The Knight and the Rose Paperback - 2002

Details

• Title The Knight and the Rose
• Author Isolde Martyn
• Binding Paperback
• Edition 1st Thus.
• Pages 464
• Volumes 1
• Language ENG
• Publisher Berkley Books, E Rutherford, New Jersey, U.S.A.
• Date 2002-02-05
• ISBN 9780425183298 / 0425183297
• Weight 0.82 lbs (0.37 kg)
• Dimensions 8.26 x 5.6 x 0.99 in (20.98 x 14.22 x 2.51 cm)
• Library of Congress subjects Historical fiction, Love stories
• Library of Congress Catalog Number 2001043179
• Dewey Decimal Code FIC

One

March 18th, the Feast of St. Edward the Martyr

I'LL NOT BE TAKIN' YOU FURTHER, MASTER SCHOLAR." Geraint awoke to a jab in the ribs, felt the weight of Edmund's inert body across his thighs and knew that the danger, the nightmare, was still with him.

The carter clambered down from the driving board and relieved himself on an untidy cairn of stones. It gave Geraint the chance to come to his wits before the fellow sauntered round to the side of the wain and lifted up the sacks that had been giving his passengers a meagre protection against the chill damp.

Rubbing the sleep out of his bleary eyes with his thumb and forefinger, Geraint wondered how he had even managed to doze, awkwardly crammed in as he was between the tightly lashed barrels of Bordeaux wine and the crates of North Sea stockfish.

"Looks like he'll be wearin' a thick 'ead when he wakes," the carter muttered, casting grim eyes over the youth cradled in Geraint's arms and wrapped chrysalis-like within a heavy cloak. "Won this at dice, did he?" He reached out and tested the fabric between his fingers.

In a different world, Geraint might have clouted the clod for his discourtesy but the fellow unwittingly had carried them at risk of his own life. They had certainly not been on the list of goods to be collected.

"Aye, he did," Geraint muttered indifferently, tossing his fair hair back and eyeing the wild wood that disappeared into the mist in each direction with misgiving. "Where are we?"

They had been trundling for hours across a foggy, God-forsaken moor since leaving Ripon but now he could hear the churning ofriver water against crags and knew they had left the high country.

"T' road yonder hies east up t'at moors agenn and I dare say you'll no be wantin' that. Go straight on an' down the road lies Skipton. If you'd be wantin' t' nearest village, cross the bridge, take the right lane and follow t' beck along. Me, as I told you this mornin', I be bound to deliver goods to Bardon and, like as not, the Cliffords or t'constable ull give me food'n lodging, but they don't like me bringing extra travellers wi' me. Tried it afore."

"Aye, fair enow," answered Geraint. "Help me down with him then." Not for the first time, he was tempted to slide a blade be-tween the carter's ribs and seize the wain, but he had seen so much death in the last week that he had no stomach for further killing and, like as not, if the man was known hereabouts, some gossip might recognise the horses and start asking questions. Besides, the man seemed to be a charitable fellow with a misplaced respect for poor sozzled scholars and did not deserve such a miserly end.

"Happen there might be another traveller as can take you further,"muttered the carter, clearly feeling guilty at dumping themlike sacks of waste from a tanner's. Between them, they lifted downthe groaning, valuable heir of the imprisoned rebel, Sir Roger Mortimer. "By the Rood, he ain't no feather."

Geraint grunted. Both he and the carter were strongly built but the intermesh of Edmund's bones and flesh weighed cursed heavy. It was a veritable marvel how two humble feet could keep any healthy man upright at all, let alone in chain mail, he reflected, as he propped Edmund against a convenient milestone and straightened his aching back, striving to hide the fact that his own wound was hurting like the Devil's fire. The cold wind was already scourging him through the thin fabric of his tunic and poking icy fingers into his ears. He tugged his ragged hood forward and stamped his feet to get the blood flowing back through his limbs, stiffened from the journey.

"I ain't partial to pokin' me nose in where it ain't welcome," muttered the carter, scratching his scrubby chin. "But your friend seems right sickly."

"Pah," snorted his passenger dismissively, "if you think he looks white around the gills, you should have seen him under the alehouse board two days ago. We are supposed to be journeying back to his family," he added. "Leastways we will be if he can poxy well stay sober enough to tell me the directions."

The middle part of the freshly baked tale was certainly not a lie-that was if King Edward's armoured sheepdogs had not herded up the remainder of the Mortimers still at large.

"An' here was I hopin' he might be one of them wounded rebels what opposed the king's men up Boroughbridge way. Might be a reward for some of 'em, I shouldn't wonder." So the fellow did not have a turnip for a brain.

Geraint sniffed with what he hoped was convincing incredulity and shook his head. "Not him, my life upon it!" He was careful to watch the carter's face, hoping that the man believed him. With the flail wound weakening his left shoulder and arm, he did not rate his chances of overpowering such a brawny fellow. During the journey, he would have had surprise on his side, but face to face now with merely a knife-well, not unless he had to.

"Aye, well," the carter shrugged. "I'll be off then. God be wi'you, lad, and Christ preserve your drunken sot albeit he looks ripe for an early grave. There's a priory down the dale if you reckon sommat else is ailing him." Sensible advice except that his enemies would be sniffing around the religious houses like dogs above a coney warren.

"He will be back at the dicing table tomorrow," Geraint grinned. If he was not dead before sundown. "God's blessing on you and my thanks."

"Glad to have the company, young 'un, not that you said aught. But it's good to have some extra muscle if a wheel should loosen comin' over the high places an' I should not have cared to meet one of them rebels." With that, the carter clapped him heartily on his wounded shoulder then happily busied himself checking girths and hooves, leaving his passenger with his teeth clamped together, nearly passing out with the pain of it.

With relief, Geraint watched him eventually flick his carthorses moving. It was a mercy the fellow had not expected payment; being dressed like a poor scholar had its advantages. He scowled at the stained, worn tunic that served him now and waited until the cart had rumbled out of sight before he heaved Edmund into the paltry shelter of the wood.

A twitter of wrens in the thicket complained at being disturbed as he gently set Edmund down and paused to retrieve his breath. The young knight's lank brown hair lay tumbled incongruously across a patch of wood anemones that were optimistically unfurling.

Poor Edmund. Nature had spooned him out too small a dose of his father's appetite to live life to its full. Yet the lad had tried his best to act in Roger's interests and support my lords of Hereford and Lancaster against the king.

Geraint had little thought to play his nurse, but discovering their companions slain and stripped beside the campfire when he returned from seeking food and tidings, and only the lad left alive, had given him little choice. Dead before nightfall? Please God, no, but the dank, grey weather seemed to be closing in upon them again.

He felt the despair of being a stranger and the hollowness of not knowing where to find kindness that could hold its tongue. With no familiarity with these Yorkshire dales, he was not certain how far they had come from the great road north nor whether the people of these parts had heard the tidings of the battle.

He decided to scout out an empty barn loft, warm with animal breath, where he could bestow Edmund at dusk. His clothing had already blessed him with a kind of sanctity, so it seemed but a simple matter to pass himself off as a footloose schoolmaster and cozen a crust or two from a housewife. And with God's provi-dence, there might be a laundered sheet left out upon a hedge that he could pilfer to dress their wounds.

The ashes and hawthorns, still unbudded, yielded no cover so he hacked free some nearby coppice to make a shelter of sorts, interweaving a mesh of foliage byre-like around Edmund's body. It would conceal the youth's presence and shield the upper part of his body and, with God's good grace, keep the wind from chilling him further. Not that it seemed the young knight was even aware enough to be troubled.

Setting out to return to the crossroads, Geraint took the village lane, which ran cheek by jowl with the wood as far as he could see. Accustomed to riding, he felt disoriented and vulnerable out of the saddle, or maybe it was because his wounded shoulder throbbed with every step, his belly was pleading to be fed and the freezing wind was slowly addling his mind.

Furrows of mud sucked at his feet so he picked his way instead along the matted grass at the road edge, trying to avoid slithering into the ditch that kept him company. It was an effort to keep the memory of the battle and its aftermath from repeating like a continual rallying trumpet in his head, and to staunch the anxiety that he could be hanged or worse. Dazedly he floundered on, blowing on his fingers and trying to concentrate on his footing.

Pounding hooves and the jingle of harness drove the weariness from his mind. God forbid they were bounty hunters! Cursing, he sprang into the ditch and crouched against the mess of ivy and nettles. A half-score of men-at-arms, their surcotes too far off for him to recognise, came thudding into sight heading towards the village.

Pressing his body hard into the bank, he crossed himself, offering more rash promises to St. Jude as the ground pounded with their passing, or was it his heart, frantic lest they drag him away for interrogation before they hanged him?

The saint must have heard his desperate prayer. With his damp hose muddied further and his hands prickling from nettle stings, Geraint eventually clambered back onto the road.

If the soldiers were searching the village or drinking at an ale-wife's, he would be better to seek his help from some more isolated villeins, so he struck south through the wood, his arms hugging his body against the wind-hurled raindrops. Were they bounty hunters? Would they search this far for fugitives? All about him the lichen-encrusted trunks grew hostile as if they shared some sinister secret. Unease crawled down his spine. The telltale slap of startled pigeon wings confirmed it; he was being hunted.

In the solar at Enderby, Johanna took the letter her husband held out to her, cursing that she had never been given the opportunity to learn what the confusion of black marks meant.

"What does it say? Oh, for our Lord's sake, tell me!"

Eager as a young dog to please, her mother's comely, fair-haired groom, who had just arrived from Conisthorpe bearing the letter, butted in: "My lady, your father is dying, and your lady mother beseeches you to come home straightway."

Sir Fulk de Enderby twitched the parchment from Johanna's fingers and turned a face towards the groom that usually bespoke punishment for his own servants. Realising his offence, scarlet faced, the young man fearfully pulled his forelock and inspected his toecaps as if he had suddenly grown alien appendages.

"Does he speak truly?" Johanna asked swiftly, diverting Fulk's wrath and anxious to know what else her mother had written. There were more lines marching across the letter than that brief summary had warranted.

Her husband gave a curt nod, folding the missive and tucking it beneath the safe custody of his belt. No sympathy lay behind his cold smile. Had Fulk been in Jerusalem at the time of the blessed Christ's crucifixion, he would have been one of Pilate's household knights ramming the crown of thorns harder on Jesus's brow, and wearing that same coercive expression.

Discipline and conformity were everything to Fulk. Which was why she, his young third wife, had failed every test. Above all, she was barren, her womb unresponsive to his seed and her husband could not forgive her for it. He had tried to beat obedience and pump fruitfulness into her until she was bruised both out-wardly and inwardly, but still her mind and body had refused to conform.

And her father and mother, rid of her, had remained indifferent even though she had dispatched them word of her unhappiness. A sympathetic visiting friar had clandestinely carried them tidings of her misery, but no answer had come. Though a baron with Norman ancestry and of higher rank than her husband, her father, Lord Alan FitzHenry, had not bothered to admonish his old friend Fulk. The ties between them as companions-in-arms were clearly more important than helping his once beloved younger daughter.

"Well, wife, what is to be done? You are of a sudden unusually tongue-tied."\

Johanna swallowed nervously, glad that the veil hiding her injuries also screened her from Fulk's interrogative stare. Please God, she could play this aright. She tightened her lips stubbornly as she chose her words.

"My father can die without me," she declared. "I have no wish to set eyes upon his face again." Turning towards the cushioned windowseat, she crossed her fingers within the shadows of her sleeve and waited for his temper to take flame.

Her husband grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her round to face him. "Why, what ignoble attitude is this? You shame my name, wife."

Beneath her veil, she winced at his touch. "I will not go."

He turned abruptly on her mother's messenger. "Wait outside!"

Fingers, fierce as talons, fastened into the soft flesh of her upper arms. Fulk loomed over her. If ever Death the Great Leveller set aside his hooded travelling cloak and scythe to dress for dinner at a bishop's table, she would wager he would have the appearance of her husband-tall, gaunt, hoary-headed and bereft of pleasure in humanity.

"You shameful bitch!"

Vixen, she hoped, might be nearer the truth.

"Go? With this?" she hissed, setting back the gauzy tisshewe to show where he had hit her. "I curse my father that he married me to you! He may die alone and unshriven for aught I care."

Fulk, as always, was unmoved by guilt or shame. "Curse all you please, woman, but your father still has not paid the balance of your dowry and I will have it." He thrust her away, and paced towards the brazier. Turning, he jabbed his forefinger towards her. "I say you shall go. You will reconcile yourself with your father and plead on your knees for what he owes me. Tell him you are with child."

"By you!" she scoffed, hating him with the loathing that Our Blessed Lady must have felt towards Judas on the morning of Christ's passion.

Hurling insults at Fulk's age and childlessness were the only weapons in her arsenal save cunning. She voiced them seldom, fearing too much use would blunt them. But today the victory must be hers.

With one stride, he grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. She trembled at the fury in those joyless eyes, afraid lest she had gone too far. If he beat her senseless, she would be too ill to travel.

"I had a foul bargain in you, girl. How many beatings will it take to make you hold your peevish tongue?" He stroked his fingers down her throat and she froze, her gaze averted from the pale, lined flesh, the steel blue eyes. Take away my looks, she prayed. Make me loathsome so he will set me away out of his sight.

"I thought your youth and vigour would swiftly nourish my seed, but you are disobedient, Johanna. You do not give yourself to me like a good wife should." Not now, she prayed desperately. Not here, with my mother's servant beyond the door. "I will not go!" she hissed. "So what will you do? Tie me to the litter?"

"Escort you there myself and stand behind you to see you grovel on your hands and knees for your inheritance."

"You go and do the grovelling. I care not."

His thumb and finger collared her throat. "I think I will devise some new punishment for your waywardness. A public humiliation. A scold's bridle perhaps." He was bluffing. No knight would shame his lady in the common gaze although privily he might well humiliate her in front of the servants. "Or would you prefer the hair shirt and scourging once again?"

For an instant longer, she showed him no fear.

"I mean it, wife. Or perhaps you would like me to dismiss your beloved Agnes?"

"You Hellspawn!" She hung her head, seemingly defeated.

"Excellent, I see we understand each other at last." He let her go and flung open the door.

"Return to Lady Constance, fellow, and tell her my lady her daughter will set out at first light. Will you not, my heart?"

Johanna sent him a sullen look and turned her back. As the door closed behind him leaving her alone, she at last dared to smile in triumph.

--from The Knight and the Rose by Isolde Martyn, Copyright & copy; February 2002, The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam, Inc., used by permission."