Joanna (30 page)

Two steps down, Joanna paused, struck by a sudden suspicion. Instantly, two men leapt from the boat. For three heartbeats, Joanna was frozen with shock at the black, blank area where their faces should have been. Short as the delay was, it was too long. As she turned to run, she was seized. One single muffled cry escaped her before a hard hand was jammed against her lips. The sound was not nearly loud enough and far too brief to reach the house. Brian, waiting at the fence, leapt to his feet and let loose an experimental fusillade of barks. No sharp order to “be still” followed. Brian barked again, louder, longer. Still there was no response. Brian rose to his hind legs, placed his forepaws on the fence that separated him from the beloved smell, which to him meant all food, all comfort, all love, and bellowed loud and long.

During the second spate of barking, Geoffrey’s boatman passed the dock and swung around to come in. Briefly as they went by, they were facing Braybrook’s boat. Both   exclaimed with surprise at the same moment that Geoffrey issued a sharp order to hurry. The violence and urgency of the dog had finally made him uneasy. Surely by now Joanna would have quieted the beast if she had just gone down into the boat to answer a question. For the first time it occurred to him that the boat he had been watching had docked at Joanna’s house and that, if it had been a casual visitor, she should be visible somewhere.

“There is no room” the boatman began.

“Pull alongside,” Geoffrey snapped, drawing his sword.

He was not, of course, armed for fighting. No one in his right mind went on the river in full mail. On the other hand, there were cutpurses and thieves everywhere in the city, even on the river, and a man who had a good sword wore it as much as a warning as for a weapon. The boatmen’s eyes widened as they saw Geoffrey’s sword come out, but the younger of the two rose and gripped an oar as a man would hold a quarterstaff while he made ready a grappling hook with the other hand. However, it was less easily done than said to bring the boats alongside. The larger of the two craft was rocking so violently that the men trying to cast off from the dock were having trouble with the ropes and the others, still at the oars, were watching them.

Within the vessel, Braybrook had received almost as violent a surprise as Joanna. She had been so stunned by the assault upon her that, aside from the brief cry and attempt to run, she had allowed herself to be passively dragged aboard and behind the shielding canopy in the stern. The men, expecting rather that she would faint than fight, were supporting her more than holding her, although one kept a firm grip on her mouth to prevent screaming. By the time she was concealed from view, however, Joanna’s shock had yielded to outrage. She promptly kicked one of the men holding her in the shin and, when pain made him relax his grip a trifle, she twisted half-free and kicked the other in the groin. That man released her completely to grab for his maltreated private parts. Seeing Joanna almost free, Braybrook sprang forward and met the fist blow she had intended for the one man who still held her.   Joanna was no frail flower, and her arm had been strengthened over the years by the chastisement of erring servants. Braybrook staggered back, blood spurting from his nose under the mask. Joanna brought her foot down with explosive force on that of her captor. He let out a howl that drew the attention of everyone on the boat. Unfortunately, his voice drowned Joanna’s when his hand fell away from her mouth and she shrieked for Brian.

Good and bad are often intermingled. Although the dog did not hear his mistress, the cry fixed the attention of Braybrook’s hirelings just long enough for Geoffrey’s man to hook the vessels together. As the large boat tipped down toward the smaller craft, Geoffrey sprang aboard with the younger boatman just behind him. He’had time to disable one of the men still seated at the oars, but the other three turned almost simultaneously toward him, drawing their weapons. The boatman made a swipe at one with the oar he carried. It was an awkward weapon, however, and the swordsman avoided it easily, thrusting dangerously in riposte. Geoffrey parried a stroke by one of the others and slashed at the third with the backstroke. Aside from the brief clash of metal on metal, no one made a sound. Braybrook’s men were too surprised, Geoffrey too choked with rage and fear.

Inside the cabin the tables had turned. Fury and energy notwithstanding, three men were more than a match for one girl. Joanna was again a prisoner, far more firmly and cautiously held than before. Unable to strike her across the face because of his man’s gagging hand, Braybrook seized her tunic and tore downward. The cloth was well woven, but Braybrook’s strength was increased by fury and the seams gave way at the shoulder and sleeve, baring Joanna nearly to the waist and leaving red wheals on her white skin where the pressure had been greatest. If Braybrook had assumed that pain and shame would cow Joanna, he was wrong. Twisting and struggling even more violently, she managed at last to fasten her teeth in the hand that gagged her. With an oath, the man let go.

“Brian!” Joanna shrieked, “Brian! Come!”   As if her voice had broken an enchantment, sound erupted all over the embattled craft. Geoffrey connected with one of the men opposing him, who screamed. The other shouted a warning and a call for help to those behind the canopy and thrust at Geoffrey whose sword was still engaged. Geoffrey’s boatman cried out as his opponent’s sword chopped through his oar near the blade, but the blow had done him more good than harm, reducing the unwieldiness of the weapon. Swinging it swiftly while Braybrook’s man was recovering his stance, the boatman cracked his opponent across the temple and tumbled him into the water.

Meanwhile the odor of fear and fury had been drifting up toward Brian on the soft breeze of the river. His hysterical barking finally drew eyes from the women’s quarters of the house while his increasingly frantic lunges made the fence shake and bend. There were, of course, no windows on the ground floor and the doors faced the street so that the men-at-arms had heard nothing of what was going on in the garden behind them. Edwina cursed Brian impatiently as she unhooked the hides that sealed the windows. When her peremptory order for him to be still had no effect, she looked beyond him to see what was causing his excitement. The swift movement of figures on the boat did not connect in Edwina’s mind with violence until, all at once, very faintly, she thought she heard Joanna call to Brian and almost immediately saw one of the men topple off the boat into the river. Then the sun flashed on lifted swords. Edwina screamed and flew toward the stairs that led to the men-at-arms’ quarters on the floor below.

Geoffrey gasped and threw himself backward, unable to free his sword to parry the blow launched at him by the second man. Unfortunately, there was little room for maneuvering in the boat. The sword point sliced across his chest, tearing fabric and flesh for an inch or two before he fell backward over a rower’s bench. The impact knocked the breath from Geoffrey so completely that he could not cry out for help from his boatman who had turned momentarily to follow the fate of the man he had knocked into the water.   The thin cry that alerted Edwina combined with the smell of blood and fear turned Brian into a feral beast. Free of inhibition, he laid the fence flat in a single lunge and covered the length of the garden in a few bounds. The last leap carried the now-silent dog from the top of the steps into the boat where, turning midair toward the beloved scent, he struck full on the chest of the man whose return stroke would have decapitated Geoffrey. Dog and man tumbled in a heap onto the deck. Only the dog rose from that impact and the slaver on his jaws was dyed red.

Now the two men who had been holding Joanna burst out from behind the canopy. Their rush checked suddenly as they confronted what looked, in that moment, like a gray lion with a blood-dripping mouth. Before either could move again, silent as a wraith, the dog leapt between them. Since they had each been braced for a direct attack, both were taken unawares when Brian passed through and staggered sideways. Geoffrey’s boatman spun away from the river and shouted a challenge; Geoffrey caught his breath, freed his legs from the rower’s bench, and came upright. Within the cabin, a man screamed and Joanna shrieked ‘‘No! No!” From the house came a roar of angry voices and men began to pour around the side of the building in various stages of undress but all with weapons in their hands and shields on their arms.

Braybrook’s two remaining men dropped their weapons and held up empty hands, crying quarter. Blind to all but Joanna’s voice, Geoffrey burst by them and in through the canopy. He was just in time to see a side wall of the shelter torn loose and a man with blood streaming from his back and buttocks throw himself through and into the river. Joanna, clinging desperately to Brian’s collar and crying so hard that she could no longer command her voice, was almost dragged out in pursuit of Brian’s prey.

“Brian! Down!” Geoffrey roared. “Down!”

The dog dropped, belly flat, tail and ears down, cowering to the authority of that voice. Joanna let go of his collar and swung around, clutching her torn dress to her breasts. Still   unable to speak, she cast herself into Geoffrey’s arms. He nearly thrust her away in his fury, desiring, like the dog, to follow the escaper. The fighter’s sense of timing, recognizing that his prey was beyond reach saved him from that idiocy. With only one regretful glance at the spot where what he wanted to tear apart had disappeared, Geoffrey turned his attention to Joanna.

“Hush,” he soothed, “hush. It is all over now, all over. I am here. No one can hurt you.”

The boat heaved anew as Joanna’s men poured aboard. Geoffrey cursed under his breath. Those idiots would sink the craft. Fortunately before they had quite accomplished that, Geoffrey heard Beorn shouting instructions that the living men should be taken off at once and held prisoner. In the same breath, the old man called, “Lady, lady, where are you?”

“I have her safe, Geoffrey shouted, just as Beorn burst in the door.

“Lord Geoffrey,” he gasped.

“The banks,” Geoffrey snarled. “Search the banks. Whoever did this went out through the side.”

Beorn charged out again and there was a new eruption of shouting. Geoffrey drew a deep, steadying breath and moved a step or two sideways so that he could drop his sword onto the narrow bed affixed to one side of the ship. Then he put both arms around Joanna and lowered his head so he could kiss her hair from which the wimple had been torn. She was silent now, not sobbing, but shaking so hard that her body beat against his like a fluttering bird. Geoffrey swallowed, trying to loosen the knot rage had tied in his throat. It was inconceivable to him that his placid, fearless Joanna could be so terrified.

“Hush, beloved,” he murmured. “Beorn will find him and you will be avenged. If you desire, we will have him apart finger by finger, muscle by muscle, and bone by bone.” The tear in Geoffrey’s chest began to hurt as his own shock and rage diminished, and he started to feel a little light-headed. Beorn burst through the curtains again and   whispered urgently in Geoffrey’s ear. The young man’s expression froze, and he swallowed sickly. No wonder Joanna had been terrified. “Oh my God,” he whispered, “strip them and hold them secret and safe.”

“What of the searchers?” Beorn asked anxiously.

An agonized indecision distorted Geoffrey’s face for a moment. Then he drew a deep breath. “Whatever he is, he is all we have, ” he snarled. “Call off your men.”

Beorn seemed to be torn between rage and relief, but he said no more, merely nodded and went out again. Geoffrey looked down at his betrothed. He closed his eyes and tightened his grip upon her. It was not her fault she had been born beautiful. This was his fault, all his. She had written to ask for his protection and he had gone off like an idiot to hunt, virtually issuing a public invitation to his uncle to take her by force by asking permission to hunt the royal forest.

“Joanna,” he said softly, “beloved, come sit here with me.” He loosened her grip on him and turned her away to lead her to the bed, only to gasp and cry out, “What did he do? Where are you hurt?”

The anguish in Geoffrey’s voice steadied Joanna. “Nothing,” she forced out. “Only tore my dress.” Then her eyes, which had flown to Geoffrey’s face followed his and fell upon the blood-stained cloth she still clutched to her bosom with one hand and the blood-smeared flesh beneath it. “It is not my blood,” she gasped, and then, “Geoffrey, you are hurt!’’

Breath trickled out of him in relief. The shock of seeing blood on Joanna made him forget he had been holding her against his bleeding chest. “Not much,” he assured her.

“Let me see,” she cried.

“In a moment. Joanna, who was the man?” He saw her eyes widen and stroked her hair and cheek. “Do not be afeared love. It is ended. Over. I will not leave you alone again, I swear it. Not for an hour, not for a minute, until you are safe behind Roselynde’s walls. Do not be frightened, but tell me who it was.”

“I do not know,” she whispered.   “Whatever threats were made I swear no harm will come to you or yours or to me either. I know the men wear the king’s livery. Who was the man, Joanna?”

“The king’s livery? Oh, no!” Joanna took a deep breath and tried to control her shuddering. “I do not hide knowledge out of fear, Geoffrey. I really do not know. They were all masked.”

There had been no masks when Geoffrey came aboard, but that was so odd a thing for Joanna to say that it must be true. It was reasonable that as soon as danger threatened the masks would be torn away. One needed to see and breathe without obstruction in a fight. Still, Geoffrey had to voice his worst fear. He had to know.

“Joanna, look at me. Was it the king?”

Her eyes met his, still dilated with fright but concealing nothing. Her surprise at the question was genuine. “No. I know it was not he.”

“How do you know if he was masked? Did he speak?”

“Not a word. No one made a sound.” Joanna began to tremble again, and Geoffrey put an arm around her and drew her close. “That made it worseso awful! No one said a word, but I could feel the hate. Hate!” Her eyes closed and tears squeezed out under the lids. “Why should anyone hate me, Geoffrey? I have never willingly done any man or woman ill. It was terrible! Terrible!”