Emma Campion - A Triple Knot (17 page)

As she eased herself off the bed, she discovered deep, unaccustomed aches. She pulled aside the mound of covers to show him the bloodstains.

“Proof!”

He set down the mazer and gathered her up, lifting her so that they might be eye to eye. “No regret?”

She shook her head and planted a kiss on his lips.

As they shared the wine, he wondered aloud what their next step should be. “For the moment, I must go back to the abbey, attend to my duties.”

She forced a smile. “And I need to behave to Thea and Cecilia as if nothing had happened.”

But Dame Katarina helped her put that off for a day, suggesting that she tell Thea and Cecilia that the previous day had so wearied her she would keep to her bed. Joan noticed shadows
beneath her hostess’s eyes as she advised Helena on how to fold the sheet so that the stain would be easy to display as proof that Joan and Thomas were husband and wife, but not immediately visible and so might be safely stored until needed. Katarina assured her that all was well; she was happy for Joan, and looking forward to the following day, when they would all attend Mass at the cathedral.

“What about Albret?”

“Apparently, he has left the city. Olivier as well. You are safe, Lady Joan.” As Katarina took her leave, she kissed Joan on the forehead in a distracted manner, her gaze far away, and at the door she glanced back for just a moment with a slight frown.

As Joan stepped into the hot bath Helena had prepared, she wondered at Katarina’s demeanor. And Albret’s sudden disappearance. Yesterday he had leered at her in the abbey church and today he was gone. That was so unlike his previous behavior as to make her question whether she had actually seen him. But Helena had seen him as well, and the Van Arteveldes had been alerted to his presence.

No matter, she had what she wanted. And more. The feelings aroused in her as she and Thomas lay together—so that was how it was when a man stirred a woman. She closed her eyes, sinking into the hot water, smiling to think of how it had been, praying God’s forgiveness for her wantonness.

W
illiam Montagu paced in the dining hall at Gravensteen Castle, awaiting Thomas.

“My lord earl.” Thomas bowed, hastening to apologize for his absence.

Montagu tilted his head to study Thomas with his good eye. “You’ve the look of a man who spent the night in bed sport. Good. You’ll have little of that in your future. You ride south tomorrow.”

“Why the change, my lord? I had planned to leave three days hence.”

“Two nights past, the Sire d’Albret’s man packed up his household and disappeared. His landlord says they left in great haste, leaving food, wine, even some clothes behind. It smells rotten to me and I want you to follow him south, see whether he’s communicating with Valois’s men in Lille and Douai. If you find them, escort them over the border into France to ensure that they do no more harm, and then hasten back to report.”

Two nights past? “What of Albret himself? Van Artevelde claimed his men saw him here yesterday.”

“That is news to me. His man distracts us while he’s lodged elsewhere?” Montagu cursed under his breath. “Duplicitous bastard. I warned the king. Lady Joan would be wasted on his son.”

“What do you think is Albret’s purpose?”

“Damned if I know. I’ll double the guard on the abbey—Her Grace’s time has come, and all is in uproar at the guesthouse. It is up to us to keep the royal family safe.”

“To that end, I would warn you to watch the Van Arteveldes. I was troubled when I spoke to Jacob yesterday.” Thomas told Montagu of the man’s knowledge of things he should have no way of knowing, and prayed him to warn the queen when she returned to public life.

As soon as the earl departed, Thomas sent Hugh in search of the guards who had escorted the queen’s ladies to church the previous day. Questioning them, he did not like what he heard—that neither of them had noticed Albret in the church. Had Joan seen what she feared to see? Could Van Artevelde’s men have misinterpreted what they had seen? One or the other he could believe, but both? And Helena? Could the Van Arteveldes have hoodwinked him? How? Dame Katarina could not have learned so quickly of Joan’s fright in the church.

“Stay a moment, Sir Thomas,” said one of the guards. “I did notice Lady Joan take fright. But at Durand, Van Artevelde’s man. He was watching her. Dressed up in fine clothes, he was. Fancy boots for a snowstorm. He might look like the Gascon at a glance. Same hair, nasty dark eyes.”

“Durand, the ox,” said the other guard. “He does have the look. As long as he neither speaks nor walks—foulmouthed and lumbers like an ox. But standing still at the back of the church, he could look like him.”

Thomas sent men out to scour the streets, the taverns, find out whether anyone had seen the Sire d’Albret in Ghent within the past day. Or Olivier.

T
HE MOMENT SHE OPENED THE DOOR TO
T
HOMAS
, J
OAN SENSED
trouble. He kissed her hands, then strode past her into the parlor,
poured himself some brandywine, and slumped down on one of the high-backed chairs, taking a long drink.

She brought a stool so that she might sit at his feet, resting her head in his lap. “What has happened?”

“My orders have changed. I am to make haste to Lille and Douai, departing at first light. I can stay only a few hours.”

“No! Why?”

“Olivier has disappeared. Albret is nowhere to be found. Salisbury suspects he is in communication with the French. If I find either, I’m to escort them to the border.”

“I will be safe.”

He stroked her head. “From the Gascon, aye.”

She looked up, searching his face. “There is something more, Thomas.”

“Is that not enough? That we have so little time together? Who knows when I will return? Whether you will still be here?” He dropped his head back against the chair.

“Then let us treasure what little time we have.” She rose and took his hand. “Come to bed, my love.”

“I will not hurt you again.”

“Then just hold me.”

He followed her, but refused to undress, removing only his boots and stretching out on top of the covers.

“Why did you leave your maidservant Mary at the abbey?”

Joan climbed onto the bed, sat back on her heels beside him. “Mary? What do you care about her?”

“I wondered why. Whether Dame Katarina said anything to you.”

“If you mean had she warned me that Mary is a gossip, that was nothing I did not already know, though I had not guessed the extent of what Dame Katarina told me the other day. Mary regularly went to Albret’s man Olivier with news of the queen’s household. Jacob’s men followed her. So Katarina thought it best to leave her behind.”

“Why? Mary already knew where you would be biding. What harm would her being here do?”

“What are you thinking?”

Thomas shook his head. “I can find no one apart from you, Helena, and the Van Arteveldes who claim to have seen Albret yesterday.”

“Are you accusing me—”

He put a finger to her lips. “No,” he said, his voice tender. “Not you, my love. Them. I fear they went even further than we had guessed to push us together. One of their men was in the church, dressed to look like Albret.”

“Why would they so trick us?”

“I do not know, and that is what worries me.”

“Thomas, you are frightening me. We pledged our troth and lay together as husband and wife. We are husband and wife. You will honor that? You
will
tell your family?”

At last he looked at her, startled. “Of course I will, Joan. As soon as I may.” He pulled her down so that her head rested on his shoulder. He stroked her hair. “My beautiful Joan. You are my love, now and always. My regret is in rushing you. And now to leave you. I have not behaved honorably.”

“You are my champion always.”

He kissed her then, and she wrapped herself around him, tightly, tightly. For just a little while. He’d frightened her. A knight was all about honor. She prayed that his doubts would not strengthen while they were apart.

I
N
J
ACOB
’
S OFFICE
, K
ATARINA AND HER HUSBAND STUDIED A CONTRACT
regarding one of their ships. She suddenly shook her head. “I’ve no patience for this right now.”

“Our guests?” Jacob asked. “Are they difficult?”

“Not at all.”

“Then what?”

“I feel unclean. Helena’s spying, how we tricked them. The lies about Albret, the virgin blood. She would not have insisted on lying with him. She is so young. She will suffer. They both will.”

“In time, perhaps. We do not do this for personal gain but for the good of all the merchants. King Edward must see that his strength is here, in the north, not in Gascony. By killing his chance at such an alliance in Gascony, we force him to continue to support us.”

“She’s but a child, Jacob.”

“You shed tears over her? We have
saved
her from the cursed Bernardo Ezi, made certain she has an honorable man. Helena assured us that Lady Joan loves him. Whence come these tears, wife?”

“They will punish her. Mark me, the queen will take out her frustration on the girl because she cannot afford to attack us.” She looked back in the direction of the chamber that Joan and Thomas shared. “I fear for them.”

“They are lawfully wed.”

“A king and queen might do as they wish.”

“Precisely why this was necessary.”

“For us. But for her, for him—at what cost to them have we secured our treaties, and had our revenge on Albret?”

Jacob sniffed at her concern.

For a moment, instead of pitying the couple, Katarina envied them. To know such love. Surely it was worth any difficulties they might face, to have known one night of such joy.

G
ently brushing back Joan’s hair to kiss her forehead, her cheeks, and then her lips, sweetly tender kisses, Thomas whispered, “I must leave you now.”

“No!” Joan sat up sharply. She had promised herself that when he turned for one last glance he would see her smiling, radiant with love, so that the very thought of her would bring him joy. But when the time came she wept and begged him to stay. “Who am I now without you?” She tried to pull him back down onto the bed.

“God help me, what have I done to you?”

She was furious with herself, yet could not stop the tears, could not forbear telling him how frightened she was that he would forget her, hoping that she might still gain control of herself and send him away with tender words of love.

“Forget you? Never! I swear to you I will make this right, Joan, my beloved.” Thomas departed in a cloud of doubt and self-loathing.

And now she must behave as if nothing had changed, though everything had.

D
AME
K
ATARINA HAD ARRANGED TO INVITE ALL THE KING
’
S CAPTAINS
,
one by one, so that her children would not attach too much significance to Thomas’s dinner with them. Joan became a player, acting as if she were still virginal and unmarked by all that had happened with Albret and Thomas. Thea and Cecilia giggled and shared their thoughts about the captains, and Joan did her best to participate, offering her own witty observations, forcing laughter, encouraging Sir Roland, Sir Guy, and their fellows to talk about their families and their experiences.

All the while she felt as if she were hovering above a young woman playing herself as she might have been had Albret never overstepped the bounds of decency, had she not fallen in love with Thomas and bound herself to him. She wondered how everyone could be so blind as not to realize that they were not interacting with the Joan they knew.

When word came that Queen Philippa had been safely delivered of a healthy son, Joan thought she might return to the abbey—but she was ordered to remain at the Van Artevelde house until the queen’s churching, after which she would depart for England in Lady Lucienne’s company, freeing up room in the queen’s crowded household.

Just as Jacob Van Artevelde had predicted to Thomas. The queen should be warned of Jacob’s detailed knowledge of her plans. But if Joan stirred up trouble between the queen and the Van Arteveldes, she risked losing the witnesses to her betrothal.

Secrets upon secrets. Living among the Van Arteveldes, whom she no longer trusted, was torture. She hesitated before uttering a word, searched all theirs for hidden traps. Darksome creatures stalked her in her dreams, snapping at her arms and legs, driving her off cliffs, into crowds waiting to butcher her. Her eyes, and Helena’s, were ringed in shadows. Her moon
blood arrived a few days late. She did not know whether to mourn or rejoice. She wept.

O
N THE DAY ON WHICH
L
UCIENNE
’
S PARTY WAS TO TAKE SHIP
,
Philippa received Joan in her chamber for a brief farewell. She wished to be the one to deliver the news to the girl, feeling responsible for the change in her, the paleness accentuated by the shadows ringing her eyes, the thinness, indeed the loss of the curves that had been the cause of her troubles. Philippa hoped that the news might do much to restore Joan’s vitality before she alighted on English soil, before Countess Margaret beheld her daughter.