The Knight And The Rose

by Isolde Martyn

  “Go on, my dear.” The tone was patronising.

  “Thank you, sir,” she answered dryly. “It seems to my humble understanding that it is those in the king’s favour ranged against those who are not in his favour, and surely if my lord of Lancaster had felt that the king would listen to him, he would not have taken arms against the Despensers, and if the Despensers were also willing to listen to my lord of Lancaster at counsel and not monopolise the king then—”

  “It is not that simple, dear heart.” The ungrateful louse gave the older man a forgive-her-she-is-just-trying-to-understand glance and the cursed deputy sheriff beamed indulgently at her.

  “Quite so, quite so, Lady Johanna.” Then he had the effrontery to change the subject. “Now, where were we, Sir Gervase? Overseas, you said. Who—”

  “Sir Walrand de Carentan.” Johanna hurled it into the conversation before Gervase could bumble out an answer.

  “I can answer for myself, dear heart.” Oh, he could barely keep his anger sheathed. Well, serve him right.

  “Do you know him, my lord?” she asked the older man sweetly.

  “No, never heard of the fellow. Norman, is he?”

  “Ah, here comes my steward to tell us dinner is ready.” Lady Constance swiftly raised her hand to set it on Sir Ralph’s wrist. “Pray let us take our places. There is Sir Geoffrey come to join us.”

  As the tiny procession moved up the side of the hall, Geraint was at last able to give Johanna a look of intent to throttle.

  “A moment, lady,” he snarled, setting a delaying hand on the wench’s arm to make sure she was out of all others’ earshot. His fingers pretended to tidy a wisp of hair beneath her headdress. “Who in God’s name is Walrand de Carentan?”

  “I have not the faintest notion. Had you a name ready, master scholar?”

  He was staring over the top of her head as if he was fascinated by the dead fly at the base of the windowglass. “Yes, of course, I had,” he said through his teeth.

  “But surely Carentan is in Normandy?”

  “Yes, hard by Cherbourg, so to speak, but . . . Hell and damnation, lady, who has been advising you?”

  “Father Gilbert.”

  “I have to be thankful you have not spoken to the entire garrison on the matter. I am severely displeased with you, madam. If you wish me to carry on this mummery, you will resolve these matters with me first.”

  Johanna’s face was defiant but her body flinched. Geraint stared at her in disbelief; she kept as still as a mouse beneath the moon shadow of an owl and he was the danger. God forgive him! Was that how she saw him, as violent as Fulk? His pompous words were now a bitter, shameful aftertaste.

  “I did not mean to harm Miles,” he muttered huskily. “The quintain . . .” he broke off. Her sea-coloured eyes had misted. “But that is not the issue, is it?” There was an infinitesimal shake of her head.

  For at least ten heartbeats, he could not answer her. “By my mother’s soul,” he said finally, choosing his words as if they were gemstones to purchase, “no, I do not want to hit you, my lady. I have never in my life hit a woman.” He held out his hand to her, his expression rueful.

  Johanna placed her hand upon his wrist, conscious of the prickle of golden hairs beneath her fingertips, and graciously swept along beside his knightly stride. “Are you a rebel as well as a scholar?”

  For an instant, his step faltered. Tossing his golden head, he looked down at her, his eyes now glittering with lethal malice. “Say one more word and I will be a murderer. Would you like me to leave—now?”

  The rebellious girl beneath the bruised exterior trembled but this time it was with amusement.

  “No, master scholar,” she said. “Not until after Friday.”

  Twelve

  IT WAS NECESSARY to put stones of kindness and reconciliation in the breached wall between himself and Johanna, Geraint reflected, after the deputy sheriff, his belly replete, had been farewelled. Although the wench had been as unmanageable as a wildcat, he was so relieved to find his wrists unshackled and his person still at comparative liberty that he was ready to make amends.

  Lady Constance, too, looked as if a burden had been lifted from her. In compliance with the orders brought from York, she commanded Sir Geoffrey to take the garrison knights out on a brief search for rebels, as much to exercise and wash them as to honour the deputy sheriff’s request. It was unlikely they would stay out long. After all, it was only March and the foul weather was closing in again.

  With a brief word of praise and an admonition that they needed to be better prepared for the court hearing, Lady Constance left her hireling with her daughter and swept off, sighing, to count the emptied ale barrels.

  “If they find a rabbit, let alone a rebel, it will be luck not judgment,” muttered Geraint scathingly to Johanna, as the last of the deputy sheriff’s men-at-arms galloped rather wildly over the drawbridge.

  “No, they will go and molest some poor woman who will not be able to get justice for her complaints nor a silver penny for the babe that one of them plants in her womb.”

  “If you are still in a foul temper, lady . . . but come, before we are soused with rainwater.”

  Johanna glanced up at him warily but, well fed and wined, the tall scholar standing beside her looked malleable, although there was still a drawn expression behind the now amiable grin as he offered his hand to lead her back across the courtyard.

  “Ha! If? I am always at fault. Sir Ralph did not want to listen to what I was saying any more than you did.”

  “But he did not want to listen, my lady, because you are right, and the truth depresses him. He is the tip of the king’s sword in these parts. What can he say to you?” He glanced over his shoulder. “Why is there a pig following us?”

  Johanna ignored the parry. She was trying to keep the silken veil scarfing her shoulders in order. “You do not need to pretend I am a case for your newly coined charity, master scholar. It is clear that I am not allowed a voice and my mother just stands and says nothing. I tell you this: I have a great admiration for the Countess of Buchan and those Scots noble ladies who supported Robert the Bruce. He listened to them!”

  “True, and our late king put my lady of Buchan in a cage and slung it over the castle battlements at Berwick.”

  She snorted. “To make cowards of the rest of us. What a noble example of chivalry by Edward Longshanks. She was so brave.”

  “And foolhardy.”

  “She survived.”

  “Emaciated.”

  “And she had a husband who hated her because she put her love of Scotland before her obedience to him. At least our present king showed her compassion and freed her from that monstrous cage.”

  “True,” he answered grudgingly, halting so that she was forced to stop. So did the pig. “You have not explained this beast.” He waved his arm in dismissal at the creature, but it only stared at him with an expression which in a pig might pass for blankness. “Is it besotted with you? If it is lovesick for me, I tell you I am shifting my allegiance to another household.”

  “It is my pig.” She dived a hand into the purse on her girdle and drew out a hard oatcake, shook the fluff off it and delivered it to the beast. “I reared him and he has remembered. Now please will you explain to me about Boroughbridge.”

  “Why?” he asked with so torpid an interest that she would have ordered the pig to charge him, had it understood Norman French better.

  “Why?” she repeated, grabbing the veil’s corners. The wind, with male sympathy, had blown it against her mouth. “Oh, dear Jesu protect me, you are not going to say I do not need to know, are you? Yes, you were. How insufferable!”

  “So you are now a mind reader, madam. I am quite willing to tell you my understanding of Boroughbridge but not now.”

  “But not now,” she echoed his tone. “Your impertinence is only exceeded by your arrogance, you upstart. It would please me now, master scholar.”

  “I think you should rid yourself
of the habit of calling me either of those names, my lady. Sooner or later you will do so in the common hearing and this pretence will have been an utter waste of time. I pray you give me leave a while. We are getting nowhere.”

  “Then get out of my sight! I am going to see Father Gilbert. At least he is supposed to listen.” She knocked loudly on the door of Father Gilbert’s cell.

  Perversely, Gervase leaned against the wall and folded his arms. Johanna glared at him suspiciously, uncertain whether it was amusement or anger that curled his mouth.

  “Perhaps one day, master scholar, I shall meet a man who is capable of speaking to a woman as if she has a brain. We were taken from Adam’s rib, you know, not his big toe. Perhaps the Lord God had it wrong the first time, maybe the second attempt at a human being was closer to what He had in mind. Maybe He should have tossed out the first attempt.”

  The intelligent blue eyes warmed at her argument. “You think the gender of Holy Christ was also an error?” he queried and left her.

  “Ohh!”

  “Perhaps you should avoid these kinds of discussion, my daughter.” Father Gilbert’s tone was stern as he let her in. He had been unabashedly listening in.

  “If you want me to be a nun, Father Gilbert, I should have thought it was exceedingly relevant,” she muttered, watching Gervase striding away.

  The chaplain stared after him thoughtfully. “The Lord God may give you a second chance, Johanna, do not abuse it.”

  “I asked that upstart to explain Boroughbridge and he refused. He was so haughty that I grew angry with him.”

  “Why did you ask him about the battle?” The chaplain sounded inexplicably surprised and not a little irritated.

  “I am tired of being treated like an addlepate because I am not a man.”

  “My lady, sometimes you should not take matters at face value. I believe our scholar knew some of the rebels who were killed at Boroughbridge. He did not say so exactly to me the other day but I received the clear impression that one of his closest friends died there.”

  “Oh! Then why did the wretched man not say so?”

  “I expect he does not wish to speak of it. Remember the adage, ‘That which is rooted in the bone, rarely comes out in the flesh.’ Sir Ralph’s opinions may have set him on edge.”

  “I suppose that next you will be wanting me to apologise.”

  “No, my daughter, I should not dare to suggest that.”

  AFTER SIR GEOFFREY’S company had disappeared grumbling into the mist, Geraint found the stables were mercifully empty save for Jankyn who was whistling as he polished the haft and quillons of Geraint’s loaned sword, his legs tucked under him like a tailor.

  “You want absolution, great one? We are alone unless you count the pig.”

  Geraint cast his eyes heavenwards and turned malevolently. “Grrrrr!” The pig, confronted with a huge man waving his cloaked arms like a giant bat, retired looking bored.

  “It probably sleeps on the bottom of her bed, guarding her virtue.”

  “You survived?”

  “Thanks be to God, and I take it you wisely avoided our visitors.”

  Jankyn nodded and breathed on the metal. “Any tidings of my lord earl?”

  “Lancaster? Only that they have taken him south to Pomfret.

  Do not be thinking of going down there, will you? It would not be wise yet.” He did not like the thoughts scampering like possibilities across the jester’s face. “I shall need that sword now, my friend, and may I borrow your cloak as well? I am going to Christiana’s.”

  The fool sheathed the sword and gravely held up the leather scabbard to him in a ceremonial gesture. “They say that swords and fools go together.”

  “No, they do not!” Geraint went down on his haunches in front of him, checking once more there was no one within earshot as he informed him softly: “God preserve us, Jankyn, it is what we expected. The deputy sheriff’s men have orders to bring in any strangers and there is a price on Edmund Mortimer’s head. I need to find out how our friend fares. If the worst has befallen him, I will be out of here as fast as a rat from a flaming thatch.”

  His esquire untangled himself and stood up. “Jesu, man, if there are any keeping a watch out there, you will lead them straight to their prize. If it must be done, let me be the one who carries the risk.”

  Geraint straightened and buckled the scabbard onto his baldrick. “Thanks, good friend, but I need the blessed dame to have a look at my wound, and in weather like this I doubt there is much peril.” He winced at the rain sheeting down, turning the courtyard into a puddle large enough for a giant’s foot. “Besides, I need to escape this infernal castle. The moment the drawbridge comes down to let Sir Geoffrey’s party out, I am stealing off. You will need to keep the porter distracted. Can you manage it?”

  Jankyn nodded, scowling. “I do not like it. Heads, you’ll be arrested. Tails, you’ll die with lung rot. In God’s name, be cautious!”

  “Harken, Jankyn, the deputy sheriff’s men are off to sniff for Clifford’s men around Skipton and if I come across any strays from the Conisthorpe company, I shall tell them I am doing my own investigating. Old Sir Geoffrey is a good fellow but as mild as watered mustard. As for fearsome Fulk, if any of his men are hanging about fouling the air and they can even glimpse me through the rain, not one of the rogues knows what I look like.”

  “Aye, but there’s sufficient around here who have seen you.

  Free ale always loosens a poor man’s tongue. You are not a small man, friend.”

  “Stop clucking like a mother hen. I will be careful.”

  “Aye,” Jankyn shrugged, raising an eyebrow. “That is what all the youths say to their damsels but there are always a huge number of swelling girdles afterwards. What if one of mesdames sends for you to amuse them?”

  His companion winced. “I employ you for your creativity.”

  “How is, ‘Ah yes, sweet Lady Johanna, he is up in the hayloft bussing pretty Agnes’?”

  “Oh to be a fly on the dung. Lady Johanna will probably pinion you to the wall with the hayfork while she investigates. Keep her out of my hair, Jankyn, or all Hell will break loose.”

  BEFORE HE REACHED the wood, Geraint stopped at a waysede shrine to offer prayers for the souls of his dead companions-in-arms and for Edmund’s recovery. Guilt that he had not been able to keep the lad out of danger overcame him again as he stood in the puddles staring at the Christ in passion on the small rood. He had owed Sir Roger Mortimer and his lady, Joan de Geneville, that at least and he had failed them, an ill payment for a training in arms and a solid roof over his head these many years.

  Poor spoilt Edmund. Considering Geraint’s own upbringing, it had been a penance at first to fetch and carry for the younger youth, but one that he no longer regretted. Entering the Mortimer household at Ludlow had been paradise after the purgatory of the monastery and its cursed master of novices with his predilection for chastisement and young boys. But that was past. Now with his strength of arm and confidence, had he chosen Geraint might pick up the lecherous Father Matthew by his cowl and toss him at the wall, but he was not a vindictive man. He had seen enough of cruelty and injustice. The world needed to be put right, the realm cleansed and he would set at liberty the man to do it.

  “My Lord Saviour, if Edmund fully recovers,” he promised before the cross, “I swear that I shall do everything within my power to restore Sir Roger to freedom.” Then he genuflected before the shrine, gave his horse an apology and a caress for the foul weather and rode on.

  He saw no one in the woodland save for a brace of sodden charcoal-burners, miserably idle on account of the rain, squelching towards the town for a drinking sojourn. Only a small herd of Lady Constance’s fallow deer lifted their heads as he unlocked the padlock into the park, and swiftly disappeared fleethoofed among the coppices in case he was thinking of raising a bow at them.

  “Ha, so you are back like a stray tomcat.” Looking decidedly smug, Dame Christiana let him
into the blessed warmth and actually managed a smile for him, although with most of her front teeth missing, it lacked beauty to the less appreciative. “All is well. He is restored, lad. Thanks be to God.”

  “Thanks indeed!” he exclaimed, crossing himself and certainly not regretful of the oath he had just taken. “And His blessing on you, good dame.” He whirled her up and sat her on the table. “You are a marvel! Wondrous tidings!”

  “Stand apace, ribald. You are dripping on to my revelations!”

  Profoundly sorry, he immediately stepped back as she eased herself back onto the floor. With doglike obedience, he hung his cloak on a nail and combed his fingers through his dripping hair. “Now may I see him?” He would have pulled aside the sacking curtain which closed off the palliasse where Edmund lay, but she caught his hand.

  “Let him wake in his own time. Will you take a cup of mead?”

  “Aye, though I cannot tarry long.” He inspected the parchment pinioned under the candle while she unscrewed the leather bottle. “How are these progressing?”

  “Not at all, thanks to Mortimer’s cub.”

  “Regained his eloquence, has he?”

  “Has he ever!” She spat. “Peevish brat. Been squawking for you all this morning like a pampered fledgling.”

  “God be praised! That sounds like Edmund. And so there is no other damage?” He took the leather cup of mead from her.

  “You’d best judge that, lad. Nothing to write home about. Nay, let him wait an instant longer. How does your shoulder?”

  “Ill. That is the other reason I have come, good Christiana. It needs new dressing. I thought it better to keep the wound concealed at Conisthorpe. I am under enough suspicion as it is.”

  “Then let me see to you first.” She glanced in at Edmund. “He’s still in a slumber but it’s a fine sleep, mark you. Now, we’ll need more light.”

  She lit another candle and inspected his wounds as well as she could. “The skin is healing but there’s infection beneath where the flail has taken out the muscle. An abscess, see.” He could not. The patch of swollen flesh was too close to his neck. “Any other discomfort?”