Silken Threads (6 page)

“Nay,” he groaned, covering his face with
his hands. “You don’t understand. I can’t explain.”

“I’ll be happy to write the letter for you,”
she offered diplomatically.

“I can write,” he said. “‘Tisn’t that. It’s
just...” He shook his head. “Bloody hell. Two bloody months.”

“Possibly three,” Aldfrith said. “Or even
more. It all depends on how quickly those bones knit. The more
rested you keep yourself, the quicker you’ll heal.”

Graeham muttered something under his breath
that Joanna was just as happy not to hear.

“Don’t take the splints off,” the surgeon
said as he closed up his bag and gained his feet. “I’ll be back to
check up on you, and I’ll change them when it’s needed, and bring
you a crutch as well.”

“I won’t be here,” Graeham said. “I’m
staying at St. Bartholemew’s.”

“That’s convenient,” said the surgeon, “what
with the hospital being right there. The sisters know what they’re
doing. They can tend to your leg.”

“I don’t understand,” Joanna said. “If
you’ve got a place to stay, why were you looking for an inn this
afternoon?”

Graeham stared at her blankly for a moment.
“Ah. Well, it’s just as I told you. I decided I’d prefer lodgings
within the walls.”

“Yes, of course.” He had said that. Still,
it seemed curious for a man who was just passing through town to go
to such trouble over his lodgings.

Dusting off his tunic, Aldfrith said, to no
one in particular, “I get half a shilling for splinting a leg, plus
three pennies extra for coming here instead of doing it in my
shop.”

Hugh started digging into his purse, but
Graeham said, “Put your money away. You’ve done enough for me.” He
pointed to his purse on the floor, still attached to his belt.
“Take it out of here.”

Joanna weighed the kidskin pouch in her
hand, estimating it at half a pound or more. Opening it, she saw
that it was all silver pennies. The only time she’d ever see that
much money in one place was when her father would unlock his money
chest to calculate his fortune.

Of course, it wasn’t the serjant’s money,
but his overlord’s. Most soldiers, with the exception of knights,
possessed only enough silver to pay for their next horn of
ale
—
or their next woman.

She counted out nine pennies and handed them
to Aldfrith, who recounted them, slipped them into his own purse,
and took his leave.

Graeham yawned.

“Are you tired after your ordeal?” Hugh
asked.

“What ordeal?” The serjant smiled gamely.
“‘Twas more trouble for you two than for me
—
I got to just
lie here. I am hungry, though.” He smiled at Joanna. “I wouldn’t
mind one of those eel turnovers now.”

Joanna pulled the blanket up to cover him.
“I’ll go get it.”

In the salle, Joanna found both cats on the
table, feasting on the turnovers, having managed to unwrap them.
“Manfrid! Petronilla! Scat!” They leapt down and tore off into the
shop stall. She stared at the half-eaten pasties, sick at heart
over having spent one of her last precious pennies to feed those
spoiled creatures.

Joanna lured the animals into the rear yard
by clicking her tongue
—
the signal that they were to be
fed
—
and dumped the remains of the turnovers into their
food bowl by the back door. They’d been an extravagance, a final
treat on the eve of complete penury; now they were cat food. “Enjoy
this luxury while you can.” She petted the cats as they hunkered
down to eat. “Soon you’ll be reduced to catching your own food.”
She didn’t like to think what she’d be reduced to.

Crossing the croft to the kitchen, Joanna
scrounged up the best supper she could manage, given her meager
provisions
—
dense, dark rye bread spread with honey and a
cup of buttermilk
—
and brought it back to the
storeroom.

Hugh held his finger to his lips when she
entered the little chamber. Grinning, he cocked his head toward the
cot. Graeham lay with his eyes closed, one arm arcing gracefully
above his head, fast asleep.

Hugh extinguished the lantern and carried
the oil lamp back to the table in the salle, where Joanna joined
him after pulling the leather curtain across the storeroom
doorway.

“Buttermilk?” Joanna held the cup toward her
brother as they sat opposite each other.

He wrinkled his nose. “Wine, if you have it.
Graeham drank all of mine.”

“Sorry, I’m all out.” And had been for
months, ever since her circumstances had begun to deteriorate. “No
ale, either, I’m afraid. There’s the Red Boar on the corner. You
could get something to drink there.”

“I’d rather stay here and chat with you
while I’ve got the chance. I’ve got to get to the bridge before
curfew.”

“London Bridge?”

He nodded. “I’m staying across the river in
Southwark.” Her disapproval must have shown on her face, because he
quickly added, “At an inn, not a stew.”

“Why would you want to sleep three to a
bed
—
a flea-infested bed, no doubt
—
at some
dreadful public inn when you can stay here?”

Hugh gave her that too charming lopsided
grin that had inveigled its way through her defenses ever since
they were children. “The proprietress has been a...special friend
of mine for years.”

“I see.” Half the women of
London
—
and of Byzantium, the Northland, the Rhineland and
everywhere else he’d fought these past years
—
seemed to
have become her brother’s “special friends.”

“I’ll be sleeping just two to a bed,” he
added unnecessarily.

Joanna glanced uneasily toward the leather
curtain that separated them from the stranger sleeping in the
storeroom. “I’d feel better if you stayed here
—
just for
tonight.”

“Better? Safer, you mean? You sleep in the
solar, right?”

“Aye.”

He chuckled. “Even if Graeham took it into
his head to ravish you in the middle of the night
—
and I
don’t quite think he’s the type
—
do you honestly think he’s
capable of making it up the ladder with that leg of his?”

She sighed. “It just feels...odd to have him
staying here.”

“He’s seems a decent enough fellow, Joanna.
I’m sure he’s harmless. And it’s just for tonight. Tomorrow I’ll
bring a cart and take him back to St. Bartholemew’s and you can
forget you ever met him. Now, are you going to eat that bread or
not?”

She shoved the bread at him; he tucked into
it ravenously.

“I take it Prewitt’s in Italy,” he said
through his full mouth.

Joanna drew in a deep breath. “Prewitt is
dead.”

Hugh choked on his mouthful of bread. Joanna
handed him the cup of buttermilk. He took a long swallow. His face
screwed up in disgust, but the coughing and sputtering eased a
bit.

“Christ, Joanna.” Hugh regarded her with
solemn astonishment. “When did this happen?” he asked softly.

“Last September.” Joanna rubbed her arms. “I
received a letter from an official in the city government of Genoa.
Prewitt...he was knifed to death.”

Hugh murmured an epithet and crossed
himself.

“By the husband of a woman he was...”

Hugh closed his eyes and rubbed his
forehead.

“The letter came in a package that contained
his personal effects,” she said. “His keys, his mantle pin, his
eating knife, his razor, a few other things. That sapphire ring of
his wasn’t in there, though. And no money, of course, although he
must have had some
—
he’d been there to buy silks from the
Orient.”

Hugh sighed. “Joanna...I can’t pretend to
grieve for the man.” He reached across the table to squeeze her
hand. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. “It’s odd. I actually mourned
him at first. But then I realized I was mourning, not for Prewitt,
but for the man I’d thought he was when I married him. And perhaps
even for myself, a little.”

“Verily? You’re not much given to self-pity,
that I’ve noticed.”

She smiled. “‘Twas a momentary lapse. I
thought about how he misled me when I was young and naïve. How he
used me. And, even worse, how I let him.”

“As you say, you were young and naïve. You
were fifteen, for pity’s sake. ‘Twould never happen today.”

“I daresay not. I’ve learned a thing or two
about men
—
the hard way. If you’ve got something they want,
they take it. They use you for what you can do for them, without
regard for your heartbreak when you discover that it wasn’t you
they wanted so desperately, but some small part of
you
—
your body, usually. Or, in Prewitt’s case, your
position in the social hierarchy.”

Hugh frowned. “Have there been...other men,
besides Prewitt?”

“Nay
—
never. Oh, they sniff around
me from time to time, like dogs. Usually they’re married, sometimes
betrothed. All they want is to slake their lust and move on.
They’re quite insistent, some of them.”

“Is that why you carry a dagger?”

“It’s proven useful.” She smiled inwardly,
remembering Rolf le Fever’s gaping horror when she shoved that
blade up his nostril.

“You should move to the country,” Hugh said.
“‘Tisn’t safe for you in London anymore. It wasn’t before, I
suppose, with Prewitt gone so much of the time, but at least then
everyone knew you had a husband to exact revenge if you were ill
used in any way.”

A gust of bleak laughter escaped her. “Not
that he would have. He wouldn’t have cared enough.”

“But the world at large didn’t know that.
Marriage afforded you some measure of protection. Most men aren’t
like Prewitt
—
they steer clear of entanglements with
married women.”

Joanna knew that was true, despite the
occasional exception, like Prewitt
—
or like le Fever, who
had made one or two subtle but unmistakable overtures toward her
while Prewitt was still alive. For this reason, she’d continued to
wear her wedding ring after his death. Nevertheless, male interest
in her had increased once news of Prewitt’s death began to
circulate through West Cheap, despite her demure attire and lack of
encouragement.

“As a married woman,” Hugh said, “you were
shielded from unwanted attention. Now that protection is gone.
Cities are dangerous places for women, Joanna
—
especially
women who are all alone.”

Well she knew it
—
and city life,
with its narrow, teeming streets, its noises and rank odors, had
long since lost its charm for her. Increasingly Joanna found
herself yearning for the verdant countryside of her youth, but her
dream of settling down in a peaceful little cottage somewhere was
all the more unattainable now that Prewitt was dead. She could
barely scrape by here in London, where there was a market for her
embroidery; how would she get by out in the country? And how could
she afford to move? The situation was hopeless; it didn’t bear
thinking about.

She took a generous swallow of the cool,
tangy buttermilk. “How long are you planning on staying in London
this time?”

Her effort to steer the subject onto another
path met with a smirk from her brother, who knew her too well. “I’m
expected back in Saxony in the fall.”

She grinned delightedly. “Do you mean to say
you’ll be here through the summer?”

“I mean to say I could, if I wanted to. I
probably will. I can use a bit of a respite from the
bloodshed.”

“But then you’ll be going away again. Must
you?”

His gaze suddenly melancholy, he said, “You
know I can’t stay here, Joanna. And you know why.”

Father.
“Does he even know you’re
back in England?”

The expression left Hugh’s face. “I’ve only
just returned.”

“Wexford is but half a day’s ride from
London, Hugh. Don’t you think you should pay him a call this
time?”

He cocked a sardonic eyebrow. “Strange
advice, considering you haven’t been there in six years.”

“Not by my choice, as you’re well aware. You
do have a choice.”

“And I choose to exercise it by staying as
far away from that son of a bitch as I can manage while I’m in the
kingdom.”

“Hugh...”

“How are you faring, Joanna?” he asked; now
it was his turn to change the subject. “Tell me the truth.”

If only she could; she hungered for a
sympathetic ear. But Hugh’s automatic response, were she to confide
her desperate situation, would be to bail her out of her misery
with the foreign gold he’d risked his life to earn. She’d taken his
charity once before, and promised herself she would never do so
again. If her predicament was dire, it was of her own making; no
one had forced her to marry Prewitt Chapman. She got herself into
this plight, and she’d get herself out...somehow.

“I’m getting along fine,” she said
carefully. “I...They won’t let me join the Mercers’ Guild, so I
can’t sell silk by the yard anymore.”

“Did he leave you anything at all, any
money?”

“A little.” And she’d lived as frugally as
she knew how, but it was almost completely gone now. Unless she
could turn things around, she would soon have to sell her shop. In
that event, she’d be not only destitute, but homeless. “And I’ve
been making small embroidered items
—
ribbons, scarves,
collars, girdles, garters
—
and selling them.”

Hugh’s brows drew together. “And you’ve been
making an adequate living from that?”

“Oh, yes,” Joanna said, lifting her cup to
her mouth so she wouldn’t have to look him in the eye while she
lied outright.

Hugh shook his head. “I don’t like it. I
don’t like to think of you all alone here, laboring from sunrise
till sunset just to get by. A woman like you shouldn’t have to live
this way.”

“A woman like me? I’m the widow of a silk
trader, Hugh, and not a very prosperous one. I’m used to hard work.
Besides, I enjoy embroidery.”