“At West Sarum they keep me awake at night with their endless clanking. Oh!”
“The warhorses grow very weary quickly and must build their strength as their knights do,” Hugh explained, thinking she had spotted the grooms busy tending lathered, steaming mounts close to the road, but she was pointing to a small, round building off to the side of the road, close to a blacksmith’s forge and then a farrier’s forge. Made of wood and thatch, the place that was neither church nor house was topped by a cross.
“The Templars’ presbytery, and I would not point too long,” Hugh warned. “David told me nothing, but ’tis said they have strange rites in those small chapels.”
“As it is said that Jews eat babies?” Joanna answered quietly, twisting in his arms to give him a steely look beneath her pink veil.
“There are my men.” Hugh was relieved to change the subject, though he acknowledged her hit with a small grunt and a nod. “By the alehouse! I should have guessed.”
His men, sitting outside a low-roofed hovel with a bush on a pole hanging over its dark open door, stood up from their bench, raised their cups and gave him a ragged cheer.
“These knights have no hostelery for guests?” Joanna queried.
“They will have somewhere,” Hugh replied, raising his voice to cover another thundering charge from the common lands running beside the length of the village. “The last time I came here, I did not stay.”
She moved again, her backside snug aside him, reminding him of sweeter times. Now she looked over the common fields, although no pigs browsed these meadows. Instead a troop of men on horseback pitched and wove round wicker poles and pens, hacking clumsily at man-shaped targets with their swords. Mud flew like rain over the field, and dust and grit made a dirty cloud over the whole common.
He felt her flinch and gripped her with his thighs a little more snugly. “Better a clean stroke,” he said softly.
“Or none, Hugo.”
“Perhaps.” He noticed one of the hunting dogs creeping toward a young groom playing with a spinning top on a cleaner part of the road and shouted at it. The dog whined and fell back.
The smell of fresh bread overcame the stink of sweat, horses, and dogs and, like Joanna, he followed his nose, turning his head to check where the cookhouse was.
“Something to eat?” he asked her, but a new cry bellowed out from the common field.
“Destroyer comes! The Destroyer is here!”
Joanna’s knuckles whitened in Lucifer’s black mane. “How do they know you? You wear no armor, or badge.”
“They have been told of our coming, and no doubt some recognize my horse,” Hugh said grimly, aware, as Joanna was not, that their privacy was over. “Now they will all want free lessons.”
“In jousting? But if you do that, surely they will owe you in return?”
The Templars are ever poor payers, Hugh thought, but he did not have time to speak. Already the troop were stampeding toward them in a swirling mass. Some fools had even couched their lances as if they expected him to fight.
“That red-beard has his lance too low, besides,” he growled.
“You can show him.”
She sounded calm, but her limbs were as cold and stiff as metal. He sensed her terror, though she showed nothing.
My lady? She is my queen!
“Stop!” he roared, standing up in his stirrups, folding his arms crosswise across Joanna, to shield her. “Are you blind? My lady is upon my horse!”
Joanna clamped her eyes shut, repeating a fragment of an ancient prayer in her mind: all she could remember at that moment. The road seemed to shift beneath her as the world about her shrank to horses galloping; warhorses galloping in a dark storm.
Because Hugh was a warrior and she did not want him to think her cowardly, she straightened her shoulders and let go of Lucifer’s mane. That simple act made her feel as if she was letting go of a safety rope on a high tower.
She opened her eyes. Hugh’s long, strong arms and large, sinewy hands filled her vision. Surrounding his spreading fingers like a nimbus was a cloud of standing dust and the ground about them shook like an old dog scratching for fleas. “Sit, or you will fall!” she hissed, but he shook his head.
“I have no buckler, so I shield you how I can.
“Hold there!” he roared out again. “Any who touches my lady will answer to me!”
She heard horses snorting and skidding and one blood-chilling crunch and a scream as some of the great beasts must have collided. What shrieked out in pain, whether man or beast, she could not tell: as quickly as it sounded the cry was over and a heavy, breathing quiet hung like a miasma over the meadow. A faint bleating of lambs in a hidden valley came to her and a man calling a toast to “Our fair lord Hugh.” The rest of the common was silent.
Hugh jumped down from Lucifer and drew his sword.
“Come at me who will,” he challenged, keeping his blade lowered but his arm tense. “Only let a squire guide my lady in comfort to your hostelery.”
“No need, Hugh de Manhill. You are both our guests.”
The man who spoke rode out from the middle of the messy column of men and horses and swung down from his richly arrayed mount. He had removed his helm but he was in full armor and he clanked a little as he strode across the field and into the road. Joanna bit her lip to stop herself from smiling: this was a vital encounter, and much rode on this meeting.
Closer the man strode, stumbling over a dropped mace that jutted from the mud. His leggings were caked in mud and his chain mail up to his waist was thick with the stuff. She saw a look of longing cross Hugh’s face and was astonished at the brutish ways of men.
“I am Sir Gaston de Marcey,” the half-mud figure said. “Late of Outremer and head of this preceptory.”
His face was burned by years of hotter suns than she had known, Joanna acknowledged, as his smooth, beech-brown features clarified from the murk and dust. He wore a golden earring in his right ear and his nose had once been broken and had mended somewhat amiss. Beside him, Hugh was taller, leaner, and more handsome. She loved the way the breeze tousled his rich black hair, something she promised she would do herself later. His hair had grown a great deal, she thought inconsequentially.
But now here was serious business, and she prayed that Hugh would not charge into it at once.
He began well. “I thank you for your welcome, Sir Gaston. I know your family has won great renown as warriors in the East.”
Sir Gaston took the compliment without any sign of pleasure. “That is so.”
He was very high and mighty, Joanna decided. Beside her, Hugh’s face darkened as Sir Gaston added, “I am surprised that you do not join in this holy crusade. To destroy the infidel and the Jew”—and he looked directly at her—“is the right ambition for any Christian knight.”
“My brother, Sir David Manhill, is already one of your order.”
Let him recognize David as one of theirs, Joanna thought, still smarting after the Templar’s insult, but Sir Gaston merely remarked, “That is so. Allow me to escort you to our hostelery, where you may refresh yourself.”
Self, not selves, Joanna noted, feeling more dismissed. She found herself gripping the silk of her gown and un-clenched her fingers. She was determined to balance elegantly in the saddle as Hugh slapped Lucifer’s haunches and he and the horse started after the grubby but haughty Sir Gaston.
Let him speak now of David, she prayed. Let this proud Templar say that the order will help Hugh secure David’s freedom.
“Good horse,” said Sir Gaston, marching along the road, tossing his gloves to a scampering page.
“Sir Raymond thought so,” Hugh replied, giving Beowulf a pat as the wolfhound padded at his heels. “He was sorry to let him go after the tourney where I took him and his brother prisoner.”
“Such tourneys are frowned on by our holy church,” said Gaston severely, ignoring the reference to any brother. He stepped off the road and approached a small thatched building
Joanna took to be a barn.
“Yet you know my jousting name.”
“I could not fail to mark it, with your men bawling to you like market women. Now, Sir Raymond is of a good family.”
Sir Gaston pushed open a low, warped door. “Our next holy service is at terce, should you wish to join us in our chapel. A groom will tend your horse.”
Hugh thrust his head into the gloomy barn and backed out rapidly. “Scarcely a place for a lady.”
Sir Gaston remained unperturbed. “That is our guest-house. A squire will bring you a brazier and food, should you wish to eat in private.”
He does not invite us to dine with the order, Joanna observed. Is that because of me? For a moment she was ashamed, guilty of her family and her past, but then Hugh spoke.
“This sty is not sufficient for my lady.” He hit the daub wall and a huge flake came away with his fist. “Find us a better place.”
Sir Gaston shook himself like a fighting cock. “It is our guest chamber!”
“Do you know where your brother knight rests today? The brother whom your order has betrayed?”
The Templar stiffened at Hugh’s mention of David. “We are a poor company here.”
“Armed to the eyebrows and beyond! You are rich as Croesus, man!”
Sir Gaston’s beech-tanned face was now as red as fire. “Not so! All is for God! A Christ that woman knows no part of! She is a Jewess!”
He choked on the rest as Hugh slammed him against the door, causing a hinge to snap with an explosion that sounded like a crossbow strike. Impossible as it seemed, he paled as Hugh bent his dark head closer, his handsome face now a gargoyle snarl.
“She is also a skilled and subtle alchemist and if she wants to pour a flagon of boiling mercury down your scraggy throat, I will help her! For shame, man! Jew or Christian, or Muslim, we are all people of the Holy Land, and you should well know it. How did you miss that lesson?”
Sir Gaston struggled limply in Hugh’s grip. Seeing him thinking of yowling to his men, Joanna entered the fray.
“Sir Gaston!” She pitched her voice so he had to look at her. “I have spoken with David. I know what he has carried with him from Outremer. I can help him escape from the bishop of West Sarum, but we ask your help. A few men, ’tis all.”
“You cannot know what he has: he vowed secrecy before God!”
Hugh did not know that her words were a lucky guess but he backed her to the hilt. “That is neither here nor there. Think of the sacred relic that will enrich Templecombe when David is free to return here.”
“I cannot be seen to go against the Bishop of West Sarum. He has the ear of the king. And you!” He jabbed a finger at Joanna. “You are his leman! His sorceress! A foul spawn of Jewish alchemists. Ach!”
“You keep a gracious tongue before my wife,” Hugh said grimly. “More, and you and your knights will answer to me in personal combat. I will take you hostage and your order can pay me for ransom.”
He calls me wife!
Sir Gaston was stammering an answer but Joanna could not hear it. She had never dared to hope to be anyone’s wife. After the bishop, she had never thought she would be anyone’s lover. To be lover and called wife was better than gold; suddenly she had a new and lovely word to play with.
“My husband treats his captives better than Bishop Thomas deals with his.” Joanna paused to let the threat sink in, then added, “It may be, husband, that my lord bishop will exchange Sir Gaston for your brother.”
Sir Gaston stared at her, then Hugh. “You would not dare.”
Hugh tightened his grip some more. “You will not help us willingly, why should we not?”
Suddenly, he pitched the smaller man into the guest chamber, coming out an instant later. “He is sleeping.”
Joanna’s heart plummeted. “Not forever?”
Hugh shook his head. “We should leave, though.” He sighed. “Hell’s teeth! I cannot trust the bishop, but I have no stomach to take that arrogant fool of a Templar with us.”
“I do not blame you.”
Hugh straightened a little as she said this. Glancing about to ensure that none of the Templars had noticed that Sir Gaston was no longer with them, he scowled at the page holding Sir Gaston’s gloves. “I truly hoped they would help. Face-to-face, I thought David’s brother monks would not refuse me.”
“I know.” It pained her to see his hopes so dashed.
“What are these relics you mentioned? Has David told you something?”
Joanna shook her head. “He has told me nothing. I spoke of what I hoped would catch Sir Gaston’s interest.”
“Pity it could not have kindled his courage, also.” Hugh swung back into the saddle behind her. “This may be a rough ride. My men will know to follow: we have fled such traps before.”
Joanna nodded. The prospect of the wild gallop did not alarm her as it should have done: her head was busy with other matters.
He called me wife. Hugh called me his wife.
Chapter 29
Lady Elspeth greeted them in her small orchard. Though she was in truth very surprised to see them, dirty and disheveled with travel and Hugh’s men glowering at anything that moved, she took care not to show it.
“Not a success, I take it?” she remarked, waiting for a scowling Hugh or a pale Joanna to answer.
Hugh cursed long and heartily, several of his men joining in as they all sat slumped on their horses, steaming with tiredness and ill temper. She allowed them to rant and put down her basket of apple blossom to study Hugh’s girl more closely.
Joanna, sitting before Hugh, was proud and straight in the saddle, although to Elspeth’s experienced eyes she looked ready to fall off Lucifer.
“No one died,” she said now.
“No grief to me if they had.” Hugh launched into another spate of baleful language, which Elspeth ignored. Something more important had happened than Hugh and his troop having to outrun more armed men: Joanna was weary and triumphant together. She looked as Elspeth’s daughter had looked just after giving birth to a healthy boy.
“What has happened?” Elspeth asked.
She listened to a garbled tale of Hugh’s. The Templars had refused to help. He had told them Joanna was an alchemist and instead of being impressed and asking her for gold, the head of the preceptory had called her a sorceress. The Templars were ungrateful, idle pigs.
“We left after I had knocked de Marcey unconscious. The others scarcely gave chase,” he finished, in deep disgust.
“Terrible indeed,” said Elspeth, marking how Joanna had not interrupted or corrected this account. Her eyes were very bright and her cheeks flushed with color.
She looks loved and in love, Elspeth thought. She was glad, and for a brief, selfish moment, envious, but mostly she was happy for this handsome young couple. She wished them both very well.
“You and your people rest here tonight, Hugh,” she said, mentally checking through her stores and deciding she had sufficient bread and leeks for Hugh and his men. She had a good venison tart, too, and she and Joanna would have a taste of that in her own private solar. Out of the way of men, Joanna would be happy to talk, she guessed.
Elspeth smiled, anticipating a gossipy, girlish evening.
“What did you talk about with Elspeth for so long?” Hugh asked later. He stretched out like a great cat on the sheepskin rug before the fire.
“Our own private room.” He looked about, his eyes lingering on her, sitting on a stool with a small psalter in her hands. “Very fine indeed. Elspeth has not let me in here before, nor anywhere near her precious books. The last time I stayed, I was out in the hall with my men.”
“Good,” Joanna said honestly, before she realized she had spoken her thought aloud. “We chatted on women’s matters.” Elspeth had urged her to tell Hugh more of her past. She rose from the stool and carefully put down the psalter. “Will you have more mead?” She plucked a flagon of Hugh’s favorite drink off the floor.
“You will need
to come closer than that to pour it.” Hugh tugged off his tunic and tossed it down as a pillow for his elbow as he lounged on his side. “The fire feels good.”
“When I first saw you, I thought you a salamander, a true lover of fire,” Joanna confessed, edging closer with the flagon and knowing she was hesitating.
“Still shy with me, sweet? Is it because this is our first real bed?” Hugh’s blue eyes lightened as he smiled. “Should I sleep on this rug?”
“Do you want to?”
He stretched his arms above his head. “Pour me my mead, wench, and stop fussing with nonsense.”
There was a knock at their door. “Enter!” Hugh called.
Henri pushed open the door but remained on the threshold. “Sir, I am sorry.” His round, shiny face was puce with embarrassment.
“Out with it, lad.” Hugh was already rising to his feet.
“James and Malcolm are playing dice in the great hall. You said I should tell you, sir, if they were gaming.”
“You did right.” Hugh kicked aside the rug as he strode for the door, calling over his shoulder, “Take your ease, Joanna. I may be a while with these fools: they dice and quarrel in equal measure. Hell’s teeth! They are already at it!”
He stormed out, Henri stumbling after him, as there was a crash from the great hall, and the cry of a maidservant, and the breaking of pottery.
Joanna took her cup of mead to the fire and sat on the rug where Hugh had been. Staring into the twisting flames, she thought of her father. How was he faring? Was he safe? Did Bishop Thomas know she had left Castle Manhill? How could she find out about Solomon? Could she and Hugh somehow bring her father and David out of their captivity? How could they do it?
The walls of the manor fell away. It was no longer spring but winter and she was no longer snug and safe inside a house but out on the road. Limping and cold, she labored on alone, wondering where she was.
The wolves came out of the freezing winter fog and raced toward her, teeth barred and tails aloft like war banners. As she backed against a tree with no head-holds to climb, the wolves changed into men.
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