A Knight’s Enchantment

by Townsend, Lindsay

  The wolf-men vanished as she opened her eyes and looked into Hugh’s calm face. He waggled his ears at her, a trick she had never seen before from him and which, in another mood, would have delighted her.

  “Finally a smile.” Hugh swung her onto the bed and covered her with a blanket. “I have sent for some tisane. You are chilled to the bone. You need soft bedding and care.”

  “I let the fire go out.” Her tongue felt stiff and she was too ashamed to look directly at Hugh. “Did I make a lot of noise?”

  “Enough to arm the guards. No, love—” He pressed her back onto the bed. “I jest. You were sleeping by the fire grate when I returned. You were moaning, so I came to you at once.”

  “You have just got back?”

  “This moment. And I am glad I did.” He took her hand in his. “What were you dreaming? Do you remember?”

  The denial flew to her lips but she recalled what Elspeth had said: that she should tell Hugh the whole.

  “It may have been a memory,” she admitted. “Before we came to West Sarum, we moved many times.” She paused, taking faith in Hugh’s acceptance of the Jewish Joshua as a warrior. “My grandfather had converted to Christianity and we kept the faith most carefully, but still we were persecuted.”

  Hugh lay beside her on the bed, on top of the covers. He put an arm across her, to comfort and warm her while a burning brand was brought to them from the kitchen to relight their own fire. In the darkness of the room she could only just make out his face, not his expression.

  “How many times did you move?” he asked.

  “One year, we fled to sixteen different places. That was when my mother was alive. It was hard on her, not to have a proper home of her own.” She rolled onto her stomach, remembering too much. “I learned the signs. Whenever people questioned me on my family name, or asked me about Christ, or remarked on my coloring, I knew it was time to leave again.”

  Hugh felt helpless in the face of such grief. He wanted to say something, but words failed. He wanted to cuddle her, but she might despise such comfort as being too earthy, not fine enough.

  I cannot read and she is so learned. What can I say to her?

  There was a knock at the door and he jumped from the bed to let in the maids with a drink of hot strawberry tisane and a shovel of burning brands for the fire.

  He goes from me. The bishop did the same. Perhaps now he knows for sure what I am, the stock I came from, he no longer wishes to touch me.

  Joanna curled into a ball. She wanted to flee again, rush from the room. The maids were leaving now and Hugh was looming above her. The relit fire glinted on a copper goblet.

  “Drink while it is warm.” He took a sip and the smell of strawberries seemed to fill the chamber. “Try it.”

  He was willing to share with her. Heartened, Joanna sat up in bed and Hugh fussed the cushions behind her. The copper goblet was almost too warm to hold.

  “Here.”

  A shadow dropped onto her lap. A glove, she realized, picking it from her thighs. She put it on and the palm dwarfed hers but she was glad to wear it, because Hugh was happy that she did.

  They sat together, sharing the tisane and staring at the fire.

  “This is not the same glove you left with me first,” she said, seeking to tease him a little. She waited for an answer, her nerves taut like Beowulf straining after a scent.

  “It fits you ill. I will give you better.”

  They sat quietly again and Joanna fretted over his answer. What did he mean? Was he sad? Distracted? Bored?

  Her mind conjured Bishop Thomas’s face out of the shadows in the corner of the chamber, and his scorn struck her like a fist. “Your bed bores me, Joanna. You have as much wit in a man’s arms as a tavern whore.”

  Hugh cleared his throat and the memory exploded like a puff of smoke. Her fingers clenched in the huge glove and she almost spilled the tisane.

  “You are my first love to last longer than a day and a night,” he said. “The women I knew before you never wanted more than hectic bed-sport, as if I was an itch to them that must be scratched. After they had scratched their fill, they wanted no more of me or my company.”

  He touched her cheek. “I am so happy you do. I like being with you and I want you all the time.” His black brows drew together. “You do feel the same, do you not?”

  Joanna nodded, then dreaded he could not see. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Thank Christ!” Hugh took the goblet from her hand and put it down into the dark. He lifted the bedcovers and reached for her, caressing her everywhere.

  She woke the following morning, naked and warm. The golden gown was draped over a chest. The rest of her and Hugh’s clothes were coiled in a heap at the bottom of the bed. She closed her eyes again, smiling as she remembered how he had kissed and praised her breasts, her flanks, her belly. More still, for he had kissed her down there. She had been horrified at first but he had pinned her close and ignored her squeals of protest, kissing and tonguing her until she did not know truly where she stopped and he began.

  It was a heady feeling, to know she was truly desired. In so many lovely ways, Hugh was no Bishop Thomas. He reveled in her and in her company: in every touch he seemed to discover a new wonder. It was the same for her: an unending journey of delight.

  She touched Hugh’s back. “I love you,” she whispered. She wanted to say the words but did not want to wake him, not when he was sleeping so peacefully.

  “Marry me,” he growled. Rolling over, he trapped her between his powerful thighs. “I will not let you go until you say yes, so say it. Marry me, Joanna.”

  He saw emotions skid across her face, complete surprise and then joy. She blazed like a ruby, her dark eyes glowing as she brought both hands up to hug her face, then his.

  “Oh, Hugo!”

  “Say yes.” He tried to sound threatening. He clutched her more tightly, then released her in case he hurt her.

  She jumped out of bed and sped round the room.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for my shoes.”

  Amused, he held up the pair, small and neat and so tiny he wanted to kiss them, both heaped at the bottom of the turmoil of clothes that was now their bedding. “Joanna?”

  He knew when she turned from profile to full face and dropped a shoe what her answer would be.

  “Hugo.” She dropped to her knees as if she were the one who had proposed. “Hugo, that is lovely. A lovely idea, but it is impossible.” She tried to tug at something, then seemed to recall she wore nothing and pulled at her hair instead. “You should marry a beautiful”—her voice cracked—“a beautiful, fair lady with a castle and rich lands, not a female alchemist who is ever under suspicion by the church.”

  “Then what of us?” he demanded, deliberately blunt, perhaps even a little cruel to force the question. For her to think he would be interested in some insipid blonde annoyed him.

  The glow in her face became a furnace as she blushed right down to her throat. “I could be your mistress?”

  He saw that if they spoke more on the matter she would break down utterly, so he did the unexpected. He poured himself the last of the mead and sat up comfortably in bed. “Very well, young mistress mine. We will speak no more of it. What is the day like? Is it dry? Can you peep through the shutters?”

  The scorching glance she gave him then would have been like Medusa’s and turned him to stone had he not another plan already up his sleeve.

  No, not his sleeve, for he too was naked. This plan was held in the depths of his heart, where Joanna was.

  “If the day is bright I shall wear red,” he announced, his heart thumping wildly as he began to work out a new strategy.

  Chapter 30

  “You do not know how many guards there are?” Hugh kicked at the base of an apple tree. “Are you blind?”

  Elspeth looked up from the spinning. “It is hardly Joanna’s province.”

  Joanna, quelling a desire to tell Hugh not to
take his temper out on the tree, looked up from the flower bed and said sharply, “How is it you do not know? You entered the bishop’s palace.”

  “Hell’s teeth!” Hugh flung both his hands in the air. “How can I plan with no facts?”

  “You are both concerned about your people,” Elspeth said quickly.

  The poor lady was trying, Joanna recognized, but she wanted Hugh to placate her. She folded her arms and tapped a foot, a pose she dimly recalled her mother adopting with her father.

  “This wastes time,” Hugh growled.

  “Bickering always does. We can agree on that,” Joanna answered.

  “Little wretch,” he mumbled in Latin, a phrase she had taught him.

  Elspeth twirled her spindle again. “Careful where you weed,” she warned Joanna. “I have some marigolds amongst those roses.”

  “I will,” Joanna promised.

  She hoed away in silence for a time, hearing the sheep in the fields outside and the cawing of a crow. Hugh’s men practiced swordcraft in those fields but their clash of arms had fallen silent: they must be taking a break. In the yard beside the enclosed garden, a laundress was singing as she washed clothes.

  Hugh swung on one of the apple branches. He was the only one without a task, which irked Joanna. He said he needed his head clear for thinking, but she had not seen much evidence of that so far.

  “I do not have the men for a direct assault,” he said now. “I knew that from the beginning. Even a smaller force is risky: it means more men to sneak in and out again.”

  “But what if my father or David cannot run?” Joanna whispered, stopping in her hoeing and leaning on the hoe for support as the world about her seemed to darken. “What if they cannot walk?”

  “If we return to my father’s, would that fellow Mercury help?”

  Joanna shook her head.

  “I agree. Chatting with my father about truffles seems about his mark. And the Templars will do nothing.” He almost kicked the tree a second time, but spied Elspeth watching and kicked the turf instead. “I can carry both, if needs must. I have carried two men before. But we need to get inside the donjon first. I could disguise myself.”

  He broke off and looked at Joanna. “If you returned to West Sarum and told Bishop Thomas you had escaped, would he believe you?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “What must we do to make your tale convincing?”

  “Leave the yellow gown behind, for one,” Elspeth said calmly. “But no matter. I will keep it for you, for your return. You can return here with your people,” she added. “Your men can stay here, too, while you are away in West Sarum.”

  “We could be many days, possibly longer,” Joanna felt compelled to warn, but Elspeth was not disconcerted.

  “I like to hear the cheerful row and racket about the place; it reminds me of when my sons were in training for arms.” She smiled at their astonished faces. “See? That is one problem solved.”

  “No, no!” cried Joanna later, in the great hall. The day had darkened and turned to rain, so they had retired indoors. She and Elspeth and Hugh’s men were sitting on the small dais, watching Hugh’s “performance.”

  “You are too hunched and stagger too much,” she said urgently, as Hugh glared at her and straightened.

  “How do you know?” he demanded, sober in a flash.

  “I have seen it! Drunks are more careful.”

  She mimed walking on the dais, stepping along the edge and around Hugh’s men with exaggerated caution while they cheered her on. A maid brushing out old floor rushes leaned on her broom and applauded.

  “But I am a belligerent, drunken fellow,” Hugh protested, windmilling with his arms to prove his point.

  “You are when crossed,” Joanna said quickly. “We do not want you to be so drunk that you do not get through the palace gates!”

  In a swirling blur of motion, Hugh pelted across the hall and hoisted her into his arms. “What I wish to learn, mistress,” he said, as his men roared their approval, “is how you know so much about drunks.”

  “How can you jest!” Joanna hissed against his chest, wishing she did not feel so warm and safe there: a dangerous illusion of safety. “Even in disguise you will be in danger! We do not know how the guards will react! What if they put a knife in you when you pretend to be drunk? What if they put you in the prison under the floor and not the donjon? What if someone recognizes you?”

  “Peace, squirrel, all plans have risks.” He tipped up her face and kissed her. A be-silent-before-my-men kiss. Joanna complied but only because she was plotting herself. There should be more to Hugh’s “disguise” than an eye-patch and a baggy hat. She would ensure there was more.

  “What is that?” Hugh lifted the wooden spoon and trickled a potion of the muddy liquid back into the bowl.

  Joanna tugged at her skirts. She was once more in her plain brown gown, and very drab it seemed after the glorious golden silks. She and Hugh were once more in “their” chamber, while Elspeth found more clothes for Hugh, no easy task when he was so tall and sinewy. The clothes of her own sons were too short in the leg, which had made Joanna giggle, but mostly with nerves. What they were planning was still a dangerous undertaking.

  “It will dye your hair from dark to chestnut,” she answered, making a swift sign of the cross behind her back for luck. The dye she had devised months ago, as a desperate “amusement” for Bishop Thomas, and it had worked well enough on her own hair. She could only pray it would not make Hugh’s hair fall out. Or that the bishop would not remember her hair dye when he saw the tall, strapping man.

  Hugh stirred the tincture with the spoon, frowning. “It is a woman’s trick.”

  “It has saffron in it,” Joanna said, feeling a twinge of guilt at using this most expensive spice. “And if women alone do it, who will suspect?”

  “Folk who remember me as a dark man will not recognize me as a red one? I see that, Joanna, but what of my beard? My stubble is black and I would not stay to wait while it grows for you to dye it.”

  “I have the answer for that, too.” Joanna held up a small flask. “This contains a potion that will irritate and redden your skin. That, and if you wear pads of cloth in the sides of your face to bulge out your cheeks a little and alter the shape of your profile. Only for a day or so,” she added quickly.

  “A plump, red idiot.” Hugh nodded. “So be it.”

  “You need not put it on now,” she warned, as she handed him the flask. “In truth, I would use it only if you think the guards are noticing you too much. It will make your skin itch as if there are a thousand devils fighting in your face.”

  Hugh moved closer. “I have other parts that itch. Have you a salve for them?”

  “If we are to reach anywhere close to West Sarum today, we must make haste. I should make myself more disheveled,” Joanna replied.

  She knew she was right, but even so she was disconcerted when Hugh stepped back, crouching to tug at the hem of her gown.

  “You need to tear this and muddy your shoes. You have walked for hours in your past, yes? You know how really weary folk limp along?”

  “I do.” She had done it herself, too many times.

  “Can you make your hands red? Spill sulphurs and mud on your gown? Then you can claim I forced you to work all hours and that you escaped as soon as you could. Your have your gold to dazzle our lord bishop?”

  Joanna nodded. She felt numb in the face of this planning, although she knew she ought to feel excitement. If it worked, they would free Solomon and David.

  But why did he break away from me? Why did he not want to kiss me? One kiss, just for us.

  She heard Hugh humming and felt more downcast, agreeing to his every suggestion.

  Lady Elspeth sank onto her chair in the great hall and absently touched the great salt server in the middle of the high table, as if to convince herself that it at least was real.

  “Both of you look so different,” she said faintly. “Are you taller, H
ugh, as well as a redhead?”

  “I packed cloths into those boots you found me,” Hugh agreed. “I wear three padded jerkins, too.”

  He did look even more huge, Joanna agreed, dressed in a gaudy blue, gold, and red—rich fabric to show status—but the most startling change was his hair, a bright, fiery red, shot through with strands of dark. With his blue eyes, the result was astonishing.

  “Are you not too conspicuous?” Elspeth ventured.

  “I want to be noticed.” Hugh folded his arms, his red hair glinting like fire as he shifted slightly.

  “You are always noticed, my dear, but this? And Joanna?”

  “It is an old gown,” Joanna said quickly. She knew she was ragged and untidy, her hair feeling dreadful; messed and uncombed.

  “You look like a hedge-woman,” said Elspeth.

  “Or a pedlar,” called one of Hugh’s men. They were ranged round the great hall, watching with careful interest.

  Joanna knew she looked worse than that. From her waist down she was daubed in a mixture of mud, cobwebs, and strands of bramble, artfully placed there by Hugh, who had a good eye for color and shape. Her fingers were heavily stained again and her sleeves torn and shredded.

  “Grubby girl,” said Hugh, giving her a wink.

  “Copper-headed mountebank,” she retorted, feeling more heartened for the nickname and the wink.

  Around them the hall thundered with stamping feet and nervous laughter and Hugh had to pitch his voice to be heard. “Hey, we shall be riding together. And on a different horse.”

  “Not Lucifer?” Joanna understood why, but she had grown used to the big black stallion.

  “A good horse, for sure, for then Thomas’s men will treat me well, but different.”

  “I wish you Godspeed,” said Elspeth, rising to her feet to see them off.

  “Lord Thomas is still staying at West Sarum?” Joanna asked when they were on their way.

  “So my spies tell me.” Hugh had assumed he would find her less distracting in her drab gown. How wrong he was! He rode with memories and associations rising fast and urgent in his mind and loins; all he could pray was that she had not noticed. “How do you find the bay gelding?” he asked, resisting a desire to tug on her familiar golden hair net.