By Design (20 page)

She turned abruptly and paced back to the hearth. He
watched that back, stern with repudiation, and knew that all the talk in the world would not absolve him.

He retreated into practicalities—for now. “If you are willing to check the floors, come to Westminster today at tierce. I will meet you at the gate and take you to the chambers. Afterward we will go out to Kent, and see about that tile yard. I have learned that it is not far from the city.”

He expected her to object. A woman who had decided to despise a man would not want to spend that many hours with him.

She considered it, and nodded. Slinging a cauldron's handle over her arm, she left to go to the well.

He had a good look at her face as she passed. Determination set her expression, and fires lit her eyes.

A word. A look. A sigh.

She set out well before tierce. She left the house not long after Rhys. She made her way to the Cheap and walked down its length.

John was not in the tavern near the cathedral. She sat on a bench at a table in a dark corner and bided her time. If he did not come this morning, she would return another time.

The woman who laid down ale gave her a quizzical glance and she shook her head in response. She had no coin for ale, and would not for a long while. But she would soon have coin for other, more important things.

John entered the dark chamber. He looked around. Joan had the sense he did not search for anyone in particular, just a familiar face. Whatever he did for Bishop Stratford, he used this tavern as his private study.

He saw her, and ambled over. He slid onto the bench across from her. “Been some time. Didn't think you'd help.”

“You did not tell me that Rhys had aided the rebellion. I might have come quicker if you had.”

“Didn't expect it to matter. That was different. Lots helped. I did. But some of us seek to undo our mistake, and others only seek to benefit from it.”

“And you fear he is one of the latter.”

“I wonder, is all. He was with us, but is no longer. Loyalties change.” He paused and stroked his beard. “Do you know if his have?”

“I looked in the house, among his things, yesterday. I looked at all of the parchments in that workroom. I found nothing.” It had been harder than she expected. Guilt and fear of discovery had quickened her blood the whole time. That she examined parchments that revealed his inner eye, his imagination, had intensified the unexpected sense of betrayal. Even as her act repudiated their connections, what she saw tightened them.

Some of the designs had been predictable and finished, but others, sometimes no more than meandering lines, had displayed fanciful moments. Whimsical and free. Impractical or impossible. Statues that moved the way stone never could. Doorways in shapes that would never be built.

She banished those images from her mind, and closed her heart to the man who had made them. “You said there would be coin.”

“But you found nothing.”

“I finished what you began. You now know what you went to that house to learn. You seek evidence one way or the other, and I have brought it.”

He frowned, but conceded the point. He fished in his purse, and a shilling landed on the table.

“Nay, I want three. I risked much doing this. If he discovers it, I am in the street.”

“Such as you will never be in the street. There are other men who need … housekeepers.”

His little leer got her back up. “Four shillings, now.”

He began filling with indignation, ready to bluster. “I say it is worth only one.”

“Then you are a cheat, and I will help you no further. Go tell your bishop of your stupid mistake in talking too freely. Face his wrath at having his plans undone, and possibly for nought.”

That took the air out of him. “You think that you can help further? It has become vital to know what he is. He works in the King's own chambers now. If he is in Mortimer's pocket, the King must be warned.”

Aye, important to know what he is, and not just for the King's sake. “I live in his house. I will be helping him in his craft, even at the palace. If he is aiding Mortimer, I think that I will know soon.” She tapped the table. “But if I do this, if I learn that he is, I want five pounds, not a few shillings.”

He chewed on his lip and mulled it over. “Aye, five pounds, woman. But do not think to feed me air.”

“I would not fabricate a story. If I were such a person, I would have brought you scraps today that I had written myself.”

She rose, feeling soiled by his presence and by the grime in this tavern. It was still too early to meet Rhys, but she wanted to be away from this man. “If I learn anything, I will leave word here for where to meet me. The whole city probably knows that you sit here every day, and I do not want to be seen with you.”

His face hardened at her tone. “'Tis for God's justice that we do this. For a good cause.”

She grabbed the coins, turned on her heel, and left. Aye, for God's justice. And her own.

Entering the town of Westminster took all her bravery.
She had never come here, not even to sell her wares. As she approached the palace, her blood began the horrible pulsing born of the old fear.

She held onto her resolve, and found a portal where servants came and went. If she discovered what John wanted, she would have the coin that she needed at once. If she did not, her work for Rhys would at least bring her some, and her visits to tile yards would provide the means to arrange to earn more.

She would ignore the way all of this made her heart heavy. She would remember that he had helped reduce her to such scheming, and that such a man should not be given trust, let alone loyalty.

She approached a stout woman carrying a pail and asked where she might find the King's chambers.

The woman raised her eyebrows. “None goes there unless they are called. If you've a petition, wait for the days when it's done, or see his people.”

“I do not come to petition, or to see the King. I'm to meet a mason who is working on the fabric.”

“Ah, that be Rhys. We all know him. Face and body like that, the women notice. Odd that he should tell you to come to the chambers, though. Not done, and he isn't there now anyway. I just saw him elsewheres.”

“He did not tell me to come to the chambers, but to meet him at the gate. But I am early, so I thought—”

“Come with me. I'll show you where he is, but you are to wait and not go in.”

Pail swaying, she led the way up some stairs and through some passageways, then pointed out a window. Down below, in a small garden, two men sat on benches against the wall. One was Rhys.

“Who is the other man?” She suspected the answer even as she asked it.

“You are an ignorant one, aren't you? That is Roger
Mortimer, none other. Now, I'll show you where to wait below, so your master passes when he leaves there.”

She barely heard the woman. She kept looking at the two men. They appeared very casual with each other—not the way an earl spoke with a mason, and gave commands about some project. More like friends. Or confidants.

Anger tightened through her. So did sorrow. The sadness proved more powerful. It strangled her heart and filled her throat and brimmed up to her eyes.

The woman gestured, and led her back down below. She did not stay where she was told Rhys would pass, however. As soon as the servant left, she hurried through the palace, asking for directions back to the portal through which she had entered.

She plunged out into the open air, and sank against the wall. The sadness wanted to overwhelm her. Containing it was harder than controlling the fury she had known when Moira told her about Rhys and the rebellion. That anger had been sharp and hot, a fire burning in her head. This felt like a flood of melancholy that threatened to drown her.

Somehow, she battled to the surface. As always these last three years, she clutched onto that which gave her a purpose.

She pushed away from the wall, and sought different directions. Not to a place inside the palace.

She would have coin soon. A lot of coin. Five pounds.

Joan was not at the gate at tierce. Rhys waited a long while at a spot where she could not miss him, eyeing the veils and faces of the women who passed.

She had not wanted to come. Most likely she had changed her mind again.

He did not know what made him turn and look to the
far yard, and the spot where the curving outer wall disappeared behind the buildings. He just did, as if an invisible voice had reached his ears on the breeze.

He knew it was Joan despite the distance. He recognized the brown gown that still hung too loosely, even though she had gained some weight in his house. He saw the elegance of her stroll, and the familiar tilt of her head. He saw it all, as if she stood right in front of him.

A man walked beside her. A knight, wearing armor. He must have come from the practice yard.

Rhys did not go to her, but stayed by the portal, watching. Joan walked a few paces aside, angling her head this way and that, examining the strong man none too subtly. The knight stepped closer, and made to touch her face. She turned slightly, but did not run away. A discouragement, but not a complete repudiation.

His chest tightened. The grip of jealousy surprised him. His thoughts heated, and burned open new paths.

Maybe he had misunderstood. Perhaps her mood the last two days had nothing to do with him and what she had learned at the feast. That resolve in her face and eyes might indicate something else. He could have been seeing the decision of a woman to achieve her goal any way possible. To barter with other than money if necessary.

Perhaps it would not be the way he thought because he could not repay her with what she really wanted.

She backed away from the knight, taking her leave, waving him away. He imagined her words.
Come no further. A man waits for me, and he will be displeased to see me with you. He likes to think there is something between us, and that he has claims on me, although I have told him often that it isn't so
.

She strolled toward him with a perky step. Joan the tiler was well pleased with her visit to Westminster.

He did not mention what he had just seen. He brought her to the King's chambers and she paced over the planks,
noting those that needed work. It did not take long, since the Queen was ill and they could not enter her rooms. And so they were on the road out of the city, into the Kent countryside, before midday.

Every moment she was with him, a stew of emotions simmered in him. Jealousy and anger and curiosity and concern. The words and looks and pauses flashed in his memory again and again, lining up this way and that, forming links to various conclusions. Some were infuriating, some worrying, and some tinged with resentment. But all of them were tragic.

He suspected that he now knew where she was going, and what she had to do. He also thought he had guessed one of the reasons that drove her, and why she assumed that it could never be the way he thought.

He hoped to God that he was wrong about the last part, but he did not think that he was.

Rhys did not hover nearby at the tile yard. He let her examine the kiln and wares and speak with the workers on her own. He was taking ale with the tiler when she finished, so she ambled over to the property where the brother who was a potter plied his craft.

She dawdled there, watching the wheel and asking questions about some special light grey clay that he had. It came from soil near Dover, he explained, and made finer cups than ordinary stuff. It seemed to her that it would make nice statues.

She asked about work, but halfheartedly. That would not be necessary now. She would have her coin, and very soon. And five pounds would be enough. That knight had been happy to talk with a woman who smiled at him, even if she was lowborn. He had assured her that if the cause was just, a champion could be had for five pounds. His
manner had implied that if the woman was fair and willing, one could be had for no coin at all. But she had always known that.

Rhys was waiting by the wagon when she emerged from the potter's shed.

“The work is good, but the yard is small,” she explained as she climbed to her seat. “I do not think they can make as many as you need while the weather holds.”

“We will check some others before deciding, then.”

That would mean more such journeys, some farther from London than this yard in the city's environs. That would mean spending more long hours beside Rhys.

He had been thoughtful and quiet all day. She had probably spoken too rashly in the morning, when he asked her about her home. She had just blurted it out, giving voice to the horrible memories and images that had plagued her since Moira's revelation.

He had said that he no longer aided Mortimer. For a moment he had convinced her.

Her mind had rejected that at once, but deep inside her, something had wanted desperately to believe he had spoken honestly.

She glanced at his profile, so handsome in its clear planes. His blue eyes were full of the shadows of thought, and maybe also those of anger and displeasure. He brooded over something. Perhaps his meeting with Mortimer had not gone as planned.

Nay, it was not that. She just knew it. Looking at him, sitting with him, being near him for the first time in two days, unsettled her. His closeness undermined her resolve and cracked her certainty. She thought about the two men in the garden. What had she really seen? No so much. Nothing damning. Her feelings of betrayal after hearing Moira's words had made her assume more than she should.

She saw his eyes again in the morning when he said he did not aid Mortimer. Saw their intensity, and heard the firm statement. He had spoken the words as clearly as one does a vow or oath.

Her fear and anger repudiated that, but her heart said that he had not lied. Right now, sitting beside him, sensing the man more than knowing him, her heart's voice spoke the loudest.

She would not discover what John sought. She would never see those five pounds.

Accepting that surprised her. There was no disappointment. Instead, a gentle lightness entered her mood. After two days of tight rancor, this new certainty soothed her spirit at once.