At dark, Maud made pallets for Joanna and herself by the hearth. But the bedchamber door could not completely shut out the sounds of sobbing. At last Joanna cried herself to sleep. She was awakened well past midnight by a dull thud. Sitting up, she saw her mother standing by the table, two of Luke’s wine flagons clutched to her chest. She put her fingers to her lips, backed stealthily toward the door. Her face was waxen in the moonlight, her eyes swollen to slits, blonde hair spilling down her breasts and shoulders in a colorless, tangled snarl. Joanna’s breathing quickened; this glassy-eyed, swaying stranger was not her mother.
By the time she wriggled free of the blankets, Clemence had retreated back into the bedchamber. As Joanna reached the door, she heard the bolt slide into place. When Maud awoke at dawn, she found the little girl asleep on the floor, huddled against the bedchamber door.
The day seemed endless. Joanna wandered about the cottage like a ghost; not even Middleham Castle could lure her away from that closed bedchamber door. Maud made periodic attempts to coax Clemence out. Sometimes her entreaties provoked curses and slurred abuse; at other times her pleas echoed into an eerie silence. At dusk, Maud set a plate of cheese and bread before Joanna, stood over the child until she choked down a few mouthfuls, and then put her to bed by the hearth. Exhausted, Joanna slept.
But the next morning the bedchamber door was still bolted. Maud sent Joanna for Cedric, and as they hastened back up the path toward the cottage, they could hear Maud’s fists thudding against the oaken door.
“My lady, I beg you, open the door. You’ve not eaten for two full days.”
Maud’s hands were raw, knuckles bleeding, but she continued to beat futilely on the door until shouldered aside by Cedric. He tested the latch several times, and then said, “Where is your axe?”
Maud gave a low moan and gestured, but a shudder passed through her body each time the axe connected with the wood. As the door gave way, Cedric put his shoulder to it, shoved inward, and stumbled into the room. Joanna heard him gasp, and then he had spun around, was seeking to block Maud’s entry with an outstretched arm. She lunged past him, and then began to scream.
There was a strong stench in the room, of wine and vomit and urine. Joanna could see part of the bed, see the overturned flagon on the floor. Wine dripped from the rim, had gathered in a sodden pool midst the rushes. Her mother’s blonde hair swept the floor; the ends were trailing in the wine, matted and dark. The wine looked like blood to Joanna. She tried to take a step closer, but her knees gave way.
“A doctor, name of God, fetch a doctor!”
A white arm dangled over the side of the bed, fingers tightly clenched. Cedric reached out, reluctantly grasped the wrist and quickly let it drop. “Nay, we do need a priest,” he said huskily, and Maud fell to her knees by the bed, began a high keening wail. Cedric crossed himself, backed toward the door.
Joanna found herself sitting on the floor by the hearth. She slid along the ground until she reached the table, crawled under. There she crouched, putting her hands up to her ears to shut out Maud’s screams.
Maud had yet to move away from Clemence’s body. She looked up as Cedric reentered the bedchamber, and her face contorted in fear, for he’d not summoned the village priest; the white-garbed monk at his side was John Brompton, Abbot of Jervaulx Abbey. He looked at the woman on the bed, shook his head slowly, and Maud sobbed, grabbed his arm.
“A mischance, Reverend Father, that is all…I swear it! She wanted only to sleep…”
He disengaged her clutching fingers, gazed down at the empty wine flagons. “She did take a sleeping draught?”
Maud sobbed again. “Her nights were so bad, Abbot John. Last spring I went to the castle leech; he gave me henbane and white poppy. But she meant no harm to herself. You must believe that, must let her be buried in consecrated ground, I beg you…”
Her voice rose shrilly, and the Abbot said hastily, “Calm yourself, woman. You do disturb yourself for naught, I assure you. It is plain enough what happened. She was distraught, did misjudge the potion.”
Maud nodded dumbly, then snatched up his hand and, before he could withdraw, pressed it to her lips. He patted her shoulder, said, “Do you wish Cedric to see the wainright about building a coffin?”
She’d buried her face in her apron, only wept the harder, and he sighed, unfastened the crucifix that dangled from his belt, and approached the bed. As he did, he happened to glance toward the outer room, and for the first time he noticed Joanna, cowering under the table.
“God in Heaven, did you never think of the child?”
Joanna watched as he knelt beside her, held out his hand. “Come to me, little one. That’s a good lass…”
He smelled of sweat and horses and garlic, but his voice was soft, coaxing. Joanna wrapped her arms around his neck. She was trembling so violently that her teeth were chattering, and she bit down on her thumb, tasting blood in her mouth. “Mama…”
“She’s in God’s keeping now, lass. She’s dead.”
Clinging to the Abbot’s hand, Joanna entered into the bailey of Middleham Castle. Ahead of her rose the limestone ashlar keep. She stared up at it, openmouthed, for it seemed to reach straight toward Heaven. A wooden stairway extended out into the bailey, led up into the keep, and she hesitated, dizzy at the thought of scaling those heights, but the Abbot gently propelled her forward, and she grasped the railing, began a slow, cautious climb.
The great hall could easily have accommodated their entire cottage, so vast it was, with windows soaring toward the roof and an open hearth in the center of the floor. A woman was moving toward them, dressed in the softest blue wool Joanna had ever seen.
“I’ve been expecting you, Reverend Father. Is this the child?”
“Aye. Joanna, this is the Lady Helweisa, wife to Lord Robert. Make your curtsy and then await me in the window seat.”
He watched as the child moved away, said, “She has not cried, not even yesterday when we buried her mother.” Turning, he gratefully took the wine cup a servant was offering, followed Helweisa to the hearth.
“Tell me, Madame, what do you know of the girl’s mother?”
“Nothing, if truth be told. Guy, our bailiff, rented them the cottage, and all their dealings were with him. Neither my husband nor I concern ourselves with such minor matters. I did assume that the woman was a young widow or, more likely, a foolish girl who’d listened to the wrong man’s blandishments.”
He nodded. “An all-too-common tale, I fear. The girl was very young, and the man was married. When her family discovered she was with child, they cast her out in disgrace.”
“How, then, did she pay the upkeep on the cottage?”
“From what the old woman, Maud, told me, the girl’s father paid the rent, saw that her needs were met. Not so much out of charity, I fear, as to keep her from bringing further shame upon the family name. He knew enough to realize that a girl turned out to starve will buy her bread with all she has left to barter, her body. But although they put food on her table, they denied her their forgiveness. The father said she was dead in his eyes, and held to that, even upon his deathbed. The elder son was no less rigid. The younger son was more sympathetic, but he could not gainsay his father and brother, although he did take it upon himself to write her of their father’s death. The rest you know.”
“As you say, Reverend Father, a common tale, and likely to remain so, as long as there be born men with glib tongues and silly chits willing to pay them heed. What mean you to do about the child? A pity she is not a boy; it might be easier to find a family willing to take in a lad.”
“That is why I’ve come to you, Madame. You see, the girl was wellborn, of Norman stock. I got the family name from Maud: d’Arcy. The father held his manor from no less a lord than William de Ferrers, Earl of Derby.”
“Ah, that does put a different light upon it,” Helweisa conceded. “If the child’s mother be of gentle birth, then a villein’s hut is no fitting place for her, bastard or no
. What would you have me do, write to the family?”
The Abbot nodded. “Aye, to the younger brother, Sir Roger d’Arcy. He should be told of his sister’s death…and of her child’s need.”
“I shall be glad to oblige you, of course, Abbot John.” Helweisa’s eyes strayed across the hall to where Joanna sat, very still, in the window seat. “Poor little lass, I wonder what shall become of her.”
“She is in God’s hands, Madame. As are we all.”
There was no reality in Joanna’s time at Middleham; it left little imprint upon her memory. She did as she was bade, spoke when spoken to, and when left to her own devices, she sat for hours staring out at the dales, now burnished with bracken. To the other children of the castle, pages and playmates of Lord and Lady Fitz Ranulf’s young son Ralph, she was a curiosity and, provoked by her eerie indifference, they baited her with words learned from their elders: “bastard” and “sideslip.” They were the first to put a name to it, to the sin of birth that somehow made her different from other children. A fortnight ago, she’d have been devastated by their mockery. But now their taunts had no power to hurt. What mattered if they called her “bastard”? She had so much more grievous wrongs to answer for. Mama was dead because of her. In her grieving, Mama had sobbed out the truth at last, had cried, “If only she’d never been born!”
Mama had not wanted her, and now Mama was dead, and it was her doing, would not have happened if not for her. She did not wonder that Maud did not come to the castle to see her. How could there be forgiveness for a sin so great?
On her ninth day at Middleham, she was awakened by a young maidservant, and to her astonishment and apprehension, was told to attend Lord and Lady Fitz Ranulf in the solar.
She’d seen Lord Fitz Ranulf only in passing, was much in awe of him, a heavyset man in his fifties, with the brusque, no-nonsense manner of one who does not suffer fools gladly, and prides himself inordinately upon that impatience. Lady Helweisa was more familiar to Joanna. A plump, complacent woman much her husband’s junior, she would stop and talk to Joanna whenever they happened to meet in the bailey or great hall, but Joanna did not think Lady Helweisa truly heard her answers.
Her nervousness eased somewhat, though, at sight of Abbot John, for he had been kind to her. The fourth man in the chamber was young, dressed in starkest black, with a long sword at his left hip. But it was his hair that held Joanna’s eyes; it was blond, the same sunlit shade as her mother’s.
“Come here, Joanna.” Lady Helweisa beckoned her into the solar. “There’s one here to meet you, your uncle, Sir Roger d’Arcy.”
Joanna gasped, stared up at this man who was her kin, her family. As her gaze reached his face, she saw he had her mother’s sapphire-blue eyes.
“Jesú!” His breath hissed through his teeth; the blue eyes widened. “Christ, if she’s not his very image!”
For the briefest moment, hope had flickered in the dark of Joanna’s world. Her uncle had come for her. But with his words, that faint hope guttered, died. There was on his face the same expression that had been on her mother’s the night she’d cried, “Oh, God, how like him you are!”
Seeing they all were staring at him, Roger d’Arcy drew a deep breath, said, “I’d never seen her, you see…” There was a wine cup on the table, and he reached for it, drank until he began to cough. “I expect you think my father was a hard man. Mayhap he was. He put family honor above all else, taught us to do likewise. He taught us, too, that a woman of rank must be chaste, must go to her marriage bed a virgin. When my sister confessed she was with child, he felt betrayed. Shamed.”
“And you?” Abbot John asked quietly.
“It was my duty to obey my father’s wishes.” Roger drank again, not meeting their eyes. “But…she was so pretty, my sister. So quick to laugh. And so young. Just fifteen when she came to court. Fifteen…” He turned back to face them, said tautly, “I always did blame him, not her. She was such an innocent, such easy prey. I’d have killed him if I could.” His voice sounded suddenly muffled, as if he were swallowing tears. “But I could not. I could only watch my sister suffer for his accursed lust.”
Helweisa and her husband exchanged glances. Roger d’Arcy had just unwittingly confirmed a growing suspicion of hers. Why had not the d’Arcys taken vengeance upon the man? As bitter as they were, one thing alone could have stayed their hand; the man had to be highborn. Very highborn.
“What of the child’s father, Sir Roger? Would he do nothing for your sister?”
He shook his head. “She’d have died ere she asked him for so much as a shilling. My sister was a d’Arcy, Madame; she, too, was proud.”
Helweisa hesitated, and then decided that the best tactic might be a direct frontal assault. “Sir Roger, who is the child’s father?”
He looked at her, then down at Joanna, and she said, “Your sister is beyond slander. If you keep silent now, you do but protect the man.”
“You’re right,” he said abruptly. “By God, you’re right. The man who seduced my sister, the man I blame for her death—he is the Count of Mortain.”
There was a shocked silence; even Helweisa had gotten more than she’d bargained for. Her husband whistled softly, as Abbot John echoed, incredulous, “The Count of Mortain? John, the King’s brother?”
Roger nodded. “Mayhap you understand now why we could not…” His voice trailed off.
“Joanna,” Abbot John said hastily, “go and sit in the window seat,” and held up his hand for silence till she was out of earshot. “That does explain much. But there is one thing I do not understand. For all his vices, Lord John has never failed to acknowledge his bastards. He may spill his seed without care, but he’s then willing to claim the crop as his; he has at least five baseborn children, and they lack for little. Why would he not do as much for Joanna?”
“My sister hated him, Abbot John, blamed him for her plight. She took her vengeance the only way she could, by denying him his daughter. We gave it out that the child was stillborn.” Roger saw the Abbot’s disapproval, added defensively, “My sister feared, too, that John might take Joanna from her if he knew. Christ curse him, he had the power.”
He drained the wine cup, set it down. “I am in your debt for what you did for my sister, Abbot John. I shall be taking Maud back with me. She nursed us all; we’d not have her starve. I shall send Luke for the furnishings of the cottage.” As he spoke, he was taking a pouch from his belt, spilling several silver pennies onto the table. “Take these, Abbot John, and have Masses said for my sister on her month-mind.”
The Abbot nodded, but then realized that Roger d’Arcy meant to depart. “Sir Roger, wait! What of the child?”
Roger seemed no less taken aback. “Surely you do not expect us to take her in? John’s spawn? My brother would sooner shelter a leper, and in this I do agree with him. There are always villagers in want of children; place her with one of them.”
“Sir Roger, these be hard times; few of our serfs have food to spare for their own. And what of your sister? Joanna is her child, too.”
Roger was shaking his head. “We cannot take her. My brother would never consent, and I—Do you not see? Every time I did look upon her, I’d remember the Hell that was my sister’s life these five years past. Christ, you cannot ask that of us. She’d be a living, festering sore in our midst, and we will not take her. We cannot!” But he did not move, and after a moment, he shook additional coins out onto the table.
“There; use that for her corrody, place her with the nuns at St Clements. I can do no more than that.” Not waiting for their response, he moved swiftly toward the door, did not look back.
Abbot John approached the table, looked down at the silver pennies. “Well, mayhap it is for the best. May the lass stay with you, my lord, until I can make arrangements with the sisters in York?”
Robert Fitz Ranulf nodded, then turned in surprise as his wife said, “No, Reverend Father. We can put that money to better use. Why not send the child to her f
ather, to John?”
“Madame, you would undertake that? Lord John is in Normandy, and to be truthful, I think such a journey would cost more than d’Arcy’s grudging offering.”
“No matter, we will pay the difference,” Helweisa said placidly, and her husband stared at her in outraged astonishment.
“That is indeed a kindness, Madame, and you shall not go unrewarded for it. God sees…and approves.”
“I do not doubt it, Abbot John.” Helweisa smiled, shepherded the Abbot toward the door.
“Have you lost your senses, woman? Whatever possessed you to make an offer like that? You do not even know that John would accept her as his!”
“Ah, Rob, that is a false fear. Whatever other evils may be credited to his account, John does tend to his own, and that child is his. Once he sees her, he’d be the last to deny that.”
“Even so, you do not expect him to reimburse us for our trouble, do you? What prince ever paid back a debt?”
“That is true enough,” she conceded readily. “But it will be a cheap price to pay for the favor of a King.”
“And what makes you so sure that John will ever be King?”
“My dearest, can you doubt it? It’s been five years now since Richard’s mother badgered him into taking a Spanish wife, and she’s yet even to set foot in England! Richard will give England no son of his loins; nor is he a man to die peacefully in bed. He has but two possible heirs, his brother John or his nephew Arthur. Arthur is a child of nine. John is twenty-eight, and has Lucifer’s own luck. Did we not all think he’d ruined himself with his scheming when Richard was taken by his enemies in Austria? Remember what happened when Richard’s ransom was finally paid? John was banished from England, had the earldoms of Mortain and Gloucester taken from him. And then? He did meet with Richard in Normandy, somehow got Richard to forgive him and, within a year, even to restore his titles. Any man who could work a miracle like that is no man to wager against, Rob.”