Janna Mysteries 1 & 2 Bindup (34 page)

‘They come from somewhere in the west.’ Gytha yawned, and then brightened as a more interesting subject came into her mind. ‘Master Siward paid me a great deal of attention when I served the wine and cakes. I do believe my lord Hugh was quite put out by his interest.’ She gave a self-satisfied giggle. Janna wanted to hit her, but turned away instead, telling herself that her jealousy was unworthy. The girl was beautiful, and if Hugh wanted a dalliance with her it was none of Janna’s business.

She remembered her promise to Cecily, and turned her steps towards the kitchen garden. Pangs of hunger reminded her that she’d dropped the sack containing her dinner while she’d tried to resuscitate Hamo. Should she go after it? She sighted the angle of the sun slanting across the downs. No, it would take too long. She would just have to go hungry. The thought contributed to Janna’s misery as she bent to pluck the herbs she needed for the healing ointment.

She was on her way to the kitchen when Godric found her. ‘I was going to leave without seeing you again,’ he said curtly, ‘but I thought you should know, Janna, that your running away has brought ill to my family, to my manor and to the village. I told a lie to Dame Alice and my liege lord, Robert of Babestoche. I told them that you were dead.’

Janna cast a quick glance around, making sure that no-one could hear their conversation. ‘I know, Godric, and I am grateful to you, more grateful than I can say.’

‘But I have been sore punished for the lie.’ Godric spoke over her thanks. ‘The priest has claimed mortuary from me, payment I cannot afford, and –’

‘But why? Why claim mortuary from you?’

‘Because I said that I had buried you in the forest, and because he claims that we were betrothed. He has taken my best goat in payment, even though the abbess has asked nothing from me. Nor has Dame Alice or anyone else. I told the priest he was mistaken about us, but he will not believe me.’ There was such a depth of bitterness in Godric’s voice that Janna couldn’t bear it.

‘I’m so sorry.’ She put her hand on Godric’s arm, but he shook it off and pulled away from her.

‘That’s not the worst of it,’ he said. ‘My mother took ill and died. There was no one to physic her as your mother did last time she had an attack and couldn’t breathe properly. By running away, you’ve left the village without a healer, Janna.’

‘I … but they drove me out!’ Janna spluttered. Surely Godric knew that the villagers had burned her cottage down, that she’d had no choice but to flee?

‘Everyone mourns your death.’ He spoke sincerely.

‘Everyone?’ Janna’s voice raised in anger. ‘The villagers set fire to my cottage, Godric. They didn’t care if I burned along with it. That’s why I ran away. That’s why I didn’t dare show myself even to you!’

He glanced sharply at her. ‘You should have trusted me,’ he muttered.

Janna knew that he was right, but still she tried to justify her actions. ‘I had to go! Don’t you see, it wasn’t safe for me to stay. I thought if I … That is, I didn’t want …’

‘… to see me. I know. You’ve already made that quite clear in the past.’ Godric’s mouth clamped down in a tight, hard line. Without saying goodbye, he turned and strode off towards the gate of the manor.

‘I’m sorry about your mother. I’m so sorry, Godric,’ Janna called after him. But he walked on, not acknowledging that he’d heard her words, or that he’d forgiven her.

There was still no sign of Edwin when at last, weary and hungry, Janna went to her bed. Although she felt concern, she told herself that Edwin was free to come and go about the manor as he pleased. What crowded into Janna’s mind now were the events of the day. So much had happened to trouble and distress her. She felt great anger and impatience that she couldn’t explain to Hugh, Godric and Cecily why she’d acted as she had, and great shame as she realised how they must view her now.

‘It’s not fair!’ she muttered rebelliously as she turned and turned again, trying to get comfortable on her prickly straw pallet.

Restless, impatient for action, she lay and listened to the night noises, the snarks and snorts and mumbles of the sleepers. She had planned to leave the manor this very night. In the absence of Edwin, should she now go on her own? Yes, she thought, and half-rose from her bed. She subsided again as more careful thought advised against it. While she wanted most desperately to run away from Hugh, caution told her that she would do better to wait until Edwin could go with her. Alone, she was vulnerable, even if she was dressed as a boy. Edwin’s presence, and their fabricated family history, would protect them both.

Janna passed an uneasy night. The faint light that heralded the dawn found her wakeful and anxious to rise. She scrubbed at her face with her hands and smoothed back her hair, feeling again its silky growth since the fire. She slipped quietly from her bed and pulled her knife from its sheath. She tested its edge with a cautious finger, and frowned. Then she remembered the great whetstone outside the blacksmith’s shop, left in position for the villeins to sharpen their scythes while haymaking. She was bent over the whetstone with her knife when Bertha walked past, carrying a small sack. Janna greeted her cheerfully.

Bertha stopped short, looking startled. ‘What are you doing out here so early, John?’ she asked, not returning Janna’s greeting.

‘Sharpening my knife.’ Janna wondered if she could take advantage of Bertha’s good nature. ‘Are you any good at cutting hair? Will you cut mine?’

Bertha’s attention came full onto Janna then. She hesitated. ‘Does it have to be done now?’

Janna nodded. ‘Yes, if you please, mistress.’ She didn’t want to delay, and the alternative was to cut her hair herself. Without being able to see anything, she knew she’d make an awful job of it.

Bertha sighed. She dropped the sack she was carrying and held out her hand for Janna’s knife, while Janna settled herself down on the stone block within easy reach of Bertha’s hands.

‘How does your family, mistress?’ she asked, to make conversation while Bertha set about hacking at her hair. She tried not to wince as snippets fell about her feet, curled round like small golden snails.

‘What?’

‘Your family. Are they well?’ Janna wondered what preoccupied Bertha, and why she was abroad so early. The sun had not yet arisen. Mist shrouded the cots and turned trees into many-armed ghosts in the pearly light.

‘Yes, my family are well, thank you. And you? Are you well?’

‘Yes, I thank you.’ There seemed no more to say on that topic. What else could they talk about to pass the time? Janna’s thoughts turned to the missing Edwin. ‘I wonder if you’ve seen my brother at all, mistress? He was not in his bed last night, and I’m wondering what has become of him?’

‘Edwin?’ The knife slipped in Bertha’s hand, nicking Janna’s scalp. Janna stifled a cry. She shifted uneasily on her stone seat, wondering at Bertha’s clumsiness. ‘No, I haven’t seen him,’ Bertha continued snappily. ‘Why should you think I have?’

‘No reason,’ Janna said hastily. ‘I’m concerned about him, that’s all.’

‘I expect he’ll turn up soon enough. There!’ Bertha slapped Janna’s shoulders in a hasty dust-up, sending bits of hair scattering in all directions. ‘You look like a boy again, John.’

And what did Bertha mean by that last remark, Janna wondered. Had her disguise worn thin, or had Edwin told her the truth about both of them? Was that why she seemed so anxious for Janna to be gone?

No. Janna dismissed the notion. Edwin’s truth was too dangerous to be told. She was just imagining the worst.

‘Thank you, mistress,’ she said. As she walked past the last of the little cottages towards the manor, she looked back, curious to know where Bertha might be going, but the carpenter’s daughter had already vanished. Hunger drove Janna on to the kitchen, and also the hope that she might find Edwin there, ravenous after his night out and ready to break his fast. She had to jump sideways to avoid the sharp teeth of Bones, who was tethered nearby, before she could enter the door.

‘So there you are,’ Mistress Tova greeted her. ‘And where is your brother?’

‘I know not, mistress. I thought he might be here, having something to eat.’

‘I haven’t seen him since yesterday afternoon.’ The cook poked her long nose into the air, and sniffed.

Janna tried to hide her disquiet by stuffing a hunk of bread into her mouth and chewing vigorously, before washing down the mouthful with a gulp of ale. Once her appetite was satisfied, however, she took the chance to question the rest of the kitchen staff. To her alarm, no-one had seen Edwin.

‘Run away and left you to face Serlo alone, most like. I always knew he was no good.’ The cook dusted her floured hands down her apron before adding a final word. ‘Just wonder what he’s taken with him,’ she muttered darkly.

‘Nothing! He’s as honest as I am!’ Even as Janna leapt to Edwin’s defence she remembered how he’d tried to steal her purse. She also remembered all the lies she and Edwin had told. ‘Master Serlo has probably found work for him to do elsewhere about the manor that’s keeping him busy,’ she said, conscious of the rising tide of heat that coloured her face with shame. Yet she had to defend Edwin, and herself, lest the burning of the haystack was laid upon their shoulders, along with the other disasters that had happened recently.

Mistress Tova sniffed again. ‘Master Serlo will keep good watch over your brother. He won’t be able to cause any more trouble while the reeve is there.’

Janna knew what she was thinking, what everyone was probably thinking. She was about to tell the cook off for spreading malicious lies, but stopped herself in time. In the past her hasty words had often caused her trouble, but she was learning from bitter experience to put a guard on her tongue, to think before she spoke.

‘Master Serlo is a good reeve,’ she agreed instead. ‘And a good catch for any girl – even if Mistress Gytha doesn’t want him for a husband,’ she added, hoping to divert the cook from her suspicions.

The cook shot her a sharp glance. Janna tried to look demure, but her eyes twinkled with mischief. ‘’Tis true,’ Mistress Tova acknowledged grudgingly. ‘My lord certainly knows Serlo’s worth, for he treats him well. Serlo has a good-sized cottage, and he was given the gore acres to cultivate for himself. I’ve seen the cartloads of goods that Serlo takes to the big fairs, his own bounty as well as my lord’s, and good quality, all of it. Fetches a good price too, I’ll be bound.’ The cook tapped a bony finger against her long nose. ‘There’ll be no shortage of pretty girls waiting in line when he decides to take a wife. Of course, he’d marry Gytha tomorrow, if she would only have him. I’ve told her she could do a lot worse for herself than marry Serlo, for once young Hamo comes of age …’

She shrugged thin shoulders, leaving unsaid her wish that her daughter would secure her future with the reeve rather than trying to seduce the reeve’s master who, at the end of the day, might be left with nothing. Janna wondered whether to encourage the cook to urge her daughter to see sense, but decided it was wiser to keep out of their affairs. Instead, she thanked the cook for the sack of dinner she’d provided, and asked after Hamo.

‘Staying in his bed today, at Mistress Cecily’s insistence, but there’s nothing wrong with his appetite.’ The cook’s words set Janna’s mind at rest that Hamo was none the worse for his ducking. She remembered the tethered dog beside the kitchen door.

‘And Bones?’ she asked. ‘What is to become of the dog?’

The cook scowled, and jerked a floury thumb over her shoulder. ‘I’m to give it vittles and water.’ Janna saw a bright eye peer hopefully around the doorway at them.

‘If the young lord is to keep his pet, then I’d like to put some medicament on its paws,’ Janna said. ‘Hopefully, the cur’s temper will improve once it is out of pain.’

‘Get the skivvy to muzzle it,’ the cook advised. ‘It’ll have a piece of your breeches, otherwise.’

Janna laughed. ‘I know all about that,’ she said cheerfully, and put down the sack of food while she went off to pluck some herbs.

Her hands stank from the juice of ragwort as she brewed a lotion with sanicle to put on the dog’s paws. Conscious that time was passing, but feeling slightly guilty that she was getting out of the difficult part of the treatment, she gave some of the astringent mixture to the skivvy with instructions to first cleanse the dog’s paws and then wrap them tight to protect them from becoming dirty and infected once more. ‘Keep Bones tied up and out of trouble,’ she said, adding, ‘and get someone to hold the dog’s jaw tight so he won’t bite you.’ Ignoring the skivvy’s horrified expression, she gathered up a fresh paste of healing herbs for the big, black destrier that awaited her in the stable.

She was pleased to find no sign of Hugh, while his mount seemed much better. She summoned the surly stable lad to hold up the hoof while she unwound the bandage to check. The wound was healing nicely, and she felt a sense of satisfaction as she washed it with lotion and applied the new paste. Human or animal, it mattered not who or what she treated so long as she could heal them, she thought, as she bound up the horse’s hoof once more.

Bright sunshine had burnt away the early morning mist. Janna emerged from the dimness of the stables and stood blinking in the sunlight. Shearing was still underway and she knew she should go down to the fold to help, but for a moment she lingered, enjoying a moment’s rest in the warmth of the sun.