Joanna (60 page)

Salisbury’s letter could not be transmitted direct because   of the state of war, but it wound its way through the proper intermediaries and came, at last, to Roselynde. For three days after that, Joanna had done nothing but read and reread that letter. She did not eat nor really sleep. She did not weep. Edwina watched her mistress with growing anxiety.

On the third day, Edwina tore Salisbury’s letter from Joanna’s hands. That gained no more response than anything else. Joanna knew the words by heart and sat murmuring them over and over to herself. By the evening, Edwina was certain that Joanna would die if she was not immediately drawn back to the real world. She called Brian and went with the dog to Alinor’s chief huntsman.

“Can you hurt the dog so that he seems near to death but will not really die?” Edwina asked the old man.

“Brian? You want me to hurt Brian? You are mad. The young mistress will kill me by cutting me apart an inch at a time, and the lady, when she hears, will roast the pieces over a slow fire.”

“It is the young mistress who will die if you do not,” Edwina said and burst into tears, dropping to her knees and throwing her arms around Brian’s neck to weep into his rough coat. “I cannot rouse her nor make her eat or sleep. If I thought she would care, I would tell you to hurt
me
. I can think of nothing else. Brian was histhe young lord’s. He gave her the dog.”

“I know that,” the huntsman said, his broad face twisted with pain. All knew of Geoffrey’s death and all grieved. “But Brian” He put a hand on the great dog’s head, and the amiable animal beat himself with the wagging of his tail.

“She will die,” Edwina moaned, rocking to and fro. “She will die. I have done everything, everything. If the dog cries, perhaps she will hear.”

The huntsman looked at Edwina. He did not doubt her distress either for her mistress or for the dog, nor did he doubt her knowledge. He gripped Brian’s collar and drew him out of Edwina’s grasp. She knelt where she was for a few moments, sobbing, and then leapt to her feet to pursue the huntsman.   “Be careful,” she cried. “Do not let him fear or be much hurt. Oh, poor Brian. He will not understand. If only I could make him understand.”

“It is as well he does not. He would do himself a far greater hurt to serve Lady Joanna than I will do him.” The huntsman was much more cheerful. He had thought of an expedient that would work very well and do Brian very little harm.

Edwina waited, her knuckles pressed nervously to her lips. In a few minutes there was a single loud yelp. Another few minutes passed and the huntsman came back, staggering under the dog’s great weight. Edwina gasped. Brian’s neck, ribs, and haunch were soaked with blood and his head hung limply.

“You have killed him,” she cried.

“Fool!” the huntsman grunted. “I have stunned him, made three thin slits in his hide, and near drowned him in the blood of three hares. Quick before he rouses. This ox will not even realize he is hurt and will lick off all the blood with high pleasure.”

They went into the keep and up to Joanna’s chamber, the huntsman lagging behind and breathing in gasps from lugging Brian up the stairs.

“Madam,” Edwina cried, “oh, madam, Brian is hurt. He is near dead, I think. My lady, look to Brian.

Joanna did not even turn her head.

“Brian is dying, my lady,” Edwina shrieked.

The terror in her voice, which came from the apparent failure of this last hope, penetrated. Slowly Joanna’s head lifted, and the huntsman staggered in, dropping the dog, who was already regaining consciousness and was whimpering a little with fear at the unusual sensation of being carried. As he struck the ground at Joanna’s feet, Brian uttered a piteous yelp. Joanna’s eyes fixed on the bloodied body, took in the dog’s pathetic, ineffectual efforts to riseineffectual owing to the fact that the huntsman had his foot firmly planted on the overlap of Brian’s collar.

“No! No!” Joanna whimpered. “He is all I have left of   my lord. Brian! Brian!’’ The last words came out in a full-throated wail.

Edwina wanted to dance and sing. Instead she urged, “Let us wash him and tend him, my lady. Perhaps we can save him. Do you go for your salves. I will run to bring water.”

Dazedly, uncertainly, Joanna got to her feet. Brian uttered a howl of agonythe huntsman had surreptitiously applied his other foot to the dog’s ear. Galvanized by pity and horror, Joanna sprang toward the chest where the medicinals were kept. Now the huntsman knelt beside the dog as if to hold him steady while Joanna treated him, although actually he was exerting all his strength to keep the creature from leaping gaily to his feet. Poor Brian, utterly confused and with a dull ache in his thick head, whimpered and whined.

It took a long time to sponge off enough of the blood so that Joanna could see the actual wounds. Even dazed as she was, she did wonder how three shallow cuts, although they were quite long, could produce so much gore, but it did not seem important enough to speak about. While Joanna stitched up the cuts, Edwina made certain other preparations which resultedafter she had fed Brian some bread sopped in milk “to comfort him”in the dog falling into a heavy sleep. A sleep deep enough that Brian would not rouse to her voice was so unusual that anxiety nagged at Joanna and would not permit her to slip back into shocked numbness. She sat on the floor with the dog’s heavy head in her lap and cried over him, and, the floodgates being opened, cried over Geoffrey, and cried, and cried, and cried herself to sleep.

The next morning, there was no longer any way to conceal the fact that Brian was in his usual most excellent health. Edwina’s fears that her mistress would slide into blankness were lightened, however, when Joanna came quietly to table at breakfast time and ate, even if only a little.

She was no longer beyond attention. She saw at last Edwina’s drawn, unhappy face, Sir Guy’s heavy red-rimmed   eyes, the anxious glances of the servants. Years of training then asserted themselves. Well or ill, Joanna knew the responsibility of the keep, of all her mother’s lands and, now, all of Geoffrey’s lands lay upon her. If the head is lost, the body dies; that precept had been pounded into her since she could first understand words. Dutifully, she tried to go about her normal business.

When the weary day ended, Joanna cried herself to sleep in the empty bed, only to wake to begin another hopeless struggle. In the morning her mother’s letter came. The tenderness that was so seldom displayed in times of ease was a little comfort. Edwina watched fearfully, but Joanna’s grief did not seem to be much increased by Alinor’s confirmation of Salisbury’s news or the ugly tale of the doubled ransom. However, by midafternoon Joanna began to think she could endure no more. She withdrew to her chamber, with a sharp order to be left in peace for a few hours, to escape from the tender concern that bound her to her pain.

By habit she sat down before her embroidery frame and lifted the needle. She had just begun work when Edwina came rushing into the room, wide-eyed and trembling. “Madam, madam,” she cried, “Tostig is here! Tostig and Roger of Hemel! Come! Oh, come quickly!”

For one long moment Joanna remained frozen. Then she raised her eyes to her maid. “How do they look?” she whispered.

“Much hurt, both, and sad, but notnotoh, I fear to give you hope, but my lady, my dear, they do not look soso fearful sad as they should. Come! Come quickly!”

Then Joanna leapt to her feet, sending the embroidery frame, the table with her silks, her chair, all flying. She flew herself, across the women’s quarters and down the twisting stairs, stumbling and catching at the wall.

“Is he dead? Is he really dead?” she cried aloud across the hall, afraid to ask the question she really wanted answered.

Tostig looked toward her and staggered forward. He had lost two stone of weight and was gray-faced, his eyes burning with fever. “I do not know,” he croaked. “Not dead on the field.”

“What do you mean?” Joanna shrieked.

“I mean that I looked at every bodyevery single body on that fieldand my lord was not among them.”

Joanna swayed on her feet and Edwina put an arm around her to support her. “Are you sure?” Joanna quavered. “Are you very, very sure?”

Tostig began to look frightened. “I do not understand you, my lady. Of course I am sure. I would not let the carrion that scavenges the field touch my lord.”

“Sit down my love, come sit down,” Edwina crooned, drawing Joanna toward a chair. “I will set a stool for Tostig. You see he can barely stand, and Sir Roger too must rest.”

Sir Guy was supporting Roger of Hemel, and he helped him forward. “Madam,” Sir Roger said wearily, “it is true. Lord Geoffrey was not among the slain on the field.” He looked into the pale flame of Joanna’s eyes, and tears came to his own. ‘‘Madam,” he whispered reluctantly, “it was a very bitter battle. I pray you to set a curb on your hope. He might have been taken prisoner sore wounded, andand”

But Joanna knew Geoffrey could not have died after being taken prisoner because Isabella had offered a fortune for his corpse. Even if he had been buried before the news came of the price the English queen would pay for the dead body, it would have been dug up and delivered. Thus, if he was not a nameless, naked body buried in a mass grave at Bouvines, he was alive! Joanna fought down gladness. Only a great fool desires to be deluded in such matters. She licked her lips fearfully.

“You must tell me exactly what happened,” she said, trying to force firmness into her voice.”

Geoffrey’s master-at-arms did not look at his mistress but into his bitter memories. “I was wounded and my lord sent me from the field,” he began. “Because he said I would be a danger to him, I went. I waited by my lord’s tent for when   he should return. Not long after noon, I knew the battle went ill, and I gathered together my lord’s possessions. His jewels and the gold I hid upon my person. I have them here.”

He began to fumble at his tunic with his left hand, but Joanna waved at him to desist and continue.

“Then,” Tostig went on, “between one hour and two hours later, men began to flee into the camp. One told me that Lord Salisbury was dead and that Dammartin was surrounded and sure to die or be made prisoner. I asked for my own lord, but the man did not know of him.”

“Salisbury is not dead,” Joanna informed them. “He was taken prisoner, mostly unhurt. I have had a letter from him. Wait, now,” she said as Tostig swallowed painfully and took a deep breath. “In my own need I have overlooked yours.” She snapped a finger at a maid, ordering, ‘‘Bring wine, anddo you wish to eat? No? Bring wine.”

But Tostig did not wait for the wine. The bitter memories filled him. Despite his illness and pain, he needed to spew them out. “When I heard that,” he continued, “I went to where I could see, and to my sorrow I saw it was the truth. I” his voice shook with remembered fear and grief. “But I could not see my lord although I went from place to place. Then, when Dammartin fell and was taken with his men, the whole battle was broken and all who remained fled away, the French pursuing. I could do no more than hide myself, but I lay where I could watch.”

A maid brought a small table to Tostig’s left. Another placed a goblet of wine on it. A second pair served Sir Roger.

“The French came after that and took their own dead and wounded and those wounded of ours who would be worth a ransom. Then others began to creep toward the fieldyou know what they are. One came near to me, and I killed him with my knife in my left hand and cast off my clothes, which would mark me as an English soldier, and put on his rags. Then I ran down to the battlefield with the others. I was quicker than they because I looked only at the men in   mail and did not pause to take anything. I looked close. My lord was not there.”

“You could not have looked over the whole field beforebefore those others had a chance to despoil” Joanna’s voice broke.

“That is true, but I found my lord’s sword and shield.

“What?”

“They are below, my lady,” Sir Guy said softly. “I did not wish”

Joanna understood. No one had questioned Tostig or Sir Roger before calling her. As soon as they saw the sword and shield, they were certain of Geoffrey’s death. Sir Guy had wanted to keep the painful mementoes out of her sight until she was more resigned. Tostig had put his good hand over his face and begun to sob. Sir Guy patted his back and pushed the wine into his hand. The master-at-arms took a deep trembling breath and drank. He knew and Joanna knew as well, that Geoffrey would never drop his sword while he was conscious. Therefore, it was impossible that he had retreated after his father was taken and had gone to join Otto.

If he had been taken prisoner, the sword and shield would have been taken also as trophies. Certainly the scavengers would have taken the sword, which was a very fine one, a gift from Salisbury on his son’s knighting. Even if by some chance they had overlooked it when they despoiled Geoffrey’s body, they would not have moved the body far from where the sword and shield lay. Tostig should then have found him.

“II could not believbe it. I went round and round looking again and again,” Tostig said piteously. “Each time I went a little further. It is true the vultures had been in that place. The sword was half-buried in the dust and hidden under the shield, which was why it was not taken. Then I thought that for some reason they might havemight have moved him. His armor was rich and several might have quarreled”

“Oh no,” Joanna breathed, closing her eyes, although that could not block out a picture of Geoffrey’s body being   dragged about first by a leg, then by an arm, as several dogs will fight, pulling a chicken or a hare from each other.”

“That was how he found me,” Roger of Hemel put in a little more loudly than necessary to draw Joanna’s mind from the ugly image he guessed she had created. “Both the French and the corpse pickers had left me for dead. I do not know how I come to be alive, in truth. The last I remember was my horse being struck and going down with him. The next was of Tostig dragging me to shelter. He returned to the field again. It was a little time before I was clear in my head, but when night fell I was better and Tostig came back and told me what he had done and found. I decided to wait there until the next day when I hoped to be able to walk. My lady, I swear we looked on the face of every dead man on that fieldevery man. Lord Geoffrey was not there. He must have been taken prisoner and for some reason the sword and shield were forgotten.”