“What the devil is this?” Radulf shouted at
Ambrose.
“They are my men,” Alain said. “Men of Alain,
Emir of Trapani, First Assistant to the Emir of Emirs of the
Kingdom of Sicily.” He continued rattling off the list of all his
titles and honors, while the hall grew ever quieter as the men in
it began to realize that they were not merely dealing with a
condemned outlaw. When he had finished with his own titles, Alain
recited all of Piers’s as well. Finished at last, and with one arm
around Joanna, he walked across the hall to join Piers and Samira
at its center.
“Mother?” Will approached her, and Joanna put
out her hand, catching her son to her side.
“Stay with me and be quiet,” she ordered.
Radulf, however, would not be quiet. He began
to bluster.
“Seize them!” he roared. “That man will do
harm to my daughter. Stop him, I say!”
No man of Banningford moved, in part because
Alain’s people stood among them with swords at the ready, in part
because Baird did not speak. In the confusion, Lys had been brought
into the hall, and she stood behind Baird, watching and listening
with all the tenseness of an animal who has sighted its prey and is
preparing to strike.
“Do be seated in the lord’s chair, Baron
Radulf,” Alain said in mocking tones. “Ambrose, will you lead the
discussion?”
“
There is
nothing to discuss,” Radulf shouted, refusing to move from
where he stood. “These men are murderers, outlaws by royal
proclama
tion. Anyone may kill
them.”
“You lie!” Joanna broke away from Alain’s
protecting arm and dropped Will’s hand so she could step forward to
confront her father. Her eyes blazed with the accumulated wrath of
eighteen years of injustice, but her voice was steady. “Alain did
not kill Crispin, and Piers did not help in the murder, and you
know it. You have always known it.”
“Mother,” Will cried, coming to her, “you are
overwrought. Let me take you to your room and then we men will see
justice done.”
“I will never set foot in that room again,”
Joanna declared. “I will die rather than go back there. Nor will
there be justice done in this hall without my testimony. William
Crispin, you have been told lies all of your life, lies about me,
about your father, and about these two good men who stand here
falsely accused. I have been forced to remain in that room by
threats of harm against you and Rohaise if I ever spoke a word of
what I know. For I know how your father was killed, and by whom,
and why.”
“Rohaise, take her away,” Radulf ordered. “My
daughter is mad, poor thing. It’s why I have protected her for all
these years.”
“
I am not
mad,” Joanna declared, “though there was a time when I imagined
I
was
losing my
wits.”
“Let Lady Joanna say what she wants,” Ambrose
broke in, forestalling another protest from Radulf. “I have a
certain personal interest in the events of which she speaks, since
it was my nephew who was murdered. I want to hear Joanna’s
story.”
“She will say nothing worthy of belief,”
Radulf told him.
“
I shall
decide whether to believe her after I have heard her,” Ambrose
said. “Radulf, if you will not sit, I will. I am older than you,
and my bones are weary.” He
went to the high table and sat
in the chair Rohaise usually used. His action
forced everyone in the hall to face the dais, so
that Ambrose assumed the position of a judge, while those one step
down from the dais, standing on the floor of the hall, now appeared
to be petitioners.
“Radulf, I invite you to join me,” Ambrose
said.
“I’ll stay where I am,” Radulf said with a
sneer. “I have no liking for the pretensions of the clergy and the
church.”
“So I have noticed.” Ambrose smiled a little.
“Very well. You may speak, Lady Joanna, and I hope no one will
interrupt you until you have finished.”
Joanna
took a few steps toward the dais, until she stood within the light
provided by a pair of torches hung in wall sconces. With her dark
gown blending into th
e shadows of the hall, her
illuminated face and halo of golden hair
took on a shining clarity that added to the forcefulness of her
words, for she told her story calmly and well.
“At first I was too shocked and
grief-stricken to understand the meaning of what I saw and heard on
that terrible night when Crispin was killed,” Joanna said. “Later I
was forced to accept my father’s decree that I should be isolated
in my tower room. When I knew that I was carrying Crispin’s child I
believed it was for the best that I continue to stay there. Even
then, William Crispin, even before you were born, I loved you so
well that I would not risk any harm coming to you. By then Alain
and Piers were gone, vanished, and at my father’s instigation they
were proscribed outlaws. By then I knew that anything I might say
about that night would not be believed. I understood that I could
rely only upon myself.
“During those months before my son was born,”
Joanna went on, speaking now directly to Ambrose, “I had time to
recover from the shock and to think. I began to remember bits of
conversation and little things I had seen. By the time William
Crispin was born I knew who had really killed my husband. I have
lived with that knowledge for all the years since.”
Here Joanna paused, looking around at the
faces in the hall, at beloved relatives, friends, strangers, and at
her lover, before she returned her full attention to Ambrose.
“For those who were not here at the time of
my marriage, let me say that my father arranged for me to wed
Crispin of Haughston so that our lands would be joined, and in the
hope that Crispin would become a trustworthy ally in the civil war
my father foresaw taking place after King Henry’s death. In that
decision, my father was wise, for there was a war, which is not yet
ended, and Crispin would have proven a reliable ally. My father
wanted one thing more from my marriage: an heir to all of those
combined lands.
“But Crispin also held lands in Normandy, and
he announced on his first night at Banningford that as soon as our
wedding festivities were over, he would take me there, to stay for
several years. He also spoke of a pilgrimage to Compostela, which
would have kept him absent from England for an even longer
time.
“It was Crispin’s desire to go abroad that
caused his death,” Joanna said. “My father would permit no
interference with the plan he had so carefully constructed, to have
a dependable ally living on lands that bordered Banningford and to
have a grandson whose education he could direct.”
“What baron would not want the same?” scoffed
Radulf. “This madwoman’s ranting is ridiculous.”
“Is it?” Joanna gave him a cold, dark look.
“Father Ambrose, do you remember how the terms of my marriage
contract were changed the day before the wedding?”
“The incident is clear in my mind,” Ambrose
said. “I thought of the
contract, too, although, unfortunately, not until after Alain and
Piers had left St. Justin’s Abbey for Banningford. I ordered the
contract brought to me from the vault where important documents are
kept. I read the contract again just yesterday. According to it, if
Crispin died, Radulf was to become guardian of his lands, holding
them safe for any children of the marriage. Which Radulf has done.
Those lands have been his to rule since Cri
spin’s death.
Radulf also became guardian of Crispin’s child.”
“The contract further stated that Crispin
should hold my lands in a like manner if I should die before he
did,” Radulf said.
“So it did,” Joanna agreed. “But that part of
the contract mattered nothing to you, because Crispin had already
declared his intention to leave England, and thus you had decided
to have him killed.”
“This is preposterous!” Radulf shouted.
“You gave him a few nights with me, hoping he
would get me with child,” Joanna went on, as if Radulf had not
spoken. “But you could not afford to let me pass out of your
control because I was your only hope for an heir.”
“When Crispin was killed,” Radulf sputtered,
“I was sitting in the lord’s chair, in full view of all my guests.
In fact, Father Ambrose, you were also at the high table and saw me
there.”
“I did not say you did the deed,” Joanna told
him. “I said you ordered it done.”
“Tell them,” Alain urged. “Tell everyone who
murdered your husband.”
“Baird did it,” Joanna said.
“Not so,” Baird responded, laughing at her.
“I was passing wine to Radulf s guests, at his special request
because the wine was too expensive to let the servants handle it.
Everyone in this hall on that night saw me.”
“
You did
serve the wine,” Joanna replied. “You carried the tray while Lys
poured out the wine. She used one pitcher for most of the guests.
The second pitcher, containing wine drugged with the herbs and
poppy syrup that Lys had stolen from Rohaise’s stillroom, you
personally po
ured into
the cups of Crispin, Alain, and Piers.”
“Nonsense!” Baird laughed again. “There was
no drugged wine. Radulf, I fear you are right: This poor woman is
mad. With your permission, I’ll take her to her room.”
“Will you fling me down the stairs on the
way, to break my neck and thus silence me? And then claim I did it
myself out of madness?” Joanna asked. “It took me a long time to
remember what happened, Baird. Don’t stop me now.
“
After
they drank the drugged wine Crispin and Alain got sick and rushed
out to the entry hall and then into the garderobe,” Joanna
continued. “Piers went with Crispin, to help him. When I followed
them I saw someone leaving the entry hall, hurrying out the door to
the inner bailey. It was you, Baird, you with blood o
n your
hands and your new green tunic.
But when you later returned to the entry hall with my
father, and when you carried me up to my room, you were wearing
your old brown tunic. The shock of finding Crispin dying drove
those glimpses of you out of my mind for months.”
“Baird?” Radulf rounded on his captain of the
guard. “Is this true? Was it you? And all this time I trusted you.
How could you betray me like that?”
“What I did was done by your orders,” Baird
grated. Looking wildly about, he spied Lys, standing behind him. He
grabbed her by the hair and dragged her forward. “Tell them, Lys.
Tell them what Radulf’s orders were on that day.”
“Ow! Let me go!” Lys screeched. Baird threw
her to the stone floor and raised one booted foot, preparing to
kick her.
“Stop this!” Ambrose did not raise his voice
by much, but it cut through Lys’s wails and Baird’s curses. “Stand
up, woman, and tell us what you know.”
“
Baird is
right,” Lys said, pulling herself to her feet. “Radulf wanted
drugged wine given to the three young men. He wanted to make the
murder seem like a quarrel among them. Sir Alain’s interest in Lady
Joanna had been remarked by many of the wedding guests, and it was
common gossip among the servants, so it was easy to blame him for
the killing
.”
“Not true,” Radulf declared stoutly. “If
these two servants of mine conspired together to kill my
son-in-law, I’ll have them hanged at once. Moreover, I will
apologize to Alain and Piers and see to it that the writ of
outlawry against them is rescinded.”
“
I’ll not
die for your crime, Radulf.” Baird’s sword was in his hand and he
faced his master with a snarl. “I’ve done everything you ever asked
of me, but not this.
You
devised the plan to kill Crispin after he insisted on
traveling to Normandy and would not change his mind. It was your
decision to do away with him before you could even be sure he’d
gotten Joanna with child, because you didn’t want her and her
useful womb taken away from Banningford, out of your control. It
was you who kept Joanna in that tower room and threatened to kill
the boy and Rohaise if she ever told what she knew. And it was you
who convinced young Will and anyone else who questioned the
arrangement that Joanna had isolated herself in prolonged mourning
for Crispin.”
“You fool!” Radulf yelled at him. “Be
silent!”
“For what reason should I be silent now?”
asked Baird, baring his teeth in a mirthless grin. “These folk have
found out the truth. You are already condemned, Radulf, and so am
I. But where I kept faith with you and believed you would reward
me, you betrayed me to save yourself. That betrayal ended my
loyalty to you. I renounce you as my liege lord.”
While he spoke those last words, Baird hefted
the sword he held. Then, moving so swiftly that no one could stop
him, he lunged at Radulf, stabbing him. Radulf doubled over and
fell to the floor, clutching at his middle.
At first no one moved. Baird stood with his
dripping sword in hand, looking down at his dying master.
“
Father!”
Joanna went to her knees, g
athering Radulf into her arms as
she once had held Cris
pin.
“Joanna, leave him,” Alain said, trying to
lift her.
“I cannot. In spite of all he’s done, he is
still my father,” she replied, her voice perfectly calm, her eyes
dry. “I can still hold him until he dies.”
“My lord.” Rohaise knelt on Radulf’s other
side and took his limp hand. “Radulf, speak to me.”
Radulf opened his eyes, looking first at his
daughter and then at his wife.
“Damned, stupid women,” he said, and breathed
his last.
There was deep silence in the hall. Joanna
let her father’s body down onto the stone floor. She rose, pulling
Rohaise up with her. Behind the high table, Ambrose did not move,
though it was his duty to perform the necessary rites over Radulf.
Only Baird was quick enough to take advantage of the general
bewilderment over what had just happened.