A Love For All Seasons

by Denise Domning

  "Aye, and mayhap this is what he expects us to believe," Master Harold stubbornly insisted. "I say we have our culprit. We have no greater responsibility than to hold him for the sheriff as we would any other man accused of lawbreaking. And in holding him we not only satisfy those who call for his destruction because of the damage done to their properties, we also free ourselves of any connection to him." The smith brushed his palms, one against the other, as if removing from his gloved fingers any trace of Rob.

  "Nay, we cannot!" a draper cried. "I tell you all, if we think to wait for the sheriff's arrival, there will be more upheaval. This time, they'll destroy our homes and livelihoods! We must hang him today. Only in this way will all truly be satisfied and we be free of threat."

  "I will not see a fellow tradesman hanged simply because a crowd calls for it, despite that I am threatened," Master Gerard retorted in angry scorn. Even the outspoken smith nodded his head in agreement to this.

  Gratified that the council would not bend in this direction, Rob took a step toward the table to reclaim their attention. "Masters, please. It would greatly aid me if you told me last night's tale." Aye, he needed to look at what Katel had done so he might know how to block the next twist.

  Master Harold, the smith, turned on him. "You ask for what you already know! Yesterday, did your agent skulk about our town, calling in secret and under-handed ways to those brave or foolish enough to deal in outmarket grain. To these regraters did he sell what he had, promising them more on the morrow. These idiots took their illegal goods onto the streets and all too swiftly sold what they had at great profit to themselves. This left others yet clamoring for what was already gone, while still others cried for what they needed and could not afford. That's when those regraters let slip that there was supposedly more in store. A mob formed, the rabble going off in search for what your agent had promised for the morrow. It was you who set our town ablaze!" His outrage filled this room with its volume.

  Rob waited until the ringing echoes died before speaking. "Who says it was my agent?"

  "The regraters." This came from the goldsmith. He leaned forward as he spoke, bracing his elbow on the table. His handiwork, a chain with links shaped like arrowheads, glittered as he moved. "Some in the crowd were not content with seeking out grain; instead, they sought to punish those who would make a profit on their misery. They beat the regraters, trying to steal what coins they'd earned. When the guard rescued them, they most gratefully spilled their tale."

  "This you believe?" Rob asked in surprise. "I've never known those who participated in illegal acts to be honest about their crimes. But, that is neither here nor there. It could not have been my agent, as he was within the abbey walls all of yesterday and last even. So will every monk who saw him swear."

  "It was his man," Master Harold insisted, looking up and down the table's length at his fellow council members. "Did not the regraters describe the one from whom they'd bought their grain as young, comely, and fair of hair with red in his beard? Many have seen such a man in the grossier's company. Aye, and this fellow spoke with a strange dialect, just as Lynnsman would be wont to do."

  "There are hundreds of men who answer to that description," Rob's fellow grossier replied with a snort, "and dialects can be affected. I tell you, masters, this is Robert of Lynn. If he vows it was not his agent or his wheat that is enough for me. We must look elsewhere."

  "Look elsewhere?" At the table's end, Katel shifted as if struck by this comment. "While I also doubt Master Robert is at fault for what happened last night, I must remind the council it is not our duty to look anywhere at all. I agree with Master Harold. All that the law requires of us is that we hold for the sheriff those against whom the hue and cry is raised, as has been done in this instance. It is not for us to decide whether Robert the Bastard is guilty or innocent of the charges."

  If Rob refused Katel the reaction he no doubt thought to dig from him with that name, Mistress Alwyna had not his control. The old woman nigh on leapt out of her chair, then turned in the seat to stare at him. Her gaze begged him to confirm that he was, indeed, bastard-born. Pride made Rob lift his shoulder until he could not see her.

  "Ach," Katel said, his brows drawing down, his face the picture of regret. "Pardon Rob, but I forget me that you've no fondness for that name. I apologize to you and the council for the habits of my youth."

  Rob looked away from him, forcing down hatred as he pondered over why Katel might desire the sheriff's involvement. It could only mean there was some sort of trail connecting Rob to the grain. If the council dared to insist he remain in Stanrudde for the sheriff's arrival, Rob would see to it there was more than one trail for the shire's lawman to follow. But already the majority of the council swung in the direction of releasing him. A smile of triumph formed in Rob's heart, if not on his face, as he prepared to deal the blow that would free him from Katel's trap.

  "Master Katel is right," Rob said as he again scanned the assemblage. "Your council must keep to the law. Since my oath alone does not convince you that I speak the truth, I will stay in Stanrudde's abbey while I await the sheriff's arrival. To him will I spill my evidence and my vows."

  "Nay," cried Master John, the cowardly draper. "The crowd will tear us apart!"

  "Enough," the goldsmith said, his disgust cutting through the man's complaint. "You did not hear what Master Robert just said to us. If the sheriff proves him innocent as he vows he is, then each day we hold Master Robert here under false arrest, might he not be calculating the sort of damage we do his repute? I fear he even now considers suing us for defamation."

  The room went silent. All eyes, save Katel's, turned on Rob. Rob but lifted his brows at this very real possibility.

  Air left the smith in a great gust, and his shoulders sagged. "Were I an innocent man whose name is being sullied by a false charge, I too would consider a suit." The goldsmith turned flinty eyes on his fellow councilmen. "Masters, if we are not certain he is our culprit then I vote we release him, telling the townsmen he is proved innocent. So too, will we inform them that the sheriff has been called to find the true evil-doer. God knows it will cost us dearly to house and feed the sheriff and his men, but that will be less than the damage Master Robert's suit might do us."

  Something hard hit the outside of the house, the sound of stone ringing against stone echoing into the hall. Another stone hit the wall. The third rock struck the window's covering with such force the skin tore from its mount. Stone and skin tangled as it bounced across the table, then rattled off its edge and came to a stop near Mistress Alwyna's foot.

  In the lane men shouted. Iron thudded dully against wood as the town guard banged swords against shields. Downstairs, the door flew open and someone roared up the stairs.

  "They gather," the gatekeeper panted out as he thrust into the hall, "more with every moment. The guard is trying to drive them away, but there will soon be more than they can handle."

  The shouting grew in volume, testifying to his claim. Yet another stone hit the house as the random calls sorted itself into a new cadence. Brutally and simply, the gathering mob began to call for the head of Robert the Grossier and death to all the councilmen.

  Chaos erupted around Rob. Master Jehan and Master Gerard nigh on flew out of the room, no doubt to set the household to defending their walls. The smith bellowed, ready to charge out the gate and decimate those who dared to threaten him. Master John sobbed in fear, while the goldsmith suggested they give Rob to the mob and make good their own escape. Amid all this, Katel remained an island of calm. Too calm. It said he'd known this attack would come.

  Rob drew a sharp breath. Katel had not trusted the council to go where he led. To make certain he achieved his goal the spice merchant would keep the town aflame until the council had no choice but to hang Rob to preserve their own lives. Jesu, but there was no escape from him. Once again, the reaction of the wool merchants mother to his face shot through Rob. It was an omen; he would die.

  He starte
d as Mistress Alwyna touched his sleeve. It took all Rob's will to look at her, fearing he would see his death in her brown eyes. Instead, her gaze was filled with the need to aid him

  "Come and quickly so," she said softly. "My son has arranged to see you safely away."

  That Katel watched without complaint as Rob followed the old woman into the kitchen was a testimony to his certainty of success. Rob crossed the small chamber to squeeze himself down the narrow winding stairs that led to the cellar that lay beneath it. Out the cellar doors they went, across the courtyard to pass between the house and stable. Behind the stable was a narrow strip of kitchen garden, now slumbering for the winter under a frosty blanket of straw. At the garden's end was a stream, the water standing still and solid within its banks.

  Here Master Jehan and Master Gerard waited with six men armed with swords. At their master's sign, these men surrounded Rob. Their blades all pointed inward, rather than outward in defense.

  "What sort of rescue is this?" Rob bellowed, turning this way and that within the circle of his captors. Even as the thought of escape filled him he knew it was impossible. Should he manage to cross Stanrudde's lanes with his life intact to reach any of its gates, those exits were already closed to him. He was well and truly trapped.

  "God forgive us Master Robert, but the only sort we dare offer," the young wool merchant replied. "To keep Stanrudde whole, my servants must take you to our keep where you will be held as if arrested. Only there can we guarantee both your safety and our own. I ask you now. For your own safety, remove your gown to avoid identification."

  "You have my word that I will return to the abbey and wait for the sheriff's arrival," Rob said through his clenched teeth. Within him grew the conviction that once he was in that moldy tower, the only way he'd leave was at the end of a hangman's rope.

  Master Gerard only shook his head. "Nay Master Robert, not even the abbot can protect you now. Only separating you body from soul will ease the crowd's blood lust. If you wish to live, you'll retreat to the tower until the sheriff comes." Not even pride reacted anymore, so deep was Rob's defeat. Who knew how long it would be before the sheriff came? With Rob caught, Katel would not be content to wait for the lawman's arrival against the possibility his victim might slip from his grasp. Using the crowd as his tool, Katel would pry open the keep's door, then laugh while Rob dangled.

  "I will do as you bid without complaint only if you agree to send this message to my agent at the abbey," Rob said in the forlorn hope that he could yet save himself. After he opened his mantle pin, Mistress Alwyna took his mantle so Rob could loosen his tunic. "Hamalin must go at all speed to my home in Lynn. Once there, he should open my coffer, the one to which only he and I have the key, taking from it my personal book. This he must bring to me, as it both names and proves the guilt of the one at the root of this evil."

  "By God, man," Master Jehan cried, his brown eyes taking life in anger, "if you know who has done this, spill his name and let us arrest him. We'll give him to the crowd in your stead, just as he deserves!"

  Although Rob was yet certain he'd not be believed, he'd be damned before he died carrying the truth only in his soul. "If you will hear his name, then I accuse Katel le Espicer of seeking to destroy me by stealing my grain and releasing it onto the marketplace in my name."

  Both tradesmen stared at him as if he spoke in a language they did not understand. "Master Katel? But he is such a harmless man," Master Jehan stuttered. "Nay, you must be wrong. He is your supporter. What reason could he have for harming you?"

  "Jehan," the man's mother cried, "if Master Robert says it is so and that he can prove it, then it is so. Was not Master Katel the last to arrive, and did not the crowd come upon his tail?"

  As Rob handed the wool merchant's mother his tunic, her son shucked his own mantle and threw it across Rob's shoulders. Mistress Alwyna turned to Rob's guards. "Hie, off with you! Go and quickly so, knowing that if the crowd takes him and leaves you alive after, I'll see you all dead for your failure." It was a heartfelt threat.

  Two of Master Jehan's men grabbed Rob by the arms and guided him down the ice-bound stream's bank. Every step took him nearer to what would surely be his last resting place. Rob glanced over his shoulder at the two merchants and Mistress Alwyna.

  "Go," the old woman called to him. "Place your trust in me. Know that for the love I once bore your sire I will see your man protected and your proof safely transported."

  Mistress Alwyna's jaw was firm, her gaze resolute. That she meant to aid him he did not doubt. New bile rose behind his fear for his life. Rob choked on it as he understood that the old woman was once again and oh-so-subtly confirming that he was bastard-born. It was not for the sake of Ralph AtteGreen that she wished to aid him.

  Stanrudde

  October, 1179

  "Oh, Rob, I cannot believe she is gone!" Johanna cried, with all the substantial emotion a heart of ten and four could muster. She kicked at the distillery's hearth as if to show him how deep her desire to disbelieve was. The silken skirts of her orange and green gowns flew wide, scooping up crackling autumn leaves with her movement. "Why, I remember how at Eastertide she fair glowed with pride at finally conceiving a child. Something that makes a person so happy shouldn't kill them."

  Standing at her side, Rob could only nod in sad agreement. Mistress Katherine's death was neither fair nor right. As if she could call the apothecary's wife back from the grave by will alone, Johanna lifted her head to stare at the closed shutters of Master Colin's bedchamber window. Rob joined her in perusal of those plain lengths of wood.

  Only a week ago, when Mistress Katherine had begun her labor, she'd been full of life, buoyed against her pains by the excitement of producing the child both she and the master so desired. The hours passed, but the babe moved not at all. Using every potion and concoction they knew, the midwife and Master Colin battled to bring it forth. One day became two, then three. It had almost been a relief when the mistress at last gave way to death, for at least her torment ended. When she was gone, the midwife cut open her womb, only to find the babe within her dead as well. Since then the apothecary had said no word, passing through the last four days like the wraith his wife now was.

  It was Rob's helplessness in the face of Master Colin's grief that had driven him from the mourning feast yet going on in Master Walter's hall. In this familiar corner of the yard he sought to console himself since he could not console his master. As if she sensed his distress, Johanna appeared only moments later.

  Had it been any other lass, Rob would have driven her away, wanting privacy in which to struggle with his emotions. Johanna was different, being more friend than lass. Moreover, although she never said or did anything that remotely resembled an attempt at comfort, there was something about her presence that ever soothed him.

  He sighed. Oblivious to the tragedy of Mistress Katherine's demise, the world beyond the apothecary's shop went on. In the lane a regrater was calling out the quality of his walnuts. Cart wheels groaned, goads flicked, and muleteers shouted to their pack animals. Warmed by the afternoon sun the day's breeze brought with it the stench of the shambles. From two lanes over, a fuller, his apprentices, and his servants raised their voices in song as they fused newly woven cloth into finished goods to the tune's rhythmic beat.

  When her stare failed to conjure up the apothecary's wife, Johanna turned her gaze downward to the distillery's hearthstone. "I am glad Papa called me home so I might bid her and her son farewell."

  This almost made Rob smile, and he shot her a sidelong glance. "You make it sound as if your father keeps you trapped at that precious convent of yours when it's you who stays away from Stanrudde. I think me if that place were any nearer Master Walter would bring you home every night."

  Still staring at the hearth, Johanna pulled her face into an expression of disgust. "If you were going to be forced to marry Katel, you'd stay away too."

  Rob opened his mouth to tease that rich heiresses deserved no pit
y, when she lifted her head and smiled at him. His taunt faded as he stared at her, startled all over again by how she'd changed. Gone was the gawky girl whose nose had been too large for her face and whose wayward elbows had cost her dearly in his and Arthur's teasing last year. In that child's place was this new ... woman.

  Johanna had grown, her crown now reaching almost to his own newly elevated sixteen-year-old jawline. So too, had her face rearranged itself, shedding babyish roundness to reveal a high clear brow and strong cheekbones. Her lips seemed fuller, her eyes wider and bluer. Even her nose now suited her.

  Nay, it more than suited her; it gave her face a sort of elegance that took away his breath. Rob's gaze dropped to the slender line of her throat, then descended to where her sleek green and orange gowns clung to a new form complete with utterly beguiling curves. With startling swiftness the desire to feel the roundness of Johanna's breasts cupped in his hands exploded in him.

  Rob jerked his gaze back to the hearthstone, fighting this completely inappropriate reaction to his beloved master's daughter. To even think such a thing about Johanna was to betray the man who had saved his life, then given him both trade and happiness. Despite his will, the sensations lingered, filling every corner of Rob's being.

  This was all the fault of Alice, the ropemaker's maid. A year ago, Alice had decided she loved Rob instead of the draper's lad. As often as she could, she met with him in Master Walter's stable. What began as a mere kiss or two rapidly became caressing, which led to the wondrous sin of fornication. After almost a month of loving him, fickle Alice decided the smith's son was more interesting. Her rejection had broken Rob's heart, the pain far worse than all the pleasure she'd given him. Once he'd recovered and paid the penance his confessor set on him, Rob vowed to never again let a woman hurt him the way Alice had.

  Not too long after that he’d discovered that with a few of the precious coins he earned by laboring outside his regular duties, he could buy himself the same sort of pleasure from one of Stanrudde's contingent of whores. If there was still penance to be done for fornicating, his heart was safe; both he and Arthur agreed that no sensible man pined over a whore. Better still, one of the tarts had taken an interest in him, teaching Rob's body to feel in ways he never dreamed possible.