Only as Katel's name crossed his thoughts did Rob recall his reason for coming to Stanrudde. With it was the realization of the opportunity standing before him. Here, in the privacy and concealment of this alley, he would warn Johanna and, in doing so, resolve some of the debt he owed her. Turning back to the woman he dared not love, he said, "Johanna, I must leave you now, but before I go, heed me in this. Your husband has done something that places you in grave danger."
Her brows lowered as confusion flashed across her face. Rob watched her struggle with her thoughts as if she could not recall who or where she was. His heart fell; logic crowed in triumph. She was yet so stunned by her experience that she hadn't heard a word he'd said.
Confusion passed to be replaced by horror, and she stared at him as if only now recognizing who he was. Following this came blazing rage. Her mouth tightened, and she crossed her arms as every shred of softness in her disappeared.
"You!" she hissed, her eyes narrowing. "I cannot bear your presence. Move aside and let me pass!"
Rob flinched as her hatred stabbed at him. Rather than drive him away, it only made his need to be free of her memory all the more urgent. "Johanna, you cannot leave until you listen to what I have to say."
"Nay!" she shouted, trying to push past him.
He shifted to block her path, not daring to touch her. "You must," he insisted, "else I fear for your life and safety. I would not see you hurt."
Johanna went utterly still, her face whitening to a hue so pale he feared she would faint. In the next moment, bright spots of rage flamed to life on her cheeks. Ever so slowly, she raised her head to stare at him.
"You would not see me hurt?" These disbelieving and sarcastic words left her in quiet, furious gusts.
Rob stared at her. What sort of question was this? Of course, he did not wish to see her hurt. Had he not just shown her this by coming to her aid in these past minutes?
"You would not see me hurt?" she repeated, this time her words a quiet shriek.
Again, she made as if to move past him and, again, he blocked her way. She freed a squeal of frustration and whirled to show him her back. "You'll say nothing to me," she shouted to the alley's end. "Never again will I listen to your lies!"
Anger shot through Rob, tangling with the guilt and pain that already lived in him. Stung, his pride raised its pompous head. How dare she accuse him of lies when he sought only to protect her? "I have never lied to you," he snapped.
"Have you not?" she challenged, her gaze yet focused on the wall before her. "Are you not the same Robert of Blacklea who traded secret marriage vows with me, swearing to love me forever, but when my father offered coins, filled his purse and left me to my fate without a single word?"
It was not Master Walter's false tale that struck at Rob, but hearing it fall from Johanna's lips as if it was true. No matter that his mind had long been convinced she’d believed it, his heart had clung to the hope that she would not be so easily misled. This drove him back from her, step by step, until he stumbled over the thief's prostrate form and nearly fell. As he steadied himself, anger roared in to replace the pain. Why hadn't she trusted in his love for her? She should have known the only way he could have been separated from her was by force.
Although he wanted to scream at her for doubting him, he sought calm and reason. "Johanna, I did not leave you by choice, this I vow to you."
"Nay!" she shouted, hunching her shoulders in a stubborn refusal to listen. "Say no more to me! You cannot think I will accept this vow when your last one was so false."
This time her words dug past all his ability to control. Pride screamed in agony; anger flared to an even brighter life. Despite that he had just proved his care for her she dared to spurn him and his concern on her behalf. Rob glared at her back. Jesus God, there wasn't a merchant in all the known world who questioned his word or his vow. If she chose to reject where her betters trusted, then whatever debt he thought he owed her was no more.
"I have done my best," he returned in cold fury. "If you choose not to heed me, so be it. I will trouble you no longer."
Whirling on his heel, he stormed out onto the coopers' lane. May God damn her for her blind arrogance. She deserved to hang with her husband, for no other reason than the insult she dealt him.
In the abbey's field a guardsman thought to challenge him, only to reconsider when Rob speared him with his gaze. By the time he thrust into the abbey's gate, he could not wait to be done with Stanrudde and all things connected to Johanna. Ignoring Brother William's cry regarding his well-being, Rob bulled his way through the crowd that now packed the courtyard, seeking his own servants. They were nowhere to be seen.
"Hamalin!" he bellowed. As his agent and his men were no doubt beyond the walls, still searching for him, there was no response.
This only sent his anger spiraling. With each breath he took, Johanna's slur and lack of faith drove deeper into him. As rage's heat grew, so did the need to slam his fists into a wall until either his hands or the wall were destroyed. Someone clamped a hand around his elbow. Rob whirled in wicked glee, ready to attack the one who dared maul Robert, Grossier of Lynn.
Colin looked up at him, his gaze taking in the jut of his former apprentice's jaw and what brewed in his stormy eyes. "You look somewhat the worse for wear," the monk said mildly. "Come, I have the abbot's release from services to entertain you as I will this night. We'll share a cup of plum wine. It'll help to ease what boils in you."
Rob had no desire to ease what ached in him. Instead he wanted to cherish it until it grew to consume him. From the distant corner where it had taken refuge, logic's voice rose, faint, but clear. It was better to go with Colin, who knew him of old, than to make himself a horse's ass before those who'd never before seen him beyond control.
It was a moment before Rob could force himself to nod in agreement and another before he could unclamp his jaw to speak. "I leave. Within the hour. Tell my men."
"I can see that done for you," Colin replied, as if accustomed to being addressed in this sort of harsh, abbreviated language. Without releasing Rob's arm, he grabbed a passing brother and saw the message transferred.
"Come then," Colin went on in his soothing tone. "If you're leaving, then I'd have you see my workroom while we spend our last hour in privacy."
He clenched Master Walter's former apprentice's arm close to his side, as if Rob were blind and needed his aid to walk. It wasn't until they were striding alongside the frater's length that Colin murmured, "Did you find Johanna?"
Mention of her name loosened Rob's stiff jaw and trapped tongue. "I do not wish to discuss her or anything she said to me, old man."
Colin stopped abruptly. "She spoke to you?" he asked in astonishment.
"She did, may God damn the nasty bitch," Rob growled, happily venting some of his aching and injured pride. This was a mistake. As hurt eased, it made room for the memory of Johanna's mouth on his, of her body pressed to him. Heat and hate tangled. Damn her to hell.
Colin's brows rose as he studied Rob, his gaze delving past skin and bone to peer into the thoughts that lay beneath them. Whatever it was he saw there seemed oddly to please him, for he smiled. Once again, he pulled Rob's arm tight into his grasp.
"You should feel honored. Our Johanna is quite forthright about whom and how she hates. She hasn't spoken to me in years. Come," he said, leading him on toward the abbey's gardens at the compound's back where he kept his stills. "Come. My brew will ease what aches in you."
Stanrudde,
Mid-September, 1173
"Wake up!"
Rob started, his eyes flying open. On the pallet beside him Arthur loosed a mournful snort; even in his sleep Master Walter's younger apprentice cried for his home and his mama. Arthur rolled to his side and yanked his blanket over his head, still deep in his own sad dreams. If not Arthur, then who?
Blinking, Rob rolled onto his back and stared into the predawn dimness of the apothecary shop. Johanna appeared out of the gray. She
knelt beside his pallet, her unplaited hair hanging around her face. As his vision cleared, he saw her overgown was on backward, which meant she'd dressed herself in the dark.
"I know something you want to know," she whispered.
Rob stared at her in confusion. It was his nightly duty to bar the door and, unlike Arthur, who sometimes forgot what was his to do, Rob was never remiss with his chores. He clearly remembered placing the bar into the braces as he, Arthur, and Rob's master and mistress retired for the night.
"How come you to be in here?" he demanded.
Johanna sat back on her heels and crossed her arms to show she was upset he hadn't responded to her tease. "The door was open." She was careful to keep her voice low, knowing she'd have worse than the chamber pots to do if she was found here.
Rob shook his head, positive he'd barred it. "It is not," he whispered. He'd be in as much trouble as she, were she discovered.
"It is so," she shot back. "If it had been barred, I couldn't have come in."
At this inescapable point of logic, bitter disappointment flowed over Rob. He hated making errors. Each mistake was a failure when he'd vowed never to fail Master Colin. Disappointment deepened. Where his few, earlier mistakes had been of little consequence this one was beyond all tolerance. Not only had he left the shop open, but he hadn’t even heard Johanna as she entered when he should have been keeping one ear open for disturbances.
Now he glanced around the grayed room, looking for anything else that might be amiss. The wall behind Rob was covered with shelves sectioned into tiny squares. Within each of these wee cubicles sat a container of some sort: boiled leather flasks stoppered with wood, wooden bowls topped with chalk, pottery jars closed with wax. Within each of these containers was a different potion, posset, unguent, tincture, or cure, some of them containing fabulously expensive spices. It was for their sake that he and Arthur slept on the workshop floor; in case of thieves, they were to raise the alarm.
"No matter the door, you aren't supposed to be here," Rob told her, his voice harsh with his own failure. "Go home."
Even in the semidarkness he could see her eyes narrow and her jaw jut out in stubborn anger. "You aren't being nice to me. Now, I shall never tell you what I know."
He shrugged to hide his frustration. When Johanna said never, what she meant was she had every intention of pestering him until he had to know what she knew. Once he finally asked after it, she'd withhold the information until he apologized to her when he'd done no wrong.
Outside, the ropemaker's cock stuttered quietly, three times. The noise came from the distillery's roof, only a few feet lower and a cloth yard distant from Master Colin's bedchamber window. Both impatience and disappointment dimmed with the sound. Grinning, Rob sat up and jabbed Arthur in the back.
The apprentice groaned. "Leave me be. It's not yet morn."
"Nay, wake up," Rob hissed, being even more careful to keep his voice low. It would be a terrible shame to wake Master Colin before the cock crowed. He pulled off Arthur's blanket. "Rise now and quietly so," he commanded.
Despite that Arthur was the apprentice and Rob a mere servant, the lad muttered and sat up, only to yelp softly when he saw Master Walter's daughter. "What's she doing here!" he breathed, scrambling to pull the blanket up over his bare and protruding belly.
"Hush," Rob told him as the cock once again stuttered quietly, but warming his throat for his performance.
Arthur grinned. "Do you think he's on the distillery roof?" he breathed.
Rob nodded and tensed in delicious anticipation. He aimed his gaze upward to the ceiling above them. Arthur did the same. Johanna glanced between them, then at the ceiling, which was also the floor of Master Colin's bedchamber. "It's only a cock," she whispered, her pique over Rob's refusal to take her bait forgotten.
"Hush," both Rob and Arthur told her as one, their gazes never leaving the floor of their master's bedchamber.
Accompanied by the flap of its wings, the arrogant bird loosed a fierce and ear-piercing salute to a new day's start. Master Colin roared in response. His feet hit the floorboards directly overhead with a booming thud. Every jar and flask in the shop rattled, dust filtering down on Rob through the gaps in between the planks. The upstairs shutter nigh on splintered against the outer wall. Something hard slammed onto the distillery's roof. With a startled squawk the bird's serenade ended.
"God in His heaven, how could I have missed?! Aye, fly you coward! If I ever get my hands on you, you're stew!" Master Colin shouted hoarsely after the departing fowl. "And don't think I won't eat every last bite of you, myself!"
Rob and Arthur fell back onto their pallets, careful to spill their laughter only into their palms. Still round-eyed in surprise, Johanna giggled quietly.
"Colin," protested Mistress Katherine, the apothecary's young wife. Her voice was languid with sleep despite her rude awakening.
Rob glanced at Arthur, and they shared a moment of mutual disgust. Master Colin was ensorcelled by his wife. More often than not, his eyes glazed over when he looked upon her. Together, they'd vowed that when it was time for them to marry, they wouldn't let their wives make such fools of them.
"I hate that damn bird," Master Colin told Mistress Katherine in what was still a near shout. The bed ropes creaked as he settled back onto their mattress. "The only reason Herebert hasn't already wrung its neck is because he knows how much the creature annoys me."
"It's not that," Mistress Katherine said, laughter now lilting in her tone. "You threw your shoe. Did you plan to make your appearance this morn with but one shoe on?"
Anticipating his master's coming request, Rob leapt to his feet and brushed the wrinkles from his shirt before straightening his chausses. He wasn't supposed to sleep in his clothing, as it caused excessive wear to the fabric when these garments were but loaned to him. Once he grew out of them, they'd be stored for the next boy to use. However, this was the only one of Master Colin's edicts he felt comfortable disobeying. Having to dress each morn took too long when he was impatient to begin his day.
"May the devil take that bird! Now look what he's made me do!" the apothecary roared anew. A brief silence ensued. "Stop laughing."
"What makes you think I'm laughing?" his wife replied, her voice filled with muffled laughter.
Still smiling, Johanna handed Rob his tunic from the pallet's end. As he tugged it on, Arthur shoved him his shoes. Rob stepped into them, leaving the laces undone.
"Rob, are you awake?" Master Colin didn't need to raise his voice to ask the question. Sound traveled easily through the gaps in the boards that separated the shop from the living quarters above it.
Again, Rob and Arthur shared a look, this time in amusement. As if anyone could sleep through what was becoming Master Colin's daily waking routine. "Aye Master. Shall I fetch you your shoe?"
"If you would be so kind." As always, this master asked, rather than commanded.
That was why Rob so loved Master Colin. The apothecary was steady in temperament and patient in the extreme. He never struck out in chastisement. There was no need for it. With but a single look, Master Colin could make Arthur and Rob feel smaller than worms.
"There's no haste," Master Colin added. "Stir the ashes before you bring it up, lad."
"Aye, Master," Rob replied, cinching his belt around his waist and setting his cap upon his uncombed hair.
Johanna followed him to the workshop's narrow rear door. Rob paused before it. The bar was, indeed, out of its braces, standing in the spot it occupied during the day.
"See, I told you it was open," she said softly. "Mayhap, you forgot to bar it last night?"
"Mayhap," he said, his disappointment in himself returning.
Opening the door, he and Johanna stepped outside into the brisk and pinkening air. Trapped within the city's thick walls, the smell of gardens wet with dew mingled with that of wood smoke as fires came back to life in hundreds of homes and kitchens. In their own compound, Philip was the earliest riser; the ye
asty aroma of baking bread wafted to them from the kitchen's vent.
Just now every winged creature in Stanrudde—cocks, geese, pigeons, doves, crows, even sparrows—had lifted its voice to herald the new day until the air was alive with their joyous noise. Then, the first hammer rang against an anvil, followed by another and another, until the sound of iron mongering banished the morning's peace. Rob gave thanks he wasn't attached to a smith's household. Here, at the city's more civilized center, workshops didn't open until the ninth hour of the day.
Their distillery was no more than a waist-high stone hearth jammed lengthwise between the shop's rear wall and the back of Philip's kitchen. Held above the hearth on a network of rope stretched between four poles was a layer of thatching. Its purpose had been to shield the condensing concoctions from the elements, but it would serve that end no more. Master Colin had thrown his missile so hard it had punched right through the bundled reeds. The shoe lay on the hearth, leather sole upward, between the tiny bulbous oven and their two simmering pots.
Lifting it from the ashes, Rob slapped off what he could of its ashy coating then tucked it into his belt. Beside him, Johanna shifted from foot to foot in impatience. "Why don't you want to know what I know?" she asked when she could tolerate his silence no longer.
Rob shrugged to hide his growing interest in her news. If he was to get it from her, he'd have to be clever about it. Removing the two pottery covre-feux that had kept yesterday's coals warm throughout the night, he stirred the embers until they revealed their red hearts. "If it's for me to know, someone will tell me. I don't expect that someone will be you, since you've already said you'll never tell."
Johanna thrust herself between him and the hearth, her face filled with the torture of keeping a secret she longed to share.
"Mayhap, I've changed my mind."
Rob caught back his triumphant grin. Generous in victory, he pointed to the coals. "Would you like to start the fires?" Helewise never let her do this, fearing Johanna would set herself ablaze.
A Love For All Seasons Page 9
