Shields of Pride by Elizabeth Chadwick

hasn’t got the heart-room for hard work and her legs are too spindly. Also, she’d never ford a stream without baulking. See how nervous she is?’
    Martin pursed his lips. ‘She’s still very pretty.’
    Joscelin chuckled. ‘So are many women, but that’s no recommendation to buy.’
    ‘Lady de Montsorrel’s pretty.’
    Joscelin busied himself examining the teeth of a stocky bay cob. ‘So she is,’ he agreed, half his mind on the horse, the other half dwelling upon the memory of Linnet de Montsorrel’s fine grey eyes and delicate features. His usual preference was for large-boned, buxom women - they adapted best to the vagaries of mercenary baggage trains - but occasionally he found himself drawn to more graceful fare. Breaca had been bird-boned and delicate, quick of movement, dark-eyed and quiet, but with a wild fire inside. He still thought of her sometimes on freezing winter nights when his own body heat was not enough to keep him warm. And of Juhel, too. Of him, he thought constantly.
    With an abrupt gesture, he commanded the horse coper to trot the cob up and down so that he could study its gait with a critical eye.
    Martin nibbled on the gingerbread and stared around the enormous field, which was bursting at the seams with colour and life. The market was held every sixth day of the week and Martin loved to visit if his family was in London. The atmosphere was exhilarating. Everyone was here - rich, poor, lord, merchant, soldier and farmer - all drawn by their common interest in livestock. Here you could buy anything from a plough-horse to a palfrey, from a child’s first pony to a fully trained war-horse costing tens of marks. You could wager on the races between swift, thin-legged coursers and see hot-blooded Arab and Barb bloodstock from the deserts of Outremer. And if you became tired of looking at the horses, there were cattle and sheep, there were pigs and fowl of every variety. There were farm implements to be purchased and craftsmen to watch at their work. And, best of all, there was the fairground.
    ‘A knight’s riding over from the destriers,’ he told Joscelin. ‘I think he wants you.’ The coper hastily led the cob to one side, his expression anxious. Turning, Joscelin saw Giles de Montsorrel riding towards him upon a sweating chestnut destrier that was fighting the bit and side-stepping. The saddle was ill-fitting and the stirrups far too short. Giles himself was wattle-red in the face.
    ‘If I see you near my wife again, I’ll garter my hose with strips of your flayed hide!’ Giles growled.
    Joscelin stared up into Giles’s temper-filled eyes. ‘We but exchanged courtesies. Should I have turned the other way and slighted her?’
    ‘You’re a common mercenary. I know only too well what was in your mind.’
    ‘Not having a mind of your own above the belt that you so freely use,’ Joscelin retorted, his first astonishment rapidly turning to anger.
    ‘Joscelin . . .’ Martin whispered in a frightened voice.
    Giles pricked his spurs into the destrier’s flanks and it plunged towards boy and man, forehooves performing a deadly dance. Martin shrieked as the horse’s shoulder struck him a sidelong blow and sent him flying. He hit the ground hard, the gingerbread flying from his fingers. Giles leaned over the saddle to strike Joscelin with his whip. The blow slashed across Joscelin’s face, narrowly missing his eye and raising an immediate welt. Giles pursued, whip raised in his right fist, his left clamped upon the reins.
    Martin scrambled to his feet and dashed for safety. Joscelin, about to be ridden down by a metal-shod fury, grabbed the horse coper’s three-legged stool and swung it hard at the destrier’s head. The stool shattered across rolling eye and temple and the stallion went mad. Giles, fighting to keep his seat, snatched at the right rein and hauled hard but it was too late for that kind of control. Half-blinded, wild with terror and rage, the stallion reared, came