10
Joanna picked her way up the stairs to the third floor and followed Guy to the room directly across the hallway from hers. Somehow she had expected more from the bedroom of an alleged lothario than the requisite bed, chair, table, trunk, and fireplace. The castle was certainly clean, which was a welcome contrast to Nottingham Castle, but it was cold, too, both in temperature and décor. The thought of his room so close to hers concerned Joanna. Maybe Elaine had been right about Guy and his purposes for her.
After Guy closed the door, he leaned against it and studied her. His stare indicated he was cataloging her, noting her individual parts, probably judging her similarities to Marian. Some degree of connection existed between Joanna and Guy. She had felt it from the moment he first saw her. But if Guy was the great seducer Elaine claimed he was, he’d have to turn up the charm.
“I’ve seen your sister,” he finally said. “She’s with the outlaws.”
“With your brother.”
“So that’s what Elaine was telling you. Keep in mind what she said is only her perspective. She served my mother for many years and was kind to me when I was a boy, but her affections and everyone else’s switched to Robin when he was born. Imagine being a lonely boy, below everyone’s notice until my mother married the earl. I finally had a father. It was the happiest time of my life. I was even happy to have a younger brother until everyone decided they loved him more than they loved me.”
The sad, vulnerable man before her stood in stark contrast to the murderer she had witnessed yesterday. Which man was the real Guy?
“Our situations have some similarities,” Guy continued. “Your sister, much like my brother, has made some very poor choices.”
“What do you mean?”
“Little John escaped execution this morning. Robin Hood and his outlaws killed several townspeople. I did my best to rescue your sister. I even had her within my grasp. But Robin has already deceived her, and she refused to come with me. I have reason to believe he may have converted her to his evil cause.”
No man could convince Jill to do anything Jill didn’t want to. If Jill had joined a cause, it was because she wanted to.
“I overtook Robin as he was escaping the castle, taking your sister with him. I drew my sword to stop him, but the villain used her as a human shield to protect himself. I had no choice but to let them go. Knowing how precious she was to you, I would not allow her to be harmed. I regret, though, that I was unable to immediately reunite her with you as you had wished.”
“You said he used her as a human shield?”
“He did. He’s a coward.”
The idea of Jill being used in such a way didn’t fit at all with the woman Joanna had known for twenty-five years. Guy’s story lacked credibility, but challenging him might place Joanna in an even more vulnerable position.
“What I’ve told you isn’t the worst of it,” Guy continued. “Robin pushed her off the castle wall into a hay wagon as a way to escape the sheriff’s soldiers. He almost killed her.”
Now Joanna knew Guy was lying. He should have stopped while he was ahead. But that was the way with liars. They always shared too much.
Guy took her hand and bent to kiss it but paused, looking up at her with mournful eyes. “I’ve failed you, Joanna, and I deeply regret it. But I swear to you that I will get your sister back for you, even if I have to kill every member of Robin Hood’s outlaw band myself.”
She tried to ignore the warmth of Guy’s hand on hers as she considered the situation. Robin Hood had a high likelihood of being handsome, especially since he drew from half the gene pool Guy came from. If Marian was dead, Robin might be a bachelor. Given Jill’s attachment to the legend of Robin Hood, she would have allied herself with the outlaw. In fact, being the only woman in Robin’s gang was probably a treasured fantasy of Jill’s. Guy could say what he wished, but Jill was exactly where she had chosen to be. Joanna had no intention of letting Guy know she was wise to his deception. Her best protection would come from playing along.
“I’m concerned you don’t understand the gravity of the situation, Joanna.” Guy squeezed her hand in both of his. “Robin is a convicted murderer destined for the gallows. Anyone found with him will be considered a fellow conspirator. Your sister might be killed in battle or even executed. My brother is not as gallant as I am when it comes to women. He’s left a string of broken hearts behind him since he was old enough to speak.”
“And you haven’t broken any hearts?”
“I’ve taken it as my duty to clean up what Robin has destroyed. He seduced Marian, you know, and then jilted her when another woman with greater fortune captured his fancy. He broke her heart when he turned outlaw and ran off to the forest. I had always cared for Marian but wouldn’t have dreamed of taking her from my brother. Once he was gone, I waited the appropriate amount of time before I approached her with my feelings. She rejected me at first. I had to woo her for several months to convince her that I was someone who would be faithful to her forever.”
Joanna thought of what Elaine had told her about Guy and Marian and tried to reconcile the two portraits. Since she could not, she asked him what he was going to do next.
“I have the advantage of knowing Robin and his methods more intimately than most, which is why I hold the delicate favor of the sheriff. Given my brother’s outlaw status, it’s important for everyone on this estate that I maintain a good relationship with the sheriff. Otherwise, he could take these lands in the name of the king and hold them as his own. That, I promise you, would be very unfortunate for all the families both in service and farming. You’ve seen for yourself the sheriff’s a cruel man.”
“And you’re not?”
“I take care of what’s mine. There is no greater duty a man can fulfill.”
Joanna pulled her hand away. If she let him continue to hold it, she might enjoy the experience, and that was unacceptable, given his propensity for lying. “So, what about my sister? How do you plan to rescue her?”
“There’s a tournament in two days, and Robin will attend. He can’t resist the archery contest. That’s when we’ll catch him.”
“He won’t suspect anything?”
“Now that he has your sister, he’ll be anxious to have you as well. If I allow the news to slip through the proper channels that you will attend the tournament with me and the sheriff offers an appropriately rich prize for the archery contest, Robin will have no choice but to attend. I’ll set a trap. Once we have him in custody, rescuing your sister will be easy and perfectly safe. When you cut off the head of a viper, he loosens his grip on his prey.”
Joanna shuddered at the faulty metaphor. “And what do we do in the meanwhile?”
Guy gently pushed her hair back from her cheek. “Whatever we like.”
Joanna tried to still the rapid beating of her heart. A man—no matter how handsome he was—who lied once would lie again. Mark had taught her that. Guy was dangerous.
Guy leaned in and paused inches before her lips, but he did not kiss her. Instead, he smiled. “It’s time for supper. I’m ravenous.”
She had no doubt what he was hungry for, but she took his arm when he offered it to her and allowed him to escort her toward the stairs. She had to let go, of course, when they descended the steps since the passage was narrow, but he glanced back at her several times, his eyes smoldering in a way that made her heart flip in her chest. No wonder Elaine doubted Joanna’s ability to stay out of trouble.
The great hall was the size of the one in Nottingham Castle, but the floors were clean and covered with rush mats rather than loose rushes. While no ornate carvings adorned the fireplace or windows, the clean lines appealed to Joanna more than the fussy ornamentation she had seen at Nottingham. A fire burned brightly in the hearth against the wall near the dais. The air smelled of roasted meat and bread. Trestle tables had been assembled and were quickly filling with the castle inhabitants. As Guy escorted Joanna to the table on the dais, Joanna noti
ced Bess seated at a lower table farthest away from the dais. Bess looked away when Joanna smiled at her.
Three people already sat at the high table. Guy claimed the middle chair with the tall back. To Guy’s right sat Walter whom she recognized from her earlier encounter in the chapel. Walter had his back turned to a thin woman Joanna assumed was his wife. The woman wasn’t what Joanna considered pretty. She had a flat chest, plain face, and braided chestnut hair. If Joanna hadn’t already known about the couple’s marital difficulties, their body language would have told her everything. Walter’s lips curled in a sneer. The woman, whom Guy introduced as Gwen, held Joanna in a severe gaze that communicated Gwen’s contempt.
Guy motioned for Roger, who sat in the chair to Guy’s left, to move over so Joanna could take his seat. As she sat down, Roger gave her a dirty look as he fiddled with his knife. A male servant poured wine from a pitcher first for Guy and then for Joanna.
No one at the high table spoke. Although she found the silence uncomfortable, Joanna didn’t break it. Already feeling out of place, she didn’t want to do anything to call more attention to her lack of understanding of the culture. When the food arrived, she didn’t look at it too closely for fear she might see what was in it and be unable to eat. It was some kind of stew served in wooden bowls. Since there were no spoons, everyone used bread to dip into the bowl to eat from. Joanna awkwardly followed suit.
To distract herself from thoughts of what manner of liver, kidneys, or entrails she might be ingesting, Joanna studied the people at the lower tables. Bess kept stealing glances at the high table—quite brazen behavior given that Gwen sat right next to Walter. Elaine, who sat closer to the dais, seemed to be intently watching someone in the back. Joanna guessed the object of Elaine’s attention was the tall, thin, older man who directed the distribution of the food.
Joanna was finishing her meal when Guy stood and the room went quiet.
“I’ve a treat for you tonight,” he declared. “This is Lady Joanna, a gifted story teller. She’s agreed to provide us with the evening’s entertainment.”
Joanna felt her food stick in her throat. It would have been nice if Guy had given her some warning. Then she could have prepared something. But politely declining didn’t appear to be an option. She reluctantly got up from the table and walked around Roger to where she could stand in front of the high table and face the crowd. Her brain frantically searched for a story to tell, but all that came to mind was her own medieval story that her writers group had hated so much. What sort of cruel joke was the world playing on her?
With a deep breath, Joanna began her tale of a duke who fell in love with a common servant girl. The duke was married to a wicked woman he did not love. He could not marry the servant girl, but he slipped out of the castle to be with her every night and then returned to his bed by morning in order to keep their affair a secret. The servant girl became pregnant. When the duke learned of this, he sent the girl away to another land so his good name would not be tarnished by proof of the affair.
As Joanna described the anguish of the poor girl who nursed her baby and watched every day out the window of her remote cabin for the return of her lover, Bess’s pale face stared at someone at the high table. Joanna turned to gauge Walter’s reaction.
Walter dozed, his head resting on his hands. Guy looked amused. Roger played with his dagger while Gwen’s eyes burned bright as coals.
Flustered, Joanna turned back to the crowd to finish the story. While her original version had resolved happily with the duke’s return for the girl and her child, the mood of the room suggested her audience would not appreciate a Hollywood ending.
Creating the ending as she told it, Joanna shared how the servant girl raised her child in seclusion until one day word came that the duke had died. The servant girl took her son on a long journey back to the castle where she presented him to the duke’s wife. When the powerful woman saw the boy, she could not deny that this was the son of her late husband. The duke and duchess had never had any children of their own. The duchess agreed to raise the boy as her own, but the servant girl would have to surrender all parental rights. The girl kissed her son goodbye then spent the night in the chapel where the duke had been laid to rest. When the doors were opened in the morning, the soldiers found the servant girl dead beside the duke’s sarcophagus. Growing on the wall beside his tomb were two roses bushes sprouting out of the stone that filled the chapel with the scent of flowers.
“And so,” Joanna concluded, “pilgrims from all over the country flocked to see the miracle wrought by true love between those who had been kept apart for so long. The pilgrims came there to pray for blessings on their own love. The two lovers who were never able to find acceptance in life finally enjoyed eternity together in death.”
What was going on? Were people applauding? Gratified and confused by their praise, Joanna wondered if she had been wasting her time on happy endings when tragedy was her calling all along.
“Tell us another!” Elaine called out.
“Another!” someone else pleaded.
Joanna looked back toward the high table. Walter and Gwen were gone, but Roger was still there, frowning at her. Guy nodded his approval, and Joanna, heady with her success, searched her brain for another story to tell. Given her triumph with the medieval tale, she decided to move on to her wedding story. Perhaps she had been born in the wrong time period. Maybe she was really meant to be a bard of the Middle Ages. People seemed to appreciate her here.
As she looked back at the lower tables, Joanna noticed Bess was gone. Maybe the poor girl didn’t feel well. The tall, thin man at the back of the room had also disappeared. Elaine seemed to be searching for him as well.
“Where I come from,” Joanna began, “the wedding ceremony is considered by some to be the single most important event in a woman’s life. Weddings are so lavish and well-planned that some families spend more money than they could make in a year to throw an elaborate party for their daughter, her new husband, and their guests.”
Joanna went on to tell the story of a bride and groom who almost didn’t marry due to a misunderstanding. On the day of the wedding, the bride and groom accused each other of cheating and threatened to call off the event. With some sleuthing, Joanna discovered that the maid of honor had been making out with the best man in the restaurant hallway during the rehearsal dinner. Both the bride and groom had seen this at different times and assumed the other was cheating. Once Joanna revealed the attendants’ affair, the bride and groom reconciled, the wedding continued as planned, and everyone lived happily ever after.
This story was also well received. When the people at the lower tables applauded, Joanna looked back to Guy at the high table but found his place and Roger’s empty.
As soon as the applause ended, people rose and began taking down the tables. Her moment of glory had ended—but what a glorious moment it had been!
Joanna wandered into the courtyard to breathe some fresh air. Again, the brilliance of the night sky caught her attention. She walked toward the well, careful in the moonlight and limited torchlight to watch her step so she wouldn’t trip and accidentally fall in the cistern. She shivered at the idea of the long descent to a certain death.
When she got to the well, something moved in the shadows.
“Who’s there?” she called out, her voice shaky.
A tall, gangly youth, probably no older than sixteen, appeared. Joanna could only make out the faintest hint of his pale features in the dim light.
“I’m Gripple, one of the stable hands. I enjoyed your stories. Do you think you could tell one about a ghost tomorrow night?”
Remembering Elaine’s account of Marian’s ghost, Joanna’s ears piqued. “You like ghost stories?”
The boy shrugged. “I’ve seen Lady Marian’s spirit several times.”
When Joanna asked where, he pointed toward the southern tower. “I sleep in the barn, but I come out here in pleasant weather. The ghost always app
ears in Lady Marian’s window.”
Gripple sat down facing the south tower, the well at his back, and Joanna joined him.
“What does the ghost do?”
“Sometimes she paces alone on top of the tower. Other times there’s a light in the window behind the shutters. Some people say it’s because the fires of hell are burning in there.”
“And is there any sound?”
“Laughing.”
Joanna pursed her lips in thought. “Is it an evil laugh?”
“More quiet, as though somebody’s trying to keep it hidden.”
An idea was forming in Joanna’s mind of what exactly those “fires of hell” were, but it wasn’t appropriate to share yet, especially not with a teenager. “Gripple, how many ways are there to get into the tower?”
“Two. One at the bottom. You can see it from here.”
As Gripple pointed to the bottom right of the tower, Joanna caught the outline of an arched door.
“The other entrance is from the second floor. The people who have their rooms under the wall walk can go up and down that staircase if they choose, but most of them don’t. Sir Guy sealed up Lady Marian’s room when she died. Not a soul’s been in there. Only a ghost could go through a sealed door.”
Joanna suppressed a yeah, right at Gripple’s innocence. They settled into comfortable silence. His eventual steady breathing suggested he had fallen asleep. Beginning to feel cold and stiff, Joanna considered returning to her room, but the myriad of stars twinkled so beautifully she couldn’t tear herself away. When she returned home—however that was going to happen—she would miss the stars the most. Contemplating the shimmering sky above Marian’s tower, Joanna wondered how many of these stars were still shining in 2009. She felt an inexplicable connection to the ancient world, the world she was currently in, and her home. Although her parents and her life in Minneapolis seemed so far away, could the distance really be that far when the stars shone over them all?
But what was this? Two figures whose silhouettes were visible only by the starlight obliterated behind them moved at the top of Marian’s tower. Joanna dug an elbow into Gripple’s side to wake him up.
“Look!” Joanna hissed. “On the tower!”
Gripple sucked in his breath. “Ghosts!”
The shape of the silhouettes suggested a man and a woman. Although they started out standing very close together, the woman moved away, her body language suggesting annoyance or concern. To Joanna’s horror, the man lunged toward the woman. She backed away from him toward the tower wall, and then, arms flailing, fell through one of the openings in the wall. Her scream and the sickening thud that followed would be engrained in Joanna’s mind forever and feed her nightmares well into old age.
“It’s the ghost,” Gripple said, crossing himself.
“That’s no ghost.” Joanna scrambled to her. “Did you see the man up there with her?”
“No.”
Joanna ran to where the body had fallen and knelt beside it without even thinking. No one could have survived such a fall onto cobblestone. The scream had awakened others, and people hurried into the courtyard with candles and lanterns.
“Bring me a light!” Joanna ordered.
Someone leaned in with a candle. Joanna took in the twisted body posture and knew, even though she had no medical training, the woman was dead. Her neck and back bent at unnatural angles. Joanna pulled down the woman’s skirt to cover her exposed legs. Even though Joanna had no hope the woman was alive, she knew she should check for a pulse. The woman’s face and neck were obscured by her loose, light hair. Steeling her courage, Joanna brushed the hair away and gasped when she saw the sightless eyes of Bess, her frightened face frozen in death.