“Oh, him.” Her eyes sparkled, lingering on Geraint’s still unshaven chin. “Do you take me for a fool, master scholar?”
“No, madam.”
“My servants await me hard by, never fret.” She looked back towards Christiana, waving her crop to encompass the cottage and the trees beyond. “You know what this place is?” Geraint shook his head, having observed little in yesterday’s dusk. “It is a park for our deer. I have given Dame Christiana permission to dwell here where she may be in seclusion and devote herself to prayer and meditation. And since she detests visitors, my people have orders not to disturb her. My chaplain, Father Gilbert, who brought you here, comes to administer the Holy Sacrament to her twice a week.” So she had fathomed him. “Does that set your mind at rest, master scholar?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“How is your shoulder?”
“It mends, I thank you, but I fear my arm fares worse.” Linen strips hid the inflamed flesh.
“Fortunately it is your left arm. I thought that since you claim yourself to be lettered,” her gaze rose assessingly from his bootcaps to his collarbone, “you may assist Dame Christiana to write down her visions. Her hands often pain her, poor soul, so it will be a way for you to repay her for her charity. I take it that will be no difficulty?” From her tone, she thought him to be barely literate.
“No, madam.” He saw surprise glitter in her eyes.
“Scholar indeed,” she murmured. “Well, well, there is more to you than meets the eye. Your hands, sir.”
He stared at her perplexed and then realised she was waiting for him to cup his fingers so she might place her foot on them and mount. In the saddle, she smiled down at him silkily and, with a flourish, unstrapped a saddle roll and tossed some clothing into his surprised arms.
“These will be a better fit, I trust.”
He blinked at the tawny tunic and leather hose but before he could thank her, the palfrey was in full gallop up the path.
“A law unto herself, that one, now that his lordship is afflicted.”
Christiana stood beside him, her hands on her hips, stretching her back.
“Afflicted?” Somehow it had not occurred to Geraint that Lady Constance was still a married woman. Could she have told her husband about himself and Edmund? “What is wrong with her lord then?” Leprosy, the crabs, the crippling stiffness that came with age?
“Seems Lord Alan has been smitten by God. Lost his speech completely, she reckons, besides the sense all down his right side.”
“How long since?”
“A week, maybe less.”
“And is there aught you can do?”
Christiana shook her head. “God’s will. These things happen.” She poked a bony finger into his back. “Now neither you nor I have time to waste in idle gossip.” She peered up the track that Lady Constance had taken. “Keep your nose out of it, that’s what I say, master scholar. Let Lady Constance mind her own affairs.”
“Aye, and not mine,” Geraint added fervently.
Four
THE ENDERBY ESCORT, wasp-like in the black and yellow livery, sounded their horns as they approached the archway of the Conisthorpe barbican and the castle clarions answered shrilly. Pulling back the litter’s curtain, Johanna was heartened to see that the drawbridge was already lowered to welcome her home.
In the blink of a tearful eye, the inhabitants of the great jumble of dwellings within the bailey emptied into the courtyard like bees from a smoked treetrunk so that by the time Edgar de Laverton had dismounted and was assisting Johanna from the curtained folds of the litter with his predictable leering smile, a crowd of Conisthorpe servants, tasselled by an untidy row of jumping offspring and a garlanded pig, was waiting to receive her.
Amazed that her mother had preserved the pig for sentimental reasons, Johanna held a friendly gloved hand to its cautious snout, chucked one of the cleaner children under the chin and received a fistful of bruised primroses. She badly wanted to share her euphoria at being back with those familiar faces, but it was necessary to behave soberly and she was ashamed of setting back the fine Laon veil—she could barely see out of her left eye.
What alarmed her too was that the castle seemed to lack a sombre mien. God forgive her for hoping that the mighty Constable of Conisthorpe was still ailing to death. It was selfish, despicable and she would fall into Hell faster than a penny down a well, but her bruised face throbbed and she knew if her father’s health had returned, he would send her back to Enderby—without the remainder of her dower.
“Sweetheart.” Her uninhibited mother was hurrying down from the steps of the new hall as fast as her skirts would allow. Most noble ladies waited by the door to be kissed unemotionally but the Lady of Conisthorpe made her own laws. She threw her arms about Johanna and then let go, masking her dismay, as she sensed resistance.
Johanna desperately wanted to feel her warmth and strength, but not a word of compassion had been sent to her during the exile at Enderby and her mother’s silence had left her cautious and resentful.
“What is the matter?” Constance whispered, stepping back.
“Oh, it is good to be home.” Johanna’s voice was brittle. Lifting her skirts, she mounted the steps ahead of her mother and then turned.
Her mother stood transfixed on the lower step, unusually bereft of words, staring at her as if she had suddenly sprouted wool and a pair of curly horns. Perhaps she was wrong, Johanna thought, mayhap her letters had never reached Conisthorpe.
“Johanna.” Pearls of moisture formed and sparkled on her mother’s lashes. So she had been missed.
“I feel as though I have been away a millennium, madam,” Johanna offered softly as a concession.
Encouraged, her parent took a step up and stretched out a hand to lift away the barrier of fabric.
“Not now,” Johanna said swiftly with deceptive lightheartedness, glancing meaningfully at the litter to distract her. Forehead puckering, Lady Constance obediently turned to have her attention instantly snared by the emergence of Edyth, complete with squirrel, into the courtyard.
“By all the Saints, did you have to bring her?”
In less fragile humour, Johanna would have enjoyed her parent’s expression.
“Oh, he sent her to report on me. She is like a dag of mud, sticking to my life. Perhaps we can find a bucket somewhere.”
Her mother raised an eyebrow, took a deep breath, rearranged her features in a vacuous smile, and sailed down to greet Edyth somewhat fulsomely.
It was wonderful to have an ally again; since Edyth was not expected and there was no bedchamber to tidy her into, Johanna’s organising mother deftly manoeuvred the Conisthorpe chaplain, Father Gilbert, into conducting their guest around the gardens, giving orders that he was to point out the features, all the features. Then, after conducting Johanna to one of the bedchambers built above the new hall, her mother hastened off to deal with the remainder of the visiting entourage and to warn them they were expected to return to Enderby next day.
Wanting to feel herself a maid again, Johanna unlooped the cream silk barbette that tethered her pearled headband, discarded her veil and unpinned the dark plaits from her aching head.
“Shall I rebraid it loosely for you, my lady?” Agnes asked hopefully as her mistress restored anarchy to the regimented tresses.
Johanna shook her head and opened the casement. She stood idly watching the river below tumbling over the broad fall. The cold breath of wind from the soaring moors that gilded the edge of this little world was a physical reassurance. She was home, the comforting familiarity of Conisthorpe no longer an insubstantial dream before waking. Tears might serve now; words were beyond her. Nor could she sum up in any way how much she valued this innocent, haphazard concurrence of hill and dale stretching before her from the steep cliff. It was not just the poetic grandeur of moving shadows of cloud dappling the hillsides which filled her soul, the land’s prosaic aspect gave her pleasure: the narrow timber bridge with a queue of
mules and carts on the town side deferentially waiting for her father’s bailiff to ride across and the uncontrolled scatter of weavers’ houses beyond. Even the wire interacing of winter branches necklacing the river banks pleased her.
But the comforting peace before her could not yet erase the suffering of the last months. She was safe here, but she could not drive the thoughts of her little dog and those who had served her well at Enderby from her mind. Who would have a care for Cob? And what of Barnabas, the little page who was always incurring Fulk’s wrath? At Yuletide when the child had clumsily spilt the best Bordeaux over her husband’s finest clothes, Johanna had grabbed the other end of the stick and refused to let him beat the boy. Only by agreeing to fast for two days as penance for the child, had she managed to persuade Fulk to spare him.
Behind her in the bedchamber, Agnes busied herself unpacking the few kirtles brought from Enderby. To have packed all would have aroused Fulk’s suspicion.
“Johanna?” Her mother, returning, spoke from the threshold without her usual certainty.
Her daughter latched the casement, closing off the valley behind the translucent lozenges of cloudy glass, and slowly turned. She saw the horror of her appearance reflected in her mother’s appalled expression.
“God Almighty!” exclaimed Lady Constance, crossing herself. She came across to Johanna, one hand clasped to her mouth. “Oh my darling,” she whispered, “is it hurting?”
“Every bit of me is hurting,” answered Johanna coldly. She came swiftly to the crux of her resentment. “Why did you not write?”
“But I did.” Constance raised a hesitant hand to touch her daughter and let it fall unwelcomed. “You are assuming—” She paced away and turned, “Indeed, you should have had, let me see,” she tapped her fingers against her skirts, “yes, half a dozen letters. I dictated them to Father Gilbert. Ask him if you do not believe me.”
Her daughter shook her head in despair. Fulk or Edyth must have prevented the letters reaching her.
“Oh, lambkin.” Her mother, understanding, opened her arms and Johanna threw herself into them, the tears gushing up as if she simmered inside with sorrow.
“It has been dreadful, madam, dreadful. Ask Agnes. If only you knew how good it is to be home, to be free.”
“Aye,” Agnes sniffed, “will you look at my lady, madam, thin as a bodkin and nigh blinded by that excrescent.”
“Excrescence, Agnes,” corrected Lady Constance, distractedly patting her daughter’s back.
It was wonderful to be held by loving hands. For a little space, the demons in Johanna’s life were muzzled and she wept out the anguish. Eventually she stilled and drew back, mopping the tears away with a sodden kerchief.
“So, is he dead yet, the tyrant that yoked me to that fiend?” She watched her mother wince at the bitterness in her voice.
“You mean your poor father?”
“My father who always swore he loved me. I suppose he thought I exaggerated in my complaints. It is a pity he had to be dying for you to bring me home.”
Her mother’s defensiveness gave way to self-congratulation. “But I have managed it! You are here, are you not?” Johanna stared at her resentfully and Constance went on hurriedly: “As God is my witness, child, I tried before, but my lord brushed aside every reason I could find: ‘The marriage must be given time to work.’” she mimicked. “ ‘You have turned the girl into a milksop. It will do her good to learn obedience, she is too wilful.’ You know what he is . . . was like.”
“Was!” Johanna stared at her. “Was? Then, in God’s Name, tell me what ails him! How close is he to making Satan suffer his abominable company?”
Lady Constance saddened. “He is not dying and yet—”
Panic streaked again through Johanna. If need be, she would lock this chamber door and take her own life. Her fingers curled into claws of frustration. “God give me strength!” she exclaimed, addressing the stars daubed on the whitewashed ceiling. “Surely you are either dying or you are not.”
“No, you see, my darling, it is some kind of visitation. It was . . .” Her mother shrugged, her palms open and lifted as if she trusted the Almighty might just deposit the right words into them. “Johanna, it . . . was as a thunderbolt. One instant . . . What is the matter?”
Conscious that she was staring openmouthed at her parent, Johanna pressed her lips together and tried to suppress the desire to grab up her skirts and rush to the chapel to give God an exuberant thank-you.
Her mother’s one-must-make-allowances expression dissipated. “Your father had been riding all day with the new bailiff—some trouble with one of the villains at Kirkbridge—and he came back in good humour well before supper, striding into the hall calling for ale, hale as you please one moment, and in a thrice he had collapsed. There was nothing we could do. I sent to Skipton for the Cliffords’ physician and the fellow came as soon as he might. But he said there is nothing to be done.”
“So it is not a frenzy?”
“No, nothing of that sort. He is paralysed down one side and cannot speak.”
Christ forgive her for being pleased but she could not mourn the loss of a loving father who had metamorphosed into a ranting tyrant and forced her, poor fool, to believe that marriage with the wealthy Fulk was better than imprisonment and daily beatings.
“Can he write?”
“What an odd question! I should not think so. Basically, my darling, it is not easy to know if the poor soul understands a word we say to him, and, to be honest, we have not thought of trying him with parchment yet, but his sword arm is certainly useless. Perhaps he may be capable of scratching a cross with his left hand eventually—if he makes any kind of recovery—but I doubt he will understand what he is doing. Oh, I have hardly come to terms with the situation myself. It happened but a week since and there has been so much to do. I wrote to your sister Petronella and Sir John but I expect she is too far gone with child to travel and I have not heard back from Sir John yet, but that is to be expected. And I assure you I sent for you straightway.”
Johanna, feeling guilty for ever doubting her mother, reached out a hand and drew her close.
“Thank God you did, Maman,” she whispered, bestowing a kiss upon her cheek, “and with such a message! Nothing else would have moved Fulk. I am only allowed back in order to acquire the rest of my dowry. That is why that wretched Edyth is here—to make sure I return with laden packhorses. Damn them both! Go and spy out where she is now, Agnes. That cursed woman is a cat on human legs.”
Her mother sat down on the high bed with a sigh. Johanna paced to the window and stood stroking her finger down the carving. “You have to help me, Maman. I cannot return. Should my father recover his wits . . .”
Her mother lifted a kirtle from a half-emptied coffer, one that carried her own stitching, and absent-mindedly fingered the soft silk.
“If ever he does. Dame Christiana reckons it might take him years, if at all. Mind, she has not seen him, but the physician said the same.” She laid the garment upon the bed. “You shall not go back, I promise you.”
“But what can we do against Fulk? He will send for me within the week or come himself to see why I have not returned. Do you think if I ride to the Benedictine nuns at the Priory of St. Clement in York, the nuns will give me protection? I will gladly take holy vows there. If I never set eyes on another man as long as I live, it will not bother me.”
“Oh, Johanna, you addlepate, that will not serve. Did not Fulk remark at your wedding feast that the prioress, Agnes de Methelay, is some distant kinswoman? Of course there are the Cistercians but if you have truly set your heart on the cloister, you would be better to go to one of the great abbeys in the south out of Fulk’s reach. What better than Shaftesbury? I know the abbess, Margaret Aucher.”
“Then, please, no time must be lost. Pray, could you write to her this afternoon on my behalf?”
Her mother paced to the door, her fingertips a steeple at her lips. “Yes, I could do that, certain
ly, but I have another notion. You may not like the sound of it but I . . . I believe there is an alternative way, except it will require another’s help.”
Not all her mother’s enterprises worked, but Johanna was now a creature tumbled into an unmapped marsh, grabbing at any lifeline. She sped across and gently shook her mother’s shoulders. “Tell me of it then, Maman. What must I do?”
Lady Constance set her aside. “Give me until tomorrow noon—Oh!” The door ring turned in her hand, lifting the latch, and Edyth marched in unannounced, an embarrassed Agnes at her heels. She lifted her pointed chin at Johanna.
“Skulking, sister? Should we not go and see your father about what is owing? The chaplain tells me that he is not to be shriven after all and . . . Oh, madam, I . . .”
“Did you think my mother was a tiring woman to be opening doors for you, Edyth?”
“My lady, I—I beg your pardon.” Edyth managed an almost apologetic obeisance.
“I think it inappropriate for you to trouble Lord Alan at the moment, Edyth. Perhaps tomorrow before you leave.” Lady Constance waited a heartbeat for their guest to soak in her meaning and added sweetly, “It was kind of you to accompany Johanna, but I am sure you are needed at Enderby to play the chatelaine in my daughter’s absence.”
Her words were like drops of water on duck feathers; Edyth was not at all ruffled. “Oh, I have already discussed that with my brother and it is decided that I shall stay here until Johanna is ready to return.”
Her sister-in-law bit back a retort and lifted an eyebrow at her mother.
“Excuse me,” answered Lady Constance, sweeping round Edyth in a stately manner. She paused and turned, framed like an altarpiece in the doorway. “I have just had a good idea,” she told Johanna, “and . . .” She hesitated, smiling broadly at her unwelcome guest.
“And, madam?” Edyth prompted, frowning.
“And I have to find a bucket.”
LADY CONSTANCE SEEMED to fill Dame Christiana’s dwelling with her restless presence. A few moments earlier Geraint had started up from Edmund’s bedside, drawing his knife at the sound of hooves. Now he was relieved to learn it was only the Lady of Conisthorpe. The disruption, however, was tiresome; he had spent the morning happily carrying out chores for the old lady, trying to forget that there was a world beyond the deer park, a world where he was hunted.
The Knight And The Rose Page 4