Emma Campion - A Triple Knot (22 page)

“So that is why you have heard nothing.” Joan turned to look out the window. “It was kind of Will to rescue my ring.”

Margaret took her daughter’s hand, delicate, with long fingers, sadly cold at the moment, and kissed it. “Have you decided?”

Still staring out into the soft late-summer rain, Joan said, “It seems Thomas’s family has decided for us.”

“Shall we share a cup of wine?”

Joan shook her head. “I just want to be alone for a while.”

I
N THE EVENING
,
AS
M
ARGARET SAT WITH HER BROTHER AND SISTER
-
IN
-
LAW
by the hall fire, she started as Joan silently appeared, a ghostly apparition, her fair hair and pale gown reflecting the flickering light from the hearth fire.

“Come. Rest against me,” Margaret said.

“Better now?” Blanche asked.

Margaret felt her daughter shrug. “Tell me about Robert Holland,” Joan said to her uncle. “What is he like?”

He described a “remarkably ordinary” man who carried himself with an aggrieved air. Blanche muttered something about the Hollands playing the victims. Thomas shushed her and repeated what he had told Margaret about their encounter.

“He said nothing about his brother and I being wed?” Joan asked.

Margaret noticed her brother look to his wife, who arched a brow in warning.

“Not a word, Joan.”

Margaret smoothed Joan’s hair from her forehead and kissed her, but said nothing. It was the best answer for Joan, though she guessed it was not the whole truth.

Shortly afterward, the Wakes withdrew to their bedchamber. Joan moved to the chair Blanche had vacated, drawing up her legs, wrapping her arms round them, curling into herself. She’d become a young woman of grace and light, Margaret thought, and cursed Thomas Holland for breaking her daughter’s heart. Yearning to raise Joan’s spirits, Margaret spoiled what she had meant for a surprise on the morrow.

“Would it please you to hear that Efa is going to join the modest household accompanying you into your marriage?” With all that Joan had recently suffered, Margaret thought the healing skills of her children’s childhood nurse made Efa an ideal choice to round out the servants her daughter would take into her marriage.

Joan unfolded, her brightness returned. “Efa! Have you sent for her? Truly?”

Margaret opened her arms to her suddenly joyful daughter, who slipped onto her lap and hugged her tightly. She laughed as Joan rained kisses on her cheeks.

“I will heal now. Efa will know what to do.”

“But have a care. No spells. No tales of fair folk leading you astray. I sent her away once for that, I can do it again.”

Joan hugged her again. “Bless you!”

E
FA
’
S BROAD
,
FRECKLED FACE RELAXED INTO A WARM SMILE AS SHE
pushed back her hood and opened her arms for a welcoming embrace. Joan breathed in the familiar flowery scent of Efa’s red hair, which she wore loose, having never wed. She was a small, buxom woman who walked with a swing that suggested that she moved to a music only she could hear. A few years older than Joan’s mother, she looked at least a decade younger, though as Joan stood back she noticed a few silver strands in the dark-red hair and perhaps a few more laugh lines radiating from the wide hazel eyes that closely studied her. Efa’s smile faltered.

“You have much healing to do, little one. But your heartbeat is strong. A good sign.”

They talked into the evening. Joan told Efa everything—all that had come to pass, all that was in her heart. Two things made the woman lean close, an ear cocked, as if listening for more than just Joan’s voice in the telling. One was the circling of the old willow—
and he suddenly appeared
, she’d whispered to herself. The other was Joan’s feeling since returning home that she had been away for a long, long time, during which she had aged but no one else had; nor did they notice that she was not the thirteen-year-old they expected her to be.

“You fear that Albret might be of the fairy folk, that he took your soul,” she guessed.

“Mother says I’m not to talk to you about fairies or spells.” But Joan leaned close, wondering.

Efa rose and began to hum to herself as she rummaged among the jars in the chest she’d brought.

“Well? Might he be?” Joan finally asked.

“You
are
changed, little one. You became a woman and lay
with a man you love. I
feel
your bond when you speak of him. It’s no childish love, not with that warmth.” She shrugged as she picked up one of the jars.

“There’s no cure?”

Efa paused with the jar half unwrapped, regarding Joan with a sympathetic frown. “Oh, little one, I fear the only
cure
is to be reunited with your Thomas.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Is it?” She arched her curly brows as if disagreeing. “As for the Gascon, there is an undercurrent. But that is all behind you.” She finished unwrapping the jar and sniffed, wrinkling her nose. “Have you continued with archery?”

“No. The queen thought it unseemly. And since I returned I haven’t had the strength. But what has that to do with all this?”

“It was archery that gave you the strength to stab the pirate. Now you must hide your feelings while you wait and watch. Practicing at the butts will steady and strengthen you, and sharpen your patience. We shall play chess each evening as well.”

“Wait and watch for what?”

“Opportunity, little one. Joy.”

“And what of Ned? How can I protect Thomas from him?”

“Thomas is a man, the prince a child. I would not worry overmuch about that.”

“And Will?”

“Ah. He will prove the most difficult, to be sure. But do not give up hope.”

Joan slept well that night, and many nights afterward. Until she was summoned to Bisham.

J
oan watched her mother’s reaction to the news from the Earl of Salisbury’s man, saw the stricken look on her face, hands to her mouth, heard a little cry. She guessed that Earl William had died. But then the messenger grinned, ear to ear, and Margaret clapped her hands and said something in a voice high with glee. So he lived.

She steeled herself as her mother turned and swept toward her, arms outstretched.

“Earl William is in London with the king! We leave in a fortnight for Bisham, for your betrothal, my love.” Margaret’s eyes sparkled.

Joan did not mirror her mother’s emotion. The betrothal ceremony was the moment when, with the exchange of property, a proposed marriage between noble houses became an official entity. It was precisely what her betrothal to Thomas lacked. Her mother’s careful scheming was coming to fruition.

But, as they organized the packing of her new wardrobe, Joan noticed a brittle quality to her mother’s laughter. After all her effort, could she be uneasy about the coming betrothal? Or was it the prospect of biding under the roof of her lover’s family that troubled her? It was one thing to come face to face with
Catherine Montagu at court, quite another to be received by her in her own home.

Margaret looked aghast when Joan offered to go alone. “Miss your betrothal? I will not! It is all arranged. We will share a barge upriver with Abbess Matilda.”

J
OAN HAD ALWAYS LOVED TRAVELING BY RIVER
. B
UT SINCE THE PIRATE
attack the very thought of being on the water turned her legs to jelly. She approached the dock at the bottom of the garden with jaws set, her eyes locked on the awaiting barge, not on the water. Abbess Matilda lifted a hand in greeting—she had boarded downriver near Barking. It was a small, flat, open barge, nothing like the ship on which Joan had sailed from Sluys, and the river did not even smell like the sea. But as Joan stepped onto the planking her breath caught in her chest and she could not release her grip on Efa’s arm to take the page’s proffered hand. There was no need. Sure-footed, Efa led her on, seating her just within the small pavilion that would shade them from the sun.

“Keep your eyes on the land to either side of us,” Efa said. “Safe, solid ground.”

But Joan closed her eyes and prayed. They were well away from Westminster by the time her heart stopped racing and she managed to look out at the riverbank. It did help to see land so close at hand. But she did not let go of her nurse.

Her tension eased once she stepped off the barge and felt the earth beneath her feet. Their party was to finish the journey to the Montagu manor of Bisham on horseback through green, rolling countryside. Her mother and the abbess flanked her now, chatting amiably about passing landmarks and the indifferent harvest. Margaret’s cheer sounded flat to Joan.

As the imposing stone-and-timber manor house came into
view, the sound of hammers and the shouts of men pierced the stillness.

“Bisham Priory,” said Abbess Matilda, pointing to one side of the house. “My brother founded it several years ago, for Austin Canons.”

The larger buildings within the priory walls were bristling with scaffolding.

“So close to the house,” Margaret noted.

“William no doubt hopes the proximity strengthens the effect of the canons’ prayers for their founder and his family.” Abbess Matilda laughed, despite her evident pride in her brother’s good work. “So what do you think of your new home, Lady Joan?”

Her new home? Joan took a deep breath. “It seems a fine house, well suited to such an impressive man as your brother, Mother Abbess.” But she could not imagine considering it her home.

Margaret reached out to pat her daughter’s hand. “I pray you will be happy here.”

Well she might pray, but it would be for naught.

The Montagu family awaited their guests in the manor-house yard, richly garbed in jeweled colors, bright against the hard-packed earth. Will stood at one end of a semicircle, with his father, the earl, and his brother and sisters filling in the middle, and his mother, Countess Catherine, anchoring the far end. As a groom assisted Joan in dismounting, Will stepped up to greet her, his shoulders thrust forward as if bowed beneath the weight of his responsibility. Apparently, he was no happier about this than she was. He stumbled over a prepared speech, blushing crimson to the roots of his red hair by the end. Earl William quickly seconded his son’s welcome, and smiled fiercely as he delivered Joan into the enthusiastic embraces of Will’s three sisters. A courteous greeting from Will’s brother, John, brought her all the way down to Countess Catherine.
Though in coloring and the rich dark hair she was a match for her cousin, Lucienne, she had a more passive beauty, a delicacy more appropriately worshipped from afar, and a nature as changeable as the weather. On this day she stood quietly, her air somewhat sorrowful. Countess Catherine was the daughter of the first Baron Grandison, at whose death she’d become William Montagu’s ward, and eventually his wife, a gift from King Edward II for the earl’s services. Much the way Joan was a gift from the present king for young Will, the earl’s heir.

Catherine bowed slightly, greeting Joan and her mother with chilly formality, and, without further comment, turned to lead them into the hall.

“I pray you don’t take offense at Mother’s coolness. She slept little once we learned of Father’s capture,” said Bess, the eldest daughter, slipping a hand through Joan’s free arm. “And, even now that he’s home, she is worried. But you are very welcome.” She turned and tsked at her brother for hanging back.

Shy, awkward, chubby, with strawlike light-red hair, pale brows, pale eyes … Joan tried not to compare Will with her beloved. He was just a boy. But she could not imagine him maturing into such a man as Thomas. His hand had been clammy and limp in hers. As Joan followed Bess through the great hall, an airy space with a fine tiled floor and glazing in the main windows, Joan told her about her brother’s kind retrieval of her little ring.

“He dared antagonize the prince? I would never have imagined it. He must hold you in high regard.”

“High regard?” Joan looked back at her intended, his full lips slightly open as he listened to her mother. He looked such a dullard, she did wonder what had possessed him to make that gesture. “I suspect he merely thought it the proper thing to do. I understand that you are to be wed soon as well.”

“Yes. To Hugh Despenser.” Bess’s flat tone suggested that she was no happier with her lot than was Joan with hers.

“Has your father brought any news of Prince Edward’s betrothal?” Joan asked. “Has the pope approved?”

Bess had heard nothing, but begged Joan to tell her all about the court of Brabant, and the most fortunate Lady Marguerite. The other Montagu sisters, Sybil and Pippa, crowded round to hear as well, and in a tight little pack they swarmed up the steps to the bedchamber they would all share. They showered Joan with kindness, and she pretended to be happy to be there with them.

M
ARGARET FOLLOWED THE GIRLS
,
FOR SHE WOULD ALSO BED WITH
them for the several nights of her stay. She avoided looking around, feeling like a spy in her lover’s home, grateful for his wife’s habit of looking over the heads of those she addressed rather than meeting their gaze. If Catherine had looked into Margaret’s eyes as she greeted William she would know, and all hope for Joan’s safety in the bosom of this powerful family would be dashed.

While the servants moved about the bedchamber, Margaret opened the shutters and looked out on the rolling countryside, studying a tangled wood round a pond as she worked to collect her emotions and tuck them safely behind her court façade.

The Truce of Esplechin in September had allowed William’s release from captivity near Paris so that he might return to England and raise funds for his ransom, as was the custom with noble captives. But, according to Abbess Matilda, he had little time for that, as he had taken it upon himself to investigate who was responsible for bringing to such a dangerous halt the flow of war funds the king required in the Low Countries. From the look of him, William needed more time to recover. His appearance shocked Margaret, his hair whiter, thinner, his body gaunt, his face even more unbalanced than his wounded eye rendered it—there was a slight droop to the left side of his face, so that on
one side he now looked startled, on the other drowsy. Pain shadowed his smile. His head wound might have healed outwardly, but according to his daughters’ chatter he was not himself, his moods wildly fluctuating. He and Catherine must be a volatile pair at present.