The man’s head jerked up in terror and he would have taken to his heels had Geraint not grabbed him more swiftly.
“How dare you accuse me of consorting with rebels!” shrilled the man, wriggling worm-like to free himself from the hold on his cape. “What would a jester be doing in this God-forsaken place? As for Lancaster, the world knows him as a traitor.”
“Be still, you scoundrel!” snarled Geraint. “Do you think the king’s men are bothered with the likes of you?”
“King Edward would readily shackle any who fought at Boroughbridge so I am told.” The glares between them weakened into an understanding and Geraint slowly let him go although he was poised to prevent the fool’s escape. Only the smaller man’s hands writhing like mating adders betrayed his fear.
“The earl is an honourable man,” Geraint commented softly.
The jester gulped and was silent, his gaze wandering like a blind man’s fingers over his enemy’s features. The fight seemed to go out of him and his shoulders sagged. “Oh, good sir, I went into battle for Lancaster, twice fool that I am.” His voice was burnished with sorrow.
“You did?” Geraint grabbed him by the cape again. “What news of your lord then? Is he taken south to London and stowed with Sir Roger Mortimer?”
The small man stilled, his brown eyes fearful of his interrogator. “Has the news not whistled through the forest like an arrow?” he asked, swallowing nervously. “My master is taken in irons by boat to the king at York. They dragged him from the church at Boroughbridge, set my fool’s cap upon him and hauled him up the high street to the river.”
Geraint let him go with a mixture of disbelief and amazement.
The fool’s glance zigzagged Geraint’s stature from boots to collar. “I see the news displeases you, master.”
“I too have come from Boroughbridge and if you have been less than honest with me . . .”
The jester scowled at him. “An excellent but foolhardy revelation worth much gold perhaps. You are a bigger fool than I to tell me so.” Then he added gravely, “I thought none escaped, even those who shed their armour and stole women’s skirts off hedges.”
“Why did they let you go?”
He sighed. “The Carlisle men would have beaten me right sore in the churchyard when they took my fool’s cap and bells but I made them laugh and they relented.”
“In God’s name, man, what were you doing in the battle lines?”
“I followed my lord like a faithful hound, but I’ll not speak of it further.” He gave an exquisite shudder.
“Oh yes you will if you want to keep body and soul together.”
“Not this moment,” pleaded the jester, and he sprang back, shedding his wistfulness like a wet dog shaking itself. “Let us blow this ship in a different direction. You are not what you seem, great one. Mayhap you need a servant.”
Ah, there was a thought. The jester had yet to hear of holy springs, wilful wives and the formidable, scheming Lady Constance who had come riding in yet again after noon demanding Geraint’s unquestioning compliance.
Seeing the wolfish grin, the fool was of a sudden disconcerted. “You do?” he asked, wary now.
“Oh yes.”
“HOW DO I look?”
Jankyn, the jester, pirouetted like a whore in a Southwark bathhouse. Geraint’s discarded black hose, washed free of mud, were drawn tightly over his head and the ample scholarly tunic was belted round his middle.
“A true rogue,” clucked Christiana. With slits cut for eyes the improvised hood looked sufficiently malevolent. It hid the fool’s distinctive lack of neck and gave him a few extra inches. Not that he was puny, but if he was going to play an outlaw, he needed to look the part.
“And I?” asked Geraint, pulling down the black hood which Lady Constance had brought him.
“An improvement, sir.”
“If we borrow the good Christiana’s dagger and stick that in your belt as well, Jankyn, it might suffice.”
“What, two daggers, sir? I will look like a cutler’s stall.”
Geraint shrugged. “Have it your own way. You are, of course, built like a Colossus and no one could dream of mistaking you for anything but the Robin Hood of Wharfedale.” The withering remark was a mite unfair, but Jankyn of course did not know of his earlier baptism into outlawry and his humiliation at Father Gilbert’s hands. He had decided to let the jester take the forward part. It offered him a better chance to observe the female bane named Lady Johanna, and the fool had a dexterity with words that would not go amiss.
“Thank you,” declared Jankyn, ignoring the insult and waving his hand pretentiously in the manner of the king’s favourite, the younger Hugh Despenser, only to find his new ally’s right hand encompassing his throat.
“Have a care, man! I know who you ape. You could be gutted for such a jest.”
“Aye, true, but then both you and I could be hanged for aping outlaws. What if we prey upon some other brigand’s turf, that other woolly pelted wretch you met? And if some other strangers fly into our web, shall we rob them for practice?”
“We run—like the deer do.”
“YOU INSISTED ON coming, Edyth, so do not grumble,” Johanna cried over her shoulder, urging the mare faster with her heels. She deliberately left her two companions several lengths behind on the woodland track and turned off to the river path, anxious to be earlier than the stranger. St. Robert’s spring was a magical place to her, one that she hated sharing, least of all now with Edyth. Although it was safer to have company, she desired a few moments of peace to pray in solitude.
Spiky wild garlic and sorrel dappled the wooded slopes and to her right the willow fronds fronting the river were trying to decide whether the sunlight was sufficient to risk their tender leaves. A few paces more and the well-trodden path narrowed. She dismounted, startling a pair of bramblings, and led her horse along to the small cleared glade where a fallen tree had been cut to make a foot bridge across a beck joining the river. It was an exhilarating feeling to be on her own, however briefly, but there was no time to dawdle. Swiftly tethering her horse to a beech sapling, she rewarded her with a withered Lenten apple and, lifting her skirts, crossed the bridge pigeonfooted.
As if in defiance of this holy place, some early toadstools had burst up, born unseasonably of the moist night, and these Johanna treated with respect, heartily wishing that the Queen of Elfland might carry her off to be her tiring woman. No, perhaps not even a comely Elfin king could heal her invisible scars but Saint Robert might listen. It was said that the hermit had seen a vision here in his wanderings as a youth before he became a monk at Fountains. His cave beside the Nidd at Knaresborough attracted pilgrims, but this holy spring was little known.
The path led down to where the river narrowed through a chasm and there the sun sparkled on the sacred gill bursting out of the bank. A withered garland of summer flowers, left over from dressing the well the previous Ascension Day, still clung to the tangle of undergrowth above the spring and there was a scattering of white petals fallen from the blackthorn thicket higher up the slope.
A local mason had carved the saint’s head upon a stone slab and set it up beside the spring and here Johanna knelt to cup her hands, offering an unspoken prayer to the saint. The holy water was icy enough to freeze the bruises off her so she methodically splashed it up under her veil, then gasped in surprise as a man’s arm coiled around her ribs and a palm came down across her mouth before she could scream a warning to the others.
As Edyth and the chaplain turned the corner into her view, a second, shorter man, hooded like an executioner, sprang out onto the path behind Father Gilbert, blocking their retreat.
“Here’s sport, look you!” the shorter rogue declared in a Welsh voice, prodding the chaplain forward to where the path widened beside the spring. “What have we here? Ladies come to pray to Saint Rob to take away their pimples and give them beauty. But vanity is a sin, they say. You will look better without your jewels, demoiselles.”
“No wedding ring, my darling? Now I can see why you have come to pray for beauty,” lilted the Welsh voice. “Ask the saint for the gift of silence too and you might find a brave husband, look you.” He was grinning broadly at his fellow ruffian.
This rough handling was not called for. And there were not supposed to be two of them. What fools to pose as masked outlaws. She would not be able to make a proper judgment. Cursing, Johanna drove her elbows backwards but her captor was tall enough to evade her flailing fists. The Devil take him! The man was made of rock. She could feel his body, hard as steel, pressing into her back as she wriggled to free herself.
Geraint was enjoying the feel of the girl. This must be Lady Johanna he was holding. The breasts that rested upon his forearm were pert enough to keep their ripeness through childbearing but of sufficient fullness for his taste and she fitted excellently against him. It was a pity that the veil hid the lady’s face. Thanks be to the great multitude of saints that the other scrawny unwed woman was not Lady Constance’s daughter.
He swiftly revoked the prayer as the lady Johanna kicked him hard in the kneecap with the heel of her boot and he almost kneed her headfirst into the holy spring. He insinuated his right leg between hers so that she could not easily repeat her assault. That halted the wench’s squirming but then her fingers started unaccountably scrabbling for his dagger. With little choice, he freed the lady’s mouth so he might slap her hand away from his belt. The dagger he drew himself and held it against her breast.
Johanna froze, not only terrified of the evil blade but also too aware of the firm thigh and muscle pressing against her legs through her kirtle. She would agree that the outlaws must not arouse Edyth’s suspicions, but this was unseemly.
Contending not only with a struggling wench, Geraint also watched Jankyn anxiously. He had warned him about Father Gilbert’s reputation with a staff, but the priest carried none and now looked as mild as a lamb in a painting of the Nativity.
“Down, both of you, facedown.” Jankyn waved the sword.
Father Gilbert fell to his knees, crossed himself and then lowered his forehead to the ground.
“No!” snapped Edyth. “I am not prostrating myself before any Welshman.”
“Do it or Black John here will kill the wench.”
Johanna stiffened as the man holding her thrust his dagger higher so that its tip was now pricking against her throat.
“Do as he says!” she squeaked, barely able to speak. She was of a sudden convinced that the man holding her might be a genuine outlaw.
Edyth sullenly prostrated herself and the short leader gleefully planted a foot on her back. “Would all English women behaved so.” His eyes grinned at Johanna through the slits. “And you, sweetheart, now you.”
The wretch was jerking his sword menacingly at the ground, indicating that she should grovel and it pleased her not one whit. How could her mother have bargained with such a rogue?
The great rapscallion holding Johanna let go of her. She backed away from him. Dear God, but he was huge and menacing in the hood. And—pox take him—who was he, this second man?
“What say you, Black John? Bind the priest, shall we, and let’s have some rare sport.”
The second man, who had held her, was studying Johanna through the sinister hood slits with an intensity that she found uncomfortable. Too flustered to stare further, she tumbled to her knees, swallowing anxiously. This was definitely not going as she had expected. The Welshman might be behaving boldly because of Edyth’s unexpected presence, but the evil faceless appearance of the pair of them was whittling away her courage. She had expected to sum up her prospective bridegroom from his face and demeanour. Her mother must have been taken in by the rogue or maybe he had run away and these were real brigands.
“I had rather you killed me than raped me,” she declared with a bravado that might evaporate in a thrice.
The shorter ruffian grinned at his companion before his eyes leered down at her. “Or we do both, look you.” His swordpoint teased at the folds of her kirtle. Suddenly whether he was an authentic outlaw no longer concerned Johanna. His impudence was intolerable and there was no way in the world she would consent for him to play her husband.
“Go on, kill me!” she hissed. “I would welcome it. There is nothing to live for.”
The leader seemed nonplussed for the moment, then he rallied.
“Show us your face, lady, or are you as ugly as this one?”
Edyth gave a growl of protest but he toed her in the shoulderblades.
“Oh, I need the holy water,” Johanna declared vehemently, throwing back her veil.
The man lost his Welshness for a second in a ripe Anglo-Saxon exclamation. He stared at the disfiguring bruises, slackjawed, and looked to the one called Black John, who stood dumb as a scarecrow. She had shocked them. There was an uncomfortable silence.
Johanna bit her lip. Her mother’s poor scholar was definitely out of his element and the other taller fellow was merely waiting for instructions.
“Here,” she snarled. She tugged off her rings and tossed them at his toecaps. “Take my rings. I have no use for them. Any of them!” The wedding ring bounced off Edyth’s back and rolled to a standstill at the large brigand’s feet.
His gaze never wavering from her face, the Welsh outlaw stooped and scooped them up. The large ruffian ignored the golden band.
“And you might as well take my life too.”
“No, my darling.” The man had recovered his Welsh character. “It looks as though some English rogue attempted that. There is still some chivalry in this forest, look you. Let me see you to your horse.”
Johanna struggled to her feet ignoring the fellow’s proffered hand. In the glade, out of hearing of the others, she whirled round on him.
“Never tell me you are my mother’s poor scholar.”
Her tone was scathing. The short knave gulped beneath her glare.
“We come in all shapes and sizes at Oxford, my lady.”
“This has been an utter waste of time and, besides, you were hopeless back there. You were supposed to rob us, not play the braggart.”
The man called Black John came running down the path and muttered something incomprehensible in Welsh, jerking his thumb to the trees rising up the hill.
“And you pick an empty-headed gormless fool for your accomplice,” Johanna hissed. The large man’s head jerked back as if she had struck him. “Leave Yorkshire! I do not want your services. Sell my rings. I will tell my mother I have paid you off. You could not convince a wench you are a man, let alone an archdeacon that you are a husband. Go!”
“Johanna.” Edyth’s voice reached them.
The big man took to his heels.
“Pardon, my lady,” the Welshman muttered. “But—”
“Leave me, you fool. For the love of God, go!” He disappeared between the trees after his large companion, running nimbly.
“Johanna, are you unharmed?”
“Yes, Edyth, my wondrous beauty saved me.”
“Johanna.” There was almost contrition.
“Yes, Edyth.” Johanna waited for the sympathy that might redeem Fulk’s sister.
“You brought those beatings on yourself.” It was disappointing. She had hoped a few days away from Enderby might give Edyth a fresh perspective. “And did you have to give those brigands your wedding ring? They might have been content with less.”
“The Devil may have my rings and good riddance. Where on earth is poor Father Gilbert? Why did you not stay for him?”
“He tried to rise and swooned.”
“Then in God’s name, why are we tarrying?”
Johanna prayed as she gathered her muddied skirts and ran back to the spring, hoping the priest had been trying to delay Edyth and the turnsickness was but feigned. It was a relief to see him on his feet, but she still took his arm to steady him.
“I am well.” He patted her hand. “The rogues did not harm you?”
“No, cowards both. They scampered the moment Edyth reappeared.”
Yes, she was well rid of them. Inspecting the ground, she noted without regret that her wedding ring had disappeared. That was the only good portent.
Holy spring! She glared at the innocent bubbling water with reproach. The saint had not been much help, for it was clear that her mother’s plan could not possibly succeed.
GERAINT ATTACKED DAME Christiana’s firewood with such ferocity that she asked if he was trying to reopen his wound and kill himself with his anger. She did not stay for an answer, but left him wiping the sweat off his brow with his sleeve.
Gormless, was he? Well, he would show her. No, he would not! He would leave Lady Johanna to wallow in her trouble rather than be entangled in the deceit and falsehoods. But the memory of the girl’s cruel injuries and her shame at her hurts stayed with him. There had been truth in her plea for them to kill her and yet an instant later she had been scornful, abusing them. This Johanna had some courage even if she was too forward for a woman. Mayhap her tongue had provoked her husband to lash out at her and yet she no longer cared for temporal things. Take my rings, she had said. Few women would have made such a gesture, but then she knew they were not outlaws. And yet . . . and yet.
When he had finally piled the wood outside the door, he stood, feeling empty and exposed as though he was a pot scourged with sand. Free me from this, Lord God, he pleaded, just as he had prayed in the monastery long ago for a way out of the dark future that had faced him.
The cottage door opened behind him. “Must I wait all day?” Dame Christiana snapped. He had forgotten his promise to be her amanuensis. “Have you made up your mind yet or are you going to hack the entire chase into firewood to vent your temper?”
“I will not go through with it.”
The recluse made concaves of her cheeks. “Young Mortimer is too ill to shift, but certes you are fit to leave.”
The Knight And The Rose Page 6