Roses in the Tempest

by Jeri Westerson

  “Then what is it you want from me? Love?”

  The smile growing on my face turned sheepish. Here I was a full three years younger than this maid, and she no one’s beauty. “You misunderstand. It is your honesty I crave. The truthfulness of your anger has been like ointment to a festering wound.”

  “You want my anger?” Now she smiled.

  “No, Mistress. I have tasted it and need no more helpings, I assure you.”

  “Then my trust. Is that it?”

  “Is it costly?”

  She thought a moment but not with crafty intent. It was as if she were considering a contract with all its implications. “Not costly. Not to you.”

  I laughed heartily. After a pause I asked, “How old are you?”

  “Fifteen. How old are you?”

  “Thirteen. You look older. You are tall.” She flushed from the offhand remark, and I blanched. “I did not mean to offend you.”

  She stared straight ahead, dismissing her discomfort with a deep breath. “Why did you come back?”

  I shrugged and dropped the horse’s reins, allowing it to trail. I batted the leather strap a moment, kicked at a stone, and then pressed my hands behind my back. “I know not. Boredom? Do you mind?”

  “Appeasing your boredom?” she sniffed. “Of course not, my lord.”

  “By the mass! I do nothing but further insult you.”

  “Only by your swearing, my lord,” she whispered.

  I stopped, turning to her. “Are you certain you are the daughter of a yeoman?”

  She engaged my eyes. “Are you certain you are the son of a knight?”

  “Mistress,” I acknowledged with a courtly bow that made her blush. “You are truthful. A man needs that assurance from time to time. Perhaps you will be my counselor. Or at least my personal cynic.”

  “A woman? You must surely have better counselors, my lord.”

  “Thomas. Call me that. We are alone. No one need know.”

  “I think it unseemly, my lord,” she said in a tone one might reserve to admonish a servant.

  “I rather think it unseemly that we are alone together at all, but that does not seem to distress you…Isabella.”

  An instant of panic flared in her eyes, and she cast an anxious glance back toward the house, but no one seemed to be aware of us. Tentatively, she surveyed me. An impish demeanor encroached upon her face. “Have… have you just given me leave to use your Christian name?”

  “As you will. We are alone. And I hope we shall be friends.”

  “A Giffard, friends with a Launder?” A smile formed, the possibilities fluttering in her eyes. “Then…” She looked again behind for spies. “I am your friend…Thomas.” She giggled, amused by the notion. “If you must have me so.”

  And so we were.

  I smiled with the remembrance of that long ago day, but a sigh remade it to a frown. We have a history, she and I. Was it to be spoilt by a wife?

  I stomped into the house, my mood soured and my thoughts running between Isabella and Father’s unrelenting schemes, the latter in which I always seemed to be a pawn. The more I considered the upcoming nuptials, the more helpless I felt. The wine jug called to me, and I lunged for it before a servant could fulfill his duty. I dismissed him from the room with a wave of my hand and leaned against the great hall’s hearth, relishing the painful jabbing of the stone carvings in my shoulder.

  “The bridegroom!”

  I turned to see Father striding under the arch. He was winded, apparently just returned from a ride. He seemed to be avoiding Caverswall of late, or trying to avoid any possible messenger from court calling him thence.

  “I weary of that moniker.”

  “Are you? Well worry not. Soon you will be wed and called ‘husband’.”

  “How I dread that day.”

  Silently he poured himself wine while a servant divested him of his mud-spattered gown. “Do not dread this wedding day, Thomas. Not only is she wealthy, but a handsome woman. Not many can say the same for their own matches.”

  “Wealth and beauty. Is that all there is to women, Father? Or to you?”

  He eyed me a moment before joining me by the hearth. “I recognize that your tastes may run toward more rustic diversions.” Reaching, he plucked a sprig of straw from my breast and raised it pointedly before tossing it into the fire. “Are you not a bit old, Thomas, to be dallying with servants in hayricks?”

  “Whom I dally with is my own damn business.”

  “I will not have Giffards begotten all over the county. See that you comport yourself.” Of a sudden, he turned back toward me. “Or is that the reason you put me off? Is there another to whom you have promised yourself? Without asking my permission? Who is it, Thomas? Tell me the woman’s name!”

  How often did I see that look in his eye? He was a mule over a mud hole, immovable. “There is no one.” Taking my wine I walked away from the fire to stare out the window. Through the rippled glass, the distant green hills rumbled onward, and beyond that, a long road leading to Beech.

  “Thomas, this is weighty business. Contracts have been arranged. Banns have been posted. Much has gone ahead. If I find you have muddled it by your own selfish interests…”

  “Selfish interests,” I muttered to the window. “My own happiness? That is a selfish interest?”

  “Yes, when so much is in the balance. A Giffard has responsibilities.”

  “Why does everyone keep saying that?” A reflection suddenly shaped itself on the glass—my own scowling young face. “It is only that…” What was I to say to him? What did love or happiness to do with it? Surely he could understand friendship? Choosing my words, I said, “With these events old ties must be severed, old friends lost.”

  For the first time, Father seemed to consider words I never meant to say aloud. His face softened and he laid his hand condolingly upon my shoulder. “Which ties do you speak of, my son? Which friends?”

  I endured it even as I raised a shoulder in a shrug. “It matters not.”

  There was folly in saying too much to him. I was not yet his match. But it was too late. His face mirrored his thoughts, thoughts pregnant with plots and excavation.

  ISABELLA LAUNDER

  MIDSUMMER, 1515

  Beech

  III

  “Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!”

  —Gospel of Matthew 25:6

  It was not exactly that I missed Thomas. Memory of his dark eyes did not cause my hand to churn the butter idly, nor did the thought of his bronze cheeks or sculpted nose invoke a listless nature. No. I lived practically and deliberately. My life lent itself to its slow meander, much like the lazy crawl of a river’s soupy waters. God presented me with my life, such as it was, and like a map, each thing was in its proper place.

  I continued my work on the farm while the weeks passed into a month. The marriage between Sir John Giffard of Chillington Hall, Brewood, and Elizabeth Montgomery, wealthy widow, proceeded with much celebration.

  Great anticipation in Caverswall followed at the announced wedding plans of Thomas Giffard to Dorothy Montgomery.

  My father took it very hard indeed, for Thomas’ visits were not as secret as we supposed.

  They were also greatly misinterpreted.

  I knew I would miss Thomas, our meetings and conversations. What was I to do with my time if I could not spend it with him? I wondered as I leaned against the rugged bark under the shade of a swaying elm. The whispering buzz of insects encircled my head. “How empty, Isabella,” I sighed aloud, listening to the words, feeling my lips form the syllables. Thomas had so filled my time and my imagination! “Isabella, how bland you are without him.”

  “Without whom?”

  I was fully startled. I never heard him approach. Indeed, I saw no sign of his horse, only Thomas, with an iron veneer I had never seen before. His brow was serious, his lips pale. He wore dark colors as if in mourning. Doublet, jerkin, slops, and stockings blended together, looking more shad
ow than man. “Thomas…”

  He took my hand without a word and simply held it before bringing it to his lips. The bristly mustache caressed for a moment, soft lips flattening upon the roughened skin. Then he merely held it, staring at it, memorizing its contours. “Isabella. I did not want to part from you as I did, angered. I would not grieve you for all the world.”

  An era was slipping away, sinking fast beneath deep waters. I took my hand from his. “I have forgiven you.”

  “Yes, I know.” He walked a circlet, kicked at a tight knob of grass, and thrust his knuckles into his hips with a sigh. Both his gloves bobbed limply from the fist of one hand like a dog’s panting tongue. I stared at his back, at the fine cloth of his cloak, the jewels at his fingers, the feathers rustling at the fringe of his hat. “I met my betrothed,” he said.

  “That is good,” I said mechanically.

  He huffed an incoherent sound before turning his head to look at me. “She’s a mare.”

  “That is unkind, Thomas.”

  “Why? I’m to be a stallion stud, so why should she not be a mare? That is why we were chosen for one another, after all, to continue this fine and noble line of Giffards.” His mocking smile faded and a bruised expression replaced it. “Only another fine and noble spouse would do. It only makes me wonder, Isabella, what life is for at all. Am I not to have satisfaction in my own lifetime? Or am I merely the steward and sire for those later anonymous generations? I would travel, Isabella! I would see the places of which I have read with a true companion, a woman of intellect at my side!”

  My long fingers covered my lips and I chuckled through them. “Surely you do not mean me! A woman of intellect?”

  “What you may not have gained through study you surely have through natural gifts. And I know you could learn.”

  “I do not even read Latin, Thomas. You know I am a poor study.”

  “Only because you do not have the time. I always meant to get you a tutor—”

  “Thomas! Listen to yourself. What would I do with a tutor? Recite grammar while I milked the cows? I was pleased enough to be your friend. You never needed to buy it.”

  The arched brows, the lightened eyes, all shadowed suddenly, remembering the present. He sagged, his heavy clothes dragging him down. All at once he reared up and cast his gloves violently to the ground. Before I could react he took hold of my arms and pulled me to his chest in a fierce embrace. “Why do you speak in past tenses? Are we not to remain the dearest of friends? What should I do without you?”

  “You are betrothed and soon to wed. I have no place with you.”

  “I will not give you up.”

  “You will,” I said sternly. “And you will not come again. If you care little about dishonoring yourself, at least think of me and my honor.”

  “What has that to do with it?” He released me and I faltered back, rubbing the arm crushed between us. “You speak as if we were lovers.”

  I let my coif drape over the rose in my cheek. “Do you think that others have not believed that?” He paused, looking at me… before he laughed. Thomas’ laughter was always merry, often with a bawdy peal to it. Now it only annoyed, like that boyish manner he fashioned about his person. “Your laughter, Lord Giffard, is most inappropriate.”

  “‘Lord Giffard’? Isabella, you are very grave.”

  “Never more so in my life. Do you think I am not just as hurt by our parting? You are moving into a new portion of your life, one fully expected of your rank. I cannot come along on that journey. Who would believe, after all, that we are only friends?” I faced him with those last words, looking at the man he had become: tall, elegant, comely. I shook my head, not only to unfurl his knotted brow, but to extract the foolish notions long ago burrowed in my own head.

  He did not fully understand, and the notion of our parting did not sit well with him.

  Even up until the fortnight before his own wedding he haunted the places I often walked. He would not come near enough to speak with me, but I noticed that brazen silhouette atop a nearby hill or his lone-some shadow stretching forth from a dark copse. I wandered, ignoring my shade.

  I returned to my labors, swallowing my emotions in the routine of my garden, my sanctuary. I repaired my trampled roses and gave them an encouraging glance, but they lay limply against the garden wall. Still, I hoped for their recovery.

  Immersed in work, I dug into the soil, loosening the clumps and at the same time loosening the scrambled thoughts from my head.

  The church bell chimed, rolling its peal across the countryside. The church itself was a distant walk, but the bells’ echoing pulse reached me nonetheless. The Angelus.

  With a curved hand I sheltered my eyes and gazed up toward the hazy sky. Another noon. Another fleeing summer. Another day. They heaped one upon the other.

  I leaned on the hoe and stared at a cabbage, eyeing the evidence of a rabbit’s nibbling on its fanning outer leaves. Every one of God’s creatures found its place in life, even the rabbits who so abused my garden. My brother Robert had his children, as did my sister Agnes. I was an aunt many times over. What was to become of Isabella? Be the spinster in my father’s household?

  The thudding hoofbeats of an approaching rider failed to rouse me. Oh Thomas, I thought. Do not trouble me with your pleas. Not today. I set to work, feeling no surprise when the rider cleared the hedge and approached.

  The horse chewed the bit, large teeth grinding at the iron, while the leather squeaked and whined under the rider’s seat.

  “Are you deaf, woman?”

  My head jerked upwards. There towered not Thomas, but his father, Sir John! Certainly the face of Thomas, only the skin was raw and fleshier, more textured with lines. He wore more jewelry than Thomas, underscoring the broad strokes of his chest and shoulders with the sweeping drape of a bejeweled chain. His collar was tied right up to the gray whiskers under his chin and he glared down at me with a scowl.

  “Come, girl. Take me up to the house. I have business within.”

  I laid down the hoe and curtseyed. “Yes, my lord.” He dismounted and tossed the reins to me, and I led the horse through the gate. We walked silently into the courtyard where I handed off the horse to one of the stable boys.

  “Is this a prosperous farm? I admit I know not Rafe Launder.”

  “It has been,” I replied. “It is managed very well.”

  He came up beside me and cocked his head. “You have a fondness for your employer? That is refreshing.”

  I sucked in my lips. He believed me to be a servant! I looked down upon dirt-lined fingers, muddy hem, and stained napron and could not help but smile. “I do at that, my lord. I toil for the good of all, and my wages are only the satisfaction at a job well done.”

  A deep sound rumbled in his chest. “Does he not pay you, lass?”

  Chuckling, I said, “I did not mean to imply such. It is just that I am not Rafe Launder’s servant, but his daughter, Isabella.”

  Sir John stopped. He sputtered for a moment before placing his hand upon his chest. “By the mass! Mistress Launder, forgive me!”

  “Completely unnecessary, my lord. I look nothing like a daughter today. We are a small grange and we all must do our part.”

  “You work willingly?”

  “Of course. I am a dutiful daughter. ‘The Lord loveth a cheerful giver’.”

  “But to…to…sully yourself—”

  “—with well-earned honest dirt, my lord. When I look at these hands by the end of the day, I see hands that helped to feed many mouths. Perhaps they are not graceful fingers with which to weave a tapestry or polish the armor of a knight, but they do their toil without complaint.”

  His frown dissolved any other expression. “Hmm. I came here to admonish you, Mistress, not to admire you.”

  My heart leapt to my throat. “Admonish me, my lord? Whatever for?”

  “For bewitching my son. This pining for you must stop. He has responsibilities.”

  How did Sir John know
of us? I froze, uttering the first thing that came to my mind. “You mistake me, Sir John. If your son has responsibilities, I am not in the way of them. He best get on with them.”

  “Not when he is distracted with you!” He sighed heavily and cast a glance again at the house. He smelled of horse sweat and a foreign perfume. The blended aromas aroused an uneasy feeling in my belly.

  He shrugged, jangling the chain and displacing the position of cloak and jewelry. “I know you are not to blame, my dear. I recognize your character—or I know better my son’s.” He sighed. “I wish only to talk with your father to get you betrothed as quickly as possible. I believe that will satisfy the situation. It is best for all, lass…er, Mistress. Thomas will get on with his life and you will get on with yours.”

  Was it my own heart pounding in my ears? I did not know such sounds could throb throughout a body. Did Sir John hear it too? “But I have a life here, my lord.” I clutched my chest. Surely if I did not, my heart would leap forth, bursting through the bone and flesh.

  If Sir John took this marriage plan to Father he would have no choice but to obey it.

  The church bells intruded again. They clanged inharmoniously before blending as they always did to a singular resonance of clarity. I did not immediately realize I had turned in the direction of the bells.

  My vague existence consisting of family, garden…and Thomas…was suddenly given a crooked course. Nothing wore the semblance of sense any longer. “I am unsuited to married life,” I muttered.

  Sir John examined me with questing eyes. “What’s that? A sensible girl like you? Come, come. Do not be stubborn. He is not worth your pining for him. It is unseemly.”

  “I do not wish to be taken as stubborn, my lord, nor am I pining, yet I say again, I am unsuited to the married state.” They tumbled forth, each thought upon another. Bells, marriage with a stranger, Thomas. They closed upon me. My breath was not mine to keep. It swiftly flew from my throat, wheezing away on the wind. Sounds of insects thrummed in my head, snagging on the throaty choir of distant bells.