“Let me go!”
“I am your husband, lady, or so the world thinks. Answer me! Why will you not eat?”
“Because I choose not.”
“Answer me!” He turned her, trapping her upward glance in the shaft of his gaze. The eyes that watched her were not red-flecked, old and angry like Fulk’s, but fathomless as deep water. There was no cruelty about his lips, only a fierce determination, but his assumption that, like Fulk, he could force compliance from her made her tremble. “Are you with child?”
She swallowed, and shook her head.
The mouth above her curved into a self-satisfied smile at having wrung that drop of truth from her and then, unpredictably, he suddenly relented, freed her and stepped back. Was this a tactic too?
“I suppose, sir, you will tell me next you are berating me out of loving kindness. Do you think I shall forget to mourn if you make me angry?”
“Believe me, I am sorry for your grief, my lady, but I will not have you appearing at the hearing tomorrow as if you lack love from me.” His glance slid from her leather slippers slowly up over her body as if trying to make her realise how the archdeacon’s officer would see her. “Johanna, I have to know this. If you are not carrying a child, then why the secret tears this morning? Are you sick? Or is this some kind of regular melancholy you indulge in when the moon is old?”
“How dare you!”
“A religious vow then,” he cut in swiftly, his tone derisive. “No food for Lent. You seek to dry up all bodily fluids and become a creature entirely of spirit.” Then his voice dropped, “Do not staunch the woman in you, lady. It makes you what you are, what God wanted you to be.”
“Do not preach to me.” She watched the sinfulness dance in his eyes, but already it was chosen, another weapon selected from his arsenal.
“Ah, I have it!” He paced and turned, now with an indignant mien. “Admit it, you have fallen in love with that winsome groom.”
For an instant Johanna stared at him as if he had announced the earth had started encircling the sun and then she astonished both of them by laughing at the absurdity, joyful of his clemency and that his mercurial nature could so easily provide an antidote to the poison working in her. “You are too clever. I languish for him nightly.”
“Ah.” He held out his hand, his fingers curling with the delicately angled balance of enticement and insistence. “That excuse will satisfy me for the time being. Come and approve the arrangement of your bedchamber.”
She took the gift of his hand. But it was not over; nothing was over yet.
THE TWO STEPS up to the tower door were glistening with moisture and the entire floor had been swabbed to remove the splashes of whitewash.
“Watch out for your sleeves.” He tested the wall with his fingerpads.
His esquire turned from supervising the setting up of a bed by two of the servants and bowed politely to her. “I am sorry about your poor little dog,” he said gravely, straightening up. On receipt of a reproving look from his master at resurrecting her sorrow, Jankyn retaliated with a second bow. “Sir Gervase snores, my lady.”
She permitted Gervase to draw her out of the lower room and up to the lighter chamber. Already her bed had been set up, but its hangings were missing and the walls around it were bare as yet. Agnes rose from laying the fire in the hearth and withdrew. At least there was some warmth to dry the floor. While this chamber was not so modern and luxurious as her bedchamber over the hall, it was more intimate in its smallness and Gervase filled it, unnerving her with his presence.
This arrangement must endure until the hearing was over or the king evicted them. It would be transitory. She would be lying in a nun’s simple cell soon.
Gervase, her new self-appointed tower sentry, was waiting for her reaction; his smile would have bridged their river. But what gave her pause was that he had deliberately engineered this control of her privacy. He would, she realised, know every coming and going to her bedchamber.
Her glance flew to the door. There was no lock, merely a wooden bar propped against the corner angle.
The blue stare spoke volumes. Oh, he had read her thoughts.
“I trust I have your compliance in this, madam wife.”
“And if you have not?”
“The dice is thrown, but I can have your possessions moved back above the hall if you insist.” And I will have you eating from my hand, his expression told her.
“In case you have forgotten, master esquire, I am quite capable of organising my servants.” Frowning, she opened the door for him. “God speed.”
SUPPER WAS A chilled affair. The food was hot considering it was hurried through draughty passageways from the kitchen; it was the conversation that was tepid. Geraint made a helpless face at Miles but unfortunately the boy lacked discretion.
“Why do you not tell jests like you used to, Johanna? Remember that one about the two chickens?”
“No,” snapped Johanna.
Her brother pouted. “Everyone sits around with pokey long faces since you came back from Enderby.” He had turned his bread into a siege-tower and was trundling it into attack on the great salt, a castle of silver.
“Be quiet, Miles, and behave!” Lady Constance smacked the manpower and demolished the assault, tossing the trencher to a lurking hound. “Show some sensitivity! Your sister is grieving for her dog.”
“I will croak you a song, Miles,” announced Gervase. “It will bore you so much that you will be happy to go and occupy yourself elsewhere.”
“Oh my,” muttered Johanna.
Lady Constance snapped her fingers at the resident minstrel.
“Sir Gervase would like some music to ease Lady Johanna’s sorrow.”
Alacrity personified, the minstrel grabbed his lute and came to know their pleasure.
“No, no, I insist on providing the entertainment.”
“When do you not,” muttered Johanna under her breath.
“This song,” Geraint persisted—perhaps he had drunk too much—“was written originally by a poet named Vogelweide who lived in the realm of the Holy Roman Emperor. It has suffered many translations. This version I heard from a Gascon troubadour.”
The minstrel beamed and his fingers rippled out a cascade of sweet notes. “Permit me to accompany you.”
“Excellent,” drawled Gervase. “I dedicate this song to my dear wife. Appreciate it, my darling dear, this is a rare event.”
He just hoped he could remember the words. He sang the first two lines, smiling as his audience hushed and listened. Surprised at his skill, the minstrel joined in and even improvised a counterpoint at the chorus.
Beneath the leaves
Of the lime tree
I built a bower for two,
As love oft weaves.
“Come, pluck with me,
Flowers of each hue.”
At the edge of a wild wood in a vale,
Tandaraday! sang the nightingale.
Away I stole
To see my love.
“Fair knight,” she said.
I made her whole,
Sweet as a dove,
Upon that bed.
Did I kiss her? Yes, with a thousand sips.
Tandaraday! See, the redness of her lips.
That she lay with me,
No one must know,
No wight must tell.
So blithe and free,
God keep from woe
And the fire of Hell.
It is ’twixt us two and that little bird,
Tandaraday! who will keep his word.
Meeting Gervase’s provocative smile as he ended, Johanna felt an uncertain yearning stirring within her at the lure of so seductive a lyric sung with such feeling, and she was truly angry with Miles for kicking his stool all through Gervase’s singing. So was everyone else; consequently the applause was somewhat excessive.
“It was tedious,” the boy muttered. “Why are all the songs about love? Who cares about such trifling matters?
You used to like the song about the frogs, Johanna.”
“That was when I was thirteen.”
Gervase laughed and set his arm about her shoulders with sufficient husbandly kindness.
Johanna realised belatedly that the song had been merely part of the mummery. For an infinitesimal moment, the length of a sigh, she had fallen under the spell of the singer. Perhaps Master Vogelweide might have been worth the knowing.
She leaned her chin upon her hand and stared glumly at the untouched wafer on the cloth before her. If a man could write so, surely love must be something wondrously beautiful. And yet, her cynical nature asserted, words might be a palliative for something that was merely as brief and brutal as the coupling of wildfowl. She had seen drakes land on top of females, pushing them underwater. They would surface, the drake holding the lady-duck’s nape fiercely in his beak. He would penetrate her and it was over. No, chivalry was just a surcote that hid the ugly steel beneath and clothed rape, robbery and bloody slaughter in meaningless mouthings of honour. And courtly love hid the sordid couplings. A queen might have a lovesick knight at her feet by day creating lyrics to her eyes and lips, but at night he would go home to cuff his wife and the queen would return to her empty, loveless bed. Or if her husband was King of England, he would hang her jewels around the neck of Hugh Despenser. Poor French Isabella, with only babes to comfort her.
“You did not like it.”
She who had never experienced any delights in tandaradaying made an effort to be courteous. He had been brave to sing with sore ribs.
“You sing with great . . . feeling, sir.”
He smiled and raised his cup to her. “For you, my sweet lady, a little courtly love.” Oh Jesu, did the man have to have a smile that scooped her heart up and held it gently as though it were a fragile, fluffed-up fledgling? It was all so overwhelming after Fulk’s regime.
“Courtly love,” mused her mother, “I wonder if Eleanor of Aquitaine used it as a mirror to her own vanity. I have always admired her but do you imagine she actually enjoyed going on the crusade? All that sand,” she continued prosaically. “I am sure Richard Coeur-de-Lion must have regarded it as a great inconvenience having his mother along. But what courage she had to travel to the Holy Land.”
Geraint did not answer Lady Constance. He had observed with concern that Johanna had eaten almost nothing during supper, and while he sympathised with her grief and her fear of facing her heartless husband at the hearing, he was becoming certain that there was concealment in her abstinence. She was hollow-eyed and growing gaunter by the day. If this was indeed some vow for Lent, then Father Gilbert must answer to him. Godsakes, she was drooping now, almost faint with hunger.
“Madam, your daughter!” Rising, he stepped behind her and, hands about her shoulders, lifted her to her feet.
Lady Constance cast a concerned look at her daughter’s ashen face and urged her through to the great chamber.
“Has she eaten anything at all this last week?” Geraint snapped at the two tiring women as he followed them in.
Yolonya shook her head, hands on her huge hips as she swivelled to face her mistress. “I warned you, my lady, that the mite was starving herself. You must take her in hand, my lord.”
“Fetch some of the broth they served earlier, Agnes!”
Restored somewhat by the nourishment, Johanna tried to best him as he spooned more food between her lips.
“Stop it. I will feed myself, thank you.” She grabbed the spoon and finished the bowlful, knowing that he would stand over her until she did. It did reinvigorate her until her upstart companion began his tirade.
“What in God’s Name is the matter with you, my lady? I took you for having common sense, not for being as featherheaded as a pillow.”
“Go away, all of you!” Johanna buried her face in her hands.
“Gervase!” Lady Constance held open the door for him.
“No, I will not leave. Are you all blind, you geese?” Agnes and Yolonya unfortunately met the full weight of his anger, but it was her mother he was aiming at. “Can you not see that something ails her, madam?”
Her mother closed the door again with a sigh and came to look down at her. “Johanna, what is going on, dearest?”
“That first time!” Pacing the room, Geraint suddenly flung his hands in the air, and whirled round on the women. “That first time when I arrived. The swoon was real.”
“Yes,” whispered Johanna. “Now leave me be.”
“It is this hearing hanging over us,” declared Lady Constance.
“Is it indeed? She needs exercise, fresh air and food actually inside her, not merely on her plate.” He paused in mid-stride to snarl down at her, “You only exercise your fingers, my lady, plying a needle in and out. Pah, no wonder you lack an appetite.” He halted his pacing and crouched before her. “Listen, Johanna, if we take all the garrison as escort to render us modest and keep off predators, will you come hawking with me tomorrow afternoon if the judge lets us out to play?” She shook her head, knuckling her tears away. “Why ever not? It is springtime, lady, a new year. You need roses in your cheeks and . . .” He floundered, frowning at her as he tried further coaxing. “And do not tell me that I am not yet mended to manage it. I am and I do not issue invitations lightly. Flying the birds with me is a privilege.”
Johanna smiled, close to tears again because she must refuse. His company gave her courage. If only she might confide in him—but the matter was too shameful, too intimate.
He shook his clenched hands in furious frustration. “Then you must rest, my lady.”
“Leave me to try to sleep a little here, sir, and thank you. I appreciate you trying to cheer me earlier and for your care,” she added, tucking her feet up. “The broth has restored me.”
But it did not bode well for tomorrow.
Twenty
THE PARISH CHURCH beside the marketplace next morning was more crammed than a looter’s bag during a rebellion and the retainers of Conisthorpe and Enderby eyed each other between the Norman pillars like leashed, snarling dogs. With their master not come in to abuse them, Fulk’s men enjoyed jeering at Gervase.
“This is a house of God and if anyone makes another ‘cuckoo’ noise, I will have them removed from here straightway,” bellowed the glowering sergeant-at-law at the Enderby men.
The cuckoo in question pressed Johanna’s shoulder reassuringly. He stood behind the bench that had been set for the noble ladies, looking every inch a lord. The cuckold, Fulk, on the other hand, clanked into the church in sabatons and full armour, making play on his renown as a man whose reputation had not been dimmed by the disgraceful losses at Bannockburn.
“Do you receive the impression that we are beholding a hero?” muttered Gervase. “Perhaps I should have worn my matching six and eightpenny gauntlets and a ten-shilling bascinet.” Johanna was too tense to appreciate his humor. Fulk, clearly horn-mad at Gervase’s arm about her, was eyeing her as malevolently as a cruel-beaked bird of prey.
“Who is that?” On Johanna’s other side, her mother was glancing back at a richly clad woman with a pleated wimple beneath her chin.
“Sir Maurice’s widow, Maud de Roos,” whispered Father Gilbert. “They say she is already seeking a second husband.”
“Well, it is rude of her to stare,” growled Johanna, wondering whether the whole of Yorkshire had come to gape. A horn sounded and they rose for the judge’s entrance.
A magistrate’s board with quills, ink and parchment stood before the rood screen, but above it the great statue of Christ, his arms outspread in pain, stared bleakly Heavenwards, reminding them that whatever the outcome, God’s judgment alone prevailed.
William de Bedford, the archdeacon’s officer judging the case, proved to be a small, lean man of tidy appearance, who sternly scrutinised them as he sat down upon the bench, his expression proclaiming that they sat in God’s house and that their purpose must not be to trivialise the law.
The constitution of the proc
tors was carried out first and then the plaintiffs’ libels were called for. Johanna, hiding behind her veil, was shocked when the judge required her to set it back so that the two men claiming possession of her could each assert that she was indeed the woman concerned. Fulk’s petition against her was then presented in writing, but he chose to add an oral endorsement, striding into the space between the bench and the congregation with the confidence of a Pericles or Cicero, but only steel authority rattled forth.
Geraint knew his kind—the sort who enjoyed cracking out brief, precise orders. A disobedient conscripted villein under Fulk’s command might end with a noose around his neck or be flogged within an inch of his life. Poor Johanna. She would have had to be disciplined too.
“Most of the people gathered here today,” Fulk thundered, “witnessed me wed this woman before the chapel door and our union was blessed by the cleric standing there!” Father Gilbert’s expression tightened and there were murmurs of approval from the assembly. “There is no question that the marriage was consummated and I will avow on yon Holy Bible that this adulterous woman,” he thrust a long malicious finger at her, “was a virgin when I first lay with her.”
Johanna blanched. Somewhere a woman tittered, and Gervase coolly raised mocking eyebrows at Fulk.
“Lucky maid!” sneered someone derisively.
“Did you take your armour off first?” another voice yelled from the back. It could have been the brewer’s wife for Jankyn had a fit of coughing.
William de Bedford stared dispassionately at the congregation. “I will clear this court if there are any further interruptions. Have you anything more to say, Sir Fulk?”
“Yes.” He leaned upon the board, so close his spittle might have fallen upon the judge as he snarled, “An audience with my lord archbishop could resolve this matter right swiftly. This hearing is a waste of this court’s time and mine.” He gave the cloth a fistblow that startled the inkpots and made the notary blot the parchment, then he strode back to his place, his haubergeon rattling.
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