Joanna (66 page)

In fact, Lady Gilliane was not perfectly clear why her eyes were full of tears. The relief she felt at seeing Léon was enormous. No longer would she need to worry about whether the servants were doing their duty or how she could discover if they were not doing it. But the thought of losing Lord Geoffrey, of being bereft of the interest and courtesy that made her a person in her own eyes as well as his, of never again having a man look at her and
see
her, kiss her hand, pour wine and hand it first to herthere was pain in that.

“Will you count the gold now, or may that matter wait   until I have settled my husband in his bed?”

The voice was low, but hard and cold as ice. Gilliane turned and gasped. No wonder Geoffrey had written that his wife was like the sun and dazzled his eyes so that he could see no other. Truly she was, butJoanna returned the other woman’s stare with a slight sense of satisfaction. In looks there could be no contest between them and, in addition, Lady Gilliane was some years older. Jealousy faded to a small core of irritation. For Geoffrey to turn, even temporarily, to such a substitute was demeaning. The silence was extending uncomfortably.

Joanna raised her voice. “Shall I bid my men carry the chests of gold to your hall, or may I bring Geoffrey’s clothing and my medicines to his chamber so that I can settle him into bed first?” she repeated.

“The gold” Gilliane faltered, “oh, I do not know. Léon will tell you what next to do.” What a relief to be able to say that.

A blistering retort to such silliness rose to Joanna’s lips, but she set her teeth over it. It would be unwise to come to open insult. She bid Knud, who was standing by, to unpack what would be needed for Geoffrey and take Edwina down from her pillion seat behind one of the men-at-arms. She told Edwina to find a servant who could show her Geoffrey’s chamber and see that all was ready there. Knud was then to pile the ransom together and set the men to guard it. If Sir Léon was anxious to begin counting it, Sir Guy must stand in for her as she wished first to attend Geoffrey. As she said it, she looked toward him again. It seemed they were coming ever more slowly. Joanna was about to ask Gilliane for a litter, whatever Geoffrey said, when the men stopped altogether and Sir Guy lifted Geoffrey into his arms. Joanna caught her breath. Geoffrey was slender, but Sir Guy could not have lifted him without great effort before he was hurt.

“I said that he was too weak,” Lady Gilliane cried out accusingly.

Inwardly, Joanna winced, but her quiet face gave no sign of her remorse and, as Sir Guy came through the gates with   Sir Léon at his heels, she said only, ‘‘Will you show us the way to his chamber or tell a servant to show us?”

They crossed the small bailey; it was a very small keep and had no moat, drawbridge, or portcullis, only a gate and simple wall. Automatically, Gilliane turned down the steps to the cells. There was no longer any reason to keep Geoffrey there, and she could have gone to a wall chamber. Gilliane was so used to thinking of Geoffrey down there that she led Joanna in that direction without considering the impression it would make. In truth, at the time it made no impression on Joanna who was in no condition to consider whether she was going up or down a flight of stairs.

There was a bed; she flung off the coverlets, ran her hand over the sheet, winced at its roughness, thinking how that would feel on a fevered body. Then Sir Guy was there. It was too late now to change the sheets for her own. He knelt so that he could place his burden on the bed with the least jostling although Geoffrey was obviously beyond feeling anything just then. Joanna reached for the tie of the tunic; another hand followed hers.

“I will care for him now,” Joanna said quietly, but if a look could kill, Gilliane would have fallen to the floor, stone dead. “Do not waste your time on
my
husband. Go to greet your own.”

Gilliane withdrew her hand and went to the door, but no farther. It seemed to her that Joanna was too young and too highbred to do what was necessary. She expected her to offer Geoffrey a drink or, if she went so far as undressing him, to turn away shuddering from his torn body. Almost smiling, Gilliane waited to be recalled. Instead, she saw a masterly operation, the end result of many years of Lady Alinor’s careful instruction.

Geoffrey was stripped naked in two minutes. Joanna did shudder when she saw his wounds, but it did not impair her efficiency. She muttered imprecations when she saw how ill they were sewn, pulled together any which way. A small sharp knife opened the stitches and Joanna blasphemed a little more when she saw there were pus pockets. No wonder the wounds were still suppurating after all these weeks. She   began to clean them deep inside with “water of life,” in which was steeped a powdered seaweed that made the liquor a dark brown. King John’s inept rule had the effect of making Joanna, despite her youth, far better acquainted with war wounds than Gilliane.

Sometime during the operation Geoffrey regained consciousness. Before he opened his eyes, he winced away from pain more severe than he was accustomed to, but Sir Guy was ready and held him firm. “Quiet,” a soft voice urged, “be quiet. Tomorrow you will be better.” His eyes opened. “Joanna,” he breathed, “thank God.”

Lady Gilliane slipped quietly away, swallowing a resigned bitterness mixed with a queer relief. She had struggled hard to save Geoffrey, subduing her revulsion to attend him, and he had not a single thought for her. It was better so. Better that he should thank God for his wife who would doubtless be credited with his healing. Nonetheless, there was a sad gladness in her. No longer would an ugly little desire, bred out of Geoffrey’s gentle courtesy and his willingness to help with advice and explanations about matters of the estate, grow in her and need to be rooted out.

When Joanna was finished with Geoffrey and he had caught his breath, he asked anxiously, “Is it well, Joanna? I knew I was not healing right, but I did not know what to tell the lady, and it seemed churlish to complain when I could not say what was wrong.”

“It will be well now,” Joanna assured him. “It is a good thing you did not heal,” she added with a flicker of malice, which Geoffrey fortunately did not notice. “I had to open you in two places and fit the flesh better, but you will heal now so that you can move easily. Sleep,” she soothed, “I swear to you, you will be whole.”

He sighed with relief. Joanna was not such a fool as to lie about that. If he was to be crippled, he would need time to settle his mind to it and begin to plan a new fighting style or whatever other compensation would be necessary. His eyes began to close but he pushed up the heavy lids.

“Is all well at home?”

“Of course. How should it not be? I have seen to everything. What else had I to do with you gone? Oh, there are one or two matters of justice that I laid over for you to settle because they regard points of honor, but they are small things. Even the country is quiet. Winchester holds the reins and Pembroke the whip. The steed knows better than to prance under such management.”

That was not an outright lie. It merely concealed so much of the truth that it might as well have been. Joanna was not nearly so scrupulous about misleading her husband for his own good on political matters as about his body. It was true England was quiet under the control of Winchester and Pembroke, but it was the quiet of a seething pot which, growing hotter and hotter under a tight lid, erupts at last, throwing off the cover and spewing its contents all around.

Geoffrey was not unaware that Joanna’s veracity on this subject was not to be compared with her veracity about his physical condition. He felt nothing beyond a profound gratitude about that. His question had been dutiful, a result of a strong sense of responsibility; however, he was very grateful that it had not called forth a stream of anxious worries. Far too often when he politely asked Lady Gilliane if he could do something for her, she had taken advantage of the formal question. He had found it very exhausting to try to explain what he felt any sensible woman should know, but it was not in his nature to spare himself. Nor could he stop asking; courtesy had been pounded into him until the formal words came out before he thought. He smiled, warmed and comforted by Joanna’s presence, knowing nothing would be required of him until he felt able for it.

Joanna sat quietly by his side until she was sure he was deeply asleep, then she turned to Sir Guy, stiffening as she saw him standing in the doorway, naked sword in hand. He gestured her toward him.

“Do you realize we are in a cell that can be locked?” he whispered.

Joanna had not realized. Fear rose in her. There was danger here! There was! She knew it. She had felt it all along. Nonetheless, as she glanced around good sense warred with that “smell” of danger.   “I do not think there is any danger it will be locked to keep us in,” she said slowly. “If that had been intended, it would have been done while we were all busy about my lord. Also, he has been here long. See the chair and table and rug. It must have been to keep Lord Geoffrey safe, rather than to keep him inside. Indeed, where could he go, what could he do, in the state he is?”

Whatever Sir Guy would have answered was cut off by the arrival of Sir Léon, rather red and short of breath. “I would like to speak to Lord Geoffrey,” he said somewhat stiffly.

“He is alseep,” Joanna objected impatiently. “What is it you desire of him? I am able for more than he just now. Speak to me.”

Sir Léon did not want to speak to Joanna. He did not like her. She might be beautiful, but she was hard, unwomanly, proud, overbearing; in fact, she had every fault a woman could have. Still, from Sir Guy’s naked sword and wary expression, it was obvious they were aware of where they were. In the face of Joanna’s long suspicion, some explanation must be offered.

“I only wished to beg his pardon for locking him in this place,” Sir Léon grated out. “No insult to Lord Geoffrey’s honor was intended. It was only to ensure his safety against search and seizure by King Philip’s men. As soon as he wakes, you will move to more suitable quarters.”

It was a reasonable explanation, but the “smell” of danger lingered in Joanna’s mind. After a while, as she sat beside Geoffrey, she began to wonder if it was idleness rather than any real thing that was making her uneasy. She had brought no work along on this hurried journey and now she regretted it because it was an effort not to stare at Geoffrey. That would disturb him but, worse, his nearness was waking a most untimely hunger in her, a hunger that must remain unsatisfied for some considerable time owing to Geoffrey’s condition. The combined discomforts of anxiety, idleness, and frustration served to unsettle Joanna and make her unreasonable. Staring at the blank walls, she became infuriated because Geoffrey had welcomed her as a   nurse rather than as a woman. If that was what he wanted, she told herself spitefully, that was what he would have. Call him her love, her heartnot she!

Meanwhile, Sir Léon was discovering that Geoffrey’s capture was having enormous and unexpected benefits quite aside from the wealth that would accrue to his uncle. At first, that did not seem likely. The initial meeting between Sir Léon and his wife had not been easy. His jealousy had been sharply reawakened when he had seen the expression on Gilliane’s face as Geoffrey was carried in and had been further exacerbated when she disappeared below before greeting him rather than sending a servant. In addition, he had been infuriated to find Geoffrey imprisoned in a cell rather than treated as a guest. Because he was fearful of what he might learn from investigation of the first two problems, he had attacked the last matter first. The shock the explanation gave him, sent him down to apologize to Geoffrey before he did anything else. His brief contact with Joanna had sent him back up the stairs with a sudden, overwhelming gratitude for his own wife.

Having seen Geoffrey’s condition, Sir Léon no longer suspected Gilliane of any physical infidelity. What had appeared on her face, however, was a warning that his wife was a woman of strong feelingsa thing he would never have noticed before the need to read Joanna’s expression had made him aware that women had feelings. To his surprise, he found that he was as possessive of Gilliane’s feelings as of her body.

Truthfully, he had never thought about her much. Gilliane had been chosen for him by his parents, as was proper, and he had found her pleasant enoughobedient, hardworking, and a good breeder. What more did he need? Long absence and a crush of new experience had jolted him from his rut, however. After many years of marriage, Sir Léon suddenly saw his wife as woman. She was looking back at him, her hands held forward placatingly, obviously nervous and distressed more than joyous. She was not beautiful, but she was no haughty bitch either. Sir Léon came   across the hall and took Gilliane’s hands. She looked down at them, up at him, and surged forward against him, crying aloud how glad she was to have him back, how much she had missed him, all mixed together with apologies for her inability to keep the men to their work and lesson the boys.

It was a rich reward, Sir Léon thought, for so simple a gesture as taking Gilliane’s hands. It inspired him to use upon his wife the techniques he had learned while traveling with Joanna. So well did the small courtesies of holding a bench for her and choosing tidbits to put upon her trencher serve, that, when they went to bed he eagerly displayed the more intimate lessons he had learned from Edwina. Gilliane was not made jealous in the least by this expansion in her husband’s sexual repertoire. It never occurred to her for a moment that Léon would, or even should, be faithful to her. She considered herself fortunate that he had never set up a mistress in the keep as some men did. Gilliane thanked God in full and overflowing measure for the joy she received and did not question its source.

Whatever little flicker of longing Gilliane had felt for Geoffrey was expunged as completely and finally as a mark on soft sand is erased by the flow of the tide. Any resentment she had felt toward Joanna was also washed away. Somehow she credited them with bringing her this new joy, and she went about her duties the next day with a heart that sang, with footsteps as light as a girl’s, and a face that had shed twenty years, and with a determination to do her guests a good turn if it was in any way possible.