Blood Oath: The Janna Chronicles 1 (4 page)

“Well.” Godric moved to the door. “I mean no harm in repeating what people are saying. It’s nonsense anyway. I just wanted to warn you. But perhaps a warning isn’t necessary if Dame Alice has called on your mother’s skill to aid her. That should be enough to stop any ill-natured tattle.”

He opened the door, then quickly turned, seized Janna’s hand and kissed it. “Farewell,” he muttered. “God be with you, Janna.”

“God go with you, Godric. Thank you for saving me tonight.” Janna put her hand behind her back, feeling the mark of his lips burn like a brand on her skin.

“Shall I ask for a reward?” he said cheerfully. His face brightened. “Shall I ask for more than just your thanks and a kiss on the hand?”

Janna’s face flamed scarlet. Godric grinned at her. “We shall meet again, Janna, and soon,” he promised, and padded off into the night.

The cottage seemed too quiet after Godric had gone. Janna stared into the golden heart of the fire, reflecting on his words. Did the villagers really fear them, fear Alfred? She set the cat down, then collapsed onto a stool, for her legs were trembling and weak. She still felt shaken after her encounter with the boar, but her encounter with Godric had left her even more unnerved. There was no doubt as to his intentions, but what did she really owe him for his deed this night? Was she willing to pay with her heart, her body, her life and loyalty?

Alfred nudged her hand, his intention plain. Janna bent to stroke him and he purred loudly. She smiled down at him, remembering how, so many months ago, she’d found him struggling in the river, along with the rest of the litter that had been thrown in to drown. She had tried to save them all. This was the only kitten to survive, so she’d decided to call him Alfred after the great king who had never given up, who had continued to fight the Danes until he’d succeeded in driving them out of Wessex.

Patiently she had set out to befriend the cat, and tame him. Step by step, Alfred had allowed Janna to touch him, to stroke his fur, to pick him up for a cuddle. Shut in on the long winter evenings, he had finally come to Janna in the midnight hours, when the fire had died down and the cottage was cold. Together and warm, they had slept through the night, and for many nights thereafter.

She picked him up and stood to place him on the straw pallet where she and Eadgyth slept. Next, she unfastened her girdle of plaited fibres and laid the purse of strawberries upon the table. They had cost her dear—how dear she could not tell her mother, for she knew the questions that would follow if she spoke of her encounter with Godric. She would not answer to her mother, or to Godric, until she knew the truth of her own heart, she decided.

She removed the long, gray, coarsely woven kirtle that covered her under-tunic and lay down beside the cat. She shivered, and pulled an old moth-eaten fur coverlet over her body, snuggling into its folds for warmth and comfort. The black cat curled up beside her, purring loudly. She raised a hand to stroke his glossy fur, then gave a sudden snort of laughter as she recalled Godric’s warning. Could the villagers truly believe that Alfred was the devil? How could they be so ignorant, so superstitious! She longed to be free of them all, free to follow her destiny. What fun it would be to take to the road and have adventures, maybe even go as far as royal Winchestre. She could find work along the way. It wouldn’t matter what she did, so long as she could earn her keep. And if she worked hard, perhaps she might become a somebody instead of a nobody. She might meet a handsome nobleman…or perhaps the king himself…

Janna’s hand stilled upon the cat’s soft fur. There was a half-smile upon her face as daydreams dissolved into the phantasmagoria of sleep.

The cottage was empty when she awoke. She sat up, feeling a moment’s alarm until she realized that her mother must still be with Dame Alice. It meant things must be going badly for, with an important visitor to see this morning, her mother would surely have returned by now. Unless she and Fulk were busy making plans for their new partnership? Janna scowled at the thought, but it was followed quickly by another, more interesting idea. If Eadgyth spent most of her days in Wiltune looking after Fulk’s patients, wouldn’t that give her, Janna, more freedom to look after the villagers here on her own?

Janna was excited by the prospect. She began to regret her hasty exit the night before.

Alfred was waiting by the door. She jumped up to let him out, then followed him outside to peer across the green downs in the direction of Babestoche Manor. An approaching figure told her that Eadgyth was on her way home. She set about rekindling the fire, and hung a pot of water to boil, while she waited impatiently to question her mother about their future.

“And did you gather the strawberries after you left us so rudely last night, Janna?” Eadgyth’s tone, as she opened the door, was cool, unforgiving. She did not look at her daughter but instead busied herself untying her cloak and hanging it from a peg. Janna’s face flushed with embarrassment.

“And are you now in partnership with Fulk the apothecary, Mother?” She mimicked Eadgyth’s tone, sulky with resentment.

“Hold your tongue, foolish girl.” Her mother caught sight of the purse and moved to the table to inspect its contents.

The night’s adventure was still vivid in Janna’s mind. She wanted to tell her mother how dangerous gathering strawberries had proved, and ask her advice about Godric. But her mother had cautioned her to be silent and so she would. She, too, could keep secrets.

“I have spent the night with Dame Alice, although Fulk would have been present in my lady’s chamber if he’d had his way, if I had allowed it.”

“How is it with the lady? And the new babe?” If Eadgyth was trying to make peace, then Janna was prepared to meet her mother halfway.

Eadgyth frowned. “Dame Alice is recovering her health and her spirits, but I worry that the baby may not survive. He is weak after the lady’s long labor and will not suckle. I suspect there may be more wrong with him even than that. I’ve done what I can to make him comfortable, and I shall make up a special tonic for him and call in after noon to see how they both fare. Indeed, I would rather have stayed on at the manor and made my physic there if it were not that I have agreed to see—” She caught herself before she said the name.

“You must go to the mill at Bredecumbe, Janna,” she said instead. “We are in need of flour. You may take the usual crock of honey in payment.” She considered for a moment. “It would be best if you seek out the miller’s wife to conduct our business. I’ll give you a balm of comfrey for her ulcers, for I know the poor woman suffers sorely.”

“And why may I not stay and meet Mistress Whoever-she-is?” Janna said hotly, resentful at being sent away when her errand was not so very urgent.

“Because she has impressed upon me the need for the greatest secrecy. No-one must know of her coming, she told me. No-one. That includes you, Janna. Instead of being quarrelsome, make yourself useful. Go out and pick me some pennyroyal and also some houseleek. And bring me some sprigs of tansy and lavender to freshen the rushes on the floor.”

“What of Fulk? How do matters rest with him?”

Eadgyth gave a short laugh. “Dame Alice knows my true worth, even if Fulk does not. I discovered that it was she who sent Fulk to fetch me. All that talk of wanting me to work in his shop was to cover his ignorance and bolster his pride. The man is a turnip head. I could never work with him, I have far too much to lose. So I’ve sent him on his way, with a flea in his ear for how he has treated his patient and instructions to summon me earlier next time he is called on to deal with such problems.” She gave her daughter a brief, bright smile. “You and I will continue as we were, Janna, as we have always been.”

As we have always been. Janna felt a sharp stab of disappointment as her brief dream of independence was snatched away. “I had thought, with you in Wiltune, that you might trust me at last to take care of the villagers on my own,” she ventured.

“You are young, untrained. They would have no respect for you.”

“Of course they won’t respect me if I don’t know what I’m doing. And I’ll never find out if you won’t let me try!”

“I’ve already taught you everything I know,” Eadgyth protested.

“About plants and their properties, and how to utilize them—yes. Now let me use that knowledge to help people. You may be the greatest healer around here, but I could be too if you’d only give me a chance.”

“I swear that tongue of yours has been sharpened by the devil!” Eadgyth gave her daughter a good, hard shake. “Soon enough you will marry, have children, be happy. That’s the future I wish for you.”

“And what about my wishes? I don’t want to marry, at least not yet.”

“Why not? You are certainly old enough to wed. Far better a life with a good husband like Godric than the hard life we live here.”

“I want something more than to become some man’s drudge and a nursemaid to his children.”

“There’s much more to wedlock than that!” Eadgyth retorted. “As well as bedgames, a good husband would give you security. Safely wed, you’d be both respectable and respected.”

“And how would you know, Mother?” Janna seized the opportunity Eadgyth had given her. “Were you ever safely wed? What was between you and my father? Why will you never speak of him? Are you ashamed of him, or is it your past that shames you?”

“It is because of him that I would see you wed.”

Janna read the pain in her mother’s eyes, but the devil snapped at her heels. She had to go on, to push for answers to the questions that would not go away. “Tell me about him, please,” she begged.

It wasn’t the first time she’d asked. Her father had died just before her birth, or so her mother had told her. Janna had often wondered if Eadgyth was telling the truth, or trying to cover the fact that she’d never been wed—that Janna’s birth, in fact, had been an accident. This thought nagged Janna like a sore tooth, but after she’d seen how talking about her father so distressed Eadgyth, she’d stopped asking after him. She knew anyway that Eadgyth never answered her questions.

Nor did she now. She turned to her task, dismissing Janna with a brief, “See to the herbs, Janna.”

Frustrated and resentful, Janna stamped outside. Their garden was a small, awkwardly shaped piece of land that had come with the cottage because it didn’t fit into the long strips of fields worked by the villeins. The hives that provided honey for her mother’s salves and potions were tucked into one corner. Janna was protective of her bees and took good care of them, for their honey was like liquid gold when silver was always in short supply. The bees lived in straw skeps, woven and crafted by Janna herself, and usually she stopped and talked to them, following a long tradition of telling them about the doings of the household. Today she did not take her usual comfort from the soothing buzz that marked their industry. Instead, she slapped angrily at a lone bee that circled close to her nose, and seethed with the injustice of being treated like a child when she considered herself no longer to be one.

She stomped on past the dew pond that provided them with water, past rows of turnips, cabbages, leeks and broad beans that put food on their table, past bushes of alecost, which they used to flavor ale, and past flax plants, which were boiled into decoctions to ease various ailments, or were stripped and woven into cloth.

Janna looked to the wattle fence that penned their two goats, Nellie and Gruff, along with Fussy, Greedy, Rusty and Laet, their hens. The goats bleated anxiously, reminding her that they still needed to be fed. She stooped over the clusters of herbs that formed the basis of her mother’s healing mixtures, forgetting her sulks for the moment as she concentrated on her task. She could not afford to make any mistakes if she wanted her mother to treat her like an adult, someone more fitting than Fulk to be her partner.

First, Janna stripped off several leafy sprigs of tansy and put them in her scrip. It was a useful plant: the flowers made a fine golden dye, while the bitter, aromatic leaves served as a repellent for lice and fleas. Janna turned next to the fleshy leaves of houseleek and the other herbs her mother had requested, but once they were gathered her mind returned to her grievances. Why would her mother not speak of her father? Was it sorrow that kept her tight-lipped, or was it the shame of bearing a daughter out of wedlock? Janna knew her mother’s lips would stay stubbornly closed unless she could come up with some new strategy to persuade her to unlock the secrets of her heart. Could she perhaps threaten to go elsewhere for information? Who might know the truth?

Her mind ranged over possibilities. They were few indeed. Her mother had no close friends, no-one in whom she might confide if she would not confide in her daughter. For the first time it occurred to Janna how lonely her mother must be. Where was her own family? She didn’t think Eadgyth had always lived here, on the edge of the forest, yet this place was all Janna could remember, so her mother must surely have come here before giving birth. That being so, people might have seen or heard something, might remember something of that time. If so, why had they never spoken? Had her mother sworn everyone to secrecy? Who was she trying to protect? Her daughter—or herself? Janna knew that Eadgyth was proud, and that she kept her secrets well. Yet if Janna was old enough to marry, she was surely old enough to be told the truth!

Janna rushed indoors, determined to try out this new argument.

She found Eadgyth, cheeks flushed from the rising steam, stirring a decoction over the fire. Absorbed in her task, she was humming quietly to herself. The tune was familiar and sounded rather solemn and sad. She’d once asked Eadgyth to teach her the song, but her mother had silenced her with a sharp look and an angry refusal. Janna had never asked again, thinking there must be something shameful in the song, for Eadgyth had looked so guilty when caught. Yet she’d heard her mother sing the same tune several times since; it seemed that she sang only when she was preoccupied with something else.

“Tell me about my father.” Janna dumped the herbs in front of her mother. “You say I’m old enough to marry, so that makes me old enough to know the truth about my birth.”

Startled, Eadgyth stopped humming and glared at her daughter. “I haven’t got time for another argument. The lady will be coming shortly. You must go now.”

“I still have to feed the hens and goats.”

“I’ll do it.” Eadgyth jerked her thumb in the direction of the door. “I want your promise that you’ll not linger to watch, but that you will go directly about the business I have given you, and speak to no-one of my business back here.” She eyed her defiant daughter, and sighed. “As well as visiting the miller, you have my permission to walk on to Wiltune. You have experience enough to trade on your own, for today is market day. Take the beeswax candles and some of our special scented creams and rinses to sell there. They’ll fetch a few pennies, so you may buy a hot pie for your dinner. I don’t want you to leave Wiltune until you hear the abbey bells ring the hour of None.”