“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 bowshot 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, and end at the public bathhouse and stew, spending money, giving beggars alms and looking every part a braying, rich redhead, 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’s 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.
Hard on the heels of her dislike followed hope. Hugh at this moment was already in West Sarum, carousing and calling, acting the part of the rich, drunken redheaded fool.
As for herself—Joanna flicked her mud-stained gown and scowled.
“May I go to bathe, please?” she asked, playing the role of escapee to the hilt. “I long to wash him off my skin. He was vile.”
“Hugh Manhill gave you the means to practice alchemy.”
“That was his father.” About to add that Sir Yves loved gold, Joanna stopped herself in time. With Bishop Thomas sitting at a huge desk in his private solar, running his hands through the heap of chains, coins, and nuggets that she had spread before him, she did not think it wise. “I thought of flight all the time. Every day, each night, I waited for my chance to get away, to return to you.”
I should have called him “my lord.” What is wrong with me?
“You seized the moment. Well done, Joanna.”
There was a dryness to Thomas’s tone that she did not like. He had not questioned her about her escape. He had not asked after Mercury, the hostage he had “gifted” to the Manhills by a ruse. He had not asked if she was injured, or thirsty, or hungry. He did not even inquire if she had walked all the way.
“You will be able to resume Solomon’s work? Pick up where he has left it?”
She gave a small bow, avoiding his avid eyes, hoping to hide the revulsion that welled in her. “If I am allowed to see him. If I can ask my father what assays he has already performed, my own work will go quicker.”
Thomas yawned, a sign he was no longer listening. “Why is some of this gold marked with the heads of kings? Kings from long past?”
“It is how it grew. May I see my father?”
“Later, perhaps.”
“Thank you.” At least Thomas was no longer asking after the provenance of Orri’s hoard. “It is good to be home.”
Thomas stroked the cool, gleaming gold. He was mildly hungry, although not certain what he fancied. Perhaps it was merely the girl. She had returned dusty and care-worn, quite broken down and untidy, and yet at the same time, different. He recalled how she had walked into his solar, glancing at the guards, smiling at them. There was a brighter color in her face, a merry glitter in her eyes. She was desirable again.
“You may bathe,” he conceded, anticipating her transformation. “I will send maids to attend you. Come to me at supper. You can tell me then how yours and Solomon’s work progresses.”
She bowed out of his presence. Dimly, he was aware of a clerk at the other end of the long table, staring aft
er her over bundles of scrolls and parchments. He cracked his knuckles together, smirking at the scribe’s discomfort.
The girl was back, with gold. He had her, and her Jew-bred father, exactly where he wanted them. Soon he would have a potion to get the truth out of the Templar and then he would have the relics, too.
Life was good to him.
Counting guards, checking who was armed as she mounted the donjon staircase, Joanna knew that Bishop Thomas expected to bed her that night.
Then I must take the ancient story of Penelope as my guide. Thomas is my unwanted suitor. Like Penelope with her unlooked-for suitors, I must delay the bishop without him realizing what I am about.
She quailed at the task ahead of her, her feet slowing as she climbed the narrow spiral of the donjon. How could she delay? How many days and nights would she have to delay?
I may have to lie with him. What if there is a child? I will not know if he or Hugh is the father.
You know potions and elixirs. Use them!
Because she knew the guards would report it, she did not pause on the first floor but kept going. She did not glance at the iron-studded door and gave no sign of having heard a muffled cough from within the chamber.
“Be calm and easy,” she told herself under her breath. The bishop ruled by spite and fear. If she asked the guards beside the door about Solomon, Thomas would know her question within the hour. She must appear content to be at “home” inside the palace and keen to resume work.
Stifling a sigh, she stepped into her old alchemical chamber, seeing at once that her father had left his favorite cup on top of her leather apron. The pit of her stomach felt to drop by another hand-span. She touched the earthenware beaker, hoping against all sense that it would be still warm; that some essence of her father lingered. Guilt dropped onto her like a moldy cloak. Yesterday, Solomon had been free, drinking his fruit tisanes, pottering about this workplace, studying the star charts. Today he was in the donjon. Did he know she was back in the chamber above his? Had he been told anything?
Joanna closed the door on the lingering guard, crouched in a corner with her father’s cup, and wept.
On the first night, at supper, she drank a loving cup with the bishop that had him snoring as soon as his head rested on his bed. She had eaten charcoal and bread beforehand, so the sleeping draught did not affect her. She dozed on a chair and slipped out of his chamber in the pre-dawn chill. The guards and servants, accustomed to such behavior from the bishop’s latest leman, did not stop her.
On the second afternoon, she sped to the kitchens for a fresh manchet loaf. More than ever, she was glad that as an alchemist the guards and castle servants were wary of questioning her, and even the haughty steward Richard Parvus would not condescend to ask her anything on a subject in which he knew nothing. No one troubled her as to why she needed the bread, or noticed when she stuffed part of the loaf, now soaked with a sweet sleeping potion, into the body cavity of a partridge. Later, she saw the bird being glazed and decorated for the bishop’s own trencher and knew she would be undisturbed that night.
On the third morning he went hunting water fowl and was gone all day and most of the night.
By day four, Joanna sent word by a page that she had reached a stage of vital sublimations and the work could not be left.
The following day, a delegation from the Abbot of Glastonbury arrived at West Sarum. At their coming, Bishop Thomas became an instant model of piety. Less than twenty years earlier, the monks of Glastonbury had spectacularly recovered the bodies of the great King Arthur and his queen, Guinevere. Thomas was eager to acquire a sacred relic from the body, bones, or clothes of the pair.
“For how long do they stay?” Joanna asked the maid who brought her a leek pie in her tower chamber.
“Four nights. So no meat or treats till they are gone.” The maid blew out her cheeks in disgust. “A pity!”
“It is indeed,” Joanna agreed, her spirits soaring as she thanked the maid for the ale and pie. Four more nights of peace.
While the bishop and the party from Glastonbury Abbey were busy at high table with the grandest of ceremonial lunches, she took two copper cups and filled both with ale, adding a pinch of volatile salts to each to make them bubble and foam. This would be her chance to speak to her father and to David, and for that she would play the role of alchemical wizard to the highest order, until the guards believed her very robes breathed smoke and gold. Her head high and the blood storming in her ears, she sped down the staircase to the first floor and knocked on the iron-studded door with her foot. The two guards playing chess outside the door hurried to unlock the door.
“For Sir David Manhill and my father,” she announced, as she swept into the chamber. “I bring them the gift of a restoring elixir from my lord.”
My lord. The face that flashed before her as she spoke was not the sleek, pale features of Thomas but the lean, tanned face and bright blue eyes of Hugh. How did he fare? Where was he?
Hugh leaned against the pillory right outside the bishop’s palace and took a slow drink from a flask. A young vendor of old clothes, carrying a large bundle of robes under one arm, glanced his way, spotted the flask, and veered off in the direction of the fish market.
“Not good enough for you, am I?” Hugh bellowed after the scurrying youth. Slipping on imaginary pig dung, he smacked down onto his backside on the cobbles. An old woman gripping a basket of fish heads crossed the street to avoid him. He leered at her, then drank again.
He had already been put out of five alehouses in as many days. He was renowned as West Sarum’s worst “rich” drunk, generous in his ale buying but deep into his cups by midday.
He was not as drunk as he pretended to be, but he was still drunk. Thinking was hard and his feet hurt. Not his haunches, which was strange. He peered at his toes, thinking them a long way off, and tried to consider his position.
It was the quiet time of day in the city, when most decent folk were at their meat. The motley crowd of hangers-on who clustered round him in the grimier alehouses were begging for scraps at the houses of the rich. It was a good time, he decided. What it was a good time for, he could not quite remember.
He must—make a show. A show for the guards.
There were no guards about, although there had been plenty of men at the brewster’s house, where he had kicked the legs off a table. Three gold coins had kept him out of prison then: he aimed for no common jail. He wanted the bishop’s prison, and for that he needed the bishop’s men.
“Come on, you,” he growled to no one, fisting the pillory.
Do not be taken too soon, Joanna had warned. There must be no connection between us that any can guess at. I must be known as the girl who escaped her captor. You have to be the drunk, rich sot.
It had been amusing at first, a falling back into a mis-spent youth that, in truth, he had never known, being too busy fighting and winning. Now he was bored. The taste and smell of ale bored him. Tottering along the cobbles bored him. His face ached, where he had smeared the stuff Joanna had given him—he had not heeded her warnings about it smarting and now he regretted using so much: his cheeks felt to be burning and popping like roasted chestnuts. The screeching of a metal-wheeled cart lumbering up the high street further set his teeth on edge and his head pounding.
“How are you, friend?” asked the carter as Hugh walked deliberately toward him and his devil’s cart.
“Stop,” said Hugh to the mules drawing the cart. They did so at once and he allowed them to nuzzle him, stroking their heads and necks.
“Hey!” The carter strode up to him. “You are in the middle of the road, friend. Stand aside and let me pass.”
Hugh planted his feet more firmly, feeling the stones beneath his heels. “Your beasts are taking a rest with me,” he said.
“Yes, I see that, but we can rest in the bishop’s bailey yard, so why do you not release the mules’ bridles and let us go on?”
“Friends should talk.” Hugh heard th
e carter mutter about a “big brute, could turn ugly,” and knew he could start his show soon.
He turned, ran to the corner of the high street, and plucked a long pile of entrails from the bloody slop under a butcher’s table.
“Oi!” bawled the butcher’s lad, trying to menace him with a cleaver, then standing like a statue as Hugh tapped his wrist and knocked the blade from his hand. Hugh grinned, wrapped the entrails like a scarf about his neck, and strolled back to the carter, who was busy urging and failing to persuade his beasts to stir.
“Master, master!” cried the butcher’s boy behind him. “A fellow is making off with our offal!”
“Move, will you?” roared the carter, gripping the mules’ bridles and tugging on them.
“Shall we dance the May in, friend?” Hugh cavorted toward him, watching the man’s face change from a bewildered smile to horror as he grabbed the carter by his tunic. From the high walkway around the bishop’s palace he heard the first shouts and drumming of rushing feet.
Soon, soon, he told himself, dropping the carter back onto the road and spiraling about to face the oncoming assault.
“Your bishop is the devil!” he roared. “Devil and spawn of the devil!”
Here they came, the bishop’s little guards, eager to prove their loyalty.
Hugh laughed and burst into song. He was still singing the refrain when six guards smashed him to the cobbles and planted a boot on his face.
Chapter 32
She was hurried into the chamber by the two bored-looking, scarred guards she did not know. The smaller of the two knew Joanna, though, or thought he did.
“You have a visitor,” he told David and Solomon, as soon as the door was bolted. “The lady of my lord bishop. You will conduct yourselves accordingly. None of your odd, Eastern manners!”
To her, he said, “If you will but sit on the bench before the fire, my lady, I will bring the men to you.”
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