Devilʼs Brew: The Janna Chronicles 5 (18 page)

The tavern was busier than ever; it seemed that business was picking up at last. Janna made a point of greeting customers as they came in, and darted between the tables to serve them all, enlisting Ossie’s help from time to time when she couldn’t cope.

“You are welcome, sire.” Janna’s smile froze on her face as she looked more closely at the newcomer blocking the doorway. The man inclined his head and walked inside, accompanied by the smaller figure of the boy.

“Some ale, my lord?” she offered breathlessly, as she indicated an empty table. “I know you like my brew.” As she noticed his stunned expression, she realized that she’d addressed him in Norman French, as befitted his rank, even though he’d spoken in the language of the Saxons to Sybil on his previous visit. Perhaps he was amazed that a humble drudge would be so forward – or so lettered – as to understand and speak his own language.

Janna returned his stare, hardly aware of how rude he must think her. She was too busy assessing his features. His dark brown eyes were just like her own. His hair was dark whereas hers was fair, for in that she resembled her mother. The scattering of gray told her he was a man in his middle years and of an age to have fathered a daughter of almost twenty summers. Her searching gaze moved on to his eyebrows, his nose, his mouth, looking for similarities and differences. All the while, her heart was hammering so hard it was difficult to think rationally at all. But at the center of her whirling thoughts was the certainty that this must, indeed, be her father.

His eyes narrowed as he caught sight of the brooch pinned to her tunic. The color blanched from his face. “Where did you get that?” he asked fiercely. He grabbed her arm and shook her hard. “Answer me, wench! From whom did you steal that brooch?”

“I didn’t steal it!” Shocked, Janna stared at him. “It’s mine, my lord. It belonged to my mother.”

“That’s impossible!” He turned to beckon Ossie, who was already hurrying toward him, alarmed by his raised and angry voice and the scene he was creating in the tavern. “I want her arrested,” he said. “She’s a liar and a thief.”

“My lord, wait!” Janna pleaded. She turned to Ossie. “It’s a misunderstanding. Please don’t call the guards. I can explain everything, I promise you.”

Ossie stared at her, unsure what he was supposed to do: obey an important customer or support someone whom he knew and trusted? Finally he shook his head and moved a short distance away.

“Give it to me.” The man held out his hand. “Give me that brooch at once.”

Slowly, knowing she had no choice, Janna unpinned it and handed it to him. It felt like losing her mother all over again. She blinked hard against the tears that flooded her eyes. As she had known he would, he turned it over. His lips moved as he silently read the inscription.

“Please, my lord, please give me the chance to explain.” Janna fought to appear calm, to muster the words she needed, for it was vital that she give a good account of herself. She knew she wouldn’t be given another chance to speak; indeed, might well be dragged away and cast into the castle prison if she couldn’t convince her father of her identity. “Just a few moments of your time, my lord, I pray.” It was an effort to keep her voice steady. She was angry and hurt, and very, very afraid.

He glowered at her, yet Janna saw a flicker of surprise cross his face as he studied her more closely.

“Do I know you?” he asked. “You seem familiar somehow. Were you employed on my estate before it was burned down?”

“No, my lord, we’ve never met.” Janna wished Sybil was around to put in a good word for her. She cast a glance of appeal at Ulf, who was watching the scene with a worried expression. He jumped up and hurried over. He noticed the brooch in the lord’s hands and understood the situation at once.

“That brooch belongs to Janna, my lord,” he said steadily. “She’s owned it all the time I’ve known her.”

John glowered at him. “And who are you?”

“Ulf, the relic seller, sire, at your service.” Ulf swept him a low bow. Janna groaned inwardly, knowing her father was unlikely to be impressed by Ulf’s calling nor was he likely to believe anything Ulf might say. But Ulf was the only friend she had to speak up for her, and speak up he did.

“Your dau – ” Janna closed her eyes, but Ulf caught his mistake and quickly corrected himself. “I’ve known Johanna for more than a year, sire. She’s courageous and honest…and I’m quite sure that the Earl of Gloucestre himself would vouch for her good character if you were to ask him.” He cast a triumphant glance in Janna’s direction. She felt a sudden lift in her spirits, and nodded her thanks to him.

“Robert of Gloucestre?” John gave a contemptuous snort, clearly not believing a word of it. But now that Ulf had given her the key, Janna found the courage to speak up in her own defense.

“I visited the earl at the castle last year,” she said steadily. “I had important news for him concerning an intercepted letter from the Bishop of Winchestre to King Stephen.”

John’s hand closed around Janna’s arm in a vice-like grip. “Do not speak of that in here! Do not speak of it at all.” It was clear from his warning that her father knew all about the letter. Janna hoped she’d said enough to capture his interest so that he would now hear her out. She waited for his permission to speak.

But it seemed that he wasn’t sure, now, what to do. He released her, and drummed his fingers on the table while he thought about it. Then he jerked his head in Ulf’s direction. “What we have to discuss is nothing that concerns you.”

Ulf bowed. “With your permission, sire, I shall withdraw,” he said formally, and returned to his seat. Understanding that he was no longer needed, Ossie hurried off. Janna remained standing in front of her father.

He sat down. His son, wide eyed with excitement, sat beside him. Janna waited for an invitation to sit down with them, but it didn’t come.

“Explain to me how you came by this brooch,” John ordered.

Janna’s throat went dry; her thoughts flew away. Where to start? How to convince him? To give herself time to think, she looked at the boy. Her half-brother? He was slight, with a heart-shaped face and a rather sulky expression. She could see no likeness at all to his father. He must take after his mother instead – Blanche. The thought of her father’s wife felt like a fist clenching hard around Janna’s heart.

She blinked. Now that the time was here, she had absolutely no idea how to break the news to her father that he had a daughter. To her relief, Ossie came back with a brimming jug of ale and two mugs, which he set down on the table. “Some ale, my lord. On the house. For your trouble.” He waited a moment, obviously hoping to hear what Janna had to say for herself, but John dismissed him with an irritated flick of his hand.

“I’m waiting.”

To give herself a little more time to muster her thoughts, Janna filled the mugs, splashing the ale in her nervousness. All the while she was conscious of the man’s close scrutiny.

“The brooch came from my mother, lord, as I told you,” she said at last, and put the pitcher down, glad to be rid of it, for her hands were shaking so badly she was afraid she was going to drop it. “Her name was Eadgyth. But you knew her as Sister Emanuelle.”

“What?” John surged up and grabbed hold of Janna’s arm once more. “Is she alive, then? Where is she now?”

Janna drew in a breath. She had raised her father’s hopes and now, somehow, she must find the words to tell him that her mother was dead. Knowing she couldn’t trust him with the whole truth, not yet, she broke the news to him as gently as she could, saying only that her mother had drunk some tainted wine and died from it.

“No!” The man sank back onto his stool and bowed his head. Then he jerked up and faced Janna with blazing eyes. “I don’t believe you!” he said fiercely. “My Emanuelle was a healer! She was the infirmarian at Ambresberie Abbey. Even if the wine was tainted, she knew how to cure the ills of the body, any diseases at all. Unless…Was it an accident?”

“You could say that, my lord. She died many seasons ago.” Janna took a breath. “I am her daughter, and I buried her.”

The man was silent. Janna could have wept for the grief she read on his face. All this time he hadn’t taken his eyes off her. “So Emanuelle married again,” he said softly, and with some bitterness. “You say you are her daughter. Who, then, is your father?”

The moment she’d longed for had come. Janna felt such fear she wondered if she was going to be sick, and swallowed hard against the nausea rising in her throat. She was acutely conscious of her surroundings, of her stained clothes and lowly status. She wished with all her heart that she’d kept the brooch hidden until she’d had time to fetch the precious gown from the chest in Sybil’s bedroom; until she’d had time to dress herself to meet her father. He was far more likely to have believed her story if she looked the part. But it was too late now for regrets.

The thought came to Janna: She and Eadgyth had always been poor, had lived as paupers. This was who she really was, whether her father liked it or not. She straightened up and faced him bravely.

“You are my father, lord,” she said softly.

Her statement was followed by utter silence. Janna did not dare to look at him now, nor his son. Feeling acutely self-conscious and miserable, she stared down at her feet and the rushes on the floor. They needed changing again. She blinked, and risked another glance at him.

John was still staring at her, thunderstruck. “By God, you do presume,” he said at last.

A flash of anger stiffened Janna’s resolve; it gave her the courage to defend herself. But her knees were shaking still, so she sank down onto a stool and gripped the table edge to give her strength. The boy swiped his hand through the air as if to wipe her presence away as she collapsed beside him.

“My mother told me nothing of you while she was alive, my lord,” Janna said, trying to order her thoughts into the most convincing argument she could find. “It was only after she died that I found out that you left her to go to Normandy, to see your father the king. When you didn’t return she thought you had deserted her. And so she went back to the abbey at Ambresberie to beg for shelter. By then, you see, she was carrying a child. Me.”

“She was with child when I left her? But I…” John struggled to speak. “I had no idea.”

“You wrote her a letter,” Janna continued. “I know. But I only saw it after my mother died.” She hesitated a moment, recollecting the words she had read so often they were engraved on her memory. “
Mon amour, ma cherie
,” she quoted, thinking this the best way to convince her father that she had seen the letter he wrote, even if she couldn’t produce it now. She reverted then to the language of the Saxons, just as her father had done when he wrote to her mother.

“
I had hoped to return to you long before this time, but I find that my father has gone to Normandy and so I must follow him there. I cannot send a message to him for he will not understand why I need to break my betrothal to Blanche, nor will he forgive me unless I meet him face to face to explain why I am utterly unable to wed anyone but you.
”

Janna stole a quick glance at the boy – her half-brother. His face had paled; he was round-eyed with amazement.

“
He will be wroth, but I feel sure I will be able to persuade him that, in this, I know best,
” Janna continued her recital. “
While he has made a worthy match for me, I know that once he meets you and witnesses our happiness together, he will fall under your spell just as I have done, and will welcome you into our family and bless you as a daughter. For certes, no-one could be more worthy than you to be my wife, or bring such grace to our family.

“
You have my ring, and now I send also this ring brooch to you to pledge my love.
‘Amor vincit omnia.’
It means ‘love conquers all’ – and so it shall.

“
I will return as soon as possible, for I miss you more than life itself.

“
Je t’embrasse de tout mon coeur, de tout mon corps, ma cherie. John.
”

There was a long silence after Janna stopped speaking. She waited for her father to say something, but he seemed incapable of speech. It was hard to read his expression. Knowing what a shock her words must have been, Janna felt some sympathy for him.

“I only realized after my mother died that she did not know how to read and write,” she said, knowing this would be a bitter grief to her father. “Nor did she ask anyone to read your letter to her. So she didn’t know you planned to return. She thought you had gone back to wed the woman to whom you were betrothed.”

“But…how could she think that?” It was a cry from the heart. “How could she think I would marry someone – anyone – other than her?”

“But you married someone else,” Janna reminded him. “You married Dame Blanche.”

“Only because I thought your mother was dead! On my return from Normandy I searched everywhere, but I found no trace of her, not anywhere. Even the sisters at Ambresberie claimed to know nothing of her whereabouts.”

“They were speaking the truth,” said Janna. “When the abbess refused to shelter my mother, she set off for Wiltune and the abbey there. By then she was heavy with child, and she called herself Eadgyth,
wortwyf
and healer.”

“And I was looking for a single woman, not a mother and child. And I was asking for Sister Emanuelle. Your mother never told me her real name. And now it’s too late and she really is dead!” Grief convulsed John’s features. He snatched up the mug of ale and drank deeply to disguise his distress.

“She died with your name on her lips. She never spoke of you to me, but she loved you all her life. And she never wed anyone else either.” Janna wasn’t sure whether it was a comfort or a curse for John to know that. “My real name is Johanna,” she said, hoping to ease his pain. “She named me after you.”

“Johanna?”

Janna inclined her head in agreement.

“And did your mother enter the convent at Wiltune? Is that why I couldn’t find her? Is that where you were reared?”

“No.” Janna couldn’t help bitterness creeping into her voice as she began to describe their life to her father. “The abbess granted my mother a cot and a small piece of land close to the forest of Gravelinges. We eked out a living brewing potions and healing the sick.”