“You’re right,” she said soberly. “He’s coercing me without even knowing it, and I’m letting him do it. It’s just that I swore I’d never have anything more to do with that man. He just wanted to...to use me, the same as every other man I’ve ever known. Except for Hugh.” With a tentative glance in his direction, she added, somewhat shyly, “And you, of course.”
The little worm of contrition grew into a hissing serpent, squeezing him until he felt sick with guilt. But all he said was, “Thank you, mistress. I appreciate that.”
Chapter 13
Graeham watched through the rear window the following afternoon as Joanna knocked on the back door of Rolf le Fever’s house, lugging a leather bag containing her sampler and her best pieces—a beaded girdle, an elaborate scarf and a fringed purse.
The door was opened by the shiny-faced kitchen wench, wiping her hands on her apron. She nodded as Joanna spoke to her, then turned and retreated into the house. A minute later, Graeham saw the kitchen wench through the window of the second-floor sitting room, where Rolf le Fever was meeting with some men. He snapped at her; she flinched as she spoke, pointing outside.
The guildmaster crossed to the window and leaned out, his eyebrows quirking when he saw Joanna. He disappeared from view. A few moments later he appeared at the back door.
Leaning on the doorframe, his arms crossed, he spoke to Joanna while slowly surveying her up and down. Graeham’s hands clenched into fists. Suddenly it seemed like very poor judgment on his part to have urged her to go there.
Joanna had her back to Graeham, but from le Fever’s expression of weary forbearance, it was clear that she was entreating him to let her pay a call on his wife. He shook his head resolutely and backed up, his hand on the door.
She took a step forward and said something else, pointing to her bag.
Le Fever held a hand up, his attitude irate, his voice so loud now that Graeham could make out a word here and there. From what he gathered, the guildmaster was telling Joanna his wife had no use for her “cheap frippery,” and to leave or he’d have her bodily ejected from his property.
He slammed the door shut.
Joanna stood there for a moment, then turned and started back through the stable yard. As she passed through the opening in the stone wall, she paused, her hand on the iron gate, her countenance meditative. Presently her expression lightened; she smiled slowly.
Graeham assumed she would cross the croft and enter the house through the back door. Instead, she headed for the alley. Wondering what she had in mind, he grabbed his crutch, struggled to his feet and unlatched the alley window—having shuttered it after nones, as usual, pending Olive’s daily trek to the le Fever house—but he was too late. Joanna had already passed.
Limping to the salle, he watched through the front window—she’d closed the bottom shutter but left the top open for air—as she crossed Wood Street and entered the apothecary shop. She was in there so long that his broken leg started aching. He leaned against the wall, his gaze trained on the window, waiting for her to come out.
When she did, she was wearing Olive’s dark green mantle. “What the devil...?” Graeham murmured as she raised the hood of the heavy woollen cloak, pulling it low to shade her face, and started back across Wood Street. She still carried her bag of wares; in her other hand was something small that flashed blue in the afternoon sun—no doubt the phial containing Ada le Fever’s tonic.
She disappeared into the alley. Graeham turned and hobbled back into the storeroom. By the time he got there, she was crossing le Fever’s stable yard.
Byram emerged from the stable, leading le Fever’s black horse by the reins. Glancing at Joanna as she walked up to the back door, her head down, he called out, “Afternoon, Olive. You can go on in.”
She raised a hand in acknowledgment, opened the door, and disappeared inside.
“You clever girl,” Graeham whispered, sinking onto the cot.
* * *
Closing the door behind her, Joanna found herself in a hallway leading straight ahead the length of the house. To the right, through an arched doorway, she saw part of a sunlit room that must have been a kitchen, judging by the pots and utensils hanging from the rafters. The plump kitchen wench who’d greeted her at the door earlier stood with her back to her at a work table, singing as she chopped.
An oaken door stood open to her left. Through it, she saw kegs of ale, barrels of wine, and a number of ewers, goblets and cups on shelves. In a corner of this well-stocked buttery she spied what she was looking for—the service stairwell.
She climbed the stairs quickly but stealthily, praying she didn’t bump into Rolf le Fever before she had a chance to find his wife and talk her into a commission. As she passed the second level, she heard men’s voices, including le Fever’s, and crossed herself. Please, God, don’t let him find me here.
Pausing on the third-floor landing, she listened for sounds on the other side of the oaken door, her spirits sinking when she heard nothing. Olive had told her she’d find the mistress of the house in the solar, nursing her stubborn cold. If she wasn’t here, Joanna would have to return home, defeated.
She knocked softly on the door.
“Aethel?” came a reedy voice from within. “I thought you’d gone marketing.”
Joanna cracked the door open. The great chamber, with its tightly shuttered windows, was so dim that it took her a moment to spot the narrow, uncurtained bed on the opposite wall. A woman lay propped up on pillows beneath a coverlet, observing her with an expression of bewilderment.
“‘Tisn’t Aethel, mistress,” Joanna said, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her. It was warm in here, and stuffy, despite the room’s size. “My name is Joanna Chapman. I live behind you.”
Joanna crossed the room, feeling decidedly uneasy to be here in this woman’s private sanctum, uninvited, having gained access by subterfuge. She began to wish she hadn’t done it, not because of the risk of discovery, but because she was violating the privacy of this stranger. Most likely she wouldn’t be entertaining these misgivings had she found Ada le Fever dressed and sitting up, rather than abed in her night shift.
The darkly paneled walls were bare of hangings, the wooden floor devoid of rushes, the furniture minimal. A carved wooden crucifix hung over Mistress Ada’s bed, and a book with a cross stamped into the leather-bound cover sat on a shelf beneath it. There was an almost empty bowl of what looked like broth on a little table next to the bed, and a cup of water. Were it not for the chamber’s spaciousness, it might almost have looked like a nun’s cell.
Ada pointed toward the blue glass phial as Joanna approached the side of the bed. “Is that my tonic?” she asked in a very soft, girlish voice.
“Aye. Olive...asked me to bring it.” In truth, Olive had seemed confounded by Joanna’s request to borrow her mantle and deliver Mistress Ada’s medicine. But once Joanna had explained what she was about, the girl had agreed readily enough, on one condition. Have her take the tonic while you’re there, so’s you can bring back the phial. Mum counts those phials twice a day—they’re that dear.
Joanna set her bag on the floor and took a seat in the chair next to the bed, trying not to stare at Ada le Fever. She was young, much younger than Joanna had realized—or perhaps it only seemed that way because she was so dreadfully thin. Her face looked white as chalk in the half-light, an effect intensified by the sharp contrast of blue-black hair worn in two tidy braids. She had enormous, dark eyes with shadows beneath them, as if someone had smudged a bit of charcoal there.
Joanna tried to reconcile this pale, fragile creature with the vibrant young woman she’d seen last summer, gardening behind her house. She’d struck Joanna as extremely pretty then, in a delicate, rarified way. Now she just looked sick.
Very sick.
“If you can help me to sit up,” Ada said weakly, “I’ll take the tonic.” She spoke the continental dialect of Norman French, rather than the anglicized version that was in
common use in England, and with a refined manner of speech that signified gentle birth.
Sliding an arm beneath Ada’s shoulders, Joanna urged her into a sitting position and uncorked the phial. The tonic smelled pleasantly minty. She held it out to Ada, but the young woman shook her head. “I’ll drop it if I try to hold it. My hands...they don’t always do what I want them to.”
Joanna supported Ada and held the phial to her mouth while she drank its contents, taking small sips that were clearly difficult for her to swallow. When it was empty, Joanna helped her to lean back against her mound of pillows.
“There, now,” Joanna said, switching to the classic French she’d been tutored in by her father’s clerics, “that will make you feel better.”
Ada shook her head listlessly. “I feel even worse after the tonic.”
“Worse?”
“For a while. I get to feeling cold all over, and numb in my mouth and throat—and sometimes I get nosebleeds. Master Aldfrith says it’s just the medicine doing its job.”
“Master Aldfrith the surgeon?”
“Aye, my husband sent for him when I first took sick. He still comes round from time to time. Sometimes he brings his son-in-law.”
“Is his son-in-law a surgeon, too?”
Ada shook her head wearily. “A mercer—or wants to be. Master Aldfrith’s trying to get him into the guild, but Rolf says he’s too inexperienced.”
From the looks of her, Ada le Fever needed a proper, university-trained physician, not the neighborhood bone-setter. “What does Master Aldfrith say is wrong with you?” she asked.
“A rheum in the head. They linger like this sometimes, he says.”
“I see.” But Joanna had never known anyone to waste away like this from a head cold.
“Master Aldfrith told Olive what kind of tonic I need, and she brings it to me every day. He says I’ll feel better very soon.”
“How long have you been taking it?”
Ada frowned in concentration. “Since Christmastide. How long ago is that?”
“Almost six months.”
Ada turned her head toward the wall.
“I know what you need,” Joanna said cheerily, rising and crossing to the window on the back wall. “A bit of fresh air and sunshine.”
“Nay.”
“Aye, it’s too dark in here, and dreadfully warm. I don’t know how you can bear it.” Joanna unlatched the shutters and threw them open. When she turned around, she saw that Ada had an arm thrown over her face.
“Close it,” Ada pleaded. “The light hurts my eyes.”
“You’ll get used to—”
“No I won’t. Close it—please.”
Joanna shuttered the window and returned to stand at the side of the bed, where Ada was rubbing her eyes with trembling hands. She was trembling all over, Joanna saw; her body was racked with shivers. “Are you cold?”
“Aye,” she said, turning onto her side and tucking her legs up.
Joanna pulled up the extra blanket folded at the foot of the bed and tucked it around Ada. “You should see a physician.”
“Nay. Rolf...my husband...he says it isn’t necessary. ‘Tis but a rheum in the head, he says. Master Aldfrith says so, too—and he’s a surgeon.”
“Still, I think you should ask to see—”
“I did—the last time Rolf was up here, back before Lent. But he won’t send for one. He says physicians charge too much, and that I’m not really as sick as I seem, that I’m just...” Ada let out a shaky breath. In a tone of weary defeat, she said, “He says I’m just melancholy, and making too much of a head cold. They both do, Rolf and the surgeon.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. You don’t want to hear these things.”
“I don’t mind. Is it true? Are you melancholy?”
Ada closed her eyes and nodded.
“Do you think that’s all that’s wrong with you?” Joanna asked. “Apart from a head cold?”
Ada shrugged. “Perhaps. I suppose so. Master Aldfrith, he tried to explain it to me, but it’s so confusing, all that business about humors and the stars and the balance of earth and water and fire and so forth. My sister Phillipa would understand—she’s very clever—but I just can’t make sense of it. Apparently it has much to do with an excess of black bile. That’s what’s making me melancholic—that’s why I think I’m sicker than I am.”
“Ah.” Joanna couldn’t completely discount the theory; if the soul was ailing, could not the body suffer as well?
“Rolf says it has naught to do with humors and such. He says I want attention and...and pity, and...and...” She shook her head. “You didn’t come here to listen to this. I have no one to talk to except for Aethel, my maid—that’s why I’m subjecting you to this. You want to leave, and I’m—”
“No, I don’t.” But nor did she intend to solicit a commission from her; Ada le Fever was far too ill to take an interest in a new seat cushion or purse. Lifting the book down from the little shelf over the bed, she opened it and found it to be a psalter.
“My uncle gave me that,” Ada said. “He’s a canon of Notre Dame.”
“It’s beautifully done,” Joanna said, admiring the gilded capitals and borders on the neatly inked pages of tissue-thin vellum. “Do you read from it often?”
Ada shook her head. “My eyes...it hurts to read. I used to, though. I love the psalms.”
“Would you like me to read to you?” Joanna asked, taking a seat.
“You can read?”
“Aye.”
Ada looked at her speculatively. “You don’t seem like any merchant’s wife I’ve ever met.”
Joanna smiled. “Nor do you.”
Ada returned her smile. “Yes, I’d like for you to read to me. I’d like that very much.”
* * *
The bells of vespers were pealing when Joanna left the le Fever house, stealing out the same way she’d stolen in. She had just enough time to pay a call on Rose Oxwyke before heading home to start supper.
There was a lovely garden behind the Oxwykes’ grand stone house, with a slate path leading to the back door. Joanna was halfway down the path when the door opened. Young Damian Oxwyke emerged, wearing his black mantle and felt hat, his jaw set, his eyes glinting.
Joanna nodded as he passed her. “Good afternoon, Master Damian.”
“Mistress,” he muttered, slamming the gate on his way out.
From the back stoop, Joanna watched him stalk across the croft and into the alley. Turning toward the door, she raised her hand to knock, but hesitated when she heard the muffled bellowing of Lionel Oxwyke’s voice from within. “He’s been sneaking over there to see her! He didn’t even try to deny it!”
His wife said something in a high, wheedling tone that Joanna couldn’t make out.
“Of course my bloody stomach is bothering me,” he raged. “It’s on fire, and it’s that boy’s fault.”
Rose Oxwyke tried again to placate her husband, but he would have none of it.
“Damn him for his impudence!” the money changer roared. “Damn him! Damn him to hell!”
Joanna turned around and walked swiftly away. Perhaps she would try to visit Rose Oxwyke some other time—some time when her husband wasn’t home. Of course, if this fruitless afternoon was any indication of the kind of success she’d have seeking commissions from the local matrons, she should simply abandon the idea right now. She’d closed her shop all afternoon for what was beginning to look like a doomed enterprise.
But if she couldn’t find some better way to support herself than the shop, what would become of her once Graeham Fox’s four shillings ran out? Penniless women did not fare well anywhere, but particularly in a city like London. No wonder so many women ended up spreading their legs for tuppence. Could Joanna make her living that way if the only option was starvation? If things kept on as they were, she would find herself facing that choice by next winter.
According to Hugh, all she needed was to marry the right man, and her problems, finan
cial and otherwise, would disappear. The more she thought about it, the more sense it made. Perhaps she shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss Robert of Ramswick as a potential husband; he hadn’t contacted her since the fair, but Hugh assured her he meant to. She’d been humoring Hugh when she told him she’d think about Robert’s suit—if and when he broached it—but upon cool-headed reflection, there was a measure of merit to the idea.
Or there would be, if it weren’t for the lady Margaret.
Thinking to return the mantle and glass phial to Olive, Joanna didn’t head directly home, but went instead to the apothecary shop. The shop window was open, but there was no sign of Olive. Joanna entered the stall and looked around; it wasn’t like Olive to leave things unattended. Setting the phial and her bag on the work table, she unpinned Olive’s mantle and hung it on its peg by the doorway that led to the back of the house.
The deerskin over the door was open just an inch or two; through this gap, Joanna could view the length of the house to the rear window that looked out onto the walled medicinal garden in back. Elswyth, in her grimy night shift, was kneeling in the garden, clawing away at the dirt.
Joanna turned to leave, stilling when she heard whispers from beyond the curtained doorway, a feminine voice—Olive’s voice—saying, “No...please...no.”
Joanna unsheathed her dagger, drew a fortifying breath, and whipped the deerskin open. Olive gasped. She was standing against the wall, pinned between the arms of a dark-haired young man in black—Damian.
“Mistress Joanna!” Olive gaped at the dagger.
“What’s going on here?” Joanna asked.
“Nothing. Please...put that away. He’s not hurting me.”
“Hurting you! Oh, Christ.” Damian turned and paced away from her. “I can’t bear this any longer, Olive. Sneaking about this way—”
“Then stop coming here, Damian,” the girl pleaded.
“I can’t. I love you.”
“Damian, please...”
“Come away with me.”
Lords of Conquest Boxed Set Page 18
