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dreamed of it.”
     
    “You are a better woman than I—for I would have done it after the first moon of enduring such treatment, damnation or nay.” Maris pressed a strip of cloth onto the herb-sprinkled salve. “Can your father not help? Can you not flee to him for protection?”
     
    “’Tis my father who gave me to Ralf. He does not care—he says what all men say: that a wife belongs to her husband.”
     
    “Another reason I shall never wed,” Maris said, dabbing something onto another fresh cut. It stung, but not so much as the leather whipcord had, and Joanna barely flinched.
     
    “You shan’t wed?”
     
    “Nay. My father will not force me, and I do not wish to be bound to a man.”
     
    Joanna shook her head slowly. “I do not mind being wed—but to a man such as Ralf, ’tis hell. When I leave, I shall have no—” Realizing what she’d said, she bit back her words and froze into silence.
     
    “Leave?”
     
    Joanna said nothing, cursing herself for letting her tongue relax.
     
    “Is Bernard to help you to leave? Do you run off with him?” Maris looked sharply at her. “Do not tell me you are Bathsheba to his David.”
     
    “Nay, oh nay! I would not allow it of him—or anyone. If Ralf does find me, he’ll kill me, and whoever would be with me, and whoever might have helped me along the way.”
     
    Miraculously, Joanna’s pain began to ebb, and her head to clear as she continued to speak. “Ralf does not allow me to leave the keep at Swerthmoor, but he could not keep me from coming to my sister’s wedding celebration, so I have this chance—this one chance—to run from him. I have been saving gold pieces, waiting for such an opportunity. He does not notice the small amount missing.”
     
    “Where will you go?”
     
    “I know of an abbey nearby—as I grew up here. The sisters will take me in, and hide me, I am certain. I shall live in a cloister all the rest of my days. If Ralf does not find me, and follow me, I shall be safe. And….” she hesitated.
     
    “Is there more?”
     
    “Aye. My father has a map of this keep, for there is a tale of great treasure hidden in the warren of secret tunnels beneath it. I plan to take the map during the tourney on the morrow, and it is with its help and through the tunnels that I’ll take my flight. Thus I will get outside of the walls unseen.”
     
    “If it is so legendary, does not your husband know of the map?”
     
    “Aye, and therein is my trick. Ralf has demanded that I obtain it from my father, but he will not ask for it on his own. He knows my father will not give it to him.” Joanna’s lips curved into a slight smile. “I will make a false copy and to give to Ralf—and use the true one for my own purposes.”
     
    Maris stopped her work to grin at her. “Clever girl. For even should he attempt to follow you, he will be lost.”
     
    “Aye.”
     
    They were silent for a moment—Joanna enjoying the touch of a healer and the moment where she need not fear that her peace would be interrupted. Maris worked quickly and with great efficiency.
     
    When she finished her work, Maris carefully rolled up the leather satchel and walked to a large trunk beside the fireplace. As she turned, she spoke. “What of Bernard, Joanna? How does he figure into this scheme?”
     
    ’Twas a question Joanna had avoided in her own mind, and now she was face to face with it. “I do not know. Any involvement with me will anger Ralf….but Bernard has promised to free me from my husband. In sooth, I do not know how he would—other than to murder him.” She looked at Maris, who stood solemnly watching her, aware of her earlier question regarding David and Bathsheba. “Nay. He is an honorable man. He would not do that.”
     
    “Do you care for him?”
     
    “Aye.” Oh, aye . She could not think of him without a smile starting to rim her face, and a warmth bubbling within—and a sadness that he’d come into her life so tardily.
     
    She