The Knight And The Rose

by Isolde Martyn

  Edyth ignored the cut. “Lady Constance, are you telling us that your daughter did have a liaison with this jay?”

  Jay! Geraint’s jaw slackened at the insult, but before he could retort Lady Constance waved an angry hand to silence Edyth. “Let me be heard! I will have no more interruptions in my own hall. You, sir!”

  “My lady.” Geraint bowed.

  As he straightened, the lady made sure she did not meet his gaze squarely as she flung a shaking hand toward the great door. “My daughter bids you leave, sir. She declares that you left her a bride for a full two years and nary a word since, and she is now wed to another. She considers you a knave and a braggart and will have naught to do with you.”

  Geraint gaped as if she had planted her fist into his belly. He had not been expecting this. Of course, a sharp parry to his offensive. The clever little shrew! Or was it her mother who had thought this out? It would serve the pair of them aright if he did march out across the drawbridge.

  “We will see about that!” he snarled and started towards the solar. Lady Constance put up ringed hands to bar him.

  “Step aside, my lady!” Geraint thundered. “I have not ridden from Westminster to be set aside like a pair of worn shoes. The lady bids me leave, does she!”

  A hiss of awe greeted the mention Westminster.

  Predictably it was Lady Edyth who flung herself in his path as he reached for the ringhandle of the door. Her shoulders were thin and bony against his hands.

  “Two years?” It was a scornful hiss. “Get you gone, we do not want you here! Stop him!” she shrieked, her fist aiming for his face as he swiftly set her aside.

  His hand on his sword haft, he swung round with a grin. “Come, who is the brave heart among you who will stop me. No? I thought not.”

  HE WAS REAL. Johanna had not imagined him. He flung open the door and stood there, humbling the lintel by his stature, as displeased as an heir told that his inheritance has passed to another.

  From the spurred sabatons on his feet up to the meshed coif flung back upon his broad shoulders, every inch of his great stature was clad in steel. Johanna recognised the fabric of his surcote as having come from her mother’s workbasket, but now, stretched across this stranger’s armoured breast, the silken panel dominated by an upthrusting sword hilted in sable was menacing.

  Johanna’s hands coiled anxiously into fists at her sides. If she had ever expected either outlaw to take her mother’s fee, it would have been the shorter one, whom she had imagined dark and swarthy, but this man had golden hair to his shoulders and blue translucent eyes whose gaze unsettled her. Christ protect her! This was the impudent scoundrel who had held her against him at the holy spring and pressed his dagger to her throat. She had enough of woe with Fulk and now her mother was putting her future in this rogue’s hands. Indignation and another older emotion that she did not recognise shortened her breath.

  No wonder he had stared his fill at her by the holy spring. He was doing it again now. Unblinking, the disconcerting stare slid from the half-loosened braided hair, over her parted lips, down the bracken-dyed kirtle towards the darned toe of her stocking—she swiftly hid her foot under her skirt—before rising slowly again to grimly study her swollen face. Then insolently he folded his arms and raised his eyebrows questioningly at her mother and Agnes, flanking her like two loyal men-at-arms.

  “They tell me you have married another, lady. How can this be? I married you!” His voice, strong and well-spoken, shook her like an overhead rumble of thunder.

  She should say something but no bucket of words rose at the turning. Her voice was gone. She could only stare in disbelief at this warrior advancing on her like a huge scaled monster.

  Geraint cursed; the contrary wench was leaving the talking to him. The young tiring woman might be sending little covert glances at him as if he was St. George come to supper, but Johanna FitzHenry was treating him as if he was the dragon.

  Without her headdress, the young woman’s face, the wholesome side, was unnaturally pale against hair almost as dark as Whitby jetstone. He tried not to be conscious of the ugliness of the bruises and yet he could not ignore them. He searched her face, imagining her unmarked and liked what he saw—dark-lashed eyes and a sweet mouth that should not have been so unkindly used. Gervase de Laval was supposed to have cozened this wench into a betrothal and now he was back because he loved her still. Yes, it was possible. When her hurts were healed, the lady Johanna, judging by her undamaged cheek, would prove exceeding fair. She had spirit too, as she had shown at St. Robert’s spring, but why was her courage ebbing now? Why did she not answer? Had her mother not warned her of his arrival?

  “Johanna!” he exclaimed sternly, halting but a step from her, and she quivered beneath his furious gaze as if she was truly afeared of him. Was the pretty maidservant privy to the secret? Could he drop his guard? No, better to be cautious and keep to his part. What next? Presumably he should demand to know who had disfigured her, but there was more meaty matter to be chewed first. “Lady, did you or did you not marry me two years ago?”

  A slap and a scuffle behind the door thwarted her answer. Before the hefty Yolonya could keep the door shut, the woman Edyth forced her way in and half a dozen disembodied faces, including the seneschal’s and Jankyn’s, crammed the entrance.

  Geraint ignored Edyth and scowled at his supposed wife. Come on, curse you! he fumed, Answer me! The lady Johanna swallowed, her fingers fluttered at the small golden cross that rose and fell above a cleavage that would be alluring if there was more flesh on her. She managed to nod feebly then she sank back against the cushions, her eyes flickering closed. Voices behind him muttered. Now what was he to do?

  A smile barely upon his lips, he surveyed the women languidly as if they bored him. “Lady Constance, pray order your people out again. I have something to say to my unfaithful wife and I certainly do not intend to shame her before the common gaze.”

  He understood the uncertainty that flashed across Lady Constance’s face. As a stranger, he had no authority to be alone with the lady Johanna. Conscious of their audience, the mother now stepped forward, her eyes blazing. “You lay a hand on my daughter and I will have you booted across the drawbridge, knight or no.”

  “Lay a hand on her? No, but I will choke the life out of the whoreson who bruised her face. By all means remain if you insist, madam, but the rest shall go. Leave us!” He strode towards the doorway and the watching gargoyles instantly shot back.

  Lady Constance made a show of deliberating. She bit her lip and then slowly nodded at the other women. He waited insolently as they all trooped past him. The fair maidservant curtsied deeply. Forward-thinking, that one, and shapely too.

  The stick-like Edyth predictably stood her ground. “I certainly will not leave. She is married to my brother.”

  Geraint turned a gaze upon her that had quelled many an impudent servant. “Then I will have a message for your brother. Later!” He circled her, as a wolf might a lamb, until she was between him and the door. “Later!” he repeated sweetly and moved forwards like a great wave against a coracle. She retreated, holding herself rigid and he shut the door in her face. He was left with Jankyn who had squeezed in and looked hopeful of remaining.

  “Outside!” ordered Geraint. “See we are not interrupted.” The fool staunched his disappointment and with a salute let himself out.

  Geraint turned, changing his grin to a glare. “By St. George, precious little help you gave me, my lady.”

  Provoked, Johanna sat up. “Your arrival was foolish!” His expression made her add hastily, “But very effective.”

  “What was foolish?” The stranger’s voice was a dangerous purr.

  “No one warned me that you were going to appear like that in the middle of dinner.” Her voice grew smaller. “I mean, to have to greet you in front of everyone. I do not even know your name. I had no idea w-what to call you. I . . .”

  By Our Lady, where had her mother found him? This man looked
not only as unmanageable as Fulk, but he seemed just as surly and full of conceit as the rest of his gender.

  “Gervase de Laval at your service, madam wife.” The rustle of a sleeve reminded him that Lady Constance was still with them. She glided between them now as gleeful as an earl about to invade France.

  “You are a miracle, master scholar,” she exclaimed. “And so delightfully huge in your armour. I am glad it fits so well. How clever of you to arrive so fully attired.”

  Scholar! This was the scholar, not the other man? Had this rogue deliberately chosen to be the silent outlaw so he might mark her behaviour?

  “It is only just beginning,” Johanna cautioned her mother softly, frowning at the stranger. “I am not laying wagers yet.” How much had her mother offered him?

  “Could it have been better?” Her mother whirled upon her. “I doubt it. Your swooning, the armour, and your answers to each other. Excellent, excellent!”

  The man set a hand on the wall above the hearth, his body losing some of its rigidity. “Was it honest, your collapse, or do you practise it once a week?” Clearly the scoundrel’s curiosity needed sating, but his tone was sarcastic. Surely he could have seen it had been too ungraceful to leave room for doubt?

  “My swooning? As genuine as a miser’s love of gold. And there are bruises to prove it,” Johanna added reprovingly, finally rising from the cushions and hiding her toes in her leather mules. “I probably have a perfect set by now—like jewellery.” He gave her a cursory glance and looked away, but not before she had glimpsed the disbelief in his face.

  “Why are you here?” she asked him waspishly. “I thought you had decided against helping me. I presume my mother had to raise the price—or is the armour thrown in as an extra bounty, Gervase?”

  “Johanna!” hissed her mother.

  The so-called scholar dragged his attention from the hearth to her toecaps and allowed himself another perusal of her. The iron gaze that finally met hers was haughty and dismissive.

  “That is between your mother and me. The money will suffice for now.” He paced to the windowseat and swung round on her in a creak of steel and leather. “Was I sufficiently gormless for your purpose?”

  So that had stung him, had it? Johanna suppressed her inward glee, hoping he had simmered a whole day thinking about it. For once, she had found a hole in a man’s hauberk to slide home an insult and she could not resist provoking him further.

  “You could have told me it was the goosehead that you had bargained with, madam,” she exclaimed to her mother.

  His gaze clashed with hers momentarily in a suppressed fury, but her remark never drew verbal blood for although he raised arrogant brows, his mouth twisted in faint humour. It surprised her; there might be more flavour to this dish than she had suspected. And not so gormless either, but it was obvious that like all men this one was puffed up with his own conceit.

  “Peace, daughter, will you bite at the hand that helps you?”

  “Your pardon, master scholar.” Johanna turned her head away at her mother’s scolding, cursing that she was expected to be grateful to this rogue. Perhaps the reproof was justified but the man was being paid. The silence between the three of them grew uncomfortable and she broke it with practicalities.

  “Since it is still several days to the hearing, what do we do in the meantime? Now, for instance?” She indicated the waiting hall.

  The stranger moved towards her with a rasp of steel. “Now, lady? Why, you and I must concoct the tale of our so-called love.” His tone was insolent.

  Johanna felt herself blushing and lowered her gaze. He was right, damn him. “Yes, I suppose we must.” She subsided once more onto the cushioned windowseat.

  That had deflated the little vixen, Geraint grinned inwardly. Goosehead, was he? But he was inclined to be merciful and count his blessings. At least Lady Johanna had the intelligence to see sense. He could have found himself compelled to pretend love to a spineless, vapid creature who merely bewailed her fate the whole time. He half-turned to Lady Constance. “Would it please you to send for some victuals, my dearest Mother.” There was a predictable snarl of outrage from the Lady Johanna as her parent blinked at him, taken aback. He bestowed his most charming smile upon Lady Constance. “I have no wish to face yon Edyth again on an empty belly.”

  “Of course.” The older woman recovered. “I will return instantly. Johanna, behave!” she admonished and let herself out.

  Maybe the food would put him in better temper. Geraint ignored the sullen female back directed at his notice and sighed inwardly. This adventure had better be worth his while. At least there was no shortage of money to pay him, judging by the chamber’s furnishings. Cushions of scarlet boasted panels of blue taffeta with catkin edgings and embroidered coverings capped the stools before the fire. The stallion wall-hanging pleased him—the noble beast, free and unharnessed, milk-white upon a slaty background—and around its edge the maker had deceitfully harnessed gilded leather strips to give a clever semblance of a golden frame. Fur hides were scattered across the floor and a small murrey carpet a pace square was set before the lord’s chair.

  To see a book open on the lectern was gratifying, but its pictures proclaimed it was merely a bestiary. He scowled. A woman’s picture book. Was it all a distaff demesne now? Certes, there was no evidence of any man taking leisure here. A wooden tapestry frame showed an altar piece barely started, while anchored to a great candleholder behind the chair was leashed a pretty-faced ape, probably worth its weight in gold, if you liked that kind of creature. Work baskets overflowed like miniature haberdashers’ stalls with mending and sketches. A boy’s tunic sleeve trailed from one, its embroidered cuff half-finished.

  A tapestry depicting the judgment of Solomon faced him from the opposite wall but the two kneeling women looked as though they had the king flummoxed. He swung his gaze away and discovered at last one man managing to take the lead in this infernal place. Here was a painted hanging of Orpheus, lyre in hand, looking gleefully on his wife Eurydice as the demons dragged her back to Hades. Fortunate fellow! He imagined the lady Johanna sinking anguish-faced into a large badger tunnel and discovered that the wretched wench was watching him.

  “Is this your handiwork, lady?” His glance indicated the stool cover nearest him, with its three blood red lions rampant echoing the coat of arms carved upon the chimney’s hood.

  “No, but the horse is mine.” It surprised him. “Assessing our ability to pay you?”

  He readjusted his shoulders against the wall and regarded her with ill-concealed irritation, making it clear that he was loathing the entire business.

  “Yes.”

  “What price?” she hissed, springing to her feet. “How much?”

  Alone with her, it was hard to turn the conversation. It had been agreed between him and Lady Constance that there should be no mention of Edmund Mortimer to her daughter, but it left him posing as an unscrupulous adventurer. He addressed the air beyond her right shoulder, his tone cold and impertinent. “How much is your happiness worth, lady? You wish to toss in some interest and lower your mother’s fee?”

  A lascivious blue gaze brushed across her face. Johanna felt the blood rushing into her cheeks and turned away, hiding her anger. Better to give him the benefit of misunderstanding. He might be merely using the words as armour against her. Since this ribald was clearly proud, no doubt he resented taking her mother’s orders.

  Common sense must prevail, she decided, regaining mastery over herself. If her mother’s plan was to work successfully, there had to be some sort of truce between them. Clasping her hands firmly before her, she swung round to face him. His appearance still disconcerted her but she was being illogical; size should be no bar to learning.

  She took a deep breath for it was necessary to be businesslike. “Let there be no misunderstanding, master scholar. I do not like this . . . this perjury any more than you but I am grateful to you for agreeing to take on the task. We must be as efficient and
as thorough as we can so that you will not be delayed any more than necessary. As you rightly point out, we must spend the next two days discovering exactly what the archdeacon’s court will need to know and making sure that we tell the same tale.”

  The stranger looked relieved at her matter-of-factness. He straightened up from the wall. “What I do not understand is why we do not go to a bishop and have done?”

  “Did Mother not explain? The bishop is in my husband’s pocket.” He swore and she added, “I agree, it is usual for people of our status to have the matter settled privately and the archdeacon’s court usually hears cases from the common people, but Father Gilbert thinks it might be even better this way. Everyone will hear of the matter and the decision will be harder to set aside when my husband disputes it.”

  “Very well, so be it,” he muttered grimly.

  “Now we have to consider the next step. You have returned after two years. You are furious that I have remarried. I am bitter that you never sent me word. What should we do now?”

  A rare smile curled about his mouth. “Use your imagination, my lady. I know very well what I would want to do if I had been away for two years.” His look swept down over her breasts with calculating impudence.

  “Yes, of course,” exclaimed Johanna, pinkening. “But I am still very angry with you.”

  “You are?” The charm, fierce as a crossbolt, would have whammed pigeons from the sky.

  “Please stop teasing me,” she snapped. “You would try and—”

  “Kiss you? I would not try, madam, I would—”

  “—do it?” She swallowed beneath that devastating smile. “No, you must remember I have a very sore and tender face.”

  “My lady, if you forbade me your lips, then I should concentrate on the rest of you.”

  “Oh.” The lady sat down again, thinking about it with so grave a frown that Geraint was in danger of putting aside his ill-temper with the whole business and laughing at the absurdity.

  “Here is your repast, sir.” Lady Constance swept in, followed by the woman Yolonya carrying a tray of food, and let down a cup board from the dark oak aumbry. Yolonya set the repast there, then she dutifully lit a taper from the hearth and touched it to the candles in the wall cressets.