more than a hundred feet away.

The sound of children screaming froze his blood.

“Tommy, I’m coming!”

The wall beside the chapterhouse door wobbled like an almond milk pudding. There was a loud bang, and the wall crumbled in an ear-splitting crash of stones, mortar, and dust.

Turstin clapped a hand over his nose and mouth and drove himself forward.

He’d save Tommy or die trying.

Something hard and heavy slammed into Turstin’s head, and everything went black.