The Tavern in the Morning (27 page)

‘Would that be possible? For her to reach the kitchen before Tilly?’

‘Aye. If you went out through the main door and slipped along the side passage, you could do it easily.’

‘I see.’

He was shifting in the chair, apparently about to get up. ‘I must go back home,’ he said. ‘I promised Joanna I’d speak to Ninian, see how he is, take any message he may have for her. Can I see him?’

‘Of course. Doesn’t she want to have him back with her?’

‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘Not yet.’

Why? Helewise wondered. Now that the danger was past, why should mother and son not be reunited?

But, sensing Josse didn’t want to talk about it, she merely said, ‘I will take you to him. You can reassure his mother that he’s quite all right. He seems happy, he likes Sister Caliste, and he’s eating like a horse.’

Josse grinned, very briefly. ‘Can’t be too much wrong with him, then.’

They were halfway across to the infirmary when Helewise stopped him. I have to speak, she thought, I can’t let there be an untruth between us.

‘What is it?’ he asked, glancing down at her detaining hand on his sleeve, ‘Why have we stopped?’

She looked round to make sure they were alone. Then, summoning her courage and taking a deep breath, she said, ‘Josse, I know that the story which Brother Saul brought back, the story you have just repeated to me, is not true.’ She noticed he was glaring at her, heavy eyebrows drawn down over his angry brown eyes. Go on! she ordered herself. You must! ‘I cannot believe that a man just
happens
to fall on a dagger point which pierces him to the heart,’ she hurried on, ‘it’s too convenient. And had you killed him as you fought, it would be self-defence and no crime, either in God’s eyes or under the law of the land. The only other person who could have killed him is Joanna.’

He had hold of her by the shoulders, and he could not have realised, she thought, how hard he was gripping her. She held his eyes steadily, and, after a moment, he loosened his hands.

He said nothing.

She took his silence as an acknowledgement that she was right.

She was tempted to assure him, to swear that the secret was quite safe with her.

But she didn’t really think there was any need.

Chapter Nineteen

Josse rode back to New Winnowlands with a heavy heart.

As well as everything else, he now felt he was a failure. The one thing he had wanted to keep from Helewise, and she had guessed it as easily as if he’d painted it across his forehead.

Ah, but it was a grave business, the whole damned thing.

And, to cap it all, his arm hurt like the very devil.

*   *   *

She came out to meet him as he rode into the courtyard. She took one look at him, and said, ‘I told you the ride was too much for you. You’re a fool, you should have had a longer convalescence. Now you’re in pain, and it’s your own fault.’

He slipped off Horace’s back, gratefully handing the reins to the waiting Will. Stomping off towards the steps, he said, ‘I’m a fool, am I? Well, I dare say I am.’

She recoiled at his tone. But she said nothing just then, merely accompanied him inside the hall, where, as soon as he had thrown off his cloak and settled himself in his chair in front of the fire, she knelt before him and asked meekly, ‘Josse, may I dress your wound? I have prepared some of the pain-easing draught, if you will take it?’

He did not know what to make of her. First she hectored him like a fishwife, now here she was asking permission to care for him, with all the timidity of some docile maidservant.

Suddenly heartily sick of the whole thing, he said, ‘Do what you like. You usually do.’

She bowed her head, as if accepting his rebuke.

She gave him some of her draught, then helped him remove his tunic and undershirt. As he sat there, keeping as still as he could, gritting his teeth against the sharp agony, she unwrapped the dressings on his arm, bathed the wound, applied some cool salve and re-wrapped it.

When he was dressed once more, she settled at his feet and said, ‘Why are you angry with me?’

Because it was the thing that was uppermost in his mind, he said instantly, without pausing to think, ‘You didn’t trust me. You didn’t tell me who Ninian’s father was.’

‘Denys told you?’

‘Aye, he did.’

She sighed. ‘Josse, I wanted to tell you. You must believe that! I
burned
to tell you and every instinct was assuring me I could trust you. And I usually do what my instincts tell me.’ She paused, a slight frown between her brows. ‘But I kept seeing Ninian’s face. He’s so loving, so trusting, and I couldn’t help but think that if I gave in and told you about me and the King, then somehow it would be wrong. Dangerous. Oh, Josse,
please
don’t ask me to explain! I can’t, other than to say that it seemed to come down to a choice between you and Ninian, and I chose him.’

‘Only another mother could understand,’ he murmured.

She looked up sharply. ‘Yes. Exactly that. How did you know?’

‘
I
didn’t. It was something Abbess Helewise said, when I told her—’ Abruptly he broke off. Oh, God! What had he said?

Joanna was on her feet, face contorted with fury. ‘You
told
her? You told your precious Abbess who Ninian’s father was? When you
knew
how desperate I was to keep that knowledge secret?’

He, too, was on his feet. Taking hold of her, gripping hard and wincing at the pain shooting through his arm, he shouted, ‘Aye, I did! And do you know why? Because she and I have perfect trust between us,
perfect
trust! We share secrets far more deadly than yours, let me tell you, and we have the faith in each other to confide anything we choose! That’s what close friends do, Joanna, in case you didn’t know!’

She was shaking her head, and he was surprised to see tears in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Josse!’ she cried, ‘I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you, not when you’ve risked so much and done so much for me!’

He slackened his grip. ‘It’s all right, Joanna.’ He couldn’t prevent the coldness in his voice.

‘But it’s
not
all right!’ she protested. ‘You’re probably thinking I only slept with you to make you help me.’

It was exactly what he
was
thinking. He made no reply.

She was staring up at him. ‘You have to believe me when I say that’s not true,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve had enough of sex for reasons of manipulation. I was raped, I was made to give myself to a husband I loathed and I wouldn’t even have considered bedding you as a means to any end at all. Even the safety of my son.’ She paused. ‘I wanted you, Josse,’ she went on softly. ‘Mag told me that one day I’d know what lovemaking really was and when I first met you, I felt the spark ignite. You gave me such joy, Josse. Such deep, wonderful pleasure.’ She reached out her hand and lightly touched his cheek. ‘However it ends between us, never forget that.’

Her hand fell.

For a moment, they stood facing one another. Then he reached out to brush the tears from her cheeks, and, holding her face in his hands, bent to kiss her very gently on the lips.

‘Very well,’ he said.

A swift smile crossed her face, there and gone. ‘Very well?’

‘I forgive you for not trusting me. And I’m honoured to have been the one who showed you what love could be.’

‘I—’ she began. Then she shook her head.

‘What?’

She met his eyes. ‘You speak of love, but I have to tell you that I cannot stay. Which is awkward, since you haven’t suggested I should.’

He took a deep breath. ‘Joanna, to meet your honesty with plain speaking of my own, it hadn’t occurred to me that you would stay. If you wish it, however, then I will marry you.’ That didn’t sound quite right. ‘I mean, I would be honoured if you would become my wife.’

There. It was said. He waited while she prepared her answer, and it seemed that his entire life hung in the balance.

She had half turned from him. Now, turning back to face him, she said, ‘Josse, my dearest love, I do not wish to marry. I have been married and, although I would not dream of speaking of you in the same breath as my late and unlamented husband, marriage is not a state which recommends itself to me. Not in the least.’

‘But—’

She smiled at him now, wholeheartedly, her face full of humour. ‘Sweetest, do not try to persuade me too hard, when I know full well that you are scarcely more keen to be married than I am.’

Was she right? He shook his head, not knowing how he felt.

‘Marriage is no good for women,’ she was saying. ‘At least, that’s what I think. I don’t want to be at a man’s beck and call, be his possession, bought and paid for, with no more say in my own destiny than one of his cows or his sheep.’

‘But—’

‘Oh, don’t interrupt, Josse – I’m telling you how I see it, which is, as far as I’m concerned, all that matters. No. I prefer to make my own way, answer to none but myself.’

‘And how do you propose to live?’ he asked.

She threw her head back. ‘I shall make out very well,’ she declared. ‘I have skills which are ever in demand.’

‘The skills Mag taught you?’

‘Yes. I know only a tiny part of all there is to know – it takes a lifetime, and Mag and I had so few months together. But there are others such as she. And I know where to find them. They will be willing to teach me, because of Mag.’

‘I see.’

She smiled again. ‘No, I don’t think you do. But it doesn’t matter.’

‘And where will you live?’

Her face lit with sudden radiance. ‘In the little manor house, when I’m not staying down in Mag’s shack in the woods.’

‘The
manor
house?’

‘Yes. It’s mine.’

‘But it can’t be, it belonged to…’

‘To my mother’s great-uncle and aunt, yes. They left it to my mother and, as my mother’s only surviving child, now it has come to me.’

He said, for want of anything else, ‘You can’t live in a place like that all on your own!’

And she said simply, ‘Yes I can.’

He turned away from her, returning to his chair to slump down, suddenly exhausted.

She followed him.

‘Poor Josse,’ she said, gently stroking the thick hair off his forehead, ‘so much to put up with. I will fetch food and drink for us in a little while, I promise – Ella has prepared what she says is your favourite meal – but first, there is one more thing I must ask of you.’

He looked up at her, managing a half-smile. ‘Why stop at one?’

She answered his smile. ‘I know, I’m sorry. But this isn’t for me, it’s for Ninian.’

‘Ask away.’

She crouched beside him. ‘The life I outlined is perfect, for me. It is exactly what I want. But it’s not right for him – I can’t take the decision to remove him from the mainstream of life and turn him into a wise woman’s son, condemned for ever to live on the fringes of life. Not when I know who he really is. Can I?’

‘No,’ he acknowledged. ‘I do see what you mean.’

‘Had Thorald lived,’ she went on, ‘which I thank God he didn’t – since we’re to trust each other with all our secrets, Josse, I ought to tell you that it was I who put the stone in his horse’s shoe that morning, in the fervent hope that it would result in a fatal trip, which happily it did – where was I? Oh, yes. Had Thorald lived, then Ninian would have been sent as page to join some other knightly household, and, in time, he would have become a squire. What I’m asking—’ She paused, and he saw tears in her eyes again. Blinking them back, she said, ‘Will you arrange that for Ninian? Put him into a good house somewhere, make sure he grows up as he should?’

Josse reached out and took her hands. ‘You will lose him,’ he said gently. ‘You do realise, don’t you?’

She nodded, the tears falling unchecked down her face.

‘Once he’s a squire, the next step will be to win his spurs,’ Josse went on. ‘He’ll be caught up in his own life, Joanna. A good life – and I ought to know – but one so different from yours that I doubt he’ll be able to bridge the gap.’

‘I know,’ she sobbed. ‘But it’s what he was born to. It would be a great sin for me to rob him of it, just to keep him with me.’ She raised her wet eyes to his. ‘Wouldn’t it?’

His heart breaking for her, slowly he nodded.

‘Will you do it?’ she persisted. ‘Will you give me your word to do your best for him?’

Reaching down, he lifted her up until she was kneeling before him. Then he wrapped his arms round her, and, pulling her face down against the bare skin of his neck so that he felt the moisture of her tears, he said, ‘Aye, Joanna. I promise.’

*   *   *

Later, when she was calm again, she did as she had said, and fetched the meal which Ella had prepared for them. But neither had much appetite.

She said anxiously, ‘Is your arm paining you? Is that why you don’t eat?’

‘No, the arm’s all right. I’m sorry, Joanna. The food is good, but I’m not hungry.’

She pushed a chicken leg around her plate, holding it delicately between finger and thumb. ‘Neither am I.’

‘We have come to grave decisions today, Joanna,’ he said. ‘Decisions which will affect both of us, for the rest of our lives.’

‘Yes,’ she murmured.

He watched her. Slowly, as if aware of his scrutiny, she raised her eyes and met his. Wordlessly he opened his arms, and she got up and hurried over to him. He sat her down on his lap, cradling her to him.

‘That’s nice,’ she murmured, as he began to stroke her back. ‘I had wondered if, having decided we are not to stay together, that might mean we could not bed one another again. But—’

He smiled. ‘But what?’

‘Do you have an opinion on the matter, Sir Josse?’ The teasing note was back. It was a shadow of its former self, but it was there.

‘I see no reason to suspend our relations,’ he said gravely. ‘We are, after all, both over the age of consent, and—’

‘Some of us further over than others,’ she put in.

‘– and there seems, on the face of it, no reason to abandon something which gives us both such pleasure.’ He held her face in his hands, meeting her eyes. ‘Shall we retire to bed, Joanna my sweet?’