For Love And Honor (6 page)

“
How I
wish,” Rohaise murmured, still looking at the wooded landscape
below the tower wall, “that someone would come along the road down
there, a man who would kiss me like that, and set my heart afire.
To be treated with tenderness just once, just once in all my
life
… to be loved
…”

“What I wish,” Joanna murmured, opening her
heart completely and speaking what she had barely dared to think,
“is that Alain would kiss me like that again and put his arms
around me, and hold me as close as he did in the herb garden. But I
know he never will.”

“I wonder which of us is the more
unfortunate?” asked Rohaise. “You, at least, will be able to leave
Banningford Castle.” With a visible effort she stopped her tears,
wiping them from her cheeks with a determined gesture. “We must
cease our foolish dreaming and be sensible women. I’ll tell no one
of your secret; have no fear on that account. Now, I have ordered
the servants to prepare a great tub of hot water, so let us go down
to the bath house and soak away our sadness and wash our hair. With
everyone gone out to hunt we will have complete privacy. When we
have finished we’ll come back here and I’ll brush your hair until
it’s dry. Then I’ll have a tray sent up for you for the evening
meal. I will have to sit by Radulf’s side, but you can be excused
for this one night, so you need not see any of those men who
trouble you so deeply, not your father or Alain or Crispin, either.
After a good night’s rest you will be strong enough to do what you
must tomorrow.”

“You are so good to me.” Joanna kissed her
stepmother and brushed away her own tears.

Later, at
day’s end, when the serving girl was about to leave the kitchen
with the tray for Joanna, Rohaise prepared the pitcher of wine
herself. Into it she put the herbs she knew would give Joanna a
dreamless and refreshing
sleep on a night when, unaided, she
might well have lain wakeful until dawn. Later still, in the great
hall,
when Radulf began to
complain to her about Joanna’s absence, she whispered to him what
she had done, and he nodded his approval.

“You are a good girl, Rohaise,” he said,
relaxing back into the lord’s chair. Putting out a big, callused
hand, he patted her upper thigh, then pushed his hand down into the
crease between her thighs, mussing her silk gown and not caring who
saw him fondle his wife in public. “Aye, a nice girl. I’ll sleep in
your arms tonight.”

And Rohaise smiled at him as she always did,
and tried to look as if she thought his words and vulgar gestures
were a great compliment.

Joanna’s
wedding finery was well chosen to show off her blond, sapphire-eyed
beauty. Her long-sleeved undergown was made of soft, flowing silk
in a shade of gold so pale it looked like winter sunlight. Over it
she wore a heavier silk pelisse, a garment introduced to England
some six years earlier by King Henry’s daughter Matilda, the widow
of the Holy Roman Emperor, who had returned to her father’s court,
bringing with her the latest fashions from the continent. Joanna’s
pelisse, made of greenish-blue silk, was knee-length and had short
sleeves
. All its edges
were trimmed in gold embroidery, and it was drawn in
tightly at her slender waist with a gold belt, making the stiff
folds flare out over the softer fabric of the undergown. She wore a
sheer veil of pale gold and it, together with the thin gold circlet
around her brow, barely controlled the torrent of golden curls that
fell to below her waist.

Rohaise, who was taller and thinner than her
stepdaughter and who had brown hair, was robed in similar style,
with a green undergown and a brilliant gold pelisse. Beneath her
gold circlet, Rohaise’s hair was braided and then confined in a
gold mesh net, as befitted a married noblewoman.

Many of
the women guests also wore undergown and pelisse, though some of
the older women still favored the loose-flowing gowns and shawls
that had been the style of Henry’s first queen. Most of the men
were in tunic and hose, and all wore as many jewels as they could
afford. Crispin’s tunic was a shade of blue-green that almost
exactly matched Joanna’s pelisse
– a happy accident, according to Rohaise – while
Piers wore dark red and Alain a deep shade of green. Even Father
Ambrose was resplendent in green and gold vestments. Altogether the
company assembled in the shadowy great hall for the reading and
signing of the
marriage contract, which was
the most important part of the day’s
ceremonies, presented a brilliant, glittering picture of shifting
colors and forms.

For most of her wedding day Joanna was numb
and unable to think clearly. She had allowed Rohaise and the
servingwomen to dress and adorn her as if she were some inanimate
doll. She went where they told her to go, walked and sat and stood
as she was ordered to do. Only later did she realize that she had
experienced none of the nervousness she had expected to feel upon
becoming the object of so much sustained attention. Only dimly did
she afterward recall the slow, measured way in which Father Ambrose
had read out the marriage contract so all the guests could hear and
understand the terms. She did not remember signing her own name to
the contract or watching Crispin, Radulf, or any of the other
witnesses sign or seal it, though she later saw the contract with
her name upon it. Nor did the moment stay in mind when, with the
contract triumphantly held up by Radulf for all to see, she
officially became Crispin’s wife. But always thereafter, for the
rest of her life, she could relive the comforting way in which
Crispin held her hand and smiled at her while they walked from the
great hall to the castle chapel to hear mass and have the marriage
blessed.

Once the
mass was over there was only one more deed necessary to make the
marriage completely legal, but the time for it would not come until
after long hours of feasting and drinking and entertainment. Joanna
sat beside Crispin at the high table and let him hold her hand and
smiled when she ought to smile
– and all the time she thought about the night to come and
the consummation that would be the final act of the marriage
ceremony.

As the
day slowly passed and ev
ening drew
near, she gradually lost her initial numbness and
became more aware of what was going on around her. She saw Alain
and Piers talking to two young ladies. She noticed Rohaise
directing the servants. She even heard her father giving advice to
Crispin.

“Just blow in her ear once or twice to excite
her,” Radulf said to his new son-in-law in a voice louder than it
should have been, “and then have at it. I want a grandchild and you
need an heir.”

When someone spoke to Radulf, diverting his
attention, Crispin glanced at her. He must have seen her
embarrassed reaction to her father’s crude remark, for his hand
tightened over hers.

“I believe all husbands and wives are nervous
on their first night together,” he said. “You need not fear me,
Joanna. I have no desire to hurt you.”

“I am not afraid, my lord. I have been told
what will happen. And after Rohaise told me, my father gave me a
lecture. I know my duty,” she said wryly. “I am to bear a son as
soon as possible and, after him, as many children as I can, to make
certain there will be at least one surviving heir to reach manhood
and inherit your lands and my father’s.”

“It sounds so cold-blooded when you say it
like that.” Crispin’s clear and remarkably pure blue eyes met hers.
His voice was low and kind. “I have often thought it must be
difficult for a woman, to have no choice of her husband.”

“
I cannot
quarrel with my father’s choice for me,” she said, not adding that
if she
had
been
given a choice, she would be spending this night not with Crispin
but with his cousin and friend, Alain. She could not be that
honest, so she confined herself to words she believed Crispin would
want to hear. “I will try my best to be a good wife to you, my
lord. I want to please you in every way.”

“You already do.” He put an arm around her
shoulders and kissed her softly
on the lips, the action raising a cheer from the guests. She
responded with naive eagerness.

But when
Crispin drew away, freeing her to look elsewhere, the first person
she saw was Alain, standing not far from her beside one of the
tables, his face sharply illuminated by the light of the candelabra
just in front of him. His mouth was drawn into a tight line of
pain, his eyes dark pools of grief and longing. He was staring
directly
at her.

Joanna wanted to scream, to weep out her own
misery, to pound her fists on the table, displaying all the anguish
of her painfully divided heart. She did none of those things. She
was too well trained to let her emotions loose before her father
and his guests. What she did was turn to Crispin and kiss him full
on the mouth, as hard as she could. Then, embarrassed by her own
act, she buried her face in his wide shoulder. She heard laughter
and applause. She felt Crispin’s arm around her once more, holding
her close, his large hand smoothing her hair.

“It’s all right,” he whispered. “My poor,
frightened girl, it will be all right, I promise.”

“You are so good and kind,” she said, ashamed
at her inability to go to his bed with a whole and open heart.

*
* * * *

The
ritual for the bridal night proceeded as it had been planned. The
ladies took Joanna to the chamber where she and Crispin were to
begin their life together, and there, led by Rohaise, they stripped
all her clothing from her and quickly bathed her. They had barely
finished before there came a knock on the door. Rohaise opened it
and the men entered, pushing before them a naked Crispin. Father
Ambrose, still in his green and gold vestments, was among the men.
He made short work of blessing the marriage bed and saying a prayer
to ask for children of the marriage. Taking Crispin’s hand and
Joanna’s and linking them together, Father Ambrose
inst
ructed Cris
pin to
kiss his bride. This Crispin did, in a perfunctory way, managing to
touch no part of her except her lips.

“
You’ll
have to do better than that, lad,” cried Radulf, in high good humor
at the culmination of his carefully laid plans. “Reme
mber my
ad
vice.”

With much laughter and more than a few jokes
of the sort that would have been considered most unseemly at any
other time, the newlyweds were bundled into bed and the curtains
drawn about them.

For
Alain, this scene was the worst part
of the
long, unhappy day. He could not avert his
eyes from Joanna’s naked form, so smooth-skinned, girlish, and
slender, with her budding, pink-tipped breasts, and her hair, that
long, waving glory of pure gold that streamed down her back to well
below her waist. The first sight of his love unclothed would stay
with Alain until he died.

She saw him looking at her and blushed, but
he kept his eyes on her while the heavy blue bed-curtains were
pulled closed, gradually shutting her away from his view. At the
last instant Joanna’s eyes met his, and in them he imagined he saw
a plea, saw fear, and a wish for something other than the lot her
father had arranged for her.

He told
himself he was a fool. Any innocent girl would be frightened on her
marriage nig
ht, and
the
more so when her bedchamber was crowded with inebriated folk making
crude jests. He hoped Crispin would be gentle with her. Alain
rather thought he would. His cousin was not a passionate man where
women were concerned, and so he would most likely feel no need to
force himself upon his bride too hastily. Crispin was not a man to
terrorize a young girl. Crispin’s kind-hearted character was the
only thing Alain could find to be grateful for.

As for himself, there was nothing Alain could
do now but wish them well and leave, before he said or did
something they would all regret. It seemed the other guests would
leave too. At many wedding celebrations the revelers remained in
the bridal chamber, eating and drinking while the marriage was
consummated on the other side of the bed-curtains. The small size
of the rooms in Radulf’s castle prevented this, for not everyone
could fit into the chamber, and would-be witnesses to the bedding
were stuck on the stairway, jammed together and unable to move.
Having seen the couple properly bedded, the guests trouped out to
continue their feasting in the great hall, where there was more
space to move around.

That was
when Alain left the party, during the confusion of getting everyone
out of the bridal chamber and down the crowded stairs. Alain simply
jumped off the open side of one step to the floor below. Then,
taking a large jug of Radulf’s best wine along, he made his way to
the stable, where he sat upon a pile of straw and drank steadily
until the jug was empty
. The wine did
nothing to ease his pain. Drunkenly angry when
there was no more, he threw the jug against the nearest wooden
post, smashing it into pieces.

Sinking farther down into the straw, he
buried his head in his arms, wishing he could get out of his mind
the picture of Joanna, naked and heart-stoppingly desirable, and
his cousin and friend Crispin, also naked, locked together in a
passionate embrace behind those damnable blue bed-curtains. The
imagined scene aroused him to an even more painful state, his own
desire for Joanna rapidly becoming an unbearable ache that tortured
not only his spirit but his youthful, ardent body as well.