Janna Mysteries 1 & 2 Bindup Read online

  ‘Dame Alice is kind to think of me.’ Cecily looked stricken. Her face was so white, Janna thought she might faint.

  Hugh led the palfrey to a post nearby. Janna tried to suppress a flash of jealousy as she noticed the care he took while helping Cecily to mount. Did his hand linger unnecessarily on the lady’s waist? He kept the leading rein in his hand all the while, gentling the palfrey so that it would not startle and upset Cecily. Their journey back to the manor would be slow and decorous, utterly unlike the wild ride Janna had shared with the groom. She felt a flash of resentment over the lack of respect shown to her, but she had to acknowledge that had she been given a mount of her own, she would not have been able to ride it. She and the groom had been racing against time. When death awaited there were far more urgent considerations than the chance exposure of a lady’s ankle or leg.

  A lady! Janna made a disgusted noise in her throat. Truly she was reaching far above herself with these thoughts. All the same, she found it hard to smother a pang of envy as she watched how solicitously Hugh settled the tiring woman into the saddle and noticed Cecily’s shy smile of thanks in return.

  ‘God be with you, Johanna,’ Hugh said then, and mounted his own horse. Slowly, they clip-clopped away.

  Janna stayed still, pondering Hugh’s words as she watched them depart. So Cecily had lied to her employer. Why? She began to think over all the tiring woman had told her – or not told her – and came to the conclusion that Cecily had perhaps revealed more than she realised. It seemed that Eadgyth’s skill with herbs was common knowledge, even at Babestoche Manor, and Fulk had been sent like a common errand boy to fetch her. Not only had Eadgyth refused to salvage Fulk’s reputation by going along with his play-acting but, worse, she’d thrown away his preparation and sent him from Dame Alice’s bedchamber. She’d publicly exposed Fulk as a charlatan. Small wonder then if he hated her enough to want her out of the way. Monkshood was common enough. It was perfectly possible that Fulk would have access to it.

  Janna’s head felt crammed with questions. Certainly Cecily’s description of her mother’s symptoms had dispelled any doubts as to the poison her mother had ingested. Aconite was fast-acting. Janna knew that much from what her mother had told her when warning her about the properties of various poisonous plants. So whatever Cecily believed, her mother must have had some refreshment on her arrival at the manor as well as the water.

  A thought stopped Janna. If her mother had taken only a little of the aconite in something well flavoured, there would not have been enough in the taste to warn her, while a tiny amount of poison might take several hours to wreak its damage. If that was so, Eadgyth could have taken the poison even before she arrived at the manor house. Who then might have given it to her?

  Janna frowned as she thought about the possibility. She would have to cast her net more widely to encompass everyone her mother might have met on that last fateful morning of her life. She would start with her mother’s mysterious visitor. Who was she? Certainly not one of the villagers. Someone highborn. Up until yesterday they’d known no-one like that. Now, they did!

  Janna stood stock-still, thinking it through. As the answer came to her, she wondered why it had taken her so long to work it out. The woman visiting her mother had insisted on secrecy. Cecily had tried to fool the household into thinking she was resting at the manor when, in fact, she’d gone out without telling anyone. Cecily knew that Eadgyth had had a long walk to Babestoche. And she looked ill, as she would after Eadgyth’s ministrations. If Cecily had visited the wortwyf yesterday morning in a desperate attempt to get her out of trouble, it could explain why, in return, she’d tried to look after Eadgyth in the last moments of her suffering, and why she’d come out to see her buried today. More than anything, Janna wished Cecily was still there so that she could offer her comfort, and also ask more questions.

  She needed to sit quietly and put her thoughts in order, Janna decided. She must question Cecily to find out if she or anyone else had shared food or a drink with her mother. Someone must know something, and she would not rest until she had found it out.

  She set off to climb the downs towards the forest and home, but a hoarse shout stopped her before she’d taken more than a few steps. Turning, she found herself confronted by the miller’s wife. Hilde’s face was flushed dark red; her eyes were bright with anger as she waddled up to Janna.

  ‘Whore!’ she spat. ‘Slut! Taking a man to your bed even while your mother was breathing her last!’

  ‘What? What?’ Janna could hardly take in the meaning of Hilde’s words.

  ‘I suppose you thought you were safe to do as you pleased, with your mother out of the way dispensing her potions and poisons up at the manor?’

  ‘I … I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Janna was at a loss as to how to defend herself against Hilde’s wrath. But she couldn’t let the last part of her speech go unchallenged. ‘My mother was working no poison up at the manor. She was helping to save the life of Dame Alice and her newborn son.’

  ‘Then how did she come to poison herself at the same time?’ Hilde’s eyes twinkled bright with malicious glee.

  ‘She did not poison herself. She did not!’

  But Hilde was no longer listening. She began to scratch at the rash of sores on her arm, unaware that she was drawing blood. ‘You leave my husband alone!’ she spat. ‘He told me he was going out to check his eel traps last night and he didn’t come home. I know he was with you and I’m warning you, you will join your mother in her grave if he visits you again.’

  ‘But … but I haven’t seen your husband!’ Janna remembered the scene at the mill, the scene the miller’s wife had witnessed. ‘Well, I saw him when I went to fetch the bag of flour, but his actions were none of my doing.’

  ‘I don’t believe a word of it! I saw you talking to him, leading him on. You invited him to come to you in the night, did you not?’

  ‘No!’ Janna found herself blushing at the very thought of it. ‘If he was gone from your bed, mistress, I assure you he was not in mine! You must look elsewhere for someone to blame for his roving ways. Perhaps, indeed, you should ask your husband for an explanation!’

  Hilde’s hand, bloodied from scratching at her arm, moved down to her bulging stomach. She touched its rounded contours with soft fingers. Janna felt a twinge of pity, until she caught Hilde’s expression. Stony and unforgiving, her glance raked over Janna. ‘I saw you in his arms. I saw you kiss him!’

  ‘He kissed me – and I kicked him where it really hurt!’ Janna felt sick, poisoned by the woman’s suspicion.

  Hilde looked momentarily nonplussed. Then she gave a snort of disbelief. ‘I am warning you, miss. Do not entice my husband to your bed again.’ Shocking in its suddenness, she pulled a small knife from the purse at her girdle, and brandished it in Janna’s face. The blade glinted bright in the sunlight. ‘Tempt him again and it’ll be your turn to feel how sharp this is!’

  Janna blinked, hardly able to believe what she was seeing and hearing. Before she had time to respond, Hilde had shouldered her aside and lumbered back down the lane. Janna looked after her, shocked and upset by the unexpected confrontation. That the woman was unbalanced was obvious, yet it was not unknown for pregnant women to become unsettled and take odd fancies. It was certainly true that the miller gave Hilde good cause to worry and fret.

  The best plan was to keep out of Hilde’s way in future, Janna told herself, as she hurried on. In an effort to banish her disquiet, she turned her mind back to the conversations she’d had with Aldith and Cecily and the handsome Hugh.

  Aldith had told her much about her father, but nothing that had shed any light on who had killed her mother. True, she had warned Janna about Fulk, but Janna already had her own suspicions about him. Posturing turnip head that he was, even Fulk would know about the poisonous properties of aconite. Everyone knew, although they might call the plant by another name. What else had Aldith told her?

  Or not told her? Janna f
rowned as she considered the midwife’s position. Aldith had a grudge against her mother, that much had become clear. She also had much to gain from Eadgyth’s death. Could the midwife be as blameless as she appeared? Janna had been so intent on learning what Aldith knew about her father that she’d neglected to question her about her movements on the day of Eadgyth’s death. At the very least, she should find out when Aldith had last seen her mother.

  As Janna began to climb the grassy downs, she stared up at the great blue canopy over her head. God’s realm, where truth and justice must surely prevail. It was comforting to think that someone watched over her, that someone cared what happened to her. She had a Father in heaven. She might also have a father right here on earth!

  It was like an itch that wouldn’t go away, this mystery of her father. To know so little was frustrating beyond belief. Yet already she knew far more than she’d ever known before. Why had her mother been so secretive? Because she felt shame? Because she could not bear to talk about the man she loved? Would her mother have honoured her promise to tell Janna the truth, or had she learned more from Aldith than her mother might ever have confessed? The questions kept coming, questions without answer. She could not set her thoughts free.

  Feeling sorry that she’d never been given the chance to know her father, or even to understand her mother, Janna continued the climb towards her home.

  There were still vegetables left from the night before, the dinner her mother never came home to eat. Although tempted to throw them out, Janna put them in the pot, then hung it over the fire to heat for her dinner later. They were far too good to give to the goats. Instead, she cut some nettles and brambles from the edge of the forest, and grabbed up a handful of grain for the hens. ‘Nellie! Gruff!’ she called, and the goats bleated and ambled towards her, ready to be milked and fed. The hens came running too. Janna waited until they were all busy feeding before she produced an extra morsel for Laet, who always came last in the race for food. ‘It’s a hard life,’ she told the small, scrawny hen. ‘You’ve got to fight if you want to survive.’ It was advice she herself should heed, she realised, as she slowly walked back towards the cottage.

  The row of bee skeps under their woven covers brought a pang of remorse as Janna recollected how she’d stomped past them before, and had even tried to smack down a passing bee. Now she stopped beside them to make amends. ‘You’ll never guess what’s happened,’ she said, and suddenly found herself pouring out the story of the past couple of days.

  There was a relief in talking about it, she found. The bees were coming back to the hive; their busy humming soothed Janna as she poured out her misery. ‘I’ve made a pledge,’ she confided. ‘I shall not rest until I see my mother’s killer brought to justice.’ She thought about it. If she could work out who had the means, the motive and the opportunity, she should then know the identity of the killer. ‘I’m sure it’s Fulk,’ she said. ‘He had the knowledge, and he also had the motive. He hated my mother. I just have to find out if he had the opportunity to act on that hatred. There’s also Cecily. She hasn’t told me all she knows. I have to talk to her again.’

  The bees hummed quietly about her. Janna continued to marshal her thoughts. ‘And there’s Aldith,’ she said. ‘She’s a midwife; she’ll know about monkshood. I like her, but my mother’s death will certainly be to her benefit. I must find out when they last met.’

  The priest, Janna thought suddenly. He, too, had been at the manor house. He, too, wished her mother ill. Could a priest know such hatred that he would break God’s law and kill someone he thought of as an enemy, even if it was done in the name of Christ?

  It was a disturbing thought, made more pressing by Janna’s sudden memory of the marketplace in Wiltune. She had seen the priest swooping about there like the carrion crow that he was. Had he been listening when the merchant spoke of the healing effects of his rubbing oil? As a priest, he would have an understanding of Latin and so would be able to identify the plant in question. At the end of the merchant’s sales pitch, he would also have a good idea of how dangerous it was.

  His motive might be shaky, but he certainly had the knowledge and possibly the opportunity. ‘I also need to question the priest,’ she told the bees.

  Once inside, she put the hot vegetables onto a griddle cake, and sat down to eat. There was no Alfred to share her meal tonight. Janna felt immensely sad, and immensely lonely as she took off her kirtle and lay down on the pallet to sleep. She missed the presence of her mother beside her, and the warm bulk of Alfred at her feet. Tears pricked the back of her eyes, and she gave a forlorn sniffle. Knowing she had a plan for action brought her some comfort, and helped to settle the questions that tumbled endlessly through her mind. Instead of lying awake all night, as she had supposed she would, exhaustion claimed her and she fell into a deep and healing sleep.

  JANNA WOKE LATE the next morning, to find the sun already high in the sky. Her long sleep had refreshed her, so that although she felt lonely as she went about her morning chores, she also recognised that this was how things were going to be from now on, and that, in time, she would get used to it.

  She found herself humming the tune she’d heard her mother singing, and instantly stopped. For some reason she felt ashamed, although she couldn’t think why she should.

  She walked outside with an armful of feed for the animals. Their pen was getting somewhat smelly, she realised, as she looked about at the mounds of excrement. She dumped the greens in a corner to entice the goats and hens out of her way then, with a sigh, she took up a spade to shovel the dung out and over the garden.

  ‘Dirt and disease go together,’ Eadgyth had said, when Janna had once questioned why their animals were not brought into the cottage at night for safety, as was common practice. ‘The fence protects the animals; that is why I made it to close them in. And their waste can be spread among the plants to help them grow, instead of it fouling the rushes on our floor and making us both ill.’

  The sound of Eadgyth’s voice in her mind brought tears to Janna’s eyes. She blinked hard, and kept on digging. Once done, she came back into the cottage and looked about her. She would have to do the work of two if she wanted to survive, she realised. She would need goods to trade for other necessities as well as having to provide enough food for herself. Even with her mother by her side, they had often gone hungry. Janna felt a tremor of fear unsettle her stomach. She had the few coins from her sales at Wiltune market, but there were no goods left; she would have to make more. She should also think about Aldith’s offer, although she wouldn’t commit herself to anything until she could be sure of the midwife’s innocence. In the meantime she should put the word about that she was able to physic the villagers just as her mother had always done.

  It wasn’t quite true, and Janna felt a momentary anger against her mother. Then she shrugged. It was the way it was, and she would have to make the best of it. She had her mother’s knowledge. It was only a matter of time before she gained her experience.

  The sound of galloping hooves alerted Janna to the presence of a horseman riding towards the cottage. She opened the door and stepped out into the sunlight, recognising instantly the big black destrier and its rider.

  ‘Johanna.’

  ‘Sire.’ She smiled up at Hugh and bobbed a small curtsy. He led a palfrey on a rein behind him, the same palfrey he’d brought for Cecily.

  ‘I am pleased to find you here,’ he said, and hurriedly dismounted. ‘Dame Alice is distraught. The baby has taken a turn for the worse and is like to die at any moment. Robert has sent for the priest, but Alice won’t give up the babe, not yet. She begs you to come with me and do what you may to save him.’ Even as he spoke, he planted his hands around Janna’s waist, ready to hoist her on to the palfrey’s back.

  Janna panicked. ‘I … I can’t … I don’t know how to ride,’ she stammered.

  ‘I should have thought of that.’ Hugh kept his hand on Janna’s waist as he pulled the destrier towards him. ‘You c
an ride with me.’ Before Janna had time to protest, he hoisted her up. She landed awkwardly, her legs straddling the beast’s back.

  She felt a flash of resentment that she had no say in the matter, that in spite of all the tasks she must do to ensure her survival, she was expected instantly to do as she was bid. Her protest was silenced by the urgency of Hugh’s message.

  ‘What ails the infant?’ she asked instead, trying all the while to pull down her kirtle. Once again it had bunched itself up near her waist.

  ‘I know not.’ In spite of the gravity of the situation, Hugh’s eyes twinkled as he watched her endeavours to cover her bare legs. ‘Dame Alice trusted your mother’s knowledge, and hopes that she may have taught you enough to save her baby.’ Hugh quickly tied the palfrey to a nearby tree, then pulled himself up in front of her. He turned the destrier and kicked it into a gallop.

  As the full enormity of Hugh’s words sank in, Janna subsided into a frightened silence. She was expected to save the baby’s life, but she no longer had her mother’s knowledge and expertise to draw on. If the child died, she alone would be held responsible.

  This last thought tightened her grip on Hugh. Sensing the pressure, and perhaps seeking to reassure her, he turned his head to speak to her over his shoulder.

  ‘The baby has been baptised, and the priest now counsels Dame Alice that it will be God’s will if the child should die. But Alice won’t hear of it. She has had such ill luck since the birth of her first little boy. She had thought, having brought this child to term and borne him alive, that he would thrive. Will you be able to save him, Johanna?’

  ‘No!’ It was a cry from the heart, but even as she uttered her fear aloud, Janna knew that she could not give up so easily, not if she meant to honour her mother’s name. Besides, if she could save the child, surely it would still the clattering tongues that spoke of poison and devils and such. ‘I mean, yes!’ she said more loudly, to counteract her denial. And then, as honesty prevailed, she muttered, ‘I’ll try.’ She tried to collect her frightened thoughts. Should she ask Hugh to turn around and go back to the cottage? What was wrong with the babe? What might she need to save his life?