“I know . . . yet . . .” He kicked at the doorstep. “Do you think Lady Constance could carry out her threat?”
“Who knows what worms wriggle around in the compost in my lady’s head? What of the daughter? Comely, is she not?”
“Not that I could see. Do you know her then?”
“I knew the maiden and I would not have wished her matched to Fulk of Enderby. Is her spirit broken yet?” For an instant she peered into his eyes as if seeking out his soul. “But what matter in the hour glass of time? Come in and seat yourself. Let us divert ourselves to spiritual matters. I have some quills sharpened for you.”
He had been writing to Christiana’s dictation for nigh on an hour when he heard the whinny he was dreading. Lady Constance’s horse always made the sound when being tethered.
His hostess cursed beneath her breath. “Will I never finish this? Her ladyship always comes at an ill time. More trouble for you, master, a post-mortem on your outlawry, I’d say.” She rose to open the door.
“Hopefully, the coup de grâce,” muttered Geraint.
Lady Constance swept in. Behind her, Father Gilbert set down a wicker basket containing a rumble of feathers and beaks that proved to be two disgruntled chickens destined to mollify Dame Christiana’s testy humour.
The lady strode across to the table. “Less lily-livered with a quill, I see.” The loft creaked above her head. “And this must be the Welsh cockerel.”
Jankyn, freshly woken from his nap, swung down too eagerly from the loft ladder and upset one of the resident pitchers, much to the old woman’s annoyance.
“Or,” Lady Constance raised an eyebrow, “are you the gormless one?”
“Acquit me of that, goddess,” the fool exclaimed and knelt, grabbing a fistful of her embroidered hem to his lips.
The lady threw a sagacious look upon Geraint as if she guessed he had given his companion encouragement to meet her. He had; if God were kind, she might accept Jankyn as a bridegroom. But no. . .
“Uuugh!” exclaimed Lady Constance, removing her gloved hand from Jankyn’s enthusiastic kisses, and frowned at her earlier choice. “It seems your thieving technique has not improved. My daughter says you were both hopeless and that she even had to urge you to rob her. Is that true?”
Geraint laid down the quill. He rose respectfully with an apologetic sigh, but confident of dismissal. “Aye, madam, that is the right of it. Jankyn lost his Welshness and I became somewhat tongue-tied. I will be on my way as soon as Sir Edmund is mended.”
“But I am still available.” Jankyn perched on the table before her, licking his finger and smoothing his eyebrows. “However, I charge a higher fee since I am extremely experienced at pretending to be better than I am.”
“Introduce us,” she ordered Geraint wearily.
“Madam, this is Jankyn, jester to Lord Thomas of Lancaster.”
Jankyn’s breeziness burst like a pricked bubble. “That was a confidence,” he protested, bouncing off the table. “I do not want the lady delivering me to the sheriff.”
Lady Constance eyed him derisively. “I think the reward would be hardly worth the wear on my horseshoes. Besides, Master Jankyn, my daughter thinks you are the man I asked to play her husband and in no ways considers you up to the part.”
“I can be up to any lady,” refuted Jankyn, wriggling his hips, “if I so wish, but neither of the wenches offered much inducement.”
“Blathering numbskull!” Dame Christiana snorted, causing an end to the conversation and much affront to Jankyn.
“Madam, your daughter commanded me to sell her rings by way of dismissal payment, but would you like them back?”
Constance eyed Geraint shrewdly. “How honest of you.” She appeared to give the matter some thought and added, “No, leave them hidden with Dame Christiana for the nonce. By the way, what did you do with her marriage band?”
“I cast it to St. Robert. Mayhap it is still there if she desires it back. I hope you find some more worthy stranger than I, madam.” He strode to the door, opened it and bowed, waiting for her to leave. Father Gilbert gave him a nod and stepped outside.
Lady Constance seemed amused at the dismissal. “I have decided that there is no reason that my daughter would have fallen in love with a poor scholar. She is too headstrong for that. You will make an excellent knight, I think. Your armour will be delivered tomorrow.” With that she swept past him like an empress.
The jauntiness fell from Geraint like an unbuckled belt and he stepped back in astonishment, banging his head on one of Dame Christiana’s many wall crucifixes.
The lady meantime swung herself into the saddle.
“Madam,” he protested, making a grab for her bridle but she directed the horse round, her eyes brilliant and hard like lodesterres.
“My daughter may have dismissed you, but I have not.” And she touched her heels to the horse’s side.
“You were sent by God, remember,” murmured Father Gilbert. He clambered onto his ass and bestowed a blessing that included Dame Christiana, who glowered at him and disappeared indoors in her usual abrupt manner.
“A curse on the lot of them!” Turning away, Geraint angrily smote upon the nearby apple tree with his fist. A shower of water droplets cascaded onto his head and shoulders and he swore loudly.
Jankyn skipped around him and tweaked a withered leaf off his mantle.
“A vow of celibacy perhaps before the loving reunion.”
“Oh, roast in Hell!” roared Geraint.
Six
EDYTH GAVE A shriek and Johanna halted in mid-sentence, her lips parted in astonishment at the apparition on the threshhold of the great hall. For a moment she was frozen in shock, just as Sir Gawaine must have been when the Green Knight, huge and arcane, arrived uninvited at Camelot.
Formidable and warlike in his full armour, the golden-haired stranger looked unnaturally tall as he stared about him. A crested helm faced her malevolently from the crook of his arm and this he relinquished imperiously into the hall steward’s astonished arms as his gaze, arrogant and tense, slid along the high table and fixed on her, like a wolf selecting a vulnerable ewe. His mouth tightened in satisfaction and he waited.
Her world was out of control; Johanna felt the panic rising in her. This was not the Welshman she had met in the forest, it must be the larger man, his companion, the ruffian who had held a dagger to her throat.
She rose to her feet, glancing at her mother who narrowed her eyes swiftly, urging her to speak. Of course, he was waiting for her to recognise him. “I . . .”
Dear God help her, they had not even settled on his name. Anger and impatience glinted in his face as he stood there, and she felt his rising irritation aimed at her like a drawn bow. “S-sir . . .” she began again but pieces of the stranger’s armour were glistening like stars. A blue curtain came down, shielding him from her sight, and as if someone had hauled away her foundation stone, Johanna crumpled gracefully to the ground.
Damn the wench! Geraint cursed as he was left standing in the midst of the hall while a rabble of exclaiming women carried his so-called wife out. Was he supposed to clank after her and cast himself on his steel knees, professing love and demanding forgiveness for abandoning her? Or had they purposely left him to tell his version of the marriage to the rest of the household?
It was Father Gilbert who stepped down to meet him, his clasped hands held serenely within the deep sleeves of his habit. Here at least was an ally, but the chaplain wore the expression of St. Augustine about to convert a pagan Briton.
“You are a stranger to us, Sir . . .”
“Sir Gervase de Laval.” Geraint curtly nodded his head with the polite but undeferential manner the upper nobility seemed to adopt towards churchmen. “I seek my wife, Johanna, daughter of Lord Alan FitzHenry.”
“Your wife!” The priest’s right hand untwitched from the sleeves and drew a swift cross over his habit before he turned with a finely judged consternation to include those seated above the s
alt. “This is a very serious assertion you are making, Sir Gervase,” he answered gravely, his voice loud in the hushed hall. “My Lady Johanna has been wed to Sir Fulk de Enderby almost a full year.”
Geraint stared at him in feigned amazement.
“But the lady and I were made handfast some two years ago before a priest.” He swung round, glaring at them all. “Where is your lord? Let me speak to him this instant!”
There was a rustle of ill-ease among his audience; they were wading in deep waters. One man on the dais stood up reluctantly and Geraint saw with relief it was the stocky seneschal, Sir Geoffrey.
“Ahem.” The knight ran a hand over his grizzled moustache as if in a true dilemma and evaded the apparent predicament by offering appeasement. “Sir Gervase, will you not sit at our board until Lady Constance may rejoin us? We must look into this matter.”
“My lady’s mother?” Geraint spoke disdainfully. “Is her father not here?”
Again the hedging, the exchanged looks as to who should answer.
The seneschal cleared his throat. “Lord Alan is indisposed, sir. Pray you, sir knight, come and be seated.”
Geraint grudgingly allowed them to show him to the high table. That itself was a victory. It was the lady Johanna’s place where they bestowed him. A fresh winecup and a trencher were hastily set before him.
A fuming, smouldering look upon his face, he accepted the meat from the carver and then forced himself to calm somewhat. With luck, he might be able to stall any explanation until Lady Constance or his so-called wife deigned to reappear. He did not dare examine the faces of those along the table that he must soon put name to. Instead, he gazed thoughtfully at the rest of the household cramming the long tables below, and they stared back as if he had escaped from the king’s menagerie.
THE WOMEN MUST have carried her into the solar, Johanna decided, as the chatter of her mother’s pet ape penetrated her returning wits, but it was the sudden, strong smoky smell which fiercely jerked her back among them. Yolonya, curse her, was smouldering feathers under her nose, and her mother was ushering Edyth and the other women out. They had made her comfortable on the recessed seat beneath the window with a cushion beneath her head.
“She be back with us, my lady,” Yolonya exclaimed joyfully.
“I cannot feel any bumps.” Her mother’s fingers came to scuffle in her hair. They had removed the barbette and veil.
Johanna’s head swam as she tried to sit up and Agnes’s hands forced her back again with soft murmurs bidding her rest. She smelt the rosewater, fragrant in her mother’s samite kirtle. “So that is why you look so fine tonight,” she muttered with a glare. “Why in the name of all the Saints did you not warn me you were going to ask the other outlaw?”
“There is nothing like genuine emotion.” Her mother’s cool palm descended on her brow. “The armour fits quite well, I think.”
“Is he still there?”
“I hope so.”
“Oh, dear God, what did you say to him?” She struggled to sit up and then put a hand to her forehead. It was not dizziness but cowardice that assailed her and she sank back with a groan.
“Nothing yet. I trust that was a genuine swoon?”
Johanna scowled, her eyes squeezed shut, wishing the world would leave her alone, especially the large outlaw.
“By Our Lady, you have never done that in your life afore,” muttered Yolonya. “Agnes, ’as she been eatin’ proper like?”
“Johanna, look at me!” Her mother shook her sternly. “Are you sure you are not with child? What were you using, sponges in vinegar? Upon my soul, Johanna, if you are, we will be done with this endeavour at once.”
“No, no, I am not!” Johanna snapped but she opened her eyes in momentary panic. Dear God forbid! A babe by Fulk! Misery made her lash out: “And if I was, madam, what would you go out there and tell him? ‘Oh, you have the wrong household. You must mean Lady Johanna Fitzbooth, hers is the fifth castle on the left of the king’s highway facing north, but watch out for her husband, he is vicious with the lance.’”
“Johanna!” Her mother’s desperate voice made her subside. “Hush, use your wits! What am I going to say to him?” She darted a questioning glace at the door.
Agnes, with an ear to the wood, giggled. “There’s naught amiss going on. I’d say take your time, my lady.”
There was no escape. Johanna pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to think clearly. How should she behave? “If he married me two years ago . . .” Then her quicksilver mind reasserted itself. “Ha, I know. This is what you must go out and say.”
“Dearest!” Her mother’s eyes were as round as millstones as Johanna finished. “I cannot . . .” She paused, her eyes narrowing with mischief and understanding, “Yes, I can,” and beamed admiringly at her daughter, before she moistened her lips and braced herself to face the hall.
“YOU CAN IMAGINE what a surprise this is to us all.” The chaplain had moved a sullen boy, clearly of noble birth, out of his place next to Geraint, giving their guest some space to protect himself on his left flank.
“I warned Johanna that she must have patience,” Geraint declared irritably, hoping he was not overdoing the part of angry returned husband. “I told her I would return.”
“Ahem, this would appear to be some folly of our Lady Johanna. She was ever a scapegrace as a child,” commented Sir Geoffrey, perching himself on the carved arm of Lord Alan’s chair on his right. The elderly knight’s Saxon blue eyes were almost too bright with amusement, lending him a hobgoblin mien.
“Folly!” exclaimed Geraint, slamming his goblet down so that the great salt holder wobbled. “She pledged her obedience and body to me before a priest. Is the blessing of Holy Church in these parts gorwn feeble?”
He must have overcooked his withering tone for Father Gilbert muttered tersely, “Have a care, young man. We have only your word in this matter and I assure you we shall acutely examine your allegations and the lady Johanna’s testimony in this right thoroughly.” Geraint saw the priest’s glance sweep along the table to the familiar, scrawny woman glaring at them both. It was the lady Jankyn had set his foot upon. With rising dread, Geraint wondered is she could recall the height of Jankyn’s accomplice.
“Pardon, Father, what did you say?”
“I said Sir Fulk de Enderby will have something to say in this,” Father Gilbert repeated pointedly.
“Indeed he will!” The woman—Edyth, was it?—leaned forward, her chin jutting angrily above the dewlaps of her gorget. “If I were you, whoever you are,” she sneered, “I would leave here and forget any promises, that is, if any were made.”
Geraint raised his eyebrows at her as if surprised that anyone would have the insolence to address him so, especially a woman.
“Who are you, dame?” Unwed, he remembered. No man worth his salt would want to take such a scowling broom handle to his bed.
She was not put off by his disdain. “I am Edyth de Enderby, you upstart, and I tell you that my brother was wed to Lady Johanna in front of fifty witnesses before the chapel door in this very castle. If I were you, sir, I would ride from here this very hour, for by the Saints, when my brother hears your falsehood, he will thrash you for your lies.”
Geraint met her evil look without flinching. “If I speak false, then by all means let him try, lady.” For the first time, he smiled, as if her demeanour pleased him, pretending to note the dark-lashed, piercing eyes. That her gorget was parting company where it was pinned to her hair coiled about the old-fangled wadding on the left side of her face he also observed briefly. “You do right to defend your brother so bravely.”
Dear Heaven, the charm worked. Disarmed, the lady lowered her eyes modestly, her mouth smug. But he was not finished.
“Tell me, chaplain,” he said calmly. “Is it permitted that I settle this matter by combat? If so, it is easily resolved.” It was the last thing he intended but it was the knightly thing to suggest.
The woman’s pointed chi
n rose aggrieved again. “And my brother will win.” But she spoke less tartly, challenging him, as if believing that he might admire her courage.
“No!” The priest waved his hands as if to end the dissension. “This is a matter for Holy Church.” Father Gilbert’s expression was admonitory for more than one reason, Geraint realised, and cursed silently. He had been wrong to mislead the woman Edyth. He was here to rescue Lady Johanna from a hateful marriage; to do good, not wreak further mischief.
The tardy arrival of his makeshift esquire saved him further answer as down at the distant end of the hall there was willing shuffling to make room for Jankyn on the bench, no doubt to grill him with questions. The former jester grinned up at his master and raised a tankard. He only hoped the jackanapes would stay sober and keep a still tongue. Not for the first time, Geraint heartily wished he was a hundred miles away.
All heads swivelled as the small door to the lord’s withdrawing room behind the high table whined open. Lady Constance closed it carefully behind her and stood for a moment, as if to regain her composure. Then she took a deep breath, her eyes seeking him out.
He and the other men at the table rose. She gathered her fine russet skirts up and glided majestically across to Father Gilbert, laying her hand for support upon his sleeve as she addressed Geraint.
“In truth, you have cause to be here, sir.” She turned to include the others at the high table in her gaze, but her words were intended to carry further. “Behold me both confused and dismayed.
It seems we have all been misled and should have heeded my daughter’s protests against her marriage to Sir Fulk.”
A great babble of consternation broke out and Lady Edyth’s bosom, what little there was of it, rose furiously, as she jumped to her feet and brought her fist crashing down on the board.
“What, are your heads addled? You fools! I suppose any moment some other tourney freelance will saunter in and you will believe him too.”
“Well, he won’t be asking for you,” muttered some wit, faceless on the crowded lower benches.
The Knight And The Rose Page 7