THIRTEEN

      

 

To wear robes, however common the woven stuff and decoration might be in Princess Melanthe’s estimation, was a luxury that never palled for Ruck. Seldom enough did he leave off his armor in the usual way of things; in the past fortnight he had slept and lived in it as if he were on the march. But for the moment he did not have to tolerate the seam in the cuir bouilli where the leather corner had pulled loose and curled when it dried, chafing his left armpit with every step, or ignore the pinch of the cuisses’ straps behind his thighs, or bide the clumsy weight of chain mail over every inch of his body. He felt light, as if he were made of thistle silk.

His head felt a little light as well as his body, after whiling the afternoon at Henry’s table. Ruck had joined the company’s meal alone, leaving Princess Melanthe in their chamber. Staring down into his wine cup, he grew warm thinking of her. She had watched the servant bathe him and dress him, sitting cross-legged upon the bed in that way she did—more wench than gentle lady in that pose, he thought pungently— giving keen orders for his care, insisting upon bobbaunce and pomp as if he were some prince. She had even rejected the first robes they brought, sending back for a better selection. Ruck suspected he was wearing Henry’s best Christmas houppelande of blue wool and miniver, chosen by her with disdain from among the sparse variety.

The household seemed torn between resentment at such treatment by a stranger’s concubine and awe of her manners. Word had clearly gotten back to Henry. The young man who styled himself the lord of Torbec leaned close at the table and murmured that he supposed Ruck’s lady had been some time at court. Ruck had merely shrugged. Henry, wearing an avid look, had ventured the conjecture that she was accustomed to the favor of great men. Ruck leaned back with his wine cup and smiled. "Yea, and cost me the Fiend’s expense, she does, to keep her as she’s wont," he had said, to dampen any covetous ideas.

"Witterly, I can believe it," Henry said, losing his eagerness and turning to his unpolished country maid with a little better cheer.

A bachelor’s hall it was, full of hunting dogs and weaponry, with no mistress to foster seemliness or hold the rougher games in check. After a plain and abundant dinner, no one answered the bell for Nones or left to train in the yard. Instead, they spent all the day and into the evening talking of hunt and battle, arguing the merits of Bordeaux steel against the German, wrestling between themselves or, near as ungently, with their willing ladies.

Ruck offered no opinion on the question of the best steel, though they pressed him for his judgment. He listened to them talk. They had the restless violent vigor of youth, and words enough to spend about weapons and fighting, but no more discipline than a band of untaught mongrels; half wolf and half cur, without the sense to know that only because they sat at table in drink and idle discourse about a warrior’s concerns, they were not, ergo, great warriors themselves. He might have made much of them, given the time. But he counted them useless for his immediate need, too full of themselves to be trusted.

Arrowslits in the wall or no, Sir Geoffrey of Torbec would make short work of these infant brigands when he returned from Gascony. However that might be, alone and responsible for the princess, Ruck did not care to stir the hornet’s nest.

He sat without saying much, though he took care to be a pleasant guest, not to smile too little or drink too lightly or leave too soon. At evensong he rose, standing carefully to surmount the turngiddy feel of the wine in his head, and shamed them into mass only by asking the way to the chapel.

 

* * *

 

He came at dusk, at last. Melanthe was furious, mad with waiting. She rose and went forward as the servant lit him into the chamber with a branch of candles. As if she were the fondest of lovers, she put her arms about him, stood on tiptoe, and hissed French in his ear. "There are spying holes."

He looked down at her. In the falling shadows his face was handsome; his breath heavy with wine. If he heeded her warning, or had even heard it, he made no sign. He sighed and stood holding her, his hands clasped around her hips.

"I am old," he said gloomily.

Melanthe commanded the servant with a gesture, dismissing him. She had intended to point out to Sir Ruck the carved masks in the wall, where the peeks were concealed, but she hesitated.

"Old," he said. "Three ten years."

She pushed back. "No more old than I, then," she retorted in French, disengaging herself. "So spare my feelings and say no more of it. Come and sit thee down."

There had been watchers off and on at the holes all the day. She could not hazard speaking to him openly, even in French. And she had never seen him in his cups; she did not know how much wit she might expect of him. Haps it were better to curb any discourse and put him readily to bed.

His fingers twined loosely in hers, he let her lead him. He did not sit, but looked at the bed as if it were the grave of a long-lost faithful hound. He shook his head, pulling his hand from hers and reaching for his sword that lay with his armor. "The door," he said, using English. "For your safe keep, my lady."

"My safe keep!" she responded lightly, as if he japed. "What safer than thy close embrace? Best-loved, come thee all haste to bed."

"To bed?" With a newly aware look, he stopped in the midst of a half turn away. "Lady?"

She tilted her head toward the masks, smiling. He only gazed at her carefully, with the diligent attention of a man mindful of his dazed condition.

"My truelove, my honeycomb—" She put her arms about him again, and leaned until he took a step backward. "Lovedear, sweeting, ne let us not linger in disport and speech as is our wont. I can govern my ardor no longer. I crave a kiss for thy courtesy." Fervently she embraced him, pressing him off balance in the zeal of kisses that she showered over his chin and throat, pushing him step by wavering step until his back met the wall beneath the masks.

Before she could point upward, he grasped her close and hard, making a sudden mockery of her wiles. The abrupt grip stole her balance. His hands spread across her loins, pulling her against his body. With a low, hoarse sound he buried his face in her neck and made a motion of pure lust, straining her to him.

It was no counterfeit passion or monkish restraint. Through the muffling robes, his full member thrust between them. His fingers pressed into her, spreading her buttocks, touching her in a way no man had ever dared touch her. He pushed his knee into the space between her legs, forcing her to open for him as if she were an unwilling whore.

Melanthe drew in a sharp breath as the embrace spun beyond familiar ground. He lifted his head, resting it back against the wall, his eyes closed. But he did not let her go. His hips moved in a pushing stir against hers, without shame, rubbing the firm bulk of his tarse to her belly, even against her privy-most quaint.

Kisses she knew, and courtiers’ games of dalliance, but nothing of a man’s member beyond the cramp and discomfort of her husband’s bodily company, so long past and fleeting that it seemed to have no share of this. A spring of delicious sensation arose from this touching, ungentle though it was, a delight in fleshly vices. She let it take her, became his common wench and leman in truth, as light as these brazen country maids whose loves made no difference to the world beyond their beds.

He was wanton drunk; she knew it, but she made no warning or protest when he sought her lips and kissed her, searching inward with his tongue, wine-flavored and reckless in his trespass. She took his tongue into her mouth and pressed her lap to his in pleasure, welcoming the hunger in him.

His open hands slid across her hips and up to her waist. Her hair was loose. She had left off her heavy azure gown after her bath, to be brushed and cleaned, changing it for a lent one of scarlet that was made for close measure and immodest display.

He ran his hands up and down her sides, from her hips to her breasts. "I haf seen this," he said, his mouth close to hers. "Your white skin." There was a doted awe in his voice. "Your body all bare, below thy mantle."

She smiled, tilting her head back. "Suis-je belle?"

"Ye are beauteous," he said, closing his fingers on her hair. "By Christ, ye are beauteous."

From overhead issued a feminine giggle, smothered but distinct. His hands leapt away from Melanthe; he jerked upright, searching the shadowed chamber with appalled bewilderment.

Melanthe put her fist under his jaw and made him look upward. Faint light from the hidden holes illuminated odd shadows, picking out detail in the dusk.

She didn’t know if he would recognize what he saw, but just as she was about to lean forward and whisper to him, the strange glimmer vanished as the spy pressed to the peek again, blocking it. Sir Ruck went stiff, turning his shoulder to the wall and staring up.

"Hanged be they," he breathed, his lip curling.

She put her hand over his mouth, leaning close to his ear. "They ne cannot see us here beneath it. Only hear."

Immediately he looked over her head, about the room, not too much in his wine to reason that there would be another peek to cover the blind position. Melanthe knew where it was, but she had already pulled the bed curtain a little way, as if by chance, just blocking the line of sight to where they stood.

His lashes lowered in wine-maze. He gazed down at her, then lifted his eyebrows and blinked, like a man struggling to wake from a walking dream.

She brushed back a rough black curl that had fallen over his ear, brazen wench that she was. "I will serven as thy chamberlain, beau sir, to prepare thee for bed. Come."

 

* * *

 

If not for the wine in his head, Ruck thought, he would have found a more reasonable means of dealing with the spyholes. He wanted to. He thought of covering them, but she distracted him, doing out the candles, leaving only the firelight that sprang in crimson arcs over the folds of her gown. It was cut low across her shoulders and back, the gown; he watched the curve of her breasts as she leaned to take up a mantle that had been warming by the chimney, her black hair falling in a cascade across her shoulder—and then remembered again that he was thinking of some cheat for the spying.

Darkness would do it, but there was the fire. He might bank that, take up his place on guard by the door; she was like a living flame in crimson.

He could not keep his mind fixed, not with her beckoning him near the fire. He went, light of weight in his body and brain, soft wool brushing his skin. He sat on the stool and let her pull the robes off over his head. His linen lay drying before the hearth after washing—beneath the robes he wore only slippers and socks for his feet. She had seen him in his bath, his body and the scars of fighting that he carried, but it embarrassed him anew and painfully now to be exposed, his scars and his lust together, unworthy of her.

She laid the warmed mantle over his shoulders. He dragged it around to cover him as she knelt and drew the socks from his feet, massaging them like a fond wife. Her hands moved up his calf, and then his thigh. He felt helpless, in utter wonder of what she might do next. Certes he had taken too much wine. He could not think in straight lines.

"Right seldom do I drink so deep," he muttered.

"Avoi, I hope thou art not unabled." She touched him beneath the mantle, caressing her hand boldly over his yard. He clapped his fingers on her wrist, sucking in his breath.

"In good order, so I see!" she said laughingly, rubbing her palm against his rigid part in spite of his resistance.

"My lady—" he said.

She stood on her knees on the rush mat, putting her free arm about his neck. "Thou hast named me common wench all the day—so now I am becomen one." Leaning close to his ear, she whispered, "These spies, they moten see loveplay, forsooth? That I am no more than thy leman?"

They must see it? He thought there was some flaw in that reasoning, and arrant iniquity, but her seeking touch seduced him from the last of his wit. She was not tender; her handling was without art to the point of hurting him, but it was her hand upon him, and her body leaning close, and he could achieve no more than to pull each breath into his chest with a harsh sound.

"Ye are shameless," he said with effort. "Ah...Mary and Jesus."

She hid her face in his shoulder, but she did not stop her unchaste behavior. Then she twisted her wrist free of his hold and took his hand against her, strangely innocent in the way she held it over her womb, stilling her whole body, waiting.

The power of his will broke. He stood, lifting her up in his arms. His limbs acted without his reason—he carried her to the bed. The mantle fell from his shoulders, cold air on his skin as he lay down with her.

Then he let her go and sat up, yanking the bedcurtains closed, shutting out the spyholes, enclosing and muffling the bed in heavily quilted winter hangings.

He stayed sitting up in the bed. He would wait until the fire died and the light was gone, he thought desperately, and then he would take his sword and lie by the door. He would pray. He tried to pray now, his arms gripped about his knees, his forehead down upon them, but his brains spun with drink and passion.

He would think of other things. Important things—where they must go now, whether the falcon had been discovered, how far beyond Lyerpool the plague had spread, if it had spread at all. Her leg rested against his hip. He felt her sit up beside him, running her fingertip down the leather cord about his neck, brushing her mouth against his ear, and then he could not think at all.

"I will go," he whispered. "Lady, I am drunk; do nought kiss me."

"Thou like me not?" she murmured.

"Ye slays me, my lady." He turned his face from her. "Ye slays my reason. I am in wine. I will dishonor you."

She rested her forehead on his bare shoulder and ran her fingertips down his back. "I wish it," she said, so low that he could hardly hear.

"Nay," he said. "I will nought."

Her hand curled around his arm. She rocked him, her face still pressed to his skin, like a child entreating. 

"Ah, lady. I love you too well."

Her fingers slipped away. She was silent, still leaning her forehead against him.

"Who would know?" she asked, muffled. "Once. Only once. For this one night."

He drew a deep breath, speaking low. "My sweet lady, ye hatz a demon of hell in you, that takes hold of your tongue sometimes and tempts me beyond what I can bear."

"’Tis no demon. It is me." Her hand crept up and twined with his. "I have been so much alone. You do not know." She squeezed his fingers. "I did not know, until I found thee."

"My luflych, my precious lady, I have me a wife."

She was still for a long moment. Then she said, "Is that why thou wilt deny me? For thy wife?"

"For my wife. And for the dishonor to you."

"Dost thou love her still?"

He gave a bitter chuckle. "Ten and three years has it been. I ne cannought e’en see her face in my head. But she is my wife, before God and man, for we were rightly wed."

"I thought her a nun."

"Yea," he said.

She lifted her head. In the blackness of the heavy curtains, he could see nothing, only feel her.

"But ne’er have I adultered, or profaned my vows." He paused, gripping his hand tight in hers. "Nought with my body."

She stroked his hair, and his back. "Ah, what have they done to thee, these priests?" she whispered sadly. "Hast thou lived in this thought, that thou art wed and yet bound to be chaste, since that day I saw thee last?"

"In troth," he said, "I have lived in thought of you." He pulled from her and lay back on the bed, staring into darkness. "Awake and asleep, I have thought of you. Else I were dead of despair a hundred times, I think me, if I had nought you in my mind to bind me to virtue." He shook his head. "I am no monkish man, I tell you, lady."

She gave a bewildered soft laugh. "Ne do I understand thee not. I bind thee to purity? Thou jape me."

"I swore to you, my lady, in Avignon. When you sent the stones. Then I thought—but I was in a frenzy; I recall it little, but that I swore my life to you. I sold the lesser emerald for arms and a horse, and took me to fighten tournies for the prizes, and then to my liege prince, when I had some money and good means to show myseluen. I made your falcon my device and took your gemstone for my color. And when my body tempted me, I thought of you and Isabelle my wife, I thought how you both were pure and good and blameless, better than me, and I mote live with honor for your sake, because I was her husband and your man."

"Depardeu," she murmured. "Thy wife—and I? Blameless and pure? Thou art a blind man."

"I knew naught else to do." He pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes. "And it is impossible, it is nought the same, now that—"

He broke off and blew all the air from his chest in a rough sigh.

"Now that thou knowest me for myself," she said with a tone he could not read, whether amused or sad or bitter, or all three.

"I love you, my lady," he said, his voice suppressed. "’Tis all certain that I know. With my heart, with my body, though I’ve nought the right to thinken of it, though you are too high—in faith, though I burn in Hell for it." He swallowed. "God forgive me that I say such things. I’m in drink enow to drownen me."

She lay down beside him, half on top of him, her arm across his shoulders. "Dost thou love me?" she whispered, with an intensity that made him turn his face toward her in the dark.

He lifted his hand—he allowed himself that for the fierce plea in her voice—and brushed the back of his fingers over her cheek. "Beyond reason."

"Oh," she said, and buried her face in his shoulder, hugging herself close. "Yesterday I was a witch in thy estimate."

"Yea, and now ye be a wanton wench, and in a moment ye will be a haughty princess, and I know nought what next to plague and bemaze me."

"Thy lover."

"Nay, lady." He started to rise.

She caught him, holding tight. "No. Do not go."

"I will keep watch by the door."

"No. I will ne be able to sleepen, be thou not near where I can reach thee."

"Lady," he said, "for all the hours ye sleeps, me think this one night be nought such a great loss."

Still she held him. "I can’t sleep." Her voice was soft, but her fingers had the grip of real dismay.

"God shield, am I to lie beside you in a bed all the night?" he asked. "Have mercy on me."

"I cannot." She would not cease; she pulled him slowly downward. "I cannot have mercy. Please thee—stay."

"Enow!" he said harshly. His shoulder sank into the featherbed. He turned his face to the bolster. "Only touch me nought then, my lady, for your pity."

She let go. He felt her roll over away from him. She was angry, he thought, child-geared in her tempers as only those of high estate could be. But she asked too much; to lie here beside her—in bed, unclothed, as if they were married. He was already mired in mortal lust; now she would have him pay his soul for fornication. God have mercy on him if he died this night, for he was bound for everlasting flames.

Yet she lay still in the blackness, without word or demand, and it gradually came into his head that she was weeping. He listened, trying to subdue the sound of his own breath. He could hear nothing.

She said she had been alone until she had found him. He closed his eyes. Lone he had lived all his life, it seemed, dwelling among dreams of things to come. They were all of them shattered now, lost to her whims—he had hated her for that, and hated her yet, but love and hate turned so close in his heart that they seemed to dazzle him together as one passion. He could tell them apart no more than he knew if she was beautiful or plain—she was neither, more than both, his very self, that he might love or hate as he pleased, but could not disown short of the grave.

He reached out his hand. It came to rest on her hair that was loose, spreading over the pillow. She lay silent. Softly, haltingly, he found the shape of her with his fingertips, her temple, her brow. He touched her cheek and lashes, and felt warm tears.

"I ne did not give thee leave to handle me at thy whim, knave," she said sharply.

He moved, folding her in his arms. "I knew you would come the high princess soon enow," he said with a painful laugh. He leaned near and rocked her against his chest. "My lady queen, your tears are liken to an arrow through my body."

"Pouf," she said. "Monkish man."

He crushed her to him and rubbed his cheek against her hair. "Do you want my honor? I give it you, I will forlie and adulter with you, my lady, then—and God and the Fiend torment me as they will."

He felt her turn toward his face, though he could not see her in the dark. For a long moment she lay very still.

"Were I thy wife, would not be sin," she whispered.

He made a bitter sound of mirth. "Yea—and were I king of all England and France, and a free man."

She put her hands up, seizing his face between her palms. "Listen to me."

The sudden urgency caught his full heed. He waited, but she said nothing. Her fingers moved restlessly, forming fists against his face and opening again.

"Ah," she said, "I know not how...it frightens me to wound thee. Best-loved, my true and loyal friend, hast thou never guessed all these years why I denounced thee in Avignon? Why I sent thee thence in haste?"

In a far deep place inside himself, he felt his soul arrested. Slightly he shook his head.

"Thy wife—thinkest thou that they released her to this convent at Saint Cloud? Nay, they sent her to the Congregation of the Holy Office. They sent her to the inquisitors, and they would have sent thee, too, if thou hadst shown that her preachings and raving had convinced thee of aught. They could not bide her, do you see? A woman to preach, to interpret Scripture—to demand of thee her own oath within thy marriage."

"Nay," he breathed. "Nay—the archbishop—he said a place was made for her at Saint Cloud. I paid for it! For her keep—my money and my horse and arms."

She did not answer. In the hush he thought of the letters he’d sent, the money, every year with no word of reply.

"Oh, Mary, Mother of God—where is she?" He sat up, gripping her shoulders.

She stroked her palms up and down his face.

Ruck groaned. He let go of her and rolled away, trying to find the breath that seemed suddenly to have left his lungs. "Imprisoned?"

But he knew she was not imprisoned. He knew by the silence, by the way the princess did not move or touch him, only waited.

"I forsook her." His body began to shake, his hands clenching and unclenching, beyond his command. "Helas, I abandoned her."

"Listen to me." Her cold voice abruptly cut like a scourge. "She abandoned thee. I heard her, if thou hast forgot. She was no saint, nor holy woman, nor even a fit wife for such as thee."

"Her visions—"

"Pah!" she spat. "They weren no more of God than a peacock’s preenings. I tell thee, sir, when I married I did not love my husband, but I gave back to him the same honor and duty that he gave to me. I did not weep and scream and claim God sent some handy vision to free me from my vows. Nor do the world of women, but live the half of them without complaint in such subjection as thou canst not conceive, not one in ten thousand so fortunate as she!" Her voice was a throbbing hiss. "I loved my husband well enough in the end, but the life that I have lived for his sake—I would have given my soul to have thy wife’s place instead, with a good steadfast man to defenden me and children of my own. And she foreswore thee, for her vain pride, no more, so that she mote be called sainted and pure by such foolish sots as would drivel upon her holiness. By Christ, I would have burned her myself, had she taken thee adown with her as she was wont to do!"

He took a shuddering breath of air. "She was burned?"

"Yea," she said in a calmer voice. "I am sorry. There was naught to be done for her, for she brought it upon herself. They declared her a Beguine, an adherent of the Free Spirit."

"Isabelle," he said. Horror crept over him. "In God’s name, to burn!" He began to breathe faster, seeing the image of it, hearing it.

"Ne did she not suffer," the princess said in a steady voice. "She was given a posset to stupefy her, even before she heard the sentence passed, and kept so to the end. I have no doubt she went to sleep still in full assurance she was regarded as a saint."

He turned toward her in the dark. "You know it so, my lady?"

"Yea. I know it."

He stared at her, at the source of her cold and even voice. "I do nought believe you."

"Then I will given thee the name of the priest I paid to intoxicate her. He was Fra Marcus Rovere then; now he is a cardinal deacon at Avignon."

"You—" He felt benumbed. "Why?"

"Why! I know not why! Because her witless husband loved her, stupid man, and I knew thou couldst do naught. Because my window gave out on the court, and I ne did nought wish my nap disturbed. Why else?"

He lay back, his hands pressed to his skull. No tears came to his eyes. He thought of the times he had wished Isabelle dead, to free him, and the penance he had done for it. Of how she had been a burgher’s daughter—never could he have brought her openly to Lancaster’s court even before she came to believe she was consecrated to God, never could he have held a knight’s place there with a baseborn woman to wife. He thought of the first days of their marriage, his joy in her body and her smile, the end of his loneliness, it had seemed, and in his first battle the worst, most shameful unvoiced fear, not of pain, which he knew well enough, nor of dying itself, but of dying before he might bed her again, couple with her on the pillows and look at her.

She was the only woman he had ever lain with in his life—and she had been dead for thirteen years, ashes and charred bone.

He heard the sound he made, a meaningless dry moan like a man at the last reach of his strength. He should weep. But plaint and lament choked in his throat. He could only lie and hold his hands to his head as if he could imprison the melee of thoughts there, his muscles straining with each indrawn breath.

"I cannought remember her face!" he cried. "Oh, sweet Mary save me, I can only see you."

"Shhh." She put her finger to his lips. "Hush." She rubbed the side of his face in a quiet cadence, a firm chafing pressure. "That is not marvelous. Iwysse, I am here with thee, best-loved. Is no more than that."

He reached up and caught her arms. "Do nought stray out from my shield, my lady," he said fiercely. He pulled her down against him. "Leave me nought."

"Never," she said. "If it be within my power, never."

Her breath stirred lightly on his face. She lay half atop him, the wool of her gown spread over his leg and thigh. He held her there.

"Nor will I leave you." He bound her wrists in both his hands. "Ne’er, lady, lest ye sends me from you."

The rise and fall of his chest lifted her, so close she was. Though he could barely see her as but a blacker shadow on blackness, he felt her weight, her hushed submission to his grasp. Her loose hair fell down between them, as if she were a maid. As if she were his wife.

"Lady," he whispered, "God shield me, I have thoughts in my head that are very madness."

"What is thy true name and place?" she asked softly.

A distant part of him seemed to know what came to him, what gift of unthinkable value, but his tongue felt near too numb to form the words. "Ruadrik," he said in a dry throat. "Wolfscar."

His hands where they gripped her arms were trembling. Only her steadiness held him motionless.

"Sir Ruadrik of Wolfscar," she said, "here I take thee, if thou will it, as my husband, to have and to holden, at bed and at board, for better for worsen, in sickness and health, til death us depart, and of this I give thee my faith. Dost thou will it?"

Only a little shiver beneath his hands and a break in her final question gave a hint that she was not calm.

"My lady, it is madness."

Her body tightened in his arms. "Dost thou will it?"

He stared up into the dark at her, bereft of words.

"Dost thou believe it is no bargain for me?" she asked in a voice spun as fragile as glass. "I told thee what I would give to be wife to thee. Dost thou will it?"

"Lady—have a care of your words, and make game of me nought, for I haf the will in my heart to answer you in troth."

"In troth have I spoken. Here and now I take thee, Ruadrik of Wolfscar, as my wedded husband, if thou wilt have me."

He turned his right hand, lacing his fingers into hers. "Lady Melanthe—Princess—" His voice failed as the immensity of it overcame him. He swallowed. "Princess of Monteverde, Countess of Bowland—my lady—I humbly take you—take thee—ah, God forgive me, but I take thee with my whole heart, though I be nought worthy, I take thee as my wedded wife to have and to hold, for fairer or fouler, in sickness and in health—for my life so long as I shall have it. Thereto I plight thee my troth." He closed his fist hard over her fingers. "I have no ring. By my right hand I wed thee, and by my right hand I honor thee with the whole of my gold and silver, and by my right hand I dow thee with all that is mine."

For a long moment neither of them moved or spoke. Beyond the heavy curtains there was a faint sigh of coals falling in upon themselves.

"Ne do I have flowers, nor a garland to kiss thee through," he murmured, cupping her face. He leaned up and pressed his lips softly against hers. At first she seemed frozen, cool as marble, and a bolt of apprehension passed through his heart, for fear that she had done it all as a mocking jape—but then she gave a low whimper and kissed him in return, hard and ruthless, as her kisses were wont to be. She put her arms about his shoulders and held to him tightly, her face pressed into his throat.

He lay gazing upward, full of bliss and horror. The world seemed to go in a slow spin about him. He did not know if it was drink or amazement.

Then he embraced her and rolled her onto her back, overlying her, using his hands to master the awkward tangle of her skirts, his rigid tarse to search out her place urgently. He mounted her, sinking inside with a groan like a beast. A fearsome ache of pleasure shot from his belly through his limbs. It drowned his senses; from a distance he felt her clutch at him, heard her swift breath—but with all the strength in him he could not stop to satisfy her. With a violent thrust he spilled his seed in her womb.

He used and possessed her to bind his right, before God, sealing her beyond resort or recourse as his wife. And when it was finished, he laid his face against her breast and wept for Isabelle, for joy, and for mortal dread of what they had just done.