There must be no hint of impropriety about her place, she reminded herself, patting her purse gently. The Bishop would never allow her to remain there if he heard so much as a whisper of misbehaviour. That thought brought up the inevitable memory. It was, she thought, like a piece of dog’s excrement that she couldn’t scrape off her shoe, no matter how hard she tried. If only she hadn’t been so rash, so driven by her lusts. Then she wouldn’t have had to try to have the fool killed before he could spread tales of her salacious urges, and Domingo wouldn’t be sulking because of losing his damned son!
‘My lady.’
The voice made her heart lurch, and she was all but expecting to be told that she was to go with a guard to see the Bishop, when she realised who it was.
‘Senor,’ she said coldly, with a slight dip of her head in the direction of the knight in his tunic of Santiago. Frey Ramon, she groaned inwardly. So devoted — and so dull!
Spanish, she knew, was the most beautiful language, but this man’s Basque accent was so strong he sounded like a peasant from the mountains. In response her dialect reflected her nobility as she spoke with a deliberately pronounced Castilian clarity that sounded like small bells of crystal. ‘You are good to have waited.’
‘It is my pleasure,’ he said, and cast an anxious look at Joana, who stood a little behind Dona Stefania.
He had the dim-witted devotion to Joana of an ape, the Prioress thought scornfully. And for some reason her maid gave every sign of reciprocating his feelings! It was a curious thing, she had often found, that women who were in every other way perfectly sensible and wise, could show in their choice of men a sad lack of commonsense. Joana was intelligent, she had beauty of a sort, and her appearance was fine, wearing as she did Dona Stefania’s own cast-off dresses. Today she had on a magnificent blue tunic with bright yellow embroidery at neck, cuffs and hem. Most men seeing her would think her a lady in her own right, with her calm, brown eyes and olive complexion. Her mane of dark hair was decorously concealed beneath her spotless wimple, but there was just a slight hint of the long braids beneath, just as the length of the tunic showed how long were her legs, and the belt nipped in nicely to show off her hips, waist and the bulge of her bust. Yes, with her smiling oval face and full lips, any man would be pleased to have her at his side.
There was only the one reason why she wanted him, surely: his money. Frey Ramon might not be a great lord with huge estates, but there was one thing certain about a Knight of Santiago, and that was that such a man would never be forced to beg for his food. She could wed him, comfortable in the knowledge that she would have time to herself, that she would gain not only a husband but also servants and staff and that she would never have to work again. A fair enough exchange, Dona Stefania thought.
It would be cruel to separate the two, judging from Frey Ramon’s languishing expression, but Dona Stefania had no wish to throw them together either. She wanted to talk to Joana if she could, ask whether she was serious about this fellow.
‘I think,’ Dona Stefania said, after a moment’s thought, ‘that it would be most pleasant to take a short ride now. You know where I am staying, Senor. Perhaps you could come and meet me there?’
‘Um …’ He threw a longing, confused glance at Joana, and Dona Stefania sighed to herself. It was hard, when dealing with dolts. She would advise Joana to give him a tumble, if she desired, but really, when she had enjoyed herself with him, she would have to throw him over. Surely she must realise how dull-witted the fool was!
Frey Ramon mumbled his response like a carter’s boy, and it was all she could do to maintain her smile as he ducked his head in a deep reverence, before walking away backwards. No matter his birth and the colour of his tunic, he was still an unmannered oaf, like a serf. Any man could swear to poverty and obedience when he knew he could wed and enjoy the natural pleasures of a man and woman, and Frey Ramon, was a man like any other. Ramon of the hairy-arse, she thought of him. The idea of his embracing Joana made her shudder.
‘Are you seriously intending to leave my service to marry that imbecile?’ she hissed.
Joana’s eyes took on that heavy-lidded look of obstinacy which Dona Stefania recognised so well.
‘You can look at me like that, if you want,’ she told her maid tartly, ‘but it won’t change anything. Look at you! You could have your choice of many fellows. You don’t have to stick to him! He’s so … so silly!’
‘And you think that you behave better?’
It was a slap in the face. The lady took a sharp breath, but then let it out gently. ‘Very well. I am no paragon of virtue, perhaps, but that doesn’t mean that you need throw yourself away on a fellow like him.’
‘He suits me. He would do anything I wanted,’ Joana said, ‘and that serves my purpose for now.’
‘For now maybe, but marriage is for a lifetime, not for a few moments of idleness.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Is that beggarwoman waving to you?’
Joana glanced up and along the way to where Dona Stefania had seen the tall beggar. The sight seemed to surprise her, and then she gave a cold smile. Murmuring a word of apology, she left her lady, as though making for the beggarwoman, but turned away at the last moment when she saw Ramon and paused to talk with him instead.
Foolish, Dona Stefania thought, her mind still locked on the riddle like a terrier fighting to get the marrow from a beef bone. Why couldn’t she have picked a fellow with a brain and looks? There were enough of them about. If Dona Stefania herself decided to choose a man for her personal use, she would be sure to select one who was on her own level.
At the thought she gave a twisted grin. The last man with whom she had slept wasn’t at all the right sort. If she was honest, Parceval Annesen the Fleming was a scruffy peasant at whom she would not usually have glanced, but there was something about his persistence. It was just as though he had fallen in love with her, and that was enormously complimentary. He did at least have manners; he was extremely polite. And although Dona Stefania wouldn’t usually have entertained any thought of sleeping with him in the normal course of events, while away from her priory, and with the thrill of his obvious infatuation, she succumbed and let him take her. At the time she had thought it could be dangerous: and now … Well, she had been proved right! She had no wish for a man to come and blackmail her — and yet that was exactly what had happened. It was unfair!
Perhaps, she thought, that dullard Ramon was not so unsuited for Joana, after all. At least he was devoted to her, from what Dona Stefania could see. Watching the two of them now, she saw the little caress Joana gave him — a fleeting touch on the forearm, no more. There was no need. He was enraptured, smitten, hooked. Bowing to Joana, he walked away backwards for a few paces, as though intending to fix every aspect of her upon his mind, reluctant to leave her presence.
Dona Stefania pursed her lips. What an idiot. He was just like a lovesick youth. Yet he made Joana happy, and that was good.
Joana was talking to the beggarwoman now, a tall woman who looked much like Joana herself, apart from the heavy black material of her habit and veil. There was no hunching to her shoulders, no palsied hand shaking beneath the noses of passers-by; in fact, she had the carriage of a noblewoman. Dona Stefania thought she could herself have been a lady.
It was annoying that Joana would still go and talk to people who were below her station. It was always a mistake, Dona Stefania thought sourly. It made those to whom she talked feel as though they had some importance, which was entirely spurious. Better by far to leave them to their own kind.