Emma Campion - A Triple Knot (35 page)

“You’ll have days, weeks, months to explore,” said Will, appearing at her side.

He was so changed that Joan almost did not know him. Worse than gaunt, he looked as if he’d been ill for some time, his eyes shadowed, cheeks sunken beneath a scraggly beard.

“You’ve been ill?” Joan asked. “Were you injured? Let us find hot spiced wine for you.”

“Don’t treat me like an invalid.”

With a whispered excuse, Bella slipped away.

“Come,” Joan said, slipping her arm through his. “Walk with me and tell me about your knighting, Sir William.”

He seemed to relax a little with something to talk about, and they moved along the edge of the gradually filling room.
Once, she thought she saw Thomas, only to realize that it was someone else. Later, she spotted his brother Otho. Following her gaze, Will said, “Thomas Holland is away on a mission for the prince—across the Channel. And your brother has sailed for home as well.”

To come so far and still not see them was a great disappointment. Though Thomas had written to her through Lucienne, Joan yearned to see for herself that he was well, and to hear more about how Raoul Brienne, now constable of France, had surrendered to him, how much he thought the ransom might be—enough? And she’d hoped to see her brother. “It seems we women will have little to distract us from one another. I can’t imagine how we’ll fill our days.”

She was saved from saying more by the horns announcing a royal entrance.

In strode Ned, a stark contrast to Will. He glowed with health and good cheer, his chest puffed out. He looked older than his sixteen years, so tall and broad-shouldered, but it was his bearing that had utterly changed, from a boyish flaunting of his rank to a man comfortable and confident in himself, nodding his head at the wave of bows as he strode into the crowd as if it were only his due, as if he believed all there had come solely to look on him.

“Ah, the hero of Crécy arrives.” Will muttered. “Look at him.”

Ned spoke to all who approached him, asking after injuries, laughing at japes, at ease with the deference even the highest of nobles showed him.

“You see? He believes he’s a hero.”

“It is not true?”

“Many were heroes that day. Many fell.”

She sensed a personal loss. “Someone close to you?”

“Damien.” One of his pages. “Others who had come to be friends.”

She tried to distract him with news of his family, but it was awkward, unnatural, and did little to cheer him.

A page came forward to lead them to their seats. It seemed that Joan was to sit at the high table between Will and Ned.

“I should not complain. I would not be at the high table but for your presence,” Will muttered.

Joan patted his arm.

“Joan! Let me look at you.” Ned took her aside. She felt herself blushing beneath his intent, appreciative gaze, a pleasant contrast to Will’s indifference. “By God, you are more beautiful than ever, cousin. If my mother’s eyes were not on us …” He made a growling noise deep in his throat. That was a crude new skill.

“And you, cousin, the handsome prince, and a hero!”

“Don’t tease me.” For a moment he looked uncertain, and was again the boy who had ridden off to war.

“I am not teasing, Ned.”

Someone bowed to him in passing, and he straightened, his eyes sharpened. Joan felt an odd melancholy. They’d both now left childhood far behind. As they took their seats, she asked him to tell her all about Crécy. At first, he voiced much the same sentiments as Will. He’d shared the day with many brave men, and many had fallen.

“No, Ned,
tell
me. All call you the hero of the day. I want to hear
your
tale.”

He hesitated but a moment. Soon she learned the lay of the land, the battle formation—Ned took up several spoons to show her his centered position, the archers to the sides. “We expected that, as ever, King Philip would refuse to engage. But no! At last!” His face flushed, eyes brightened, as he described the mortality of the Genoese crossbowmen—they were no match for the English longbows, and when the Genoese retreated in terror the French nobles rode them down in their arrogance. Had they bothered to ask why they were retreating, the nobles might have
saved themselves. And then the attack, how Ned rode through the knights and nobles on horseback, slicing at them, crushing their helmets, cutting down their horses, all the while shouting encouragement to his men.
His men
. Someone shouted that his standard-bearer had gone down. Sir Thomas Daniel pushed through the chaos to raise the standard. “And Father did not rescue me. I won the day.
I
did,” he ended breathlessly.

Caught up in the excitement of his delivery, Joan cried, “You have faced your destiny and triumphed!”

“I have, Joan. No more doubt that I might not live up to Father’s expectations. I
am
a warrior.”

“I never doubted you. I’ve seen you on the tournament field, in the practice yard.” She raised her mazer to him. But he placed his hands over hers, guiding the cup to his mouth. Then he leaned close and breathed deeply. “You smell like England.”

“Rose and lavender. You are thinking of the gardens at Eltham and Woodstock.”

“You are the queen of my heart.” He took another drink, then tilted the mazer toward Joan.

It felt too much like a ritual bonding, a vow shared. She shook her head. “Your parents are no doubt watching us.”

Henry of Grosmont, now Duke of Lancaster, interrupted to have a word with Ned. He rose immediately, once more the proven warrior with men under his command.

Joan looked out over the hall, curious who was present. She noticed couples happily reunited, clusters of people leaning together talking excitedly, the lonely or broken few not engaged, staring off. Beside her, Will was talking with some liveliness to Bella.

“They are so proud and happy,” she said later that evening to Bella after they’d been treated to a long description of Henry of Lancaster’s sweep of northern Gascony by several eager young knights. “I feel as if I’ve been permitted a peek into their warrior hearts, man’s ideal realm.”

“Mother says that bloodlust makes the most ordinary man look a dashing hero,” said Bella. “Father has never looked more glorious, more powerful, more handsome.”

“Your father’s never suffered an ordinary moment, Bella.” But the king did look fitter, stronger, more confident, certainly happier than he had when he set out from Guildford Castle. And why not? He was triumphant.

T
HE KING INTENDED THE WOMEN
’
S PRESENCE AS A SHOW OF CONFIDENCE
on the part of the barons and knights that their women would be safe in Villeneuve-le-Hardi, but in practice the women were confined to the encampment—they could not ride, hunt, hawk, tour the conquered towns and villages. How, then, were the French to feel the prick of their presence?

The happy mood of reunion quickly faded. The wooden structures were drafty, with no glazed windows and poorly fitted shutters, the bedchambers crowded. Few of the wives shared their husbands’ bed, for the men were either in the field or defending the camp. Joan was relieved, for there was little danger that she would be expected to share a bed with Will, but as the men returned to their duties the women’s quarters grew loud with bickering and complaint. The novelty had worn off, and the women wearied of their confinement.

Joan hoped to escape outside with Helena to explore this makeshift metropolis that was to be her world for as long as the king desired. But they discovered that even this they could not do without an escort.

“The men have become accustomed to camp followers, my lady. They can behave like dogs,” said the guard who insisted on accompanying them.

So much for Joan’s intended time to herself. But she made the best of it, asking the guard about the men they encountered, particularly the wounded—those missing hands, feet, arms,
legs, those with their heads or necks swathed in bandages. They sat in doorways, leaned out windows, hobbled about, often with eyes glazed with pain, fear, despair. Some had no visible injuries, but, like Will, looked cadaverous, haunted by death. Making the circuit of streets and practice grounds, Joan witnessed the real price of the king’s war. Beyond the encampment the land was flat, trampled, the trees cut down for timber and fuel. Within the encampment, desolate men; without the encampment, desolate land.

How will I bear this? When will Thomas return?
Joan drank too much wine that night and argued with Ned, avoiding Will even more than usual, because now she saw in his eyes, when he thought no one was looking, the same desolation she’d seen in the eyes of the wounded that day. Her wine-induced nightmares left her shaken in the morning.

Comfort came several weeks later, in the form of a white-and-brown bundle of fur. After Mass one gloomy December morning, Ned presented her with a puppy, skinny and shivering.

“I found him scavenging in the waste outside the camp. He would have starved. I remember how much you loved Bruno. Is he not like him?”

It was the first time Ned had mentioned Bruno since she sent him away from the grave, and for a moment she wondered whether this was some sort of reparation. “When he fills out, perhaps,” though she was doubtful. It did not matter. She could not resist the puppy as he licked her face and squirmed to bury his head in her neck. “Thank you, Ned. He’s a dear.”

She called him Jester, because laughter bubbled up where he went, his happy bark and wagging tail bringing smiles to the dourest of faces. He was her excuse to take frequent walks, hoping to overhear news of Thomas’s return. After several days, she’d learned nothing new. But someone did recognize the puppy.

“Pulled him out of a burning house Red John did, poor tiny mite trapped in there. No doubt his mother lay dead within.” An old soldier shook his head and spit into the alley. “Henry’s what Red John called him, my lady, and he loved him so, fed him better than scraps, carried him inside his jacket when he went on watch—we all feared the pup would bark and get him killed, but somehow he knew to be quiet. It was a festering wound that wouldn’t heal, that’s what killed Red John. Leg swelled up thrice its size and started to smell. He fell into a fever and died. Henry stayed tucked in the crook of his arm while he suffered. At John’s last breath, the pup howled and then bolted. We could find him nowhere.”

Joan bent down to smooth the puppy’s ears. “So you’re mine now, Jester.”

The old soldier laughed. “That’s a good name for him. Good bless and keep you both, my lady.”

Walking back to her lodgings, Joan stumbled as Jester began to pull hard on his lead, straining toward another soldier who’d crouched down to greet him. “Henry! There you are, clean and groomed. You’ve found yourself a good home, eh?” He rose and bowed to Joan. “My lady. You’ve a good dog there.”

“I call him Jester,” she said. “I heard all about how Red John rescued him. May God grant him peace. Do you by chance know Sir Thomas Holland?”

“Sir Thomas saved my life, my lady. Pulled me out of the way of a horse about to trample me in the field.”

“Is he in camp?”

“I know not, my lady, but I pray for him every day.” He told her where Thomas lodged when he was in camp, officers’ quarters across from the Chapel of St. Michael.

In the ensuing days she befriended the priest in charge of St. Michael’s, inviting him one afternoon to join her for Jester’s walk. Don Jerome knew the Holland brothers. “Sir Thomas is the best of them in the field. You’ll find many here who will
enjoy recounting how he charged across a river shouting ‘For St. George!’ and cleaving a lone outrider almost in two.” He crossed himself and nodded at her expression of dismay. “He saved many a man that day, I’ve no doubt, but we must pray for the soul of his victim, even so.” She had no part in Thomas’s honor and heroics, yet she felt so proud of him.

Christmas came and went, with still no sign of Thomas. She’d not seen him since May, when he rode out the gate at Guildford. And then, one afternoon, Joan entered the king’s hall and saw her beloved conversing with His Grace, the two of them leaning over a filthy map spread out on a table. One of the ladies called out to her. Thomas looked up, and for a moment he held Joan’s gaze, smiling, then returned to the map.

But for the scarring and the eye patch already so familiar, he looked unharmed, and his smile was the most beautiful sight she’d seen in a long, long while. How intently His Grace listened, how comfortable Thomas seemed. So this was Thomas in the field, confident, respected, absorbed in his mission.

She’d not thought about how impossible it would be for them to find time alone in the crowded encampment. His presence quickly proved a torment. Though Will had departed on a mission for the king, Ned was still in camp and possessive of her time. Joan and Thomas traded smiles from opposite ends of the hall at meals.

She confided her frustration to Don Jerome, the only person with whom she felt she could be frank.

“There is a chapel on the edge of the encampment used by the merchants, far from the king’s residence,” Don Jerome said one evening. “I have cause to go there tomorrow. Would you care to accompany me? I’m quite certain we will encounter Sir Thomas there.”

Joan could not believe her good fortune. “Why are you helping us?”

“I am here to care for the souls of His Grace’s men. It will
be good for Sir Thomas to be with you. He will be less likely to take unnecessary risks going forward, and will allow compassion to move him when a death will not help the cause.”

As promised, Jerome escorted her to the chapel the following day, leaving her at the entrance to the dimly lit space as he hurried off to the vestry. She found herself suddenly swept up in strong arms. “Thomas!” She knew his touch, his scent. When at last they broke apart, he drew her down onto a cloak he’d arranged in a corner. “Dare we, my love?” she whispered.

“In this wartime encampment, no one will bother a couple finding ease in the shadows.”

And so she and Thomas came together in the tiny chapel. A brief, exquisite joy.

“I ride out again tomorrow,” Thomas told her when at last they stepped out into a stormy evening. He drew her furred cloak closer round her face, kissing her lips once more. “I thank God for this time with you.” He told her he’d been sent away just two days before she arrived. “The orders come through the prince, but I think it is His Grace who is determined to keep us apart.”
For Catherine. Of course
, Joan thought. “But there is hope, my love, so we must do nothing to jeopardize our goal. His Grace has offered me a fine sum for Raoul, and I’ve accepted.”