For Love And Honor (28 page)

Lys was a short, square woman, pretty in an
overblown way, but with a tightly drawn mouth that looked as if it
could not soften into laughter or even the slightest smile.

“We will need a brazier, Lys,” said Rohaise.
“This room is much too cold for our guest’s comfort.”

“
In
winter no one is comfortab
le,” Lys re
sponded sourly. “The best an unexpected traveler
can hope for is a room to herself and clean linens.”

“I fear I am greatly inconveniencing you,”
Samira murmured, glancing from the narrow bed to the arrow slit
that provided all there was of fresh air or natural light. The
chamber smelled of dampness and dust. It had obviously not been
used for many years.

“
Not at
all.” Rohaise wrinkled her nose in distaste at the pile of dust
being swept out the door by the servant under Lys’s instruction.
“
It is just
that my
husband has never encouraged his friends to visit here, preferring
to see them when he goes to court each year.”

“Perhaps, once this dreadful war ends, you
will have guests more often,” Samira suggested.

“I do not think so.” Rohaise looked sad.
Noticing her expression, Samira waited until Lys and the serving
woman had left before she spoke again.

“It must be lonely for you, with just
yourself and Lord William Crispin’s mother.” When Rohaise did not
answer, but went to the bed and began to fluff up the mattress,
Samira persisted. “Is she terribly ill?”

“What makes you say that?” Rohaise seemed
startled by the question, almost frightened, in fact. Samira began
to feel sorry for her, and a bit shamed by the need to obtain as
much information as she could from her hostess. But it was
necessary, so she steeled herself against sympathy and pressed on
with the questions she had to ask.

“Lord William Crispin said his mother sees
only family,” Samira explained, “so I assumed she must be ill. I
have some skill in healing. Perhaps I could be of help to her.”

“Joanna is in excellent health. She simply
prefers to spend her time in solitude.”

“But where in a castle can one possibly be
alone?” Samira exclaimed with a laugh. “Men-at-arms everywhere,
swarms of servants, no privacy even for the lord and his lady, oh,
I know the life well, Lady Rohaise, and I find it difficult to
imagine anyone living a solitary life behind castle walls.”

“
Are
there castles like Banningford in Ascoli?” R
ohaise regarded
Samira with a peculiar inten
sity.

“Ascoli itself is much like Banningford.”
Samira had never been to Ascoli, but Piers had described it to her
often enough for her to pretend she knew it well. “There is not one
private corner in the entire castle except, sometimes, for the
chapel.” Still Rohaise kept her eyes upon Samira’s face, until the
younger woman began to feel uneasy.

“If solitude is required, it can be found,”
Rohaise said, speaking so quietly that Samira had to step closer to
hear her. “In the chamber directly above this one, a lady need only
retire behind a locked door.”

“You mean, when you go to the lord’s chamber
at night, there you can be private?” Samira asked, still probing
for information.

“The lord’s chamber is on the second level
above this room,” Rohaise said, in the same low voice. “Between the
lord’s chamber and this one lies another room.”

Samira understood that for some reason of her
own Rohaise was deliberately providing the information Samira
sought. Samira would have asked more questions, but they were
interrupted by Lys, who came in with a servant carrying a brazier
and a bucket of charcoal. A maid with the bed sheets followed, then
Samira’s maid Nena, and lastly, Alain and Piers with Samira’s
baggage.

Rohaise waited until the bed was made up and
the charcoal had begun to heat the room. She watched Samira and the
little, dark-eyed maid. Most particularly she watched the two
bearded guards who took such great care with their mistress’s boxes
and baskets and saddlebags.

“If you are truly determined to sleep outside
Lady Samira’s door,” Rohaise said to the one called Spiros, “I will
have straw pallets brought to you.”

“Men-at-arms are used to discomfort,” Lys
said. “They won’t mind sleeping on the floor.”

“You may go now, Lys,” Rohaise said. “Take
the other servants with you.”

“You will be needed in the kitchen,” Lys
said, looking at Rohaise and not moving from her position by the
door. With a jerk of her head she indicated that the man who had
brought the charcoal and the maid who had brought the sheets should
leave. “I will wait and go to the kitchen with you, Lady
Rohaise.”

“Of course.” Rohaise sighed, looking toward
her guest. “If you have need of anything, Lady Samira, don’t
hesitate to ask. I will order hot water sent to you so you can
bathe.”

“Thank you.” No matter how she tried, Samira
could not think of a way to keep Rohaise in the room while at the
same time getting rid of Lys.

“
And you,
good sirs.” Speaking slowly and distinctly, Rohaise looked from
Alain – Lucas, to Piers
– Spiros. “Is there anything else you require?”

“Nothing, my lady,” said “Lucas,” affecting a
heavy Greek accent. After a nod to Rohaise he walked across the
room to look through the arrow slit.

“I would like a bath,” “Spiros” said, using
the same accent. “We have ridden long, and I for one am
saddle-sore. Do you have a bath house, Lady Rohaise?” He let his
tongue stumble over her name.

“
It is
next to the kitchen,” she replied. “You should find hot
w
ater there, ready for your use.”

“Then I shall take advantage of it as soon as
possible. Thank you, Lady Rohaise.”

Wondering at the careful way in which both
were speaking, Samira noticed that her father was smiling at
Rohaise. She saw Rohaise’s eyes warm and her mouth begin to curve
into an answering smile, a response cut short by Lys’s sharp
voice.

“Lady Rohaise, are you coming?”

“Yes.” Rohaise tore her gaze from Pier’s
face. “I will see you at the evening meal, Lady Samira.”

Piers
followed h
er to the door, to hold it open until he was sure
Rohaise and Lys were too far
away to overhear anything said in Samira’s room.

“Do you think you can learn anything from
her?” Alain asked Piers as soon as the door was latched.

“I will do my best,” Piers answered. “Rohaise
is not treated respectfully by Baird or by Lys. Any noblewoman
would resent such insolence. Nor, as I recall, was Radulf a fond
husband. Rohaise may be ready to welcome a friendly ear.”

“I think she’s lonely, and eager to talk to
someone,” Samira said. “She volunteered information as soon as I
began to question her.” Samira went on to relate all that Rohaise
had revealed.

“
So
Joanna is just above me.” Alain looked toward the ceiling. “This
arrow slit is too narrow for me to clim
b through it and up
the outer wall
to her chamber,
but I could mount a few stairs and be at her door in a
moment.”

“You’d be killed before you got that far,”
Piers responded. “Didn’t you notice the guard on the stairs just
above this level? Radulf isn’t taking any chances on Joanna
escaping. Or on the possibility of someone trying to get to
her.”

“Why?” Samira asked.

“What do you mean?” said Alain.

“Why has Radulf kept his daughter locked in
that room for eighteen years?”

“I wonder about it myself,” Alain admitted.
“On the surface it doesn’t make any sense.”

“
From
what I once knew of Radulf,” Piers put in, “keeping Joanna
isolated
did
make
sense, at first. Radulf may have feared that whoever killed Crispin
would try to kill Joanna, too. A
dded to
Radulf’s fears for his daughter’s life must have
been concern that she could be carrying Crispin’s child. Which she
was. No one seeing William Crispin could doubt whose son he
is.”

“
When I
first saw him I thought he was Crispin’s ghost,” Alain s
aid.
“I almost called to him
by
name. Thank God I stopped myself in time. Crispin’s son. Piers,
this changes much in our plan. We cannot do anything to put
Crispin’s son in danger.”

“Indeed not,” said Piers.

“
You men
are missing my point,” Samira told them. “I can understand why
Radulf would keep his daughter well guarded until her son was born,
and perhaps for some time afterward. But William Crispin spoke of
being fostered at another castle, which means he probably left
Banningford when he was seven years old. So at some time Radulf
must have decided his grandson was no longer in danger, or he would
never have let the boy go. Presumably Joanna is now safe from the
murderer, too, yet she still remains in that room. Again I ask
you,
why?

“
Here
a
re some other questions for you,” Sa
mira went on when no one answered her. “Why does
the lady of this castle permit her servants to treat her so rudely?
Why is she afraid? And why did she so quickly tell me, a complete
stranger, where Joanna is? For that is what Rohaise was doing,
though she did not say the exact words.”

“If you knew Radulf,” Piers told her, “you
would not ask why Rohaise behaves as she does. Let us make you as
comfortable as we can in this cramped and cold room, and then,
while you bathe and change your clothes and prepare to spend the
evening charming young William Crispin into telling you everything
he knows about his father’s murder and his mother’s situation, and
while Alain stands guard outside your door, I shall visit the bath
house and see what I can learn there.”

“
What we
need to know,” Alain said, “is how I can get into Joanna’s room.
Once I have seen her and talked to her we can better plan how to
rescue her while keeping her safe
– and keeping her son safe.”

“Because he must be kept safe,” Samira said
in a fierce voice. “No matter what happens to us, we cannot allow
William Crispin to come to harm. If he is hurt in any way because
we are at Banningford, proof of your innocence will be
meaningless.”

The bath house was little more than a shack
built between the castle kitchen and the laundry. Because of its
location and the constant fire over which iron cauldrons of water
were heated, the place was always warm and usually filled with
steam. The light from the oil lamps set about the room produced an
eerie, cloudlike effect. The tub was wooden, shaped like half a
giant barrel, with strips of coarse linen draped over it to protect
bathers from splinters. A bowl of semi-liquid soap sat upon a
wooden shelf and next to the bowl was a neatly folded pile of
small, rough cloths to use for washing.

There were no towels. Deciding to try the
laundry first and then the kitchen in search of something with
which to dry himself after his bath, Piers stepped from the
overheated bath house into the cold darkness of the inner bailey.
It was late afternoon and the sun had set, but Piers discovered his
memory had not failed him. He had visited the bath house several
times on his previous visit to Banningford, so it was easy enough
for him to locate the door to the laundry. He had just put out his
hand to open it when the door swung open and a woman appeared,
carrying a pile of folded white fabric.

“There you are, Sir Spiros,” Rohaise said. “I
have the towels you will need.”

He did not point out that she could easily
have sent a servant to get the towels and take them to the bath
house. Instead he watched with growing interest while she lifted
the ring of keys that dangled from her girdle, selected one, and
locked the laundry door.

“Is it necessary?” he asked, remembering to
use his false Greek accent. “Who would want to steal towels and
clothing? There would be no point to it. Such stolen goods could
easily be found.”

“It’s not from fear of losing the linens, or
even the clothing,” Rohaise said. “Lord Radulf once discovered a
man-at-arms and a kitchen wench in there together, dirtying the
sheets intended for Radulf’s own bed. He had them both whipped, and
since then I have held the key to the laundry.”

“I noticed the large collection at your
girdle,” Piers remarked with studied casualness. “Do you carry all
the castle keys?”

“Oh, no,” Rohaise told him. “There are some
keys that only my lord Radulf carries. When he is away from home
Baird has them. Those have to do with the outer defenses, certain
weapons, the dungeon.”

“But you have the keys for the inner castle,”
Piers murmured. “For the wine cellars, the food storerooms, the
chambers in the western tower.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Curiosity about English customs, my
lady.”

“No, it’s something more than that.” Her face
was a blur in the darkness. “Someone is coming. You have your
towels. I must go back to the kitchen. Lys will wonder where I
am.”

Piers
could also hear the approaching footsteps. It sounded to him like
two men, and they were talking amiably. Sensing that Rohaise had
considerable information that she might with a little persuasion
impart to him, Piers decided he could not let her leave. But
neither, for many reasons, could he allow her to be seen
talking to an
unknown
man.

He did
the only thing he could think of. He pushed Rohaise against the
laundry wall, letting his cloak fall around them so her gown would
be hidden. When she gasped at what he was doing and would have
protested, he brought hi
s mouth
down over hers to silence her. With a bit of luck the men
now almost level with them would think it was but one of their
comrades they saw, dallying with some serving wench, and they would
pass by, leaving Piers and Rohaise alone.