The Knight And The Rose

by Isolde Martyn

“Never!”

  He tore in under her guard, seizing her wrist to shake the knife haft from her grasp. With a fumble for her throat, he sought to get his arm across to half-choke her and stop the shrieking. The precious blade went spinning from her grasp.

  Covered in mud, she was eel-like, but the man wore steel and the sharp mesh grazed her knuckles as he evaded the blows she aimed at his nose and eyes. Her leather toes made no bruises upon his hard boots. She fought with nails and teeth; Johanna FitzHenry was not going to be carried back to Fulk tethered across a saddle, mired and defeated, for further humiliation.

  Her breath was ragged, her strength ebbing. Steel pressed into her flesh from every side as he flung himself over her, trying to snare her threshing wrists. Sobbing, she snatched up a handful of mud and flung it into his face. Some found its mark. His hold weakened somewhat. She yelled again like a demented creature but the wind, wild and vile, howled back, casting every loose bit of debris it could snatch up.

  “Satan’s arse!” Her assailant flung up an arm to protect his head as a hurdle of hazelwood came lunging at them. Chickens, squawking and flapping, half-tossed by the wind, came absurdly after it. Her hackney reared in terror and took off. She tried to fling Edgar from her but, swearing, he hauled her up and gave her a blow on the side of the head that sent her falling back almost senseless. With rough hands he dragged her up by the forearms, tossed her over his shoulder and went staggering towards his horse. She kicked the beast and sent it skittering from them. Cursing, he staggered after it while she aimed blows at his belly and prick.

  Then suddenly people spilled out of the brewer’s like ale from a tumbled leather bottle. A crude male guffaw came from the crowd. No one helped her; they were enjoying the spectacle. Not a man jack of them had recognised her. Then there was an oath and a scuffle and someone gave Edgar a kick at the back of the knees that sent him sprawling across her, knocking the breath out of her. Strong hands seized her assailant and lifted him off her as if he were a lightweight.

  Gervase’s face was a devil’s mask of fury and delight as he spun the fellow round and gave him a powerful blow in the jaw which sent him skidding across the muddied track and crashing into the hovel wall opposite. The rogue did not stay for more but clutched at his horse’s bridle and was off as if the Devil was after his soul.

  Her rescuer set her on her feet. “Did he harm you?” When she shook her head, he turned angrily on the spectators. “Why do you tarry gaping, you fools! Do as I told you!”

  He put his arm about her, tugging her hood forward and hiding her from the stares in the shelter of his breast as the crowd scattered running and bellowing to the dwellings in the lanes below.

  People began bursting out of the homes and bawling at one another. A clutch of children tumbled out into the mud, and lined up huddled against the meagre shelter of the wall like skittles, wild-eyed while their mother frantically fetched out her babe.

  Gervase pulled the esquire loose from Johanna and glowered down at them.

  “In God’s name! Watkyn, take this lady back to the castle. I know not what folly—”

  For an instant, aching and sore, she gazed up at him in disbelief.

  “Folly!” she echoed. “Folly?” she repeated indignantly, shouting above the wind. She forgot her discomfort and the frenzied air wrenching at her mud-caked skirts. “There are nigh a dozen families across the bridge who must be marshalled to safety, and the fisher folks downstream have more sense but . . .”

  “Very well!” he snapped. “I shall see it done. Take her back, man!”

  Johanna dragged her wet hair from her eyes to glare at him. “No, you go back and warm your hands! They are my people and I am here to—By Christ!”

  A roof had detached itself. She screamed a warning as it bowled towards them. Gervase gripped her and flung her into the safety of the alehouse wall, his body shielding her back as the panel slammed past them into the neighbouring hovel.

  The wench had courage, Geraint admitted, as she turned within his arms and faced him defiantly.

  “As you will, lady!” he said, before she could abuse him further. “Take my horse and load it with the children. Watkyn, go over with her!”

  She ran down the steep street, tugging and coaxing the baulking animal after her. The street, empty just a short while before, was now a panic of people struggling to get their goods to higher ground.

  The bridge timbers were slippery, the water perilously high. A small branch just missed her, hit the torrent and disappeared, swept away swiftly by the murky swell as she dragged the protesting animal across, cursing as its hooves skidded. Staggering up the mud of the road, she made out the weavers’ hovels. The small scatter of crofts on the rise above the river meadows had been there ever since she lived at Conisthorpe. If the small tributary beyond them rose, it would make an island.

  Watkyn was already bawling urgently at one door.

  “Pah!” The thickset weaver who flung it open listened with ill humour and for thanks gave the esquire a blow on the shoulder that nearly toppled him. “Flood! Ne’er heard of suchlike. Ain’t flooded here in livin’ memory. Even se’n years ago when harvest failed, there were no trouble wi’ river here. Go to, you fule!”

  “Get your family across the bridge now, Ranulf!” Johanna snarled in English, steadying the smaller man.

  “An’ who might you be, you dirty slut, givin’ me orders?”

  “Leave him!” Watkyn yelled in her ear and tugged her away, making for the next hovel.

  “My lady! Your face!” Yolonya’s youngest daughter, Amice, the weaver’s wife, recognised her in horror. Evidently, sufficient mud and excrement had washed away.

  “The water’s rising, mistress,” Watkyn yelled. “Get across to the town!”

  Amice, thank God, had more sense than her husband. In a thrice she dragged off the straw where her children had been nestled in piglet togetherness.

  “Rouse the others, Watkyn. I will look after these.” Johanna took the hand of a child of about four years and hiked a younger one into her arms, while Amice ran with the esquire to stir her neighbours.

  The children began wailing at the muddy, soaking apparition trying to coax them out into the foul weather and the weaver ignored her, cursing, but he began bundling needles and the small items of his craft together.

  The road was loathsome slithery, the stones sharp beneath Johanna’s soles. As she and the children reached the crossing, she was thrust out of the way as Amice’s large, bedridden old mother-in-law was carried onto the bridge by four of the townsmen. Two had made a crossover of their hands beneath the old woman’s vast rear and two more carried a leg each as if they were hauling a barrow. They stumbled up the bank cursing, the old hag’s voice shrill, fearful lest they tip her into the river.

  Johanna’s arm was aching with the unaccustomed weight. The writhing child refused to sit upon her hip and the little girl, intelligent enough to perceive the danger, hung back, quivering and terrified, as a whip of willow leaves, ripped free, slammed at her face. More debris of leaves and twigs pelted them maliciously like slung stones.

  “Get going, you fools!” An old villager, nearly bent double with his spiky load, swore at the children and pushed forwards into them, forcing them onto the slimy planks. Johanna nearly lost her footing.

  “Give us a hand there!” one of the men who had gone ahead with the old woman demanded as she reached the south bank again and the old crone’s bundle was dropped against her skirts. Johanna, lady as she was, stood stunned for an instant, then shrugged, heaved it onto her back, readjusted the infant in her arms and took the hand of the older child who was hanging back shrieking for Amice.

  “You will be safe,” Johanna promised in English. “If I ask my lady to let you see your face in her silver mirror tomorrow at the castle, will you come?” Everyone has their price.

  She tugged the tiny maid out of the rain into the doorway of one of the stone dwellings and shouting, tried to make out Amice in the straggle
of people labouring up from the river.

  “My lady!” Yolonya’s daughter recognised her voice.

  Johanna dropped the bundle from her shoulders. “This is Ranulf’s mother’s.” The woman hoisted it up and took her infant.

  “We are that grateful.”

  How fortunate that Amice had not seen Lord Alan’s daughter brawling in the dirt. But Johanna had grovelled enough to Life. She would show a schoolmaster that she could shoulder her family’s responsibility.

  “Ask for your mother at the castle, Amice. Tell the porter I sent you and, pray you, let my lady mother know where I am.”

  Thank God there were torches sputtering and moving upon the battlements now.

  GERAINT, HAVING SEEN the evacuation fully under way and finding that Jankyn had lost sight of his supposed wife, had a moment’s pause to feel guilty that he had ordered her about like a common peasant and not checked to see if her attacker had harmed her. Why had her mother not sent her servants down to order the villagers to safety? Had no one save Johanna the wits to anticipate that the lower tenements of Conisthorpe would be awash by morning?

  The weavers were struggling to get their looms across the bridge. He cleared the way for them and gave a hand. Most of the rise dwellers and fisher folk were across now, but there were a few dawdlers and people who had returned for more of their possessions. He waited on the far side of the bridge, examining the faces of the women who stumbled past, their shoulders hunched against the driving rain as they clutched their meagre possessions and led their struggling animals, then he began in mounting panic to berate himself in full measure. Where was she?

  It was increasingly hard to see now that darkness had fallen. Torches flared feebly and gave up their ghosts. One horn lantern was a small beacon across on the town side, but little use otherwise. He lifted a child from its mother and sat the infant on his right shoulder. A pair of little arms wrapped around his forehead like a sweatclout and he felt useful, needed. He crossed the bridge and recognised a voice issuing orders and rounding people up like a shepherd—Johanna was there.

  He found her holding a young baby in her arms while the infant’s mother, one of the fisherfolk, adjusted her load—a bedraggled waif, save the proud stance of her shoulders betrayed Lord Alan’s daughter.

  “You look very homely,” he said. “Looking forward to becoming a nun?”

  “The babe is pulling my hair something cruel, the second one this evening!” answered Johanna. It was also squalling with frustration and nuzzling into her front like a piglet in search of a teat. “You will make St. Christopher jealous, sir,” she exclaimed, noting his passenger.

  “I cannot have that.” He unhooked his unusual living headdress and bestowed the little mite on one of the half-grown girls come down to gawk, then he pulled his temporary wife aside, wishing he might see her face.

  He felt like abusing her—for putting herself at peril, for causing him anxiety. Instead he found himself holding out his hand and giving her another labour. “Shall we go back and search the hovels?” Perhaps he was expecting too much of her but Sir Geoffrey had not yet arrived.

  Johanna followed him back over the water-lapped planks, absurdly pleased at being considered useful and capable of acting in harness with him.

  “I caught one of them looting,” Gervase shouted, his arm about her shoulders as they headed up once more towards the hovels, “else I should have come seeking you sooner. Father Gilbert is here and the town priest, did you see them?” He had found a piece of sacking and was battling to hold it over her.

  She took the other side but Geraint could feel she was already pitifully drenched to the skin and shivering. He needed to get her back, but not without himself or Jankyn as protection lest her assailant was still lurking.

  “Make sure we have everyone.” They had reached the rise. “Take care of the wind blasts. Some of these will be flattened ere long. I will take this side of the road. You do the other.” Mercifully she did not argue.

  “Yes, sir.” Her tone implied she was pulling an imaginary forelock impudently at him.

  “Johanna,” he caught her arm. Wrung out, her sleeve would have filled a beaker. “Take care!” He meant it.

  The search was worthwhile. Johanna found an old man snoring, his breath reeking of ale. He clutched at her loins hopefully and felt her fist in his face for his pains. That woke him. She sent him scratching and sleepy into the rain where his sudden oath would have made a mercenary blush. She left him to totter towards the bridge and ran back down to cross it.

  Watkyn joined her and although he would have been no match should any have tried to molest her, she was glad of his company. Not that anyone would now; they were too intent on saving their own skins. Dear God, she had never seen a tempest like this in her whole life.

  “You should return to the castle, my lady.” They stood now on the town side of the bridge but she was looking back towards the weavers’ dwellings.

  “No, not until Sir Gervase is here.”

  “I am here.” His voice was comfortingly strong. “You did well, my lady.” His strong hand curled upon her elbow. “Let us return to the castle.”

  “A moi! For the love of God!”

  Behind them, Father Gilbert was kneeling on the bridge, struggling to pull a boy out of the torrent.

  Johanna ran back after Gervase. The bridge quivered beneath his weight.

  “He slipped. I told him he was carrying too much. Hold on, Peter!”

  “It is Yolonya’s grandson,” Johanna exclaimed, kneeling to help as Gervase crouched down in the chaplain’s place.

  “Grab my hand, lad!” Gervase flung himself flat and put an arm down. “I will haul you out, trust me.”

  The boy had managed to seize hold of the greasy planks of the bridge but the icy torrent was hurtling between the piers, pounding his thin frame. He was screaming, almost too terrified to let go, but as he made a grab for Gervase’s hand, his courage failed.

  “He will drown.” Johanna beat her fists despairingly into her sides as Gervase scrambled to his feet.

  “Take this!” He thrust his sword belt into her hands and jumped. The bridge lurched as he leapt.

  Watkyn grabbed Johanna’s arm. “Christ save us, my lady! The bridge!” He urgently shoved her after Father Gilbert to the nearest bank and ran back to stand helplessly ankle-deep, anxious for his master.

  Freezing water took Geraint’s breath away and he grabbed swiftly at the timbers. The boy, spluttering and choking, still had an arm around a bridge support.

  “The bridge! Let go!” bellowed the jester from the side.

  The terrified boy would not loosen his hold and Geraint sliced at his wrist with the heel of his hand. The water hurtled them away and it was only a miracle that Geraint was able to snatch at an overhanging branch, barely visible. He fastened the lad’s failing fingers to it and shouted to Jankyn who came scrambling down into the water, one arm curled around the branch.

  “Be hasty, boy!” He bawled at the lad. “When the bridge goes, its timbers will come at you like battering rams.”

  The boy needed no second bidding. Father Gilbert and Jankyn heaved him between them up the bank. Geraint dragged himself along the branch. The boy lay gasping in the mire. His rescuer staggered out after him and knelt supporting himself on his elbows, his lungs at bursting point. He heard the crack as the crossing planks surrendered to the torrent. Like the bridge, he was exhausted.

  Small hands beat at his shoulders. “Get up, come! Here is your sword back. Rouse up or the cold will destroy you!”

  Johanna, curse her, was not going to let him lie there like a piece of washed up timber. He stumbled, shuddering, to his feet. A pox on it! The town with its warmth and shelter mocked him beyond the rising water. They were on the wrong bank.

  Five of them, marooned like silly sheep. He straightened, assessing their situation. The rain had lessened somewhat but the roar of the running water was greater, its full wrath still to come. His companions wou
ld be colder than him, less fleshed as they were. They must seek shelter with all speed, but he doubted the remaining flimsy dwellings would hold much longer.

  “Sir, the man who attacked my lady was one of the Enderby men. They are camped this side, about half a mile upstream.”

  Johanna’s voice quivered. “The rain is easing. You think they will come for us now?”

  Geraint shook his head. “Not in the darkness, but they may try to cross the other stream and seize us come the dawn.” Fulk’s men would have their own worries with the weather unless Johanna’s attacker demanded they return tonight.

  “We need shelter and dry clothing,” muttered Jankyn, “else the cold will kill us.”

  “Do not worry on that score about me,” Johanna muttered but Geraint could hear the chattering of her jaw and saw that she had her arms crossed over her breast. She might know of a safer haven but he doubted it. Could they risk trying to cross the further stream and journeying to the nearest bridge? That was, if it was still standing.

  As if she was reading his thoughts, she said, “There is only a f-ford down river and that will be impossible now. Jesu, look!”

  A procession of torches was coming fast down Bridgegate. Sir Geoffrey’s voice hallooed them from the other side, angry and concerned for Johanna’s and Father Gilbert’s well-being. Lights glinted on the glistening leather of the harnesses and danced across the wicked torrent.

  Geraint estimated the width of the swollen river and came to a decision.

  “Search the hovels for a rope.” He cupped his hands and bawled, “We are going to try and cross, God willing!”

  It was Jankyn who finally found them a rope long enough for the purpose, together with some abandoned loom weights. Geraint ran his fingers along it, testing for flaws. Satisfied, he started to thread the stones on.

  “Here! This is quicker.” Johanna tugged off her ragged veil and they knotted the stones in it, leaving two long tails to tie round the end of the rope.

  Geraint whirled it around his head and slung hard. It missed the opposite bank, and he cursed and hauled it in to try again. On the fourth attempt, it made land. He moved along the bank following the direction Sir Geoffrey was tugging the precious rope, keeping strong hold. It was not easy for either of them to find a sturdy tree. Most had been coppiced or else were too broad, but eventually Sir Geoffrey made the rope fast.