by Alys Clare
‘So I understand.’ Josse recalled Helewise’s impression of the man. ‘And, Joanna, you were of an age to be taken in by a handsome face.’
‘Yes, perhaps. And he made me laugh. It was wonderful – I’d never had such fun as with Denys. He never seemed to take anything seriously. Of course, I realised later that that was an illusion, too. He took quite a lot of things very seriously indeed.’
‘So you went to court for Christmas?’ Josse prompted.
‘Yes. The festive season was celebrated at Windsor that year, in the newly-rebuilt apartments. My, they were superb – I’d never seen such luxury. Gorgeous hangings, the most beautiful tapestries, and colours that I hadn’t even known existed, furs all over the place to keep out the cold, and the people! Well, you probably know about court people already.’
‘Not all of them,’ Josse admitted.
She gave a tut of impatience. ‘Yes, but you know the sort of people who go to court.’
‘Aye.’ And that, Josse thought, was precisely why he didn’t attend court, unless he had to.
‘Perhaps it’s not always like that,’ Joanna admitted, ‘like it was that Christmas, I mean. I don’t see how it could be, really – the country would be bankrupt if they feasted and fêted so grandly all the time.’
‘You enjoyed it, then.’
‘How could you not?’ Joanna turned a radiant face to him. ‘The brilliance of a thousand candles, huge fires, tables covered in rich cloth coloured like jewels and simply bending with the weight of food and drink! And, everywhere, these sophisticated, laughing, joking, beautifully-dressed people, singing, dancing, watching the entertainments, joining in – oh, Josse, I’d never experienced anything like it in my life!’
‘And your mother?’
‘Oh, my mother! She came nervously down to dinner the first night, sat in a corner whispering to her nearest neighbour, then retired to bed as early as she decently could. And, having set her own timid pattern the first evening, that was what she continued to do for the rest of the celebrations. My mother! Huh!’
‘Wasn’t that a good thing, for you? Not to have her watchful eyes on you while you were having fun?’
Joanna glanced at him. ‘How perceptive,’ she murmured. ‘Yes, naturally. At the time, I thought it was the best thing that could happen. Especially as, with Mother out of the way, Denys stepped in, promising he’d make quite sure I wasn’t – what was his word? ah, yes! – neglected.’ She gave an abrupt, bitter laugh.
‘And he kept his promise?’
‘He did.’ Stony-faced, she poked savagely at the fire. ‘When, on the second night, the tables were cleared and the dancing began, he made sure he whirled me right round where everyone could see me. I had on the more vivid of my new dresses – it was bright blue – and Denys said I looked beautiful, good enough to eat, I seem to recall, and lovelier by far than the jaded court women. And, like a fool, I lapped it all up.’
‘You would indeed have been lovelier than the rest,’ Josse said softly. ‘Your youth and your innocence would make sure of that. Youth and freshness soon fade, in court circles.’
‘Do they so?’ She cocked her head up to look at him. ‘I can well imagine why. Josse, is it always like that? Are there always the flirtations, the intrigues, the drunkenness that leads to people pawing at each other, in full view of everybody?’
‘Ah.’ Josse could understand her dismay. A country girl, an innocent, must have found the goings-on at a Plantagenet Christmas a great surprise. ‘It’s not to be taken too seriously, you know, Joanna. People drink too much, as you say, and sometimes a dalliance goes a little too far. But usually there’s no harm done.’
‘Is there not?’ she said softly.
‘A sore head in the morning, an awkward moment when you come face to face with the man or woman to whom you promised undying love the night before, or—’
‘I hope,’ she said coolly, ‘that you do not speak from personal experience.’
‘I?’ He laughed shortly. ‘No, Joanna. I do not.’
She nodded. ‘Thank you for that.’
‘So there you were, all eyes on you as you laughed and danced with your uncle Denys, and—’
‘That was why he did it, of course,’ she interrupted. ‘He made me dance where everyone could see me on purpose.’
‘What do you mean?’
She stared at him, her dark eyes glittering with emotion. ‘I might have been a prize heiffer at a market!’ she cried. ‘Look at her face! Her hair! Her young budding breasts – do you know, that rat Denys made me lower the line of my bodice! He told me it was the fashion to show as much flesh as possible, and, fool that I was, I believed him! Went along with him! Danced there, in King Henry’s great hall, with half my chest exposed!’
‘Don’t be so hard on yourself, Joanna.’ Josse put out a hand and briefly touched her shoulder; she was rigid with tension. ‘You were young, you didn’t know. Most young girls entering court life have an older woman to help them, you know. To advise on what is right and what is wrong. And all you had, poor love, was Denys.’
‘Who had his own secret plan,’ she agreed angrily. She took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘It got later and later,’ she said, speaking faster now, ‘and people – couples – began to disappear. There was a lot of laughter about the King and some woman called Bellebelle – I didn’t know which of the women around the King she was, there were always quite a few – and somebody said that he was missing a woman called Alais, who had long been his bed-warmer, and that this Bellebelle did as good a job as someone called Rosamund.’
‘That would have been Rosamund Clifford,’ Josse said, ‘only she’s dead now, and the other would be Alais of France. King Philip’s sister.’ Joanna didn’t seem any the wiser. ‘King Henry arranged for Richard to be betrothed to the King of France’s sister,’ he explained, ‘but—’
‘But King Henry seduced her first and then King Richard refused to marry her,’ Joanna finished. ‘Yes, I know about that. I remember Denys talking about it. I didn’t realise that the Alais they spoke of at court was the same woman.’ Her eyes widened. ‘There was scant respect in the gossip about her, considering she was a princess of France.’
‘Perhaps her behaviour was not of a kind to earn repect,’ Josse suggested.
To his surprise, Joanna laughed. ‘How very pious, Sir Josse! A princess should not allow her reputation to be tarnished, is that it?’
‘Indeed it is.’ Josse felt the need to defend his remark. ‘If those in positions of power do not set a good, moral example, then there is little hope of ordinary folk living decent lives.’
There was a short silence. Just as he was beginning to think he had offended her, she spoke. ‘You’re right, of course.’ She sighed. ‘Perhaps you should attend court, Josse. They could do with your influence.’
‘King Henry is dead and buried,’ he reminded her gently. ‘I doubt if his son and heir carries on his father’s traditions.’
‘No, perhaps not.’ She sighed again. ‘Oh, Josse, in view of what you have just said, you make this far harder than it need have been!’
‘I’m sorry. I did not intend to sit in judgement of – of anything that happened in your past.’
‘No.’ As if gathering herself, she paused, then went on, ‘The company were retiring, as I said. I was more than a little drunk and beginning to think I’d like to lie down. It was late, and I had been dancing for hours. Denys had his arms round me – he was helping me to stand, if the truth be known – and I said, Denys, I wish to go to bed now.’
She had gone pale, Josse noticed. Reliving that night was taking a lot out of her.
‘He said, go to bed you shall, young Joanna! and he took my hand and ran with me towards one of the stairs leading to the upper apartments. I said, not that way! Mother’s and my rooms are the other way, down the passage and out across the courtyard! but he kept laughing, saying that my night was just beginning, and when I pleaded with him to let me go, he laughed all the more
and said didn’t I realise? I’d done what all girls dream of, I’d made people notice me! So I said, that was all very well, and there was tomorrow, and the next day, and countless more to enjoy, couldn’t I go to my own room now? And, again, he said no.’
She drew her knees up under her chin, hugging them close. It looked, Josse thought, a touchingly defensive gesture.
‘He took me along a dimly-lit corridor – I had the impression that there were a lot of people about, behind half-closed doors, and I could hear mutterings, whisperings, suppressed laughter and cries. Of course, I know now what was going on.’ A brief, hard laugh. ‘Denys tapped softly at one of the doors and somebody opened it. We went in. It was a big chamber, with a fire blazing and a few candles and, by one wall, a huge bed. It was rumpled, as if it had been slept in, with the covers half on the floor. In it was a man, well-built, strong-looking, with reddish hair going grey.’
‘Did you recognise him?’ Josse asked.
She shrugged. ‘I didn’t. By the magnificence of his bedchamber, I thought he was some lord or other – there were so many at court that Christmas, I got confused over which was which. He was sitting propped up on pillows, and there were two other men perched on the end of the bed. Denys said, Here’s my little cousin! and the man in the bed said, Ah, the Queen of the Dance! Come here, little maid. Denys pushed me forward, till I was standing right up against the bed – it didn’t smell very nice, sort of fusty, as if people had sweated in it and hadn’t changed the sheets – and the man in the bed reached out a hand and touched my – touched me on the top of my thighs. He said, You are a maid, are you not? Denys said, Aye, she is, and all the men laughed.’
Josse put out his hand and laid it on her arm. She didn’t seem to notice.
‘Then – then Denys started to take his clothes off, and they gave me warm wine to drink, and I began to feel even more fuddled, and the other men said, we shall all take off our clothes, and the man in the bed said, come in and join me before you get chilled, little maid.’ She bowed her head. ‘I didn’t want to get undressed, but they were laughing and joking and saying everyone was doing it, it was part of the fun and getting into bed together helped you all keep out the cold. Before I knew it, my lovely blue dress lay in a heap on the floor, and my undergarments too – and I was naked.’
Her voice dropped, as if she could hardly bear to speak of her shame. ‘I was the only one with no clothes at all, although I only noticed it when I was standing there with the men all admiring me. They said I was pretty, that I was fresh and innocent, a plum for the picking. I remember that in particular, that was when the man in the bed put his hands on my breasts and squeezed them. Then the other men picked me up, put me into the bed and, with Denys pressing up to me from behind, I was pushed hard against the man in the bed.’
She fell silent. Josse said gently, ‘Joanna, there is no need to tell me this. I can guess what happened next and I can see that it was in no way your fault.’
She repeated softly, ‘My fault.’ Then: ‘No, Josse, perhaps not.’ After another pause, she said, ‘Denys was – touching me, where I hadn’t ever been touched before. I – for a moment I thought he would – But he didn’t. The man in the bed began to kiss me and then he was touching me, and I knew in a flash that it was he who’d seen me dancing, he whom Denys had spoken about, and that they’d brought me here for him. I started to struggle, because although, God help me, I was prepared for Denys – I knew him, I thought I quite liked him, and he wasn’t unattractive – I didn’t want the man in the bed. But he wanted me. Oh, he seemed to think it was all a laugh, and when I tried to wrest myself out of his grasp, he thought I was joining in the fun, just pretending not to be as eager for him as he was for me.’ She suddenly closed her eyes, squeezing them tight shut. ‘He said to the other men, We’ve got a little wriggling fish here, you’ll have to help me get her on my hook! and then the men took hold of my hands and laid me on my back, and Denys took hold of my ankles and forced my legs apart, and the man got on top of me and took me.’
Josse, horrified, watched as two slow tears emerged from Joanna’s closed eyes and made trails down her cheeks.
‘Joanna, I—’ he began.
‘He sent for me every night over Christmas,’ she whispered. ‘At first the others were there too – sometimes the same men, sometimes different ones. And, each night, they were drunk, they were laughing, they acted as if it was all part of the jollity.’ Crying openly now, she sobbed, ‘And I did, too! Oh, Josse, that’s my sin! It was my fault, because I went along with it, pretended it was great fun, all a laugh, and exactly what I’d expected, what I’d come to court for!’
‘You were sixteen,’ Josse reminded her.
‘As I reminded you just now, many women are married and have families at sixteen!’
‘Perhaps,’ he acknowledged, ‘but you had led a sheltered life, you knew nothing!’
‘I soon learned,’ she said grimly. ‘My new lord and master made sure of that.’
‘What happened at the end of Christmas?’ Josse asked.
She shrugged. ‘Everybody went home with their own husbands and wives and got on with their ordinary lives.’
‘Including your seducer?’
Including him. But then, in February, I discovered I was pregnant.’
‘And your lord, having gone back to his wife, would not help you?’
‘I didn’t bother to tell him.’ She flashed angry eyes at Josse. ‘I’d had enough of him to last a lifetime.’
‘What did you do?’
‘My mother virtually expired on the spot when I told her, so I knew there would be no good ideas issuing from there. The only person I could think of was Denys – he’d been there, he knew what had happened, and he was the one person who wasn’t going to throw up his hands in horror at my condition.’
‘So you sent word to him?’
‘Yes. He came to see me – Mother would have none of it, she’d taken to her bed weeping and wailing, and didn’t even descend to greet him. I told Denys I was with child and he gave a sort of whistle. It was strange – well, with hindsight it wasn’t, although it seemed so at the time – but I had the impression that he was not at all displeased.’
‘What did he suggest?’
‘He said we must protect my good name and that meant we had to find me a husband. He said with a laugh that I mustn’t go hoping the baby’s father would marry me, there was no chance of that and I’d better get used to the idea, and I said I wouldn’t marry him if he were the last man left alive and whole.’
‘Did Denys have any other husbands in mind?’
‘Yes. Again, I had the feeling that this wasn’t as much a shock to him as I’d expected. He said to let him ponder the matter for a few days, and that he’d return as soon as he could, when he’d spoken to some people. I waited – there wasn’t really anything else I could do – and, a week later, Denys came back and said he had betrothed me to somebody called Thorald de Lehon, that we would be married as soon as it could be arranged, and that I would then go with my new husband to live in his manor in Brittany.’
‘Brittany,’ Josse repeated.
‘Yes.’ She met his glance. ‘I thought, as I suspect you are thinking, that Brittany was a goodly way away from England and therefore from English court gossip.’
‘Did you think you were being hustled away and out of sight, into some rural backwater where everybody would forget all about you?’
‘I did. Even more when we got to Lehon, I assure you. There’s an Abbey, quite grand, with a holy community who devote themselves exclusively to their prayers. There’s a mill and a river, there are acres and acres of low-lying fields, there’s a nice town nearby, only I was never permitted to visit it unless Thorald accompanied me. And he was a virtual recluse – he only went outside to go hunting, and he didn’t allow me to hunt. Then Ninian was born.’
‘Did Thorald believe the boy to be his?’
She raised her shoulders. ‘I have no idea. W
e never spoke of it. We barely spoke at all. Thorald treated Ninian roughly, but then he treated me roughly too, so that in itself didn’t imply a particular grudge against Ninian.’
Josse remembered Ninian speaking of beatings: when he was dead it meant he didn’t beat us anymore. ‘You had a bad time,’ he said, trying not to let his huge sympathy show lest it undermined her.
‘I probably deserved it,’ she said. ‘Thorald said I did. He kept saying women were full of sin and must repent, and he made sure I went regularly to confession.’ She grinned briefly. ‘Those holy men at the Abbey must have loved me. When I ran out of real sins – and that did take quite a while, it was a long Christmas season containing many nights of lust – I started making things up.’
‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ Josse said gently. ‘The Church should be given respect, and—’
‘The Church has done nothing for me!’ she countered. ‘It gave me no support in my trials, no comfort when first I went to confess my sins! D’you know what the priest said I must do? Honour my husband and be his obedient wife, and in that way prove that I had it in me to live a right life! Oh, Josse, don’t go lecturing me about respect! I’ll tell you what that priest’s interference meant – it meant I had to endure six years of being bedded whenever he felt like it by a foul-smelling, unwashed man older than my own father, who, while I gritted my teeth and prayed for him to finish, would dig his fingers into my flesh and tell me that my sufferings were ordained and sanctioned by God in order to rid my soul of its stains!’
‘He lied to you, Joanna,’ Josse protested. ‘He was twisted, warped, and he used your own guilt as a way of making you comply. Don’t blame the whole Church for one evil old man!’
‘He happened to be the evil old man I’d been handed to in marriage!’ she shouted. ‘And why shouldn’t I blame the Church? I’m quite sure Thorald was in league with the priest – they spent long enough closeted away together! Why, I wouldn’t put it past Thorald to have outlined exactly what new perversion he wanted of me, so that the priest could include it in my penance!’