Silken Threads (18 page)

She gravitated toward a table on which were
stacked willow baskets, pots of honey and freshly pressed cheeses
wrapped in leaves. A bored-looking young girl swept a branch back
and forth over the cheeses to discourage flies from settling.

“Joanna?” Hugh persisted. “Are you going to
make him
—
”

“I don’t know,” she said sullenly. “I think
so. Probably.”

Sighing, Hugh offered her his arm again and
led her to the horsepool, circling it at a distance to watch
prospective buyers poke at the horses’ hooves and pull back their
lips. The smell of horseflesh competed with the savory aroma of
sausages grilling in a pit nearby. One of the men inspecting the
horses turned to look at Joanna, his gaze crawling over her elegant
attire with all-too-penetrating interest.

“God’s bones, it’s Rolf le Fever.” She
turned away.

“Who is Rolf le Fever?” Hugh asked.

“A man whose nose I almost cut off
once.”

“That fellow over there in the scarlet and
purple? From the looks of him, you should have finished the
job.”

“Sometimes I wish I had. They’d have hanged
me, but at least I would have enjoyed some measure of revenge.”

“Revenge for what?” Hugh asked, spearing le
Fever with a chillingly black look
—
a reminder to Joanna
that her good-natured brother had, deep down inside, the heart and
soul of a warrior.

“He’s the reason I can’t sell silks by the
yard anymore.”

“I thought that was because you couldn’t
join the Mercers’ Guild.”

“Of which Rolf le Fever is guildmaster.
After Prewitt died, I worked out a way to import silks without
traveling abroad
—
by employing other silk traders as agents
for me. I went to the silk traders’ market hall
—
le Fever
has an office there, behind the merchants’ booths
—
and I
told him I was going to petition to join the guild. He told me the
decision would rest with him, and at first he seemed...sympathetic,
congenial. But as we spoke, he kept moving closer to me. I didn’t
like the way he looked at me, like Petronilla when she’s toying
with a mouse, and once or twice he found excuses to touch
me...”

A feral little growl rose from Hugh’s
throat.

“He said that women could do quite well in
trade if they understood that it’s simply an exchange of one thing
for another, that there’s no such thing as true generosity in
business. If, for instance, one party grants a privilege to another
party, he naturally expects some sort of repayment.”

“Naturally,” Hugh gritted out.

“He wasn’t so bold as to come right out with
it, not at first, but I knew what he was up to
—
he’d
sniffed around me before, while Prewitt was still alive. He
complimented my beauty, said he’d admired me for years. He asked me
to remove my veil so he could see what color my hair was.”

Hugh swore under his breath. “Did you?”

“Of course not
—
and it seemed to
provoke him. He backed me against the wall, looking me up and down
as if I were standing out in front of some Southwark stew.”

“Did you cry out for help?”

“‘Twas midday, the dinner hour. There was no
one else there. But I got away before he could do anything.”

“How?”

“He put his hand on my breast. I put my
dagger in his nostril.”

“Ah.” Hugh grinned approvingly. “Good
choice. A man as vain as that strutting peacock would sooner lose
his...privy parts than his nose.”

“I walked away unviolated from the market
hall that day, but he saw to it that the guild rejected my request
for membership.”

“Little surprise in that.
There
—
that’s the horse Graeham is selling.” Hugh pointed
to a petite chestnut tethered with the other
palfreys
—
docile creatures suitable for ladies or
children.

“Why on earth was he riding a palfrey?”

“He wasn’t. His mount was a fine sorrel
stallion.”

“Why did he have two horses?” she asked.
“And one of them a lady’s horse?”

“I don’t suppose we’ll ever find out, given
that you’re sending him back to St. Bartholemew’s.” Excusing
himself, Hugh paused to admire the destriers
—
brawny
creatures bred for size and trained to remain steady in the face of
battle cries and volleys of arrows.

Joanna claimed a nearby tree stump, slipped
off her shoes, and flexed her stocking feet in the cool grass.
Resting her chin in her hand, she gazed at the little chestnut
palfrey as it drank from the horsepool.

I’d take off my clothes,
Graeham had
said,
and wade in, and let the water envelop me. ‘Twas
heaven.

Closing her eyes, Joanna tried to envision
the boy Graeham, swimming in this pond all alone in the middle of
the night. Instead she saw Graeham the man, stretched out on her
storeroom cot with the whore Leoda leaning over him.

“Just like Prewitt,” she whispered, opening
her eyes. A young woman passing by with a basket full of flatcakes
cast her a curious glance. She closed her eyes again.

This time it wasn’t Graeham she envisioned
with the black-haired whore, but her husband. Not that he’d ever
bedded Leoda, but he might have. He’d bedded everyone else.

For the hundredth time, she wondered how she
could have succumbed to Prewitt Chapman’s calculatedly smooth
charm. Granted, she’d been young, and terrified at the prospect of
being cast away from Montfichet for refusing to marry Nicholas. Her
father would kill her, he’d said
—
and from the savagery of
some of his past beatings, she’d believed he was capable of doing
it.

Prewitt had happened upon her just when
she’d been most desperately in need of a savior. If only she’d had
the wit to see how transparently he set about casting himself in
that role. When he stole into her little tower bedchamber a mere
two weeks after their first meeting, begging her to come away with
him and be his wife, she was ecstatic. She would belong to the
darkly handsome Prewitt Chapman, with his yearning eyes and ardent
declarations
—
and be forever freed of her father’s tyranny
in the bargain. Not once did she pause to consider how the marriage
would benefit Prewitt.

If only Hugh had been in London during
Prewitt’s clandestine courtship. Her brother would have seen it
all; he would have warned her about her suitor’s ulterior motives.
But Hugh was off fighting in Ireland. By the time he came home that
summer, Joanna was married and living in Prewitt’s shabby little
flat in that tumble-down tenement on Ironmonger Lane
—
all
alone, for her new husband had departed for Sicily within days of
the wedding.

Hugh was outraged to find his gently-bred
young sister married, abandoned, and living in squalor. He knew
intuitively what Prewitt was and why he’d married her. Despite the
silk merchant’s elegant dress and manners, he had nothing. He’d
jumped at the chance to unite himself with Lady Joanna of Wexford,
only to discover afterward that her father would slaughter them
both if he got his hands on them. Hugh made inquiries regarding
annulment, but the Church would not allow it.

Joanna, still fancying herself in love with
her husband, and unwilling to believe he’d just married her to
advance himself, declined Hugh’s offer to hunt Prewitt down and
disembowel him for her. Hugh had to go abroad again, but before he
left, he bought her the house on Wood Street so she’d have a decent
place to live and a shop with which to support herself. It pained
her to have to accept it, but she couldn’t remain in that hovel on
Ironmonger Lane. She vowed most solemnly never to take anything
from him again
—
ever.

Like a fool, she continued to believe the
best about her ne’er-do-well husband even after he returned from
Sicily that fall. He’d become distant with her
—
impatient,
distracted. Joanna attributed his ill temper to shame over his
inability to provide for her. After all, what man wanted to live in
a house his brother-in-law had bought?

It was shortly before he was scheduled to go
abroad again that she came home from marketing one afternoon
thinking the house was empty, only to hear Prewitt upstairs,
groaning. Fearful that he might be sick, or hurt, she dumped the
capon she’d bought on the table and raced up the ladder, heart
pounding.

* * *

Chapter
10

Even now, almost five years later, Joanna’s
stomach clenched at the memory of how she’d found him
—
how
she’d found
them,
Prewitt and the poulterer’s wife.

Halfrida was on her hands and knees on their
big bed, naked but for her striped woolen stockings. Joanna had
always thought of her as being only somewhat plump, but without her
clothes she looked enormous
—
white and fleshy and obscene,
her pendulous breasts swaying in rhythm with Prewitt’s thrusts
against her. He knelt behind her, his tunic discarded, his
trouser-like silken chausses around his knees, his shirt gathered
up in one hand while the other gripped Halfrida’s sturdy
buttocks.

Halfrida had her head down, her coarse
yellow hair hanging about her face. Prewitt watched himself pound
into her, his face reddened, his breath coming in harsh grunts.
They didn’t notice Joanna standing there at the top of the ladder,
reeling with repulsion and the shock of betrayal.

Prewitt must have sensed her presence,
because he looked up and saw her. His eyes widened slightly, but he
didn’t so much as slow down. “Jesus, Joanna,” he panted, “are you
going to just stand there and watch?”

Halfrida looked up abruptly, squealing when
she saw Joanna. But then Prewitt started laughing, and so did she,
her big white body jiggling with her giggles as he continued
tupping her.

Joanna stumbled down the ladder and fled
outside. She walked swiftly down to Newgate Street, weaving her way
blindly around pedestrians, horses and pigs, then east to Aldgate
Street, growing breathless as the street rose toward the apex of
Corn Hill. She turned right onto Gracechurch Street and followed it
all the way down to the Thames.

The waterfront was a raucous hive of
activity that afternoon. Sailors cursed as they pulled reluctant
stallions up a gangplank and into the hull of a ship docked nearby;
fishwives barked their prices; gulls shrieked.

Joanna set off across London Bridge,
thinking it might be quieter over the water; it was. Halfway across
the dilapidated old wooden bridge, she paused and leaned over the
rail, shivering as the cool, river-scented breeze ruffled her veil
and kirtle.

Hundreds of boats of all types were moored
in the quays and in the huge river itself. The great white Tower of
London rose in the distance, just inside the southeast corner of
the city wall. Lord Gilbert and Lady Fayette had escorted her to
the Tower last year, when Eleanor of Aquitaine was in residence,
introducing her to the queen as their future daughter-in-law.
Joanna had presented Queen Eleanor with an embroidered purse,
blushing with pride when the queen praised her handiwork. She
supposed she would never set foot in the Tower again.

Hugh had been right all along, of course.
Prewitt didn’t love her. He’d married her purely because she was
the daughter of Lord William of Wexford, the irony being her sire’s
complete renunciation of her as a result of that marriage. Now
Prewitt had no use for her anymore, except for occasional sexual
relief
—
a function it seemed she shared with others. She
was nothing to him but a thing to be exploited for his own ends.
First her father had used her for his purposes, and now Prewitt; it
was as if she existed purely to facilitate the aspirations of
grasping men. She burned with shame to think of how gullible she’d
been, how easily led down the path to her own ruin.

Dropping her gaze to the water lapping
against the piles below her, she wondered how deep the great river
was here, in the middle. If she happened to fall in, would she
drown? She couldn’t swim. She imagined some earnest undersheriff
informing Prewitt that his wife had thrown herself off London
Bridge in despair. Prewitt would sink his face into his hands. The
undersheriff would offer fatuous words of comfort and then
depart.

Alone, Prewitt would uncover his face. And
smile.

The bells of St. Magnus Martyr, located at
the London end of the bridge, rang vespers. Joanna retraced her
steps down the bridge toward the little church, drawn by the
comforting notion of sanctuary within its thick stone walls.

It was cool inside the deserted chapel, and
dark, and blessedly quiet. Joanna knelt in the straw before the
altar and crossed herself, beseeching God for strength and
direction.

Direction toward what?
she fancied
the Lord asking her.
What is it you want?

To be free of Prewitt. That was what she
wanted with all her heart. Annulment was impossible, but perhaps
they could live apart
—
although she hated the notion of
leaving their home. In truth, it was
her
home; Hugh had
deeded it to her. She couldn’t sell it without her husband’s
permission, though, and he might choose to keep it for himself. It
disgusted her to think of his having sole use of it, and besides,
where would she go? Even if she’d been willing to swallow her pride
and throw herself on her father’s mercy, he would never take her
back. Neither, of course, would Lord Gilbert.

She could try to force Prewitt out of the
house, but the law was on his side; if he didn’t want to go, he
needn’t. He could live there forever, forcing her to share his bed,
even beating her if he were so inclined, and no one would lift a
finger to stop him. And if she
could
talk him into leaving,
she would be left with no resources. The income from Prewitt’s silk
importing was modest at best, but it was better than nothing.