By Design (4 page)

He almost did not notice her.

Lost in his thoughts, pacing the city lanes, he passed the stocks without looking up. He was vaguely aware that
a crowd had gathered to watch some poor wretch being punished, but it was too common an occurrence to distract him.

He paused to purchase a new pear from a bushel on the corner. It was while he paid that he chanced to glance across the small crossroads. And then he noticed that the pale hair at the stocks was a familiar color, and that the dove grey gown of the young woman imprisoned there was covered with tattered bits of embroidery.

Her head and hands hung limply from their holes. He looked up to the sun. It had passed its peak, so she had been there for hours already. He wondered if she was even conscious.

He ambled over and pushed through the taunting crowd until he stood right below her. The stocks were set on a platform, and his head came level with her knees. He moved aside the rotting food that had been thrown at her, and lifted the objects dumped at her feet to announce the reason for her punishment.

Tiles. He examined two broken pieces and saw the problem. They had not been fired properly, and must have cracked as soon as they were laid. She had said that she used a tiler's kiln, not that she made tiles herself. He found it hard to believe that the woman who took such care with her crockery and statues could be responsible for such shoddy work as these floor pavers.

He looked up. He could see her face from here. Flushed from the strain of her position, it was set with determination. He angled to see better, and she noticed him. She shut her eyes, and moisture leaked to their edges.

He stepped to the side. From there it was obvious that she was too short for the stocks. She was stretched up on her toes, and even so she practically hung by her neck.

A man approached closely. Grinning like a rat, he circled, enjoying her vulnerability. When he got to the back
he playfully yanked at her skirt. The old fabric split as if it were made of nothing but air.

The rip exposed her creamy leg from thigh to foot. Delighted by his fortune, the man grabbed at flesh. Instantly infuriated, Rhys reached, swung, and threw him into the street.

Her new humiliation enlivened the little crowd. Some youths decided she would make good sport now. Taunting and circling, they tried to grab, too. Rhys had to knock heads together to put an end to it.

He looked up into her face again. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She was broken. Well, she had lasted longer than most.

He strode back over to the pear seller. “How much? For all of them? And the bushel?”

Astonished, the woman named her price. He paid it, and carried the bushel into the crowd. After tucking a few pears in his tunic, he upended it. Fruit poured into the street.

The spectators scrambled to grab the free food. While they picked and fought, he brought the bushel to the stocks. Hopping up, he set it beside Joan. “Kneel on it. It will raise you up.”

She tried, but could barely move. He lifted each leg and carefully bent it onto the bushel. Her body released a deep sigh of relief and a pitiful groan of pain.

He dipped his head low by hers and offered a pear. “Can you eat?”

She shook her head, and winced. He moved her braid aside and saw why. An ugly red welt circled her neck and jaw from where she had pressed against the stocks. If she had lost consciousness or her precarious balance, she might have strangled. This was not intended to be a death sentence, but sometimes it was.

He moved behind her and tied her skirt together. “I
will stay here, Joan. No one will touch you again. No one will hurt you. It will be over soon.”

Her slender shoulders shook and he heard a muffled sob. The sound twisted something inside him. He would have liked to stay up there, blocking her from view, but that would not be permitted. Right or wrong, the sentence had been ordered and she would have to serve it. He patted her back, trying to give comfort, but that only made her cry more.

“Have heart, pretty dove. I will be right there below, where you can see me.”

He hopped off the platform and took up a position in front of her. Crossing his arms, facing the street, he stood sentry lest anyone try to harm the poor woman in any way.

It was his kindness that broke her. She had fought the humiliation and pain with pride and anger, but she had no defenses against kindness. He had given her permission to be weak, and she had crumbled.

She could see his head and back all the time. He just stood there waiting, as if he had nothing better to do. On occasion he turned and looked up, checking on her with a concerned expression and a few words of reassurance.

It hurt to swallow, but at least she did not have to struggle for every breath anymore. Her body felt so stretched that she wondered if it would ever be right again.

At her feet lay the tiles that had put her here. Not her tiles. George had supervised the kiln the day they were made. He had been drunk, but not drunk enough to spend the day sleeping it off as he usually did. Every now and then he liked to play the great craftsman. Usually she found a way to keep the flawed results from being sold, but he'd sold these anyway.

He probably guessed they were bad. That was why he had insisted that she bring the next wagonload. So she would face the complaint, and not him.

A movement below snapped her alert. The mason was leaving. She couldn't blame him. It had been hours. She lifted her head a bit so she could see him walk away. It meant that she could see the little crowd too. People came and went, pausing to enjoy the spectacle. No one stayed long. It was hot in the crossroads. The hours in the sun had made her light-headed, and added the agony of thirst to the long list of tortures.

The desertion of her protector emptied her out. Her heart clutched desperately, trying to find some remnants of strength, but there was only weakness inside her now. When they took her down, what would they do with her? Leave her in a heap on this platform? Throw her in the dirt outside the gate? She couldn't walk, she was sure. She doubted that she could even crawl.

She stared at the tiles through blurring eyes and cursed George. The little spike of anger produced a tiny bit of strength. She grabbed at both with what was left of her sense. In the little whirlwind of fury that filled her head, she forgot where she was.

How dare you insult me? How dare you lay hands on me? My father will hear of this. My husband will kill you
.…

But someone did lay hands on her. On her shoulder. Still half crazed, she turned her head to bite and fight. The black fury died in an instant, and she was back in the stocks, glaring at the mason. He stood beside her again, holding a tumbler.

He looked in her eyes with concern, and held the cup below her face. “You are getting sick from the sun. Put your lips to this and sip what you can. It is very full, and you should be able to drink some of it.”

It was ale, not water. She gagged out more than she
took in, but a little made it down. The wonderful trickle of thick fluid cooled her throat.

“Close your eyes.” She did so, and the rest of the ale poured over her hot head. “The fountain is too far away, so this will have to do. The sun is beginning to set, Joan. Hang on a little longer.”

She wasn't sure that she wanted to hang on. It would be very pleasant not to.

But it appeared that Rhys did not plan to give her much choice. He retook his place at her feet, only this time he faced her. Speaking as if they conversed over a tavern table, he began telling her stories from old legends. While the sun moved and the ale dried on her head, his voice kept her in the world, but a very small one where only the two of them existed.

Twilight, and chilling coolness.

The crossroads were empty now. Two men mounted the steps to the platform. One worked the key on the stocks, and the heavy wooden arm swung up over her head.

She tried to remove herself. She couldn't. When she made to straighten her shoulders it seemed as though she was pushing against stone.

Firm hands grasped her waist and lifted her away. She began sagging, falling. Arms swept her up before she hit the platform.

“Why you be wanting to bother with this gutter slut, Master Rhys?” a slurred voice said. “Just set her down. One of her kin will come for her.”

“No one is here. I will see to her.”

“As you like it, but there's easier ways to get to heaven than helping such as her.”

“Probably so.”

She hurt all over. Hurt so badly that the arms under her
shoulders and knees felt like iron vises. Moving her neck the slightest bit pained her.

Stairs, and then darkness. Silence, except for his boots.

“Are you awake, Joan?”

“Aye.” She could not hear whether her voice came out or not. Nor was she entirely sure that she was awake. The passing buildings seemed very dark, just a blur of shapes.

“Have you any kin besides your brother? Any friends in the city?”

She managed to shake her head.

“Then I am taking you to my home. You can rest there.”

She began to drift, vaguely conscious only of Rhys's arms and his chest and his breath on her hair, and the rhythm of his stride through the city.

Lights. First one, then three, then more. The flames flared right in front of her nose. The smell of tallow began clearing her head.

The candles lit his face as he bent to ignite the last one. He appeared even more handsome than usual in their glow. Suddenly she could see a chamber. A kitchen, of good size. Very clean.

Rhys had set her down on a bench against the hearth, and had moved a table nearby. The candles burned on it. He brought over a cup and some bread. “Here is some ale. Try to drink and eat. Soak the bread if your throat hurts too much.”

Her arm felt like lead, but she moved it slowly and took the cup and bread onto her lap.

He shrugged off his tunic and strode to a nearby niche. He rolled a tall hip bath out toward the hearth. She nibbled her soaked bread and watched his lean body move.

He kept encouraging her to eat while he went about his business. He built up the fire, then left through the garden door and returned with buckets of water. Back and forth
he paced until the bath filled. He set the last water by the hearth to warm.

“Can you talk now? Is your throat any better?” he asked, while he fetched himself some ale.

“A little.” It came out a raspy whisper. She gestured limply toward the bath. “For me?”

“Aye.”

That would mean moving. “Nay.”

“Aye. No one knows more about sore bodies than masons, and you will thank me on the morrow. Also, I do not want to insult you, but between the ripe fruits that hit you and the ale that I threw on your head, you smell terrible.”

“You mean it is me? I thought it was you.”

He laughed, and seemed pleased at her little joke. Reassured. He leaned against the hearth and looked down at her across the bath. “I did not know that you made tiles, too.”

She felt some obligation to explain, but tried to keep it ambiguous. The food had restored her enough to remember that she had to be cautious with this man. “I work for a tiler. They were his, not mine.”

To her dismay, it was all he needed. “Across the river? The tile yard outside Southwark? Old Nick's place? I know the wares. Builders trusted the father, but do not buy from the son.”

“The wares can still be trusted, if George stays drunk and does not interfere. Some days fate is not so kind. He is impatient with the kiln, and does not fire it right.”

“So George let you be punished for his bad craft. How came you to work for such a man?”

“His father was alive when I started. Nick taught me. When George inherited the yard, I stayed.”

“And your statues and pots can be made there. Is the clay his? Do you use some for your own wares?”

She had thought herself too exhausted for any emotion,
but she was horrified that he had guessed this. “I manage the yard. If not for me, George Tiler would have no money to spend in the taverns and brothels that he makes his home. Aye, I salvage and use scraps. Are you going to have me branded a thief now? Compared to the stocks, that will be a quick, minor pain.”

“I doubt George pays you what your skill is worth. If you have found a way to balance the scales, it is not my concern.”

His bland acceptance did not reassure her. She hated that he knew this about her. She told herself that George owed her the clay, and wood for the kiln, but in her heart she knew it was a form of theft. Rhys probably thought badly of her now. Suddenly that seemed a worse punishment than the stocks. It made no sense. If he worked for Mortimer, he was certainly of dubious character himself. Still, she found that she could not face him.

She set the cup on the table. “I will go now. I am much better.”

She staggered to her feet. He was beside her in an instant, gently pressing her back down. “You will stay. You will eat, then you will bathe, and then you will rest.”

“Your wife will not thank you for this charity. When she learns my story she will think that you befouled her spotless home.”

Rhys lifted the pails and poured their hot contents into the bath. The moist steam wafted to her, and even that vague touch of comfort soothed. Her muscles practically sighed audibly. It had been ages since she had enjoyed a hot bath.

“I should thank you. Again,” she said. “They are not the only words that I know, but they are the ones I find myself saying a lot to you. You are a kind man.”

He strolled over to a shelf and opened an old box. “Do not think me better than I am. As it happens, I do not have
a wife,” He returned to the tub with a chunk of soap. “There is no one here to help you with this bath but me.”

Any inclination to remember him as a protector disappeared in a blink. Something in the way he stood there caused it as much as his words. Suddenly they were a man and a woman alone at night in an empty house. To her shock she realized that thinking of him that way did not disgust her as it did with other men—as it definitely should with one of Mortimer's lackeys. Rather the opposite. The flutter of caution beating in her blood possessed an appealing excitement that confused her.