Chapter Four
“I’m going to change the mustard plaster again,” Joanie said, laying her hand on Diana’s brow.
Diana’s lips curved into the slightest smile. “Thank you for all you do,” she whispered.
Joanie swallowed back her tears, for she knew she had reached the limits of her knowledge.
Diana’s coughing attacks were coming more frequently and lasting longer.
Not only had she been kept out all night by the master, but she had also been forced to endure his physical demands.
The sun had fully cleared the horizon by the time she had opened the door to their room.
Joanie nearly had to carry Diana to the bed.
Now, as she lay beneath the covers, she shivered, and a raspy sound followed her every breath.
Diana seized Joanie’s hand the instant before another coughing fit laid claim to her fragile body.
Joanie could hear the illness’s origins deep within her lungs.
Diana gagged, and Joanie reached for the basin to catch what emerged from Diana’s lungs.
Quickly, Joanie whisked the basin away to the window before Diana could glimpse the blood mixed in with the yellow matter.
Joanie squeezed her own eyes shut against the sight as she tilted the basin, releasing the hopelessness of Diana’s condition to the cobblestones below.
Despair made Joanie’s mind race. What should she do? She considered her basket of remedies and started to reach once more for the mustard powder. But then she heard her grandmother’s voice in her head...
There comes a time, Joanie, when a healer must surrender hope, when all that is left to do is to soothe and comfort.
Joanie closed her eyes. She could picture her grandmother darting around her small hut, pinching powders from clay pots and mixing juices and oils to make potions and ointments with the power to take away the hurt.
She released a long breath that did nothing to ease the dread that gripped the pit of her stomach.
Then she opened her eyes and looked at Diana whose breaths came in shallow rasps.
Joanie knew the time had finally come when she needed to focus not on trying to heal Diana, but to bring her as much comfort as she could.
She turned to her basket and sifted through the pouches and pots.
Cursing under her breath, she realized she was out of Coltsfoot.
Simon, whose arrival she expected at any moment, would, no doubt, fetch some from the kitchens for her.
In the meantime, she set a soothing tisane to boil.
Then she rubbed some lavender oil just under Diana’s nose to help loosen her tense body.
“Joanie, you needn’t fret so over me,” Diana said, her voice barely above a whisper. “This will pass. It always does.”
Joanie swallowed her doubt and smiled, taking Diana’s hand. “Of course it will,” she said, allowing herself to hope.
Diana smiled weakly. “Sing me one of your grandmother’s songs. Your voice alone could heal me.” Then her eyes opened a little wider. “No, wait. Tell me about how she used to kiss you goodnight.”
Joanie smiled sadly, brushing a wayward lock of flaxen hair from Diana’s eye.
While Joanie had at least experienced true love and affection from her grandmother, Diana had been abandoned at birth and had no memory of her family.
Her first six years were spent in an impoverished convent where she slept in a room with dozens of other children.
The sisters would bring them gruel in the morning, then again in the evening, which they would eat on their flea-ridden pallets.
In all the years she spent there, she never once left that room, which she said froze in winter and broiled in summer.
Then, one day, the sisters came to them crying.
They said the convent had no more money, and they had been unable to find another willing to take on more hungry bellies.
With swollen, tearful eyes, the sisters released Diana and the other children out onto the streets to fend for themselves.
She lived for months on the streets, hiding and scavenging.
Then one day, she was spotted by a woman with garish makeup and unbound hair.
She called herself Honey Faintree. Honey took Diana home to her brothel, gave Diana her name, and put her to work as a maid serving the women in Honey’s employ.
Diana was not treated harshly but neither was she shown any kindness.
Honey told her kindness was a lie, and that Diana had to be hard if she were going to stay warm and fed, warm and fed being the highest of aspirations.
Honey protected Diana from her clients’ amorous advances but not their fists or swift kicks if she failed at a task.
Then on her fifteenth birthday, Honey declared Diana a woman grown and made her take her place among the other prostitutes.
Diana’s beauty was such that not a whole year passed before a man came forward with coin enough to buy her outright.
Since then, Diana had known three masters, including Geoffrey.
Joanie again smoothed Diana’s hair away from her eyes. It was no wonder after being abandoned, then bought and sold time and again that Diana loved to listen to stories about Joanie’s grandmother who had also been the one light in Joanie’s otherwise dark world.
Joanie’s own mother had died long before Joanie could remember.
And her father had been a cruel man. Most evenings, he would sink into his cups and let loose his fists, beating Joanie nearly every day of her life.
Her grandmother had tried to interfere but in doing so would only incur the abuse of her cruel son-in-law for herself.
When Joanie grew in size and strength, she pleaded with her grandmother to step down, arguing she was strong and could withstand the might of her father’s fist. Truthfully, Joanie was physically no match for her father, but her body always healed quicker than most. More than that, she could remove herself from the pain and disappear into a world all her own, never giving her father the satisfaction of hearing her plea for mercy or cry out in pain.
The first and last time he ever saw her cry was when he told her that her grandmother had died.
It was not long after that her father sold her to a merchant passing through town.
She had hoped her new owner would show her mercy, but he was as quick to temper as her father.
She passed through two other hands, all cruel and biting, before she ended up being sold to a black hearted innkeeper in London who made her work from sunup until well after nightfall. It was there that she first met Diana.
Geoffrey Mercer’s household had come to stay at the inn, filling several rooms. Late one morning, Joanie had entered the merchant’s room to change the linens, believing it to be empty.
But when she spotted Diana lying on the bed, she gasped and quickly backed away, uttering an apology for the intrusion.
Diana, however, stopped her with a smile and beckoned Joanie to her bedside.
Joanie remembered feeling spellbound by the sight of Diana.
She had never seen a woman so beautiful, but more than that, Diana’s eyes shone with kindness, something she had not glimpsed since before her grandmother’s passing.
“What is your name?” Diana had asked.
“Joanie,” she whispered.
“Joanie,” she said as if she were tasting it. “I like your name. It is strong.”
Joanie did not know how to answer or if she were even allowed, so she held her tongue, waiting for Diana to give her instruction. But then Diana’s eyes shut. “Forgive me, Joanie, my head pains me.”
Without thinking, Joanie stepped closer and placed a hand on Diana’s head and focused the direction of her spirit to the places that hurt just as her grandmother had shown her.
After a few moments, Diana’s lips curved upward, and she opened her eyes.
“The pain is gone,” she said in awe. “How did you do that?”
Joanie backed away, her shoulders lifting protectively around her ears. “My grandmother was a healer,” she said quietly.
Diana smiled at her. “You will have to tell me about her sometime. For now, however, I am late. Would you mind helping me dress?”
Joanie had already lingered too long. Her chores were piling up. Still, risking the innkeeper’s wrath, she stayed and helped Diana.
When she was dressed and ready to quit the room, Diana gave Joanie a silver coin. “You are almost enough to make me believe in angels,” Diana said, smiling. Then her smiled faltered. “Almost.”
Joanie, who would sooner believe in faeries and wood nymphs than she would angels, looked up at Diana’s striking green eyes and halo of golden hair, and for a moment, despite the hardships she routinely faced, she almost believed in angels too ... almost.
“I must go,” Diana said. Then she squeezed Joanie’s hand and dashed from the room.
That night, Joanie crawled onto her thin pallet in the corner of the basement, gripping her coin in her hand.
She held it close like a friend and was drifting to sleep when loud footfalls thundered down the stairs.
Joanie’s heart pounded as she hid her coin beneath her pallet just before the innkeeper appeared, his pitted, red face illuminated by the lamp he held above his head.
He kicked her in the gut. “Get up,” he snarled down at her, spittle flecking his lips. “You’re leaving.”
Unable to breathe, Joanie scurried back against the wall, but he snarled and lunged for her. She darted away, leaving behind her threadbare cloak and the coin and tore up the stairs while she gasped for air.
“Get from my sight,” the innkeeper shouted, racing up the stairs behind her.
She trained her eyes on the front door, fear and confusion fighting for domination in her mind. She did not know what she had done.
She grabbed the door handle the instant before the innkeeper kicked her from behind, and she tumbled out onto the streets. Pain shot through her as she looked up and met Diana’s kind eyes.
Hope suddenly filled Joanie’s heart, sweeping the pain away. Mayhap angels were, indeed, real.
Brows drawn with concern, Diana bent and offered Joanie her hand.
“Did I tell you to help it stand,” a harsh voice snapped.
Joanie’s eyes darted away from Diana’s, and she looked up and met another pair of cold, hard eyes. She knew in that moment that she was looking at her new master. And when Diana stood straight and obediently withdrew her offered hand, she also knew he was Diana’s master.
So much for angels.
Later that same night, Joanie learned that having felt her healing touch, Diana had persuaded Geoffrey to buy Joanie as her maid. And they had been together ever since.
“Tell me about how your grandmother kissed you goodnight,” Diana whispered again, bringing Joanie’s thoughts back to the present.
Joanie smiled. “She would first kiss my forehead. Then she...”
Diana’s cough returned. The pain shattered her beautiful features.
Joanie stood up. “I will wait no longer. Simon must be detained. I am going to the kitchens myself.”
Diana’s eyes widened in alarm. “Nay, Joanie. If Geoffrey catches you, he’ll kill you.”
“Do not worry, Diana. No one will see me. He is likely still sleeping off the drink from last night.”
Diana reached out and weakly gripped Joanie’s arm. “Please, don’t do this.”
Joanie pressed a kiss to Diana’s forehead, then one on each cheek just as her grandmother used to do. “Rest, my dearest, and I will return before you wake.”