The scholar rejoined her. “Let us to your father then,” he directed as if she had delayed him.
The small tower where her father lay overlooked the castle garden.
“There is a private chapel below, but my father is incapable of using it,” Johanna explained as they followed Aidan, her sire’s varlet, up the short flight of steps to the middle floor.
The Lord of Conisthorpe’s chamber was shuttered, the air fetid with the overuse of lavender and sandalum. A feeble taper glowed halfheartedly in a corner.
“Is he asleep, Aidan? Ouch!” Her shinbone collided forcefully with a stool in the darkness.
The attendant hastened to remove it. “Hard to tell, my lady.”
It was Gervase who threw open the shutters. There was no movement on the bed but her father stared at them, the inner circles of his eyes dilated. For an instant, she imagined a flicker of wildness, frustration, in the once handsome green eyes. Now his head was bonneted, like an old man’s, in a white coif buttoned beneath his chin, and the dark hair, so like her own in colour, sat lacklustre and close-cropped above a sagging face. His belly was a large mound beneath bedclothes drawn up beneath his chin, and an undignified dribble of spittle trickled from the slackened right corner of his mouth.
“This is my husband, my lord father,” Johanna announced, relishing every word. “This is the man I married secretly before you forced me into bondage with your despicable companion-in-arms. See again what Fulk did to my face, Father.” She lifted the veil and leaned close.
“Have you told him of the other cruelties you have suffered?”
“Oh, yes, I came to see what God had done to him and I sat alone here in the darkness and told him what Fulk had made me suffer. It assuaged some of my bitterness but he could not hear me, so what was the use?”
Gervase was inspecting Lord Alan as though he was a strange, patterned stone thrown up by the plough. Physician-like, he peered closely at her father’s eyes.
“He can blink,” he observed, his strong voice driving Johanna’s demons into abeyance.
“Yes, but the sounds he makes are ill-formed and he has no use of his right limbs.
“Does he take much nourishment?” he asked Aidan.
“Not much, sir. A little sweet barley water with liquorice in it and Flemish broth.”
“I knew a household where a woman had been smitten so. Her daughter always hoped she might recover her wits and used to sit the poor soul in their hall beside the hearth so she might watch what was going on around her.”
“Did she ever recover?”
He straightened up, shaking his head. “She never regained speech but sometimes I reckoned you could read gratitude in her eyes.”
“Well, Conisthorpe is a happier place without him.” Anxious to leave, Johanna held open the door, but he tarried, staring thoughtfully at her sire. “I suppose your father is still alive and hale, sir?”
“My father?” He raised his head slowly. “Oh yes, but dead to me. Would that matters had been otherwise.”
Johanna tactfully resisted questioning him further. Mayhap he was a bastard and never knew his father’s name or else he had resisted his sire’s attempts to mould him and had been disowned, but there was compassion in his face as he leant forward and mopped the dribble away from her father’s chin with the sheet.
“I give you good day, my lord,” he told the pathetic heap beneath the coverlet and with a courteous bow stepped back.
Clearly, the stranger’s deference was not done to obliquely reprove her but it made Johanna guilty that she could not yet forgive her father.
“Leave the shutters for a while,” she ordered Aidan. “From now on, open them for an hour each day if the weather is mild.” She sensed the approval of her companion and was ashamed that she had issued the instructions for the wrong reasons. Give me time, dear God, to forgive him, she prayed. Let the love that was between us come again.
“What is up here?” The heels of the man’s spurred boots jingled up the spiral steps and she chased after him up through Aidan’s chamber. He had unlatched the outer door onto the ramparts. Not more defence tactics, thought Johanna reluctantly, her belly gurgling with hunger. He turned so abruptly that she almost walked into him. He was eyeing their position as if marking it as a sentry post.
“I suggest you stand within my shadow with your back to the crenellations and put your arms just so.” He lifted her hands to his shoulders.
“W-what do you think you are doing?” she spluttered, her voice frothed with suspicion. His back was masking her from the inner bailey.
“Convincing your household that we are lovers without embarrassing you.”
Peeping around the stranger’s shoulder, Johanna realised that Aidan, roping up a pail of water from the well, was staring at them, not to mention Father Gilbert who was showing an unprecedented interest in the clouds, and Bart the smith and his apprentice who were making a great show of inspecting a broken spade.
Her practical side overcame her indignation, especially as he folded his arms so that he was not touching her. The movement firmed the muscles beneath her fingers even further. She kept her eyes strictly on the blue gorget of his tunic, but her body was remembering the feel of this man against her thighs when he robbed her of her rings.
“How long must we stay like this?” she asked eventually, her voice muffled.
He sighed. “A little longer.”
She was trying to look anywhere but at his face, and the beaks of her shoes became boring. “Are you married, master scholar? I should have asked you sooner and Mother never said.”
Geraint’s fingers swiftly braceleted her wrists, freeing himself from her. “Ha, now your conscience pricks, does it?” He testily turned away, grimly studying the meadows stretching up from the steep river bank. “Would it bother your lady mother if I was? I doubt it. No, I am too poor to have a wife as yet.” He looked round for a reaction, expecting her pale cheeks to be tinged at her impudence, but the lady appeared to be unaware that such an intimate question was forward.
“I suppose a mistress would be as expensive,” she observed so gravely that he was hard put not to laugh.
“Yes. Would you like to apply?” Her greenish eyes responded with fury. “No, do not kick me again, lady, or I will retaliate, I promise you.”
Perhaps, Geraint considered, he was lacking in manners to remind her she had behaved so indelicately, but clearly certain things had to be said. She seemed to think so too.
“When this is over, sir,” she told him firmly, patting her palms against the thick stone wall, “I am taking a vow of celibacy.”
Aware that they were still attracting interest from the courtyard, Geraint moved close behind her as if to shield her from the wind. Those watching might think he hugged her against him.
“Not before?” he teased. The corners of his cape were wrapping about her in the strengthening westerly.
She glanced up solemnly, examining his face, but with an effort he visored his amusement and kept his stare fixed indifferently upon the misty hills. “Lady, you may take a lover if you win the matter.”
Johanna jerked her face away, chin up, shoulders tensing. “I am not interested in that sort of thing.”
It was dangerous but he had to say it. “Probably because, as you admitted earlier, you are ignorant of the delights of the bed-chamber.” He held his breath, expecting a furious volley of arguments, but this time she kept a haughty control.
“There are no delights, master scholar, merely conquests, and I will not believe otherwise.”
So there were other matters he might teach her besides the alphabet. An interesting challenge that, but far too perilous. Besides, the time was insufficient. God willing, he would be gone from Conisthorpe the moment the matter was settled and Edmund was well enough to bestride a horse.
“I am hungry,” he sighed, and left it at that.
HE WAS PLEASED to see a faint hing of colour in Lady Johanna’s cheeks now as they reach
ed the high table. Anyone could see the girl was too pale for her years; she should be glowing with vitality. A waif. Well, it was her problem. Perhaps she was one of those women who ate like a wren. For his part, Geraint was ravenous and slid easily into the lord’s chair, hoping there would be no delay in serving the repast. He was wrong. The demoiselle Edyth marched into the hall and came to stand before him.
There was a sigh in Lady Constance’s voice. “Lady Edyth, if you require to eat with us, be seated and do so in silence. I will not be chastised by you in my own hall.”
“Your hall, Lady Constance? There is a conspiracy here to gull you. If you give this stranger credence, he will take all your goods from you and from your son.” Edyth might have expanded her theory but Geraint rested his chin upon his hands and regarded her with a mocking smile. It threw her momentarily.
Lady Constance signalled to Sir Geoffrey who rose looking as though he had been condemned to bread and water for a week.
“Demoiselle,” he leaned forward across the board, “my lady wishes you to leave the hall.”
Edyth sniffed. “Oh, I will not eat at this table without a food-taster. Watch what you eat, boy,” she warned Johanna’s brother. “Some here would not like to see you grow much older.”
“Edyth, how can you say such lies!” Johanna exclaimed, springing to her feet with such vehemence that her stool crashed backwards. Gervase righted it.
Miles’s mouth turned gooseberry-shaped. “What is she blabbing about, Johanna? This is my hall. I am going to inherit, not you. If you have a son, he will get Enderby, but Conisthorpe is mine, do you hear me?”
“I do not want Conisthorpe,” Johanna proclaimed loudly, thinking that it was about time someone explained to him that his father was merely the constable, holding the land from the king, “and I am certainly not going to poison anyone. Sir Gervase has lands of his own in . . . in Laval.
“Quickly, for the love of God, where is it?” she muttered, as she lowered herself back beside him.
“South of Normandy but . . .”
“Normandy!” she exclaimed to Miles.
“Not Normandy, south of—”
“South of Normandy actually, Miles. Now be quiet!”
Sir Geoffrey cleared his throat, stroked his beard and carefully addressed Lady Constance. “Lady Edyth has touched upon the matter that is perturbing me also, my lady. It would appear that Sir Gervase, if his story proves true, while he remains here would have right of command of the garrison.”
Johanna could tell that her mother had not thought of this for she swished her lips sideways, one of her mannerisms when irritated.
“Yes, Sir Geoffrey.”
“Say you are going to take me away to Normandy when this is over,” prompted Johanna beneath her breath.
“But I am not,” Geraint growled through teeth clenched in a smile.
“Yes, but . . .” Her elbow was effective.
“Lady Constance, Sir Geoffrey, you have nothing to fear from me. The only item I am claiming is this lady.” He slid his arm around Johanna’s ribs, and hugged her excessively. The insolence and deliberate intimacy both infuriated and perturbed her, but she dared not wriggle free. It was too unfortunate that his hand would feel her heartbeat galloping like a runaway horse. Her only consolation was Edyth’s disgusted look.
Lady Constance rearranged her own expression gracefully, like a woman being forced to smile by the dagger at her back. “You see, Lady Edyth. You say these things merely to cause ill feeling.”
“Pah, you are trusting fools, all of you.” Derisive comments followed her as she swept out of the nearest doorway.
The high table was left in uncomfortable silence. Johanna ignored her brother’s glare. “I am not an item, sir,” she told Geraint firmly, unwrapping his arm from her. “And the claim, sir, is long overdue.”
“There will be trouble before curfew tomorrow,” Sir Geoffrey muttered. “Are we to let Sir Fulk in if he requests it?”
“Pray let us enjoy this repast, Sir Geoffrey, without further troubles. We will speak about this later.” Lady Constance signalled to the servants to bring the platters in. Conversation resumed fitfully, but eventually it was running in steady furrows.
“You are not eating enough, my lady.” Geraint loathed fastidious noblewomen who did not appreciate good food. Because they had been given a plate to share as if they were newly wed, he was forced to watch Johanna being as fussy as a lapdog.
“Yes, indeed, Sir Gervase,” agreed her mother.
Johanna sighed. It was hard enough pretending to be the man’s wife, but now he was criticising her like a real husband. “I am trying to achieve a more spiritual state by fasting, sir.” Her answer was honest but she did not add that there were other reasons too, though less profound. “Holy Church seems to only respect women who—”
He refused to let her finish. “I think you should abandon such foolishness. Since you are coming to Laval with me, and I require you to bear me a healthy heir, if God wills it so, I can hardly see that fasting for the rest of the week serves any purpose. Was Sir Fulk starving you into compliance?” he added in a whisper.
Johanna froze, blushing. Bear him an heir indeed! Insufferable impertinence! Unwilling to look at him, she stared at the untouched food before she finally answered with dangerous sweetness. “I forgot that there were some things about me that you never understood, sir. We had so little time together since you insisted on leaving so hastily.” She raised her face in challenge only to have him slip a morsel of eel between her parted lips.
“Eat, my lady. I want to see the roses in your cheeks again.”
She could not very well spit the food back out into her hand and was compelled to swallow it. Lowering her eyes coyly, she snarled so only he might hear. “Do that again and you will rue it.”
“You are a fool to starve yourself. Have you no mirror?” he growled, and instantly wished he could have snatched the words back.
Her answer was bitter as gall. “Had I been uglier, sir, Fulk would never have offered for me, and if I thought it would stop him coming here to demand me back, I would rip my face ragged with my nails.”
His hand came down on hers, his voice sufficiently audible to be heard further down the table. “Let us have no more talk of ugliness, my lady, for it would be a profanity for any hand to harm your beauty. I merely speak out of consideration for your well-being.” No doubt she would have snatched her hand away, but he had snared it like a mouse beneath the paw of his fingers. “My dear love, do not be angry with me. I have not suffered our parting for two weary years to be denied the touch of your hand.” She was forced to let him carry her fingers to his lips. He let his gaze warm upon her averted cheek, fortunately the sound one that deserved homage, aware that they were still watched and would be, curse it, for the rest of the week. He wished he could be done with the disguising. Friday could not come soon enough. “I cannot wait to have things settled between us.” His voice was a purr but his fingers bit into hers.
“Nor me, sir.” She enthusiastically echoed his double meaning and kicked him. How he kept a ripe curse from escaping was a miracle of control.
“For two lovers,” he said very softly so only she might hear, “I fear we are too controlled. Now that you are over your anger, you should be somewhat softer, more yielding in your demeanour.”
“I am not over it yet,” she lifted her face, but her lashes veiled her eyes like a maiden. “Could you stop provoking me? An heir in Laval!”
“Provoke you, Johanna?” He rubbed his sore shin. “That was only the beginning.”
Ten
JOHANNA BURST INTO the great chamber like a Viking into a nunnery.
“I will strangle that man!”
“I doubt it,” replied her mother calmly. “He could throttle you with one hand. Anyway, I think Gervase is doing surprisingly well. Had you not better go and keep him company—hang about his neck or something wifely?”
“I have had enough of that.” She p
icked up her embroidery and flung it down again. “Gervase,” she mimicked sourly. “You try being his wife.”
“Now there’s a luscious thought, but it would not be seemly. Which reminds me, where is he going to sleep tonight? I cannot send him back to the inn.”
“Well, not in my bed.”
“Then—Oh, Sir Gervase, pray come in.”
“I am interrupting?”
“No.” Her mother waved him to be seated; typically, he stood. “My congratulations! It is going exceedingly well but now that you and Johanna have stated your positions and are reconciled, would it be possible for you to be a little less—how shall I put it—restrained with each other?”
“Oh, we have done that,” muttered Johanna.
“I very much doubt it, dearest. You should be closer, as if . . . as if you cannot wait to . . .” She gestured helplessly and then added crossly, “Stop looking at me like that, Johanna.”
“Ah well,” Gervase spoke without smiling, “it looks like it is the ramparts for you again tonight, my lady.” He turned his head to Lady Constance. “Is there a full moon, madam, or am I supposed to embrace her under a cresset?”
“I am not embracing you anywhere,” muttered Johanna. “In fact, I have forsworn embracing from now on. All you get is bad breath and . . . fumbling.” As Gervase looked like a dragon about to take off and burn a town, she added hastily, “I do not mean that personally. This morning was quite adequate. As I explained to you then, I do not like that sort of thing.”
“Nonsense, Johanna,” breezed her mother. “We all have to make sacrifices. It is very important that the whole of Conisthorpe knows you are in love.”
“Why?” They almost asked in unison.
“We need the goodwill during the hearing. If everyone sides with you both against Sir Fulk, the archdeacon’s officer and the proctors will nose it out. Oh, come in, Sir Geoffrey.”
“Mesdames.” The seneschal’s expression was more anxious than usual. “Sir Fulk de Enderby’s party has been sighted crossing the bridge.”
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