The Passionate Pilgrim

“I think we should continue our conversation indoors,” she said, leading her guest along the walkway and through studded oak doors into the hall where tables were being prepared for supper. On one, pewter candelabra stood with candles already lit, and she indicated a bench, placing Sir Rhyan within the circle of light while she sat opposite, affirming as she did so that her late sister’s adulation was typical of her shallow insight. He was indeed exceptionally handsome, but looks could be deceptive. He had done his best to injure her, once. He would not be allowed to forget it.

The hall servants kept a discreet distance, but Master Bonard was closer at hand in an obvious display of protectiveness, and although Merielle spoke in a low voice, she knew that he would hear. “Let us understand one another, Sir Rhyan, if you please. I had far rather Sir Adam himself had come to escort me to Winchester for then I would have been in pleasant company. I go with you on sufferance because we happen to be going the same way at the same time. Is that clear? I do not intend to make polite conversation with you for appearances’ sake and I would rather you respect my wishes to be left alone. A safe conduct to Winchester is all I require.”

“Still smarting, I see. You got the land back, for all the good it’s done you. For all the good it’s done the tenants, rather. Sheath your talons, lady.” He held his head high on great shoulders and sturdy neck, his unusually blue eyes showing not the slightest flicker of consternation at her blatant antagonism.

“It can be nothing to you, sir, whether I smart or not. It was an agreement between my father and yours, presumably based on some whim…”

“No whim, lady, and you know it as well as I, so cut out the sham, for that’s something I cannot abide.” His glance bounced off Master Bonard and back to her again.

“Then you must be having a hard time of it in this world, sir, for life is borne along on such minor deceits made out of our care for others’ feelings.”

“And you must be well practiced, judging by the company you keep. Does Sir Adam know of the competition, or shall you sign yon pretty lad off on Sunday?”

“Mind your tongue, sir! Until your appearance, the company I keep is of my own choosing, and my choice of husband will never be a concern of yours, whatever your late father chose to believe.”

“Yours, too, don’t forget. And you are mistaken, lady, if you think that their agreement is now at an end by reason of their deaths. The pestilence that took them both from us in the same year does not alter one whit of what was written and signed while your mother was alive, and that agreement you are bound to, now and for ever. I shall enforce it. You obtained the king’s pardon once, lady, but you’ll not do it again.”

“I paid for it, damn you!” Merielle snarled.

“Yes, a fine. That was not in the contract,” he said, coldly.

“I paid, wasn’t that enough for you?”

“No. Nor was it enough for those poor sods whose living is made on the land you refuse to administer.”

“I do. The bailiffs. The steward. They…”

“No, they don’t! The pestilence took them, too.”

Merielle breathed out, slowly, controlling the flow. “It returned? When?”

“Last month. And never once since then have you enquired what was going on.”

“I thought…” No, she had not thought.

He watched her eyes search the table-top, then he leaned forward on thick leather-clad arms, his long fingers splayed. “The land your father leased from mine, the manor house, the villages, the fields and mills were taken for a term of three lives, remember. Three lives, not two. His own, his wife’s and yours, as the eldest daughter. And as security, because they both wanted to be sure that the property would remain in responsible hands even after their deaths, your father agreed to allow my father and his heirs the right to approve husbands for his widow and daughter. You, mistress. Your mother died, but you are still written into the contract which I took over when my father and eldest brother were taken in the sickness. And there you will remain for the rest of your life. But you chose to forget that, did you not? And after your first husband died, a man of your father’s choosing and approved by mine, you went ahead and chose a fool who acquired your property and then careered off to Jerusalem, for God’s sake, having no more care for the land that supports his tenants than he did for his breeding wife, it seems.”

Merielle leapt to her feet, trembling with fury. How dared he speak to her like that in her own home? Her late husband’s home. “That’s enough!”

But Sir Rhyan’s hand darted across the table and clamped around her wrist, holding her back. “Sit down, lady!”

Master Bonard leapt to his feet, also. “Sir! You are a guest here. I beg you, release the lady at once!”

He did not, but kept his eyes on her face, waiting for her compliance.

Merielle sat, frowning at her protector. “It’s all right. I told you that chivalry was not in his book. Sit down, Master Bonard.” She felt her hand being released but would not rub her wrist where his fingers had hurt her. “I have always believed, Sir Rhyan, that no woman should be obliged to accept a man’s say in her private affairs. A husband, of course, but not a complete stranger who cannot possibly know what is best for her.”

“Your feelings do not concern me—we are speaking here of families, mistress, not of one person only. Families who have a right to be protected by law. What did your late Canterbury husband know or care of Yorkshire estates hundreds of miles away to the north except for the rents that poured in each year? What do you know of them? He couldn’t even look after you properly, could he?”

“You will leave my late husband out of this discussion, if you please. Had things gone differently, we would not now be having this conversation. You vented your malice by confiscating my property—”

“My property! My late father’s. And I had every right to reclaim it. Who else would look after those families if I didn’t? Eh?”

“I’ve told you. But you timed your vindictiveness well, didn’t you, Sir Rhyan? You waited until I was a widow—”

“Nine months, I waited.”

“—and had lost the child I so desperately wanted,” she panted, willing the tears to stay away, “and then you—”

“I didn’t know of that, then. It would have waited.”

“—sent lawyers to me. I suppose you thought I’d inherited so much from my father and husbands that I could afford to lose a little. Is that what you thought, sir? Did you care about my distress?”

“Do you care about the distress suffered by those families at the hands of your so-called stewards, who knew damn well there’s no one to come and see what they got up to? The frauds? The thefts? The unjust punishments? The abuses? The taking of daughters?”

“What?”

“Yes, all of that, and more. It’s next to my land, woman, so I know what’s been going on. Is it surprising I wanted to get it back, to give those people some normality in their miserable lives? It’s good land going to waste with poor management, not enough oxen, ploughs, hardly a roof on the church. And you here, sitting around with your lovers—”

His quick reaction caused Merielle’s arm to swing blindly through space, missing his head entirely and slewing her round with the effort. To steady herself, she braced her arms on the table and glared at him through narrowed eyes ready to kill with one piercing stare. “Hypocrite!” she spat. “It’s all right for men, then, is it? I’ll have you know, sir, that I can administer all my property in York, Lincoln and Canterbury, run a household and a tapestry-weaving business and still have energy left over for lovers whenever I feel like it. And if you choose to tell that to Sir Adam to see if you can put him off the idea of taking me to wife, well, don’t trouble yourself: I can do it much more effectively. With embellishments. If anyone is going to deter my late sister’s husband, sir, it need not be you, I thank you.”

“Even so, lady, that is what I shall do.”

She gasped and stood upright. “Ah, yes, of course. Just to make sure. You are his heir, are you not? And it wouldn’t do for me to get in the way of your inheritance, would it? Think of the dower he might tie up which you’d not be able to reach until my death. I see you’ve thought of that.”

Unmoved, he stood and let his eyes rove slowly from the wreath of pennyroyal still on her abundant black hair, over her full breasts and narrow waist, the swell of her hips under the green woollen kirtle, then back to her eyes, blazing with anger. “I’ve remembered everything, lady, as you say. But let me remind you again, lest you forget. You will not marry anyone without my permission. Not even my uncle.”

“And what could you do about it if I did, pray? Apart from reclaiming my property once more, what could you do? Unwed us?”

“Tch, tch!” He shook his head, slowly. “Do you mean to tell me, Mistress Merielle St Martin, that you would leap into your brother-in-law’s bed, another middle-aged and wealthy admirer, just to spite me? I’m flattered that anyone should go to so much trouble, but I’m sure you must have a good reason.”

“Then you are even more arrogant than I thought, sir. The only reason I could have for spending the rest of my life with Sir Adam Bedesbury would be to fulfil my responsibilities to my baby niece, my sister’s child. Is that a good enough reason, do you think? If the child were related to you, Sir Rhyan, would you think of doing the same?”

“Alas, lady, the degree of kinship is too close. I would not be allowed to marry my uncle. But in any case, I’ve always found it too extreme for my taste to suppose that one must needs marry the parent of every motherless child, related or otherwise. Responsibility is one thing, but your plan is as irrational as Master Bonard’s one eye. I suggest you examine your reason more closely.”

Reluctantly, Merielle saw his argument and was annoyed that he had been the one to advance it. “I have no plan that you speak of,” she snapped. “My point is that I have a good enough reason and that, if I choose, there is nothing you could do to prevent me, Sir Rhyan.”

He looked surprised at that. “Ah, forgive me. I had thought you were quite determined, with your talk of dower and such. In that case, Sir Adam will have the pleasure of trying to persuade you while you will have to exercise great restraint not to accept him. It should be most entertaining. And I can stop you, lady. Don’t doubt it.”

“Leave my house, sir, before I have you thrown out!”

But even that was too late, for he had already made his bow as he spoke and was turning to go.

Her own exit was meant to show him how he deserved no courtesy, but his hearty bellow of laughter followed her out of the hall and beyond, where she snatched the crown of green leaves off her head and hurled it at poor Bonard who had appeared with condolences at the ready.

“A fat lot of good that thing did!” she yelped, massaging her bruised wrist at last. “And why is Allene not here when I need her?”

Knowing that for her mistress to run through her vocabulary of insults would not improve her temper, the ever-practical Allene placed a beaker of hippocras between Merielle’s shaking hands and nudged it upwards, hoping thereby to bring the flow of invective to a halt. She was tempted to revert to the gentle clucking noises of the nursery to calm Merielle’s anger, but Allene’s experience as her nurse told her that this was neither the time nor the place to attempt pacification.

To Merielle’s accusing enquiry about where she’d been, Allene retorted with commendable composure, “Upstairs, packing. Where else would I be? If I’d known your guest was going to march in and out as if he owned the place, I’d have made it a mite more difficult for him, believe me.”

“Guest? That rat-faced piece of manure?”

“Ugly, was he? Now, my memory’s not all that bad, but I seem to remember—”

“Revolting! Should have been smothered at birth. And I’ll be damned if I’ll ride all the way to Winchester in that monster’s company.”

Allene’s expression registered no shock; her double chins did not quiver, her kindly blue eyes did not widen. But the outrageous assertion that the unwelcome guest was ill featured made her look sharply at the beautiful woman whose slender fingers clenched tightly around the vessel, tipping its contents this way and that to catch the reflections on its surface. Allene had been Merielle’s complete family during the last few years and knew better than anyone every mood, every inflection of the voice, every look and every thought behind it. She had been present at Merielle’s birth and at every moment since, and the memory she spoke of was indeed not as bad as all that. So intact was it that she could pinpoint exactly the last occasion when Merielle had reacted so harshly to anyone. Then, at her sister’s wedding here in Canterbury when Merielle had been inescapably faced with the same man, her private response had been just as extravagantly savage and out of all proportion, Allene believed, to a man’s right to do the best he could with his own land.

With all the property from Merielle’s father and two husbands to bring in revenues enough to satisfy an army, Allene had never been able to understand why the thought of allowing some of it to return to its Yorkshire owner should be so very unthinkable. Some women might have been glad to shed the responsibility, especially since officials had to be paid to administer the properties even during the leanest years after the pestilence. Since that dreadful time, it was now becoming more and more difficult to find men to do the work efficiently, so why all the fuss about surrendering it?

Allene would have asked about the man’s particular offence this time, but Merielle’s next observation forestalled her, astounding the placid nurse by its immoderation. “He’s that child’s father. You know that, don’t you?”

Allene could not allow this to pass. Her voice sharpened in rebuke. “For pity’s sake, child! You cannot say so!”

Taking the beaker from Merielle’s hands, she drew her towards a stool whose top was padded with a tapestry carpet of flowers. “You cannot say that! You have no proof and you are speaking ill of your late sister, also. Now put the foolish thought from your head and replace it with something more charitable. Did Archbishop Islip’s Easter message have no meaning for you? You may not like your brother-in-law’s nephew, but you cannot lay a crime like that at his door.”

“Yes, I can, Allene. Do you remember the child’s hair?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well?”

“It’s dark. Look, plenty of infants start off dark and go lighter. Some do the opposite. Your hair was more the colour of new copper when you were born. Imagine what your poor papa would have made of that, if he’d had a mind to. You can’t pin Laurel’s child on the man by that alone, Merielle.”

“Her eyes are blue.”

“So are all new-born infants; you know that, surely? And why are you so keen to make him the father? Did Laurel ever say as much?”

“Hah!” Merielle stood, turning away from Allene’s good counsel. “You know how keen she was on him. I could have warned her off him, told her how he retaliated after I married Philippe, wanting to take the land back into his keeping. But she’d not have listened to a word against him, would she? Come, this talk is pointless. I have to find a way out of this situation.”

“You don’t have to go to Winchester, pet. Send a message instead to say that you’ve decided against it.”

Admit defeat and hear his laughter ringing in her ears? That was the last thing Merielle would do. “I do have to go, Allene. I need to hold that child again.”

“There are two whole days between now and Monday.”

“So, are we packed?”

“Of course.”

“Then we go tomorrow instead of waiting.”

“Alone?” The nurse pretended a soupçon of dismay.

“Hardly. There’ll be plenty of others going in the same direction.”

“Then why not find out from the guestmaster at St Augustine’s if any of his guests will be departing tomorrow and at what time? Then we’ll be sure of travelling in decent company. They’ll probably call here on the way to the Westgate. D’ye want me to see to it?”

“Aye, send one of the lads in livery so he doesn’t get ignored.”

“It’s not the ignoring that’ll be a problem, but how to get back through the city gate after sunset. Could you write a note?”

“Yes. Where’s that…that creature staying, I wonder?”

If Merielle had asked where that creature and his uncle had stayed last time they were in Canterbury for her sister’s wedding, Allene might have resorted to a diplomatic lie. But she had not, and when the messenger returned some time later to say that the guestmaster would be happy to direct a small escort of returning guests towards Mistress St Martin’s house on Palace Street early next morning, Allene felt that her suggestion had been an inspired one.

Chapter Two

It was one thing, Merielle muttered, to be allowed to make one’s own decisions, but to be pushed into a plan of action by another did not conform to the portrait of independence she had striven so hard to present to the world since her latest widowhood. Concealing her annoyance in a ferment of activity, she managed to make it appear as if the only factor to influence her unplanned haste was that, by travelling on a Saturday, she would be sure of a day’s rest at the abbey guesthouse on the Sabbath before the rush of Monday-morning pilgrims from Canterbury. And in trying to convince herself that all was in her favour, she managed to cloud the image of the ogre—her words—who had in fact precipitated the change.

Bonard of Lincoln was not so easy to convince of the rightness of the plan. He turned the red scarf over and over in his hands. “I would not have removed it had it not been for their insistence on my being able to protect you better, mistress,” he said. “Now I see that my gesture was all in vain. I may as well have ignored them.”

The illogicality of this did not escape Merielle, but she handed him one of the goblets of wine and prepared her mollifying words. “Dear Bonard, you are sadly mistaken. You are the only one of the household with enough authority to leave at such short notice and the only one I can trust to keep things going. There’s the new consignment of wools to be checked; I would have done that tomorrow morning. Then there are two more Flemings to interview first thing, and I can leave that to no one but you.”

“The tapestry-master can see them.”

“He’s a Fleming himself, isn’t he? He’d take them on even if they were one-eyed and fingerless.” She regretted the comparison, but it was too late to withdraw it. “I need an independent master who knows the business. You must be here. And besides that…” she took his arm and drew him down beside her on the wooden bench, “…I need you to explain to Master Gervase what’s happened. Go round to his lodgings tomorrow, Bonard. Will you do that for me?” She saw the shadow of pain that passed across his eyes, but ignored it. She had seen it before.

“I’d rather wait till he appears on Sunday, mistress. He must take the inconvenience like the rest of us. D’ye want me to tell him about your dispute with Sir Rhyan, too?” The tone of petulance lingered into his question, making Merielle wonder whether she was hearing sarcasm or mere pique.

She frowned. “He knows, doesn’t he? He’s the one who got me an audience with the king, remember.”

“I meant this evening’s dispute.”

“No, better not.”

His cloud lifted. “So you’ll send word when you’re ready to return?”

Relieved, she prodded him into a lighter mood. “You’re sure I’ll return, Bonard?”

He smoothed the red scarf over his bony knees. “I’m more sure of that than of anything, Mistress Merielle,” he said. “Your unwelcome guest was flippant about not being able to marry his uncle, but I wondered if he was not also trying to tell you that your own degree of kinship is outside the canon law, too.”

“What?”

Without looking at her, Bonard continued, “A man may not marry his wife’s sister, nor may a woman marry her sister’s husband. Was Sir Adam aware of that when he suggested that you might consider taking your late sister’s place? Is that what he was suggesting, mistress?” Slowly, he turned his head, watching his words register in her eyes. He might have known she would challenge them.

“But people do. Men marry their brother’s widows, don’t they?”

“To keep property in the family, they do, with permission. You’d hardly qualify for that, would you?”

“So you’re saying that I’ve misunderstood the situation?”

“I don’t know exactly what was said, but such things are easy enough to misunderstand. Think. What did he say, exactly? He must know the law as well as anyone.”

“Then why didn’t I?”

“Presumably because you interpreted it the way you wanted to at the time. Men don’t always make themselves plain, do they, when it’s in their interests to be misunderstood?”

“Don’t they?”

“No, mistress, they don’t.”

“So you believe Sir Adam deliberately misled me?”

“To lure you to Winchester? Of course I do. You’d not go so readily if he’d asked you openly to be his mistress, would you? He must know full well that you’d not be allowed to marry, but men like that have to explore every possibility. How d’ye think he’s risen so fast in the king’s favour? By seeking every opportunity and grabbing at it, that’s how. He’s an ambitious man.”

“And how exactly is having a mistress going to advance him?”

Bonard sighed gently and plucked the red scarf away out of sight. “I may be a romantic,” he said, “but I’m not so blind that I cannot see the way men look at you.” He watched her large eyes withdraw beneath deep crescent lids and a thick fringe of black lashes, then waited until they reappeared, veiled with unease. “He can see your interest in the child, but if all he wanted was a mother for it, he’d have married again long before now.”

“It was less than a year ago, Bonard.”

“That’s nothing when a man needs a wife. But it’s you he wants, and he’s hoping that you’ll believe it’s marriage he’s offering. Once you’re there, he’ll try to persuade you. Forewarned is forearmed, mistress.”

“Oh, Bonard. Is that what you believe, truly?”

“Yes, it is. A mother for his infant and you in his bed.”

She flinched at his plain speaking. This was a Bonard she had not encountered before. Even so, there was something he did not know. “But my sister implied that Sir Adam was not…not like that.”

Master Bonard straightened, recognising the gist. “Yes, well, you know what Mistress Laurel was like when she wanted to make a point, don’t you? Unrestrained, could we say?”

“A family trait, I fear.”

He did not contradict her. “Sir Adam was not the man for her, was he? Too set in his ways and too interested in her sister. Hardly likely to qualify him for much praise, was it? Could she have said that to put you off, d’ye think? She certainly did her best to make him jealous, didn’t she?”

“Flirting with that man!” Her voice chilled at the memory.

“It takes two,” he said, quietly. “He’s severe, mistress, but at least he’s honest. Unlike some others we could name.” The quiet comment slipped through the net, and his reference to Gervase of Caen was lost in the previous one, which he extended. “And from the sound of things he may well understand what his uncle’s intentions are, and is trying to protect you.”

“Oh, Bonard!” Merielle looked away with impatience. “That’s inconceivable. The only reason he has for preventing a liaison between me and his uncle is because it would put his inheritance in jeopardy. My personal protection is the last thing on his mind.”

“Perhaps your opinion of him is too harsh, mistress. He was not responsible for what happened afterwards, remember.” His voice dropped, although the servants had long since ceased their arm-laden excursions across the hall and were now seeking dim corners in which to lay their heads for the night. “And however much you dislike him, he must never know that there was more to it than a straightforward fine. If you had not gone to seek the king’s aid in the matter…”