Lavender Vows (8 page)

~*~

It did not take much for Bernard to learn where the chamber of Ralf, Lord of Swerthmore, and his wife, Lady Joanna, boarded. One simple question to the stable boy Leonard, and Bernard found himself hurrying back into the keep and down a dark, torchlit passageway to a chamber on the second floor.

He knocked boldly, not caring whether anyone might hear him—wanting only to see the woman who had somehow become everything to him in the last two days.

There was a long pause, and then just as he raised his hand to pound again, the door cracked open…then was flung wide.

“Lady Maris.” Bernard stepped in to find the room warm and sunny with a blazing fire and three candles. “What do you here?”

He did not need to wait for her answer, for in the wake of his words, he saw his Joanna lying on her side in a large bed. She was curled into a ball, her hand fisted under her cheek, her eyes closed and her breathing fast and shallow.

When he saw the cuts on her face and hand, the black and purpling on her face, he swayed and had to clutch at the bedpost as white rage poured through him.

“
Joanna!” he choked, moving to her side to touch her clammy cheek, to trace gently an angry cut along her fair cheek.

“She is well hurt,” Maris told him. “She was beaten nearly to death by Ralf.” Even as she spoke, her voice sharp and flat with fury, she ground herbs with a small mortar and pestle.

Joanna remained still, only the short puffs of air belying that she yet lived. Rage and guilt swelled within him as he looked down at her battered body. How could he have left her to this man’s anger? He should have known—
known
—that Ralf, having lost the battle, would take out his fury on Joanna.

“
She must be taken from him, Lady Maris, and then
I will kill him.
”

’Twas his own fault that Joanna now lay still as death, for if Bernard hadn’t angered Ralf so, the cock-sucker would not have been propelled to injure her thus.

Guilt, strong and sharp as the lash of a blade, made him ill and weak. How could he have left her to this? “We must take her from here, now,” he said.

Maris shook her head regretfully. “Nay, Bernard, ’twould not be best for her to be moved. She has two broken ribs and she is very, very weak. Can you not settle a guard here?”

Bernard snorted. “In the home of the father who wed her to this monster? Aye, I’ll do it, but I do not know how long he’ll allow it.”

“Allow it?” Maris echoed. “When his daughter has been near beaten to the death, her own father will not allow her to be kept safe?”

Bernard shook his head, sick at heart. What could he do to ensure Joanna’s safety? With all his being, he desired nothing more than to stalk back to the great hall and plunge a dagger into the throat of Ralf.

Such an action would free Joanna from the man, certainly, but would leave Bernard hanging for murder and Joanna unencumbered—and sure to be wed to another man. Much as he had the blood lust to do away with Ralf, Bernard could not allow Joanna to belong to anyone but him.

Not now that he’d found her.

He stood, leaned to press a kiss to the cool, still cheek of his beloved, and turned to Maris. “I will fetch my father’s men-at-arms and send them here anon. Please have a care for yourself and my beloved. I will find some way to tend to this.”

VI.

Through a heavy murkiness, Joanna heard a haze of voices…staccato bursts of anger.

She struggled to open her eyes, but it felt as though her lashes were plastered onto her cheeks. Pain radiated through her body, echoing everywhere so that she could not tell where it began and where it ended.

Her senses faded, and she slipped into the depths of darkness, buffered from the pain.

She heard the voices again, and they pulled her from her deepest, safest place. They tugged her relentlessly from the numb cocoon that kept the agony at bay, and as she became more aware, the heaviness of her hurts throbbed and battered her body, even though she lay still.

This time, she managed to pry her eyes open—the only part of her body that moved without pain—to see Ralf holding something in his hand, something flowing, and white. His face was a mask of fury, and even as she watched, he whirled in anger upon another figure in the room—a woman—and turned upon her, grabbing her shoulders and tossing her aside.

The other woman screamed, then fell to the floor, silenced.

And Ralf rounded upon her, Joanna, in her bed.

“Wake up, you cock-spittle bitch!”

Hands seized her shoulders, and she was jerked up, her head snapping back as a scream choked in the back of her throat. Red-hot pain stabbed her head, her abdomen, and flashed through her body like fire. She could not control the wail that erupted from her abdomen and burst from her mouth.

“What is this? What is this?” he was shrieking. Somehow, through all of the hazy pain, she felt the spittle fly from his mouth, flecking her face. “Whore!” He released her, and she fell back onto the bed, her teeth jarring together.

She struggled to make sense of what he raged about, fighting to focus her eyes on the white cloth that he brandished whilst she prepared herself for the blows and pain yet to come.

“You thought to cuckold me?”

He raged about the room, not yet deigning to take his fury out on her physically…but she knew ’twas only a matter of moments before the blows fell. What was he angry about?

“My squire heard you in the stable—with your lover! He saw you make the whore of yourself—and ’twill be the last time you do!” He leaned forward, menacing, over her. His eyes were wild and yellow in his face, and Joanna nearly fainted as his words penetrated.

His hand closed around her throat, squeezed and released, so that she coughed in agony. She gathered all of her strength, trying to twist away…but in its battered state, her pain-filled body was no match for his iron grip. His fingers closed again, and she reached to claw them away as spots of black light flashed at the corners of her eyes.

Death. ’Twould be welcome—’twould be heaven compared to living her life in this fear.

Bernard.

His face flashed before her as the life began to seep from her body.

And suddenly, Joanna realized she had one last chance. She forced herself to form the single syllable that might save her life.

“Map.”

As though ’twere magic, the word, grating even to her ears, caused Ralf to lessen his grip. She sucked in a huge breath of air, her body shuddering with the effort, and gasped the word again. “Map.”

“Where is it?
Where is the map, Joanna?
”

As she’d hoped, greed proved a stronger force to Ralf than anger. She managed to nod her head, barely.

“You have it?” His hands flew to grip her shoulders and she gasped in pain. “Where is it, bitch? Tell me and I might spare your life!”

“Fire…place,” she whispered, streaks of agony catching her breath and making the words nearly unbearable.

He was on her in a moment. “You
burned
it?” The rage turned his face into a grey stone mask with burning yellow eyes, and he reached for her with clawed hands.

With all of her effort, she half-rolled away, her denial little more than an agonized moan. “
Nay!
”

He whirled away from her, toward the fireplace, and began to pull on the stones, kicking them, shoving at them. “Is it here?”

Joanna stifled her sobs of pain as she struggled to rise from the bed.

She managed to pull herself up to sit, her head spinning crazily and her mouth dry with pain, when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. If she’d had any strength, she would have screamed in shock and fear…but when she saw Maris of Langumont pull to her feet from the floor, Joanna’s fears subsided.

She watched as Maris moved quickly and silently, taking a heavy wooden bowl and, stepping behind Ralf, brought it down with a loud
crack!
onto his head.

He slumped instantly into a heap at the fireplace hearth.

Maris turned to Joanna, staggering slightly as she made her way to the bed. “Come, we must go.”

She slipped an arm around her, and eased her off the pallet. Joanna tried to find her feet, but the room spun and she sagged against the taller woman. “Come,” Maris puffed, half-dragging her to the door. “Come.” ’Twas as though she said the words to keep herself moving.

They made it to the door, and a moan from Ralf nearly caused Joanna to faint. Maris managed to prop Joanna against the wall, and Joanna, for her part, kept her knees from buckling whilst her friend got the heavy door open. They fairly fell into the dark, empty passageway out side of her chamber, and Maris shut the door behind.

Joanna summoned more energy and managed to wrap her arm around Maris’s waist and to actually take a step. They paced slowly down the hall until they came to another corridor. A small alcove recessed behind it, and Joanna pulled away toward the dark corner. “Go. You cannot…carry me….” she gasped. “I will stay. Safe.”

Maris hesitated, then, seeing the wisdom of searching for someone who could carry an ill woman, gave a quick nod and stepped back, looking carefully to see if Joanna would be noticed should Ralf erupt from their chamber. “I’ll get my father.”

~*~

Bernard raged into the great hall, pushing past revelers and serfs, using his bound elbow as a battering ram. His eyes focused on the dais where Joanna’s father sat…and where Ralf had also eaten his meal. He saw immediately that Ralf was no longer at his father-by-law’s side, and worry for Joanna propelled his feet even faster.

“Lord Wyckford,” he bawled, charging up to the high table, caring little that he interrupted a jongeleur at his tricks. “Lord Wyckford, I must speak with you!” He nearly leapt upon the dais, and was at the man’s side in one quick stride.

“Who are you to accost me so boldly?” The Lord of Wyckford shot a disdainful glance at Bernard, and buried his face in his goblet.

Bernard restrained the urge to knock the cup from his hand and instead planted his one free hand on the table next to the man, bringing his face into his. “Your daughter Joanna lies near death in her chamber—”

“What say you?”

“And ’tis the fault of her husband that she has been beaten near to her grave. You must place guards at her door to keep him from further harming her.”

Wyckford looked at him and blinked slowly. “Do you not give me orders in my own home,” he grunted. “And I cannot interfere betwixt a man and his wife—for ’tis the law of the church that the wife is the chattel of her lord.”

Bernard’s rage blinded him. “She lies near death, man! She is your
daughter
!” He curled his fist into the table and splinters pierced the skin under his fingernails.

Wyckford glanced over Bernard’s shoulder and seemed to reconsider. The hall had grown quiet and all appeared to listen for his response. “I shall send guards as you have requested. But I do not relish coming between a husband and his wife…and you, sirrah, should have a care for yourself, else you are accused of worse. Now begone!”

Bernard’s teeth creaked as he turned away, clamping his jaw in fury. He would send his own men, damn the man! He spun on his boots, jumped off the dais, and began to push his way out of the hall with the same force as he’d arrived.

The crowd melted away as he stalked through them, his face a set, still mask that likely brought fear to more than one man’s heart. In a haze of anger, he started for the quarters of the men-at-arms in search of his own men…then again spun on his heel and started back down a long corridor.

Foolish! Whilst Bernard berated Wyckford and sought his own men, Ralf was nowhere to be found…and with a lump in his throat that threatened to choke him, Bernard had a fear that he knew where the man had gone.

He ran down the corridor, through the twisting passageway lit by flickering torches and silent as a tomb. As spirited as she was, Maris would not be able to stand up to Ralf should he appear…and Joanna was so weak that one blow could send her to her grave.