A Knight’s Enchantment (10 page)

Rushing past the beds of springtime flowers, all silver in the moonlight, Joanna spotted Peter, hiding from sight of the castle and kitchen windows. He was crouched behind a stand of hyssop and thyme, playing a solitary game of dice.

Seeing him, Joanna recalled Hugh’s previous comment and greeted him at once. “Peter, well met! Will you fetch a box of white powder from my chamber and deliver it here to Sir Yves? He has asked for it most urgently.”

“Unnn—” Peter assented, coming slowly to his feet, his face a beacon of shame at being discovered.

“And hurry,” Joanna pressed, keen for the lad to be away.

As Peter slouched off to do her bidding in some fashion, she scanned the high walls of the castle garden. If there was a gate, or a tree close to the wall she could climb, she might escape the keep. She had her own pitiful share of Orri’s gold with her—she always had her gold on her—so she would have something to give the bishop. Pray God it would placate him for a space, and win her more time.

Why not wait to see what the messenger says?
her reason argued, but her feelings were all urging her to flee. The truth was, she did not trust Bishop Thomas. Hugh had taken her as a valued hostage, but what if she was not? What if the bishop did not care? He could get other women to share his bed, and other alchemists to try to grow him gold. At least back at West Sarum she could be useful in many ways: making rose water, elixirs, sweets, helping in the kitchen. Now she was away from him, Thomas might forget her altogether and her father would be left to rot in the donjon, or worse.

“Let me find a gate,” Joanna panted as she traced another high wall without any opening.

Her prayer was answered at once. No gate, but a wild crab apple that must have seeded itself from the woodland outside and was now growing beside the wall. Its sturdy branches reached beyond the huge, smooth stones and a wide canopy of blossom gleamed as beautiful as stars in the deepening twilight.

“Thanks be to God,” Joanna murmured, stretching her arms up to the tree. Its bark was grainy under her hands and a piece flaked down into her face, but she was too jubilant to care.

“Are you not old to be climbing trees?”

Hugh’s question startled her and she lost her grip, scrabbling for a hold as she plummeted toward the swaths of violets, pinks and black-looking speedwell.

Hugh caught her and silenced his dog’s howling abruptly. “Enough, Beo! She is not hurt.” He gripped her more tightly, his arms as firm as a ship’s ribs beneath her trembling legs and shoulders. “She is safe.”

He touched her face, lightly brushing away the scrap of bark from her lips. “You are as light as a moth.” His blue eyes gleamed with a mixture of amusement and exasperation. “And as treacherous.”

Joanna found her voice again in her raw, dry throat. “I was merely examining the blossom.”

“That is an idea, but I have a better one. I will assay you for cuts—have I the word right?—and examine you to ensure you are not bruised.”

He was enjoying this, the devil, but even as he spoke, Joanna found herself imagining Hugh studying her. It was the kind of game she had never played with a man, but how might it be with him? To be touched and touch in return…

Joanna wrung her mind from a disturbing mêlée of images, desperate to fob him off somehow. “I must—I must use the garderobe,” she whispered.

“I am not surprised, after such excitement. I shall escort you there and thence to your chamber.”

It seemed he meant to carry her to both places.

“We shall be quicker if I walk,” Joanna said.

“But not if you run. You may run too far.” Hugh allowed that none-too-subtle hint to hit home and then changed the subject. “My men speak highly of your white powder. It soothes their aches better than any other tincture they know. I have found the same.”

He raised his arms slightly, to lift her smoothly over a rosebush.

“I am most intrigued as to what it is. Can you speak of its basics? How did you make it? How did you choose its parts?”

Had she not been trapped by him and the bishop’s deadline, she would have been glad of, even a little flattered by his interest. As it was, feeling aggrieved with all men and their power games, she answered sharply, “All my work is secret.”

“A way to keep control. I understand.”

His soothing reply exasperated her more. “Do you tell other jousters how to win? It is the same for me.”

“Competitive alchemy?”

“We all have exacting patrons.”

He shrugged. “Find some other labor if you dislike it so much.”

His smug, overweening, ignorant superiority made her burn with rage.

“As you would, if you did not spend your days dashing out your opponents’ brains? And what new labor would that—?” Joanna began, then snapped her teeth together. She would not give him the satisfaction of a waspish answer. Besides, they had passed the outer stair of the keep and were heading rapidly for the inner staircase and she was anxious as to what Hugh might do next, faced with the tight narrow spiral.

“I can walk ahead of you upstairs,” she said quickly.

“No, you are plainly overset. We will keep as we are.”

“Do not put me over your shoulder!” Joanna warned, shaking a finger at him.

“To carry such a wee bag of bones as you? I think not.” He lowered his head, kissed her finger, and now bore her in one brawny arm up the spiral, shielding her head against the stones with his shoulder. The smooth, steady rush would have been exhilarating, had she not been so irritated.

“There.”

Finally he set her down, outside the door of the garderobe. She knew he would be lurking when she came out again, and so he was.

“Stay with her, Beowulf,” he told the wolfhound. “Guard.”

Instantly the dog began to pace to and fro, exactly like a human guard, and Joanna realized what would happen if she attempted to move along the narrow corridor. Staring out from an arrow slit at the dark garden, she relieved some of her feelings by cursing Hugh, Sir Yves, Bishop Thomas, and even David.

“I wish I were a unicorn,” she grumbled. “Too magical to hold.”

“I would have had you for a lioness,” said Hugh behind her. “Valiant as a queen.”

“And you would be the lion?” she asked archly.

“A phoenix,” came back the prompt, unexpected reply. “Then I could burn away to ash and be reborn with no hurt to anyone.”

Joanna thought of Hugh’s mother, dead in childbirth, bearing him, and said nothing. She had heard of fathers blaming offspring for the deaths of their spouses but had not witnessed its raw pain until encountering Hugh and Yves. A memory of her mother, more precious than gold, shimmered a moment before her eyes. Miriam had been small and dark as she was, merry and chattering and with hands softer than silk. She had loved to comb and dress people’s hair, even her husband’s own sparse locks.

“What are you thinking?” Hugh asked softly. “You seem far away.”

Joanna shook her head. To speak of her mother when he had never known his was unkind. To talk of Miriam was to invite questions, and she was not ready yet to answer the worst one—how her mother had died.

“Do you have no other captives to pester?” she demanded.

“No,” he said, without apology. Instead of drawing back as she wanted, he stayed where he was, absently rubbing his lower back.

“Long hours in the saddle,” he remarked, catching her look. “How are your legs now?”

“Better. Why do you ask? Are you thinking of riding me into the ground tonight? Riding with me?” she amended, horrified by what she had just said. A picture of her and Hugh, rolling together on the soft earth, slammed into her head and stayed there.

“You need not fear me, you know.”

What did he mean? Had he noticed her mistake? Joanna did not hit back with the obvious answer, that she did not fear him. She lifted her head and looked at him directly, spearing her eyes at him, facing down him and her own imagination. So she had daydreamed of his touching her, of him embracing her as a husband does a wife. Could she not enjoy that notion?

Even as she admitted to herself that she did, Joanna knew she was torn between wanting to touch Hugh and wanting to escape him. She made a mummer’s show of a yawn, hoping he would take the hint and leave her on the corridor. Then she would try again to weave her way out of this castle keep.

“If your legs are well now,” Hugh went on, seemingly oblivious to her inner turmoil, “then I can help you.”

“To do what?” Joanna asked.

He knew she was as jumpy as a caged wren and divided in herself. How she must have hated letting slip that remark on riding! It made him wonder even more sharply what her true relationship was with Bishop Thomas. And what were her true feelings for him?

She liked him, yet not. She was drawn to him, yet constantly pulled away.

You hold her against her will. What do you expect?

“Were it not for David I would take you wherever you wish to go,” he said.

Surprise glittered in her eyes, bright as unshed tears, and in truth he was startled and ashamed himself. He had not meant to admit anything.

“But we are in this world, not heaven,” he added, feeling hotter and more squalid than ever. He was unused to thinking on matters of fault or conscience—in the joust there was one winner and no blame. Joanna was forcing him to question his assumptions, and it made his head ache as if he had toothache. Was this how monks felt, all the time? “I am sorry.”

The glitter in her face had been replaced by flat suspicion. “That is easy to say.”

“I can teach you how to evade capture. Then, when you are freed, you will remain so.”

She glowered, seeing through his feint at once. “You look for an excuse to handle me!”

In the joust he would have charged and grappled, but this was a girl.

“Come then,” she goaded. “Am I not your father’s servant? All maids are fair game, to men such as you.”

He backed away. “Not me.” As a squire at tourneys he had seen wenches thrust weeping and terrified into the pre-dawn when they were hauled out of the tents by the grooms and guards of the lords who had idly bedded them for the night. He had vowed then to leave servant lasses alone. “It is no sport to—”

He was going to add “bully” but she swung at him.

“Oof!” He had avoided her fists, but she did not miss with her flailing feet. As she blazed in afresh to batter his shins he lunged low, hooking her off balance. She yelled and began to pummel his back as he hoisted her over his shoulder.

“Watch your head,” he warned as she reared up, and then he jolted with her down the corridor, his knives and keys clashing, calling out to a startled page, “The lady has twisted her ankle.”

He carried her to her chamber and let her down. “I am no bully,” he said, spreading his arms to prevent her escape.

She said nothing, merely stared at his arms.

“Yes, yes!” He dropped them down to his sides. “But how else will you stay to listen?”

“By your talking sense!”

He laughed, amused by the aptness of her complaint, and after a moment she joined him. He sat down on the stone floor, patting his knee, delighted for an instant when she sat down his legs and then a moment later wondering how he could move her off his calves onto his thighs.

But aching legs or not, this was progress and he was determined to make the most of it.

“I am trying to win David’s freedom by other means than hostage exchange. I have sent a messenger to the Templars, reminding them he is their man. I hope to have an answer from them soon, one where they agree to help.”

Hugh thought he sounded too apologetic but Joanna had not moved yet. Did she know that, sitting on him like that, she was making his calves burn? She could, most easily, for she had a hefty streak of mischief. But then, watching her by the torchlight, he admitted that she made other parts burn, too, parts that were more personal and distracting.

And you considered her too sallow and drab,
his conscience goaded in the voice of his father, but he knew better now. Her skin always glowed with health, and in summer she would be as glossy as a beech nut. He imagined unlacing her gown, revealing that slim, vibrant figure and small, softly peaked breasts. Would her nipples be as dark and luscious as her lips?

“I know my hands are stained, you need not stare.”

Hugh hastily withdrew his gaze from her bosom and directed his attention to her face. She looked thinner, he thought, his guts feeling to shrivel inward with shame.

“Do you have brothers or sisters?” he asked for something to ask, wishing afresh that she was not his hostage.

She shook her head. “There is only me and my father now. My mother died when I was ten.”

He heard the ache in her voice, saw it in her dark eyes, and wished he could bring her mother back for her. He had always thought himself lost, having no mother, but to have known a mother’s love and lost it when still a child must be worse.

“It must be good to have a brother.”

Joanna had the faraway look he often saw on her face when she was working. Swiftly he agreed: “It has its moments.”

“Are David and Nigel your only close kin?”

Hugh nodded. He thought of Nigel, the eldest of the Manhill clan, the one blessed by birthright and fate, the handsome, golden boy, the rich, everything-falls-into-my-lap Nigel. He did not want to sour his mouth by speaking of him.

“Your father…is he the same with David and Nigel as he is with you?”

He knew what she meant but did not want to talk about his old estrangement with SirYves, either. Yet, because he was her knight and he did not wish to be accused of discourtesy on top of keeping her against her will, he said carefully, “Father and I cannot be peaceful together. It may be we are too alike. He and Nigel are close.”

“And David? Sir Yves has not quarreled with David, has he?”

“More that my father does not think of him at all.”

Because that was bleak and pitiful and he wanted to distract her, tempt her to eat, and see her smile—
and how will she do that as your captive?
—Hugh held out his hands and shifted sideways, rolling her gently off his legs. She caught his fingers and allowed him to help her to her feet.