Praise for Blythe Gifford

IN THE MASTER’S BED

‘…expertly crafted…fascinating historical details…give this sexy historical a richness and depth…’—Booklist

‘…seductive, subtly spellbinding…’—Romance Junkies

INNOCENCE UNVEILED

‘…absolutely fascinating…enchantingly different…prepare to be transported to another time and place.’—Cataromance

‘…[a] powerful tale of love and passion. Masterfully weaving in actual historical events with the fictional characters…Ms Gifford keeps the passion and adventure simmering with volatile human emotions.’—Reviewers International Org

THE HARLOT’S DAUGHTER

‘Blythe Gifford finds the perfect balance between history and romance in THE HARLOT’S DAUGHTER as she expertly blends a fascinating setting and beautifully nuanced characters into a captivating love story.’—Chicago Tribune

‘Gifford has chosen a time period that is filled with kings, kingmakers and treachery. Although there is plenty of fodder for turbulence, the author uses that to move her hero and heroine together on a discovery of love. She proves that love through the ages doesn’t always run smoothly, be it between nobles or commoners.’—RT Book Reviews

‘A must-read for fans of medieval history…brings history to life complete with political intrigue and turbulent passions.’—Reviewers International Org

THE KNAVE AND THE MAIDEN

‘This debut novel by a new voice in medieval romance was for me…pure poetry!…the sweetness of the ending will have you running for your tissues. Oh, yes, this is a new star on the horizon, and I certainly hope to see much more from her!’—Historical Romance Writers

Jane held out her hand and Duncan shook it. As it lay safely clasped in his, she felt a different kind of closeness.

One only a woman might feel.

Her hand trembled against his and she saw the same feeling touch his eyes. Then he leaned forward and took her lips, softly. She laced her fingers through the waves of his hair, clinging, wishing there was a way to be closer.

As he cradled her head in his hands, pressed his lips to hers, explored her with a gentle tongue, she felt the elemental, unavoidable connection of a man and a woman. It went far beyond the feeble camaraderie that she had yearned for.

He broke the kiss, but neither could break the gaze.

‘We mustn’t,’ she whispered. Unnecessary, futile words. ‘Ever.’

‘I know.’ But his answer did not erase the desire in his eyes, and his hands still lingered in her hair…

In the Master’s Bed
Blythe Gifford

www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author

After a career in public relations, advertising and marketing, BLYTHE GIFFORD returned to her first love: writing historical romance. Now her characters grapple with questions about love, work and the meaning of life, and always find the right answers. She strives to deliver intensely emotional, compelling stories set in a vivid, authentic world. She was a finalist in the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart™ Award competition for her debut novel, THE KNAVE AND THE MAIDEN. She feeds her muse with music, art, history, walks and good friends. You can reach her via her website: www.BlytheGifford.com

Recent novels by the same author:

THE KNAVE AND THE MAIDEN

THE HARLOT’S DAUGHTER

INNOCENCE UNVEILED

Author Note

Sometimes history sparks ideas. Other times you get an idea and discover only later that it is documented in history. When I began work on this book I knew the premise might stretch my readers’ credulity. How realistic is it to expect that a woman could live as a man undetected, particularly in the Middle Ages? There was no co-education, no trouser suit, no common ground for the two to meet.

But sometimes history calls to us in mysterious ways. As I began my research I discovered a medieval woman who had done exactly that: attended the university in Krakow, disguised as a man. And she maintained this façade for two years. So as you embark on Jane’s journey, remember: it could have happened this way.

Dedication

To the boys in the locker room.

Thanks for letting me in.

You probably think this one is about you.

Acknowledgements

Phil Cushman for loaning the book; Lindsay Longford for persisting when I looked dazed; Beverly Long and Pat White for early reads; Anna Louise Lucia for finding the right pele tower, and Chris Hodak for the Olympic cheers at the finish line.

O Swallow, Swallow by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

‘O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, And dark and true and tender is the North.’

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Chapter One

England—late summer 1388

The smell of the birthing room was smothering her.

A crackling fire kept the water boiling, adding to the August morning’s heat. She pulled aside the dark curtain cloaking the castle window and grasped a breath of fresh air.

She looked with longing at the sunshine. Perhaps later, she might borrow a horse and ride.

‘Jane!’

She dropped the curtain. ‘Yes?’ Had her mother called before?

‘This pain has passed. Solay needs something to drink.’

Jane walked to the basin in the corner and scooped cool water into a cup. She should have noticed her sister’s need and answered it. It was as if she lacked some inborn instinct that other women had, something that whispered to them and told them what to do.

Her sister’s pet popinjay paced on his perch, green neck feathers stiff and ruffled. ‘Jane! Jane!’ His screech sounded like an accusation.

She turned back to the bed where her sister lay, belly big as a mountain. The pain had come in waves all night and after each one, Solay had less time to recover. Her long, dark hair was tangled and matted, her deep violet eyes red-rimmed.

Justin, Solay’s husband, pulled aside the curtain covering the door, but did not step in. ‘How is she? What can I do?’

Solay opened her eyes and waved a hand she barely had the strength to lift. ‘Shoo. I’m not fit to be seen.’

Her mother went to the door and gave him a push. ‘Go back to the hall. Play chess with your brother.’

He didn’t move. ‘Is it always thus?’ Jane could barely hear his whisper.

‘Solay’s birth was much like this,’ her mother answered, not bothering to lower her voice. ‘They said it was the shortest night of the year, but it was the longest I ever spent.’

Her reassurance did not wipe the fear from his face. ‘It’s been hours.’

‘And it will be hours more. This is women’s work. Go wake the midwife from her nap if you want to do something useful.’ She touched his arm then, and whispered, ‘And pray to the Virgin.’

Jane took a step, wanting to follow him, but he was a man and free to do as he liked. She wished she could go wake the midwife, or play chess, or rummage through Justin’s legal documents as he often let her do.

She wished she were anywhere but here.

‘Jane! Where’s the water?’

She returned to the bed and held out the cup. Solay, too weary to hold her eyes open, reached for it, but her hand knocked Jane’s and the water spilled across the bed.

Solay yelped in surprise.

‘Now look!’ her mother barked, her worried glance on Solay.

And Jane knew she had failed all over again.

‘Look!’ the bird screeched. ‘Look!’

‘Quiet, Gower,’ Jane snapped.

She grabbed some linen to mop the spill, but she bumped Solay’s swollen belly and her mother whisked the cloth away. ‘Lie back, Solay.’ She dabbed the soaked bedclothes without jostling her daughter. ‘Just rest. Everything will be well.’

‘Is it always thus?’ Jane whispered, when her mother handed her the spent cloth.

She shook her head and answered in a whisper, ‘This babe is coming too soon.’

Jane squeezed the soggy linen not knowing what to do, fearing she would do something wrong, wanting only to escape. ‘I’ll get fresh linen.’

‘Don’t leave.’ Solay’s voice surprised her. ‘Sing for me.’

With a warning glance, her mother stepped into the corridor, looking for a serving girl and clean cloths.

Jane tried the first few notes of ‘Sumer is icumen in’, but they caught in her throat. She gazed at Solay, helpless. ‘I can’t even do that right.’

‘Don’t worry. I just like having my little sister here.’

Solay stretched out her hand and Jane grabbed it. She looked down at their clasped fingers. Solay’s were slender and white, tapering and delicate. Like the rest of her, they were everything a woman should be: beautiful, graceful, deft, accommodating.

Everything that Jane was not.

Her own hands were blunt and square. The short, stubby fingers were free of the smell of dirt and horses only because the midwife had insisted they bring clean hands into the birthing room.

Her grip on Solay’s fingers tightened. ‘Are you all right?’

‘The pain is bearable,’ she said, with a slight smile. ‘But I think you’ll have to greet your future husband without me.’

Husband. A stranger to whom she would have to surrender her life. She had forgotten he was to arrive within the month.

She had tried to forget.

‘I don’t want to marry.’ A husband would expect her to be like Solay or her mother, to know all those things that were more foreign to her than Latin.

Solay squeezed her hand in sympathy. ‘I know. But you’re seventeen. It’s time. Past time.’

Jane felt a pout hover on her mouth.

Solay reached over to pinch Jane’s lower lip. ‘Look at you! The popinjay could perch on that lip.’ She sighed. ‘At least meet the man. Justin has told him you’re…’

Different. She was different.

‘Does he know that I want to travel the world? And that I read Latin?’

Solay’s smile wavered. ‘He’s a merchant and so you may be able to do things a noble’s wife could not. Besides, those things may not be so important to you soon.’

‘You’ve said that before.’ As if marriage would turn her into a strange, unrecognisable creature.

‘If you don’t like him, we won’t force you, I promise. Justin and I just want you to be as happy as we are.’

Jane pressed Solay’s hand against her cheek. ‘I know.’ Impossible wish. She would never be anything like her beautiful sister who tried to understand her, but never really did.

Solay slipped her hand away and tugged on Jane’s short, blonde hair. ‘But I do wish you hadn’t cut your hair. Men admire long, fair curls and you—’ Her face stiffened. Eyes wide, she looked down. ‘Something’s coming. It’s…I’m…it’s all wet down there.’

Jane sat motionless for a moment. Then, she ran to the door and flung the dark curtain aside. ‘Mother!’

Her mother, the yawning midwife and a servant carrying linen had just reached the top of the stairs. They ran the last few steps into the room.

The midwife put a hand on Solay’s brow. ‘How many pains did she have while I was gone?’

Jane looked down at the bed, ashamed to meet her eyes. Jane’s job had been to count. ‘I don’t know.’

The midwife threw back the covers. The bed was soaked with more water than the cup could hold.

And it was red.

‘Mother!’ She could barely get the word out. ‘Look!’ It was less a word than a shriek.

‘Look!’ Gower squawked from the corner. ‘Look!’ He flapped his wings, reaching the limit of the leg chain as he tried to fly.

‘I can see, Jane.’ Her eyes held a warning.

Solay’s eyes widened. ‘Mother? What’s happening?’

‘Shh. All is well.’ Her mother patted Solay and kissed her forehead.

Jane backed away from the bed, helpless. How did her mother stay calm and comforting? How did she know what to do?

Any minute her sister might die while Jane, useless, could do nothing.

I can’t. The shriek in her head was all she could hear. I can’t.

And when her sister screamed, Jane started to run.

She ran, but the screams chased her.

They followed as she fled the room and ran to her own, where she wrapped her breasts, shed her dress and pulled on chausses, tunic and cloak.

The screams did not cease.

They trailed her as she ran out of the castle gate and out on to the road, cascading, one after the other, as if the baby were clawing its way out of her sister’s belly.

She didn’t stop running until she realised the screams still sounded only in her head.

No one had seen her leave and it wasn’t until she was clear of the house, breasts bound, men’s clothing in place, that she realised she had been planning to escape for a long time.

Everything had been at hand. The tunic and leg hose, the food, the walking stick, the small stash of coins were all there, but when the moment had come, she had no plan but to run.

Scooping fresh air into her lungs, she battled her guilty thoughts. Solay would not miss her. The others were there, women who knew how to do those things—her mother, her sister-in-law, the midwife—any one of them would be more help than Jane.

She didn’t belong in that world of women, full of responsibilities she didn’t want and expectations she could never meet. She wanted what a man had—to go where she wanted, to do what she wanted, without a woman’s limits.

She squeezed her eyes against the sadness of losing her family, squared her shoulders and faced the future.

She could never pass as a fighting man, but she knew something of clerking from listening to her sister’s husband. As a learned man, surely she could live among men undetected.

And as a clerk, she might find a place in the king’s court. Not the place she should have had, but still one in which she could represent the king in important affairs of state in Paris or Rome.

She hoisted her sack.

Free as a man. Dependent on no one but herself.

If she had calculated correctly, Cambridge would take her three days.

Two days later, Jane woke, broke her fast on berries and headed again for the sunrise, squinting towards the horizon for a glimpse of Cambridge.

On the road heading east, the birds chirped and a placid, dappled cow turned to look, chewing her cud.

You ran away from your sister when she needed you, the cow seemed to say.

She turned her back on the accusing eyes. There was nothing she could have done that one of the others couldn’t have done better.

Her stomach moaned. She should have stuffed more bread and cheese in the sack, but she was not accustomed to making plans for her own food.

Two days on the road already felt like ten.

After two nights of sleeping by the side of the road, she looked and smelled nothing like a lady. She had lost the walking stick in a tumble into a stream on the first day, walked in damp clothes for two, and then been stung by a wasp.

She itched her swollen hand, wondering how far it was to Cambridge.

Behind her, she heard a horse at a trot and turned, too tired to run. If it was a thief, he’d get little enough.

Unless he realised she was a woman. Then the threat would be much greater than losing her meagre purse.

She put on her most manly stance as the black horse and rider came closer. Good shoulders on them, both the steed and the man.

The man looked as rough as an outlaw. Perhaps in his mid-twenties, his face was all angles, the nose broken and mended, black hair and beard shaggy. The stringed gittern slung over his back was small comfort. Travelling entertainers were the personification of all vices.

He pulled up the horse and looked down at her. ‘Where’s t’ gaan?’

She eyed him warily, puzzling over the words, run together in an unfamiliar accent. Yet his eyes, grey like clouds bearing rain, were not unkind. ‘What do you say?’

He sighed and spoke more slowly as if in a foreign tongue. ‘Where are you going?’

She cleared her throat. ‘Cambridge.’ She hoped she had pitched her voice low enough.

He smiled. ‘And I. You’re a student, then?’

She nodded, afraid to risk her voice again.

He studied her, running his eyes from crown to toes. She shifted, feeling something like lightning in his glance.

‘Students dinna travel alone,’ he said, finally.

‘Neither do jongleurs.’

He laughed, a musical sound. ‘I play for meself alone.’

She felt a moment’s envy of his stringed instrument. To live as a man, she would have to abandon song, the only womanly thing about her.

‘What’s your name, boy?’

Boy. She bit back a grin. ‘Ja—’ She coughed. ‘John. What are you called?’

‘Duncan.’ He held out a hand. ‘Where’s t’ frae?’

Frae? He must mean from. She swallowed, trying to think. She had planned to say Essex, where she’d lived until spring, but she was on the wrong side of Cambridge to tell that tale. ‘What does it matter?’

Looking down at her from his horse, he didn’t bother to answer. It always mattered where a man was from. ‘You’re not Welsh, are you? The Welsh are no friends of mine.’

She shook her head.

‘Nor Irish?’

‘Do I look Irish?’

‘You look as if you have a drop of the Norse blood in you.’

She bit her tongue and shook her head. Her fair hair came from her father, the late King, one more thing she must hide. ‘Where’s your home?’ she countered.

‘The Eden Valley,’ he answered. The words softened his face, just for a moment. ‘Where Cumberland meets Westmoreland.’

That explained his strange tongue. He had raked her with his eyes and now she returned the favour. ‘You eat your meat uncooked?’

She had never seen someone from the north lands. Everyone knew the people from there were coarse, uncouth creatures and he looked the part, except for that moment his eyes had been gentle.

They looked gentle no more. ‘You’ve heard the stories, have you?’ He growled, leaning down to bare his teeth at her. ‘Aye, we do. We tear into the raw flesh like wolves.’

She stumbled backwards, as if blasted by the wind, and ended up sitting in the dirt.

When he laughed, she realised she’d been played with.

She waited for him to offer his hand to help her up, then remembered she was a lad and could rise on her own. ‘Well, that’s what they say,’ she answered, brushing the dirt from her seat as she stood.

He shook his head. ‘You’re a south lander, that’s certain. While you spent the summer growing pretty gardens and spouting poesy, we’ve been keeping the Scots from cutting across England like a scythe through wheat.’

Ah, yes. She would have to learn to relish talk of war. ‘And you’re a long way from having to face the French.’

‘You think so, do you? And are you so ignorant you’ve forgotten that the last time the French set foot on English soil it was a Scot who opened the door?’ His expression was grim. ‘While you stand here fluttering like a woman, the Scots have delved our borders and burned our crops.’

Like a woman. The Scots were a less immediate threat than discovery. She lifted her hands and spread her feet. ‘Come down from that horse and face my fists and we’ll decide who’s a better man.’

His grimace turned to laughter, a wonderful sound, and he leaned over the horse’s neck to clap her on the shoulder. ‘Well, Little John, I see you’ve much to learn, but I’ll spare you a brayin’ today.’

She tried not to look relieved.

‘Come.’ He held out his hand. ‘Share my horse. You’ll see Cambridge afore day’s end.’

Caked with the dirt of her days on the road, she slouched and shrugged as if it didn’t matter. Men, in her experience, were not good at welcoming help. ‘Well, if you insist. I can take care of myself, you know.’

Unlike a woman, dependent on a man for the food that filled her belly and the air that filled her lungs.

‘Oh, yes, and a fine job you’re doing, too,’ he said, raising his eyebrows at her bedraggled state. ‘Now accept a hand when it’s offered.’

He swung the gittern from his back to his chest and slipped his foot from the stirrup so she could have a leg up. Then he grabbed her arm, his grip firm and safe, and hauled her up behind him. She scrambled to keep her seat as the horse trotted sideways and the stringed instrument bounced against Duncan’s chest.

‘Hold on, Little John. Fall and you can walk the rest of the way.’

She patted the horse as the beast started down the road, then grabbed the man around the waist, reluctant to press too close. Her breasts were bound, but would he feel a softness against his back? Her legs, splayed wide and tucked against his hips, seemed to expose her most intimate secret. Would he notice what was missing there?

Talk. Talk would distract him. And her. ‘You had a skirmish with the Scots, you say?’

‘Skirmish? Aye, if you want to call it that. Three thousand swooped into the valley and were halfway to Appleby before I left.’

‘You left?’ Astonished, she could not stop the words. Men did not shirk battle.

‘I was sent to ask, nay, to plead for help from our illustrious King and Council.’ The sentence held a sneer.

‘You’ve seen the King?’ Her mother, the old King’s mistress, had fled the court at his death. Jane had been five then and remembered little, but Solay had returned to Court last year and her sister had listened to her every tale.

‘Seen him? I’ve spoken to him. He knows me name.’ The return of his accent hinted at his pride.

She was dumbstruck. The relationship was muddled in her mind, but the new King was some sort of half-nephew of hers, although he was older than she by a few years. Yet she had never even seen him.

It seemed that even a commoner from the north had more stature than a lowly woman. ‘So what did they say, the King and Council?’

‘Next year.’ His words were harsh. ‘They said next year.’

Invaders would not wait on the Council’s convenience. She wondered how far away Appleby was. ‘Why not now?’

‘Because they’ve no money, winter is a miserable season for a campaign, and a few more excuses I can’t remember.’

Neither her sister nor her sister’s husband held the current government in high regard, but they held their tongues. When one was the illegitimate daughter of a dead king, it was dangerous to demean a live one, even if he was devious and less than trustworthy.

‘Then why go to Cambridge?’ Wouldn’t a man return home to fight?’

‘Among other reasons, because Parliament is meeting there.’

His tone implied that she was an idiot who should have got all the information she needed from that simple statement.

‘Well, I can’t divine your thoughts.’ In her family’s experience, Parliament was worse than King and Council, but it wouldn’t be wise to say so. ‘You sit in the Commons, then?’ Minstrel? Representative? Who was this man?

‘Nay, but I must speak to those who do.’

‘And the King? He’ll be there, too?’

‘Within a fortnight,’ Duncan answered.

‘I hear he’s fair and well favoured.’

‘You must have heard that from the lasses. But he looks the part, all pomp and gilt. He makes certain you know who he is.’

She would know him if she saw him, she was certain of that. And if the King was coming to Cambridge, she would make sure she did.

As they rode in silence, there was nothing to distract her from the breadth and strength of his back. He blocked the wind, but the heat that filled her came from some place inside. She had never been so close to any man, certainly not to one from the border lands.

Questions itched her tongue. Northerners were half-beasts, or so she’d been told. Yet he looked little different from other men.

‘Tell me about it,’ she said, finally, ‘where you’re from.’ She would not have another chance to ask.

He did not speak at first.

‘Full a’ mountains,’ he said, finally. ‘I’d lay a wager you’ve never seen a mountain.’

She shook her head, then realised he couldn’t see her. ‘No.’

‘Well, there’s fells and crags and becks—all of earth a man could ever want.’

This did not sound like the cold and gloomy Lucifer’s land she expected. ‘You like it, then?’

‘The soil speaks to me.’

‘That sounds like poesy.’ She bit her lip, afraid he would take insult, but he nodded.

‘The land is poem enough.’ He said the words without shame.

The pleasant phrase was more than she would have expected from a bumpkin. Still, God had given man dominion over the earth so he could control its fearsome power. Only a savage would choose to live in the wilderness.

Then he shook his shoulders, as if sloughing off a thought. ‘But it’s not home any longer. And where’s yours, lad? Answer me now. It’s not a fighting question.’

She chewed her lip, trying to think.

‘Is it?’ He looked over his shoulder.

The truth first. The lie second. ‘I’m from Essex, but I’ve been living near Bedford. With my uncle.’ She could say it safely. This man would not know the region. ‘Since my parents died.’

A family would prove inconvenient, so she orphaned herself without a qualm and braced for expressions of sympathy. She could answer with the appropriate emotion. After all, her father was dead.

But instead of clucking and compassion, she heard only a mumbled grunt that could have been ‘sorry’.

There was another stretch of silence. It seemed a man had much less to say than a woman.

‘I’m going to Cambridge to study law so I can serve the King,’ she said, finally. That was sure to impress him. He could probably not even read.

‘Oh, are you?’ He did not sound impressed. ‘And where did you school, then?’ He asked as if he knew something of schooling.

Too late, she realised she might have made a dangerous boast. ‘Uh, at home. With the priest.’ Schools were for boys.

‘And how old are you?’ Something more than a northern accent lurked in his tone. ‘Fifteen? You can’t be much past that. You’re still talking treble.’

She gulped, glad her voice had always been low for a woman. To pass as a boy, she was willing to lose a few years. ‘I’ll be fifteen after Candlemas.’ Only half a year away.

‘And this is your first time at University.’

‘Yes,’ she answered, before she realised it was not a question.

‘How much Latin do you have?’ His questions were coming thick and fast.

‘Some.’

‘Ubi ius incertum, ibi ius nullum,’ he said, with nary an accent.

It was something insulting about the law, that much she recognised.

‘Varus et mutabile semper femina,’ she answered, haltingly. An insult to women was always a good rejoinder.

‘Varium, not varus. “Woman is an ever fickle and changeable thing” not a bow-legged one.’

Her cheeks burned. The man was not the country simpleton she had thought. ‘I read better than I speak.’

‘I hope so. And you’re set on being a man of law?’ Amusement and disgust twisted in his tone.

She sighed. ‘Mostly, I wanted to get away from home.’

Another laugh. She was beginning to like the sound. ‘You’ll be in good company. Sometimes I think more come to university for that than for learning.’

At the burr in his voice, a pleasant buzz lodged between her legs where they nestled against him. More than pleasant.

Her sister had tried to explain it once, this thing between men and women. Solay had waxed poetic about bodies and hearts and souls and lifetimes. It sounded like a sickness, or worse, madness, meant to warp a woman’s mind so she would submit her life to a man’s control.

Jane had never felt such a thing and didn’t want to. Another way, perhaps, that she was different from other women.

But this, this was pleasant.

He shrugged, ‘I’ve not much use for lawyers, meself, but if you’re set on it, you’ll find John Lyndwood’s as good a master as there is.’

She mumbled something vague in reply. She didn’t need a Cumberland farmer’s advice about Cambridge, even if he had picked up a few Latin phrases.

She knew what to expect at University. Her sister’s husband had been educated at the Inns at Court in London and he’d told her all about it. There were lovely quadrangles and courtyards. She would stroll the gardens, read interesting books and debate their meaning with fellow students.

But as the horse ambled across the bridge and through the gate, the city pressed in around her, denting her dreams.

Houses jumbled tightly together in crooked, smelly streets, punctuated with gaps, like a row of pulled teeth, with only charred timbers to show where the burned-out homes had stood.

‘Where are you staying?’ Duncan asked, raising his voice to be heard over two squealing pigs chasing each other around the corner. ‘I’ll take you there.’

The late summer air was ripe with the smell of horse droppings and raw fish. Where was the peaceful, cloistered garden Justin had described? She had come to Cambridge because it was out of the way and her family was less likely to look for her here than in London or at Oxford. A mistake? She had wanted to be on her own, responsible to no one, but poised on the brink of it even a stranger with a northern tongue looked safe.

Her arms tightened around her rescuer.

‘Don’t squeeze the air outta me, boy.’

She released him quickly. This was no way for a man to act. ‘Let me down here.’ She scrambled off the horse to escape the contradictory feelings and the shelter of his back.

He eyed her, standing in the street clutching her small sack. ‘You’ve no place to stay, have you?’

‘Not yet, but I will.’ The sun was still high. She had time to find a bed. ‘I’m grateful for the ride.’

He looked down at her, frowning. ‘Have you friends who’ve come before? A master expecting you?’

She put on a cloak of bravura and shook her head. Did men feel this frightened inside when they looked so fearless? ‘I’ll make my own way.’

It was time to walk away, but she could not turn her back on his searching eyes.

‘You’ve no place to live, no master to take you and no friends to help.’ He leaned back in the saddle and stared her down. ‘You’ve made no plans at all, have you?’

She shook her head, suddenly ashamed. Cambridge loomed large and frightening around her. She’d never had to find her own food and shelter, but she would not cower like a woman. Royal blood ran through her veins.

She held up her head and met his eyes. ‘I can take care of myself!’

He shook his head. ‘The Fair starts tomorrow, so there’s nary a room to be had and Parliament’s lords and squires are still to come. I can give you a pallet for the night at least.’

Pride warred with fear. For a country newcomer, he seemed to know a lot about this city, but she knew nothing of this stranger. It was a woman’s way to depend on a man. She had abandoned her family in order to control her own fate, not turn it over to a bumpkin with strong arms and a lilt in his laugh. ‘Thank you, but I don’t need your help.’

He leaned over, put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a shake. ‘You’re going to need some friends, Little John. There’s no shame in taking an offered hand.’

She straightened her shoulders. This man scared her, somehow, and not because he ate his meat raw. ‘I would rather take care of myself.’ If she said it often enough, it would be true.

‘Ya would, would ya?’ His country tongue had returned. ‘Well, g’luck t’ya then.’ He turned the horse away, ready to ride on.

She bit her lip. Now she’d angered him. ‘But I thank you for your kind offer,’ she called, as he started to ride away.

He shouted over his shoulder at her, ‘You’ll nae get another.’

Feeling unsteady on legs that had been straddling a horse, she started walking in the opposite direction, trying to look as if she knew where she was going. She forced herself not to look back.

‘Hey! John!’

She turned, wondering whether he had called the name more than once before she answered. ‘Yes?’

‘Stay away from the butchers’ district. And if you get to the alehouse near Solar Hostel, stop in. We’ll lift a few together.’

She gave a jaunty wave and kept walking, wondering how she was to know where the butchers lived.

Duncan pulled up the horse and watched until the boy’s fair hair was swallowed by the crowd, resisting the urge to go after him. The poor lad had clung to him so tightly he could scarcely breathe and then refused his help. Young, vulnerable, full of enthusiasm and too proud to accept what was freely given—it had been years since he’d felt that way, but he remembered.

He should have kept his grip and dragged the boy with him. He was on better than speaking terms with pride, but the world was full of danger. It only took a moment. If the lad wandered into the wrong place, looked at someone the wrong way, met someone in the wrong mood—

Well, he would find out. Like all the rest, the boy had assumed Duncan was a Borderland bumpkin. Let him wander the streets alone, if he was so prejudiced.

Yet there was something else about him, something that niggled at Duncan’s brain and irritated him beyond reason when his help was rejected. Why was the boy so skittish?

Duncan turned his horse down the street towards Solar Hostel. He had more important things to think about than an ungrateful slip of a lad. Pickering would be here any day and there would be plans to make before Parliament convened. In the meantime, he had to be sure the hostel’s kitchen was stocked and the beds ready before the rest of the scholars returned.

Yet he knew, somehow, that he’d be worrying late tonight whether the boy had found a bed.

Chapter Two

Jane’s stomach growled as she watched the men come and go from the alehouse. She’d had nothing since yesterday’s porridge, doled out by a kindly porter at King’s Hall.

Controlling her own fate was dirtier and lonelier than she had expected. She’d seen little food and less bathwater for five days. When it was light, she went from college to college seeking a master who would take her. And when it was dark, she lay awake praying for her sister and the babe, hoping God and her mother would forgive her for running.

The college masters seemed no more sympathetic than the Almighty.

She was the right age and sex, or so people thought, but she had little money and the Latin that her family had so admired failed to impress the masters. They were not sympathetic to her excuses for her weakness in a language she must not only read, but speak in daily conversation.

Perhaps she should have let the northern man help her.

She had thought about him more than once. A woman’s thoughts, not a boy’s. Of the feel of his strong hand, warm on her shoulder. Of the musical laugh that spilled from his lips. Of the hardness of his chest, and the feel of him nestled between her legs.

Dangerous thoughts.

Yet this afternoon, she found herself outside the alehouse near Solar Hostel, looking for a scruffy, black-haired northerner. When she saw him, she would walk up and say hello as if surprised to see him. As if she were there by chance.

But she did not see him, and, after a time, the woman across the street was eyeing her as if ready to call the watch so Jane squared her shoulders. Perhaps he was already inside. She would just take a look.

She put her hand on the door. She had never been in an alehouse. Who knew what waited on the other side?

The open door threw light into the dark room and drew all eyes. She ducked her head, hoping no one would look closely, but when the din of conversation didn’t halt, she breathed again and let her eyes adjust.

She saw him, finally, in a corner, at the same moment he saw her. A flicker of delight—did she imagine it?—crossed his face. Her breath fluttered. Only because it was nice to see someone smile instead of scowl at the sight of her.

He waved her to the table and when she didn’t thread her way through the room fast enough, he came to her, draping his arm over her shoulders to lead her to the corner. ‘Oust fettal?’

Words she couldn’t understand, but in a kind tongue. She blinked back tears. ‘If you’re asking how I am, I’ve been well.’

‘Good. Sit.’

She did, hoping her smell wasn’t too potent. She had taken to sneaking into a stable and bedding down with the horses. She had always got on well with horses. A little pat and a crooning song and they would settle down and let her catch a few winks.

He continued to smile. She answered with her own, and for a moment too long, they simply looked at each other, speechless and happy.

The alewife interrupted. ‘A cup for ya?’

‘Here’s Little John at last,’ Duncan said, pounding her back so hard she nearly fell off the bench. ‘Bring him some peeve.’

She wondered what he had ordered.

The alewife’s grin was toothless. ‘He’s been telling us about this lad he met on the road. Glad your head and body are still attached.’ She chuckled as she went for his drink.

Startled, Jane looked at Duncan, warmed to think she had been important enough for him to mention. ‘And why wouldn’t they be?’

He sat back and took a sip of his drink. ‘Cambridge isn’t always a friendly place.’

‘Worse than that. People are mean.’

‘Harder than you expected, is it?’

Mustn’t show her weakness. She shrugged. ‘It’s not too bad.’

Her drink appeared and she sipped it, wrinkling her nose at the cloudy brew.

Duncan chuckled. ‘That’s student ale, lad. Good as daily bread.’

She nodded, grateful to have sustenance filling her empty belly. It tasted of oats and oak.

Her shoulder brushed Duncan’s and the feel of sitting behind him on the horse flooded back. There, pressed to his back, she had learned the size of his chest and the strength in his muscles, but she had not had to face him.

Now, he peered at her in the dim light. She leaned into the shadow, afraid he would see too much. Most men only glanced at her, seeing what they expected. Duncan’s eyes lingered.

To avoid his gaze, she looked at his hands. Large and square, strong, but gentle. Firm when they had gripped hers.

‘Have you found a master, then?’

‘Not exactly.’ Even a cursory quizzing had revealed she was not ready for the rigours of rhetoric and grammar. She was in grave danger of ending up as a glomerel, condemned to do nothing but memorise Latin all day. ‘I’ve talked to a lot of them.’ She hoped her in-difference was convincing. ‘Still deciding.’

‘Well, don’t be too long about it. You must be registered with a master within fifteen days of yer arrival.’

She tapped her fingers against the table, counting. Ten more days. ‘I’ll find one by then.’

His smile was sceptical. ‘If you haven’t, you’ll be expelled.’

‘Expelled?’ She groaned. How could she be expelled before a master had written her name on the matricula list?

‘Or detained,’ he answered cheerfully, with a lift of his mug, ‘according to the King’s pleasure.’

The King. She wanted to draw his attention for her academic prowess, not for being a student no one wanted.

But Duncan might be teasing again. Surely the King had more important things to do than worry about Cambridge schoolboys. ‘You made that up.’

His smile vanished. ‘No, it’s true.’

She would not let him scare her again. ‘How is it that you know about the University?’

‘Would it surprise you if I told you I’m a master?’

Now he was teasing. ‘You can’t be.’ A master would have completed seven years of study and be ready to teach his own students. He looked the right age, but scholars were sober, celibate fellows, usually seen in a flowing robe, never seen in alehouses. ‘You don’t look anything like a master.’

‘Oh? I can see you know as much about masters as you do about the north country.’

He thought her a fool. No scholar was allowed to wear a beard. ‘You don’t even have a tonsure.’

He rubbed the top of his head and smiled. She noticed, uneasily, that the hair was shorter there. ‘It went to seed over the summer.’

She narrowed her eyes, trying to judge him. ‘If it’s true, what do you teach?’

‘If? Are you calling me a liar as well as an ignorant barbarian?’

She groaned. ‘No.’ It was wiser to placate him before he asked her to step outside and put up her fists. ‘What do you study?’

‘Not the law, I can tell ya.’ His rough accent had returned. ‘I’m teaching grammar and rhetoric and studying something that actually helps people. Medicine.’

The very word made her queasy. She shut her eyes against the memory of her sister’s screams. No, she wanted nothing to do with sick bodies.

‘Did ya find a place to stay, then?’

She opened her eyes, glad to see a sympathetic smile replace his moment of irritation. The ale had begun to work on her empty stomach and muddle her wits.

He wanted to help. Why didn’t she let him? If she asked him to teach her, he would certainly say yes. Then, she would have a master and a bed in his hall and her troubles would be over.

But sitting beside him made her chest rise and fall. Looking at his hands made her mouth go dry. Meeting his eyes, her boyish bravado evaporated into feminine silliness.

He was the only man who had ever made her want to act like a woman.

Which made him the most dangerous man of all.

No. She could not take help from him.

‘I’m staying off High Street.’ She jerked her head vaguely in the direction of Trumpington Gate. ‘Widow lady. Needed help in exchange for a bed. So you see, I didn’t need your help after all.’

‘Well, you’re settled then.’

He turned away and she felt as if a cloud had stolen the sun. No, she must spend no more time with this mercurial man. She was beginning to seek his smiles and long for his laughter.

She rose, a little unsteady on her feet. ‘Thanks for the ale. I’ll be taking my leave.’

Duncan grabbed her arm to steady her.

His touch ricocheted through her, setting off a tingle in her breasts that even the binding couldn’t squash.

‘You drank that quickly. Are you kalied?’ Concern touched his voice, though the word meant nothing to her. ‘I can walk you to the widow’s.’

She pulled away. ‘No, no, you stay and finish.’ Reckless, she drained the rest and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. She must leave before she confessed she was sleeping with the horses. ‘I must go now. She’ll be expecting me. For evening tasks.’

‘Well, if you get into trouble, come to Solar Hostel and ask for me.’

She fought the girlish smile threatening her lips. ‘Oh, I don’t think I will.’ She would not see him again. It was a promise she made to herself. ‘I’ll be busy. With my studies. And helping the widow.’ She forced the words out. Words to push him away. If she insulted him again, an easy task, she had learned, he would let her leave.

‘I won’t have much time myself,’ he answered, dropping her arm and sitting back. She heard the pique in his voice and longed for the laughter. ‘I have better things to do than to worry about a boy who has no sense.’

Good. He was angry. So angry he did not tell her to fare well.

She was out of the door quickly, but hid in a shadow across the street, hoping to see him again. She did not have to wait long. Duncan came out and lingered, looking up and down the street, as if for her.

And as she saw him turn towards a warm, dry bed, she bit her cheek to keep the tears from slipping.

You’re gonna need some friends, he had said.

Fifteen days. She had ten more. But five Colleges had refused her. If the other four did the same, she would start visiting the hostels.

The one called Solar would not be on her list.

‘What word?’ Duncan asked, without preamble, a few days later. He knew from the look on Pickering’s face that the news was not good. He had no patience to wait while the man washed off the road dust. ‘Tell me.’

Sir James Pickering slumped against the table, the lines on his face deeply shadowed by the morning sun streaming into Solar Hostel’s empty gathering room. ‘All the talk’s of Otterburn, but it’s in the west they hurt us worst. Carlisle’s still standing, but Appleby—’ He shook his head. ‘Appleby is gone.’

Sweet, defenceless city. It would have had no hope. ‘Damn the Council. I begged…’ The remembrance of his entreaties, and the Council’s refusal, seared his heart like the mark of a hot iron.

‘They told you no?’

‘They told me next year.’ He had almost, almost succeeded. ‘The King was ready, I vow. He told the Council he was going to mount a horse and go off riding in all directions.’

‘But the Council’s not his to command.’

He knew that, but it made no difference. ‘I should have said something different, something else. Something that would have convinced them to send help now!’

‘You swayed the King.’

‘No victory at all.’

Pickering sighed. ‘Well, the Council’s cautious these days.’ At February’s Parliament—Merciless, they’d called that one—the King’s closest advisers had been condemned to death at the Council’s behest. Now, the Council’s Lords Appellant themselves were wondering whether Parliament would turn on them.

‘Tell that to those facing the Scots alone.’

‘Winter’s coming. The Scots won’t be back until next year.’

Ah, you’re sure of that, are you? What if you’re wrong?’ Are ya still breathin’? ‘If I’d persuaded them, if they’d ridden that day—’

‘Don’t punish yourself. Before you even reached the King, the Scots had crossed the border for home.’ The man paused, as if holding worse news.

‘What else?’

‘Your father.’

Duncan gripped the rough wood of the table, then sat, feeling the world shift. ‘What about him?’

‘The Scots. They took him.’

The words hit him like one of his fadder’s punches.

He could see the old man, scarred from countless battles, many of them waged against his own sons. All of home that he had tried to escape was tied up in the old man.

And all that he couldn’t.

‘Me madder? Michael?’ The words of childhood were all he could speak.

‘Unharmed, by God’s mercy. Your brother has taken over as he was born to do. The tower held, but the village, the fields…’ He shuddered. ‘Burned.’

Duncan stared at the Common Room’s blackened hearth, seeing charred huts and homeless serfs. There’d be nothing to harvest.

They must pray for thick wool on the flock or there’d be nothing to sell.

Nothing to eat.

You left, Little John had said. He should have stayed. Much as he hated it, he should have stayed. His strong arm would have done more good there than his useless tongue had here.

He let Pickering describe the battle and his fadder’s bravery, only half-listening. He knew what the end would be.

‘They’re holding him for ransom,’ Pickering said, finally.

‘Then they’ll be sore disappointed.’ There was no joy in his laugh. ‘We’ve barely a pot to piss in.’ The funds it took to send him here were hard won. Now, at last, he was ready to take on students who would pay him, but it would be no knight’s ransom. He rose. ‘I must return.’

Pickering’s hand on his shoulder was gentler than his fadder’s had ever been. ‘You’ve given your oath here, son. To teach. And what little there was at home is less now.’

Waves of The Death had rolled over the countryside every few years, over and over until it seemed the land was trying to purge itself of people. Between the Scots and The Death, the ground, once lush with oats and wheat, had turned bleak.

‘I’ve got one mouth to feed, but two good hands.’ He held them up, proud of their strength. He could swing a spade better than some of the serfs. ‘I can help rebuild, replant—’

‘You can help here, persuading Parliament to send money north. They’re in no mood to vote more taxes.’

He shrugged off Pickering’s hand and paced the room, his rage too strong to let him sit. ‘They’ll never listen to me.’ All of them, even the boy, thinking they were cleverer and better because of where they were born and how they talked.

‘If they don’t, there will be no ransom money.’

He stopped in mid-stride and stared at Pickering. Helpless fury lodged in his gut. ‘But my fadder, the rest, they defended the border while these southerners listened to poetry readings.’

‘Between the battles in the west and the east, the Scots took more than three hundred knights, including young Hotspur and his brother.’

Duncan smacked the wall, welcoming the sting on his palm. The Percies and their knights would be redeemed long before his father. ‘That’s how it is, then? The lords who already have money are worth saving, but those of us who live in dirty stone towers and guard the borders year in and year out are not?’

‘Parliament convenes in five days,’ Pickering said. ‘We’ll have to entreat every single member for his vote.’

Duncan sighed, relief glossing over his guilt. The time had come to put on his southland demeanour. The accent first. Then he would shave the beard, and, finally, don the master’s costume he’d earned.

Finally, he would be ready to do his work here. The work he could do instead of going home again.

‘The University has two votes,’ he began. ‘I’ll make sure they go our way.’

Chapter Three

Restless, Duncan left the hostel late that afternoon to walk the city. Plucking the gittern had not soothed him today.

At home, he would have been roaming the countryside. Harsh land, but he saw beauty in what civilised folk feared. Clear lakes. High hills. Fields, when they thrived, green enough to hurt the eyes.

Unlike this place. If he strayed too far from the city, he’d be in the fens and up to his knees in water, as if the land were sinking into the sea.

So he circled the narrow streets and it wasn’t until he found himself passing St Michael’s again that he realised he was looking for the boy.

At the sound of a quarrelsome voice, he slowed his steps and readied his fists. He should have given the boy more warning about the townsfolk. The last row between townsmen and students had left a bachelor’s student dead.

Little John, with his cocky attitude, would be fair game for a bully. The lad was quick to wave his fists, but he wouldn’t last two minutes in a serious match.

Just ahead, a large man towered over a young lad, pinning him in place with a hand on one shoulder. It was near dusk, but Duncan recognised the pale gold hair.

Little John was in trouble already.

His heart lurched. Without thinking, he stepped over and put his hand on John’s other shoulder and his best Cambridge accent on his lips. ‘What’s going on here?’

John jumped at the touch, but his eyes—blue, Duncan noted for the first time—widened in recognition.

The man didn’t let go. ‘This boy was sneaking around the stable. Probably going to steal a horse.’

‘I was not,’ John began. ‘I just wanted—’

Duncan squeezed his shoulder. He was oddly glad to see the boy, but the lad was no good at holding his tongue. ‘There must be some misunderstanding.’

The man peered at him. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m his master.’

John’s head snapped up in surprise. Thankfully, this time, he kept his mouth shut.

The stableman wasn’t ready to let go. ‘You don’t look like no grad.’

Duncan’s strong arms and shoulders didn’t fit their image of a scholar and he hadn’t yet shaved his summer beard. ‘Maybe not, but that’s what I am and he is one of our Solar boys.’ That would put his punishment in the hands of the University, not the town. ‘I’ll vouch for him.’

The man’s grip loosened enough for Duncan to take control. He turned to John, ignoring the other man as if the matter were settled. ‘Come along now. The bedchambers need sweeping and the laundry’s waiting.’

The lad’s grateful expression turned belligerent. ‘But—’

‘Not a word!’ One wrong move and the stable master could still attack. ‘Leave one more time without permission and you won’t get another chance.’ He put his hand behind the boy’s neck and pulled him up High Street, out of the man’s reach.

‘You’re a wretched lot, all of you!’ he called to their backs.

Duncan heard boots crunch on gravel, then something sharp and hard hit his back. The next rock hit John’s shoulder. He grabbed the boy’s arm and shoved him ahead. ‘Run!’

Duncan’s back took three more blows before they turned the corner, out of range.

When he was sure the man was not going to follow, Duncan stopped, gasping for breath, and shook the boy for lack of sense. He searched the lad for damage, but his blond curls seemed to halo a flawless face. ‘I warned you.’ The words came out in a snarl.

‘You warned me about the butchers!’ He tried to twist away, but was no match for Duncan’s strong hands. ‘That was a stable master.’

‘Well, they don’t like us much either.’

‘Us?’ Little John stopped wriggling and looked up. Not only were the lad’s eyes blue, they had a disturbing tendency to linger. ‘You and me?’

His palm pulsed against the boy’s shoulder. ‘Not exactly.’ The phrase implied a connection Duncan didn’t want to feel. ‘I meant any University men. And you might thank me for saving your miserable hide.’

John’s gaze, like Duncan’s hand, refused to let go. ‘I thank you, then, but I didn’t ask you to rescue me.’

There was something in those eyes, some combination of bravado and vulnerability that tugged at places uncomfortably deep inside.

‘If you don’t want to be rescued, stop getting into trouble. What were you doing there?’

A sullen frown marred the boy’s face. ‘Nothing. I didn’t hurt anything.’

Duncan sighed, exasperated. ‘The widow turned you out?’

The boy hung his head, mercifully breaking his gaze. The words came slowly. ‘There never was a widow.’

Prideful liar. What else had the lad lied about? ‘You had no place to sleep, did you?’

‘I did, too! I was sleeping in the stable until he threw me out!’

‘You wouldna have been so lucky.’ His voice rose and his Cambridge accent fell as he envisioned what had almost happened. He could have lost the boy, lost another one because he’d looked away, just for a moment. ‘He was going to bray ya bloody, break yer neb, and hand ya to the sheriff, who would have thrown you in gaol with the murderers.’

Even in the fading light, he could see the boy’s face turn pale. Something stirred inside him. The lad’s shoulder trembled beneath his palm and he pulled it away. ‘When did you eat last?’

Little John raised a thumb and then two fingers. ‘Monday. They gave me a bowl of porridge at Michaelhouse.’

Duncan sighed. ‘Well, I’ll not leave you to be beaten like a stray dog, though I’ve a mind to beat some sense into you myself. If you’ve got no more brains than to refuse help when it’s offered, you’ll never earn your bachelor’s.’ He might not have saved Peter, he might not be able to save his fadder, but he could save one would-be scholar from starving in the streets. ‘I’m taking you back to the hostel.’

‘As your student?’

‘I didn’t say that.’ He wanted to help the lad, but the idea of becoming his master made Duncan uneasy. It seemed like more than an academic commitment. ‘Besides, why should I? You’ve turned down every offer of help I’ve made.’

His words were met with a pout. This lad was the most prideful piece he’d ever met. ‘Oh? Does that not please you, young gentleman?’ he said, with a sharp tongue. ‘Then stroll over to Trinity Hall and ask for a bed.’

The lower lip quivered. ‘Trinity turned me down.’

Duncan regretted his harsh words. Beset with his own demons, he forgot the lad was alone in the world and still young enough to cry.

Duncan had never been that young. ‘A man doesn’t meet defeat with tears.’

‘But they’ve all turned me down. St Peter’s, King’s Hall, Clare Hall, Michaelhouse—’ He stopped for a gulp of air. ‘All of them.’

Duncan felt a twinge of sympathy. As a young student, he’d forced his way into St Benet’s Hostel. He’d had to force most of what he’d got from life. The only reason he was here at all was because some self-righteous bishop thought a Cambridge education would overcome the ‘waste, desolate and illiterate condition’ of a young man from the north country. The man’s exact words.

Duncan had memorised them.

‘What did they say? Why won’t they take you?’

‘My Latin isn’t good enough.’

‘Well, I said the same, lad. Did you not believe me?’

‘I don’t know what to do now.’

‘You go to the hostels, of course.’ The colleges had permanent buildings and wealthy benefactors, but hostels like Solar, which outnumbered them, were a truer community of scholars, to Duncan’s mind.

‘They won’t take me either.’

‘How many have you been to? Five? Ten? Twenty?’

John looked down at the street again, silent. One thing about the boy. He knew when he’d been caught.

‘Confess, Little John. You haven’t been to Solar Hostel, I know that for a fact.’

‘Five. Maybe six.’

Duncan sighed. ‘Well, you’ve many more to try. And if you can’t find a master among them, you’ll go to grammar school until you’re ready and try again.’

He wrinkled his nose. ‘That’s for the little boys.’

‘Your father never took a rod to you, I can tell that.’ The boy’s sagging jaw confirmed it. ‘You’ll never make a bachelor if you give up so easily.’

‘I’ve been trying ten days and they’ve all said the same. Please. Will you take me?’ The boy’s eyes pleaded as strongly as his lips.

Duncan wanted to say yes, but for all the wrong reasons. Peter would have been just a little older than this if…

His thoughts followed their familiar wheel ruts.

If only he had watched more carefully, if only he hadn’t turned his back, if only he’d tied the boy to him.

His fadder had beat him for his sin. No harder than he beat himself.

He watched the boy’s expectant, upturned face and wondered at his change of heart. He’d saved John from a beating tonight, but he wasn’t sure he, or anyone, could make him a scholar. Besides, he would do the lad no favour if he threw him into rhetoric ill prepared. The other scholars would eat him before they broke fast.

‘I’ll have to think it over.’

‘But you said you would help me!’ Now, it seemed the lad was going to cry. If he didn’t develop tougher sensibilities, he’d never last a year under any master. ‘If you don’t, there’s nothing else I can do.’

Duncan’s sympathy vanished. ‘Nothing else? Are ya still breathin’?’ How many times had his father asked that question?

John’s head snapped up, eyes wide. He nodded, biting his trembling lip.

And every time, knowing the answer was aye, his father had said the same. ‘Then there’s more you can do.’

The boy squared his jaw and swallowed. Face calmer, he nodded, tears gone. ‘Tell me and I’ll do it.’

The blue eyes, defiant and pleading, didn’t leave his. Drawn into the gaze, Duncan had the strange sensation of staring into a reflecting glass, in which things appeared real, but were actually backwards.

He shook off the spell. ‘All right. I won’t leave you to the mercy of the Master of Glomery. I’ll help you with your Latin until you’re ready to study with a master.’ He had the feeling he would regret this, but he couldn’t leave the poor helpless orphan alone in the street. ‘We pay our own way. Do you have money for board and fees?’

‘A few farthings.’

He sighed, having known the answer. He was stuck with a penniless orphan with rudimentary Latin who deserved to be in grammar school. ‘Then you’ll have to work for it.’

‘I will. I promise.’ John nodded, all smiles again. Then, he gave Duncan an assessing frown. ‘What happens when my Latin improves? Will you take me on then?’

The lad was relentless, he’d give him that. But those eyes seemed to claim something more personal than lessons. Something he wasn’t ready to give to anyone. ‘When I’m through with you, you’ll have your pick of masters.’

‘Your Latin’s that good?’

Cheeky lad. He had to admire the boy’s outspoken pluck, even when it was insulting. ‘My Latin received a special commendation at my inception.’

The answering grin was mischievous. ‘Probably because no one could understand your English.’

He socked the boy’s arm, gently. ‘It’s your Latin that needs work, Little John, not my English. But if you’re willing to work, I’ll make you fit to lecture in Latin to these flatlanders.’

‘You don’t like people from this part of the country, do you?’ John gave him an odd glance through his eyelashes.

Odd. He’d never noticed a man’s eyelashes before. ‘Some days, I hate them. And they don’t like me much either.’

‘Do you hate me?’

The lad had twisted his feelings in all directions, save that one. ‘No, I don’t hate you, lad.’ He put his hand on the gilt-gold hair and tussled it. A few strands wound their way around his fingers. ‘You’ve some growing up to do, but when you’re not whining or pouting, I nearly like you.’

And the blinding smile John gave him caused a strange shiver in the pit of his stomach.

Alys de Weston watched Justin squeeze Solay’s hand. His wife did not respond. As the hours lengthened and the candles shortened, Alys had tried without success to shoo him out of the lying-in room. He was not swayed.

Stubborn, that man, always.

She had told neither of them that Jane was gone. As long as his wife had been in childbirth, he could think of nothing else. And in the days since, the babe was so small and frail it took all of them to keep little William alive.

William and his mother.

So she had said nothing, not wanting them to worry. But Alys? Alys was worried.

‘Come,’ she said, tugging his tunic. The man hadn’t eaten in days and had slept less than his wife. ‘Solay is sleeping and you need food.’

She forced him down the stairs into the dim, smoky kitchen. The kitchen girl had fallen asleep, waiting for her summons, so Alys served the soup herself.

‘Justin,’ she said, as he munched bread and cheese without savouring it. ‘Jane is missing.’

She could tell from his absent gaze he had not understood her words. ‘What do you mean, missing?’

A wonderful man and a good son-in-law, but sometimes, they all were dolts. ‘Missing. She’s run away and left her skirts behind.’

She had his attention now. ‘How long?’

‘Since the day the babe was born.’

‘And you didn’t speak til now?’

‘Could you have listened?’

He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. Solay, the babe…I didn’t even notice.’

She patted his arm. ‘You wouldn’t have noticed if the sun had fallen to earth.’ Her older daughter was a fortunate woman.

‘You’re sure? You’ve searched?’

‘The entire property. I knew she did not want to wed, but I had hoped…’

She had hoped marriage would turn her younger daughter into a normal girl. She’d been a pretty blonde-haired, blue-eyed child, but they had left the court when she was five and, during the years of exile, she had become a different creature. Shoulders too wide and breasts too small for beauty, only her singing voice marked her as a woman.

It was Solay who garnered Alys’s attention. Beautiful Solay, who understood what it meant to be a woman and what women must do to survive. Jane, poor, strange child, never did.

So Alys had made no demands, trying to make up for losing their life at court. She let Jane play with horses and books, more boy than girl, until, too late, she realised that her daughter had become fit for nothing else.

Alys sighed. Yet another of her failures as a mother.

‘I would never have forced her into marriage,’ Justin said. ‘Surely she knew that. But I thought if she met him, they might, she might…’ He shook his head. ‘Solay warned me. I should have listened.’

‘The bridegroom comes next week. What shall we tell him?’

‘The truth. He will recover. My worry is Jane.’ Yet he glanced towards the stairs, as if he had already been away from Solay too long.

‘Solay must be your concern.’ She did not have to say it. For this man, there would never be a question of who was first in his life. ‘Besides, where would we look? Where could she go?’

In the spring, Alys and Jane had moved into the empty dower house on Justin’s family’s land. Until then, the sheltered girl had known nothing but the house she had lived in with her mother after they had left court.

The house Alys’s stubbornness had lost.

‘She once said she wished she were a man so she could be a lawyer and serve the King, as I did,’ he answered. ‘Maybe she went to the Inns at Court.’

Their eyes met. London. A naïve country girl would be swallowed whole.

He rose, all attention. ‘I’ll send a messenger that way. She’s been gone for days. She could be in the city by now.’

Oh, Jane. She felt her lip quiver. Alys de Weston, who had stood before the condemnation of Parliament unbowed, was afraid she was going to cry.

She bit her lip. She never cried. Not when they had charged her. Not when she had fled court with her children. Not even at the death of the King. The man she loved.

Who had called another man’s daughters his.

Jane woke, snug on a warm, dry pallet, and sighed with delight.

Normally, the hostel would have been full of men, every room shared, but the term’s start was still days away. She had a chance at privacy she would not see again to rewrap her breasts and relieve herself without fear.

What she really wanted was a bath, but that would be quick, cold and risky.

She said her prayers for Solay and her mother and started downstairs. She would spend the day reading, she decided. The hostel had a few volumes that would afford her good Latin practice.

But at the bottom of the stairs, Duncan handed her a pile of tunics and hose. ‘Wash these.’

She crossed her arms, not touching the garments in his hands. ‘Laundry’s no work for a man.’ Nor for the child of a king.

‘For a poor orphan, you’ve elevated expectations.’ Duncan dropped the clothes on the floor at her feet. ‘I told you you’d have to work for your lessons. Now do as I say.’

‘I want to talk to the principal,’ she said, lifting her chin. A man in power wouldn’t make her do such menial tasks. ‘Who’s responsible for this hostel?’

Duncan raised his eyebrows and looked at her aslant. ‘I am.’

She swallowed, grateful that her blunder had made him laugh instead of roar. From the first, this man had been nothing that she’d expected.

She tried not to think about how many ways she had insulted him already. ‘And you don’t have laundry women?’

‘We don’t waste money sending out the wash. And it’s the gaol for any women found within these walls, laundress or lady.’

Gaol. She stooped to gather the pile, shuddering. She was at this man’s mercy in a world beyond women. She’d have no one to turn to, no one to confide in and no protection if she were discovered.

‘And wash your own clothes, while you’re about it,’ he said, leaving her to grapple with the laundry. ‘You smell of the stables.’

As she grudgingly heated the water to fill the washtub, she savoured his words and allowed herself a secret smile. No women allowed, yet here she was. She had cracked their kingdom and they didn’t even know.

And yet she was still doing women’s work.

The thought lingered as she set up the tub in a sunny corner of the yard. She started to throw the garments into the water, but the coarse linen lingered in her hand, warm and alive with the smell of his body and his days on the road. She buried her nose in the fabric and breathed his scent until she sat behind him on the horse again, felt him nestled between her spread legs.

The memory made something within her run soft and wet.

She dropped the shirts in the hot water as quickly as she dropped the thought. What would Duncan think if he saw ‘John’ with his nose buried in another man’s shirt?

She plunged her arms into the wash water, the damp heat taking her back to the birthing room. What had happened to Solay? The babe must have been born days ago. Something weighed heavy in her chest, reminding her of what she had lost. She would never see her family again, never even know if they were safe.

She sent up a prayer for them as she swirled, scrubbed and pounded the clothes, then wrung out the rough linen, and stretched his shirts and braies on the grass beside hers.

The water, still warm, beckoned. Her skin ached to be clean. She had dipped her hands in the Cam River once or twice, but after she saw a dead sheep float by, she did not touch the water again.

She looked over her shoulder. She was in a secluded corner, shielded by the wall around the property and the vines that had grown up during the summer. She might not have such an opportunity again.

She skinned off her chausses and stepped into the tub, closing her eyes to savour the feel of the leftover water swirling into her hidden crevices, washing away the dust of the road and the stables.

Her tunic floated on top of the water, hiding everything below. She snuggled lower with a satisfied sigh. Just a moment. She would take just a moment’s ease.

Are ya still breathing?

A harsh question Duncan had asked. And a harsh man, when his eyes carried anger’s thunder.

He had offered his help, so she had expected that as soon as she asked, he would take ‘John’ as a student. If she had known she’d be working as a servant and rele-gated to studying Latin again, she might never have risked being so near him and his all-too-perceptive grey eyes.

She had told him how hard she had tried. She had explained how unfair and difficult it all was. But all he could say was Are ya still breathing?

He was no more understanding than the rest of the masters she had met. Well, when she was a clerk to the King, he’d be sorry he had been so rude. In fact, since the King was coming to Cambridge, she would introduce herself. The King might even—

‘Little John! What are ya doing in that tub?’

Chapter Four

Her eyes flew open.

Duncan stood across the yard, hands on hips, fresh shaven, the menacing set of his jaw exposed.

Startled, she started to stand, then, just in time, crouched lower. Her tunic would cover her, but damp as it was, it would mould to her body, making it obvious she was missing what would make her a man.

‘Come no closer,’ she said, waving him away. ‘I’ve finished your wash.’

‘I see that. That was not my question. I asked why you’re sitting in the laundry tub.’

‘Well, you’re the educated one.’ Her heart skipped faster. From fear? Or something else?

Without the beard, she could see his mouth clearly, the top lip sculpted, the lower lip unexpectedly full. She wondered how they would feel against hers.

A dangerous idea when she was sitting half-naked in a tub of cooling water. ‘Can ya not see I’m taking a bath?’ She mocked the lilt of his accent.

‘Do you truly think me such a miscreant that I’d have you bathe in the laundry tub?’

He was in one of his testy moods. Bathing in leftover laundry water was eminently sensible and many house-holds did it. ‘I don’t see how my bath says anything about you at all.’

He blinked, then gave her a sideways smile. ‘You may succeed in logic after all, Little John.’ He started across the grass. ‘The University’s Proctor frowns on the bathhouse, but since you’ve been sleeping with the horses, he might make an exception. Come with me. We’ll share a tub. Wash off the journey’s dust.’

The thought of sitting knee to knee, naked, with Duncan in a bathhouse tub stole her breath. ‘No, you go without me.’ She waved him away, praying he would come no closer. ‘I’m done. I don’t need another bath.’

‘Ah, don’t be daft, John.’ He took another step. ‘You smell like the King’s Ditch in August.’

‘No!’ She cursed the shrill panic in her voice. ‘No closer!’

He paused, praise Mary. ‘Why not?’

Why not? ‘I’ve an injury.’

Her words released him. ‘I’m studying medicine. Let me look—’

‘No!’ She shouted this time. ‘It’s an old one. I don’t want…I mean it’s not…’

He held up his hands and took a step back. An embarrassed red tinged his cheeks and clashed with the teasing lift of his brows. ‘War injury?’

Her cheeks, and something lower, heated. ‘Accident.’ Sometimes, men’s few words were a blessing.

Something in his face shifted and the smile disappeared. ‘Take your time, then.’ He turned and went inside.

She slumped lower in the tepid water, glad she had enjoyed her bath. There would not soon be another.

And next time Duncan looked her way, she would have something stuffed in the front of her breeches that looked as if it belonged to a man.

Little John was a strange one, Duncan thought, uneasy, as he took inventory of the precious bound volumes in the hostel’s library. He’d had an unusual sensation, seeing the boy in that tub. Almost as if—

He slammed the door on the thought.

An injury, the boy said. Duncan had seen no limp, no deformity in the lad, but it must be something severe to make him so sensitive.

He nearly dropped Cato’s Distichs.

Something that would make the boy less than a man.

He shuddered, glad he had not forced the lad to confess his shame. Such an injury would be rare, but if that’s what troubled the lad, it would explain the pitch of his voice.

At the thought, his own manhood inconveniently stirred to life. The war, the journey, his meeting with the King, had all conspired to make him neglect his own needs these past weeks. But to live without them, if the boy truly had lost his manhood—the thought swept over him with a kind of agony.

He enjoyed the life of the mind: new ideas, arguments with colleagues. But he also loved the life of the body: to walk the hills, to swing a spade and, he was not ashamed of it, to join with a woman.

What defined a man, after all? Strong arms, sharp mind, strong drives. Deprived of any one of those, why would a man want to live?

All the better, he told himself, when guilt threatened, that his brother had died, rather than live as a cripple.

And if something had happened to John, he would need the protection of a University life.

No matter what the boy’s wound, he’d discover it in time. The lad would lose his womanish modesty soon enough. There were few secrets when thirty men lived side by side.

Young men arrived with the morning bells and kept coming all day.

Jane stood back, watching everything they did. Loud, boisterous, they slapped each other’s backs, punched each other and hugged, performing a sort of greeting ritual.

They filled every corner of the hostel, but they occupied more than physical space. Their vigour reached beyond their bodies, penetrating every nook of the house until she felt even her thoughts could not remain untouched.

She kept Duncan in sight so when he needed someone, she was close at hand, ready to bustle purpose-fully to fetch clean linen or inform a scholar that he would be sharing a room of three this year instead of two.

‘I’m here for the principal,’ she would announce, to anyone who would listen. It sounded as important as for the King.

And she tried hard not to look down at the rolled-up linen she had stuffed in the front of her breeches. Just in case anyone glanced below her waist.

Late in the day, she was wishing she could scratch the place between her legs where the linen roll had shifted when two scholars appeared at the door.

When he saw them, Duncan dropped his principal’s demeanour. He embraced the taller man, slapping his back, then broke and put up his fists to engage the shorter, stockier man in a mock battle.

Here again, at last, was the exuberant man she had met on the road. She blinked at the transformation. These men must be special to him. She eyed them carefully, trying not to call her interest jealousy.

‘Oust fettal?’

‘Ahreet, marra. Owz it gan?’

‘Bay gud!’

Her ear had learned to follow Duncan’s tongue, but she could not understand this babble. They spoke the tongue of the north, though she thought she caught a Latin word or two.

‘Come,’ Duncan said, finally, ‘the house is settled for the day. Let’s celebrate before the term starts and the beadles start patrolling the alehouses.’

‘Get your gittern,’ the shorter one said.

‘I’ll do it,’ she said, without waiting for permission, and ran up to Duncan’s room.

As she came down the stairs, cradling the precious instrument, the shorter man, with reddish hair, turned. ‘And who’s this?’

Duncan glanced over his shoulder. ‘That’s Little John,’

She stuck out her chin and her hand.

He took it, seeing her as Duncan did, blind to the girl beneath the tunic. ‘Henry. Of Warcop.’

The taller one had stooped shoulders, thinning hair and a narrow face. ‘Geoffrey of Carlisle.’ He turned back to Duncan. ‘Opening a grammar school, eh?’

Duncan sighed. ‘It’s a story to share over a tankard.’ She handed him the gittern, careful not to brush his fingers. He barely glanced at her. ‘Come. I want the news from home.’

She cleared her throat, then coughed.

‘Well, come along then, whelp,’ Duncan said over his shoulder as they walked out of the door.

She scampered after them and kept her mouth shut as they settled around a corner table and sipped their ale.

She studied them as if they were a Latin lesson, these friends of Duncan’s, sprawled around the table. Each staked a space with his elbows. She glanced below. While her knees were neatly matched, their legs were spread wide.

Opposite her, Duncan’s legs were as wide as if he had mounted a horse. She let her knees fall apart a hand’s breadth. The linen roll slipped lower and wedged between her legs. She snapped her knees together and glanced up, quickly, but no one was watching.

She put her elbow on the table and leaned on her forearm, carving herself a few more inches of the tabletop. It brought her within touching distance of Duncan. She tightened her fingers, but didn’t pull back. She would not shrink in the corner like a girl.

Below, out of sight, she crossed her legs.

‘This dry-bellied goat’s betrothed,’ Henry began, nodding at Geoffrey, then swatting the serving woman.

The woman assessed him with a look he didn’t see, but her eyes met Jane’s as she set the other tankards on the table.

Jane looked down, as if fascinated by the oat flake floating in the golden brew.

‘I can scarce believe it,’ Duncan said. ‘I thought you’d stay here long enough to become chancellor.’

‘What could a woman like Mary see in you?’ Henry said.

Jane blinked, wondering where she could duck when the first blow was thrown.

Instead, Geoffrey laughed. ‘You’re just jealous no woman will look at you unless you pay her.’

Shocked, Jane watched Henry grin. It was a foreign tongue, this language men spoke among themselves, harder to decipher than the dialect. An insult might be cause for a fight or a smile, depending on whose lips spoke it. And how.

‘You’re giving the lad the wrong impression of me,’ Geoffrey said.

‘Because you’ve foolishly fallen into a woman’s clutches?’ Henry said.

Next to her, Duncan shook his head. ‘You’re the lucky one, Geoffrey. Betrothed to a woman from a good family who thinks you’re the earth’s master.’ He lifted his mug in a toast.

He had never spoken of marriage before. Was there a note of longing in his voice? No, she thought not. He had taken an oath to teach here, in this world without women.

‘And she’ll wait for you?’ Henry asked.

Geoffrey sighed. ‘Until next spring. When the year’s over, I’ll have earned a master’s. Then I can make my way clerking in Carlisle, eh?’

‘If Carlisle is still there.’ Duncan’s voice was grim.

Geoffrey and Henry exchanged glances. ‘Sorry,’ Geoffrey said.

‘About your fadder,’ Henry added.

His father? He had said nothing of his father. ‘What about him?’

All three looked at her and she wished she had not asked.

‘Scots took him,’ Duncan answered, finally. ‘And they want a fine ransom before they’ll send him back.’ Then he shook his head, which seemed to mean don’t talk about it.

He turned back to Geoffrey and Henry. ‘And yours?’ he asked.

‘The city’s walls are strong,’ Geoffrey answered.

‘Spared,’ Henry said. ‘They turned back just north of us.’

‘Pickering thinks I can persuade Parliament to supply the troops and taxes we need.’ Duncan swallowed a sigh along with his ale. ‘And the ransom money as well.’

Her eyes widened in awe. So the fate of his father and his homeland now rested on his shoulders. No wonder he furrowed his brow. She wished she could bring back his laugh.

‘You can do it,’ Geoffrey said. ‘You’ve a nightingale’s tongue, eh?’

‘It shouldn’t take a clever tongue,’ he answered. ‘The truth should be enough.’

No one answered him. Even Jane knew that truth was seldom enough.

Geoffrey turned to her. ‘You’re not from the north, are you, Little John?’

She shook her head. ‘Bedford.’ The answer came easier now.

‘Second son?’ Henry again.

Duncan answered for her. ‘Little John’s an orphan.’

‘I’ve only a sister.’ There were no first-born sons at Cambridge. The oldest brother would get the land. For the rest, the choice was war, university or the church. She must invent another tale to explain why she would not have the family land. ‘The lord took back the castle.’

Duncan looked at her sharply. She had not mentioned a castle or a sister before. ‘Until you’re of age?’ Did Duncan’s question sound suspicious?

‘No. It’s, uh, my injury.’

She waited for questions, but no one asked. Duncan was studying her, assessing. She dropped her eyes to her lap, uncrossed her legs and stretched them out beneath the table, knees still tight together.

Perhaps she needed to tell a longer story to be convincing.

‘You see,’ she began, ‘a horse kicked me, when I was six—’

‘No, John. You don’t have to—’ Duncan’s voice had an urgency to it. His palm covered her arm. Her blood ran faster.

She held her ground. She must explain, create an excuse, some reason that she was not like them. ‘Right here, in the ribs.’ She pulled her arm away to show them. ‘And they never healed properly, so I cannot wield a sword…’

Her words trailed off. Geoffrey and Henry stared at their ale, but Duncan had burst into an inexplicable grin. ‘Just your ribs, you say?’

‘And around there. I’ve got to keep them wrapped and sometimes, when it’s damp, they ache—’

Suddenly, Duncan yelled, ‘Gurn!’

Jane jumped. Was it a warning? Danger? Should they run?

But instead, the three men started making faces. Distorted, silly, grotesque faces.

She sipped her ale, wide-eyed. Finally, all three ugly faces froze. Then, Duncan and Geoffrey pointed at Henry and they all laughed and Henry raised his hand for the alewife.

Jane felt as if she were five again, watching the fearsome beasts prowl their cages in the Tower menagerie, unable to decipher their wild behaviour. ‘What was that?’

They answered in chorus, ‘Gurning.’

‘What’s that?’

Now, they stared as if she were the odd one.

‘Making faces.’

‘The worse, the better.’

‘Worst one buys the next round.’

‘Ah.’ She nodded as if what they said made sense. She had expected men to be serious, not silly.

‘Although,’ Geoffrey said, ‘now that Duncan is principal, he’s too dignified to win.’

‘Or he just doesn’t want to pay up,’ Henry added, as he gave the returning alewife a coin.

Duncan’s smile was indulgent. ‘Don’t they do this where you come from?’

She shook her head. In the world of women, no one made ugly faces for fun.

A girl must be pretty and nice and smile, no matter what her feelings. Feelings might be shared with other women, but in front of a man a woman was always pleasant.

Men, it seemed, had different rules.

She suspected Duncan had called the challenge to stop her from saying any more about her injury. In a man’s world, it seemed, wearing ugly faces was acceptable, but sharing something painful and personal was not.

She threw down the gauntlet. ‘Gurn.’

Jane sucked in her cheeks, crossed her eyes, lifted her elbows like a scarecrow, then looked to see what the others had done.

Henry and Geoffrey were pointing at her and she couldn’t help but grin.

Duncan, however, was not. ‘Cheat!’ he said. ‘He used his arms. It’s face only.’

She stuck her tongue out at him, suddenly hoping she hadn’t won. She had few farthings to spend on ale.

‘Challenger pays!’ Geoffrey called out, waving for another round.

Duncan shrugged and nodded.

She smiled. A game, she reminded herself. It was only a game. But she had played it like a man.

They did not leave until several rounds later, after a number of choruses of a drinking song Duncan seemed to know well. Jane hummed along to the refrain, a series of nonsense syllables, suitable to be sung late at night when the singers could no longer remember the words.

They stumbled back to the hostel on dark streets. Jane thought she might fly. She had been accepted in the company of men. In front of her, Henry sang loudly enough to wake the dead.

Beside her, Duncan tried to sound stern. ‘Shut yer maup. You’ll bring the beadles down on us with your bellowing.’

Geoffrey was trying to shush him, too, but he could no longer pronounce ‘shush’.

Then, ahead of them, she saw a woman, no older, surely, than Jane herself. A girl, then.

‘Here, wench,’ Henry yelled. ‘Do you like my song?’

She waved, but didn’t stop. ‘Not tonight.’

‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘I asked you a question.’

She kept walking.

‘I’d ignore you if I were her,’ Duncan said, reaching out to pull him back. ‘You sound like a croaking toad.’

But Henry was not to be dissuaded. ‘Answer me!’ he called.

He wrenched his arm from Duncan, then ran ahead and grabbed the girl, pushing her against a wall. The others moved in, Jane with them, close enough to recognise the serving woman from the alehouse.

No decent woman would be out alone.

Jane saw both fright and anger in her stance.

The anger won. ‘You all sound like toads to me.’

‘Hey!’ Geoffrey said, stumbling towards her. ‘Don’t insult my friends.’

‘Kiss her, Geoffrey!’ Henry said, pushing him at the girl. ‘Your betrothed won’t know.’

‘That’s enough.’ Duncan said. ‘If we rouse the Proctor, I’ll have to explain this all to the Chancellor.’

But Henry was beyond persuasion. ‘Don’t worry. She’s got enough kisses for all of us.’

Gittern in one hand, Duncan reached for Henry, but Geoffrey lurched towards the girl, stumbling into her, holding her against the wall.

Jane’s throat ached to scream no. What had turned her happy comrades into monsters who thought a woman would welcome their drunken kisses? ‘Don’t! Stop!’

‘Don’t worry, Little John.’ Henry tumbled to his knees, still laughing, nearly bringing Duncan down. The gittern strings jangled. ‘You’ll get your turn.’

The thought churned her belly. All the ale that had lain peacefully a few moments before rose up in protest. She doubled over and spewed the contents of her stomach on to the dusty street.

A hand, Duncan’s, rubbed her back, the motion steadying.

Still sitting in the dirt, Henry laughed. ‘That’s a good time for the lad.’

She squeezed her eyes, but that made her dizzy. Barely able to stand, she swayed closer to Duncan, but she wanted to flail them all. How could these men, scholars, treat a woman so? Even Geoffrey, near married and the gentlest of them, had joined in. Only Duncan had made a protest. Was that for fear of the watch or for care of the girl?

‘Come on, you oafs.’ Duncan’s voice rumbled in her ear. ‘I’ve trouble enough keeping us in the Chancellor’s good graces without an affray in the street. Leave her.’

When she opened her eyes, the girl was gone. Henry, barely noticing he’d been deprived of his kiss, staggered to his feet, and resumed his song. She took one shaky step and Geoffrey came to her other side.

Duncan held him back. ‘I’ve got him. He’s too kalied to walk.’

And she felt herself lifted into his arms.

Cradled against him, she cherished the rise and fall of his chest against her cheek and caught the scent of his skin, a warm, steadying whiff of juniper.

Geoffrey’s voice came from close beside her. ‘I’ll take him for a while if you like.’

‘He weighs no more than a grown ewe,’ Duncan answered, in his northern lilt. ‘I’d toss him over me shoulder, but he’s likely to bowk down me back.’

She stiffened, unable to relax in his arms. What if she had been discovered on the street when she’d been searching for a bed?

What if she were discovered now?

The thought made her stomach rebel again, but she pursed her lips to quell the rumble.

Henry had quieted by the time they returned to the hall. He and Geoffrey helped each other up the stairs.

She wiggled against Duncan. ‘Put me down.’

‘Are you sure?’

She nodded and he swung her on to the first step. She lifted her foot and tripped.

He sighed. ‘Come on, then. I’ll put you to bed.’

He reached to scoop her up again and she put up her hands. ‘I can do it myself.’ Even to her ears, she sounded like a petulant child.

‘I’m sure you can,’ he answered, his voice patient and soft, ‘but it will be easier if I help.’

She slapped his hand away, stumbling backwards to land hard on the step. ‘No!’ Would he ignore her protest, as they had ignored that girl’s?

He leaned against the wall, weary. ‘I’m too tired for your foolishness. Now let me put you to bed, Little John, and we can all get some sleep. I’ve got to open St Michael’s door for prime mass tomorrow and I’ve no patience for this.’

He reached for her, but she kicked and slapped, not knowing where her blows landed. Fear blurred her vision. What would he do if he uncovered the woman under Little John’s clothes? Would he hold her against a wall and demand a kiss?

Or something worse?

Her heel connected with his ribs and her elbow with his ear. ‘No!’ she shrieked. Loud enough to wake the house.

‘Enough!’ He held up his hands. ‘Take yourself to bed then. And don’t whine to me tomorrow about how you bowked your guts out all night.’

She clambered to her feet, then abruptly sat again as her stomach started spinning. ‘Don’t need your help.’ A man could do things by himself. ‘I’ll be better by the morning.’

He shook his head as she walked herself up the stairs on her bottom. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I expect you’ll be worse.’

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