The Tavern in the Morning (16 page)

Josse, horrified, watched as two slow tears emerged from Joanna’s closed eyes and made trails down her cheeks.

‘Joanna, I—’ he began.

‘He sent for me every night over Christmas,’ she whispered. ‘At first the others were there too – sometimes the same men, sometimes different ones. And, each night, they were drunk, they were laughing, they acted as if it was all part of the jollity.’ Crying openly now, she sobbed, ‘And I did, too! Oh, Josse,
that’s
my sin! It
was
my fault, because I went along with it, pretended it was great fun, all a laugh, and exactly what I’d expected, what I’d come to court for!’

‘You were sixteen,’ Josse reminded her.

‘As I reminded you just now, many women are married and have families at sixteen!’

‘Perhaps,’ he acknowledged, ‘but you had led a sheltered life, you knew nothing!’

‘I soon learned,’ she said grimly. ‘My new lord and master made sure of that.’

‘What happened at the end of Christmas?’ Josse asked.

She shrugged. ‘Everybody went home with their own husbands and wives and got on with their ordinary lives.’

‘Including your seducer?’

Including him. But then, in February, I discovered I was pregnant.’

‘And your lord, having gone back to
his
wife, would not help you?’

‘I didn’t bother to tell him.’ She flashed angry eyes at Josse. ‘I’d had enough of
him
to last a lifetime.’

‘What did you do?’

‘My mother virtually expired on the spot when I told her, so I knew there would be no good ideas issuing from
there.
The only person I could think of was Denys – he’d been there, he knew what had happened, and he was the one person who wasn’t going to throw up his hands in horror at my condition.’

‘So you sent word to him?’

‘Yes. He came to see me – Mother would have none of it, she’d taken to her bed weeping and wailing, and didn’t even descend to greet him. I told Denys I was with child and he gave a sort of whistle. It was strange – well, with hindsight it wasn’t, although it seemed so at the time – but I had the impression that he was not at all displeased.’

‘What did he suggest?’

‘He said we must protect my good name and that meant we had to find me a husband. He said with a laugh that I mustn’t go hoping the baby’s father would marry me, there was no chance of
that
and I’d better get used to the idea, and I said I wouldn’t marry
him
if he were the last man left alive and whole.’

‘Did Denys have any other husbands in mind?’

‘Yes. Again, I had the feeling that this wasn’t as much a shock to him as I’d expected. He said to let him ponder the matter for a few days, and that he’d return as soon as he could, when he’d spoken to some people. I waited – there wasn’t really anything else I could do – and, a week later, Denys came back and said he had betrothed me to somebody called Thorald de Lehon, that we would be married as soon as it could be arranged, and that I would then go with my new husband to live in his manor in Brittany.’

‘Brittany,’ Josse repeated.

‘Yes.’ She met his glance. ‘I thought, as I suspect you are thinking, that Brittany was a goodly way away from England and therefore from English court gossip.’

‘Did you think you were being hustled away and out of sight, into some rural backwater where everybody would forget all about you?’

‘I did. Even more when we got to Lehon, I assure you. There’s an Abbey, quite grand, with a holy community who devote themselves exclusively to their prayers. There’s a mill and a river, there are acres and acres of low-lying fields, there’s a nice town nearby, only I was never permitted to visit it unless Thorald accompanied me. And he was a virtual recluse – he only went outside to go hunting, and he didn’t allow me to hunt. Then Ninian was born.’

‘Did Thorald believe the boy to be his?’

She raised her shoulders. ‘I have no idea. We never spoke of it. We barely spoke at all. Thorald treated Ninian roughly, but then he treated me roughly too, so that in itself didn’t imply a particular grudge against Ninian.’

Josse remembered Ninian speaking of beatings:
when he was dead it meant he didn’t beat us anymore.
‘You had a bad time,’ he said, trying not to let his huge sympathy show lest it undermined her.

‘I probably deserved it,’ she said. ‘Thorald said I did. He kept saying women were full of sin and must repent, and he made sure I went regularly to confession.’ She grinned briefly. ‘Those holy men at the Abbey must have loved me. When I ran out of real sins – and that did take quite a while, it was a long Christmas season containing many nights of lust – I started making things up.’

‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ Josse said gently. ‘The Church should be given respect, and—’

‘The Church has done nothing for me!’ she countered. ‘It gave me no support in my trials, no comfort when first I went to confess my sins! D’you know what the priest said I must do? Honour my husband and be his obedient wife, and in that way prove that I had it in me to live a
right
life! Oh, Josse, don’t go lecturing me about
respect!
I’ll tell you what that priest’s interference meant – it meant I had to endure
six years
of being bedded whenever he felt like it by a foul-smelling, unwashed man older than my own father, who, while I gritted my teeth and prayed for him to finish, would dig his fingers into my flesh and tell me that my sufferings were ordained and sanctioned by God in order to rid my soul of its stains!’

‘He lied to you, Joanna,’ Josse protested. ‘He was twisted, warped, and he used your own guilt as a way of making you comply. Don’t blame the whole Church for one evil old man!’

‘He happened to be the evil old man I’d been handed to in marriage!’ she shouted. ‘And why shouldn’t I blame the Church? I’m quite sure Thorald was in league with the priest – they spent long enough closeted away together! Why, I wouldn’t put it past Thorald to have outlined exactly what new perversion he wanted of me, so that the priest could include it in my penance!’

She was on her feet now, hands on her hips, leaning over Josse with an expression like thunder. He read in her face and body her humiliation, her hurt pride, her misery, her helpless subservience. To a woman like her, what a burden it all must have been.

‘And then,’ she resumed, calmer now, ‘Thorald died. Went out hunting, put his horse at a brook, and shot off head-first when his horse stumbled.’ She looked at Josse, looked away again. ‘They do say the horse was lame. A sore foot, where a stone had lodged beneath the shoe.’

‘And then you fled to England,’ Josse finished for her.

‘Before any of my horrible in-laws could arrive and conjure up any other sort of imprisonment for me. Yes. I fled, all right.’

‘Why here?’

‘You
know
why,’ Joanna said, exasperated. ‘Because Mag Hobson lived here.’

‘Why not return to your mother?’

‘My mother died, for one thing. And for another, if she
had
been still alive, wouldn’t that be a sure way of allowing Denys to find me again? It’d be the first place he’d have looked. And surely you can see that I’d hardly have welcomed
that.
’

‘He is your relative, though,’ Josse persisted. ‘Family duty would ordain that he offer you help, and—’

‘NO!’
Joanna shouted. ‘Josse,
he
was the one who got me into such a mess! He—’ She stopped short. After a brief pause, she said more calmly, ‘He was the last person I wanted to see.’

Josse had the distinct feeling she had been going to say something else but had changed her mind. He waited in case she spoke again, but she didn’t.

‘You came to Mag Hobson,’ he said slowly, ‘and she brought you here, to this house.’

‘Yes. It belonged to my mother’s great-uncle and his wife. They were nice – I used to be brought to stay with them when I was a child.’

‘When you met Mag, who worked for them?’

‘Yes. I spent hours with her – she used to let me help her, and she taught me a great deal. My great-uncle and aunt thought the world of her and, when they died, she went on looking after their house. She always thought that, one day, someone would come along and claim it, and she said it was her duty to the old couple to keep things neat and tidy.’ She paused. ‘I truly loved her, you know. She was a wonderful woman. And I believe she loved me, too.’

‘I think she must have done,’ Josse agreed. ‘Hiding you here was a good solution. Nobody knew about this house, and the chances of anybody – of Denys finding it by pure accident were slim.’

‘He must have been waiting for her when she went back to her shack after coming here to see Ninian and me,’ Joanna said slowly. ‘Any number of people could have told him where to find Mag Hobson – he’d only have had to ask. I wanted her to stay here, with us, where it was safe, but she said no, she didn’t like to leave her place unattended. Unloved, was what she said.’ Joanna smiled faintly. ‘I wish she had stayed, though. We knew Denys was in the vicinity – we’d … Never mind. But, even then, she wouldn’t stay with us.’ Joanna’s eyes had filled with tears. ‘So she went home,’ she whispered through them, ‘and he found her. Found her, beat her, broke her fingers, and
still
she didn’t tell him where we were.’ She swallowed. ‘Then he pushed her in the water and drowned her.’

She stood shaking, crying as if her heart had broken. Josse, unable to stand the pitiful sight, stood up and took her in his arms.

This time, there was no passionate reaction from her, and he hadn’t expected there would be. She leaned agaist him like a weary child, her pride and her courage spent, her defences finally breached.

With one hand he smoothed her hair, as he had done before. He held her, murmuring quietly, but she couldn’t have heard. Not that it mattered, since he was talking nonsense. He went on holding her, giving her the warmth and support of his physical presence, while she cried out all her pain, her guilt and her sorrow.

And, eventually, she stopped.

Chapter Eleven

‘That was quite a tale,’ Josse said, gently disentangling himself from Joanna.

She was busy wiping her eyes and her face with the end of her sleeve. ‘Yes.’ She managed a rainbow smile. ‘I’m sorry to have been such a child, crying like that. Only it’s really the first time I’ve spoken of it.’

‘Is it? You didn’t confide in Mag?’

The smile was more confident now. ‘There was no need. Mag knew.’

‘I hadn’t realised she had gone on being involved in your life. While you were married, I mean.’

‘She wasn’t.’

‘Then how did she know?’

The smile was positively mischievous now, as if Joanna were enjoying the teasing. ‘Had you known her, you wouldn’t need to ask. She just
knew.
She had a way of studying you, perhaps holding your hand, and she’d ask one or two apparently irrelevant questions, then she’d say, Ah, yes. I know what
you
need, my girl. And she did. Whether it was one of her infusions for some small ill when I was young, or whether it was the need for a safe, loving refuge when I was all but defeated by my own problems, she provided it. And she always made you feel whole again.’

There was a silence, as if they were both honouring Mag Hobson’s memory. Then Josse said, ‘I wish I had known her.’

Joanna looked at him. ‘You’d have liked her. She’d have liked you, too, what’s more, and that would have been quite an honour. She didn’t hold with men as a rule.’

‘She didn’t?’

‘No. Can you blame her? She wanted to be an independent woman, living honestly on the small amounts she made from her cures and her comforts. Not that she ever charged much, only what people could afford. If they couldn’t afford anything, she treated them for nothing. You saw how she lived, you can see she wasn’t wealthy!’

‘Aye, I can.’

‘But that wasn’t good enough for God’s Holy Church. Oh, no. All her life, Mag had to cope with meddlesome priests and clerics, poking their long noses in, demanding to know what she was up to, how she brought about her cures, what she thought she was doing making her potions, and all but accusing her of consorting with devils.’ Joanna was rapidly working herself up again. ‘Just because she was different, just because she saw God in terms other than those laid down by those blasted priests, they shunned her, cast her out, turned her into someone who had to hide herself away, so that people who genuinely
needed
her help had to sneak out to see her in the middle of the night!’ She paused for breath, turning blazing eyes on Josse. ‘Surely you can understand why she disliked male company!’

‘Not all men are priests,’ Josse said reasonably.

‘Oh, I know, but sheriffs and lordlings and puffed-up knights were almost as bad. It’s the way of the world, Josse. Men take against women who demonstrate that they can do well enough on their own. Without some husband telling them what they may or may not do. It hurts their pride, I suppose.’

Josse was thinking. ‘I believe you may be right,’ he said.

She grinned. ‘I
know
I am. Did you ever marry, Josse?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Perhaps because I reckoned I’d do well enough without some
wife
ordering my days for me.’

Her brows went down in a scowl as her mouth opened to make some retort, but then her face cleared and she began to laugh. ‘Sir knight, I believe you are making fun of me.’

‘A little,’ he admitted. ‘It’s good to hear you laugh.’

‘It’s good to want to,’ she murmured.

They stood facing one another, an arm’s length apart. He thought, I could embrace her now, kiss her sweet face and, in all likelihood, awake that passion in her again. Which would be joyous, for both of us, and would perhaps give her comfort of a sort she has never before received.

Or I could do as my conscience tells me I should and, for all that it is late, set out for Hawkenlye. The gates will be barred for the night, but I can beg a bed from the monks in the vale. I’ve done it often enough before.