“I thought you might need this, Johanna.” Searching in her belt-purse, Lady Constance triumphantly produced a smallish onion. She seemed put out by their surprised stares. “To help you weep, of course.”
Johanna took it and shrugged at the undernourished vegetable. “So thoughtful,” she said dryly. “Why am I supposed to be weeping?”
“Is it not obvious?” Her mother, poised to reveal her plan, halted. The stranger clearly was too hungry to listen. Without a by-your-leave, he strode across to the platter and bit into a pastry, savouring it before he loftily inclined his head.
“Yes, pray tell us, madam. For my earlier suggestion has fallen wide of the target.” His cool stare goaded Johanna. She ignored the jab, her attention fully upon her mother now.
The older woman waved her hands. “Oh, you must quarrel loudly and then you, Johanna, slap his face.” Two astonished pairs of eyes turned upon her. The man looked outraged at the suggestion, the food halfway to his mouth. “And you, Gervase, must leave for the nonce. I cannot permit you to stay here tonight. It would not be seemly, after all.”
Ripping the bread, he scooped up some sauce with it, swallowing the mouthful before he answered. “Seemly! Madam, the lady is supposed to be married to me.” He smoothed away a morsel of food clinging to his lower lip and turned his haughty gaze on Johanna. Oh, he would be slippery as an eel to deal with, this one, she thought as she sensed her face redden tiresomely beneath his study, but her mother’s logic was sound.
“I will not slap you hard,” she reassured him, her expression impertinent as she tossed the onion nonchalantly behind her into the cushions. “I know what it feels like.”
“You will not do it at all, lady.” He carefully wiped his fingers on the napkin before he raised eyes hard as jewels. “You were supposed to have been foolish enough to marry me for love, remember.”
The conceited wretch! Oh, she would delight in bringing this man down to earth with a thud from his elevated view of himself. When the case was won, then . . .
Lady Constance’s hands shot up between them. “Peace, the pair of you. We have to play this cautiously. I have to decide whether to believe you, lad, and until then I am not letting you under my roof.”
Johanna watched him bristle beautifully at the insult.
“What am I expected to do? Go back to my lodging?”
“Oh no, you must never go there again, not until the hearing is over. Put up at the hostelry in the town and come back tomorrow for our answer.”
He thought about it, sipping his wine slowly. “Aye, there is sense in that.”
“I think you should leave presently. But be careful, Sir Gervase. No doubt Lady Edyth will send word to Enderby at first light and her brother will be after your blood. He can ride right swiftly when he has a mind to it. Now, on with your masks, the pair of you.”
For an instant they glared at one another defiantly like fighting cocks flung into the ring.
“Let us have this over with,” he suggested condescendingly, as if she was a child about to be spooned some unpalatable dose.
“Oh dear, where is the onion?” Her tone was intended to draw blood but he merely jerked his head at the windowseat. Cursing under her breath, Johanna hunted it out from the beneath the cushions and tore at the papery skin with her nails, anxious to have him gone.
“Here, let me.” His voice was impatient as he reached out and took it from her, but the mere brush of his fingertips stole her breath away. She watched him wield the knife swiftly through it, then with a mocking bow he held out the oozing half to her as if it was a moonstone in the setting of his fingers.
“W-what shall we say in quarrel?” Johanna took it from him with a shyness she had never experienced before. The eyes watching her hardened like a hawk’s.
His fingers suddenly grabbed her wrist and jerked the onion up to her nose. “Think on the man who spoilt your face, lady. You would lash out at him for his ill-treatment. Your beloved Fulk. Breathe deep.”
She did not need him to coax anger from her at the mention of Fulk but, by Heaven, it worked. “Pretend I am him, my lady. Imagine him wanting to kiss you.”
He snapped his fingers in command at her mother, twitched the onion from Johanna’s fingers and hurled it into the corner. Lady Constance flung open the door and ran out distraught with her knuckles to her lips.
“Go away from me!” screamed Johanna. “How dare you!”
“Whore!” snarled Geraint, backing through the doorway.
Unjust, shrieked Johanna’s common-sense side as she enjoyed advancing upon him. A whore was she? He was going too far and she grabbed the dish of food and flung it at him. The gravy made rivulets down his shining breastplate and clotted the knit of the hauberk.
The arrogant man blinked down in genuine astonishment at the turgid liquid congealing in the steel mesh, but as he looked up a jug of wine hurtled its contents into his face before he could retreat further.
“Deceiver!” Leaving the support of the doorway, she smacked her palm hard across the left side of his face.
Gervase reeled back, his expression so shocked that she nearly burst out laughing.
“I will be back, madam!” he rasped, knuckling away the wine droplets, and he strode through the hall, redfaced with genuine embarrassment as the household gaped at him in silence like a congregation overawed by a sermon.
Johanna slammed the door closed and flung herself onto the cushions, her shoulders shaking.
“You wretch, that was wondrous!” Her mother’s skirts brushed her thigh. Then an arm encircled her shoulders. “Dearest?”
Johanna sat up, her fingers scraping away the tears.
Her mother gasped. “I thought you were laughing. What is the matter?”
“He called me a . . . whore, Mother. And I will be, having sworn obedience to one man and then wedding another.”
Her mother sighed. “Oh, lambkin, if you want to eat an egg, you have to break the shell. Do or do you not want to be free of Fulk?”
“Yes, but, whore. That is what he thinks of me. And . . . and he said, if we really had been married, he would want to hold me and . . . oh, Maman, I cannot bear the thought of any man touching me so ever again.”
“Hush, my dearest.” She let her parent rock her in her arms. It was small comfort. Even her stalwart mother had not been able to prevent the marriage to Fulk and now it seemed she, Johanna, would be at the mercy of another man’s whims. If they did aught to displease him, Gervase de Laval could abandon them and disclose their lies.
“I am so frightened,” she whispered. She dreaded lest he return; she feared he would not.
As if she read her thoughts, her mother whispered, “He will be back. He has no choice.”
Seven
“RECONCILED TO YOUR destiny yet, great one?” Jankyn, with folded arms and concave cheeks, was contemplating Geraint like an artist poised to make his first sketch of the martyrdom of St. Sebastian.
The keeper of the hostelry in Conisthorpe’s marketplace, with a tyrannical sagacity the Emperor Nero might have recognised, had booted two merchants, one horse dealer and a scruffy pardoner out of the best room in order to accommodate the dubious son-in-law to Lady Constance. Which was why Geraint was sitting gloomily upon a hastily vacated bed, wondering, amongst other things, if the previous occupants had carried extra passengers.
“What choice have I?” He roused himself. “What about you, Jankyn? If you want to thieve the pony at first light, I will shovel words over your tracks for a few hours.”
The jester shook his head. “Where to? My friends, such as I had, are scattered like shards of a broken pissing pot all over the kingdom. I suppose I could journey south to Redhill to see if my Lady Lancaster—leastways she was until she ran off to de Warenne—might give me work.” He shook his head, “Nay, ten to one they’ll have their own fool. What say you to employing me further? Have I efficiently served my few hours apprenticeship?” He seized hold of Geraint’s boot.
; “By all the Saints, man!” Geraint bellowed, grabbing the mattress before he was jerked onto the none-so-clean rushes. “I was grateful for your company tonight, but do you really want to share a noose if they spur the horse from under me?”
“Master Gervase, I may as well throw in my lot with you for the nonce. Being an esquire is simple work. Putting drunken knights to bed, kissing them goodnight, cleaning the bloody gouts off their swords, sponging the vomit off their tunics, telling them how the ladies adore them when they are in the dumps. And where I fail, you may instruct me further.” He looked up, his dark eyes shining. “Be honest, you will need a fool at the end of each day as a butt for your anger and, believe me, my absolution comes cheaper than a whore with crabs.”
“True.” Geraint slowly smiled.
“As for the noose, Lordy, I saw friends skewered on swords at Burton and Boroughbridge. Cheer up, we are more likely to be clobbered over the head with an unchained bible and excommunicated. And what of that? Priests are but men when all the ceremony is done. Curses hold no fears for me. Verily, God and the Devil look after their own.” He held out his hand, “Done, then? Shall I be Watkyn as I was last even?”
“Aye,” Geraint spat on his palm and slapped it into Jankyn’s. “Done!”
GERAINT LEFT FOR the castle next morning, hungry to break his fast, and laden with more anger and hardly less trepidation than he had the day before. He had slept ill; the heavy rain lashing the shutters all night and a multitude of night demons, his own fears, had kept him tossing. But washed and shaved, facing a lamblike March wind which betokened more rain, he felt somewhat restored. At least he was garbed more comfortably today and his borrowed armour was stowed on a packhorse led by Jankyn. The yeasty smell of fresh-baked bread lacing the woodsmoke and sea coal added a still sharper edge to his appetite, and he cursed as a platoon of squealing bacon pigs, driven in for the market, delayed their crossing of the square.
A half-dozen stalls were already trading beneath the butter cross, gaining a march on any merchants’ apprentices who were tardy in unchaining the shop boards that doubled as shutters for the lower windows and heaving out the panniers of goods to be arranged upon them for the day’s trading. The ale brewer was up a wooden ladder fixing a fresh garland over his door to the instructions of a broadbeamed woman who was inexplicably distracted by Jankyn’s progress across the thoroughfare. The jester blew her a kiss.
“Hmm, if that is your taste, it is a wonder you are not rolled out thin as pastry,” commented Geraint.
“Bah, I go for drum towers. Those little turrets the lady Jo—” He yelped but Geraint lowered his fist abruptly, aware that a priest, bordered by the inevitable zigzagged Norman door of his church, stood watching, twisting his hands against the morning cold.
Geraint muttered a crisp expletive, barely avoiding a barrow hedgehogged with leeks. Certes, Jankyn’s company was going to be a qualified blessing. It might be useful to have an ally within the castle, but the man would have to keep a stopper on his babble. His waking quips had clashed with Geraint’s ill-tempered grunts, but then he was not about to face his in-laws.
“They are flying the pennons for you,” observed Jankyn cheerfully as their horses trotted up the street leading to the castle. “Should you have bought some flowers?”
“Probably,” growled Geraint tersely. He justified his omission muttering that Johanna had done nothing to deserve them so far and he was not going to brave the bad-tempered pigs again to reach the butter cross.
“When the lady’s face is mended, she may prove sweeter tempered,” Jankyn answered soothingly.
“And I am the rightful king of England,” retorted Geraint.
“Look on the bright side, sir. She is still young and could be pining for a charming lover. Mind you, this Fulk de Enderby, they say, was the scourge of the Scots. They still call him. ‘The Mallet’ by all accounts.”
“What!” His horse shied at the sudden tug on the reins. “The Devil take you, Jankyn. Who told you that?”
“The loquacious alewife, between fertile kisses.”
“Pah, some mallet! Any man who has to beat his wife shows weakness.”
“That is a remarkably philosophic observation in this age, sir, though not one to be spoken aloud in an alehouse, I am thinking.” Jankyn was too viciously cheerful. “I learned a great deal last night and not all of it gossip.” The dark crescents beneath his eyes added meaning to his grin. “The alewife told me that the Lady Johanna was a right bag of mischief.” He received a snarl from Geraint and added swiftly, “Not that the good wife spoke ill of my lady’s virtue, quite the contrary. She reckoned it took Lord Alan years to find the young demoiselle a match. Too finicky she was and would have none of ’em until her father lost patience and her to the Mallet.”
“I wish you would stop calling him that,” fumed Geraint. “Where was the alemaster while you were pleasuring his wife?”
“Indulging the hostelry tapmistress, I believe.” Jankyn parried the insinuation with another verbal assault. “Should you have worn your helm this morning? ’Twill be better at withstanding flying tankards than your forehead.”
“You,” muttered his new master, “may sit outside the stable and pick the peas out of my hauberk.”
“Well, I count myself fortunate. Spending a morning scraping off the gobbets of food that still cling to your knitted steel will be preferable to breaking fast with a shrew.” Jankyn swiftly urged his horse sideways, nearly knocking himself stupid on a fletcher’s sign sticking out from a jettied upper storey before Geraint could grab him by the ear. “I will wager you a silver penny she calls you a goosehead again before the day is over.”
Geraint refused to answer the gibe, and though he felt daunted he had no intention of returning to the inn to break his fast. His belly was rumbling and, judging by yester even, the board at Conisthorpe was generous. He was not going to spend good money on poor alehouse gruel when Lady Constance would supply a heartier repast.
His name at the barbican raised a chuckle of laughter.
“’Tis a marvel you be comin’ ’ere once more, sir knight. Cleaned your armour yet?” Unseen, the speaker was full of bravado, but once the drawbridge rumbled down, the bald-headed porter saluted him respectfully. “My lady Constance expected you back, sir.”
“A wonder that I am,” Geraint snorted, frowning up at the louring towers of the keep.
Beyond the gate, a stableboy skidded to a halt before him and led their horses through a veritable village of dwellings and workshops to the far side of the courtyard. It was a greater castle than he had realised yesterday, and a prosperous holding, seemingly well maintained. The thatch of each building was in good repair, neat as an expensive barber’s cut. No shabby shutter half-hung from a single nail, and while there was the usual stink of manure and cooking smoke, familiar in any castle, the stench of the latrines was missing. Mind, the wind was blowing the other way.
By the time he dismounted at the small flight of steps to the hall, he had collected an entourage of some twenty gaping spectators. The steward, summoned to meet him, clapped his hands to dismiss the crowd and brusquely removed a girl child who was untidying the first step, picking her nose pensively at the strangers.
Observed in the watery sunlight, the raised hall was of recent construction. Instead of an old-style central louvre, smoke rose from ornately capped chimneys, and the broken edges of ancient shells still stood out clearly on the limestone walls. Supported on an undervault, it had been built out from the curtain wall on the cliff edge, facing west overlooking the river. Large traceried windows of grisailled glass had been set into the walls and the uppermost floor—presumably the private apartments of the FitzHenry family—had generous casements to let in the light. The shutters and lower light of the solar, or great chamber, were wide open and Geraint wondered if Lady Johanna was watching for his approach. Somehow he doubted it. More like, a servant lighting the morning fire with green timber could have filled the room with smoke.
Setting such useless thoughts aside, he followed the steward up into the porch and gave his sword and cloak to Jankyn’s care. From beyond the nail-studded great doors an agreeable aroma of fresh bread reached him. Driven by hunger rather than enthusiasm, Geraint took a deep breath and strode in. He waited while the steward hastened to the high table to announce him.
By day, the hall was cheerfully light and pleasant, its flagstones dappled with sunshine, and well swept. A manservant, leaving through the serving entrace to his right, turned and made obeisance to him, while another hurrying in with a small bowl of potage inclined his head in courtesy. So the household was being cautious.
The comely maidservant who had swished her skirts at him in the great chamber rose from one of the lower trestles and scurried out the serving entrance, no doubt to warn her mistress.
Only a handful of people were eating at the high table. Sir Fulk’s sister was mercifully absent, but Geraint recognised the boy.
Lady Constance was halfway through her sops in wine. She eyed him with feigned perturbation and gravely came down into the body of the hall to greet him. She made her voice carry.
“So it seems I did not dream last evening, Sir Gervase. You are back here to confront us.”
“It is a serious matter, my lady,” he growled, bowing over her hand. “I would scarce journey all the way from London for a trifle.”
“Then I suppose you had better join us at the board. This matter must be resolved with all speed.”
He followed her to the steps of the dais and asked gravely, “And where is the bane of my life? Still abed?”
“No.” So the lady had been waiting. Lady Johanna materialised from the doorway behind him, dainty as a statuette of a hollow-eyed Holy Virgin. This morning, as was the fashion among women of her standing, she wore a sleeveless cote, open at the sides so that much of her kirtle, red as holly berries, showed beneath. Narrowly cut, the dark blue overgown’s embroidered border drew his attention to Lady Johanna’s curves. She could have done with more flesh on her, but for all that she had a figure that tempted touching. He was displeased that she hid her lustrous black hair. He had noticed yesterday how the dark tresses had crept forward appealingly, half masking the damage. Now both her hair and face were shrouded by a veil and it was hard to tell her mood. Was she hiding from him? The barrier of fine linen irritated him as if she had deliberately set a wall between them.
The Knight And The Rose Page 9