Father Gilbert clapped Sir Gervase on the shoulder. “An excellent notion, but you have no time to be tutoring. A letter, well, that would be a fine piece of evidence. Old Father Benedict would have had to read it to her. Let us do it now.” Fishing a key from the neck of his habit, he asked the scholar to reach down a wooden coffer. “I need a document two years old,” he muttered, evicting half the contents.
Johanna exchanged a puzzled glance with Gervase as the priest peered at each document at arm’s length.
“And would my lady prefer a letter that merely requests a meeting place or would she like it to contain a rhyme likening her to a gazelle?” A sinful quicksilver had replaced the cold steel blue in the scholar’s eyes.
“No need to mock King Solomon, young man,” clucked the priest.
“Perhaps a blend would be appropriate,” declared Johanna gravely, lowering her eyes at his teasing. “I am sure you have had plenty of practice. What about Sir Gervase offering to meet his love at Father Benedict’s and there make an honest woman of her? Father, we need a calendar for the saint’s day.”
“First things first. No, none of these will do. I may have to ride down to Bainham Priory.” He stared at their blank faces. “I need to cut a strip of vellum from a document written two years ago. Fresh vellum will be too new. Fortunately I have a bottle of old ink which might suffice. Yes, I think I will have a word with Brother Ambrose.”
“Whoa, good father,” Gervase set a warning hand upon his arm, “the fewer folk who know, the better.”
“Nonsense, Brother Ambrose replaces all the priory’s documents if any are damaged or stolen. I shall not tell him the purpose.”
“But that is—” Johanna’s indignant glance met Gervase’s surprised expression above the priest’s head. “I did not know of that practice,” she ended, deciding it was better not to voice her thoughts.
“Father Ambrose could write the letter for you if you give me an example of your hand. I would take you with me, my son, but it might be safer for you to remain within the safety of the castle. In any case, you would not wish to be parted from one another so soon.”
“No, I will write my own love missive, thank you.” Gervase sat himself down on the bench again, bringing up his ankle over his knee, and looked indifferently across at her. As if to appease the chaplain, he added in a less disagreeable tone: “Your advice regards the vellum, Father, shows great foresight.”
“Good, good, do not forget to calculate the day that you were wed.”
“Not to mention when and where we consummated our marriage.” Testily, Gervase was on his feet again and looming above her like some threatening raptor. “In God’s Name, my lady, do you think you could possibly manage to stop blushing like an abbess every time I mention the matter? Anyone would think you had never been wedded and bedded.”
Johanna reddened further, but with undiluted fury and lapsed into a sullen silence. He ignored her sulks and began to discuss with Father Gilbert the practicalities of where he might have deflowered her. Since the rogue was a stranger to the locality and the priest was not in the habit of seducing baron’s daughters, they eventually reached an impasse and both looked round at her as if she was finally entitled to comment.
She ignored them, her fingers folding and refolding the edge of her veil. Father Gilbert’s hand came down reassuringly on her shoulder.
“I have to go and prepare for mass, child. Try and think this matter out and who stood witness, then you must both come and kneel together for God’s guidance.”
The latch had barely fallen behind the priest when the upstart scholar, fattened with self-conceit, sallied in on the attack: “When you have come out of your sulks, my lady, perhaps you would care to contribute something useful to this discussion on our supposed coupling.”
There were times when words were inadequate. Johanna grabbed her beaker and slammed it down on the table.
He was laughing at her. “Do you want to quote Latin at me again?” he teased and then flung up his arms in a pretence of terror as the lady squared up to him like a tiny terrier confronting a wolfhound. Too late he realised he had blundered.
“I have had enough! Mock me and snigger, if it amuses you, you arrogant upstart, but understand this! Discussing the consummation of our so-called marriage is anathema to me. I have been raped by Fulk de Enderby more times than I care to remember. Now either come to terms with that or get out of my sight. Look at me, God damn you!”
The grin was wiped from Geraint’s face as though her words had physically struck him. He forced himself to study every inch of her bruised face anew. To have looked away now would have been cowardice and brought shame upon them both.
He swallowed eventually, fumbling for words. “Will you accept my profound apology?” Dear Jesu, all he could muster sounded pitiful and inadequate.
Her gaze freed him at last, as she turned away. “Words are but meaningless puffs of air. They must be, else you would not be willing to perjure yourself.”
“My lady . . .” Even his tone fell short.
“This is not a game, scholar. I have vowed to take my own life rather than suffer such humiliation ever again.”
He ran a finger around the neck of his shirt as if it choked him. “I . . . I do not know what recompense I can make. You know I did not want to be—”
“—part of this foolery. We all have our price and my mother knows yours.”
“My lady, you wrong me!”
“Ha! Never tell me you are also doing this in the name of the chivalry you so despise. Rescuing a damsel from a dragon? How noble!”
He looked away, unable to tolerate her scorn, and unleashed his own anger. He was not going to take this from a woman, no matter if she had been raped by half the kingdom.
“You do not know the half of it,” he snarled. “There are other kinds of suffering. You do not have the monopoly.” She had not been at Boroughbridge; she had not found her companions with their throats cut, lying in puddles of their own blood. Nor would he ever tell her why he had fled from the monastery or speak of the leering faces salivating as they had scourged him.
Some pain must have showed in his face for the wrath suddenly went out of her and she sank down, her face hidden in her hands.
“My lady,” he said softly, seating himself down on the bench beside her as if it were a stile. “I can see that you and I will fight all through this. It is in our nature so let us accept it. Perhaps our guardian angels glare at one another, brandishing flaming swords.”
She straightened up and looked at him through eyes swimming with tears. “I suppose so,” she sniffed.
His hand came down, like a lion’s paw, encompassing hers with a reassuring clasp. “Be cheerful. With God’s mercy, this may be over in a week’s time, and you will then be free of both your husbands.”
She nodded, smudging away the droplets. “I suppose we had better go to mass together.”
He reached out and with surprisingly gentle fingers lowered her veil, then he stood and held out a hand to her.
“Truce?”
Nine
“FORNICATORS! YOU ARE not fit to enter God’s house!” Edyth pounced as they were about to enter the chapel with the ruthlessness of a half-starved cat lying in wait for her prey. Her face was twisted in fury. Lank brown hair was already escaping untidily from her two long plaits and the ribbons woven in them looked like they had been caught there accidentally. “You disgusting harlot!” She spat at her sister-in-law’s veiled face.
I should have been expecting this, thought Johanna, setting back the spattered veil with a calmness she did not feel.
“Do you want to hit me too, Lady Edyth? Your brother does it constantly.” There was a supportive mutter from the household officers gathering around them.
Edyth ignored her and jabbed her pointed chin in the air at Gervase. “What, have you abandoned your stained armour so soon, fornicator? Say your prayers for I have sent word to my brother.”
Johanna’s
large companion seemed outwardly amused. “At what hour do you expect him, lady? He shall find me ready. Does he come to admire his handiwork upon my lady’s face?” He astonished Johanna by brushing his fingers down her bruised cheek with such unexpected kindness that she could have wept. It gave her new heart to face down her sister-in-law’s malevolence.
Edyth’s fingers flexed into claws. “Oh, you will rue this, you hellspawn! If Lord Alan was in his wits, he—”
“What are you about, my children? Is no one coming in to mass?” Interrupting her, Father Gilbert’s hands came down firmly on Edyth’s shoulders as he stepped quickly through the arched doorway.
“Excommunicate them!” shrieked Edyth, as if she felt the strength of Holy Church behind her. “They besmirch us by their presence.”
“There are always a great many gathered here who are in need of the Lord’s forgiveness,” replied the chaplain diplomatically, firmly setting her to one side. “Do not cast stones, my daughter, we are all sinners.”
“What!” Edyth rounded on him, wild eyes blazing. “You, a holy father, believe their pack of lies?”
“Demoiselle!” Lady Constance’s voice rang out and the throng parted for her. “Cease this unseemly behaviour! If you wish to join us for mass, do so! If not, remove yourself. I cannot have my household idling.”
Edyth’s shoulders jerked in fury and she marched ahead into the chapel as if she was leading the fifth crusade to save Jerusalem.
Johanna felt like running to her bed and dissolving into tears except to flee would have been a sign of guilt and cowardice—but the hand holding hers gave it a reassuring squeeze. Or was it merely a let-us-be-moving-we-cannot-stand-here-all-day command? Curious, she glanced up, but her supposed husband’s face wore an indifferent expression as he led her inside.
She was beginning to realise that, when it suited him, this reluctant ally could be a difficult man to read, and for all she disliked and mistrusted him, she grudgingly admitted that perhaps he might carry this off after all. That was if they could avoid the armed malice of Fulk and his kin and the hidden traps of canon law. Oh, by Heaven, she needed to pray for help. The thought of Fulk galloping up after dinner with his men-at-arms was making her innards turn to a poor man’s gruel. Did the rented scholar realise the danger he was in? Did her mother imagine that Fulk, of all people, would be pacified with a calm discussion about the weather over a plate of oatcakes?
Prayers did not come easily; suddenly the entire household seemed to have undergone a surge of religious devotion. Even the most loutish of the stablehands, who usually had to be rounded up by Father Gilbert, was gaping at her. Johanna had hoped to have time during the service to resettle her shaken feelings, but she had not anticipated being incessantly scrutinised. She tried to pray, but the man beside her was chasing all thoughts from her head. He did not seem to be listening to the Latin either although his hands were pointed at the shrouded altar cross.
Standing gloomily in the crowded chapel, Geraint tried to ignore the wall painting of the temptation of Adam. It reminded him too much of his own situation. He did, however, manage prayers: for his dead companions; for the Mortimers; that Edmund might recover his wits; for Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, to be pardoned; and a thank-you prayer for Dame Christiana before his mind slid easily to a plea for his own survival and how soon he might escape Conisthorpe, not to mention the wrath of Fulk de Enderby and the tantrums of a wench who started like a frightened doe every time he touched her.
Indeed, he had recovered somewhat from the shrewish Johanna’s verbal battering and was beginning to lick rationale into his wounds. Her behaviour, he decided, confirmed the opinion of men all over Christendom—women were definitely the weaker vessels and totally unable to control their emotions. Yes, he would have to be more cunning in his handling of all the women in this accursed place or there would be more squalls inside the castle than raining on its battlements.
Opening his eyes again, he observed that only Father Gilbert appeared to have his mind on prayer; everyone else was watching Johanna and himself as if they were a pair of fistfighters with money wagered on them.
“This must be one of the greatest entertainments Conisthorpe has had in years,” Geraint muttered to Johanna as they left the chapel. “Do you suppose I might manage to toss you in the air and catch you as an encore?” He almost brought a smile to her face.
Instead she asked, “Are you intending to inspect the kitchens?”
His stride faltered at the square timber-framed building before them, umbilicled by a covered passageway to the buttery at the rear of the hall. “No.”
“Then where would you like to go?”
“I have not the slightest notion. Somewhere my antics cannot be watched as if I was your mother’s pet monkey. What about up there?” His glance skimmed the ramparts. “Or would you prefer to introduce me to your blacksmith?” Johanna became aware that the muscular, leather-aproned smith was standing, legs astride, outside the forge, watching their dithering.
“You are concerned about our defences?” she countered.
“Me, never think that. How many are we expecting to come battering at the gate?” Concerned? He was hoping a rope would descend from Heaven and hoist him across the Channel.
“Fulk lost three men at Boroughbridge.” Her hand was dropped as though it scalded him.
He was silent for an instant and then replied, “To the walls then, with the permission of your lady mother.” Johanna turned, following his gaze. Lady Constance was still outside the chapel door, listening to Father Gilbert, while Edyth hovered behind her pretending to instruct her maidservant, but it was clear from the cock of her head that she was trying to eavesdrop. “I think, my lady, you should advise your mother to have your sister-in-law watched at all times else she might prove too handy with a windlass. Should you not send for your cloak?”
Johanna resented the man giving orders but he was right; Edyth would certainly raise the portcullis if she could, and, yes, it might be chilly on the walls.
She spent the rest of the time before dinner following the upstart scholar like an obedient dog as he roamed the battlements assessing the castle. Occasionally he questioned her as to the number of the garrison, their training and what weaponry and food they had in store. Because she had been away from Conisthorpe, she did not know all the answers; that was now her mother’s or Sir Geoffrey’s demesne. He curled his mouth in irritation whenever she could not provide an easy answer and then the wretch began to lecture her about defences. It had to be the schoolmaster in him.
No, she was being unfair, for he actually explained rather than lectured and he did seem to understand castle defences extremely well for a poor scholar. Of course he could have been bluffing and merely putting on an authoritative tone, as men often did when their listeners were conveniently ignorant, but he did seem to make sense and she rather enjoyed the learning, though the purpose behind it filled her with foreboding. She hoped Fulk would not besiege the castle and force them into eventually eating rats, her tame pig and her mother’s ape.
Her new companion also wanted her to explain all the rooftops that filled the courtyard.
“So the keep is little used by your family,” he concluded, studying the great three-storeyed edifice with its straight walls and turreted corners. “Not one of Hamelin Plantagenet’s then?”
“No, King Henry II’s. He ordered it to replace the old wooden fort. The former hall has been made into a guardroom and the upper floor chamber is where we store the muniments. And there is a well in the undercroft, which can be drawn on as high as the first floor and we do have another well in the inner bailey. We passed it, near the east wall. But I have not been in the keep since my return. I never feel warm there and it is so dark and miserable. The new hall is lovely. Having the chimneys and great windows makes such a difference.”
He had made himself comfortable, half-sitting upon a crenel, careful to avoid any fresh droppings of the inhabitants of the nearby dovecote.
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“Your family sleeps above the hall?”
Johanna was not going to stand before him like a schoolboy reciting Ovid so she leaned her elbows back upon the wall and tried to seem at ease. A couple of courting doves landed in a whirr of feathers on the spattered paving. The lady dove inspected Johanna’s toe beaks hopefully while her amorous pursuer stretched out his neck, spread his magnificent white feathers in a half-fan and tried to coo his feathery mistress into compliance. It would have been a good omen for the less cynical; such a pair symbolised blissful marriage.
“There is a bedchamber above the great chamber and below that a vault where spices, medicines and costly bales are stored. We have another guest bedchamber above the pantry. You probably did not see the stairs behind the serving entrances.”
“And where does your seneschal sleep?”
“Sir Geoffrey has the old solar in the keep and—”
She had lost his attention. He had observed a servant carrying out a pannier of crumpled bed linen from a tower in the west wall.
“Who dwells there, my lady?”
“I . . . it is where they keep my father.” The scholar’s expression showed no interest, but he said softly, “Tell me about him.”
“H-he cannot talk or do much for himself. He has a servant to cleanse him and spoon in nourishment. The man crops his hair and pares his nails but . . . well . . . God forgive me,” she crossed herself, “I cannot say I am sorry.”
“I should like to see him.” It astonished her, but in his feigned role it seemed an appropriate courtesy. “Now, if it pleases you.”
“As you wish. It is time I visited him again out of duty.”
She led the way back down the steps, and then waited for him further down the path while he disappeared into the latrines set into the castle wall for common use. She was glad of a few minutes respite from his questions. Much of his conversation during the last hour had been skillfully devised, not only to make her more easy in his company but also for contingency. If there was an attack, as the most senior in rank, he would be expected to take charge of the garrison.
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