A Love For All Seasons (15 page)

From their pallets on the floor all around her the maids who served Papa’s house all murmured in their sleep. The lasses were distraught over Emmalina's abrupt departure from their midst, none of them certain of the reason for her dismissal. Johanna rolled onto her side to look over her cot's edge at them. Caught two to a pallet, they cuddled and snuggled as they slumbered.

It had been very hard not to tell them what she knew, thus making herself the center of their attention, but today had changed her. No longer was she a babe, blindly trusting all she saw. She was the mistress of this house, the one who sought to protect those in her charge. Besides, if she spilled what she knew, one of them would surely tell Helewise. Not only could this threaten both Rob and Master Colin, but Johanna might be punished for spying.

Only then did the answer to this puzzle come to her. There was one person to whom she could spill her troubles. Once she'd told Katel what she knew she could barter with him to secure the safety of those she loved.

Before she could reconsider her plan, Johanna slipped from her cot and dragged on her undergown. Tiptoeing carefully over the maids, she crept to the bedchamber door. Puss rose to follow her.

Helewise rolled onto her back. "Where are you going, little mistress?" Her voice was sleepy.

"To the privy," she lied.

"Use the chamber pot."

"Nay," Johanna moaned quietly. "I don't like it. It stinks."

Helewise gave a tired groan then pulled the blankets over her shoulders. "Do not wake the house by dropping the bar this time, and come immediately back, do you hear?" she murmured.

"Aye. My thanks, Helewise."

The housekeeper only sighed in reply.

Johanna stopped a step into the hall. Puss stood at her ankles, waiting to see where it was his mistress went at so late an hour. Appreciating his company upon this strange quest of hers, she glanced around the hall. As Papa took most of the male servants with him when he left, the big room seemed eerie in its emptiness, what with so few sleeping on its floor. She glanced to the side at where her dowry chests sat, seeking ease in their familiar presence. It was too dark in here to see them, there being not even enough light to make the brass gleam on the rusty-colored one. Still, she knew them as she knew herself, the brass-bound one sitting nearest to the bedchamber door with the green sitting between it and the brown-and-blue one.

Her courage fed, she turned toward the fireplace, the place given to Katel to sleep as befitted his rank. Since their hearth was hooded, the embers contained behind an edged stone, there was no need to cover it at night. Glowing coals, all that was left of the day's merry blaze, gilded Katel's blanketed outline. He was on his pallet.

She drew a breath in trepidation, but her need to protect Rob set her to sidling along the wall. When she reached her betrothed's pallet she knelt beside him and wrinkled her nose. He smelled as if he'd bathed in ale. Was this what Helewise meant by soaking his pride?

Puss, who had trailed along behind her, seated himself on the floor beside her. With his tail wrapped neatly around his forepaws, he waited to see what would happen next.

A thick shock of pale hair fell across Katel's face. Johanna gently brushed the strands back onto his forehead to look at him. Katel's nose twitched and he sighed, but did not awaken. He looked very different in sleep, all sweet-featured and as young as Rob. It was hard to be afraid of him.

"Wake up, Katel," she whispered, gently prodding him. It wouldn't do for Philip or the other men in the room to waken. Betrothal or not, if Helewise learned she'd come here to speak with Katel, there'd be worse than chamber pots to do. Helewise said that a woman who comported with men at night, even if she did not lay with them, deserved the title
whore
.

Katel's eyes blinked open, but it was another moment before he actually saw it was she who'd awakened him. "Well now, if it isn't my little wife." His words were quiet and slurred, his tone harsh. "The same wife who travels unescorted about Stanrudde, keeping company with a bastard."

At this insult to Rob, Johanna's eyes narrowed. "Rob's no bastard."

Katel's brows jerked upward, his mouth twisting in anger. "It befouls you to form his name with such familiarity," he snarled, but his words tangled one into the other until she wasn't quite certain this was what he'd said. He stopped to clear his throat and gain control of his tongue. "Speak that name to me again, and I guarantee I'll see the brat beaten for trespassing with you."

Johanna huffed in outrage, but his threat worried her. She should never have come here. Bracing her knuckles on the floor, she started to rise.

As if her motion only now brought him to full awareness, Katel's gaze cleared. "Wait, Johanna." He reached out to catch her arm and hold her in place. "I beg pardon. I am not myself this night," he said, once more sounding like last year's gentle man.

His more familiar tones made Johanna relax back onto the floor. Doubt crept into her thoughts. Mayhap his behavior at the warehouse had been but a momentary aberration. She smiled at him in relief.

Katel returned her smile then patted her cheek. "First lesson in husbands, my little wife. Never speak another man's name in their presence. Now, what are you doing here in the depths of the night? Where is Helewise? Has she not warned you that it's improper for you to come unescorted into the places where men sleep? Doing so is almost more unseemly than speaking to me about the bastard. Well if she hasn't, I vow I'll demand your father send you to the nuns."

Anger woke in her as Katel set to yet another attempt at manipulating her life. It spurred her into following through with her plan. "I came to tell you that I know the truth. You told those lads to hurt Rob."

Katel sat up so swiftly Johanna pushed herself back from him in a start of fear. He swayed unsteadily for a moment then braced himself on his arms. "Best you keep your lies to yourself." It was a quiet but vicious warning, banishing his previous gentleness, leaving behind only the Katel of the riverbank.

"I do not lie, Katel. I heard the boys talking in the abbey's marketplace. They said you'd put them to hurting Rob." There was a moment's guilt as she realized she'd broken her oath to the lads. Then her jaw stiffened. It served them right for not believing she'd keep her word anyway.

Katel belched. His eyes gleamed in the dimness as he stared at her. The sight of an empty and warm lap was more than Puss could bear. He strode delicately across Katel's blanketed legs to curl himself atop the young man's legs. In absent reaction Katel lowered his hand to stroke the cat's head, rubbing gently at Puss's ears. His reward was a loud purr.

At last, Katel said, "If you're so sure of yourself, why haven't you spilled what you think you know to Helewise?"

"What price?"

"You must vow to never again try to hurt Rob or Master Colin."

"Idiot babe," he retorted. "Spill what you think you know to whomever you please. There's none who'll believe you. Now, go back to your bed, but know I will complain to Helewise in the morn that you have come and disturbed me at my rest."

Even though he put a sharp edge to his voice, Johanna recognized the next step in their trade. This was just how Papa said it would be: you named your price knowing the buyer would refuse and disparage your wares, then you call him back to you with a better offer.

"If Helewise beats me, I'll have to tell her what I know," she said in quiet triumph, "and she'll have to tell Papa."

Yet stroking the cat Katel eyed her a moment as if trying to read her thoughts, then his brows lifted. "Mayhap we can come to some agreement. To set your heart at ease I’ll give you my vow never to hurt the bastard or Master Colin, but you must give me what I want in return."

"What?" she asked, now certain of triumph.

"You must enter the convent school by week's end."

Johanna gasped, shocked and ready to refuse his counteroffer. Then deep within her, a glow took life. That she should sacrifice herself to save Rob and Master Colin was right and just as it should be. Indeed, since she no longer wished to wed with Katel, it was the only answer.

In that moment Johanna recognized her destiny. She was fated to be a martyr, or mayhap even a saint. Saints and holy women almost always refused to give up their maidenheads, sometimes even to their husbands. Of course, this usually often cost them their lives, often in the most hideous of ways, but that was a worry for later. Just now, she could almost feel the glow of godliness ringing her head.

Best of all, if she was mistaken about this calling or found she truly hated the convent, she need only wait until Papa returned. When she complained he'd bring her home. Johanna nodded. "Aye, I'll do it, but only if you vow to me. Put your hand upon your heart as you do so to make it right."

Lifting his hand from Puss's head, Katel laid his palm against his chest. "Before God and all His saints I vow never to harm either the bastard—"

"Say Robert of Blacklea," she interrupted.

"Robert of Blacklea," Katel said in a choked voice, "or Master Colin on pain of my own death. How's that, little wife?" he asked, harsh amusement lingering at the edges of his words.

"I accept your oath," she replied solemnly.

He laughed at her. It was not a pleasant sound. "Good. Now, return to bed, remembering I will hold you to this agreement." He settled himself back down upon his pallet, careful not to dislodge the cat as he pulled the blankets over his head.

Johanna drifted back to the bedchamber, yet buoyed by impending sainthood. Rob would be safe. Master Colin would be safe. And she'd have no more mending to do.

The bedcurtain rings squealed against their wooden pole as the draperies were pushed aside, then footsteps retreated from the bedside toward the room's far edge. This startled Rob as he had no recall of returning to the hospitium or of going to bed. Opening his eyes, he squinted as the sun's cheerful brightness stabbed into his yet wine-sodden brain.

As he shifted on the soft mattress, seeking to escape the light, a wholly different sort of pain stabbed through him. "Jesu," he whispered as his head nigh on split in twain. This was the price he paid for attempting to wash Johanna from his system with wine.

Colin's brew had done more than ease his aches; it had filled the emptiness made when he'd left Johanna's arms. By the time Hamalin announced that their party was prepared to leave, Rob was no longer sober enough to sit a horse. He remembered little after that save that with each cup there was less of Johanna left within him.

Rolling onto his back, he waited until the throbbing eased, then probed his heart to see just how successful he'd been. Bits and pieces of her remained, memories, warm and sweet, but the aching guilt he'd carried for so long was gone. His heart was at peace.

Despite his discomfort, Rob nearly smiled. Now could he ride for Lynn, and, when he was again within his own walls, let the world know he was ready to wed. Giving free rein to his imagination, he tried to concoct the image of his perfect mate. She formed slowly in his inner eye: time had darkened her hair to a color more red than gold, her eyes were as blue as a summer's sky, her lips, reddened from his kiss.

With a frustrated groan, he tried to yank the blankets over his head. They were too short. "You cannot be my wife when the world believes you married to another," he told his imaginary Johanna.

"What's that you say, my good master?" Hamalin's voice matched the sun for its cheeriness. "Speaking to your friend, the flask?"

Taking care as to how he moved his head, Rob eased to the side until he could see his agent. Fair hair and reddish beard gleaming in the light, Hamalin sat in the room's chair. He wore his taunting grin as easily as he did his traveling attire: knee-length brown tunic, warm boots cross-gartered over thick chausses, and heavy cloak atop it all.

"What? Are you not wanting to leap from your mattress and gallop home?" this cocky servant asked.

"Mercy, Hamalin," Rob begged softly. "My head is already telling me how great a fool I am. There's no need for redundancy."

"Mercy, is it?" Bracing one ankle atop the opposite knee, Hamalin leaned back into the chair. Every line of his comely face said he was enjoying the outcome of his master's previous evening. "I am the one who should be crying for mercy. I had to sit and listen to the two of you sing."

"Tell me I didn't sing," Rob groaned in embarrassment.

"Aye, that you did and the monk along with you," Hamalin replied with a sad shake of his head. "I've heard better cats."

"Where is everyone?" Rob asked in an effort to rid himself of his agent's teasing. He kept his voice to a murmur in deference to his delicate condition.

"They have retreated to the stables, wanting nothing to do with a madman. I tell you, between that dash into yesterday's riot and the amount of wine you consumed last even, I'm astonished you live at all, much less retain the powers of speech." Here, Hamalin paused, amusement ebbing from his pale eyes as his brows rose slowly in invitation. "I can listen if you care to spill the tale." In his calm gaze lay the promise of both a ready ear and a still tongue, should Rob wish to confide what it was that had turned a cautious and sober man into an intemperate fool.

Rob sighed. All Hamalin knew of this trip to Stanrudde was that his master's grain had been stolen and Rob steadfastly refused to involve the sheriff as any sane merchant would have done. Pride, yet aching from the wounds Johanna had laid on it, reared its head. How hard he had labored to protect a woman who but threw his efforts back into his face. It was against the chance of being judged a fool that Rob held tight to his tale, not willing to spill it even to one as closemouthed as Hamalin. If fortune smiled on him, he'd be returning to Lynn this day, leaving Stanrudde and Johanna's rejection forever behind him.

"Perhaps another time," he murmured.

"As you will," his agent replied, his tone suggesting that he was more confused than hurt by Rob's refusal. "If we're to be on the road before nightfall and you are to keep your appointment with the abbot, it is time you rose."

Rob loosed another quiet groan and buried his face into the bedclothes. He'd completely forgotten the abbot's invitation to dine this midday. The very thought of eating set his stomach to turning in protest. This only fed his head's pounding. "Tell Abbot Eustace I have died, then leave me to suffer in peace. We can depart on the morrow."

"I think that would not be wise," Hamalin replied without a trace of humor.

This brought Rob to instant alertness, and he dropped the blanket to eye his agent. "Tell me why."

"Yesterday afternoon's disturbance was but a precursor to greater civil unrest. Last even, whilst you sang, a crowd swept through town, forcing our fellow grossiers, the bakers, and food shop owners to open and distribute what they had in store. When all was said and done, their bellies were still not full. This brought them and those whose property they'd destroyed to the abbey's gate where they cursed you. Only when the abbot threatened to call his knights did they depart." Hamalin came to his feet.

"Cursed me?" Rob looked up at him, stunned. "Who knows me here well enough to curse me?" he asked, more to himself than with any expectation of an answer.

Hamalin shrugged. “Who knows, who cares, except to say I think it past time we returned home."

By strength of will alone did Rob begin to subdue the outcome of his indulgence. Pushing back his bedclothes, he eased his legs over to the side of the bed. Hamalin rose and stepped nearer, offering his hand as an aid in rising. When Rob took it, his agent pulled him into a sitting position.

Steadying himself on the bed's edge, Rob groaned and put his hands at either side of his head to hold it together. "Jesu, Jesu," he cursed again, "and me in no shape to travel." Inwardly, he damned himself for indulging his anger and hurt. In doing so, he'd placed himself and his whole household in danger.

Hamalin laughed, but his amusement was friendly and mild. "You will be soon enough. I know you."

From a small basin resting on the coals in the brazier, Rob's man pulled a dripping linen cloth. Steam rose from it. As he squeezed the excess water from it into the brass pan, the coals sputtered, sending a cloud into the chill air. He offered Rob the cloth.

"Here, wrap this round your head. Mayhap, it will begin to draw some of the poison from your brain. Meanwhile, I'll go fetch Adelbert to tend to the washing and dressing of our grand and glorious master."

"A moment," Rob said, his words holding Hamalin in the room as he gratefully pressed his face into steaming linen. As the warmth seeped into his head the pounding began to ease. With a bit of comfort, his thoughts started to organize themselves.

"I'd leave what koren we brought with us as a donation to the abbey." Rob spoke without removing his face from the depths of the cloth. As he'd not known what to expect in Stanrudde and had not wished to eat at the expense of the poor, they'd brought enough unmilled seed to feed themselves for three weeks.

"So I have already done," Hamalin replied, proving once again how well he knew his master. "I also had your gown repaired so that your prominence might again shine forth to all who behold you. There was nothing to be done with your shoes. Your traveling boots will have to take their place."

Surprised, Rob lifted his head from the cloth's comfort to look toward the clothes pole on the wall. His gilded gown was folded over it, looking barely worse for wear. His mantle was beside it, freshened and free of stains. The corner of Rob's mouth lifted in wry acknowledgment of how much more he must add to the cost of indulging his heart's fantasy over Johanna. The abbey's laundresses must be blessing him this morn as they cooed over such swiftly earned riches.

The smile he sent Hamalin was more grimace than grin. "You are worth every pence I pay you."

"Best you remember that, for my contract renews next month," his man taunted gently, both of them knowing he'd go to no other house despite his employer's strange behavior of late. "If you've nothing else for me I'll fetch Adelbert, not to see you again until after you've filled your belly and spun your yarns at the abbot's fine table."

Rob made a quiet, rude sound at this. "After your tale of last night's violence I expect to get naught from the abbot but an interrogation as to whether I commit illegal acts whilst staying in his house."

"I doubt that," his agent retorted. "He was your defender last even. Had he believed the crowd, he'd have given you to them."

That the abbot, a Norman, believed Rob trustworthy enough to defend him did much to ease the hurt Johanna had done his pride. "I suppose in gratitude I must let him put his fingers into my purse." There was no rancor in Rob's voice despite the thought of yet more coins leaving him.

A new disappointment woke beneath the throbbing in his head. To meet a man as well-lettered as Abbot Eustace in his present muzzy-brained condition did no honor to the monks whose learning had once filled him with great joy. Eons ago, or so it seemed, he'd been the abbey school's star pupil.

Hamalin laughed at that. "A small price to pay to avoid dining in the hospitium's frater with us lowly folk. While you sup on delicate dishes, we'll be choking down salt fish and bread made from bean flour, our cups empty and us unable to raise our voices to ask that they be refilled. While you exchange pleasantries, we’ll be listening to some monk droning out a sermon in Latin, which we cannot understand. All in all, it will be a long, dry meal." Touching two fingers to his brow in mocking salute, Hamalin left the room.

It was but an hour before Rob's personal servant had completed his careful ministrations. Rob held up the piece of polished metal to review the finished effect. His gown, collar again intact, gleamed back at him nigh as brightly as his clean skin. Once more his beard had been tamed back to a narrow line of hair clinging to his strong jaw.

He frowned at the purpled bruise that marked his forehead then brushed down his hair a bit to cover it. There was nothing that could be done with the scratches that scored his face from cheekbone to beard, or with the dark marks that clung beneath his gray eyes, a testimony to his excess. At least, the aftereffects of too much drink had receded into the range of bearable. That it had done so in so short a time gave rise to the hope that he'd do better than simply endure the jogging of a horse later this afternoon.

It was with a touch of hunger coming to life in his belly that he set aside his mirror and left the hospitium for the abbot's lodging. That two-story house, with plastered wooden walls rising from a tall stone cellar, stood in front of what had once been the corner where the chapter house and the frater met. Rob looked around him, holding in his heart the disappointment of one who had hoped to find a favorite place unchanged.

Like many of the buildings that now filled this compound, the abbot's house was new. At every turn, familiar wooden buildings were being replaced by cold stone. Even the abbey's narrow church was being widened. A tiny smile twisted Rob's lips. Such expansion and in so expensive a material as stone was possible only because the times favored trade. Therein lay an interesting conundrum.

Everywhere, churchmen thundered in their pulpits against tradesmen who dared turn a lively profit and live well, saying such an activity went against God's plan. In turn, tradesmen, fearing themselves damned for pursuing wealth rather than contemplating God's holiness, gave freely and richly to those who cursed them. That the gold had its roots in base trade did not stop these same churchmen from using it to build finer and finer edifices to the greater glory of God. It was the way of life; one could not exist without the other.

Rob knocked quietly at the arched lower-level door in the abbot's lodging. There was no response. Frowning, he knocked again. Yet another long moment passed before a servant finally opened the door. Dressed in the sober colors of the abbot's household, the youth who greeted him took a stance upon the threshold that suggested he did not intend for Rob to enter.

The new bruises on Rob's pride flinched in pain. Mayhap the abbot had thought the better of his previous night's defense. He waited for some word of either invitation or refusal from the youth, but the servant said nothing, only stood on the threshold and blocked the way. The moment dragged.

"Did I mistake that the abbot invites me to share his table this day?" he asked at last, the cool comment being more statement than question.

The servant's shoulders sagged in what almost seemed disappointment. "Nay, Master Robert, you did not," he sighed. "Please, enter."