Joanna (6 page)

It was odd that this should come over him now. When he had arrived at Roselynde the previous day, he had been decidedly uneasy. He had not seen Joanna since their betrothal on the first of April. The ceremony over, the guests sped, he had done a grueling six weeks’ round of the estates with Ian to summon the vassals and castellans to Whitechurch and to take oath of them that they would obey him. That had been easier than Geoffrey expected. The men all knew him, and they seemed flatteringly pleased at his advancement. Alinor and Joanna had been traveling also, although on a different route, but Joanna had returned directly to Roselynde when   Alinor turned to the west coast to meet her husband and take ship for Ireland.

After Geoffrey had news of their safe arrival from the returned ship, he had been at loose ends. He was not due to meet the king until the last week of May and, really, he had nothing to do until then. He could, of course, go to Hemel, but he knew his presence there would make his young castellan nervous during his preparation for war, making him feel his master did not trust him. If he went to Salisbury, his father might think it strange that he did not seek Joanna’s company. Besides, there was a good deal of business to transact with her. That could be done by letter, but it would be an act of kindness to bring her the news in person of her family’s safe arrival at their destination.

This excellent reasoning stood Geoffrey in good stead until he was within an hour’s ride of Roselynde. At that point, he began to wonder what he would say to Joanna, how he would explain a two-hundred-mile ride out of the way of the place the army was to meet the king. In fact, he had begun to wonder why he had come.

However, his arrival was not in the least uncomfortable. Joanna was openly delighted to see him. She had run down into the bailey to greet him and had received his news of her family’s safe arrival with thanks and pleasure. So strong had been her assumption that Roselynde was now Geoffrey’s home, that it was the most natural thing in the world that he come there and that she serve him, that there had been no awkwardness at all. Even being undressed and bathed by Joanna instead of the maids had seemed perfectly natural; there was no sense of newness or strangeness, although it was the first time. No touch of heightened color in Joanna’s cheek had given evidence of conquered embarrassment or of a thought beyond the words she spoke. Why then, sitting at ease five feet from her, was he suddenly as aware of her physical being as if she had been dancing naked?

It did not occur to Geoffrey that he was responding to Joanna’s own awareness of him. When she had welcomed him so warmly the previous day, it had been as a wellknown friend, a reliable partner in a difficult undertaking. Sitting in justice was a matter that troubled Joanna. Unlike her mother, she had a strong consciousness of right and wrong, not only as it affected her but in the abstract. In the past when Alinor left Joanna to manage the estates, there had been someone to help herat first Lady Margaret and later Sir Guy. But Lady Margaret had returned to her son to help care for her grandchildren, and Sir Guy had gone with Ian to Ireland.

Within Roselynde, Joanna did not doubt her power to ascertain what was right. She knew the men and women and even the serfs on the demesneif not as individuals at least as “good” or “troublesome” servants. What had been required of her this time, however, was the settlement of a dispute in the town of Roselynde. Here, she was far less secure. Ordinarily, the mayor and aldermen ruled the town with little interference from the lady of Roselynde, but a dispute had arisen among those worthies themselves, so an appeal had been made to the castle. The date had been set before Alinor’s departure was decided upon and, in the hurry of other business, had been forgotten. Now Joanna found herself facing the unenviable task of taking her mother’s place.

Under the circumstances, Geoffrey’s arrival was like manna from heaven. The armed force he brought would be a strong inducement toward obedience to Joanna’s decision if it was not popular, and his own presence was a guarantee of an intelligent opinion to support (or contradict, if necessary) her own. He had taken no part in the proceedings, as was proper, merely standing silent, full-armed, at the right hand of Joanna’s chair, a visible symbol, no matter how young and slender the judge, that having been called in she was absolute.

In this event, the matter itself was unworthy either of Joanna’s qualms or Geoffrey’s stern presence. As she would have realized had she been a little older, it was not a weighty question of law that needed resolution or explication but a silly, spiteful nothing. This, once she had sat silent with downcast eyes, biting her lips to control the laughter that bubbled in her throat, Joanna was really better suited temperamentally to settle than Alinor. She had the patience to soothe the ruffled feathers of the contestantsinstead of publicly calling them idiotsand satisfy one group’s wounded pride without offending the other.

Courtesy demanded that gravity be maintained while the judge and her escort were refreshed in the mayor’s house and received the ladies of the town worthies. Joanna and Geoffrey were both well and rigidly trained. There were many nobles who would have scorned an invitation from a common tradesman; there were many who would have laughed at the devouring interest in the eyes of the tradesmen’s wives and daughters. Geoffrey patiently and softly answered questions about his accoutrements and ability that no noblewoman would have asked, and Joanna spoke freely on matters less romantic but of more immediate interest, like the problems of managing a household ten or twenty times larger than their own.

Training keeps the face grave and the voice steady, but it does not put old hearts into young bodies. Geoffrey and Joanna laughed all the way back to the keep, gasping out the naive remarks they had needed to endure and answer to each other until Geoffrey nearly dropped Joanna as he lifted her from her mare. She called him a clumsy lout; he slapped her on the buttock as freely as when they were children, and they staggered back into the keep together, to trip over Brian, laugh a little more, and finally rid themselves of armor and elaborate garments.

They were quieter at dinner. Joanna was a little tired with the heat and her past anxiety, and she listened quietly to Geoffrey’s description of the arrangement Ian had made for mustering the troops. It dawned upon her while he spoke that the muster was for war, and that war in Wales was no tame matter. The thought brought Joanna’s eyes from the clumsy behavior of a maidservant, which she had been watching with disapproval while Geoffrey spoke, to Geoffrey just beside her. The sweat-damp linen shirt he wore   clung to his young body and Joanna suddenly felt a sharp pang of regret that they had been only betrothed instead of married. She had not objected when the idea was proposed to her, saying that she could not see that it mattered one way or the other.

Now, suddenly, it mattered. Joanna chewed a piece of meat and wondered how Geoffrey would taste when she kissed him or bit him. She could smell him as he sat beside her, and the salty, acrid odor was very exciting. The idea of coupling with Geoffrey, which she had considered obediently upon Alinor’s order and had not found distasteful, now began to grow very attractive. She thought of Geoffrey’s brief kiss at the betrothal ceremony and suffered a small sensation of disappointment. It had been no different from the many “kisses of peace” she had taken and received. All she remembered was that his breath was sweet and his mouth clean. A good digestion and good teeth, she had thought at the time.

That was not fair, Joanna realized, glancing sidelong at her betrothed again. A man would scarcely betray passion before a hundred or more noble witnesses, and she herself had been so preoccupied with other matters that she had considered Geoffrey no more than any other necessary furnishing to the ceremony, like fine clothing or rich plate. Altogether that entire episode had been unreal, a gay and gorgeous charade in which each participant had acted a proper role just as if they were players in a mystery pageant. This was realthe warmth that emanated from Geoffrey’s body, the strong, biting odor of a healthy, active man.

“You never told me how long you would stay,” Joanna said.

To her surprise, Geoffrey flushed a little. “Three days moreunless you have need of me. It will take four or five days of riding to come to Whitechurch, and I would like to be there before the vassals arrive. Of course, it can be done in less time if there is something you wish me to do here.”

“No, nothing,” Joanna murmured, but she understood Geoffrey’s heightened color and she was oddly content.   He had been some seventy miles from Whitechurch when he saw Ian and Alinor to their ship and had ridden two hundred miles and more to see her, only to ride all the way back after four days. Joanna did not draw away as Geoffrey reached across to take a dish of sweet tarts that was set out to round off the meal, and his hand brushed her breast. Neither remarked on it, neither murmured an excuse, but Geoffrey’s color remained high and Joanna pushed away what she had not yet eaten. They did not linger long at the table after that. Geoffrey made a half-hearted suggestion about riding out, but Joanna protested that it was too hot and proposed instead that Geoffrey play to her.

The lute was fetched, the embroidery frame set comfortably out of the direct glare but in the full light of the sun. Joanna bent to her work; Geoffrey plucked the strings idly. What sprang first to his mind were the sweet love laments of the troubadours, but the idea was faintly disgusting to him. He had sung those with considerable success to a number of ladies of light virtue at court. Somehow he could not present such tarnished things to Joanna. He did not worship her. One does not put a halo around the head of a girl who has boxed your ears soundly for dropping overripe fruit on her head. He knew her puckish humor and her earthy good sense too well to develop visions of heavenly purity. Nonetheless, Joanna was clean and goodsolid gold compared with the tawdry tinsel of Queen Isabella’s ladies. There would be love songs for Joanna toobut not those.

Almost afraid his tongue would trick him into the well-worn route, Geoffrey shifted languages altogether and sang the English lyric “Stella Maris.” Joanna was a little surprised. She had expected a love song, but she was not really disappointed. As the song progressed, she felt rather pleased. It was, she agreed, not the time or place for sickly sweet sentiment. Yet the physical tension that had taken hold of her did not diminish much. It merely became mixed with an equally exciting sense of anticipation. The combination, however delicious, was unsettling. Joanna found she could not sit in silence and wait for Geoffrey to sing again,   and she said what came first into her mind. As the words were spoken, Joanna blushed. She could not have said anything sillier even if she had tried. She knew quite well that Geoffrey sang English. He could speak it a little too, although not as well as she could.

However Geoffrey did not take her up on her idiocy or seem to notice her blush. “The Church was on my mind,” he said. It was absolutely necessary to say something, anything, except what was really on his mind. “Some of the lands through which I rode were in a sad state. They were burying men by the side of the road. I have heard also that even the last rites were denied to those in Durham.”

“Some priests are fools,” Joanna replied, lifting eyes that were clear and bright with anger. “Why should the poor servant suffer because the master has committed a fault? Since King John has offended the popealthough I do not too well understand the ins and outs of that matterit is reasonable that the pope punish the king. Why, however, should he place an interdict upon the people?
We
have not refused obedience.”

“I suppose the pope believes the king will take pity on his people.”

Joanna’s burst of laughter was not, this time, a pleasant sound. “Do not say so. Surely such a belief can only betoken a wanting mind either in the pope or in those who send him information.”

“Or perhaps it was to show the king his power, a warning of worse to follow.” Geoffrey was far more interested in the play of emotion on Joanna’s face than in the story of the pope and king.

“So the worse did follow. The king is excommunicated and has been for two years. I do not see that he is much affected by it, but my people… Do you remember Cedric Southfold? He served as messenger to my mother for years.”

“No, IYes, I do. What of him?”

“He died some weeks ago, but when he was very ill his old wife came weeping to me that the priest would not give   him the viaticum. Poor old man to be burdened with such fear at the end of his life.”

“God have mercy on him,” Geoffrey murmured. “That is a bitter death for a loyal servant and a good man.”

“Oh, he died in peace,” Joanna said, her full lips thinned to a hard line. “I sent Father Francis down to him and he gave him good comfort. I took my whip to that priest also, and I tied him to my mare’s tail and dragged him off the demesne. There is a young priest now who sees his duty to me and to the pope more clearly.”

Geoffrey sat upright and stared at his betrothed. “You took your whip to the priest and drove him off? But”

“But what?” Joanna asked hotly. “Can he challenge
me
before the bishop of Winchester? Will Peter des Roches, who sits at supper with the excommunicated king, deny that there is a reasonable limit to obedience to the pope? I do not ask the priest to open the church or to say daily mass. What sins grow upon us for lack of such things we can atone for in the future. For the dying, there is no future. A man must not be damned for eternity by the failure of a rite because of a priest’s whim. Cedric’s sins were little sinsif he had any. Why should he be denied heaven and burn eternally in hell because of a quarrel between the king and the pope that had nothing to do with him?”

“I do not know,” Geoffrey replied heavily. “Where is he buried?”

“Oh, mother settled that when the interdict was first announced. We gave a field right beside the churchyard to the church. All our people are buried there, and Father Francis assured them that as soon as the interdict was lifted he would consecrate the field.”