Janna Mysteries 1 & 2 Bindup

by Felicity Pulman

  Janna’s greatest challenge is to find someone who will teach her to read. But just as she seems close to reaching her goal, the tumultuous drama of the civil war between the Empress Matilda and her cousin King Stephen comes right to the door of the abbey.

  Lilies for Love is the next exciting step in Janna’s journey towards solving the mysteries of the past, while charting her passage to adulthood and an understanding of her own heart.

  Available now at all good booksellers

  Read on for an extract from Janna Mysteries 3: Lilies for Love

  THE GREAT GATE clanged shut, its metal bars vibrating with the impact. It seemed to Janna that the sound held an awful finality. She shuddered as she realised what she had done. True, she’d sought sanctuary at the abbey from those who wished her harm – most especially Robert of Babestoche, whose secret she held close to her heart – but in doing so, she had cut herself off from the world, and from all those whom she’d come to love. But Janna knew she had no choice. While she lived, her knowledge, her very presence threatened Robert’s status as the husband of Dame Alice. There was no place other than the abbey for her to hide in safety.

  She looked behind her through the darkness to where Godric still lingered beyond the gate. In the light of the flares that lit the gatehouse, she could read the misery on his face, a misery she was sure was reflected in her own expression. More than anything she wished she was free to follow her chosen path: her quest to find her unknown father and seek justice for the death of her mother. She really didn’t want to be trapped here with a convent of women who had given their hearts and minds to the Lord Jesus Christ. Janna couldn’t understand why they’d want to do that, how they could bear to shut themselves away.

  She became aware that Godric was beckoning her to come back to him. Beside him, a horse neighed softly. Although Janna didn’t know how to ride, Godric did, and he’d brought her to the abbey on horseback, fleeing along the path beside the river to safety at Wiltune Abbey. Janna frowned. Her mind was made up, her path chosen. She couldn’t return to the outside world, not now, not until her mission was accomplished; not until it was safe.

  ‘Janna!’ Godric called softly. ‘I forgot to give you these.’ He held out his hand. Janna saw the glint of silver coins in the hollow of his palm.

  ‘Take them!’ he called. ‘Take them all. Thanks to my lord Hugh’s gift of land and my new service to him, I have no need of any further reward, but you still have your way to make in the world.’

  Tempted, Janna hesitated. She could not afford to be proud. Apart from the few objects secreted in her purse, which held value only for her, she had nothing to offer the abbey in return for food and shelter. The coins would help to buy her a way in, and smooth her path when, later, she took to the road in search of her father.

  Turning her back on the ill-tempered and sleepy nun who had admitted her and was now leading her to an audience with the abbess, Janna hurried back to Godric.

  ‘Are you quite sure you want me to take it all?’ she asked, as she opened the drawstring of her purse.

  ‘Of course.’ He carefully poured in the coins. Janna beamed her gratitude.

  ‘Hrumph.’ The sound of a throat being cleared warned Janna that the porteress had returned and that they were being watched.

  ‘God be with you.’ She couldn’t resist touching Godric’s hand one last time. ‘And good luck. Take care of yourself, and thank you.’ There was so much for which she needed to thank Godric, she realised. He had come to her aid on so many different occasions. ‘Maybe we’ll meet again one day,’ she said, trying to sound hopeful but not succeeding.

  ‘HRUMPH!’ This time the throat-clearing was an ultimatum.

  ‘Be sure that I will come to you if ever you call, wherever you may be!’ Godric ignored the watching nun. He seized hold of Janna’s hand, raised it to his lips and kissed it. ‘I would not leave you, Janna. Not ever! Not unless you wish it.’

  ‘I know.’ Reluctantly, Janna disengaged her hand from his. ‘I know.’ She swallowed hard over the lump of misery that had lodged in her throat, and hastily turned away from him. If only they could wed, if she could trust in his protection, she might have begged the porteress to unlock the gate and let her free to go to him. But she knew that even Godric, who would give his life for her, could not protect her at this time, nor could he help her to fulfil her quest. This was something she must do, and do alone. In truth, she preferred it this way, for she was not ready yet to commit her life, or her heart, to anyone’s keeping save her own. But she felt a great dread for the future. Following her chosen path would take all her courage.

  She turned away and, with reluctant steps, returned to the porteress, who scowled at her. ‘I can’t think why you’ve come here,’ the nun muttered. ‘Dressed up in men’s clothes, and carrying on with that young man right here at the abbey gate. Who do you think you are?’ She clucked her disapproval. ‘If you had not come from Dame Alice’s nephew and with a message for the abbess, be sure I would never have admitted you.’

  ‘I am grateful that you did, mistress,’ Janna murmured.

  ‘Sister!’ the nun snapped. ‘My name is Sister Brigid.’

  ‘And my name is Johanna.’ Silence met Janna’s offer of friendship. With lips clamped tight, the nun led Janna across an open yard to a building set on one side of the entrance to the church. She walked through a small parlour and rapped on a door. Together, she and Janna waited for an invitation to enter.

  ‘Come in.’ The voice sounded weary, and rather impatient. Feeling curious, in spite of her low spirits, Janna followed Sister Brigid into the private quarters of the abbess.

  The receiving room was large and lit by torches in sconces on the walls. Richly embroidered tapestries hung between them, glowing in the bright light. A fat wax candle set in a silver candlestick sat on a table littered with written sheets of parchment. Janna stared at them, for the symbols looked different from the letter written by her father. These were set in long columns and divided by lines. She could not make sense of them at all. Her gaze moved on around the room. A gold cross hung above a small altar, exquisitely chased and decorated with coloured gemstones. The stools had fat cushions to soften hard wooden seats, while the box bed Janna glimpsed through an open door contained a thick mattress and was piled with more cushions plumped down on a warm, woollen covering. She wondered if the sisters of the abbey lived in the same comfort as their abbess. Stairs to one side led to extra rooms above, quarters perhaps for the nobility, even royalty, who were rumoured to stay here from time to time. For certes, the abbess was living in great comfort and style.

  Fascinated, Janna dragged her gaze back to one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in the land. Her mother had once told her that Wiltune was one of the largest abbeys in England, with vast estates, mills and other resources spread over several shires. ‘The abbess is the king’s tenant-in-chief. She holds the entire barony in return for the service of five knights, should the king call for them in times of war,’ Eadgyth had said. Janna wished she’d thought to question how the abbess managed to provide five knights, living as she did in a house full of women.

  At their entry, the abbess had risen from her work. She scowled suspiciously at Janna. ‘Who is this ruffian, and what do you mean by disturbing my peace so late at night?’ She spoke in Norman French, addressing the question to Sister Brigid. It was clear she didn’t expect Janna to understand her. Janna bent her head, thinking it wise to pretend that the abbess was right in her assumption.

  ‘She says she’s a girl, and she bears a message from the lord Hugh, nephew to Dame Alice. I would not have admitted her else.’ Sister Brigid’s face pinched into a disapproving frown. ‘She was accompanied by a youth and he kissed her hand!’ There couldn’t have been more venom in the nun’s voice if she’d accused Janna of dancing on the altar of Christ. She gave the brief message signed with Hugh’s seal to the abbess, who perused it silently.

  ‘Johanna?’ she said then, revert
ing to the Saxon language. ‘Daughter of the wortwyf, Eadgyth?’

  Janna knew a moment’s panic before she managed a reluctant reply. ‘Yes, Sister uh … um …?’

  ‘Mother Abbess. We thought you were dead. The lord Hugh begged me to say a Mass for your soul.’

  The abbess’s expression had darkened into a thunderous frown. A sinking feeling told Janna what was coming next. She wished she’d thought to ask Hugh not to mention her name so that she could, once again, invent for herself a new identity. Now, it was too late. She braced herself.

  ‘Out of the goodness of my heart, in Christ’s holy name, and in spite of your mother’s disgrace, I gave her the piece of land and the cot that was your home – and you repaid my generosity by burning it to the ground!’

  ‘No! No, I did not.’ But Janna’s protest went unheeded. The abbess was practically spitting with rage.

  ‘You might not have cared to stay there any longer, but there are many others in need of shelter and land on which to grow their food. How dare you destroy what I gave so freely!’

  Freely? Janna opened her mouth to defend herself, then closed it again. It was useless to point out to this self-righteous, miserly old bat that the land had been unworked and the cottage a tumbledown wreck when Eadgyth had first moved in. The midwife had told Janna how hard her mother had worked to repair the cot, and to turn the surrounding untilled earth into the garden that had sustained them both. She and her mother had always worked hard, and had often gone hungry in order to pay the rent demanded by this greedy, grasping abbess, handing over silver coins and produce from their garden as well as several of their birds and animals. The unsaid words almost choked Janna, yet she knew the abbess would not believe that it was the villagers who’d burned down her cot and who’d almost succeeded in burning her alive at the same time. Not unless Janna told her the full story, and perhaps not even then. But there was far too much at stake for Janna to speak up, to tell the truth, and so she stayed silent.

  ‘Not only that, but you led everyone to believe you had died in the fire! You have even disguised yourself as a youth.’ The abbess’s tone was full of contempt. ‘Was that so that you did not have to pay for the destruction of my property, and heriot for your mother’s death?’

  ‘I … no, that’s not true. No!’

  ‘The girl has coins to pay, Mother,’ Sister Brigid piped up unexpectedly. ‘I saw her companion pour silver into her purse.’ She flashed a spiteful glance at Janna. It was clear she thought the worst of her relationship with Godric.

  The abbess stopped abruptly. She ran her tongue over her top lip as she considered the possibilities. ‘The lord Hugh asks me to give you shelter, and so I will,’ she conceded, ‘but in turn I demand recompense for the cot and garden you have destroyed by your wanton action. And as your overlord, I also claim heriot for the death of your mother.’

  ‘That’s not f–’

  Janna’s outrage was stifled as Sister Brigid’s hand clamped hard on her arm.

  ‘It’s the custom,’ the nun reminded her.

  With an effort, Janna smoothed her face into calm acceptance, but inside she raged at the injustice of it all. No wonder Wiltune was such a wealthy abbey! The midwife’s account of the abbess’s treatment of her mother should have warned her how greedy and grasping she was. Janna was quite sure that Dame Alice had stayed true to her word that she herself would pay the heriot due, but it seemed the abbess did not scruple to be paid twice. Angrily, Janna untied her purse and pulled out a handful of silver. The abbess reached for it with eager hands. ‘There is also the matter of your food and shelter,’ she said, not taking her eyes from Janna’s purse.

  Seething, Janna pulled out the last of the coins. ‘This is all I have, Mother Abbess,’ she said. ‘What is left is for my use. It is of value only to me.’ She patted her purse, hearing the comforting crump of her father’s letter, feeling the lumpy trinkets through the rough fabric, tokens of his affection for her mother; feeling, too, the small figurine she had found in the forest. On no account would she hand over any of her treasures. She would rather leave the abbey and face an uncertain and dangerous future than part with any one of them. She folded her fingers around the small figurine, taking comfort from the carved shape of a mother and her child. It gave her the strength to face the abbess and wait for her future to be spelled out.

  ‘Very well,’ the abbess said grudgingly. She considered a moment and then said, ‘Harvest is about to begin, and extra hands are needed. You may stay so long as you are prepared to help in the fields, and do not disrupt the life of the abbey. We lead a simple life here, a life of contemplation of God and his mysteries. There is no place here for those who do not believe in Him. Do you love the Lord God and his Son, Jesus Christ?’

  Faced with such an unexpected demand, Janna hesitated. She could lie and say yes. It would smooth her path and make her life a whole lot easier. Or she could be honest and say no. The one and only time she’d ever been into a church, Eadgyth had dragged her out in a rage against the priest’s preaching. She’d railed against him, calling him a narrow-minded bigot, an opinion which Janna had shared, although in the end her mother’s actions had helped persuade the villagers to turn against them. She could not tell the abbess ‘yes’, for it was not true. Nor could she say ‘no’, for she would be thrown out of the abbey, left to the mercy of Robert of Babestoche and all those who followed his lead. Even worse, she would lose her only chance of finding out more about her mother and, more important, learning to read and to write so that she could make sense of her father’s letter. In that lay her salvation, the answer to all her hopes: the secret of her father, of her own heritage, and the chance of bringing to justice the man responsible for the murder of her mother.

  ‘Well?’ the abbess demanded impatiently.

  ‘I am here because I don’t know Him,’ Janna said slowly, sticking to the truth as closely as she could. ‘I am here to learn.’

  ‘Humph.’ The abbess gave her a narrow look full of suspicion. ‘You may stay here as a lay sister, for the moment. I am not prepared to accept you as a postulant in our convent. For one thing, you have no dower.’ Her eyes rested on the pile of silver coins on the table in front of her. She looked up then and, as her glance met Janna’s, she had the grace to look slightly ashamed. ‘I will not accept you into our community until you have proved yourself fit to serve the Lord,’ she amended. ‘You may live and work with our lay sisters. They tend the garden, do the cooking, keep the abbey clean and help out in the fields when necessary, leaving my sisters free to say their prayers, to worship the Lord, engage in contemplation, or keep busy with more important tasks on the Lord’s behalf. Be sure that I will keep close watch on you to make sure you are worthy of my trust.’

  ‘Thank you, Mother Abbess.’ The words stuck in Janna’s throat. She bowed her head so that the abbess could not see her anger and dismay. I don’t have to stay here forever, just until my mission is complete, she reminded herself silently, taking some comfort from the fact that being locked within the walls of the abbey was not a life sentence. Or was it?

  Available at all good booksellers in March 2008

  SHALOTT RETURN TO SHALOTT SHALOTT: THE FINAL JOURNEY

  By Felicity Pulman

  Zapped back in time to the medieval court of King Arthur, Callie and her friends invoke the legend of the Lady of Shalott … with terrifying consequences.

  ‘Infectiously readable and admirably comprehensive’

  Viewpoint magazine

  ‘This spellbinding story weaves together the past and present to create a tale that is at once dark and dangerous, and tantalizingly dreamlike. Shalott is unputdownable.’

  Maggie Hamilton

  ‘This is an unsettling, unusual, intriguing and moving novel, rich in character, action and mystery, full of the atmosphere of Arthurian legend’ Sophie Masson

  Available now at all good retailers

  Janna Mysteries 1 & 2 Bindup