The Seasons Series; Five Books for the Price of Three

by Domning, Denise

  With naught to do until he awakened she went to the window and threw open the shutters. Leaning into the opening, she sought to absorb the sounds and smells of the far more normal life that went on around this deathwatch. Overhead, the sky was yet a bright blue, but clouds built, promising rain this night. She hoped it held off until after she'd seen Rob. There'd be no explaining wet gowns to Helewise come the morn.

  The air was so heavy it made the smoke from the kitchen puddle around the peaked vent on its roof. Shimmering with heat, the thick stuff snaked its way along the thatch until it reached out to mingle with what rose from beneath the roof that shielded the distillery's hearth. Enjoying the shade that length of thatching provided them the maids who tended whatever potions stewed there were chatting and laughing as they worked. Next door, Master Herebert's wife was taking her husband to task over some misdemeanor, her voice piercing as she scolded.

  All of this was so familiar and right that it offered her at least a momentary ease from what so frightened her. This was her home. As long as she had Rob beside her, she could survive, even if everyone else left her. Turning her back to the window, she returned to her father's bed. The stool that had long since become a feature here was set too close to the wall. Johanna drew it toward her, but her grip on the seat was not as tight as she thought. It slipped from her hands and fell to its side, clattering loudly on the wooden floor.

  The noise sparked a rustling within the curtains. "Who is there?" Papa's call was so very weak. Johanna was glad the drapes were shut so he couldn't see how this made her grimace.

  "It is me, Papa. My pardon, I did not mean to wake you."

  Setting the stool upright beside the bed, she pushed back the draperies to look in at him. It took all her strength not to flinch as she did so. He too, was slipping away, going to a place far beyond her reach and from which he would never return. Loneliness once again pulsed through her.

  "I am glad you did," he said to her, an odd tenseness to his voice.

  She settled onto the stool, frowning in concern for him. "Are you hurting again, Papa?" A glance at the wall confirmed that the concoction Master Colin had created to deaden the pain that now ever gnawed at her father still sat where they left it.

  "Aye, but it is nothing that brew will ease," he said. "Rob has spoken with me."

  The breath left Johanna's lungs in a rush, only to be replaced by guilt. Despite that she was certain what she and Rob did was not wrong, in the doing of it she had betrayed her father's trust in her. Johanna slammed her heel down upon that thought. It was not she who was doing the betraying, but Papa. He meant to force her to wed Katel, who was a hateful, evil man.

  Lifting her chin to a proud angle, she said, "Then you know that I can no longer marry Katel. Rob loves me, and we are wed."

  Rather than comment on what she said, he asked, "Are you with child, sweetling?"

  Johanna froze. Never in all her life had she thought her father might ask her such a question. Shame woke, so deep she bowed her head against it. "Nay, Papa."

  "Are you certain? When was your last woman's flow?"

  Her shame worsened as he mentioned this most private of subjects. It squeezed at her heart, trying to obliterate her love for Rob. Why had it never occurred to her that what she and Rob did together might get her with child? Instead, all she'd thought about was his love for her and the pleasure she found in his arms.

  "Two weeks past," she returned, her voice tiny.

  "Have you known him since then?"

  Tears trickled from her eyes at this horrible, horrible question. Of a sudden she no longer felt like a virtuous wife, but rather some immoral maid who would lay with any lad. She could only nod.

  Her father sighed. "Then Master Colin will fix you a brew to make certain naught lives in your womb. It is bad enough that he's left you. It would be doubly so were he to leave a bastard behind to ruin you."

  "What?" It was a breathless cry that sprang from her lips. Shocked from her tears, Johanna raised her head to stare at her father. Even as she heard what he had said, she refused it. The thought of Rob gone was more than she could tolerate.

  A terrible sadness filled the receding planes of her father's thin face. "Ach poppet, I cannot think how to tell you this. Rob has pulled the hood over all of our eyes. He's lied to you, sweetling. His tale about the abbot and proof of marriage was naught but a falsehood."

  These words were like knife blows to her heart, made all the more painful because they followed her father's mortifying interview. Doubts appeared from some hidden coffer in her mind. Everyone knew that marriages were made before the church door. It took a priest's words to make the bond true. Shame's befouling light tried to turn what she and Rob had done into a sin. Still, her faith persisted.

  "Nay, Rob would not lie to me. He asked the abbot."

  Her father only shook his head. "Would you like me to call the abbot here to confirm what I tell you? I can do that if you will it."

  "Nay," Johanna moaned softly, shaking her head against the confusion that whirled within her. Her father was wrong; he had to be. Rob never lied to her, but then, neither had her sire. "When Rob returns he'll prove to you he did not lie," she cried out.

  "Poppet, do not fool yourself into thinking he’ll be back. He is gone for all time," her sire said with yet another deep sigh.

  "Where did he go?" It was an aching plea, begging her father to deny what he'd just said. Once again, tears filled Johanna's eyes, a single droplet trickling down her cheek. When it reached her jaw, her father lifted a hand and used his thumb to brush it away.

  "I know naught, save that he has coins enough to take him anywhere he wills."

  Johanna jerked upright on the stool and tore away from her father's touch as she understood what he'd done. Papa meant her to wed Katel, will she, nill she. To achieve this, he'd deprived her of the only one willing to stay with her. "You sent him away!"

  However fiery her accusal, a terrible emptiness yawned within her. Her protest came too late. It did not matter what had happened or why. Rob was gone, and Papa would see to it he stayed far beyond her reach. There was nothing she could do to bring him back to her.

  Never had Johanna known such pain. It was a moment before she realized her heart was breaking. Against her helplessness faith disappeared. How could Rob have allowed Papa to send him away from her when she needed him so?

  "Love, I did not," her sire crooned to her.

  However strange his voice had become, this was a soothing tone. "All I did was test him. I wanted to be sure of his affection for you before I broke your betrothal to Katel and placed you in his care. I told him he could have you, but you'd come to him with only your shift to your name."

  His words shattered her. "You have disinherited me?" A little voice within her scolded that this was no more than she deserved for how she had sinned against God and her sire.

  "Ach, my little love, it was but a ruse." He claimed her hand, holding it tight in his hot, dry palm. "I only wanted to know that his heart was true."

  Johanna drew herself up to her tallest. However hopeless the battle she'd fight it to the end. "Now I know you lie. Rob's heart is true. Whether I had wealth or not, he would have accepted your offer and made me his wife in the eyes of the world."

  "Child, you have mistaken him." Her father's hand tightened on hers in an attempt to convince her that his lie was true. "He raged! Praise God that there was no one within the house to overhear him else the tale of your debauching would soon be spread to every corner of Stanrudde. It was to protect you and your name that I offered him a goodly sum to still his tongue. He took this, lass, then demanded more. I had to vow to give it to him, but said he would not receive it until after you were well and truly wed to Katel."

  "You are lying," she whispered, her love for Rob clinging to her heart by its fingernails alone.

  "Would that I were." Her father eased back into the mattress, worn from this much conversation. "The proof of my tale lies in his departur
e, does it not?"

  Although everything within her protested that Rob would never have traded coins for her, her ability to resist was failing beneath her sire's pounding onslaught. Depression came creeping over her. Whether he loved her or not, Rob was now leagues beyond her reach.

  Johanna stared at her sire. There was nothing left to stand between her and marriage to Katel. In her desperation to avoid a fate she could not tolerate, she sought within her to find some remaining defense. It was a shoddy barrier that she devised.

  "No matter what you've done, Rob will return for me," she told him, even while the hopelessness within her said he never would. "Rob will not allow another to wed me. He loves me."

  Papa only shook his head, his eyes filled with sadness. "Believe as you must, child. I tell you what. Let us make a bargain, we two. You say he'll come. I vow to you now that if he arrives before you are wed to Katel, I will see the betrothal broken and marry the two of you. If he does not, then you must wed Katel as has been so long planned."

  With that, her father released his breath. His eyes closed, and he drifted back into sleep. Johanna stared at him, battered and bereft. So deep was her hopelessness not even anger's spark could find fodder in it.

  His promise hung before her. She grabbed for it, clutching it tightly into her heart, despite that she knew he only offered it because he was certain Rob would not return. It was all that kept her from drowning in her fear and loneliness.

  "He will come," she told her sleeping sire. "No matter what you've done to drive him away, Rob will come for me. He must," she sobbed quietly, "else I will surely die."

  Stanrudde

  The hour of Compline

  Saint Agnes's Day, 1197

  Johanna turned to stare at her husband. Caught in the yellowish light of the lamp she'd left atop the trunk, Katel's fleshy features seemed made of wax. His white shirt took on the color of the parchment she'd just burnt, while the deep red of his chausses browned. Spiked from sleep, his pale hair stood out about his head, but his gaze was alert. If he'd been drinking, he'd not had enough to make him drunk.

  Her gaze slipped from him to her mother's green chest. With each breath she tasted the stink of the skins. The time for hiding what she'd done had come and passed. All was lost.

  Katel blinked then frowned as he stared at the skirts flowing through the edges of her cloak. There was a flash of surprise in his eyes as he recognized the gowns he'd hidden. With that, fear for herself and Rob tightened its grip on Johanna. Their fates had been sealed from the moment Elyas removed these garments from their hiding place. One glimpse of them told Katel he was exposed.

  "What is this?" her husband hissed as he turned to look toward the corner. Betrayer that it was, the lamp's merry flame cheerfully scattered its light onto the dishware strewn along the wall.

  Staggering over to the emptied chest, he stared into its barren depths. A swat of his hand sent the false bottom tumbling to the floor. The clatter of wood against wood was loud in the room's intense silence. Johanna flinched at the sound. Her survival and Rob's now rested in the hands of a child, one given to fanciful tales. What if Wymar did not believe him, as he hadn't about the chest? The certainty that the cook would not sent her heart spiraling downward into despair.

  Katel turned, swaying slightly as he did so. As he strode toward the fireplace he regained a little more control over himself with each step. He was steady on his feet by the time he stopped before the hearth.

  Coughing against the thickened air, he leaned down to snatch the smoldering remains of a forged missive from the hot coals. It was as Johanna watched him stare at the blackened thing that this morn's angry need to outlast Katel's threat returned. She'd only just reclaimed her life from the hatred that had consumed her; she couldn't give it up so soon.

  When Katel raised his head from the charred skin it was to aim his gaze beyond her. "What do you think this is?" he barked at the menservants who yet clung to the edges of the light. "Some public show to entertain you?"

  Shoes scuffed, men cleared their throats. The sounds died away in the next instant as they disappeared into the eclipsing blackness that held the hall in its clutches. When they were out of earshot, Katel turned a wicked glare on her.

  "Think yourself saved, do you?" His words were a heated breath. "I can replace them in two hours' time. Now that you've seen them, I suppose I must move a little faster than I'd planned. Just as well, I'd say." A brief and savage grin darted across his mouth. "It would be rude to keep you waiting overly long for your death."

  Johanna stared at him in dread. Two hours? Did he mean to set the folk to rioting once more? Ach, but it would take longer than two hours for Mistress Alwyna to receive her message, reach the warehouse, and cart away the wheat.

  If it was even there, and if she was ever warned to go.

  Johanna refused to give way to these negative thoughts. It was hope that set her to seeking some way to stall her husband long enough for salvation to occur. One night's time was all she needed.

  First things first. Katel would remember how her hatred of Rob had yesterday driven her to race into a maddened crowd. If she didn't now react angrily to having her name tied to his, Katel might suspect all was not as it had been.

  Screwing her face into a mask of outrage, she spat out, "How dare you so foully tie my name with that betraying bastard." Inwardly, she begged Rob's forgiveness.

  "Tut," her husband replied, his smile glorious for having so tweaked her. "Why worry so over something we both know isn't true? I think me you should be glad I chose him as your lover. Better to stand at the gallows next to someone familiar than beside a stranger."

  He reached out to open her cloak. Mock dismay creased his brow. "Why, Johanna, wherever have you been, all dressed up like some poor and unmarried maid? One might think you were trying to disguise yourself so you could go atrysting with your lover," he whispered to her. "What other reason would a woman who usually dresses in finery have for such attire save sin, eh? You were frustrated this night. Your lover is locked out of your reach."

  There was an odd vindictive pleasure in knowing how wrong he was, but since he was fishing for another reaction, she gave it to him. "The sooner they hang that bastard, the better for this town and me," she snapped, adding yet more mental apologies, then tried a jab of her own. "How can you do this to Peter?" This she made into a soft plea, a mother's prayer for her child.

  Katel's eyes hardened. "What care I for him or his inheritance? I should give him the same as I got from your sire," he whispered, his ancient rage over the terms of her father's will getting the better of him. "Let him try to trade on the glory of Walter of Stanrudde's name with no coins to aid him, just as was done to me," he finished, his voice rising.

  His words rang in the quiet room, echoing back to him. Katel started, sudden guilt appearing in the depths of his eyes as he frowned in confusion. Then he shook his head. "Nay, I have once succumbed to your manipulations. I'll do so no more. The fate I intend for you can only improve life for Peter. Once I am avenged, all will be as it should have been those many years ago. When I finally own the wealth your sire denied me, I will be able to rebuild my trade, creating wealth aplenty for Peter to inherit."

  He turned his gaze on her once more, his eyes dark with recrimination at the doubt she'd caused in him. "Mayhap I have been too hasty in plotting your death, forgetting that my son might be injured by your passing. It was a mistake to remove you from that convent of yours. I think I shall return you."

  A satisfied smile touched his mouth. He stepped away from the hearth and called out to the hiding men. "My wife and I are leaving. One of you fetch us mounts."

  Johanna stared at his back in bewilderment, not quite certain what had happened. Had speaking of their son convinced him not to kill her? Or, did he simply mean to confine her so she could not interfere while he played out the last of his plot? A quirk of triumph followed this. Praise God! My wife and I he'd said. He was not sending her, he was riding wit
h her!

  She calculated the time it would take: three hours there at a gentle pace since Katel could do no better than that, then another three hours back. If the prioress was generous, she'd offer him a pallet in the stable so he might sleep out the remainder of the night. But even if he refused and rode directly back to Stanrudde, Katel wouldn't see the city's gates again until well after first light. She had done it!

  No one appeared out of the shadows in answer to Katel's command. "What is this?" His voice rose in irritation. "Have you all gone suddenly deaf? Or are you too dense to decide among you who's to go?"

  There was a shuffling in the darkness. As one, the group of them reappeared. They stood shoulder to shoulder just within reach of the fire's light. It was Dickon who spoke on their behalf. "Master, you have not been yourself this night. We've agreed among us that we'll not let you do your wife any harm, no matter how you command us." His was a hesitant proclamation.

  Johanna shot them a startled look at this offer of protection then willed them to withdraw it. She and Katel must ride out of Stanrudde. A flash of rage shot across Katel's fleshy features at so unexpected a challenge. This was followed by a mummer's mask of consternation.

  "My pardon to you all," he replied, then sighed. "I know I have behaved oddly this even. It's these threats the populace make against me and my family, but fie on you for thinking I would hurt my wife. When have I ever struck her?"

  He paused, bending a wounded gaze on each man. They all shifted as they acknowledged their master had never once abused their mistress, at least not with his fists. Only then did Katel continue. "Nay, the only reason I call for mounts is that I would return her to her convent. There will she be safe, far from the reach of this town's madmen."

  Johanna watched the menservants relax at this. In their minds the convent was a sensible place to put her, whether they thought they were protecting her from the rioters or from her husband.

  Katel waited a moment then delivered to them their punishment for daring to confront him. "Since you men are so concerned for my wife's safety, you'd best come with us. I know how upset you'd be were some rogue knight or daring thief to attack us on the road."