She woke the following morning, naked and warm. The golden gown was draped over a chest. The rest of hers and Hugh's clothes were coiled in a heap at the bottom of the bed. She closed her eyes again, smiling as she remembered how he had kissed and praised her breasts, her flanks, her belly. More still, for he had kissed her down there. She had been horrified at first but he had pinned her close and ignored her squeals of protest, kissing and tonguing her until she did not know truly where she stopped and he began.
It was a heady feeling, to know she was truly desired. In so many lovely ways, Hugh was no Bishop Thomas. He revelled in her and in her company: in every touch he seemed to discover a new wonder. It was the same for her: an unending journey of delight.
She touched Hugh's back. "I love you," she whispered. She wanted to say the words but did not want to wake him, not when he was sleeping so peacefully.
“Marry me,” he growled. Rolling over, he trapped her between his powerful thighs. “I will not let you go until you say yes, so say it. Marry me, Joanna.”
He saw emotions skid across her face, complete surprise and then joy. She blazed like a ruby, her dark eyes glowing as she brought both hands up, to hug her face, then his.
"Oh, Hugo!"
"Say, yes." He tried to sound threatening. He clutched her more tightly, then released her in case he hurt her.
She jumped out of bed and sped round the room.
"What are you doing?"
"Looking for my shoes."
Amused, he held up the pair, small and neat and so tiny he wanted to kiss them, both heaped at the bottom of the turmoil of cloths that was now their bedding. "Joanna?"
He knew when she turned from profile to full face and dropped a shoe what her answer would be.
"Hugo." She dropped to her knees as if she were the one who had proposed. "Hugo, that is lovely. A lovely idea, but it is impossible." She tried to tug at something, then seemed to recall she wore nothing and pulled at her hair instead. "You should marry a beautiful —” Her voice cracked—"A beautiful, fair lady with a castle and rich lands, not a female alchemist who is ever under suspicion by the church."
"Then what of us?" he demanded, deliberately blunt, perhaps even a little cruel to force the question. For her to think he would be interested in some insipid blond annoyed him.
The glow in her face became a furnace as she blushed right down to her throat. "I could be your mistress?"
He saw that if they spoke more on the matter she would break down utterly, so he did the unexpected. He poured himself the last of the mead and sat up comfortably in bed. "Very well, young mistress mine. We will speak no more of it. What is the day like? Is it dry? Can you peep through the shutters?"
The scorching glance she gave him then would have been like Medusa's and turned him to stone, had he not another plan already up his sleeve.
No, not his sleeve, for he too was naked. This plan was held in the depths of his heart, where Joanna was.
"If the day is bright I shall wear red," he announced, his heart thumping wildly as he began to work out a new strategy.
Chapter 30
"You do not know how many guards there are?" Hugh kicked at the base of an apple tree. "Are you blind?"
Elspeth looked up from the spinning. "It is hardly Joanna's province."
Joanna, quelling a desire to tell Hugh not to take his temper out on the tree, looked up from the flowerbed and said sharply, "How is it you do not know? You entered the bishop's palace."
"Hell's teeth!" Hugh flung both his hands in the air. "How can I plan with no facts?"
"You are both concerned about your people," Elspeth said quickly.
The poor lady was trying, Joanna recognized, but she wanted Hugh to placate her. She folded her arms and tapped a foot, a pose she dimly recalled her mother adopting with her father.
"This wastes time," Hugh growled.
"Bickering always does. We can agree on that," Joanna answered.
"Little wretch," he mumbled in Latin, a phrase she had taught him.
Elspeth twirled her spindle again. "Careful where you weed," she warned Joanna. "I have some marigolds amongst those roses."
"I will," Joanna promised.
She hoed away in silence for a time, hearing the sheep in the fields outside and the cawing of a crow. Hugh's men practiced sword-craft in those fields but their clash of arms had fallen silent: they must be taking a break. In the yard beside the enclosed garden, a laundress was singing as she washed clothes.
Hugh swung on one of the apple branches. He was the only one without a task, which irked Joanna. He said he needed his head clear for thinking, but she had not seen much evidence of that so far.
"I do not have the men for a direct assault," he said now. "I knew that from the beginning. Even a smaller force is risky: it means more men to sneak in and out again."
"But what if my father or David cannot run?" Joanna whispered, stopping in her hoeing and leaning on the hoe for support as the world about her seemed to darken. "What if they cannot walk?"
"If we return to my father's, would that fellow Mercury help?"
Joanna shook her head.
"I agree. Chatting with my father about truffles seems about his mark. And the Templars will do nothing." He almost kicked the tree a second time, but spied Elspeth watching and kicked the turf instead. "I can carry both, if needs must. I have carried two men before. But we need to get inside the donjon first. I could disguise myself."
He broke off and looked at Joanna. "If you returned to West Sarum and told Bishop Thomas you had escaped, would he believe you?"
"I think so, yes."
"What must we do to make your tale convincing?"
"Leave the yellow gown behind for one," Elspeth said calmly. "But no matter. I will keep it for you, for your return. You can return here with your people," she added. "Your men can stay here, too, while you are away in West Sarum."
"We could be many days, possibly longer," Joanna felt compelled to warn, but Elspeth was not disconcerted.
"I like to hear the cheerful row and racket about the place; it reminds me of when my sons were in training for arms." She smiled at their astonished faces. "See? That is one problem solved."
"No, no!" cried Joanna later, in the great hall. The day had darkened and turned to rain, so they had retired indoors. She and Elspeth and Hugh's men were sitting on the small dais, watching Hugh's "performance."
"You are too hunched and stagger too much," she said urgently, as Hugh glared at her and straightened.
"How do you know?" he demanded, sober in a flash.
"I have seen it! Drunks are more careful."
She mimed walking on the dais, stepping along the edge and around Hugh's men with exaggerated caution while they cheered her on. A maid brushing out old floor rushes leaned on her broom and applauded.
“But I am a belligerent, drunken fellow,” Hugh protested, wind-milling with his arms to prove his point.
“You are when crossed,” Joanna said quickly. “We do not want you to be so drunk that you do not get through the palace gates!”
In a swirling blur of motion, Hugh pelted across the hall and hoisted her into his arms. “What I wish to learn, mistress,” he said, as his men roared their approval, “Is how you know so much about drunks.”
“How can you jest!” Joanna hissed against his chest, wishing she did not feel so warm and safe there: a dangerous illusion of safety. “Even in disguise you will be in danger! We do not know how the guards will react! What if they put a knife in you when you pretend to be drunk? What if they put you in the prison under the floor and not the donjon? What if someone recognizes you?”
“Peace, squirrel, all plans have risks.” He tipped up her face and kissed her. A be-silent-before-my-men kiss. Joanna complied but only because she was plotting herself. There should be more to Hugh’s “disguise” than an eye-patch and a baggy hat. She would ensure there was more.
`"What is that?" Hugh lifted the wooden spoon and
trickled a portion of the muddy liquid back into the bowl.
Joanna tugged at her skirts. She was once more in her plain brown gown and very drab it seemed after the glorious golden silks. She and Hugh were once more in "their" chamber, while Elspeth found more clothes for Hugh, no easy task when he was so tall and sinewy. The clothes of her own sons were too short in the leg, which had made Joanna giggle, but mostly with nerves. What they were planning was still a dangerous undertaking.
"It will dye your hair from dark to chestnut," she answered, making a swift sign of the cross behind her back for luck. The dye she had devised months ago, as a desperate "amusement" for Bishop Thomas, and it had worked well enough on her own hair. She could only pray it would not make Hugh's hair fall out. Or that the bishop would remember her hair dye when he saw the tall, strapping man.
Hugh stirred the tincture with the spoon, frowning. "It is a woman's trick."
"It has saffron in it," Joanna said, feeling a twinge of guilt at using this most expensive spice. "And if women alone do it, who will suspect?"
"Folk who remember me as a dark man will not recognize me as a red one? I see that, Joanna, but what of my beard? My stubble is black and I would not stay to wait while it grows for you to dye it."
"I have the answer for that, too." Joanna held up a small flask. "This contains a potion that will irritate and redden your skin. That, and if you wear pads of cloth in the sides of face to bulge out your cheeks a little and alter the shape of your profile. Only for a day or so," she added quickly.
"A plump, red idiot." Hugh nodded. "So be it."
"You need not put it on now," she warned, as she handed him the flask. "In truth, I would use it only if you think the guards are noticing you too much. It will make your skin itch as if there are a thousand devils fighting in your face."
Hugh moved closer. "I have other parts that itch. Have you a salve for them?"
"If we are to reach anywhere close to West Sarum today, we must make haste. I should make myself more dishevelled," Joanna replied.
She knew she was right, but even so she was disconcerted when Hugh stepped back, crouching to tug at the hem of her gown.
“You need to tear this and muddy your shoes. You have walked for hours in your past, yes? You know how really weary folk limp along?”
“I do.” She had done it herself, too many times.
“Can you make your hands red? Spill sulphurs and mud on your gown? Then you can claim I forced you to work all hours and that you escaped as soon as you could. You have your gold to dazzle our lord bishop?”
Joanna nodded. She felt numb in the face of this planning, although she knew she ought to feel excitement. If it worked, they would free Solomon and David.
But why did he break away from me? Why did he not want to kiss me? One kiss, just for us.
She heard Hugh humming and felt more downcast, agreeing to his every suggestion.
Lady Elspeth sank onto her chair in the great hall and absently touched the great salt server stood in the middle of the high table, as if to convince herself that it at least was real.
“Both of you look so different,” she said faintly. “Are you taller, Hugh, as well as a red-head?”
“I packed cloths into those boots you found me,” Hugh agreed. “I wear three padded jerkins, too.”
He did look even more huge, Joanna agreed, dressed in a gaudy blue, gold and red—rich fabric to show status—but the most startling change was his hair, a bright, fiery red, shot through with strands of dark. With his blue eyes the result was astonishing.
“Are you not too conspicuous?” Elspeth ventured.
“I want to be noticed.” Hugh folded his arms, his red hair glinting like fire as he shifted slightly.
“You are always noticed, my dear, but this? And Joanna?”
“It is an old gown,” Joanna said quickly. She knew she was ragged and untidy, her hair feeling dreadful; messed and uncombed.
“You look like a hedge-woman,” said Elspeth.
“Or a pedlar,” called one of Hugh’s men. They were ranged round the great hall, watching with careful interest.
Joanna knew she looked worse than that. From her waist down she was daubed in a mixture of mud, cobwebs and strands of bramble, artfully placed there by Hugh, who had a good eye for colour and shape. Her fingers were heavily stained again and her sleeves torn and shredded.
“Grubby girl,” said Hugh, giving her a wink.
“Copper-headed mountebank,” she retorted, feeling more heartened for the nickname and the wink.
Around them the hall thundered with stamping feet and nervous laughter and Hugh had to pitch his voice to be heard. “Hey, we shall be riding together. And on a different horse.”
“Not Lucifer?” Joanna understood why, but she had grown used to the big black stallion.
“A good horse, for sure, for then Thomas’ men will treat me well, but different.”
“I wish you God-speed,” said Elspeth, rising to her feet to see them off.
"Lord Thomas is still staying at West Sarum?" Joanna asked, when they were on their way.
"So my spies tell me." Hugh had assumed he would find her less distracting in her drab gown. How wrong he was! He rode with memories and associations rising fast and urgent in his mind and loins; all he could pray was that she had not noticed. "How do you find the bay gelding?" he asked, resisting a desire to tug on her familiar golden hair net.
"At this rate, I shall be very convincing as someone who has run over twenty miles by the time we reach the town!"
Hugh chuckled, relieved to hear her spiky indignation. He loathed the whole idea of her return to Thomas, the loathsome.
"The bishop will be delighted with the gold I am bringing."
"It was generous of Elspeth to find us more."
"It was indeed. Bishop Thomas will be happy."
She no longer calls him her lord. I wonder if she even knows?
Joanna flinched, saying quickly, "It is nothing. Nay, you need not hug me, Hugo—it was only a lad scaring crows off the seed-corn. I saw the movement in the fields. Where do you think we should part? And what will you do?"
"I will set you down a mile from the city walls and follow at a bow-shot distance, leading my horse and keeping you in my sight."
This was a promise he had made to himself. He did not want her troubled or abused on the last part of her journey. There was danger enough, without that.
"Then, when I have seen you within the palace gates, I shall visit every tavern in the town, I shall and end at the public bath-house and stew, spending money, giving beggars alms and looking every part a braying, rich red-head, come to the city from the country for the day. Then I shall lace my tongue with cider and act the drunken sot, and curse the bishop in good hearing of Thomas' men."
Hugh looked over the low green hills and flat water-meadows, seeing no threats, but no answers, either. The plain truth was he did not want Joanna in the palace.
"Stay at the best tavern. I can rent you a room and you can wait for me there."
She answered without looking at him. "You know it will take two to break in and out of the donjon. Even two might be too few. Only I have the skill to undo the locks and fetters, and the sleeping potion to drug the guards."
"By use of acids and draughts. I could do that."
"You would not know which."
"You could mark the vessels for me."
"And what if they are broken in some mishap? What if more needs to be made?"
"Then I would ask your father." Hugh drew rein and stopped the bay gelding on the track. "I do not want you at the palace."
She sighed. "But we agreed, Hugo, that this way rouses least suspicion. I return to the palace, having escaped my own captor, and you are flung into the donjon the next day or the day after, with no connection between us. We talked all this through."
"I disliked it then and I hate it now. Why can it not be me and a man of mine?"
"Because Hugh, neither you
nor any knight of yours knows enough alchemy!"
"Your father can help us."
"Only if he is outside the donjon. What if he is not?"
"Hell's teeth!" He wanted to jump off the horse, fling her over the saddle and smack some sense into her, except that she was damnably right.
"I do not think we should do this," he announced. David had been a fool to get himself captured, so let him make his own way.
Joanna was shaking her head. He felt her gold net scrape against his chest and knew he was trapped again when she said softly, "I cannot leave my father in the palace, subject to the whims of the bishop. Nor can you, Hugo. You cannot leave your brother. What if he is cast into the prison pit again?"
"I know." When he had him safe, he was going to punch David.
But Joanna and her father would be safe, too.
Hugh gritted his teeth and spurred the horse on again.
Chapter 31
Her father was no longer with Bishop Thomas in the palace. No sooner had news of her desperate "escape" flown about West Sarum than Solomon had been taken back to the prison chamber in the donjon.
"Solomon swore to me that he had made a potion that would seduce the Templar into speech. He promised me that once Manhill has drunk it of his own free will, he will tell me anything I want to know.
“I must have those relics.” Thomas paused to run his fingers through the gold Joanna had brought with her. "Do you think that possible?"
"Only if Manhill drinks it of his own free will," Joanna answered carefully. She was relieved that her father, who had a habit of promising marvels in his enthusiasm for alchemy, had been prudent enough to add that small clause. “Does my father know I am here, safe?”
"That is what I thought.” Thomas waved aside her question. “I have returned Solomon to the donjon, to keep the Templar company. So far, Manhill refuses to drink anything but ale."
You hateful man! Quickly, Joanna lowered her eyes. The ache in her limbs, after sprinting through the outskirts of the city and up the long steep high street to the palace, vanished in a hot wave of distaste. It was, now she thought of it, no more than she would have expected. Always, by one means or another, Thomas kept people in doubt and fear. Only this time, by placing her father back with David, he had made their rescue easier.
Love and Chivalry: Four Medieval Historical Romances Page 78