The Knight And The Rose

by Isolde Martyn

  “Again!” yelled Gervase, and Miles, shame-faced, was forced from pride to mount back up. He made a better show of it the second time, although the pole missed. Then one of the men-at-arms demonstrated the angle once more.

  “We shall leave them to it.” The scholar signalled his esquire to bring his overtunic and belted it round his hips. Tossing his fair windruffled hair behind his ears, he set his blue liripiped hat once more on his head. “Come, we have business of our own.” He had her purposefully by the elbow. “Your turn for a lesson.”

  The laughter in her turned to raw suspicion. He had dared to free the entire castle from their chores without her mother’s permission and now proposed some other mischief.

  “Lesson?” hissed Johanna.

  “Have we not agreed that I am going to teach you your letters?” Could he read the struggle within her? She did not want to be instructed by him and yet she was avid to become literate.

  Before she knew it, he had propelled her to a sheltered, still sunny patch of river-sand path that meandered from outside the great hall to her mother’s herb garden, safely enclosed within the castle walls. He lifted a wooden form from beneath a budded pear tree and set it right across the walk. Johanna, mystified, sat down while he searched around and returned triumphant with a stick. He seemed so determined to educate her. No man but a scholar could be that enthusiastic, Johanna decided, letting her uncertainty pass.

  “I fear the dust will be your slate for the nonce. Now . . .” He sucked in his cheeks thoughtfully as he began to draw the vowels in the sand, trying to remember his own tutor’s early methods and behave like the schoolmaster she still thought him.

  After she settled into her role of pupil, Johanna did not seem to find his instruction confusing. For a woman, the lady learned quickly, soaking up his words like droplets of water on an expensive sea sponge. It was hard for her not having the letters in ink before her, but sufficient for a beginning. If he could at least teach her to sound out the letters and remember the shape of certain words, she might have some building bricks to play with after he was gone. It would need more than a week, but he was confident of teaching her the rudiments.

  At length she shivered. Time to end. His shoulder was aching damnably, the shadows were lengthening and the promised rain was due. “Here is a Latin word for you.” He drew “Amor.”

  She managed the first three letters and had to be told the last, blushing. “Remember it for it will be in the letter that I sent to you two years ago.”

  “What else?” she asked impishly.

  He shrugged and stretched. “I am not sure. I have yet to write it.”

  “I have never had such a missive so I cannot help you.” She rose, shaking out her skirts.

  “No matter,” he answered, heaving the bench back to its normal position, “I have had a lot of practice.”

  “What is it like being a scholar?” she asked as he squired her back towards the gate. A foolish question, she supposed, but he seemed not to think so. He paused pensively and then warmed to his answer, striding on again.

  “It is being as industrious as an ant one moment, the next as wild as a grasshopper, and the last, as drunk as an over-honeyed bee.” He had a plausible story already made up for her. “I was fortunate. A bishop was impressed by my wits and left sufficient gold in his will for me to attend an abbey school, and then I was given a place at Merton.” She looked puzzled. “It is the college at Oxford,” he explained.

  “And what did you study?”

  Jesu help me, he thought, searching his mind for recollection of what he had heard of Oxford. “The trivium and astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, divinity et cetera.”

  “Oh, I wish a princess or an abbess would set up a college for lay women.”

  “Are you out of your mind, lady? For what benefit?”

  “For women scholars, of course. Why should men have a monopoly of learning? Ha, I know why men do not want women to be educated. If I could read and write, I would understand everything better. Let me see.” She began counting the advantages on her fingers. “I could send and receive letters, read holy text, check the rent roll—”

  “Write letters to your lover,” he interrupted.

  She ignored him, continuing: “Draw up a contract, practise law and divinity. By Heaven, I could be the equal of a clerk and—”

  The lady needed dampening down lest she set the world ablaze.

  “Whoa, madam, it is your duty to bear children, command the servants and consider what stores must be set aside for winter. Who else would govern the household? That is why we have men and women, lady, we each have our duties.”

  Bear me a healthy heir, he had said. Why was it that when this man spoke so it made her body grow warm and yet those words, pounded incessantly into her by Fulk, could make her shake with fear?

  “What is the matter, lady?” Gervase had been looming over her sternly, albeit his eyes showed amusement. She was very aware of how powerful he was. That was the trouble. Where a man could use might, a woman was forced to use cunning which gave their sex a fickle, deceitful reputation, or so men reckoned.

  She cleared her throat nervously. “Well, I was thinking that the lady Eve betrayed womankind when she agreed to her lot.”

  “But for the lady Eve, we should still be in Paradise.” His gaze was lazy and provocative. No, she was not going to be drawn on that point, Johanna resolved, deciding that his blue eyes held light wondrously within them like chalcedony, and wishing at the same time this schoolmaster would stop staring at her as if she were a manuscript to be studied. To her relief, a peevish voice from the other side of the wall distracted him.

  “It sounds as though someone has finally let the lady Edyth in.”

  COMPOSING THE LETTER to Johanna was harder than Geraint had anticipated. Had he been burning with unfulfilled lust, it would have been simple. He sat sucking his left thumb knuckle. The words must be right before he made a final copy on the precious rectangle of two-year-old vellum torn from the bottom of an abbey document donated by the sinful Brother Ambrose.

  If you will become my own and match deed to word . . . No, too dry.

  If you are indeed my own true love, then pledge yourself to me tomorrow. Uncertain and tedious.

  An hour on, he was still lacking a formula and the stolen kidskin lay unblemished, so by the time Jankyn sauntered into Father Gilbert’s cell, he was in the foulest of tempers.

  “It is pouring fit for Noah’s ark out there,” exclaimed his esquire and was cursed for shaking himself like a dog too close to the vellum. “Do I see nature’s raindrops or the pearls of labour upon that noble brow of yours? What, are you labouring at it like an ox drawing a cart of coin? Insane thoughts of desire ought to be rippling from your quill by now.”

  “And my fist will meet your teeth in an instant.”

  Jankyn sat astride the bench. “Is the good father in his cell?”

  Geraint shook his head and threw the quill down in disgust.

  “Excellent. Close your eyes and imagine you are looking at the lady Johanna from the unbruised side. Now in your thoughts slide down the sleeve of her gown to reveal a beauteous shoulder and imagine her breast, sweetly free for your handling. Its rosy nub—Ow!”

  Geraint clouted him, laughing. “I can manage that, you wretch, but I cannot say so in this letter.”

  “No, not in this letter. We do not want to remind the judge of what he should have been missing all these years, but surely such lascivious imagining might inspire appropriate wording. It must come from the loins, so to speak.

  “My own and most beloved lady, I long for the moment when I can hold you in my arms as my own true wife. Whatever fortune might befall us, I will swear fealty to you till death part us. I cannot wait to pay homage to your delicious . . .” Jankyn’s utterance gave out and he spluttered into laughter.

  “Hush, man,” whispered Geraint, rising and checking the courtyard. “You will have the castle wanting to share the jest.”
r />   Jankyn cradled his face in his arms on the table, his shoulders shaking.

  “Even though your father shall rage like a tempest and seek my life, I vow you shall be mine in the sight of God and Holy Church,” ventured Geraint.

  “Now it comes,” Jankyn applauded him, continuing, “Your sweet lips beneath mine tell me I have your love.” He pouted his lips rosebud-like and kissed his hand.

  Geraint ignored him. “Lady, be not fickle but as steadfast as the northern star and . . .”

  “And I will have your maidenhead

  On Tuesday e’en when we’re in bed.”

  “I give in, damn it!”

  “No, the lady will have given in.” Jankyn held the quill out to Geraint. “What you have said will suffice. Write it now, friend, for by the morning the words will be flown like swallows after harvest home.”

  Drenched from the heavy rain, the chaplain returned before Geraint had finished and mercifully gave his approval to the text.

  With a sense of achievement, Geraint and Jankyn resorted to the pantry at the back of the hall, woke the pantler and bested the contents of a firkin of ale. Having forgotten to ask where he was to sleep, Geraint curled himself into his cloak beside the hearth in the hall with Jankyn at his back and two of the dogs huddled against his calves.

  He awoke stiff and befuddled. A voice which sounded like Johanna’s complained to someone that several people had been banging a pot lid and singing loudly beneath her bedchamber. Geraint drew his hood over his ears. What a fool he was to listen to Jankyn! He hoped to Heaven they had given no secrets away.

  “Should he not have been in your bed, lady?” Something that was Jankyn muttered and rolled away, leaving his master’s back chilled.

  Geraint reluctantly opened his eyes to find Johanna, neatly plaited as a bell rope and disgustingly ablazon in her hollyberry red, standing over him. He sat up with a groan.

  “Your pardon, but the sheriff’s officer is about to arrive to see you,” she told him sweetly and a jugful of icy water hit him in the face.

  Eleven

  FROM THE STAIRS in the great chamber, Johanna watched the scholar, unshaven and crumpled, stride upstairs to her mother’s bower, his expression taut and furious at the regal summons. He pulled the door noisily to behind him and Johanna, sending Agnes and Yolonya about their business, unashamedly tiptoed up and set her ear to the door.

  “. . . carousing with the lower ranks, and in Lent too,” sneered her mother. “Not to mention your effrontery in presuming you had the authority to set up a quintain and have my lord brought down to watch.”

  “It seemed a good notion at the time,” he countered, his voice nonchalant and sleepy. “I am sure he enjoyed it.”

  “Gervase,” her mother sounded more like a nurse addressing an infant, “I was trying to keep the seriousness of his condition hidden. It is fortunate that hardly anyone noticed him, muffled as he was, thank God. No, they were all too entertained by the appalling spectacle of you cavorting with my daughter. She and Miles could have been gravely injured.”

  “I thought I was supposed to cavort with her, and considering that Miles’s contraption went no faster than a hobby-horse . . .”

  Johanna, imagining that determined jaw thrust up arrogantly, jammed a knuckle into her mouth to stifle her laughter.

  “That is not what I saw from my window. Now please remember to behave like a member of the nobility in future. I want no more student romps though,” her tone would have sheared the edge off sword blades, “you never were—”

  “Johanna, what are you—”

  “Sssshh, Miles!” she straightened, red-faced, and came primly down. “Say naught or I will tell Mother you put a frog in our father’s bed last night.”

  Her brother folded his arms. “Tsk, tsk!”

  The door handle above rattled. “. . . no more. Now go, sirrah!” Sweet Heaven, her mother was dismissing the man as if he were a convicted villein at her manor court.

  “Quickly!” Johanna grabbed her brother’s hand. She managed to reach the door to the hall where, with Miles at her heels, she swept ingenuously forwards again as Gervase stormed out from the stairwell like a thunder-cloud looking for somewhere to unload.

  “Would you like me to order a bath for you, sir?”

  Geraint, irritated at meeting anyone, glanced down at her suspiciously. Was that supposed to be an apology for her acquiescence in yesterday’s sport or an effort to have him sober and spotless before the deputy sheriff inspected him?

  “Thank you, no, madam,” he answered brusquely. “I have had enough water from you for one day.”

  “Sir, sir, can we use the quintain again today?” The boy jumped, catching hold of his left arm and swung onto it with his full weight.

  “God in Heaven!” Fierce pain streaked up his weakened arm and he flung the child off roughly.

  Miles landed heavily on his backside, blinking up at Geraint in terrified surprise.

  Johanna recoiled from him in horror. “You . . .” Words failed her and, grabbing her skirts, she fled. His reputation in shreds, Geraint turned remorsefully to the child and offered his swordarm to help him rise.

  “I am sorry, Miles. I injured my arm yesterday.”

  “Th . . . that’s all right,” muttered the child and manfully took his hand.

  His supposed brother-in-law patted him reassuringly on his skinny shoulder, and wished heartily for the sound of Dame Christiana’s sharp tongue and a fresh dressing for his wound.

  “I’ll tell you one thing that has happened since your arrival, sir.”

  “Oh, you varmint, and what is that?”

  “My sister laughed.” The boy cocked his head on one side, grinning up at Geraint. “And I think it was at you.”

  THE HIGH SHERIFFS and their men were on the wheels of King Edward II’s chariot; the entire kingdom ran upon their loyalty. They kept his peace and garnered gossip and information so that taxes might be levied efficiently. Not only that, they enforced fees and military service, rode into battle for the king, and hanged men for treason. It was therefore necessary to treat them with respect.

  Swiftly shaven by Sir Geoffrey’s varlet—Jankyn’s hand was not steady this morning—fortified by a hot posset of Yolonya’s that nearly removed the roof of his mouth, and now buffeted by the churlish wind between rainbursts, Geraint stood to attention behind Lady Constance outside the portal to the new hall as Sir Ralph de Middlesbrough, deputy to the High Sheriff of Yorkshire, rode in with some twenty men-at-arms behind him and the castle dogs barking alarum a safe distance from the hooves. Geraint was not feeling charitable towards the Lady of Conisthorpe—taking a tongue-lashing from a woman had grazed his pride somewhat—but sulking was not part of his nature. His conscience acknowledged the rebelliousness of yesterday as foolhardy and today’s man was too scared for his skin to misbehave, so he stood beside her decorously in his newly stitched finery and tried to look like a dutiful son-in-law wagging a tail for the visitors.

  “God protect us,” whispered Lady Constance, as the men dismounted with the clank of steel worn to impress and terrify. “I do not like the smell of this.” Nor did Geraint. He wished profoundly for a clearer head and hoped that Jankyn would have the sense to keep out of sight.

  Sir Ralph, a man of sturdy girth, clad in a hauberk surmounted by a silken cote of scarlet stitched with grey chevrons, panted up the stone steps and set back his metal coif, exposing hair the hue of trodden snow.

  “I have not seen you in these parts, sir.” He puffed bluntly, after an exchange of greetings with Lady Constance. He stared at Geraint with candid curiosity but ignored his proffered hand.

  With no show of embarrassment at the rebuff, Geraint stuck his thumbs in his belt. “Yes, Sir Fulk holds me a usurper but since he has never set eyes on me, he may hold anything he pleases, except my lawful wife. Come in to the hearth, my lord, and judge for yourself how he has treated her.”

  Sir Ralph looked somewhat confused at this speech but allow
ed himself to be ushered inside.

  With a screen on a turned pole to protect her unveiled face from the heat and one of her mother’s most ancient dogs snoozing belly-up at her feet, Johanna was sitting on the dais beside the fireplace, working at her embroidery frame with such deceptive serenity that no one would have suspected she was not on speaking terms with her hired husband. She had discarded the scarlet kirtle. Dainty in a gown as green as fir needles with a surcote of russet edged with coney fur, she rose and gracefully curtsied to their visitor.

  With a prayer to St. Cuthbert for protection against women who jumped to conclusions, Geraint held his hand out, palm uppermost, to her, and with a hesitancy that could pass for coyness to the unobservant, she placed her hand in his. He felt her fingers quiver and understood her fear of him. Damnation! He was not a violent man, but now was not the time to change her opinion; he had a bellyful of his own worries especially if the high sheriff’s officer took him for questioning. Well, it was necessary to be convincing. Trying to make amends, he stroked her bruised cheek caressingly with the outside of his forefinger and reluctantly turned his attention back to Sir Ralph.

  Johanna, confused—frightened at his earlier cruelty to Miles and overwhelmed by this public tenderness—tried to rally her courage.

  Lady Constance snapped her fingers for mulled wine and came to the point. “Have you come to look him over like a horse thief, Sir Ralph?”

  Her frankness gave the older man a fit of the sputters. “Nay, my lady.”

  “Oh come, as the king’s man you must be honest. The scandal is regrettably true. My daughter married Sir Gervase two years ago when he was but an esquire. It is well known that she baulked at marriage to Sir Fulk, and my lord husband locked her up and used the rod to gain her compliance.”

  Sir Ralph was blinking at the trio of them as if they had the frenzy. “I . . . I . . . God’s honest truth, madam, I came here for quite another reason.” He peered at Johanna’s injuries, clearly flummoxed. “I will look into this business later. Who did you say you were?” He gazed at the young man as though he were a rope that might heave him out of this insane quagmire.