A Love For All Seasons (4 page)

Colin looked in the direction of the noise, his gaze lingering on the spot where Rob had stood. His expression grew distant as he lost himself in the past. "You care for her still." It was a breath of a comment.

Rob opened his mouth to reject any conversation over Johanna then caught himself. To avoid his past was to destroy all hope of ever laying it to rest so he could move beyond it. With a sigh, he leaned forward and braced his forearms on his knees.

"How could I not? We were as close as brother and sister, she and I," he said, politely skirting the truth as much to protect his own emotions as Johanna.

His gaze still fixed on the window, Colin loosed an amused and scornful snort. "Best not say that, lad. Incest's an even greater sin than fornication."

Rob rocked back on the mattress as the monk's brutal honesty tore past his carefully tended veneer, exposing the raw emotion seething beneath it. "You've no right to mock me and what I feel for her," he hissed. "Especially not after you said you saw what happened between us yet did naught to stop us. Damn you, but you aided Master Walter in seeing I carried her hatred with me for all my life's time."

When Colin turned his head to look at Rob, there was only sadness in his expression. "You harangue when I but stated the truth you yet choose to avoid. As for blame, know you that my guilt over what happened between you two lays heavily upon my shoulders."

As pain and anger retreated to its own private corner of his soul, shame washed over Rob. Somewhere, deep in him, he'd hoped Colin would return anger for anger. Then, could he have ranted over the unfairness of the way he'd been parted from Johanna and, in doing so, eased a little of what ached in him.

He bowed his head. "I beg your pardon, Master. My words do no justice to the love and kindness you and Master Walter showed me, nor to the gratitude that I yet bear you both. Know you that as a man full grown, I understand the whys of what you did." Lifting his head, Rob hazarded a small smile. "I fear you found a wound in me that not even one of your potions could heal."

Death crept back to settle comfortably into the lines around Colin's mouth and the creases on his brow. "So I expected," he replied. "Unlike Walter, I harbored no illusions you would either rise above the hurt we did you or forget what you felt for her. I think me the constancy of your heart is both gift and curse for you, lad."

Once again Colin's words bolted through Rob. If this was true, he was tied to Johanna for all time, just as he'd promised her sixteen years ago. As Rob swallowed, then swallowed again, trying to force his heart back down into his chest, the monk sagged deeper into the chair as if his sadness weighed more than he could bear. If they didn't escape this subject, they'd both soon be sobbing.

"Master Robert, can you hear me?" Will's shout rose from beneath the window to shatter the gloom in the tiny chamber.

On any other day, Rob wouldn't have deigned respond to such a call. An apprentice did not shout to his master as if he were dog, an apprentice came into his master's presence and humbly begged his question be addressed. However, Rob was so grateful for Will's distraction that he rose and went to the window without hesitation. A half-storey below, the boy was hopping from foot to foot on the slick grass, trying to keep warm while he awaited his reply.

"I hear you," Rob called. "What is it, lad?"

Will looked up in relief. "Brother Porter eats sooner than the others, and since we are both Williams he says it's only right that I should share his bean soup. May I?" On Will’s face bloomed the hopeful look of a growing and ever hungry lad.

"As you will, but mind your manners," Rob said, his tone carefully modulated to remind the lad that even in sharing a cup of soup he represented the house of Robert the Grossier.

Will grinned. "I'll be very careful. My thanks, Master Robert." In the next instant he was gone.

"You let him speak so to you?" Colin asked, his now hollow voice touched with quiet disapproval.

Rob only shook his head as he returned to seat himself on the bed. Leaning over, he gave the monk's knee a pat. "Enough of me and mine. Tell me of your life here. Although I suspected you meant to take your vows, I am astonished that a monk's life is so full. Days, I have waited on your visit," he said, giving more emphasis to the complaint than he felt. "Did you forget I was here, or do you brothers truly work so hard?"

Colin lifted his shoulders in helplessness. "Know you, I meant to come each and every one of the past days. Any more, time seems to slip through my fingers, with the hours ending too soon for the number of chores I wish to complete. But then, you know how I can be when I'm busy at my pots and stills." He tried to smile.

"Do they give you no aide to ease your burden?" Rob retorted, his voice deepening slightly. It'd not surprise him to find Colin, an Englishman, misused by the Norman abbot of this place.

Sharp amusement snapped in Colin's dark eyes. "Watch yourself, lad. It could be your own sire you denigrate with your dislike." Then, knowing full well the hive he'd just stirred, the monk leapt swiftly into explanation, denying Rob the chance to protest the bastardy he refused to accept.

"Nay, it's starvation's contingent of diseases that is my taskmaster now. Each day I strive to replenish our meager defenses against them, all the while knowing they cannot be vanquished until bellies are once again full." His gaze fell to his age-twisted fingers in his lap as if he couldn't believe them incapable of miracles. "Most of those who die are but children," he whispered.

"Master," Rob cried softly, recognizing now the source of Colin's sadness. Slipping from the bed, he knelt before the monk, taking his hands to offer comfort. "Do not torture yourself so. Death comes for us all, sooner for some than others. If many of those outside yon gates are meant to die, then there's naught we can do to forestall it"

"You’re wrong. There is much that can be done," Colin spat out, lifting his head to reveal the frustration and anger twisting his face. "Not one, Rob, not one of the merchants in this town has dug deep into his own purse to aid the hungry. Oh, I'm not saying they haven't given to the abbey, but where Abbot Eustace sees open-handed generosity, I know better. I know each of their houses and how much they would have in store."

The fire in him died, leaving him naught but an old, tired man sitting in a chair far richer than any he'd ever owned. "I tell you, lad, the world's changed, and I like it naught at all. Stanrudde has grown into a crowded, stinking place filled with uncaring folk and iniquities I never dreamed existed two score years ago. These days, the honest man must work twice as hard to buy the same loaf of bread I bought for you. This winter, he'll buy no bread at all, no matter how hard he works."

Although Colin caught himself before his plea tumbled past his lips, there was no way to keep the question from his eyes. No longer did the former tradesman look upon the lad who'd been his employer's apprentice. Instead, he watched Robert the Grossier, buyer and seller of grains, who did his business in Lynn, the city built on East Anglia's wealth in wheat.

Rob sat back on his heels and rubbed at the creases in his forehead. Of late, they'd been trying to make themselves permanent marks on his face. "Would that I had grain to offer you." The words came out too flat, too hard, and he hurried to explain.

"You, better than any other churchman, knew what my answer must be. This year's harvest was sold even as last year's shipped. What I could delay sending on my contracts, I did, although it meant taking a grave loss this year. All I have, save for what I need to keep my own house throughout the winter, I've either sold or given to the priory at Lynn. I've no wish to profit off another man's misery, and so vows every God-fearing grossier I know."

Not all men feared God as much as they coveted gold. All across this land, speculators held back their stores. As they dribbled it onto the market, the price of grain rose to a king's ransom.

Of these men there were two kinds: the first had nerves of iron and strong connections at the royal court; the other was an utter fool. If discovery for the first meant ruin through the confiscation of all their worldly goods, for the second sort it was ruin, followed by a quick trip to the gallows. Since Rob knew Katel was not of the first sort, this left the spice merchant in the second category.

Again, he scrubbed at his face, this time trying to tame his worry over Johanna. True, Katel had proved himself a clever thief. It had taken months to track the one who'd bought a small portion of Rob's grain out from beneath his contracts. But then, Katel had always been adept at claiming what belonged to others. When it came to selling anything, even his own spices, the man was not so adept. Rob was certain that if and when Katel tried to put his ill-gotten grain on the market, he’d be discovered. Unless Rob could find a way to privately reclaim the seed before that time came, Johanna would either hang with her husband or be left shamed and impoverished by his demise.

Colin offered him a weak smile. "My pardon, since it was I and Walter who raised you, I should have known that of you," he started. The last of his words were drowned out as folk began to shout and scream outside the abbey's gate. A horse loosed a terrified cry.

"What now?" Colin said irritably, coming to his feet with a grunt. The monk crossed to the window.

Rob joined him, towering over his much shorter mentor as he peered in disinterested curiosity at the wall and gate. Judging by the ringing echoes, another of Stanrudde's wealthy personages had appeared. The folk without were haranguing the poor soul for the sin of eating when they did not.

Suddenly, the small wooden door in the gatehouse room that was the brother porter's domain flew open. Will dashed out and raced toward the stable, a wooden spoon yet in his hand. The brother porter flew out on the lad's heels, cowl falling back to reveal a pate as bald as a babe's. Panic brought the monk's habit high over his hairy knees. He started toward the guest house then veered in indecision toward the abbot's lodging. After a few steps, he again changed course, this time aiming for the hospitium.

"Brother William," Colin called to him, "what is it?"

The monk stopped, yet dancing in place with anxiety as he glanced around for the source of the voice. His gaze found Colin then leapt to their esteemed visitor. "Master Robert ... Young Will ... in the street ... they're trying to get her off her horse ..." he stuttered.

Beyond the wall, a woman screamed in terror. The sound of her voice raised the hair on the back of Rob's neck. Years or not, he knew his Johanna. Without a second's thought, he vaulted through the window. He was running for the gate almost before his feet hit the damp and springy earth.

Robert of Blacklea's parched throat tried on its own to swallow while hunger gnawed at his belly. Although his home was no more than two hundred paces from him, he was too tired to crawl any farther. It had taken all of the night just to reach the garden's center.

Around him, beans rustled in the morn's fresh breeze while the earth beneath him was yet clammy with dew. The coolness of the ground seeped past his shirt and tunic to temper his overheated skin. As he drew another shallow breath, he could nigh on taste the rich stench of manure. Only two weeks ago, he and Papa had spread the wealth of their byre and latrine on the newly tilled portion of their croft, which lay nearby.

But, two weeks ago life had been normal. Now, Mama was dead and Papa had lost his mind. Ten was too young to be left with no one to love him.

Slowly, because his legs and arms were tender where Papa had hit them, he pulled his knees into his chest. When he was the smallest ball possible, he buried his head against his legs. If things were ever to be normal again, he had to succeed at bringing Mama back to them. His brow creased as Mama's image formed before his inner eye.

Her face was round, her hair a pale gold, but not as pale as Papa's. A fine web of wrinkles touched the corners of her eyes. Rob remembered how the brown of Mama's eyes always sparkled green when she smiled. "Come back," he whispered, the sound rasping from his dry throat. "Come back, Mama."

Day's light grew steadily brighter, and Rob clenched the eye that wasn't already swollen shut until his mind was again full dark. The mud that caked his face began to dry and draw, and his cheek twitched in irritation. Mama's image was consumed, just as the sun ate the morning mist. Rob let his head droop in frustration toward the garden floor. No matter how hard he conjured, something always intruded, destroying his attempt.

"Travelers!" Dickon, son to Harold the Miller, called. His voice was sharp with excitement, his words rising from just beyond this garden's enclosing wall. "Come everyone, come and see!"

As Dickon repeated his invitation all along the pathway to the far fields where the men were haying this week, loneliness filled Rob. Two weeks ago, he would have been equally as excited over such news.

The sound of snorting pack animals drifted to him on the breeze. Cart wheels squeaked as they turned, growing louder as they neared Blacklea's tiny green, only a few rods distant from where Rob lay. There was a brief instant of quiet, followed by a sharp crack. A man's shouted warning was drowned out by the resounding crash of the cart bed hitting the earth.

"Rob? Where are you? You must come and see."

Barely audible over the purr of the doves perched on the byre's rooftop, his three-year-old sister's call shredded Rob's concentration. He shut his ears to Gretta's voice, fighting back his ever-present urge to coddle and protect her. She no longer needed him. Since Mama's death, she'd dwelt with her godmother and namesake, Margretta the Platfoot.

"Rob, where are you lad?" There was no ignoring this call. Margretta Platfoot's voice was as strong as her flat-footed gait was weak. "The bailiff's here with a spice merchant whose cart has broken its axle."

Margretta's voice grew in volume as she crossed the wee courtyard stretching between the toft's enclosing earthen wall and Ralph AtteGreen's cottage. "Rob, are you hiding from me, boy? Come now, your sister's wanting you."

The cottage door's leather hinges squealed in protest as that panel was thrown wide. "God damn you to hell, old woman! By what right do you trespass into my home?"

Margretta yelped. Rob cringed. Papa's words were still running into each other, just as they had done last even. Until last week, Rob hadn't known Papa could be so dangerous.

"Mother of God, but you frightened a year's life out of me, Ralph AtteGreen," the old woman cried out, her voice steadying as she continued. "What are you doing here when you should be haying with the other men? Why, you're drunk!"

"I'm a free man, old woman," Papa retorted, his tone dark and thick. "I do as and when I please."

"Where's Rob?" Margretta's voice was suddenly cautious.

"Gone," Papa grunted. "Drove the bastard from my toft last night, I did."

These hard, hurting words made tears fill Rob's eyes. He was no bastard. Bastards were fatherless children, the lowest of the low, conceived by fornication or adultery. Papa cursed such children, saying it was better to drown these brats than let them live in shame. Now, because of the terrible lie Mama told just before she died, Papa wished that death upon his own son.

"Tell me you did not!" Margretta's tone was shocked. "Why, Gilly's barely cold in her grave."

"Aye, but buried she is. If she'd wanted me to continue to pretend that dark-haired devil is mine, then she shouldn't have died." Papa's complaint was almost a sob.

"Why, you ungrateful wretch!" Margretta shouted. "I'll see you pay for this. Rob! Rob, where are you, lad?"

"Meddling bitch!" Papa roared. "Get out of my home!"

Margretta shrieked. Fabric rent. Flesh impacted with flesh. "Help me, neighbors," the old woman screamed. "Help, help!" Her last word disappeared into a gag.

"Nay, Papa, nay," Rob whispered against his father's madness. He covered his ears with his hands, then pressed his head hard against his knees and let hopelessness take him to a timeless place beyond hearing or seeing.

"I've found the lad!"

The call, bellowed from directly overhead, startled Rob from his dazed musing. His uninjured eye flew open. One row over the leafy beans were now crushed beneath the heavy soles of two short-topped boots. Out of these shoes grew a pair of thick legs clad in bulky red chausses and cross-gartered in dark green.

Rob turned his head to follow the legs upward. The big man wore a rich green gown woven with golden threads beneath a fur-trimmed mantle. His golden mantle pin and the tiny brass medallions on his belt caught the sun with blinding impact. Dazed by the brightness, Rob shut his eye. When he opened it once more, the stranger was kneeling in the muck beside him.

Never before had Rob seen a man as red as this one. Two flaming, bushy brows crested over eyes as pale a blue as the mill pond in winter. Hair the same bright red color curled in wild abandon around the big man's head, while his beard, a bare shade lighter, covered a broad jaw. What skin was exposed in all this hair was sunburnt to a painful hue, making his tawny freckles and dark moles stand out in sharp relief, while it peeled across the bridge of his great, arching nose.

With gentle fingertips, the stranger felt at the bruises and lumps on Rob's head and shoulders. "Ach, poor lad. You're fevered. I'll wager me you laid here all the night long." Where before the foreigner's voice had been a thundering roar, it was now a muted rumbling, but there was outrage in his quiet tone.

Before Rob could think to resist, he was lifted from the beans and cradled against the man's burly chest. The fabric beneath Rob's head was soft. He breathed deeply. The stranger's tunic carried with it a tangy-sweet scent he didn't recognize.

As his tall rescuer carried him from the garden and around the byre's far end, Rob could see over the toft's low, enclosing earthen wall to the green beyond it. A small, two-wheeled cart lay at the near side of that open expanse. Its axle had split in the middle, the splintered ends now resting on the ground. Guarding it and the string of pack animals laden with baskets that surrounded it was a group of men dressed in the same padded cloth vests and leather caps that Blacklea Manor's guards wore.

A flicker of interest rose within Rob at this exotic sight then died against his greater need to lie beneath his own blanket within familiar walls. He waited for the man to turn right toward the neat cottage that had been home for all his life. Instead, the big man continued straight on, walking toward the gap in the toft's wall.

Panic choked Rob. As sure as he breathed, if he stepped one toe beyond the toft's wall, all hope of conjuring Mama back to life would be lost. With a hoarse croak, he struggled to lift himself upright in the man's arms. His attempt only made spots and stars swim before his eyes, even in the darkness behind his swollen eyelid. By the time his senses steadied, he and the man were in the green.

Too late! Rob sagged as his fragile hold on the world he knew shattered. Mama was beyond his reach for all time. Now, nothing would ever be the same.

The stranger stopped beside his cart. "Aleric, bring me your skin," the big man called.

"Aye, Master Walter."

One of the men, long and lean, stepped forward with the water container. He set the skin's spout against Rob's lips. At the touch of cool liquid against his skin, Rob's mouth opened on its own. Water dribbled down his dry throat. Swallowing was so painful it was a moment before he realized this was water and something more. The strange taste of it made him turn his head aside before his thirst was quenched.

At his refusal, Master Walter shifted Rob in his arms and continued on toward the green's center. Rob turned his head far enough to see who was gathered here. The men had all come down from the fields. Their sweat-streaked chests were bare, the shirts and tunics tied around their waists wearing a coat of hayseed. The women were far neater in their bright gowns and homespun headcloths, but their hands were stained with the fruits of their kitchens. In rote habit, Rob counted them, his brain tallying and separating as he always did: two and forty men and boys, seven and fifty lasses and women. Of them, four and seventy were married, the remainder being either widowed or yet too young to wed.

Papa, wearing only his shirt and chausses, hung between Wilfred, Blacklea's bailiff, and Peter the Archer, sergeant of the manor's few protectors. The sun made Papa's pallid hair gleam almost white. His new madness, along with too much ale, made his jaw slack and kept his brown eyes closed halfway.

As the merchant moved into the crowd, old Margretta came to walk beside him. Pale-haired Gretta was cradled in her godmother's arms, sobbing softly against Margretta's shoulder. The old woman's face bore an angry red mark, and her sleeve was tom from her gown.

"You poor creature," Margretta crooned as she squinted shortsightedly down at Rob.

Master Walter stopped before Wilfred, the long-faced Norman who was Blacklea's master in lieu of its lord. "Bailiff, look upon what this man has done. The lad hangs onto life by his fingernails alone."

Wilfred raised a dark and unconcerned brow. "While his mistreatment is unfortunate, Master Walter, the boy yet lives. There's no law against a man beating his son."

"I am not his father!" Papa shouted. "His mother confessed it to me with her dying breath."

The merchant loosed a harsh laugh. "Convicted by his own words. Now, you've not only assaulted the goodwife here, but another man's child as well. And, that is against the law."

"Rob's your son and no other's," the bailiff sniffed, ignoring Master Walter's charge. "Gilemota raved in her last days, distraught by her babe's death and fevered from the delivery. Any claim she made against Lord Graistan was born of that delirium."

"How can you say so when that bastard," Papa said, again throwing the awful charge at his son as he jerked his head in Rob's direction, "was born just seven months after Gilly and I were wed? Jesus God, look at him as I have had to all these years. He's his sire's image with that dark thatch and those gray eyes. You dare not call me liar, not when every man here knows Gilly laid with Lord Henry for the two months before she and I were joined."

"Too late, Ralph," Dickon's sire, Harold the Miller, shouted. "You cannot cry misuse now, not when you've raised the lad for ten years as your own without complaint. You knew full well what Gilly had done prior to your joining. If you were so concerned over what grew in her womb, you should have waited a few months before you wed her." His opinion was supported by a general, positive muttering among the crowd.

"Aye, we all remember how eager he was to wed Gilemota," Margretta said, raising her powerful voice. "He wanted to make certain no other man received the dowry her lord had settled on her in trade for what she'd given him."

Margretta scanned the crowd, finding the support she sought in their broad faces then turned her gaze back on Papa. "Ralph AtteGreen, Gilly's bedplay made you both a free man and a landowner when she wed you. I say the price you pay for your freedom is to raise her child, despite his parentage."

"The priest placed no cloak over us at our wedding," Papa roared. "I did not accept him." He threw himself at Margretta, despite the bailiff and the bowman.

As Papa's captors struggled to subdue him once again, Blacklea's folk all raised their voices. Neighbor argued with neighbor over how Papa had changed and what should now be done with Gilemota's son. Tears pricked at Rob's eyelids. No one wanted him now that they all thought him a bastard.