The Tavern in the Morning

Chapter Twelve

Josse knew that there were several things he could be doing that would make more sense than riding as hard as he could to the secret manor.

He could return to Mag Hobson’s house, for instance, and see if there were any signs that Denys de Courtenay had been back there, hunting for Joanna. He could ride down to Ton-bridge, spend an hour or so in the inn, catch up on the latest talk. What were the townspeople saying about the poisoning in the inn? Was anybody under suspicion? Had anybody there seen little Tilly’s handsome man again?

Yes. That would be an area he ought to explore …

But Joanna was on her own. In an isolated, empty house where nobody would hear her cry for help. And in his head he carried a picture of her face, when she had stood in the doorway earlier and watched him ride away with Ninian.

The quick lift of the chin and the smile hadn’t fooled him for a moment, because he’d seen how she had looked when she thought he wasn’t watching her. And he’d rarely seen a more forlorn expression in his life.

* * *

He reached the hidden manor house soon after nightfall.

He spent longer than he need have done seeing to Horace and to Ninian’s pony. For some reason, he was nervous about entering the house. He kept having a strange fluttering sensation in his belly, as if a small bird were caught there, flapping its wings, frantic to escape.

The palms of his hands were sweaty, and, unfastening the buckles on Horace’s harness, he noticed that his fingers weren’t quite steady.

Fool, he told himself. You ought to be beyond feeling like a love-smitten youth.

Nobody gets beyond that, another part of his mind said sagely. When you’re beyond those feelings, you’re probably ready for your grave.

He made sure the water trough was full, then slapped Horace’s rump and bade him good night. Then, fastening the barn securely, he straightened his tunic and strode across the courtyard to the house.

* * *

She was sitting in her usual position, on the rugs, furs and cushions in front of the fire. Her long, dark hair hung loose over her shoulders, half-shielding her face, and right down her back. She was smoothing it with her hands, holding up thick hanks in front of the heat from the hearth.

Hearing him come in, she said, ‘I’ve washed my hair.’

‘Aye.’ He bolted and barred the door. ‘Joanna, the door was open. I could have been anybody.’

‘You could,’ she agreed, ‘but I knew you were you. I heard you ride into the yard. Well, I heard somebody ride in, and I looked out and saw it was you.’

‘Oh.’

‘You’ve been a long time,’ she said softly. ‘I was beginning to wonder if you were going to bed down out there with your horse for the night.’

The combination of her low voice and the words she spoke were rousing him. Was she doing it on purpose? he wondered. Trying to keep some control, he said, ‘Ninian was made very welcome at the Abbey. Abbess Helewise has put him in the care of a young nun whom I know — she’s a good girl, kindly and loving, and she’s not very much older than he is.’

Joanna had closed her eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she said. Then, looking at him, ‘Please do not imagine that, just because it wasn’t the first thing I asked about, it was not the first thing on my mind.’

‘I don’t imagine that.’ He came over to her, kneeling on the floor beside her. ‘I understand full well what you feel for your son. You have demonstrated it, if it needed demonstrating, by your willingness to have him removed from you, for his own safety. Removed from the danger that you are in, from your cousin.’

‘But-’ Joanna began.

He watched her. As had happened before, he had the feeling she was about to say something important. But the sensation was far stronger now.

‘But what?’ Her eyes on his held a strange expression, almost pleading. ‘Joanna, what is it? Can you not tell me?’

For a moment, she did not respond. Then, very slowly, she shook her head. ‘It’s nothing. I was just thinking about Ninian.’ She shifted her position a little, making room for him in the direct heat from the fire. ‘Come, warm yourself — it’s a cold night, and you have had a long ride.’

She was, he realised, determined to change the subject. ‘Not that long,’ he said, settling beside her. ‘My, you’ve got a good blaze going!’

‘I have a lot of hair to dry.’

Presently she said, ‘Are you hungry? I have food prepared. Not much, but I could bring it in here, and we could eat in front of the fire.’

The thought of food made him feel slightly queasy. ‘Thank you, but I’m not hungry, in fact, I feel rather-’ He stopped. No, best not to admit to his faint nausea. ‘I don’t want anything to eat. What about you?’

‘I ate earlier.’ Now why, he wondered, am I so certain she didn’t? ‘But I could prepare some wine. Yes?’

‘Aye, that would be welcome.’

He watched her get up, in a smooth, lithe movement that was all in her strong legs; she did not use her arms to lever herself and the effect was particularly graceful. She padded barefoot across the flagstones — she had, he noticed, very small, narrow feet — and returned with a jug and several little packets on a tray.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked, watching as, kneeling before the fire, she took varying amounts from each packet and sprinkled them into the wine jug. ‘What are you putting into the wine?’

‘It’s Mag Hobson’s secret recipe,’ she said, smiling, ‘to warm you from the heart outwards on a cold night.’ She paused to stir the contents of the jug, glancing up at him. ‘Don’t worry, all the ingredients are wholly beneficial.’

‘I hadn’t imagined they wouldn’t be.’

She dipped a finger in the wine, tasted it, and added some more from one of the packets. Then she opened a small jar and put a great dollop of something golden into the jug.

‘Honey,’ she said, in answer to his raised eyebrows.

Then she extracted a poker from where it had been pushed into the flames, and stuck the end, glowing pale-yellow with the heat, into the wine.

There was a hiss, and a cloud of steam rose from the jug. The aroma floated out over them — spicy, sweet, with a sort of bitter tang underneath the surface smells …

‘Nice?’ she asked.

‘The smell is wonderful,’ he said.

She poured some into a mug. ‘Try the taste. Careful — it’ll be hot!’

He sipped. Delicious! Sipped again, and, as the extreme heat faded, took a mouthful.

Something to warm you from the heart outwards. Aye, it did that all right. He could feel the warmth and had the pleasant sensation that the wine’s sweet smoothness was flowing right through his body, relaxing him, soothing him. Stretching out his legs, he lay back on the cushions.

It seemed quite the natural thing to do when she stretched out beside him. He moved over to make room for her and put out an arm. Accepting his unspoken invitation, she came nearer, lying against him, her head on his shoulder.

He stroked her hair. ‘It’s almost dry now,’ he remarked.

‘Mm.’

His eyelids felt slightly heavy. Letting his eyes close for a moment, he thought he could see a vision of golden clouds, and he felt strangely that he might be flying …

He opened his eyes again.

He turned his head slightly so that he could look at her. She was staring into the flames, her expression unreadable.

‘What are you thinking about?’ he asked. ‘If it’s Ninian, I do assure you he’ll be quite all right.’

She raised herself on one elbow and looked down at him. ‘I wasn’t thinking about Ninian. Not at that moment.’

He waited. He was sure she would tell him what she was thinking about. In her own good time.

She did.

‘Josse,’ she began, still staring at him, ‘I — out in the woods, we-’

She did not seem to know how to go on. So he did it for her. ‘We kissed?’ he asked softly. ‘Like this?’ Reaching out with both hands, gently he held her face and brought it down to his. Then, tenderly, he kissed her lips. She gave a sort of sigh, then kissed him back, exploring his lips with her tongue as he had done to her, in that first explosive embrace beside Mag Hobson’s house.

‘Like that?’ she asked some time later.

‘Oh, Joanna,’ he murmured, ‘aye. Like that.’

The kiss on the lips developed and soon they were loosening one another’s clothing, exploring neck, chest, breast. Her mouth on his flesh felt soft, moist, thrilling, and his desire for her was escalating so rapidly that he was having difficulty controlling it.

But something was on the edge of his mind, something he knew he must pay attention to … something she had just said …

He made himself detach from the sensations she was engendering in him and think.

Think!

Aye. He remembered. Aye, that was it.

Very gently, so that she would not think it a rebuff, he pushed her away. ‘Joanna, wait.’

The dark eyes intent on his, she said, ‘Wait? What do you mean?’

Cradling her to him, resuming his stroking of her sheen of hair, he said, ‘Just now, when we began to kiss, you said, like that? As if you didn’t know.’

‘Was it not right?’ Her voice was full of anxiety. ‘You said it was, when I asked, you said, aye, like that.’

‘Sweeting, there was nothing wrong with the kiss! Quite the opposite — can you not tell?’

She whispered, ‘No.’

‘But you have been married? You have born a child?’ Oh, but there was no delicate way of saying this! ‘Joanna, you do know about love between a man and a woman. Don’t you?’

She rolled over on to her back, and instantly that side of his body missed the warmth of her, the highly-charged feel of her firm flesh against him. ‘Do I know about love?’ she repeated. Her voice had taken on a hard quality. ‘I know about sex, if that’s what you mean. I know about being raped, and about being made to do my wifely duty, which really amounts to exactly the same thing. Do I know about love? No, sir knight, I do not.’

He raised himself up and leaned over her, fingers on her cheek, delicately feeling its soft texture. ‘Sex is not love,’ he said. ‘One person taking his pleasure, with no concern for what his woman wants or feels, is nothing but selfishness. It is not how it should be, my love.’

Her eyes were shining in the firelight. ‘I knew it couldn’t be,’ she whispered. ‘I was always sure, even during those first times at Windsor, when I conceived Ninian, even through all the years I was married. Something within me kept telling me, one day you’ll know. And Mag-’ She broke off.

‘Mag? She enlightened you?’

Joanna gave a soft laugh. ‘She said I mustn’t let the Great Mother’s gift go unused, that a selfish man and a sadistic man were only two out of the entire male population, and weren’t to be taken as representative of the whole sex.’ She laughed again, more strongly. ‘She did add, I might tell you, that they probably represented the majority.’ She reached up her hand, touching her fingertips to his lips. Her hands, he noticed absently, smelt of cinnamon and honey.

‘I am not a sadist,’ he murmured, ‘and I hope I’m not selfish.’

She smiled. ‘I don’t believe you are either. I think, as I thought in the woods by Mag’s house, that you were the one she spoke of.’

‘Mag spoke of me?’ Despite all the other sensations racing through his body, he felt the slight atavistic chill up the spine that comes from a brush with the powers beyond.

‘Don’t worry, she meant you no harm.’ Joanna’s voice was a caress. ‘She did not mention your name — I don’t think she knew it. She just told me, when I was raging against men, marriage, and sexual subservience, that, one day, somebody would show me there was another way. And, when I was scornful, she said, wait and see, my girl. I read it in you, and in this place. One day, you’ll understand.’

‘And then you came across me, right there in Mag’s clearing,’ he said wonderingly, ‘and we both felt that fierce attraction, and I kissed you-’

‘I kissed you,’ she corrected him. Lifting herself up towards him, she did so again.

And, as if Mag Hobson’s prediction had just been shouted again, out loud, as if the old woman’s benediction hovered over them, the full passion that had been hinted at that time in the woods came roaring back. Moaning, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her fiercely to him, crushing her breasts to his chest, feeling the firm thighs against his legs.

She was reaching for the cords that laced up her gown, pulling at them impatiently. Helping her, he felt the cord tangle into a knot; he tugged hard, and the cord broke. She laughed huskily and, lifting herself, swept her gown and her loosely-fastened undergarments away in one wide gesture.

Kneeling up, swiftly undoing his tunic, pulling his shirt over his head and removing his hose and breeches, he stared at her, lying naked on the rugs and furs. The firelight lit up the curves of breasts, hip bones, the muscles on her thighs. She was strong, aye, he could see that — fleetingly, as from another world, he recalled her saying that she had recently developed muscles she hadn’t known she had — but yet she retained her woman’s shape. Narrow waist, full breasts, belly curving down to that dark, inviting place …

She, too, was studying him. Staring, steadily, at his erect penis, reaching out, touching.

He said, ‘I will not hurt you, I swear.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I feel — for the first time, I know what it is to want.’ She put her hands on his shoulders, pulling him down towards her. ‘Please,’ she murmured, ‘please … I don’t know what — don’t know how-’

He lowered himself down on top of her, gently, supporting himself so as not to crush her. Putting one arm behind her head, his face nuzzling against hers as he dropped little kisses on her cheeks, her nose, finally, lingeringly, her mouth, he let his other hand move slowly and steadily right down her body. Caressing her neck, the deep hollows above her collarbones, her breast, her nipple, her waist, her belly.

‘It’s all right, Joanna my sweet,’ he said. ‘I know how.’

* * *

They lay exhaused on their bed of rugs and furs. Josse, drowsy, slipping in and out of sweet dreams, felt the sweat begin to cool on his naked body. Lifting his head, he looked around him, and found the end of one of the furs. Pulling it towards him, he draped it over himself and Joanna.

Joanna.

She lay cradled on his chest, breathing deeply, and he thought she was asleep. Oh, but she had every right to sleep, after that great explosion of energy! Great saints, he’d never known anything like it — it had been as if seven years of dammed-up sexual response had been released in one vast, shattering orgasm.

Her first.

And, penetrating her deeply, he had felt every spasm of it with her, holding her as she cried with the joy and the ecstacy of it, sobbing and laughing at the same time as, finally, she knew what it was her body had been saving up for her.

His own ejaculation had been almost as earth-shattering; it was a long time since he had bedded a woman, but, more than that, he didn’t think he had ever been aroused to the extent she had aroused him. That combination of innocence and natural, untapped, eager sexuality had raised him to heights he hadn’t known himself capable of …

Amazingly, he found himself becoming firm again. So soon? Ah, but she’s asleep, I mustn’t disturb her.

Think about something else. Think about … Joanna.

No! Think about the frost outside, the icy ponds and puddles, the dark, the chill wind …

He felt her move, stretching out her legs then twining them in his, one thigh thrusting in between his, and she reached down under the covers and enclosed his penis in her hand, gently at first, then, as she felt him stiffen, with plainer intent.

‘Do you think,’ she said, rolling over on to him and kissing him, ‘we might do that again?’

And, kissing her back, wanting to laugh and, oddly, half wanting to cry, he said, ‘I don’t see any reason why not.’