Joanna (44 page)

“Joanna would never” Ian began, but his wife’s hearty laughter interrupted him and his common sense told him such a remark was nonsense. However much his heart said that Joanna was a sweet little girl, he really knew she was a woman ripe, even overripe, for marriage. His frown did not clear, though. “But Geoffrey,” Ian protested, “he has made no argument about this court wedding. Surely he would be no party to shaming his own wife.’’

“Either he is far less innocent about such matters than he should be,” Alinor said with twinkling eyes. “or else he underestimates the effect of lack of proof of maidenhead. After all, he may feel that if he does not repudiate Joanna there can be no other effect. But it seems odd to me that Geoffrey, who has suffered so much from court gossip, would underestimate it.”

“It is more likely that Joanna is still a virgin,” Ian insisted.

Suddenly Alinor’s eyes widened. Could Joanna, awakened by the thought of being a wife, have fallen in love with someone other than Geoffrey while Geoffrey was away at the war or on other business? But if she had, why not say so? The answer to that was obvious enough. Joanna knew the political situation as well as anyone else. She was far too dutiful a girl to bring on a state crisis because of a personal preference. In addition, Joanna might know Geoffrey was in love with her. She must know it. Geoffrey made no attempt to hide it.

Out of kindness, Joanna might well force herself to marry Geoffrey when she loved another to spare Geoffrey hurt. How she could be stupid enough to think such an act a kindness, Alinor could not understand, but tender hearts were   often misled into great cruelty through lack of resolution to administer one sharp wound. They never thought that a lifetime of constant pain was far worse than a few months of agony.

“What is it, Alinor?” Ian asked as he watched her expression change.

“I must speak to Joanna,” Alinor said urgently, and told him why. “I hope it is not so,” she concluded, “but it is one answer, the least pleasant, to all the odd things. Geoffrey might believe that if he married her at once and publicly he will wean her from this other love. Isabella, like the fool she is, may believe that my daughter would hop into any bed that tempted her and thus is happy to pay for the wedding to blazon out Geoffrey’s shame. John’s motives and Salisbury’s are what they said. It all fits, Ian.”

Her husband closed his eyes. “God help us all if you are right,” he sighed, “it is a disaster.” Then he shrugged his hard-muscled shoulders. “It does not matter. Joanna cannot be sold into slavery for a political cause.” Actually, Ian did not really believe what he said. Had it been any other woman in the world, he would have applauded the forced marriage, but JoannaJoanna was different. ‘‘I will think of something,” he went on. “Shall I”

“Do nothing.” Now Alinor was reconsidering. “We are building a castle of dry sand. Tomorrow I will go to fetch Joanna. I will leave Simon here with you. Even John can have no suspicion of my actions while you and the babe are hostage for me. Isabella will put the worst interpretation on my going, I do not doubt. Do not be surprised if you begin to hear rumors of how old whores are turned into fresh virgins with bladders of chickens’ blood.”

Less than a week later, a tired, mud-spattered Alinor confronted her daughter in the privacy of her bedchamber. “Open your mouth and speak the truth only,” Alinor ordered. “This is too important a matter to allow kindness or duty or politics to cloud honesty. Do you love any man other than Geoffrey Fitz William?”

To Alinor’s consternation, Joanna’s face flamed and her   eyes grew brilliant with anger. “You should be ashamed to ask such a question of me,” she cried. “You bred me! You raised me! Do you not know me better than to listen to court gossip about me?”

Alinor clamped her jaw tight over hot words that could only hurt them both. “Do not be a fool, Joanna,” she said when she had mastered her voice. “I do not accuse you of anything. My only interest is in your happiness. I told you before that you must only marry where you love.”

“And I told you that I was well content with Geoffrey.

“Well content is not enough. Who is the other man?”

“I tell you it is rumor only, disgusting rumors spread about to smirch me.”

“And I tell you I have heard no rumors.” As the words came out of her mouth, Alinor realized that was suspicious in itself. If Isabella knew, then her ladies knew. It was very odd that none of those malicious tongues had waggedunless the queen had forbidden it. “Since I have heard nothing,” Alinor went on, “you had better tell me the whole. Who is the man?”

For a moment Joanna looked rebellious; then her color faded and the brilliance died from her eyes. Reason always had a strong hold upon her, and it was necessary that Alinor know what had happened. “Henry de Braybrook,” she replied.

An expression of revolted horror distorted Alinor’s face. “Braybrook?” she whispered. How could her daughter, who had Simon and Ian for examples of what a man should be, refer a popinjay like Braybrook to Geoffrey?

“Well, it is not my fault,” Joanna cried furiously, and then she sighed. Honesty forced her to admit that it was, to some degree, her fault. Haltingly, she began the tale of the queen’s summons and her defense against it, the ridiculous wooing in the garden at Whitechurch. By the time she was halfway through, the loathing was gone from Alinor’s face and she was laughing uproariously.

“I have told you and told you,” she gasped when she   stopped whooping with laughter, “that your love of a jest would ruin us all.”

The reprimand was not given nor meant seriously, and Joanna began to giggle also. “It was not so funny later,” she said, sobering, and went on to describe Braybrook’s absence from court during her absence, the rumors that followed, and his attempt to rape her in London.

To her surprise, Alinor merely looked thoughtful. “The attempt on you is of no account since he did not succeed except that it is of interest that he was so desperate about it. The rumors are more important. Had Braybrook told Isabella that he had despoiled you? But I am wandering from the most important matter of all. Obviously Braybrook holds no place in your affections. Joanna, answer me plain. Does Geoffrey?”

A mulish expression flitted across Joanna’s face, but then she sighed. “Yes.”

“Thank God for that!” Alinor exclaimed. To clear all doubt once and for all, she asked, “Will you swear to me that you love Geoffrey and no other man?”

Joanna met her mother’s eyes. “Yes, I swear it. I wish it were not so. I wish I loved no man. To love is to die a thousand times a day.”

Alinor took her daughter into her arms in a rare embrace. “It is so,” she agreed with sympathy, “but it is also the only way to taste life. Child, you cannot avoid that kind of death, except by being dead yourself. If it is not your husband you fear for, it will be your brother or your father or your sonsor your daughters when they marry and bear children. Since a woman must die of fear as long as she lives, she might as well have the joy of tasting love.”

“It is not the same,” Joanna said bleakly. “I fear for Ian and for Adam in a different way. For Geoffrey there is a tearing of my very vitals. I cannot bear it.”

Perfectly content, for she had at last heard what she wanted to hear, Alinor soothed Joanna as best she could. Her mind, however, had leapt well ahead and was actually   busy with the projected marriage. Isabella apparently was pressing for a court affair under a misapprehension, and her insistence could be cured by a few clear words from Alinor. However, the political reasons for a court wedding still held good, and a court wedding it would be. That, however, meant the presence of every enemy she and Ian had, and a few more who did not love her quick-tempered son-by-marriage or her daughter’s odd humorsas well as their friends. The presence of enemies meant the sheets must be stained and Joanna must be prepared to use trickery if nature should betray her.

Alinor patted Joanna briskly on the shoulder. “That pain will be in the future, I hope, unless you allow yourself to become as silly as Ela and turn faint at the thought of a tourney or a practice passage of arms.”

“I am not so bad as that,” Joanna said with a faint smile. “Does it indeed appear that this trouble will pass without war?”

“There is good hope of it, at least at present. I will tell you the whole later, but for now what will help best to keep the peace is that you and Geoffrey marry at once and at court.”

“Geoffrey wrote of a great marriage, but at court? Oh, very well,” Joanna agreed.

“You do not object?”

“Why should I?”

Apparently, Joanna did not see the implication or else was confident, because she was a virgin, that all would be well. If so, matters must be explained to her clearly. Of course, there was always the chance that she and Geoffrey were lovers already and had arranged for proof. Alinor wanted to know what they intended to do, in that case. Considering the queen’s suspicions, there would be some effort made to catch them. A clumsy trick would not serve. Alinor tried to recall how hairy Geoffrey was, but she could only remember his body as it had been when he was a boy. She had had occasion to see him naked when he was a man, but   politeness and an automatic self-defense mechanism prevented her from “noticing” him.

“You have spent a good deal of time alone with Geoffrey,” Alinor began.

“Not really,” Joanna replied, rather puzzled.

Alinor laughed. “Twenty minutes are enough if both be willing. My love, are you still a maiden?”

“Of course,” Joanna assured her. “I knew there was some reason that you and Ian wished me to be betrothed rather than married. I would not permit” Joanna blushed. She had come near doing more than permitting Geoffrey to couple with her. She had nearly urged him to do so the night of the fire.

The blush was a delightful sign. Alinor knew she had been right about her daughter, that hidden behind that placid exterior was a healthy lustand apparently Geoffrey had awakened it finely. Good for him! But what in the world was the girl talking about?

“Reason?” Alinor repeated. “Our only reason was to protect you. We feared that you and Geoffrey, young as you were and burdened with more than you should carry, would rub each other wrongly and, instead of love, would grow into hate.”

“Oh!” Joanna’s blush deepened. “That was what Geoffrey said, but I thought he was just urging me because”

Alinor laughed heartily. “You guessed well. Geoffrey may be truthful enough in a general way, but in such a cause all men develop tongues as quick and agile as snakes. But you look quite regretful Joanna,” Alinor went on mischievously. “Would you have yielded?”

“Yes,” Joanna replied simply.

The dutiful self-sacrifice of her daughter always surprised and faintly annoyed Alinor. “What in the world held you back? What reason could we have had that I would have concealed from you?”

“I thought it might be something to do with the king that you did not wish to come to Salisbury’s ears. It does not   matter now. Since there is to be this public celebration, it is just as well that I am a maiden. Geoffrey thought of that.”

“Then he has more brains than most men,” Alinor remarked tartly, “but it is not sufficient to
be
a maiden. You must prove you are one. Your father had my maidenhead, but not one drop of blood did he have to show for it. I was fortunate that he was not a young man and knew the difference, blood or no blood, between a maid and a woman.”

“How could that be?” Joanna asked, appalled at the idea that Alinor’s failing might be a family characteristic and be passed on to her. Geoffrey, who burned when another man only looked at herwhat would he think?

“Who knows?” Alinor replied. “Some women are lightly deflowered, others only with much pain and effort. For those with a delicate maidenhead, riding a horse or a hard fall will tear it. If it is stronger, it will withstand much harsher measures. I knew a woman who needed to be cut with a knife before her husband could mount her properly. Poor man, the jests he endured; the offers he was forced to listen to.”

“But mother,” Joanna put in, not much interested at this moment in the trials of some unknown man. “If I am like you, what will I do? I do not understand. Once Gertrude told me you bled like a wounded man. Yet you said”

“Gertrude was exactly right,” Alinor interrupted, giggling, “for it was your father who bled for me. Do you remember how hairy he was, Joanna? Perhaps not. Well, he was like a bearonly red and gray, of course. He cut himself just beside his shaft, where the hair was thickest. We thought it just a scratch, only enough to set a few drops on the sheet and on my thighs, but he must have nicked a small vein. When we coupled again, later, the wound opened and near flooded us out of the bed.” Alinor laughed and laughed, remembering Berengaria’s innocent horror and the knowing eyes and raised brows of Richard’s sister Joanna, who was her daughter’s godmother. Then she sobered. “Would Geoffrey do as much for you? Could he? I mean, has he a thick enough bush?”   “I do not know,” Joanna murmured, “I do not know the answer to either question. As to hair, he is not like father. What he has is soft and fine, and he is so fairit is pale gold on his body. A cut would show, I fear. As to his willingnessif he believed me, of course he would, but he is so jealous”

“And he is so young,” Alinor added somewhat troubled. “There are other ways, but they are easier of detection, and if
Geoffrey
should discover the trick you will never convince him of your innocence.”

“Can you explain to him, mother, that you had this trouble?” Joanna asked anxiously.

“Not I, nor Ian either. For us to speak of such matters would only increase Geoffrey’s suspicions. After all, Joanna,” Alinor pointed out, smiling faintly, “we might be a little prejudiced in your favor. No, I will speak to Ela. I told her the story long ago. I need only remind her now. If she will explain to Geoffrey, it will be best.”

“Will he believe her?” Joanna whispered. “Will he believe anyone?”  
p.

At any time, a court wedding would create a slight pleasurable stir. It would be an occasion for even grander gowns and more elaborate jewelry than an ordinary wedding. The fact that the guest list would be much longer meant that supplies would be ordered in greater quantity and come from farther afield. The fact that the guest list would be much grander meant that more elaborate and more costly dishes would be prepared and that the entertainment would be of higher quality and greater sophistication. In November of 1212, Geoffrey’s and Joanna’s wedding was a focus of attention to an extraordinary degree. It was also the only pleasant thing the courtiers had to think about and called forth nearly hysterical gaiety.