The Seasons Series; Five Books for the Price of Three

by Domning, Denise

  "Do not!" the prioress screamed from the corridor's opposite end. "Stop, I say," the churchwoman shouted, the angry tapping of her stick growing louder with each breath. "Adulterers! Sinners!"

  "Stop, sinners!" the priest echoed.

  This only made Johanna hold Rob tighter. Adultery or not, she would let no one separate them. Not today, or ever.

  Rob lifted his mouth from hers. "It is not adultery to kiss one's own wife," he replied calmly.

  "Wife?" Johanna breathed. Astonishment was followed by spiraling pleasure. "It was true, then? What we did was no lie?"

  "It was no lie," Rob told her. The gray of his eyes was so soft with love for her that it took away her breath. "You love, are a bigamist, but no longer. The one who pretended to be your husband has suffered the fate he planned for us."

  Tears filled Johanna's eyes. This was no fantasy. She had succeeded, and Rob had not abandoned her.

  "Deceiver! Her husband is Katel le Espicer." The prioress came to a halt alongside them. Behind her stood her chaplain. The menservants had thought the better of this whole matter and remained at the far end of the cloister corridor. "It was Master Katel who brought her here demanding that I give her sanctuary against you, who had beaten her. To do so, she committed herself to Christ."

  "I did not!" Johanna retorted, shocked that the prioress would lie about such a thing.

  "I did not think you had," Rob replied, his mouth lifting into a smile.

  He stepped back far enough from her to retrieve a fold of parchment from his vest. This he handed to Mother Sybil. "You'll pardon me my lady prioress, if I do not tarry to explain my rights to you. The abbot has done a much better job than I ever could.

  As the prioress stared at the great disk of wax that hung from the skin by a thread, Rob placed his arm around Johanna and turned her toward the office door. His hand at the small of her back urged her to haste. They hurried through the small chamber into the courtyard.

  Johanna stared in surprise at the dozens of mounted armed men who filled the space between the priory's simple wooden walls. At the troop's head rode a knight astride a tall brown warhorse. The nobleman wore full mail, the helmet and mail coif on his head obscuring almost the whole of his face.

  "Are you so wealthy that you can afford to hire an army?" she asked in awe as Rob swept her toward the only riderless horse in the courtyard. A pretty chestnut color, it was as tall as the knight's destrier but lacked the heaviness of muscle, a merchant's mount, not a warrior's.

  Rob shook his head and laughed. "Nay, not at all. At least I wasn't yesterday. When we combine our estates the matter may be different. Come love, I'd be gone from here before the prioress finishes reading what lies in that missive."

  He grabbed her by the waist and lifted her into a sideways seat on the saddle then mounted behind her. Johanna caught her arms around his waist. Pulling herself into the shelter of his arms, she rested her head against his shoulder. When the nobleman saw they were mounted he gave a call that set his men into motion. Saddle leather creaked, harnesses jangled. Horses danced as they turned. As each man exited the priory's gate, he spurred his horse to its fastest speed. Rob turned his horse and followed the other men out of reach of the Church.

  The quick pace they kept made all conversation impossible until they slowed near the crossroads. Johanna looked up at Rob. "We are not married then?"

  If there was disappointment in her at this, so too, was there a touch of relief. Had her marriage with Katel been a lie then her son was now a bastard. She did not want that title for her child when neither she nor Peter had had any choice in his creation.

  "Abbot Eustace believes we are," Rob replied. "However, it may well take a hundred pounds and years of bickering among churchmen to verify it. Against the possibility he was wrong, the abbot could not command the prioress to release you, had you indeed offered yourself to God. But I could not tolerate the thought of being separated from you for another day."

  "Ah," she breathed in pained understanding. Her thoughts turned, seeking a way to shield her son from the sting of bastardy. "Why spend the coin on proving us married? If Katel is dead, then I am a widow in the eyes of the world. Let us stand before the church door and repeat what we said so long ago."

  Aye, this would shield Peter from the world but only until her death. If she and Rob had children between them, they, not Peter, would inherit what her father and Rob left them. That was, unless Rob adopted Peter as his own.

  Johanna sighed. As much as she loved Rob she couldn't imagine him doing so, not after all the hatred Katel had shown him. Nor could she blame Rob for it. What man didn't want to put his own children first?

  "Love," Rob said, glancing down at her, "if that is your will, then I bow to it, but we are already wed. I have waited sixteen years to be with you. I crave the simple joys of marriage. I would eat at a table with you sitting beside me as a wife does her husband. I would retire at night with you, sleep beside you, then wake in the morn to find you yet there. Will you bid me wait until the day we again trade vows before you grant me this?"

  His words shot through her, reminding her of the pleasures she'd known both in his arms and in their few joinings. Her heart took to racing in excitement while searing heat filled the core of her being. Wait another day? She did not wish to wait another hour. A deep shiver shot through her.

  Thinking her chilled, he shifted to pull her closer so he might tuck his fur-fined mantle around them both, cocooning them against the day's snapping cold. Their nearness only fed her longing for him. Johanna turned her head on his shoulder, needing to feel his skin against hers. Ever so lightly, she pressed her lips to his throat, drawing her mouth upward until she kissed the spot just below his ear.

  Rob drew a swift breath in reaction. "May I take that as a sign that you'll not deny me?" His voice deepened with the passion she made in him.

  "You may, indeed," she breathed into his ear.

  "Dear God, but we still have hours to go. I vow I will die if you intend to do this all the way home. God be praised. My brother has come to rescue me."

  Johanna straightened, shocked from her lust by his words. The knight who headed the troop now rode alongside them. She looked from the nobleman to Rob then frowned in confusion. "You have no brother. You were Ralph Attegreen's only son."

  The smile Rob offered her was chagrined. "Nay love, I am bastard born."

  "You are not a bastard!" she retorted in old habit.

  He shook his head. "Aye, I am and so I have known since my mother's death. That I did not wish to acknowledge it does not make it untrue."

  "Apparently, this is a common experience among bastards," the knight commented with some humor. His English was without accent.

  Rob laughed. "Johanna, this is my half-brother, Richard, Lord Meynell, as kind and caring a man as I will ever know."

  "Or, lend money to," Lord Meynell replied. There wasn't much to see of the man's face beneath the concealment of his metal coif and his helm, but Johanna caught the glint of gold in his brown eyes. Then, he smiled at her, setting deep creases to either side of his mouth.

  "He has your smile!" Johanna cried in startled recognition.

  "Nay," the nobleman said with a quiet laugh, "we share our father's smile, as do all the rest of our half brothers. I am glad to meet you, Johanna of Stanrudde." His gaze shifted to Rob. "Now that we are at the crossroads I have come to bid you fare-thee-well, not to see you again until the summer months."

  Rob nodded to him. "I will offer you another round of thanks for all you've done and bid you Godspeed and good journey," he replied. "Have you decided yet?"

  "On whether I will tell the others of your existence?" The nobleman cocked his head to the side to peer at his half-brother around the helmet's nose piece. "Mayhap I will keep you to myself for a time. Were Rannulf to get wind that he was connected to a man of substance, he'd be in a flurry to drain your coffers dry, borrowing against the building he's doing at Upwood."

  Lord Meyne
ll laughed at this private jest then turned his gaze on Johanna, once more. "Again, Mistress Johanna, I am glad to have made your acquaintance."

  "And, I yours," she replied, awed at discovering Rob's noble connections.

  The nobleman set his spurs to his brown steed to join his men, who were already filing to the left at the crossroads. In a few moments, they were gone from sight. Stanrudde lay directly ahead, but yet a long ride distant.

  As Johanna settled herself more comfortably in the saddle before Rob, he began to talk of his life since their parting. She tried to concentrate, but her thoughts kept drifting to her son. How could there be happiness for her when it meant shame and heartbreak for her child?

  Stanrudde

  One hour past Sext

  The Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, January, 1197

  There was no one waiting before the abbey when Johanna and Rob rode past its gate. Teased into it by Rob's tale of Katel's death at the hands of the crowd, she glanced around the market field. As she shuddered at so horrible a fate, she reminded herself of how far reaching the evil of Katel's plot had been. Theobald now occupied the lower level of Stanrudde's tower, charged with the murder of Rob's agent, Hamalin. Hamalin had fought hard to keep his life, injuring Theobald and killing Watt in the process of his dying.

  She sighed and stared at the houses as they made their way up the coopers' lane toward the chandlers' enclave. This morning, the workshop windows were open. Tradesmen and their apprentices were hard at work turning wood and metal into barrels. Stanrudde's folk once again trod their lanes in safety. Children shouted and raced down the alleyways, dodging the slop thrown by maids from the upper windows of houses.

  Johanna stared at her father's tall house as Rob turned his mount into the courtyard. This day, the split stones that made up its walls sparked a glassy black in the fierce and frigid winter sun. The worry and sorrow in her deepened. Too much of the past was bound to this house, and she wanted no more to do with it, but there were things to be attended to before she could bid this part of her life adieu, not the least of which was finding some way to resolve Peter's future. Together, she and Rob had decided to sell the house and the spice trade. The right man could return her father’s trade to its past vitality. So too, did she need to hire an agent to look after her sire's properties as the majority of them lay within Stanrudde's walls.

  Rob dismounted. Johanna slipped off the saddle into his embrace, her arms clasped about his neck. As she settled against him, her hunger returned, bringing with it the need to renew her acquaintance with his body. The fire that woke in her helped to ease her worries a little.

  Rob caught her mouth with his. Johanna did not deny him. As his kiss deepened, sending those wondrous waves of heat through her once again, his fingers worked to remove the nun's wimple that covered her head.

  "Blasphemer!" The man's deep and outraged cry echoed around the enclosed courtyard. "Do you dare to kiss that holy sister?"

  Johanna tore away from Rob and whirled in his arms to face this new challenge. "I am no nun," she protested even before she knew who it was that would now accuse them of wrongdoing.

  At the corner of the forebuilding stood a small monk, face wizened and hair as white as snow. She stared for a moment as the years peeled from the man's face. "Master Colin," she cried in recognition.

  "Why is it none of you can remember that I am now a brother?" the former tradesman complained with a quick laugh. "Arthur I can understand, for he has never had the best of memories. But you, Johanna, you are sharper than that."

  Johanna smiled at his jesting chide. "My pardon, Brother Colin. What are you doing here?" she demanded of him.

  "Among other things I have been waiting for you," he replied, taking a few steps toward her then stopping. Beneath thick white brows, concern flickered to life in his dark eyes. "I would speak to you if you will allow it."

  "Why would I not?" she asked, surprised.

  "I had the notion you were not so fond of me."

  The corner of Johanna's mouth lifted slightly. "Mayhap I was not for a time." It was a hesitant admission of the hate she'd borne for him. "Things changed recently."

  The old monk closed the space between them to catch her hand. Holding her fingers tight in his dry, hard palm, he looked up into her face. Reflected in his gaze she saw the knowledge of the wrong he and his sire had done her. But where it had ceased to ache in her, it yet rankled deeply in him.

  "It was to protect you that Walter did what he did," he said, the words tumbling past his lips. "He feared for what would happen were he to allow your marriage to Rob stand. You must understand that Rob was but ten and seven and did not yet own the mastery of his trade. Even if you'd been married before the church door as is mete, Katel's sire would have fought it. If your union held, he would have set himself to destroying the trade, thinking to revenge himself for this betrayal. You, Rob, all Walter had built would have been gone." The words were a plea for forgiveness and understanding. "He was dying. There was time for nothing else."

  She freed her hand from his, then caught the old man's face in her palms and pressed a kiss onto his creased brow. "How can I not forgive you when you and Papa meant only my good?" This she offered him even though by forcing her marriage to Katel, her father made Peter a bastard.

  Brother Colin's eyes glistened as a tiny smile touched his mouth. "You cannot know how we hurt over what we did that day. Thank you, lass, for my sake and your sire's. You have taken a great burden from my shoulders." With a small smile he freed her hand and stepped away. "Now I must return to my pots and stills. Go you within. Your son has been impatiently awaiting your arrival."

  Johanna blinked in surprise at this. "Peter? What is he doing here?"

  Rob reached out to embrace her from behind, drawing her a step backward until she leaned against his chest. "He was hurt trying to defend Katel from the crowd, love."

  With a gasp, Johanna turned in his arms. "You didn't tell me," she cried out, pushing away from him. A touch of anger woke in her. "How could you not tell me!"

  Rob shrugged and shook his head. "I saw no need to worry you when he is so greatly improved.”

  "He is fine, Johanna," the monk said, laying a calming hand upon her shoulder.

  Johanna did not stay to be consoled. Rushing to the forebuilding, she flew up the stairs. A child's laughter echoed to her from the hall, followed by Peter's distinct hoarse tones of amusement. Worry and anger warred with relief. If her son could laugh all could not be as bad as she was imagining.

  She stopped in the hall door. A goodly number of the household servants were within the room presently at loose ends because of their master's demise. Among them were others she did not know. No doubt these were Rob's servants. There was something familiar about the tall, golden-haired man who stood at the hooded fireplace with his back to the room.

  At the hall's center a lad of ten or so with curling brown hair was turning a slow circle. A length of yarn trailed from the child's hand. Leaping and pouncing, Katel’s cat was following the trailing string through the rushes. Peter was seated on a stool to one side of this arena of activity. A great purple bruise marked one of his eyes, another one, this more yellowish than purple, lay along his neck. His left arm hung across his chest, supported by a sling. He was smiling as he watched the cat play.

  "Peter," she called as she strode across the room to kneel before him.

  Lifting a hand, she ran her fingers through his curling hair and tried to smile. Words failed her. Not only had her son been attacked along with his father, he'd witnessed his sire's death.

  The previous moment's laughter died from his brown eyes, leaving only deep sadness in its place. "Mama," he cried softly, "Papa is dead."

  "I know," she replied, reaching out to embrace him.

  He laid his head against her shoulder. "I tried to stop them, but I couldn't." There was such helplessness in his voice.

  Tears touched Johanna's eyes. "Ah sweetling, you mustn't blame yourse
lf. Even if you had succeeded in preventing the folk from what they meant to do, you could not have saved your father from his fate. He did a terrible thing."

  "I know," he managed to get out in a choked voice. Peter's shoulders shook as he fought back a sob. "Mama, I hate it here in Stanrudde."

  "I've been telling him he should come to Lynn, mistress," the lad with the string said as he came to squat beside Peter's stool. "Folk are friendly in Lynn," the child assured them both, his green eyes solemn.

  “I want to go," her son said, his bitter tone only partially hiding the pain in his voice.

  Johanna leaned away from her son. "But what of your apprenticeship?”

  Peter threw back his head in aching defiance. "My master no longer wishes to keep me. He says it will be bad for business."

  The blond stranger came to crouch down at Johanna's opposite side. "There will be plenty of masters willing to take you in Lynn," he said, "especially when they learn you are from Master Robert's household."

  Johanna glanced at the man, then caught her breath and looked again. "Arthur?" she cried in surprise.

  Arthur's green eyes sparked with pleasure. His lips bent within the confines of his thick blond beard. "It is good to see you again, Johanna. I would have you meet my son, William." He nodded to the boy at her other side. "He is Rob's apprentice." With a groan, he lifted himself back to his feet. "I am not the man I once was," he complained, shaking the cramps from his legs.

  Johanna stared up at him. "You are married?" She wasn't certain why this should startle her so. For a second time, she glanced from Arthur to his son. There was very little to name them father and son, save for the color of their eyes. Will offered her a shy smile then rose to again play with the cat.