For Love And Honor (33 page)

“
You are
a part of everything I do.” Seizing her in his arms, he kissed her,
a quick, hard me
eting
of
their lips. “Until tonight, my love.”

“Take my hands,” she said. “I’ll ease you
across the sill.”

It was still too dark for her to see much,
but she leaned far out of the window, waiting until she heard a
bird call from the direction of the moat straight below her. Only
then did she latch the shutters and remove her gown and go to
bed.

*
* * * *

In the inner bailey Baird was making his
predawn rounds of the castle defenses when he heard the postern
gate swing open. He crept closer to the gate, hugging the castle
wall, his dark gray cloak making him all but invisible against the
gray stones. He had just come down from inspecting the battlements
and he knew full well there was no invading force threatening
Banningford. Thinking to catch one of the castle servants or
men-at-arms returning from some romantic nocturnal excursion, he
peered through the gray half light.

Baird
smothered an exclamation w
hen he rec
ognized the foreign guardsman, Lucas, who closed
and locked the gate behind him and then headed toward the western
tower. Baird caught the smell of wine and spices as the man passed
him.

“Now, what the devil has he been doing, and
how did he get the key from Rohaise?” Baird muttered to himself.
“And where outside these walls did he find wine, that he should
reek of it? Did he take the wine with him? Did he meet someone and
share it? Not Rohaise, for she’s safely abed in the lord’s chamber
and I’d have been told if she stirred out of it. Is someone
planning to capture Banningford by treachery? Damn! I knew that
foolish boy should not have let those strangers in. It’s a good
thing I sent for Radulf as soon as they got here.”

Rain and sleet began again shortly after
sunrise, the icy wetness drenching anyone who ventured out of
doors. In her room in the western tower Joanna peered out at the
gray landscape and shivered, thinking of Alain trying to climb the
tower wall to reach her.

“Good morning.” Rohaise came in, followed by
Lys, with a tray of food. They both stopped short, seeing the
partially dried wine on the floor and wrinkling their noses at the
smell of it. “What happened?”

“I stumbled and dropped the pitcher, and
there is nothing in this room that I could use to clean up the
mess.” Joanna frowned at Lys. “Send someone to scrub the floor. I
want clean sheets, too. The wine spattered onto my bed.”

“Later I will send the woman who cleans
here.” Lys banged the tray down on a small table. “You ought to be
more careful.” With Joanna’s food delivered, Lys planted herself by
the door, folding her arms across her buxom chest.

“You may go,” Rohaise said to her.

“I may not,” Lys returned. “Baird told me not
to leave you alone with Joanna this morning, and to report to him
everything you say to each other. “

“
Lady
Joanna to you,” Joanna informed her. “Mind your manners,
woman. By what right does Baird presume to monitor my
conversations?”

“So he can report them to your father,” Lys
replied, a flicker of some indefinable emotion lighting her dull
eyes.

“And precisely why does Baird imagine my
words today will be especially interesting to Lord Radulf?” Joanna
demanded. Well aware that her every reaction would be reported, she
used haughty coldness to cover her fear that Baird had learned
about Alain’s presence at Banningford.

“Baird probably imagines that I will be
coerced into carrying messages to or from you,” Rohaise said. “We
have visitors in the castle.”

“Aye,” Lys put in, “there’s a heathen
princess in the great hall, making a fool out of your son.”

“She is not a heathen.’’ Young Will came into
his mother’s room. “Lys, I forbid you to speak disparagingly about
Lady Samira. Now, leave us. I would speak privately with my
mother.”

“Baird says I am to stay.” Lys did not
move.

“Baird is not the master of Banningford
Castle,” Will reminded her. “Until my grandfather returns I am
master here. Be gone!”

Faced by the determined young man, there was
nothing Lys could do but leave.

“How I loathe that woman,” Joanna muttered.
“Always listening, always watching, as if I had any secrets Radulf
does not already know.”

“I suppose Grandfather keeps them because
Baird is so loyal to him,” Will told her. “Grandfather says loyalty
is no small thing, but I wish he would give you some other serving
woman.”

“Forget Lys. Tell me about your guests,”
Joanna invited. “Sit down, William Crispin. Have you broken your
fast? Here’s bread and cheese and some cold fowl. Rohaise, will you
take some wine?

While the two women sat on the side of
Joanna’s bed, eating and drinking, Will perched on the window seat
and regaled them with his description of Samira.

“I thought I had seen beautiful women while I
was fostered at Bolsover Castle,” Will said, “but no one could
equal Lady Samira’s beauty. Her hair is dark as the night sky, her
eyes gray-green as the deep forest on a misty morn. And her
conversation! She is brilliantly educated; she has seen so many
places that I have only dreamed of visiting. Mother, I wish you
would break your rule of not meeting anyone and allow Samira to
come to your room. Or, better yet, go to the great hall for a meal
so you can talk with her. I want you to meet her.”

“
I
cannot.” Joanna leapt t
o her feet. “William
Crispin, do not press me on this. You know
I never see anyone but you and Rohaise and your
grandfather.”

“Also Baird and Lys, though you heartily
dislike them,” Will noted. “And the woman who cleans this
room.”

“You do not know what you are asking of
me.”

“I understand why you first wanted to retire
to this room,” Will said.

“Do you?” Joanna’s voice was bitter. “How can
you possibly know what my feelings were months before you were
born?”

“
Mother,
it’s time to give up mourn
ing for my
father. You have missed so much of life by staying
here. It’s time to re-enter the world. You are not a prisoner;
Grandfather says the guard at your door is there at
your
request, to keep
out people you don’t wish to see.”

“Rohaise, help me!” Joanna stood with her
hands clenched at her bosom, looking as if she would burst into
tears. “Tell him I cannot leave this room.”

“Will, please stop this harassment.” Rohaise
put up both her hands as if she would physically prevent him from
saying anything more. “Do not question your mother. Allow her to do
what she believes is best.”

“But she’s wrong,” Will insisted. “She does
not have to stay here in this room. I asked Grandfather about it
once, and he said it was entirely her decision.

“Mother, you won’t have to go to the great
hall, if that is what frightens you. Lady Samira is in the room
just below this one. I fear she will not leave it today, for her
guards report that she is ill, but you could meet her there.”

“Samira is ill?” Joanna cried, wondering what
was really happening in Samira’s room. “Of what? Rohaise, have you
been to see her?”

“‘Tis but a slight chill, nothing to cause
concern,” Rohaise said with a strange look at Joanna. “Her guards
are overprotective and insist she cannot travel in bad weather. I
believe they will leave on the morrow.”

“I hope to convince them to stay,” Will
announced, “I want Lady Samira to meet Grandfather, too.”

“Why?” Joanna asked, horrified by this
idea.

“Because,” her son informed her, “I want
Grandfather to arrange for me to marry Lady Samira.”

“Oh, sweet, merciful heaven.” Overcome by a
sense of impending doom, Joanna sank onto the window seat beside
her son. “He will never allow it.”

“Because her dowry will be in foreign lands
and not in England?” Will laughed at her concern. “What difference
will that make? Other knights marry foreign ladies all the
time.”

“
Your
grandfather has definite plans for you,” Rohaise cautioned. “Radulf
does not like to have his arrangements disrupted
.”

“All the same, when he comes home I am going
to speak to him,” Will said. “I’m sure I can convince him to give
me what I most want.”

“
He will
never change his mind,” Joanna declared. “William Crispin, I beg
you,
do not ask him. “

“
Don’t
look so frightened.” Will put his arm around her. “Mother, I’m
sorry if I upset you. Perhaps you are right and you ought to remain
here, where you feel safe. It’s plain to me that the prospect of
facing the world outside this room is too much for you. But
will
you consider receiving
Lady Samira here, in privacy, before she leaves
Banningford?”

“I will consider it.” Joanna knew it was a
promise she would have to break. There could be no question of
openly admitting a stranger to her room.

“When you meet Samira I’m sure you will
understand why I want to marry her,” Will said, kissing his mother.
“I’ll leave you with Rohaise. I only stopped in to say good
morning. Until later, Mother.”

“He believes I am safe here,” Joanna murmured
when he had gone. Wearily she rested her head against the stone
window frame. “There is no safe place, not for me. And now, not for
him. Rohaise, I have much to tell you.”

“What is it, Lys?” Rohaise’s warning voice
cut across her words, stopping what Joanna would have said.

“Now that Master Will has left I’m back to do
my duty as Baird instructed me,” Lys declared. “I am to stay here
while you are in the room, Lady Rohaise.”

“In that case, Joanna, we will talk later,”
said Rohaise. “Since all we have to discuss is this day’s menus and
the beauty and intelligence of our lady guest, what we have to say
can only bore Baird when it’s repeated to him. We wouldn’t want to
do that, would we? Come along, Lys; let’s see to the kitchen
chores.”

Rohaise
left behind her a stepdaughter who wanted to scream from fear and
frustration. Joanna wanted her son to marry a woman he could love,
but she knew Radulf would never allow the boy to wed someone whom
Radulf had not personally chosen. Unknown to his grandson, Radulf’s
trip away from Banningford was for the purpose of arranging William
Crispin’s marriage to a girl whose dowry included extensive lands,
some of which bordered on William Crispin’s barony of Haughston.
Joanna could not bear to think of the consequences of her son
informing h
is
grandfather that he wanted to marry elsewhere.

Her only hope lay in Alain. If, together,
they could expose Crispin’s murderer, if she could but attain her
freedom, she would have some say in the choice of her son’s wife.
If Samira was all William Crispin said, and all Alain claimed she
was, then Joanna would gladly consent to the marriage.

But for now, she must wait for Alain to come
to her again. He had promised to return that night. Once more she
would trust in him to help her, this time not because of a girlish
love but because it was in his interest, too, that the truth should
be revealed.

The long day dragged on. Joanna paced back
and forth in her chamber, counting off the endless minutes with
each step. Her nerves stretched near to breaking, and she snapped
at Lys and the cleaning woman when they appeared to change her bed
linen and mop the wine off the floor.

Just
after midday the sky cleared and the sun came out. Disregarding the
cold, Joanna flung the shutters wide and leaned out of he
r
windows to
check on the
condition of the tower wall. She was relieved to see that the wind
had dried any ice that might have clung to the surface. Alain would
be able to climb up to her again.

“What are you doing?” Baird had come into the
room. Behind him, Lys appeared with Joanna’s midday meal.

“The weather has cleared,” Joanna said. “I
want to take my usual walk.”

“Not while there are outsiders in the
castle,” Baird said. “You know the rule. Don’t ask for what I
cannot allow.”

“
You
despicabl
e man.” Joanna wondered, as
she had done many times over the years, how she
was going to keep her hatred of Baird under control.

“Here, now,” Baird said with a vicious grin,
“treat me with courtesy, Lady Joanna. You know who I am.”

“Indeed,” she told him, “I know just who, and
what, you are.”

“Aye,” Baird returned. “That you do. I am
captain of the guard at all times, and master of this castle in
Lord Radulf’s absence. Remind your son of that, Lady Joanna. He
tends to forget it.”

“You leave William Crispin alone!” she
screamed at him. “Touch one hair on his head and my father will
have you drawn and quartered.”

“If Radulf doesn’t order it done to young
Will first, once he hears the boy is set on marrying a stranger.”
Baird gave a chuckle that sent terror to Joanna’s heart.

“Get out, you eavesdropping witch!” she
shouted at Lys. “Get out, both of you!”

“Yes, come along, Lys.” Baird’s fist buffeted
Lys’s shoulder, knocking her toward the door. “It’s plain to see
Lady Joanna is about to surfer a fit of madness, and I wouldn’t
want you to be hurt, now would I?” Pushing Lys ahead of him, Baird
went out and locked the door, leaving Joanna ready to fly out the
window on the wings of her rage.

Still it
was only midday. There were long hours to endure until Alain came
to her. She ate the meat and bread and leftover pudding Lys had
brought. She paced the floor for a while, then threw herself onto
the bed and actually slept. When she wakened the sun was setting.
Lys returned, thankfully without Ba
ird, to bring warm
water so Joanna could wash. Lys
would not speak to her, but Joanna did not much care. When the
woman had withdrawn, taking with her the dirty dishes, Joanna
resumed her impatient waiting.