Geraint’s mouth tightened. “Be that as it may. You cannot wear a chastity belt for the rest of your life, my dear. You will become very sick indeed if you cannot remove it. I have seen what manacles can do to flesh and . . .” He directed his gaze towards her nether regions. “Women’s flesh, especially those intimate . . . parts . . . is especially tender.”
Agnes smothered a giggle and Johanna raised an eyebrow. Despite her dire predicament, with a little push she would become hysterical with laughter. This upstart rogue of hers was getting himself truly into the deepest water.
“You have had a great deal of experience in those areas?” she countered gravely, not daring to look at Agnes.
“Yes,” he growled, scowling at her. “You . . . you have to resolve this matter, lady.”
Johanna bit her lip. “We have been trying to do so but it seems to me, sir, that it is my problem and I beg you to mind your own affairs.”
“I see, my lady,” he retorted loftily. “You plan to starve yourself so you can step out of it in a year’s time? Is that why you have the appetite of a . . . a sick sparrow?” Pampered lapdog had been on his lips, but fortunately he had not said it. “Or had you some other solution in mind? Is the blacksmith due after noon? A tasty morsel of gossip that will be.”
“I will think of something,” muttered Johanna.
“We will think of something and right swiftly, lady, for it is my business.” His fingers framed her cheeks, forcing her to look at him. “You have not thought this through, Johanna. If Fulk tells the judge you are wearing a chastity belt, it will be clear that we have not consummated our reunion. Remember that Stephen de Norwood advised that my possession of you, lady, was a strong argument for our marriage to prevail.”
His possession of her. For an instant, something beyond her control flickered in her, lighting sufficient flame to heat her pale cheeks.
Geraint felt her quiver delightfully and saw the frail beauty that had been growing back steadily with cherishing and time’s repair. There was only a faint purple now where Fulk had hit her. Did she feel what she might not want to name? Had she ever experienced desire for a man? He wanted to taste the innocence in her and lead her to a pavilion of earthly pleasure.
“May the Devil roast Fulk!” she cursed and flung away from him, shoulders that were becoming more enticing to him by the instant shaking with fury.
“Agnes, I will inspect my lady before you robe her for supper and we will see if something may be done to put you out of your misery, Johanna.”
“Inspect me!” exclaimed Johanna, whirling round on him, her fists clenched. “You will not . . .” She lowered her voice from a shriek as she realised the whole castle would be twitching their antennae towards the courtyard. “. . . inspect me. You will not come near me, you rogue.”
“Since I am risking excommunication and my honour to rescue you, you little shrew, you will obey me. I am the lord of this castle for the present and if you gainsay me, I will toss you back to Fulk and good riddance.”
“Ohhh!” She grabbed up a stool to hurl at him and Geraint wisely fled.
Johanna shut herself up in her tower room for the rest of the day and bade Agnes try once more the file and wires. By the time the waning sun sent rich, golden light tumbling across the furnishings, both women were feeling as inadequate as eunuchs in a harem.
“He is coming,” exclaimed Agnes, her bosom thrust out of the turret sill. “Proper dour he looks. By my troth, madam, I rather think he is as afeared of this meeting as you.”
GERAINT PAUSED IN midstride on the threshold. “What in Hell is this!”
His so-called wife lay upon her half-curtained bed with a sheet covering her from toe to waist, the rest of her was hidden behind a second sheet suspended vertically over the bed from a beam. Agnes was standing to attention beside her mistress’s draped feet.
“I see,” muttered Geraint. “I am now become a physician, am I? Would you like me to examine you for flat feet or some interesting blemishes as well while the mood is on me?”
The shape beneath the sheet twitched.
“My lady will permit you to look at the device but she will not speak to you while you make the examination.”
Cunning! So he was to be inspecting merely an item, not a person.
“Very well, it seems a fair enough bargain,” he exclaimed briskly. “Shall we begin?” He jerked his head at Agnes to peel the bedsheet back, but even he was not sufficiently braced for the brutality of what he saw.
Disembodied between a curtain of white and the sheet that hid her legs, the garment that encircled Johanna’s slender body was simple and cruel. There was a metal band about her waist and welded into it at centre front and back was a second strip of metal, half a span wide, which looped between her legs. The side panels were of leather which presumably partially lined the metal bands.
A thin ribbon of chafed skin was beginning to show. Heaven knows how sore she must be further down.
“Set the sheet back further,” he ordered and noted the responding tremble of unease from the bed. “Agnes, let us consult together on this. You have tried wire in the lock and I can see where you have filed. How tight is this?” He slid his fingers under it to test the tightness of the waist band. Johanna squealed. “I beg your pardon, I should have breathed on my fingers first. Aye, there is no purchase here.” The skin around her waist was reddened, but with her jerking the curtain had slid back to reveal a delightful navel and pearly skin. Geraint said a prayer to St. Cuthbert who was known to have stood in the cold North Sea for hours as penance for even speaking to a woman, and tried to concentrate.
The lock was cunningly wrought and its making would have cost a great deal. He ran a finger down the metal that descended tightly across Johanna’s belly and noticed another place where the women had cut the leather and tried to file.
“How loose is it beneath?” He pointed to between her legs where the band disappeared out of sight. The thighs beneath the metal quivered and the covering sheet slid lower. A few dark curling hairs were escaping into sight.
“Not loose at all, sir, as you would expect. There is a hole jagged with sharp teeth so that—excuse me, sir, but I must needs be frank—so that a man’s prick or finger could progress further but not withdraw undamaged, and there is an opening for my lady’s other business.”
Behind the hanging sheet, a fist pounded the mattress and the curtain threatened to descend. Geraint caught the back of his hand to his mouth, but seeing the soreness where the leather chafed Johanna’s inner thigh, his laughter fled, and he dropped the sheet fully over her again. The form beneath lost its tenseness.
“Tell your mistress that she shall be free of this even if I have to take the keys from Fulk at swordpoint. Have you been putting ointment on her to ease the rubbing?”
“I am not a halfwit, sir,” Agnes answered primly, “but last time it happened, it eventually broke the skin.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Three weeks before Yuletide. He was away in London. Even the ointment could not stop the chafing.”
“God ha’ mercy!”
Johanna heard the latch close violently. She sat up and snatched up her wrap, muttering curses on every man living, including Gervase because he had insisted on seeing her in her shame. She sniffed unhappily but she had had her fill of crying. Anyway, weeping was merely taking the lid off a pan over the fire; some of the steamy anger escaped but it never stopped the seething inside.
“You did the right thing, my lady.” Agnes was hard put not to laugh. “Oh, you should have seen his face when he saw the sheets.”
Johanna tried to look grim and then she could not help herself. “My lady’s other business! By all the Saints, you wretch, Agnes. I could have strangled you. I should have loved to see his expression when you said that.”
“Oh, truly, my lady, it was beyond price.”
“Help me with my kirtle. Oh, Heaven, Agnes, you do not suppose he will do anything foolhardy? Wh
at if the poor man thinks he must ride off to Enderby and demand the key?”
“Surely not in the dark, my lady.”
“I doubt that would deter him. Oh, Agnes, I am not sure I can face him over supper.”
“Courage, madam. If he was your real husband, he would have seen everything of you by now anyway. I would not mind, in your shoes. Honest, my lady, any woman would be pleased to have such a comely man on the leash.”
The rare laughter left Johanna. “It is different for me.”
Agnes laced her kirtle up the back with more vigour than usual. “Well, ’tis not for me to say, but I would make hay before it rains again.”
AWAITING HER IN the courtyard to escort her to the hall, Gervase de Laval was wearing a grin that would have made a cathedral door look narrow.
“If you splutter, I shall not accompany you.”
“No, come back, I agree it is no laughing matter, but I promise you we shall resolve it.”
“We!”
“And I shall warm my hands next time. No, Johanna, come back!”
At the board, he insisted that she eat a full meal, softly pointing out to her that she would be dead before she would be thin enough to slither from her torment.
“How fare you now?” he asked later as he led her to the great chamber where they stood before the fire together. The minstrel was playing at her mother’s feet and Sir Geoffrey and Father Gilbert were reminiscing about pilgrimages.
“Not as comfortable as I should like, sir. My belly is complaining after such idleness.” She gave a deep sigh, sliding her palm along the invisible steel encircling her. “I hope you do not see this as a challenge.”
“Perish the thought!” he muttered. “I am certainly not pounding across the Enderby drawbridge on a destrier with my lance lowered. If we had the time, we could sit you in a horse trough for the summer until it rusted away.”
At least it brought a smile to her lips but he continued, graver now. “If the vengeful Fulk insists you be examined, and proves you and I liars, my lady, the court may believe we have lied about everything. Do not forget that these men who sit in judgment have mostly denied themselves the company of women.”
“Ah yes, women contaminate the pure air of the spirit. I fear the men who become examiners, Gervase. They are the sort who would be pleased to burn women as witches or make them do penance as whores.”
“Men who take an infinite delight in thumbscrews, hmm.” Frowning, he leaned his forearm against the mantel, his chin sunk on his chest, his thumb rubbing at the quillon of his dagger. “I could try abducting the Enderby locksmith.”
“The man died of lung rot during Advent.”
He straightened, catching her fingers in his. “What did you do, my darling dear, stick pins in the wretch’s image?”
“That is not amusing,” she snarled, snatching away her hand.
He deliberately snared it again and carried her fingers to his lips. “I think I can break the lock.” His words were warm breath against her skin.
The green-grey eyes widened and her lips parted delightfully. “By all the Saints! How?”
Another woman might have hung about his neck like a May garland. He sensed Johanna wanted to do so but fear still shackled her soul. She was bereft of all but words to offer him; even promises were beyond her yet but he was filled with a sinful hope.
“How?” he echoed, and his blue gaze, fierce with mischief and the joy of challenge, became transfigured with sternness. “My lady, how brave are you?”
Twenty-one
“HOW BRAVE?”
Geraint saw the hope rush into her eyes like a spring tide, and masked his own apprehension.
“Are you fully primed for the examiner?” Lady Constance called out, only to be perturbed by her daughter’s unexpected ebullience.
“Like crossbows, mother? Yes.”
Father Gilbert, having bested the seneschal, received a concerned message. He was being whistled up by his owner to save the lamb from the wolf.
Geraint showed a sudden interest in the fire irons. He received a bright smile from Johanna, so he could not have been looking too predatory.
“May I have a word with you, my daughter?” called Father Gilbert.
“You have not explained, Gervase,” Johanna muttered, reluctant to leave her knight even if he resembled St. George having second thoughts about fighting dragons.
“Later,” Gervase answered casually. “After all we no longer have to be chaperoned.” A virginal blush pinkened cheeks already rosy from the fire’s warmth. “You will be quite safe.” His glance slid lazily down her surcote. He did not add “for now.”
Johanna found herself breathing shallowly. “I . . . I suppose so.”
If Father Gilbert noticed her unnatural colour, he made no comment but moved to make room for her on the windowseat. “You look happier tonight, my daughter.”
“I am not sure why,” she answered, watching Gervase join the minstrel. “None of my problems are solved as yet.”
“He grows more malleable, but such young men build up much energy. It needs to be let like blood. Perhaps Sir Geoffrey should arrange a hunt tomorrow to exhaust him.”
Johanna observed the priest shrewdly. “You are worried about my virtue?”
“You must be careful, my daughter. The proximity of your bed-chamber to this young man’s is foolhardy.”
“There is no cause to worry, Father. I am the last woman on earth to be seduced, and we are only carrying out Stephen de Norwood’s advice.”
“Yes, but, despite his holy vows, the proctor is a worldly man with no other target than to win the case. Sir Gervase is pleasing to the eye, my lady, and charming withal. It is my observation you are slowly falling beneath his spell.”
“Nonsense, Father, we are becoming friends, that is all.” The priest’s piercing gaze was trying to pinion her soul.
“Sin—temptation—wears a smile of friendship. His blood will be hot, Johanna. Give him a shoe nail and he will take the entire horse. You know nothing of his history.”
“Do you?” His silence spoke. As a priest, he could not deny the truth. “Is he married then?”
“Why that question, my daughter? Why not ask whether I know his true name? You see, you fall into the trap of lust quite innocently.”
“Oh, fie. Well, who is he then?”
“I do not know that.”
“Ah, but you know some of his friends. Well, so do I.” She lowered her voice even more. “He fought at Boroughbridge. He needed me to put a fresh dressing on his wound. Well, I am his wife, after all.” Closing her mouth with a snap, she looked away from the chaplain’s omniscient stare. “Nothing has changed, Father, and I promise you I still intend to be a nun. The pleasures of the flesh—if they exist—hold no enticement.”
He smiled sadly, “You speak bravely, but I do not want to see you hurt again, my child. You know that because he is hunted, this young man cannot stay and care for you as you deserve. We are all risking the wrath of Holy Church because we wish to see a golden crown for you in Heaven after all your suffering.”
One could not say “ha” to one’s chaplain. She was grateful for his counsel but he did not understand how much Gervase’s friendship meant to her. “Hmm.” Johanna wriggled the scarlet toes of her shoes. “I think that I shall be at the back of the heavenly diadem queue somehow. I do not feel purified by affliction, in fact, quite the reverse. I have no humility whatsoever and why should I forgive such a beast as Fulk? My sufferings were not deserved.”
“Child, you must never doubt God’s love for you. You have prayed for divine help and your prayers have been answered.”
“Yes,” she said softly, but her feet had begun to tap. The minstrel was beating out a rhythm on the naker while Gervase, borrowing the viol, struck up a merry pace with the bow. They were laughing and talking to each other as they played and here she was, a grown woman, being chastised.
“Johanna, look at me.” The priest’s expression was grave
. “Women are frail and easily tempted as you are now. I think you should spend tonight in prayer.”
“No, Father,” she answered, wondering if he would also lead Gervase aside and offer him a golden heavenly helm. “Forgive me, but I do not think that would be wise. I was unwell this morning.”
“And you did not come to mass.”
“I needed rest. Perhaps tomorrow night I will come to the chapel.” She set her hand upon his rigid arm in an attempt to reassure him. “Please, do not abandon me. I will not be foolish, I swear, but I . . . I have to present to the archdeacon’s court as a woman who two years ago let her heart lead her head and there is another reason which I will explain as well, but I am not infatuated with him. There is nothing for you to fear.” She glanced once more at the two young men and caught Gervase watching her consideringly. He gave her a swift, understanding smile before lowering his gaze to the fingerboard of the viol. “He will leave as soon as he can, I promise you.”
“I have supported you in this deception, my daughter, but I am warning you that Satan will be heating irons for both of you if you give in to pleasure.”
“Pleasure!” Her rebellious soul protested. “Father, no one knows better than I that there is little pleasure in procreation. Upon my soul, I am in more danger from Fulk than from Gervase de Laval and I shall never be at liberty to become a nun if I do not have his trust and support at the hearing. The last thing I am going to do is treat him as though he were lust personified.”
“The young are ambitious. This one was ragged when I found him. What if he refuses to leave?”
“First, he would have to dispute my dower land with Fulk—though at least most of the arrangement was in coin and movable goods which my lord father has not yet parted with—and Gervase would certainly not receive Conisthorpe which is only within the king’s gift, and then the rest of the inheritance goes to Miles, which reminds me . . .” she was desperate to drive the conversation into a safe fold, “. . . I wish my mother or you, Father, would discipline the little scoundrel. He is running amok.”
The Knight And The Rose Page 32