Joanna (11 page)

Edwina laughed and loosened the neck of her tunic so that when she leaned forwardas she must to wash Sir Henryher full breasts would peep out. Joanna shook her head. Edwina was a dreadful slut. She had already had one bastard, but the little girl had died. When Joanna had warned her that her light ways would deprive her of a husband, Edwina merely shook her head and laughed. “You owe your lord a clean body and his own children,” she had said, “so you must deny yourself the pleasures I take wherever I will. I am bound to youso I may take pleasure where I find it. I need not fear for my children, no matter who the father. They will have a place as I have a place. I confess my sins; I do my penance; I receive absolution. What do I have to fear, either on earth or after?” A slut, Joanna thought, smiling, but it was a most useful trait at times.

She did not waste much time in contemplating Edwina, however. She had much to do. A light cloak covered her dress and headdress on the off chance that Sir Henry would look out the window. It was of no particular value in keeping her dry because, when she had culled the plants she desired from the sodden garden, she was soaking wet. Brian, waiting at the gate, moaned at her reproachfully and Joanna laughed at him. He hated the wet as much as any cat. She walked quickly around the west wall of the keep. Probably   Braybrook would be well occupied with Edwina by now, but she held her head down and concealed the fruits of her reaping as well as possible under her cloak.

In the cookhouse, she presented one sheaf of plants to the soup-maker. The man’s eyes widened. ‘‘Lady,” he pleaded, “do you wish that we all go mad?”

“Not all,” Joanna replied, “and not mad. I desire that the men of the troop who came with Sir Henry see what is not there for a day or two. Some of our people must also be afflicted so that suspicion of foul play does not fall upon us, but you can warn about half the men-at-arms. Some of your helpers must also fall ill, or pretend illnessbe sure of that! Keep some aside and steep it so that it can be used as a ‘medicinal draught’ tomorrow and the next day, but that should not be strong.”

“Bitter,” the cook was mumbling. “Wormwood is so bitter. What can I devise that willah, if I add”

Joanna thrust the plants into his hands and moved along the bank of fires to where the vegetables and greens were being prepared. Since the other cooks had been listening, they knew what was coming and Joanna did not have to repeat herself. Nonetheless there were protests.

“If so much spurge is added,” the cook moaned, “there will be a bloody flux all over the keep.”

“A strong flux is what I desire,” Joanna said firmly, “but not bloody, I hope.”

“The castle folk will slay me,” the man cried.

“Not if you are taken ill also,” Joanna soothed, laughing in spite of herself.

The cook shuddered, but he took the plants Joanna held out to him with shrinking hands and summoned a scullion to wash them. Another boy was sent off to fetch Beorn to the stables. He was breathing heavily when he arrived, and Joanna shook her head at him.

“There is no need to run, Beorn,” she remonstrated affectionately. “You are not so young as you once were.”

The old man made an impatient gesture and passed his hand over his bald head. “Lady,” he pleaded, “do not go   with him. The king is no friend to us, and the queen, I fear, does his bidding. We can protect you. Do not be afraid. We are three to their one. We can fall upon them of a sudden and imprison them”

“And be accused of treason? No, no, Beorn.” Then she smiled. “Do you think my mother’s daughter is a fool? I must go, since the queen summons me, but I will not go as Sir Henry’s prize nor will I leave Roselynde open to any harm.” Helplessly she began to giggle again. “Worse will befall Sir Henry’s men than a drubbing. Never mind that. I have no time to explain. Rest assured that when we are ready to ride tomorrow, Braybrook’s men will be unable to come.”

Beorn looked at his young mistress and sighed softly. He had been very surprised by the fear that seemed to grip her in Sir Henry’s presence. Lady Joanna, even as a child, had not been one to show fear, although sometimes when the worst was over she had trembled like a leaf in his arms and whispered, “I was afraid, Beorn, I was afraid.” It was a pretense then, to cover some plan. Well and good. He had only to listen and obey, and that he was well able to do.

“First, ready three messengers on fast horsesonly Braybrook’s men must not know of them. One must ride to Iford to summon Sir Giles. I know he did not go to Whitechurch; young Giles has gone in his stead. Sir Giles must come here to guard Roselynde while I am gone. I do not think the keep will be attacked, but if no one of authority is here, some dogsbody of the king might come and do evil from within.”

“That is wisely said, lady. Iford will be safe for Lady Giles is there.”

Joanna made no comment on that. Beorn tended to place far too much reliance on women because of his early training and his lifelong dependence on Alinor. Lady Giles, in Joanna’s opinion, was about as much use as a damp cloth in place of a shield, but since she did not intend to spread the word of Sir Giles’s residence in Roselynde, there was little reason to fear that any danger would threaten Iford. In any   case, Lady Giles would probably have sense enough to send to her husband for help if she were threatened.

“The second messenger must go to Lady Ela at Salisbury. She did not intend to go to Whitechurch, I know. She will contrive a way to send me advice, I am sure.”

This time it was Beorn who made no comment on his thoughts. He felt Lady Ela with her aches and her tremblings and her complainings was a frail reed to lean upon, but he knew his mistress often wrote and spoke to her. Perhaps she asked her lord for help. Beorn felt some reassurance. Lord Salisbury was a strong defending wall for anyone in trouble.

“The third must be a hard and trusty man. He will need to ride night and day, changing horses as needful, and he will need to be clever. He must find his way to Whitechurch and there, in secret, go to Lord Geoffrey or to the earl of Salisbury and carry news of this summoning. If it is thought that I should be taken by force on the wayit is a long road to Whitechurchmy lord and his father must know to seek me if I do not arrive.”

“Seek you? But they are poised for war. Lady, it is better not to go.”

“Do you doubt Lord Geoffrey will draw his men from the war to seek me? He will do it. And when he goes to tell the king what he does and why, whoever holds me will quickly give me up, for Geoffrey’s withdrawal will mean the end of the Welsh campaign.”

Probably she was right, Beorn thought. The young lord could not keep his eyes from her, and he had wakened Beorn not long after matins the morning he left to harangue him for an hour on the need to guard his mistress better. Beorn chuckled softly and then sighed. He did not need the warning, but there was little he could do. Lord Geoffrey was raving something about last year when Lady Joanna fell in climbing the cliff. How could I have prevented her? Beorn wondered. Quiet as she seems, she is as much a devil as Lady Alinor.

“Now for your part,” Joanna continued, “choose out   fifty men, the best fighters and most loyal and send them out of the keep as quietly as may be. Let Knud the huntsman’s son lead them.”

“What are they to do, lady? Should I not go also?”

“You cannot go because Sir Henry has seen you and I do not wish him to know that the men left after he arrived. They must seem to have been away, on patrol of the beacon towers, from dawn. As to what they are to do, I do not care, so long as they do not eat dinner in the keep. They
must not
eat here. They must return before dusk, however, and it may be necessary for them to fight, although I do not think it. Half the castle folk and all Sir Henry’s men will be raving mad.”

“Is this a jest?” Beorn asked uncertainly. Lady Joanna was a devil for buttering a path to see a man slide down it with his arms full of eggs.

“I told you worse would befall Braybrook’s men than a drubbing. Do not eat of any potage or greens at this dinner. Cheese and roast meat must suffice youor you can absent yourself from table on some pretense if that likes you better.”

“Lady Joanna” Beorn began.

“I do not do it for a jestalthough how I will keep from laughing I do not know. Sir Henry’s men will not be fit to ridenot tomorrow, nor the next day, nor the next. The only men fit will be my fifty who did not eat the badwhatever it wasthat struck down the castle folk. Sir Henry may do as he pleasesgo or stay. Sir Giles will be here by tomorrow night to see that he does not make mischief. I will leave tomorrow with you and the fifty you have chosen, greatly fearingas he warned meto offend the queen.”

“It will not be safe, lady.” Beorn was still worried. “You are letting madness loose in the keep. Madmen are not as others. They are stronger, and fear is gone out of them.”

“It will be safe enough,” Joanna said with a nasty grin. “However mad they may become, they will be too weak and too racked with pain to do anything. Not only their   heads but their bowels will be sore afflicted.”

“As you will, lady, butLady Joanna, you will not stay to watch oror pretend to nurse them?”

“No,” Joanna agreed. “I am sorry for it, but it would not befit a shy and timid maiden. You hear, Beorn? If you are asked what I am, you must say I am easily frightened and not overclever.”

“Lady” Beorn protested.

“That is my order. That is how I wish to be known at courtbut I do not know whether I will be able to sustain it. No matter, for this time it must serve. I do not think the other men will be questioned, but pass the word. They can say I am much shielded by my mother and thus they have not come to know me. So help me, I willI will put sand in their goose grease if they betray me! Now I must go in and change my gown, which is dripping wet, and write the messages I will send. Do not worry about me. Only do your best to see that no one is sore hurt if the wormwood should take hold before the spurge.”

Dinner was pleasant if a little dull. To Joanna’s intense amusement, Braybrook seemed too weary to have much to say. That was a bonus Joanna had not planned, but it made her doubly pleased with Edwina’s efforts. Probably she could have avoided any probing questions Sir Henry might have asked; it was far better, however, that he should not ask. What was more, his langour prevented him from noticing that there were far fewer men-at-arms and servants eating dinner than was natural for a keep the size of Roselynde. Moreover, he said nothing further about the need to leave that day. Joanna had thought of several additional excellent reasons for delaying, but she did not need to use them. Braybrook seemed happily resigned to spending the night.

It was a little less than an hour after the tables had been cleared away that the first disturbance occurred. Two men-servants collided with each other right in the middle of the hall. Each had been walking quickly, looking nervously over his shoulder. The collision brought shrieks of terror instead of low oaths or angry mutters of “Watch where you   go.” Two other servants, one a trusted older man, went over to calm them and were greeted with more terrified howls. Before the afflicted men were wrestled from the hall, a maidservant suddenly began to brush frantically at her gown and stamp her feet and cry aloud.

Joanna, who had been sitting in a window seat conversing idly with Sir Henry, leapt to her feet and clasped her hands nervously. “What is it? What is it?” she cried breathlessly.

The terrified effect of her shaken voice was so perfect that she choked altogether. In a last-ditch effort, she brought her hands to her face and clapped them over her mouth. Her shoulders trembled and, under her hands, her lips parted to gasp for air. A better portrait of a panic-stricken maiden would be hard to find. Very fortunately her back was now toward Braybrook, as she faced into the hall. He did not see the unquenchable laughter in her eyes.

“Snakes!” the maid shrieked, “Snakes! Snakes!”

At that point, Joanna yielded. She too shrieked, uttering one single muffled whoop as she fled the hall. Inside her own chamber, to which Edwina had tactfully closed the door, she laughed in peace. “God,” she gasped to Edwina, “helps those who help themselves.”

It was her mother’s favorite dictum, repeated so often that Joanna frequently said it herself without really thinking about the words. The meaning was now abundantly clear, however. Joanna could arrange the poisoning of her guests, but it was God’s hand that made the effects first apparent in her own servants in Sir Henry’s presence. He would never, never doubt that the illness which afflicted his men was an accident. Even if he should realize some time in the future how convenient it was for Joanna that a debilitating disease should strike at that moment, he would never question the accidental nature of the disorder. First impressions are very lasting. Because he saw Joanna’s servants stricken first, he would never wonder about the relative number who fell illall of his men and so few of Joanna’s people.

For a little while, a wild disorder raged in Roselynde. The sane struggled and reasoned with the mad. Very soon, however, moans of a different tenor began to replace the shrieks of fear induced by hallucination. Men and women staggered from the castle into the bailey tearing at their clothes between spasms of vomiting. Unreal creatures and phantoms still crawled through the minds of the afflicted, but their bodies were too racked with discomfort for them to run or fight. They sobbed and whimpered, but they did neither themselves nor anyone else any harm.

Joanna closed the door to her women’s quarters and would permit no one to enter or leave. When Braybrook came to remonstrate with her, she cried through the door that she feared contamination. Also through the door she gave direction that the afflicted should be removed from the keep and cared for in sheds in the balley and that the keep should be most thoroughly cleaned by those servants who had not been stricken. At dusk, the troop of men who had been sent out returned to help carry the sick in cut of the rain and to distribute cloaks and blankets to keep them warm.

By supper time, peace reigned in Roselynde again. One could not hear the moans and cries of the afflicted through the walls. Sir Henry again approached the women’s quarters, and this time he was able to induce Joanna to come out. Over and over he assured her that what had stricken her people was no disease. It was the result of bad bread, he said. He had seen the like himself in France. In certain cases a red, rusty color came over stored grain and, if this grain were ground and used as bread, just such a madness and sickness as attacked Joanna’s people would follow. If she ate no bread, he assured her, she would be safe.