“Perhaps he was being too holy for her taste,” interrupted Johanna.
Her supposed husband looked surprised at such a worldly remark. “Too holy! What, inadequate for her purpose?” His cheeks reddened unbelievably. “No, not him.” He redirected the conversation. “If you want my opinion, I would say Thomas coveted the crown.”
“And yet you fought for him.” Did Gervase want to lie with her? she wondered. After all, he had been trying not to look at her.
“No, my lady, I was there in the service of another lord whose name I do not propose to tell you, so do not pry further.”
Smiling to herself, she lay back on the pillow and gazed enigmatically at the arched ceiling. “So both the Despensers are back from exile.”
Gervase rose and paced like a schoolmaster. “The king is not of the same ilk as his father. He dislikes the cares of kingship. He had much rather ride with the hunt, or indulge himself with rowing upon the river or gossiping with common workmen. Hugh Despenser the younger, for all his many faults, is very capable. That is why he is—pardon the humour—indispensable. He is content to handle the day-to-day running of the kingdom while the king frolics.”
“So we are back to Hugh. If he is capable, Gervase, why will the lords not be content for him to help King Edward?”
“My lady, the king is the type of man who bestows all his attention on one favourite at a time to the exclusion of all other lords. He did it with Piers Gaveston and he is doing it with Hugh. The other lords resent it. Instead of consulting a council and sharing the duties out or carrying some responsibility himself, the king lets everything fall on Hugh’s shoulders.”
She turned again. This time most of her back was bared and she plucked the sheet up to keep her warm.
Gervase glared at her. “My feet are freezing, my lady, have I your permission to retire?”
Well, thought Johanna mischievously. This has been your punishment for running away last week. She was feeling merciless and unaccountably skittish, as if she wanted to test this man to his limits.
“What has suddenly stung you?” She lowered her voice huskily, watching him unwind the kirtle from his neck. Wriggling down, she nestled her head into her pillow. “You belong to it, that world of factions and patronage but it seems to me very hazardous. I suppose if you were to find service with the Despensers, you might rise very swiftly.”
His lips twisted derisively at the notion, and the innocent innuendo. Rise! Tormented by her lying there, he bit back the unlicensed comment that came readily to his lips and instead answered politically. “I might.” What ailed the woman? Was she teasing him, keeping him talking in her bedchamber, or was this done out of innocence? If freeing her from the chastity belt had loosened her morals, how far dare he push his luck? Best leave her now.
“You put your wager on the wrong cock, did you not?”
Her vocabulary, innocuously uttered, was unfortunate.
“Yes, Johanna,” he answered wearily. “Now be quiet or I will kiss you goodnight,” and headed for the sanity of the stairs.
“Perhaps you should.”
He swung round abruptly. She had extended a white arm, the wrist angled for his courtesy, her eyes feline in the candlelight. The air was silent between them; Geraint was aware that Agnes’s breathing had grown rhythmic.
“You have been playing me like a fish, madam,” he declared softly, his tone as chilled as the whitewashed wall at his back. “Well, I have spines and teeth.”
“Spines and teeth and talk,” she countered haughtily.
He stepped forward. “I am in your pay. What service may I do for you?” If his voice sounded brutal, it was because he felt used.
“I do not know,” Johanna whispered, seeming to ignore his callousness as if she could not take his feelings seriously. “Please do not be difficult. I . . . have a question. I-I want to know so I can make up my mind whether I should take holy vows. Is it possible for a woman to enjoy the act of procreation?”
“The Devil take you, Johanna!” He buried his face in his hands with a groan and sat down heavily on the bed beside her. “I am not going to procreate with you to . . . to order. My feet are freezing, you have kept me here lullabying you about Hugh Despenser for quite false reasons, and what is more you have been deliberately flaunting your nakedness.”
He raised his head to glare at her for her silence, only to find she was studying him in amazement, her eyes wide and candid. “But I have not done a thing. I was listening to every word you said.”
“Yes, and you even managed one intelligent question, but you were undeniably flaunting yourself before me.” He knew he should return to his room, but he could not move. Her lips were parted, moist. Her breasts were within a stretch and curl of his fingers.
“Am I doing it now?”
“What?”
“This . . . this flaunting.”
“Yes!”
“But I am not doing anything.”
“God ha’ mercy, woman, you do not need to. You only have to lie there in bed without anything on.”
“Oh.”
“However . . .” he refused to look at her, clasping his hands in front of him, his knuckles white. “However, the fact that you are doing so and that you have just asked me to kiss your hand rather implies that you are experiencing what is commonplace in such circumstances.”
“I am?”
“Yes, you are interested.”
“In what?”
“The fact that I am sitting here in your bedchamber with no breechclout. Your act of encouraging me to be here definitely shows that you are healing.”
Plucking at a glinting loose thread in the crimson coverlet, Johanna murmured, “You still haven’t answered my question.”
She turned upon her elbows and he could not help staring his fill at the shadowy valley between her breasts. “How can you be so sure whether a woman is enjoying whatever you do to her?”
Heaven put him out of his misery! Which saint should he pray to? St. Valentine or St. Cuthbert?
“She makes a noise.”
“Your pardon?” She jerked her head round at him, her hair brushing his arm. “A noise? That is all? What sort of noise?”
“A groany-gaspy sort of—yes, a gasp, a sigh of pleasure.” He drew his shoulders back with vanity as St. Valentine and St. Cuthbert answered his prayer simultaneously. “I could actually prove it to you without the . . . the act of procreation taking place. That is, if you are not too chafed and sore.”
Johanna held his gaze, wondering how much she might trust him. Dear God, if he could prove to her that there was kindness! “Could you? What, now?”
He nodded proudly, without a smile. If this would save her from the cloister, mend her and render her marriageable again for a better man than him, what harm was there, providing he could keep himself in control. Easy, Geraint told himself. Do not show enthusiasm. Step on a creaking stair and she will arm herself again.
“Prove it!”
“Johanna.”
“Yes, now, without carnal knowledge or whatever.”
“But it would be sinful.”
“Gervase.” She caught his hand within her slender fingers. “I want to know. Please, as a friend . . .”
He looked as if he was having pain in swallowing. “Very well,” he answered gruffly, glancing at Agnes’s back. Loosening the bed coverings, he slid in beside her.
“She is asleep. Pull the bed curtain. What do you do first?”
“I am not teaching swordplay. You cannot do it by instructions. It is more subtle than that.” He pushed her down. “I have to kiss you first.”
“But we have tried that and it does not work.”
“Johanna, do you think you could just lie there, keep silent and leave it to me?”
“But we should discu—”
His mouth came down on hers, stifling further conversation and he eased himself into lying full length beside her, resting on his left elbow. It was not ideal but what was the twinge
ing of a wound compared with restoring a lady?
Johanna supposed she might get used to it. It was remarkable the emotions a man could put into kissing. Gervase’s mouth upon hers was tender yet forceful, demanding yet generous. Her lips parted beneath his and he eventually laughed and raised his head. Then he kissed her neck and throat, brushing his lips over her skin as he slid down to her shoulders. It was an interesting sensation.
“Do you want me to snuff out the candle?” His voice was like the newly invented velvet, rich, silky and deep.
“Please,” she whispered.
His lips came back down on her.
“Ohhhh!”
“What is it?”
“I—your hand is like ice.”
“Warm it for me. Breathe on it.” He held his palm to her lips. She complied. His mouth curled in a smile. He bent his face to hers again, his lips urging hers to part for him while his hand had moved to touch the tip of her right breast. He did not grab like Fulk had done. This man’s touch was gentle, tantalising, teasing.
Johanna began to feel the magic. Sensations swirled within the casing of her hips. She was trying to fathom how it was possible that by caressing her nipple to a peak, he could unleash a sense of softness between her thighs. Then she gave up the labour of thought and surrendered to the feelings flowing through her.
“That is wondrous,” she murmured.
“You like it? Welcome news. We may progress further.”
He stroked a finger down over her belly and drew battle plans across her skin; sorties and forays took place.
“Hmmm.” She would have purred, had she been a cat. “I shall go to sleep if you do that much longer.” His fingers tormented her breast again and she wriggled.
“This next part is important. It could take a while but you will enjoy it, I promise. Lie still.” His fingers slid over the nest of hair between her legs. She tensed. He stroked the hair, soothing her and then slid his whole hand between her legs to palm her. Surprisingly the feeling that he was setting a hand of ownership upon her stirred her pleasurably and Johanna, who had sworn never to let a man’s hand near her thighs again, was astonished at her own reaction. Then he parted her and began to gently caress her.
She tightened her defences instantly against him.
“No, you are becoming too intimate,” she protested, pulling at his wrist to stay him.
The remark was somewhat late but he complied. “Then you will never know. It is your decision.”
“Very well, a little longer then.”
“Just try to feel drowsy and unafraid. All I shall do is touch you with my fingers, softly, caressingly. There is no danger, nothing to fear. Close your eyes and feel the tiny waves of pleasure begin to grow.”
Gervase’s experience was evident. Taking her own hand, he placed it where he had been touching her. “Feel that you are wet and slick with moisture.”
“This is so strange. Why is it so?”
“Your body is lighting beacons and balefires.” He set his mouth upon hers again while his sensual fingers stirred her further.
“That Master Vogelweide,” she whispered against his lips.
“Hmmm?”
“I suppose he was a journeyman in the art of love.”
“I doubt it.”
“Ohhh!”
“There, eh?” He bent his head to her breast and teased her nipple with his tongue while his finger laboured vigorously further down. Fulk had tried licking her breast and it had left her feeling nauseous, but this man. . . she buried her fingers in the long golden hair and he laughed. Her body grew hot and she wanted to arch towards him, gasping as his fingers played between her thighs relentlessly.
“I want . . .” she gasped.
“What do you want?”
“You!” A further wave of heat rushed through her and a second wave, indescribable, drove her up onto a nameless shore and she subsided, gasping.
The man kissed her on the forehead and stood up. “Good night, Johanna.” His own loins were on fire. Outside her door, he leaned his forehead against the cold stone, his breath uneven.
“Ho,” chortled Jankyn some minutes later as Geraint tripped over a boot and cursed ribaldly before he reached his chilly bed.
“Not exactly ho, Jankyn. My lady wanted a bedtime story about Hugh Despenser.”
“How he fell in love with a beautiful prince?” The jester’s tone was a sigh. “Who are you, Gervase?”
For answer the chamber blew into darkness. It was his secret.
Twenty-four
IF CATS HAD souls, might a wild mouser who had feasted on a stolen bowl of cream remember that delicious taste next morning? Johanna tried hard to recall exactly how the magical sensation had felt, but mere words were useless. The enchantment had been fleeting but proof that she was not broken beyond repair.
And now here was her bowl of cream, large and available, standing behind her at the hearing next day. But bowls of cream lacked souls. This soul was looking decidedly pleased with himself—a stallion that had found his way into the next field.
“How fare you?” He bent his head and in full gaze of Fulk kissed her on the neck. She turned and caught his hand, bringing it to her cheek, and saw Fulk’s lizard visage metamorphose to ugly red. He looked primed to charge across the nave and smash his mailed fist into her face. With a prayer to Our Lady, Johanna crossed her fingers guiltily within the folds of her skirts. No, she was not out of the wood into safe pasture yet. It was needful to be vigilant and in a state of grace; last night she had behaved as badly as any recalcitrant sinner.
Fewer people were gathered in the church this second day. The hearing’s notoriety had dimmed—after all, there were goods to be sold and crops to be tended. Even Fulk’s men were more subdued. Yawns and the creak and rasp of armoured limbs frequently rearranging themselves showed they were bored and disgruntled. Only Edgar de Laverton, who was ogling Johanna unashamedly from behind his lord’s back, showed any enthusiasm for being there.
Called to answer the libels, Johanna presented her answer through the proctor. A little of her old courage returning, she had been tempted to make an oral answer as well as present the written counter-libel, but her mother and the proctor had advised her against it; she was a lady. It was sufficiently damaging to her honour having her affairs aired in the common hearing—better to play the meek sheep than the assertive shrew.
The rumble of comment after she sat down dismayed her. Opinion rarely sided with an abused wife. Few women in unhappy marriages had the generous spirit to applaud another regaining her freedom; if they suffered, why should not she!
“Yon hoary scoundrel is going to trundle a whole arsenal of weapons against us,” muttered Gervase, leaning forward and breaking into her wretched fears. “Look to Agnes, mesdames. Watkyn was offered a very fat purse yesterday.”
“Pah, Agnes is as loyal as a flea on a healthy dog,” whispered her mother. “No, Gervase, what I am waiting to discover is which venal wretches that whoreson has bribed for tomorrow. You mark my words, there will be a half-dozen eager to swear that Father Benedict was elsewhere on the day he made you handfast.”
“My life on it,” agreed Gervase softly, “and if he can prove me a rascal, he will. I could still hang.”
“Then it is as well you are now much loved in this town. It is not forgotten what you did for the weavers and the fisherfolk. I saw the judge note the cheers from the townspeople when you entered the court on Monday.”
JOHANNA AND GERVASE spent the afternoon in a mock questioning of Jankyn and Agnes. Had it been merely a game, it would have been amusing, but after supper Aidan found Johanna’s pig refusing to touch his trough and several rats lying dead close by. The obvious evidence of hellebore poison sent them to their beds early, stunned and unhappy.
The third day, the celebration of the Conversion of St. Mary Magdalene but also the Feast of Fools, began with the naming of witnesses: her mother, Agnes and Watkyn on Gervase’s behalf; and Edyth, Father Gilbert and
several others were named by Fulk as witnesses to her real marriage. Johanna idly noticed with relief that Edgar was absent and that there were fewer of Fulk’s retainers present. What she was not expecting was the judge announcing that the examiner would take her deposition at the castle after dinner that afternoon.
“Oh, God protect me, Gervase. My wits are so addled.”
“Courage, Johanna, you will manage. Just remember the chicken blood.”
The examiner, Martin de Scruton, was waiting for her in Conisthorpe’s great chamber, dark-robed and wearing the grave face that was the stamp of his profession. This man did not torture people, she reminded herself; this was a church court that derived its bread and butter mostly from small issues. As she entered, he rose from behind the small linened board set up for his convenience, and indicated the stool before it.
At the end of the table, the notary, his balding head bonneted, his sheaf of quills sharpened, rubbed at the outside of his nose, watching her unsmiling. The huge calloused side of his third finger threatened to snare her attention but she forced herself to chastely lower her gaze, sensing the man’s gritty eyes feeding on her body as if he was hoping shortly for some salacious tidbits to enliven his routine.
In the long, inscrutable face of her interrogator, however, was frozen the cold asceticism of years of celibacy. “Put your hand on the Holy Gospels, my lady, and swear to tell the truth.”
She set her palm flat upon the embossed cover and repeated the oath after him. The leather felt comfortable against her fingers. God was not angry with her yet. Well, Heavenly Lord, she told Him inwardly, it will be as close to the truth as I possibly dare.
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