Janna Mysteries 1 & 2 Bindup (11 page)

‘I
WOULD SPEAK WITH
you, Janna.’ The hissed whisper startled Janna. She stopped, wondering who had addressed her.

Aldith stepped out from behind a clump of bushes at the side of the church. She’d obviously been waiting for Janna. Now she put her hand on Janna’s arm to draw her behind the bushy screen. Curiosity prompted Janna to follow her.

‘What do you want with me?’ she asked.

‘What are your plans for the future?’ the midwife asked in turn.

Janna blinked. She had no plans. There’d been no time to think of the future, no time to think beyond trying to fathom the mystery of her mother’s death.

‘I had great respect for your mother’s knowledge,’ the midwife continued, perhaps hoping to ingratiate herself. As Janna still stayed silent, she continued. ‘I know you helped your mother prepare her herbal potions. You must have learned a great deal?’

Janna dipped her head in acknowledgment, wondering where this was leading. The midwife sighed. ‘Your mother was a proud woman, and arrogant with it. She put me in the wrong whenever she could for I have only a midwife’s knowledge, whereas she seemed to know almost as much as any skilled physician in London!’

As Janna sucked in a sharp breath, ready to spring to her mother’s defence, the midwife continued, ‘My business is birthing babies, and Eadgyth had knowledge of herbs and healing practice that would have helped the mothers and babies in my care. When I asked if she would teach me, she said only that I should wash more often. In fact, she brushed me off as if I was no more than a fly come to irritate her.’ An old resentment soured the midwife’s voice. ‘I hope you have not inherited your mother’s arrogance, Janna. I’m asking you to share your knowledge with me, just as I am prepared to share my experience with you. I’m hoping that perhaps we may work together in the future?’

‘But …’ Janna struggled to find the words to defend her mother. ‘But …’ She remembered the impatience and contempt which her mother had shown both Fulk and the priest, and the way she had spoken of the midwife. Could there be some justice in Aldith’s claim?

‘The villagers will come calling for my services soon enough. I suspect Fulk will not linger now that Dame Alice is safely delivered of her child,’ Aldith observed.

‘It was my mother who saved the lady and her child – not that weasel!’ Janna said hotly.

The midwife nodded in agreement. ‘I believe you, but “that weasel” is doing all in his power to take the credit, while laying blame on your mother for trying to poison Dame Alice.’

‘My mother would never poison anyone!’

The midwife eyed her steadily. ‘I believe you,’ she said again.

As she understood what Aldith was saying, Janna could have cried with relief. Here, at last, was vindication for her mother.

‘But that will not stop Fulk from spreading what he would have everyone think,’ the midwife continued. ‘Be careful, Janna. No man likes to be seen as a fool. He was a danger to your mother; he may yet be a danger to you.’

Fulk! He was top of her list of suspects. It was a comfort to have her suspicions echoed by the midwife.

‘I advise you to stay in your cottage for a few days, keep well away from him,’ Aldith continued. ‘He’ll be returning to his shop in Wiltune soon enough. With his new exalted opinion of himself, he may even move on to Winchestre to ply his trade!’

Janna’s lips twitched to hear her mother’s opinion of the apothecary repeated by the midwife. Curiosity prompted her to ask, ‘And when Fulk goes, what then would you have me do?’

‘Become my assistant,’ Aldith answered promptly. ‘You lack experience so there is much I can teach you, just as I believe that your mother will have taught you much that I do not know. We can learn from each other.’

Janna hesitated, tempted by Aldith’s offer. It seemed far more genuine than Fulk’s offer to her mother, and its benefits were manifest. Under Aldith’s protection she would find a place and acceptance in the community, as well as gaining the experience she needed. Yet Aldith had been Eadgyth’s rival, and was about to reap the benefits of her death. While her offer might be kindly meant, Janna cautioned herself to stay on guard. Aldith was not off her list of suspects yet.

Aldith was waiting for her answer. Undecided, Janna wondered what her mother would have advised her to do.

She looked down at the midwife’s apron. It was clean and freshly laundered, but the kirtle underneath was somewhat grubby and stained. There was her answer – or was it? If Eadgyth had only bothered to explain, the midwife would have understood why cleanliness was so necessary for the health of mothers and their babies. Aldith seemed more than willing to learn – and so was Janna. If sharing their knowledge would benefit the villagers, her offer was surely worth consideration. About to say yes, a further thought stopped Janna. If she accepted, it would tie her to this place just as surely as she’d been tied by her mother and their life here. Was that what she truly wanted?

‘It’s kind of you to think of me, and I thank you,’ she said, searching for the words to frame a more gentle refusal than her mother would have done. ‘Please give me time to think about it, for I know not what the future holds for me. It’s too soon to make plans. Who knows, I may even marry.’ It was an attempt to sound light-hearted, but Aldith nodded in immediate understanding.

‘Eadgyth told me once that it was her dearest wish that you would marry and find happiness with a good man.’

‘Why should my mother wish for me what she never knew herself?’

‘I think because she wanted to keep you from making the same mistake that she did,’ Aldith said quietly.

‘Did you know my father?’ Janna could hardly breathe from excitement.

Reluctantly, Aldith shook her head. ‘I never met him,’ she admitted. ‘I only know the very little your mother confided to me when first she came here, swollen with child and looking for shelter.’

‘Where did she come from?’

Aldith shrugged. ‘I don’t know. She never said.’

‘Why did she come here? Did she tell you why she chose this place?’

‘She came to see the abbess. She had little money or jewellery to give in return for shelter, but the abbess did well out of the exchange for the cot you live in was derelict, and the small piece of land beside was not large enough to support a villein and his family. Not only did your mother repair the cot and render that land fruitful, she also paid rent to the abbess in return for that act of charity. Your mother was no beggar, Janna.’

‘Did she ever speak of her family, or her past? Please, please tell me everything you know,’ Janna begged.

‘I can’t tell you much. Your mother and I weren’t close, you know. I gave her shelter while your cottage was repaired, and we exchanged some confidences then. But I think she later regretted even the little she’d told me – and she repaid my kindness by stealing my patients!’

Janna was silenced by the bitterness in Aldith’s voice. Her mind teemed with the questions she wanted to ask: questions that Aldith probably couldn’t answer. She became aware that Aldith was studying her intently. ‘You have your father’s eyes,’ she said then, unexpectedly.

‘How can you know that? I thought you’d never met him.’

‘I didn’t. But your mother was a Saxon beauty with her fair hair and grey eyes. You have your mother’s fair hair, but your eyes are dark brown.’

‘Then I must be ugly. I would rather look like my mother than a father I don’t know and who doesn’t want to know me!’

‘I suspect he doesn’t know you even exist.’

‘Did she tell you that?’ Janna was worried now that she’d utterly misjudged her father, was ready to shift the blame for his neglect onto her mother.

‘No. From the very little she told me about her circumstances, I gained the impression that your father might be someone wealthy, important. Too important to wed a woman of no consequence like your mother.’

‘Surely, if my father was wealthy, he could have helped my mother live a better, more comfortable life than she did!’ Janna’s anger blew like a straw in the wind as it shifted between her mother and her father. She longed to know the true circumstances of her heritage and her birth.

‘Perhaps he was already betrothed to another and would not break off that alliance? Your mother may well have decided to leave rather than beg for his help when she realised she was carrying you!’ As she noticed Janna’s stricken expression, Aldith’s voice softened slightly. ‘Your mother did not hold a grudge against your father, for all of that. In fact, she spoke of him with great love – such a love, I think, that prevented her from taking any other man to her bed thereafter.’

Janna nodded slowly as she came to understand the truth behind her mother’s lonely life, and her desire for her only daughter to marry and be safe. ‘My father’s name? Did my mother ever say it?’ she asked, eager to learn all that Aldith could tell her.

To her utter disappointment, Aldith shook her head. ‘Your mother kept her secrets, Janna.’

‘From me, as well as you. And now she’s dead, I’ll never know the truth about my father.’ Janna felt her throat clog up with tears. With a huge effort, she struggled to stay dry-eyed and calm.

She took Aldith’s hand. ‘I am grateful to you, more grateful than I can say.’

‘Think over my offer.’ Aldith pressed Janna’s hand between her own. Janna felt ashamed of her mother’s past treatment of the midwife, for she believed that the woman was kind, and that she meant to bring comfort. ‘We’ll talk again,’ Aldith promised, and slipped away.

Head bowed, Janna stayed motionless, thinking over what she’d just learned. Her father was likely highborn, too important to wed her mother. Which meant that by now he would surely have wed someone else, a lady, and would probably have children of his own. She longed to know more about him. Why had her mother kept his secret, never gone after him, never asked him for anything in spite of the hard times she and Janna had lived through? Pride? Or was it love and the need to protect his good name with his family that had kept her away?

Aldith had told her she had her father’s brown eyes. She’d inherited more from him than that, Janna realised, for her fair hair and skill with herbs were her only likeness to her mother. As well as resembling her father, did she have his temperament too? What sort of man could he be to inspire such love and devotion in Eadgyth, and yet abandon her so completely? Janna frowned, rejecting any part of her own nature that could ever be so brutal.

What would her father say, if he knew he had a daughter? Would he welcome her, or was his new family so important to him that he’d deny her and show her the door?

Saddened by her thoughts, Janna walked slowly along the narrow street that led through Berford. It seemed to her that several people turned aside as she passed, or ducked into doorways or down lanes rather than meet her face to face. She looked back to check if her suspicion was true, just in time to see a young boy making the sign of a cross with his fingers, as if to ward off evil. Acting on impulse, Janna made the sign back at him. His eyes widened and he scuttled off. Janna looked after him, feeling troubled and angry that the villagers seemed so against her when her mother had always done her best to help them.

The priest and his sermons, and the fact that he would not bury her mother in consecrated ground: that news must be out already. Truly the priest had succeeded in turning her and her mother into outcasts.

Lost in thought as she was, Janna did not at first pay attention to the slender woman in the long green gown hurrying ahead of her. It was only when the woman glanced behind her, and their gaze met, that Janna realised who she was. Not bound by any notions of maidenly modesty, she picked up her skirts and raced after her.

‘Mistress Cecily!’ she shouted. ‘Please wait!’ There was no reason why a highborn tiring lady should pay her any attention or do as she was told. Janna understood that, but her need to ask questions was greater than her need to worry about propriety. ‘I want to ask you about my mother,’ she called.

The young woman stopped. Slowly, reluctantly, she turned to face Janna. Her face was pale, her eyes red-rimmed as if she’d recently been crying. Janna wondered where Hugh had gone, and if the lady was weeping because of him. She quickly banished that disturbing thought from her mind. She needed all her wits to find out what she could from the last person to see her mother alive.

‘Forgive me.’ She bobbed an awkward curtsy. ‘I called after you because I wanted to thank you again for looking after my mother while she lay dying. I’m trying now to piece together the last hours of her life, so that I may truly understand what happened to her.’ The tremor in Janna’s voice was real, and Cecily responded with sympathy.

‘Your mother did seem ill and out of sorts when she arrived back at the manor, but I put it down to the fact that there was quite an argument between her and Master Fulk over the best potion to help Dame Alice. Fulk had prepared a posset but your mother threw it out and told him to leave the room. Fulk appealed to Dame Alice, but she said he should do what he was told. He was very angry with Eadgyth. He blamed her for everything.’ Cecily cast a timid glance at Janna, then modestly lowered her eyes.

‘Did my mother have anything to eat or drink when she arrived?’

‘I offered her a beaker of water. She’d had a long walk and I thought she must be hot and thirsty.’

‘That was kind of you.’ Janna hesitated, wondering how to phrase the question without offending Cecily. ‘Did she say anything about the water? About its taste?’

‘No. She said she was thirsty, and she drank it straight down.’

‘So the water couldn’t have been …’ Janna was going to say ‘poisoned’, but stopped in time. ‘Foul? Polluted in some way?’

‘Not at all!’ Cecily bristled in indignation. ‘It was poured from the very jug that Dame Alice herself uses. But your mother was sick almost straight away.’

‘Who gave the water to my mother?’ Janna had visions of Fulk slipping aconite into the beaker, but then remembered that he’d been banished from the bedchamber.

‘I poured the water myself, and brought it to her. She thanked me. She said the water had cooled her. In fact, she complained of feeling cold.’ Cecily still looked indignant. Janna knew she could not press the matter further.