Since his arrival on the eve of their wedding, Brunin had seen little of Hawise. After a brief greeting in the courtyard, surrounded by family and retainers, she had retired with the women and he had been drawn into the hall with the men to discuss not so much his imminent nuptials as the forthcoming Welsh campaign. At the formal dinner, later in the day, bride and groom had again been separated, he sitting with his family, she with hers, as for the last time she took her formal place as a daughter of her father’s household. In future, that place would be as a FitzWarin wife. There had been little opportunity for conversation, let alone whispered words; no occasion to don even a semblance of the familiarity that they had once shared. After their recent confrontation, he was not even sure that it was possible.
Now it was the morning of their marriage day and there was no time left to find out. Brunin wondered if Hawise felt as apprehensive as he did. He had no intention of sharing his anxieties with any of the grinning men circling the chamber like friendly but dominant dogs of the same pack. Their teasing and advice were all part of the ritual and he had perforce to endure them. He had done his own share of teasing and prank-playing in the past. Only let this day and night be over, he thought. Only let everyone depart and the celebration end. Except that after celebration came separation and war.
“You’ll outdo the bride,” his father grinned, looking him up and down. Brunin’s tunic was fashioned of plum-colored Flemish twill, thickly embroidered with thread of gold at cuff and hem and throat. His belt and shoes were stamped with gilding, and his scabbard leather polished until it gleamed like Jester’s hide.
“I hope not.” Brunin looked around at the men. They were all eager for the festivities, for a chance to make merry before they rode out to join Henry’s muster. For some it might be a final chance; there was an air of urgency, and a need to seize the moment. Since he might be one of those who did not return, Brunin could feel the weight of expectation pressing down on him. “Perhaps my grandmother will though, in that purple.”
FitzWarin stifled a guffaw and glanced toward the hearth where Mellette was ordering servants about from the comfort of a curule chair. Her walking stick jabbed; her tongue assaulted. She was wearing a silk gown, somewhat outdated for it belonged to her youth, but the hue was a deep royal purple, expensive beyond belief and seldom seen outside the households of the highest magnates in the land.
FitzWarin clasped Brunin’s shoulder. “It is you who carries the pride of our family, and I am glad that you do.” His tone was bluff, for he was ill at ease with compliments and emotion.
The door opened and a man robed in the dark habit of a Benedictine monk approached them. “His Lordship the Bishop desires to know if you are ready to come to church,” he said.
“Is the bride ready?” FitzWarin asked.
The monk inclined his head. “So I understand, sire.”
Brunin felt his throat tighten. “Then so am I,” he said in a constricted voice, and went to the door. In stately procession the FitzWarin family crossed the sward to the castle’s chapel. Servants, retainers, and well-wishers crowded around the outside of the building craning necks, pointing, exclaiming. Parents lifted small children onto shoulders; older children ran for the fistful of silver pennies that FitzWarin flung into the heart of the throng.
Inside the chapel, the Bishop of Hereford was waiting for them, his cope so encrusted with embroidery and gilding that it was almost as stiff as the covers of a psalter. His gaze flicked over Mellette’s purple gown, but his expression remained diplomatically neutral. When he suggested that she might like to be seated on one of the benches lining the walls, she declined, declaring that she intended to stand and witness the marriage at close quarters.
Brunin looked toward the chapel’s far door, willing the bridal party to arrive. His palms were slick with cold sweat, his heart in his throat. Mellette gave an impatient mutter. Then the door opened and a blaze of summer light poured into the room. For an instant Brunin’s eyes were dazzled by the brightness. When he could see again, Hawise was walking toward him and it was an image he was to carry with him for the rest of his life.
The gown of saffron silk clung to her figure then flowed from the hips, the fabric shining like a river at sunset. As she walked, her hand upon her father’s arm, the strap ends on her brocade belt flashed with gold. Her hair shimmered to her waist, citrine highlights from the gown glinting upon the garnet-dark waves. Her brow was crowned with a garland of pale dogroses and early gillyflowers, and she carried a second garland in her free hand. She walked stiffly and her complexion was pale, but that pallor only emphasized the deep water-gray of her eyes and the fine coppery arches of her brows. He felt as if he were standing in the midst of one of the romance lays that the troubadours sang in the halls on feast days. In a moment he was going to wake up on his pallet and find that he was still a squire; that there was harness to clean and horses to groom; that his knighthood was an illusion and so was the young woman who had come to stand at his side with downcast lashes and breathing swifter than his own. Against his expectations the moment continued, the colors bright and intense, the sounds too. He could hear every shuffle of foot, every intake of air, every rustle of cloth; was aware, with a feeling that was so intense it was almost pain, of Hawise at his side, her arm still upon Joscelin’s…and of Joscelin himself, taut-jawed with suppressed emotion.
The Bishop demanded to know of the families if mutual consent had been given to the match and, satisfied, asked the same of the couple. For a moment Brunin’s voice stuck in his throat, but he forced it past the tightness, and it emerged clear and strong. Hawise raised her head and gave her own similar assent, looking directly at Brunin. From somewhere behind his right shoulder, Mellette clicked her tongue, obviously seeing this as more evidence of unseemly boldness. Suddenly his lips twitched. So did Hawise’s, before she hastily lowered her gaze.
Fortunately the urge to lapse into a display of even less seemly mirth was overridden by the need to remember and perform the rituals of the marriage ceremony, but the shared humor had served to dissipate some of the tension. If Brunin’s hands were not quite steady as he slipped the ring on Hawise’s finger and gave her the gold pieces that were a symbol of his ability to provide for her, nevertheless he did not fumble. Hawise then knelt to him in token of her willingness to submit to his will, her head bowed, her silk dress a pool of gold on the chapel floor. Mellette muttered something about hoping it was more than just show.
Brunin raised Hawise to her feet and bestowed on her the kiss of peace. Her skin was cold, her breathing swift, but he felt her cheek lift in a smile beneath his lips. The Bishop folded his stole around their joined hands and blessed the bride and groom before conducting a wedding mass and a sermon concerning the duties that married couples owed to each other and their families.
Then they were walking side by side from the chapel, to the cheers of the crowd, the throwing of barley grains and a storm of rose petals. It was done. Man and wife. For better or worse.
Brunin ducked as his youngest brother William flung a fistful of barley from close range and the grains stung his skin like small hailstones. Grabbing Hawise’s hand, he flouted all propriety by running with her toward the safety of the great hall. Laughing, she hastily snatched up the trailing hem of her dress and ran with him, exposing a scandalous amount of ankle in the process.
Joscelin chuckled and shook his head, his eyes full of laughter and sadness. His youngest daughter would always be his youngest daughter, but today he had given her into the keeping of another, and it was the start of a change that would take her further into womanhood and further away from him. Sybilla was both smiling and exasperated. The FitzWarin family stared with various expressions of astonishment, disapproval, envy, and badly disguised amusement. This marriage was going to change their lives too.
***
Since the men were soon to ride to King Henry’s summons at Northampton, the wedding feast was not as elaborate as it would usually have been, but still there were numerous courses and plentiful wine. There were fish from the river beyond the castle, and eels from the Severn. Pigeons in wine sauce, coneys glazed with honey, chicken pies, platters of roasted songbirds, eggs colored with saffron. White curd tarts flavored with rosewater, junkets, delicate almond pastries, and spicy gingerbread.
Hawise nibbled, but could not find the appetite to appreciate the food. Despite the beauty of her gown and the display put on in her honor, she thought that other people’s weddings were infinitely more enjoyable.
“Not hungry?” Brunin asked.
Hawise shook her head.
“Neither am I…although doubtless I’ll be starving on the morrow…”
She stared at him with widening eyes.
“I didn’t mean because of…that,” he said hastily. “I meant when all this…this…” He waved his hand at the crowd of diners. “…performance is over.”
“I was thinking the same myself.” She crumbled a piece of bread, gazing at the new gold ring gleaming on her middle finger, and frowned.
“What’s wrong?”
“I was thinking that within a few days I must watch you and my father ride off to war, and that it is going to be very hard.”
He gave her a puzzled look. “No harder than it has ever been.”
“Yes it will.” She turned the ring on her finger for a moment as if doing so was a key to unlocking what she wanted to say. “I wasn’t married to you before. I wasn’t allowed to think of you as ‘mine.’ Now that you are, I have more to lose.”
“Is that how you think of me now—as yours?”
She thought she saw a glimmer of interest in his eyes, as if the notion was new to him and pleasing. Perhaps there was even a hint of smugness. “How else should I think of you? I had my duties laid out for me in the chapel this morning.”
The smugness vanished. “Duties, yes,” he said, “and responsibilities, but those are cold words when measured against ‘mine’ and ‘yours.’”
“Yes, they are,” she said. “And even colder when compared to love and faith.” She looked at him steadily. “I would rather do my duty out of love for you than obligation, because then it becomes not a duty at all.” Then she laughed and reached to the large, silver-gilt goblet they were sharing. A loving cup and, of all the ironies, a gift from Mellette FitzWarin along with sundry other items of silver plate. “I have drunk too much already,” she said after she had taken a sip of the potent brew, spiced with cinnamon and black pepper. “What will your grandmother think of a bride who is gilded on her wedding night?”
Brunin looked rueful as she passed the cup to him. “I don’t think it much matters whether you’re sober or flat drunk.” He took a mouthful and swallowed. “It is my ability to take your maidenhead that matters. We’ll be judged and either damned or commended by the state of the sheets on the morrow.” He glanced toward his grandmother. “Drink if you want.” He returned the cup to her. “I doubt she was sober on her own wedding night.”
“She was,” Hawise said and made a face. “Or certainly aware enough to have the event burned into her memory.”
“She told you about it?”
“Yes. In her usual way.”
The look he narrowed at Mellette before he lowered his gaze and schooled his expression to neutrality was annihilating. “Our wedding night doesn’t have to be hers.”
“God forbid,” Hawise said, and could not prevent a shudder. Involuntarily she glanced toward the open shutters where she could tell from the light that the sun was going down.
The musicians had been playing softly throughout the meal, but now they were preparing to strike up livelier tunes so that the guests could dance off some of the food and drink they had consumed. Brunin turned away to his left and, a moment later, hauled little Emmeline onto his lap. The child’s cheeks were as scarlet as holly berries and her eyes as bright black as those of a little dormouse. Her silky raven hair had been braided with red ribbons, but it was beginning to wisp free from the bindings and tangle around her face. Hawise wondered if her own firstborn child would be as dark as Brunin and his sister, or fair and robust like the rest of the FitzWarins and her de Dinan and Talbot bloodline. Perhaps she would know in nine months’ time. The thought sent a jolt through her stomach and loins.
Emmeline giggled at Hawise, exposing perfect small teeth and pink gums and wriggled to go down again. “Dance,” she said in a peremptory little voice, tugging on Brunin’s hand. “Come and dance.”
“She is like my grandmother,” Brunin chuckled wryly. “She thinks her word is the law.”
Bride and groom rose to lead the dance at their wedding, and were accompanied by a determined, dark-eyed little girl who glued herself to them for the first and second measure, before finally being lured away by Sibbi and Hugh. The third dance was for Hawise and Brunin, a figure of eight and crossing of hands and bodies. Right side, left side, right again. Outer hip to outer hip and return. Fingers meshed, eyes linked, feet moving to the time and tune of the music, the tabor beating the rhythm like a hard, swift heartbeat.
***
In the Pendover tower, Gilbert de Lacy secured one end of the rope around the coffer under the window splay. “Ready?” he asked, baring a grin.
Ernalt looked out and then down. It was a long drop to the rock-strewn grass at the base of the tower. He nodded stiffly, not relishing the coming moments, but filled with exhilaration at the thought of escaping under de Dinan’s nose. They had spent the day smearing the paler sections of their makeshift rope with ashes and soot from their fire and Ernalt had taken pleasure in smirching the carefully worked embroidery on some of the pieces, imagining that it was the toil of that bitch of a daughter and her mother.
Earlier that day Marion had brought them food, wine, and, from somewhere, a couple of dark cloaks and hoods, smuggled in beneath her own outdoor mantle. She had provided two knives as well, good and sharp.
“You will return for me…you swear?” she had said, her eyes filled with a wide, wild pleading.
Other women had used similar words to Ernalt before. Depending how cruel he was feeling, he would either promise or leave them in no doubt, but the outcome was always the same; he never went back. This time, however, the stakes had changed. “I swear,” he had said and, framing her face between his palms, had kissed her mouth. “Only wait for my sign.”
Now he fastened the dark cloak at his shoulder and drew up the hood. The last stroke of the compline bell tolled and faded into the sounds of laughter and music wafting through the open shutters in the great hall.
“They will all be singing a different tune on the morrow,” de Lacy said with a short laugh as he tossed the rope out of the window. Squeezing himself out of the narrow opening, he took a firm grip on the braided twists of linen and towel. He had removed his rings to stop them snagging on the fabric and threaded them around his neck. “Pray that the material is strong and our twining good,” he said to Ernalt. “Otherwise I will greet you in the next world.”
Ernalt gave a tense nod and watched the rope go taut as Gilbert trusted his full weight to the lengths of knotted sheet and towel, and let himself down the wall. Peering out, Ernalt watched the dark shape swing out and down, out and down. He wiped his damp palms on his tunic and swallowed. His heart was pounding as if it would break from his chest. His turn in a moment…if the rope held, if no one saw them and raised the alarm. Pray God that they were all too busy celebrating.
De Lacy was in his middle years but still strong and athletic. He soon reached the base of the wall and gave the rope a sharp tug. Crossing himself, Ernalt climbed onto the ledge and squeezed himself through the opening. He knew that the rope would be strained from the weight already put on it, and tried not to let his imagination follow that path. Concentrate on the task in hand. One hand over the other; pay out the rope; push and leap, push and leap. The stone was gritty against the flat soles of his boots, the rope burned against his palms, and he could feel the tight tug of strain upon his recently healed wrist. He waited for the alarm cry that would sound the knell on their escape, but there was nothing…only the distant mélange of music and laughter from the hall and the occasional voice raised in drunken bonhomie. One more push and settle, one last jump, and he landed in the long grass at the base of the tower. De Lacy was waiting for him in the shadows and together, moving with the low stealth of cats, they scrambled along the bottom of the wall toward the river.
***
Brunin was being boisterously disrobed in preparation for the bedding ceremony as in similar wise Hawise was being prepared in the bridal chamber above this one. He bore the rough tugging and bawdy remarks with an outward display of aplomb. If he could not have privacy without, then he would have it within.
“Yes,” slurred a drunken Ralf, “I’ve often wondered whether he’d got the balls to see matters through, but it’s all right, he’s got both of them!”
Brunin briefly faced his brother. “Satisfied?”
“Not as much as your bride had better be!”
Joscelin loudly cleared his throat and handed Brunin a cloak to cover his nakedness. “I hope you are more sober than your brothers,” his new father-in-law muttered angrily.
Brunin fastened the clasp with steady fingers. “I have shared three cups of wine with Hawise all evening,” he said, not adding that the bridal goblet was twice the size of a usual measure and that Hawise had probably swallowed the lion’s share. He couldn’t afford the oblivion of drink.
Joscelin was still frowning. “I…” He rubbed the back of his neck, his complexion turning a rich shade of plum. “Have a care with her,” he said. “I do not want to see her tears on the morrow.”
“Neither do I…sir.” Brunin wondered if Joscelin realized the weight he was adding to the burden.
Joscelin gave a curt nod. “I’m trusting you with my daughter…”
“My wife,” Brunin replied to make a point and saw Joscelin gather his emotions together like a harvester tying a shock of wheat in the wind.
“Aye, you have the right of it…your wife.” Joscelin gripped his shoulder. “If I don’t trust you with her now, then it’s too late for both of us.” Removing his hand, he stepped back. Brunin could still feel the imprint of the square, strong fingers, hard as a mail glove, reminding him. But if Hawise didn’t trust him, what then?
“Hah, no need to look so grim, lad,” his father said, and his own hand came down hard on Brunin’s shoulder, obliterating the feel of Joscelin’s grip. “It’s your wedding night, not your wake.”
“He hopes!” Ralf guffawed, and received a hefty bear cuff from FitzWarin.
“Your turn will come, whelp, and if you conduct yourself half so well, then you will count yourself fortunate!”
That silenced his second son like a splash from a pail of cold water and Ralf fell back among the other well-wishers, his expression suddenly miserable. Brunin raised a brow at him. Sooner or later their father would have to know about Sian.
The more sober men of the wedding party were entrusted with bearing the torches to light the way to the bridal chamber, and Brunin was half led, half jostled up the tower stairs to the great wooden door amidst bawdy jests about knocking with a stout staff before entering.
***
“They’re on their way,” said Sibbi, who had posted herself near the door to listen out and give warning.
Hawise caught her breath. Her stomach was a queasy hollow. She hoped she wouldn’t disgrace herself by being sick…although if she managed to vomit over Mellette FitzWarin, that might be some consolation. As the women had undressed her, Brunin’s grandmother had studied her with the uncompromising, critical eyes of a horse-coper at Shrewsbury Fair perusing a nag of doubtful pedigree.
“Good hips for breeding,” Mellette had said, “just as long as she proves more fecund than her Talbot side.”
“That is in the hands of God,” Sybilla had replied, lips pursed in anger.
“Indeed, my lady. We’ll all be praying hard for a fertile furrow to be ploughed this night.”
Hawise had had to compress her own lips very tightly. It was obvious that the old besom was trying to provoke a reaction and the best defense was not to give her one.
Sybilla had fastened Hawise’s cloak around her shoulders and arranged her tresses over it in a gleaming, fiery skein.
“You have beautiful hair,” Eve FitzWarin said softly.
“Let us hope that the color doesn’t carry forward into the children,” Mellette said, continuing to be outrageous.
“There has always been red hair in the de Dinan bloodline,” Sybilla said icily. “I pray that it does. Marion, stop hiding in the corner and pass me the comb…Saints, girl, you’re as green as a new cheese!”
Marion swallowed. “Too much wine,” she said. Her breathing was rapid and the frightened expression on her face, together with her shaking hands, might have led a newcomer to believe that she was the anxious bride rather than Hawise.
The sight of her distress momentarily distracted Hawise from her own anxieties. She assumed that Marion was upset because she was seeing her dream of wedding Brunin being shattered before her eyes.
“You don’t have to stay, Marion,” she said gently. “I understand.” She was pleased with the way her own voice sounded: mature and modulated like her mother’s.
“No,” Marion spat like a cornered cat. “You don’t even begin to understand, and you never will!” She thrust the comb into Sybilla’s hand, ran to the door, wrenched it open, and fled. An instant later the women heard the sound of bawdy welcome as Marion encountered the male wedding party on its way up the stairs.
“I’d have that girl soundly whipped if I were you,” Mellette said, folding her arms beneath her bosom.
“But you are not me, and I will deal with Marion as I see fit…with respect, my lady,” Sybilla answered, and used the comb to stroke and smooth Hawise’s hair in a gesture of affectionate reassurance.
Mellette made a “hmph” sound but held her peace, allowing her expression to speak for her.
“Courage,” Sybilla whispered to Hawise. “It will soon be over. Your father and I will make sure that the guests do not linger beyond what has to be done.”
Hawise nodded and steeled herself as the groom’s party surged into the room, voices and laughter loud with drink. Two of Brunin’s younger brothers were jesting to each other about Marion, whom they had obviously enjoyed pressing up against on the stairs as she tried to squeeze past. In the midst of all the guffaws and shouting, Brunin, by contrast, was as still as stone. Perhaps his complexion was a little heightened, and the pupils of his eyes were so wide that his eyes seemed black, but otherwise he appeared to be as impassive as a lump of storm-battered granite. Hawise felt as if she were made of small grains of sand, disintegrating against the surge.
Bishop Gilbert entered the room on the heels of the revelers. Raising his arms, ivory crozier in hand, he roared for silence with a voice of carrying power. Mostly it was obeyed, with only the odd titter and belch challenging its authority.
The Bishop beckoned Brunin and Hawise forward to stand before him. “We are gathered to witness that there is no bodily flaw in bride or groom that will cause the marriage to be null and void.” He gestured and Sybilla gently unfastened the pin and pulled Hawise’s cloak from her shoulders. Hawise suppressed the instinct to cover her breasts and pubic mound with her hands. Only let it be over, and quickly, she prayed. Sybilla gathered up her sheaf of hair and held it away from her body so that every part of Hawise was exposed to the stare of the wedding guests…and her new husband.
“I am satisfied,” he said in a low voice.
“Not yet he isn’t!” someone shouted before his exuberance was muffled by a more responsible companion.
Cool fabric slid against Hawise’s skin and with deep relief she thrust her head and arms through the openings in an exquisitely embroidered linen chemise.
Now it was Brunin’s turn and Hawise had to raise her head and look upon him as his father removed the cloak. He stood quietly, the rise and fall of his chest measured and controlled, his own gaze fixed beyond hers at a point somewhere on the wall. Her eyes hastily skimmed over him as a matter of form, but she absorbed nothing. Even had his nakedness revealed horned hooves and a tail, she would not have noticed at this moment. “I too am satisfied,” she croaked, ignoring the splutter from the impromptu jester at the room’s far end. Brunin was similarly reclothed in an embroidered nightshirt and the couple brought to the bed. Sybilla and Eve drew back the covers to reveal the smooth bleached linen sheet covering the mattress and the guests were asked to witness the proof that any blood spilled on it could not have come from earlier artifice. Bishop Gilbert sprinkled the sheet liberally with holy water and blessed the bed. The women led Hawise around to the left side and placed her in the bed. Then the men, with a deal more manhandling and bawdy talk, threw Brunin in with his bride.
“Go on, lad. She’ll be a better ride than that nag of yours!”
“Hah, he’s got to mount her first and then try to stay on!”
“You know what they say about red-haired women…mayhap she’ll ride him!”
Comments bantered back and forth, becoming bawdier by the moment. Finally Joscelin had had enough and bellowed the word with sufficient resonance to sound against the rafters. “There is meat and drink aplenty in the hall for those who have not taken their fill. Time to give the bride and groom some peace…and before I hear cries that peace is the last thing they will have tonight, remember that Hawise is my daughter, my youngest child, and Brunin is Lord FitzWarin’s heir. As I said…enough!” Spreading his arms, he began to usher everyone out.
“Well said, my lord,” Mellette declared and for once there was a gleam of approval in her eyes. “Bedding ceremonies always turn into unseemly circuses.” With a curt nod, she left the room, accompanied by Eve and FitzWarin.
Sybilla kissed Hawise on the cheek, and then Brunin. “May you both find joy,” she said with a warm smile.
“Thank you, Mama.” Hawise wished that she could leave the room with her mother, wished that it was someone else’s wedding night and that she was no more than a casual onlooker. Her father was at the door. He looked once over his shoulder and tried to smile. Sybilla came to him, took his arm, kissed his cheek too, and drew him from the chamber.
The moment that the latch dropped, Brunin leaped from the bed and shot the bolt across the door.
“I trust neither my brothers, nor some of the knights,” he said. “I cannot prevent them from listening at the latch, but I can stop them from bursting in.”
“You think they would do that?” Hawise left the bed too, putting off the inevitable.
“I know they would,” Brunin said with a wry laugh. “Especially with the drink inside them. A bride and groom are always fair game for sport on their wedding night and I’ve done my share of teasing.”
“Ah yes, the packhorse bells tied to the mattress when Hugh and Sibbi were wed. Sibbi told me it took them an hour to unstring them all.”
He shrugged. “By which time they were at ease with each other. It was a good ploy.” He got down on his hands and knees to examine the underside of their mattress, but no one, it seemed, had been prepared to be as inventive, or to risk the ire of the bride’s father. Rising to his feet, he faced her and dusted off his palms. “There is one rule that I am going to make inviolate after the display of that sheet on the morrow.”
“What?” Hawise folded her arms defensively over her breasts, but quickly unfolded them again. She would not show him how tense she was.
“That this room is ours. That anything we say or do beyond this threshold belongs to us alone…be it talking, or gaming, or quarrelling, or lying together. We will have the antechamber for guests and visitors and official business, but that doorway is where it all stops.”
“You have no complaint from me on that score,” Hawise said fervently. She glanced toward the bed and the waiting, pristine undersheet.
He pushed his hands through his hair and sat down on his clothing coffer. “I’ve been thinking about that damned bed all day,” he said.
“You have?” Her voice emerged as a tight croak.
“It’s been hard not to with all the reminders.”
Hawise saw that he was frowning. He had apparently borne the preliminaries better than she had, but appearances could be deceptive—especially in his case. Going to her own coffer, she knelt and threw back the lid. “Do you remember the day when you were cleaning my father’s weapons and I came to you?”
“Yes, I remember.” He gave her a cautious look. “Which part of that day are you asking me to recall?”
“All of it.”
“Why?”
“Because of everything that happened. If there had been a bed in that chamber, we might have used it. It was very sweet between us…wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was.” His expression remained guarded. Hawise desperately hoped that what she was about to do would bring down the barrier. She had to see beyond it.
“Then Gilbert de Lacy attacked and I accused you of cowardice when nothing could be further from the truth.” It was hard to hold his gaze, but she forced herself to do so. “I would throw my words into a void of forgetting, but since we both have good memories, it cannot be done.”
A thin smile broke through his wariness. “It is only the good memories I would foster.”
She returned his smile with a strained one of her own. “Liar,” she said.
“I did not say the unpleasant memories would go away, but that I would foster the good ones—or try to anyway.” The curve of his lips deepened. “For example, I will try to forget that my new wife just called me a liar.”
Hawise hesitated. Once she had known him well enough to seize a cushion and throw it at his head, but that was before the day of which they had just spoken…before his father’s illness and their joining as man and wife. She had wished for a chamber where they could be alone. Now she had that wish and, like a little girl holding her first distaff and spindle, was unsure how to begin turning a morass of fleece into smooth-running yarn. She mentally shook herself. Unsure, yes. But that did not mean entirely without notion, and the latter was the reason for being on her knees at this open coffer.
“I have other names that I wish to call you instead, if you will let me,” she said.
He arched one eyebrow but the smile remained and her instinct told her that he was diverted. “Such as?”
Hawise licked her lips. Here was the part where she set the spindle spinning, drew out the fleece, and hoped that she had sufficient dexterity to make a thread fine enough to weave the pattern of their lives without clumping or breaking. Reaching inside the chest she withdrew a linen bag, and from it removed a roll of yellow silk. “Such as honorable and brave and fierce. I thought of those words when I was making this for you.” She handed him the wrapped banner, feeling suddenly shy and at the same time filled with bright anticipation. “I didn’t want to give you this in front of everyone else. It is my personal gift to you.”
He was no longer smiling as he reached and took it from her. Carefully he unfurled it and then stared at the black wolf snarling on the yellow background, bordered by chevrons of scarlet and black.
“I heard that your grandfather carried a similar banner,” she added.
She saw him swallow. “The black wolf was his, yes.”
“And now it is yours.” She closed the coffer and rose to her feet. “Do you like it?”
“I do not think ‘like’ is the right word.” He traced the outline of the embroidered beast with the spread fingertips of his right hand. “It must have taken you weeks to do this.”
Hawise gave a shaken laugh. “It did, and although you do not see it, that beast has taken its share of my blood, but I begrudge it not. First and last it was and is a labor of love…and perhaps a penance too.” She raised her head. “When you ride out with our fathers to King Henry’s muster, I will be proud to see that banner flying with theirs.”
Brunin rose from the coffer and spread the silk over it. For a long time he continued to look upon the banner, and then he turned to her and took her hands in his. “Perhaps I have some words for you too,” he said.
Hawise’s heart began to pound. “Such as?” She tried to make her voice light, echoing his question of a moment since, but it was edged with a tremor.
“Such as wife, helpmate, friend.”
She took one of her hands out of his and with great daring reached to his face. “Husband,” she murmured.
He kissed her, his free hand moving through her hair, meshing it through his fingers until he reached the tips then drawing back and repeating the move; and all the time his mouth moved softly on hers in small, nipping kisses like minnows against her fingers in warm summer shallows.
She answered the touch of his lips with kisses of her own, her loose hand dropping to his shoulder and cupping the curve, feeling the warmth and weight of muscle beneath the thin linen chemise. Beyond the anxiety at stepping into the unknown, something greedy and needful stirred. Her fingers tightened on his shoulder and she leaned into the kisses, offering her lips, wanting more.
Brunin drew Hawise to the bed and lay down with her. The mattress was well stuffed with goose down so that it was both firm and yielding to the touch, almost echoing the properties of flesh. He faced her, one hand still in her hair. He loved the warmth of it near her scalp, and the cool heaviness at the ends…and those ends led his fingers down over the tip of her right breast and finished at her waist, again and again until her breath shuddered in her throat and she thrust into the caress and he felt the hard bud of her nipple through the linen chemise. It was heady to hear her response and it encouraged him to lean over her, stroke her hair away from her face and kiss her more thoroughly while he unfastened the throat lace of her chemise. It was but loosely tied and the knot came free to his stealthy tug.
He nibbled the angle of her jaw, the soft skin of her neck and throat, perfumed with spices and rose oil, and then the flesh exposed by the unfastened chemise. He cupped her breast and ran his thumb over the erect nipple, and she arched toward him, her fingers tightening at the nape of his neck, her breathing short and swift against his ear and temple. The way she answered his touch sent a jolt of sensation from gut to loins. He followed the line of the chemise, tugging downward, exposing the upper curve of her breasts. The candlelight gleamed on her skin, tinting it with gold, and beneath his fingertips he felt her shiver into gooseflesh. Her teeth found his earlobe and nipped. Her tongue flickered against the angle of his jaw and again the jolt shot through him like distant lightning. His own breathing quickened and his palm sprang with sweat as he slid his fingers beneath the fine linen and curled them over her breast. She made a sound in her throat. So did he. The feel of her and the sight of his hand moving on what yesterday had been forbidden territory and was now his to possess fed his arousal. The lightning flickered, still on the horizon, but constant now, without respite.
His mouth followed his hand. When his lips closed on her nipple, Hawise cried out and her nails dug into the back of his neck. Her body arched and she curved one leg toward him. He clasped her ankle in his hand and stroked upward beneath the chemise, exploring calf and knee and finally outer thigh. Hawise set her arms around him, her hands at his shoulders, and he moved over and on top of her.
She gasped as his weight came down and he immediately lifted himself on his arms.
“I’m sorry, did I—”
“No, you didn’t hurt me.” She gave a short little breath and for a moment they stared at each other. Her legs were parted. He was between them and the only barriers separating his flesh from hers were two thin layers of linen. He lay upon her, his hips pressed within the bowl of her pelvis, and all the blood in his body seemed as if it were pulsing in his groin and against the hardness of her pubic bone.
“Jesu,” she whispered and uttered a small, broken laugh, but there was no humor in it, just the hesitancy of fear and the tension of hunger. “Do not stop now, else one or other of us will not have the courage.”
Brunin suddenly spluttered and some of the gathering pressure released. He dipped his head to her breast and muffled a laugh against her skin.
“What is it, what have I said?” She tugged on his hair, giggling herself, rubbing upon him at first by accident of laughter and then with a deliberation engendered by pleasure and instinct.
“I hope you are not accusing me of cowardice again.” He had meant to say the words with a grin, but her action was making it very difficult and his words emerged with hoarse constriction.
“I didn’t mean…” Overly sensitive to the words, she started to apologize, but he gripped her hand.
“I know you didn’t.”
“So then it must be me who lacks courage,” she whispered.
“You missay us both.” Sitting up, he pulled his nightshirt over his head. Having cast it aside, he pushed hers up above her hips and over her breasts, his hands following the contours of her flesh. She had to lift her body to help him free the chemise where it was trapped beneath her and between their bodies, and it was an erotic dance that pressed skin upon skin, each imprinting the other with a light dew of sweat.
Free of the linen, she was like a snake that has just shed its skin, bright and sinuous in his arms. “Being afraid does not mean lacking courage,” he whispered against her mouth before he kissed her again. “Without one you cannot have the other.” He trailed his hand down to her pubic mound and explored. First she tensed, and then she gave a small whimper. This time he didn’t stop to question, for the sound was accompanied by an upward thrust of her hips that encouraged him to pursue his investigation. He watched her response and learned. He touched and learned yet more. Her legs parted. The skin of her inner thighs was soft against the back of his hand and she shivered and made little sounds that raised the hair on his nape and made him ache to the bone. She was as moist as honey on a hot summer day, and it was more than he could finally bear.
She cried out when he entered her, then swallowed the sound against his shoulder. He didn’t ask if he had hurt her, for he knew that he had, but when he made to withdraw, her nails dug into him.
“No,” she gasped against his ear. “Go on!”
“I…”
Her mouth slanted across his cheek and down. She found his lips and kissed him hard and long, shutting off protest, urging him, for if there was pain, there was also pleasure.
The feel of her wrapped around him, inside and out, made Brunin groan against the seal of her lips. He was going to come undone, to shatter into a million fragments. He lay on her, fighting the dissolution, scarcely daring to move while the kiss went on and on. Finally, gasping for breath, he took his mouth from hers and raised up on his braced elbows to look down at her. Her eyes were dark-pupilled and wild, her lips swollen. She looked wanton and beautiful and it was not his loins that shattered into myriad pieces but his heart. He gazed down the length of their bodies, at her parted thighs and himself between them, possessed and in possession.
“Hawise.” He sighed her name and lowered his mouth to resume the kiss. She welcomed him with binding arms and eager lips. Her lips pushed downward, deepening the contact, giving unspoken consent. He answered her with a measured thrust and then another, and his body began to tremble, every muscle taut. He needed respite, but there was none, only the heat of the kiss and her flesh clinging smoothly to his like an oiled scabbard sheathing a sword. Sweat dampened his spine and her fingers traced the center line to his buttocks and then she spread her palms and moved with his rhythm. He broke the kiss and buried his head against her throat. Her body rose against his and he felt her pulse hammering against his clenched jaw, faster than a galloping horse. Her breath whined through her teeth. And then it stopped and her nails dug into his buttocks. Her lips parted in a silent cry. He lunged and the world contracted to a single point and then exploded in exquisite sunbursts of raw sensation.
Slowly his senses spiraled back into his body. Breathing hard, he raised his head.
“Hawise?”
Her eyes flickered open and focused on him. For a moment she stared solemnly, and then she smiled and reached a languid hand to his face.
“I did not hurt you too much?” he said anxiously.
“No…” She gave a small laugh. “Well, not beyond bearing and the pleasure outweighed what there was.” She followed the contours of his face with an exploratory forefinger. When she reached his lips, he took her hand and kissed it, then rolled over, bringing her with him.
Hawise ran her hand over his torso in a lazy, exploratory way, sensual now rather than lustful. “Your grandmother tried to frighten me with tales of her own deflowering,” she murmured. “I feel sorry for her.”
“You won’t in the morning,” Brunin replied and yawned. In the aftermath of his release, a delicious lassitude was seeping through his body. His limbs felt loose, as if his bones had melted and his eyelids were almost too heavy to hold up.
“Meaning?” She licked him with the tip of her tongue.
“Meaning that she will be first in the room and leader of the ceremony to inspect the sheet,” he mumbled.
Hawise had forgotten about that. She pushed away from him and threw back the covers on a wave of cold air. The linen was creased but still as pristine as new snow. “There’s no blood,” she said in a dismayed voice as she stared at the clean sheet.
“What?” Brunin had been preparing to fall asleep. Now, washed in cold air and roused by the worry in her tone, he leaned up on one elbow and studied the sheet. A glance at her and down at himself revealed red smudges on her inner thighs and a glisten of blood along his softening manhood. “That’s easily solved.” He rolled over, lay face down in the warm space she had just vacated, and rocked back and forth a couple of times. “Sit there,” he said, moving to one side and pointing to the faint red smears he had left on the linen. Biting her lip, Hawise straddled the center of the bed and looked at the resulting daub.
“I thought there would be more than this,” she said.
Brunin gave her a sidelong grin. “I suppose that depends on how good a lover the man is.”
She made a face at him. “You are cocksure.”
“If I wasn’t before, I am now,” he retorted, and ducked as she hurled a bolster in his direction. Grabbing it, he threw it back at her and then launched himself. She squealed as he landed half on top of her. They pummelled and rolled in the bed until they were breathless with laughter, until her eyes were bright and soft and he was hard again. And this time he was not so tentative when he entered her, and she was bold enough to wrap her legs around him and return his thrusts, for even if she was sore, she craved the pleasure too, and the power of being the pleasure-giver.
When they were finished, Brunin murmured, “Now look at the sheet.”
She lifted her head and saw that the first, sparse smears had been lost in an embroidery of blotches and scrawls that covered the bed from one side to the other and almost top to bottom, so boisterously had they wrestled.
“My grandmother will be beside herself,” he murmured sleepily. “And I am going to have some explaining to do to your father before he kills me…if you don’t kill me first. Come here.” He set his arm to her waist, drew the covers around them, and closed his eyes. “Your hair smells of spice,” he mumbled, and in moments was asleep.
Sore but content, Hawise lay next to her husband in her marriage bed and smiled.
***
Kneeling by her own pallet, Marion bowed her head and pleaded to God to let Ernalt survive the climb down the wall and make good his escape. She prayed that he would remember his promise and return for her, and she prayed for the strength to endure on her own part. Beneath her entreaty was the bowel-loosening terror that God would not listen, and that she would never see Ernalt again. She could endure anything but that…anything.