The Templar

‘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.